The C-Section Scam & America's OBGYN Problem | Guest: Dr. Marty Makary | Ep 1069
What this video covers
In this September 2024 episode of “Relatable,” host Allie Beth Stuckey interviews Dr. Marty Makary about his book Blind Spots, with a focus on what the episode calls “America’s OBGYN problem” — beginning with the claim that C-section rates reflect a system biased toward surgical birth.
The conversation opens on medicine’s record with chronic illness and why rates of cancer, autism, and other diagnoses appear to be rising. Makary argues that medical institutions face perverse incentives — Stuckey pointedly asks whether they are “incentivized to keep us sick” — and the two discuss how doctors got the science wrong on peanut allergies, skin-to-skin contact, and umbilical cord clamping. Standout specifics: Makary says autism is rising 14% per year, sperm counts are 50% lower than 50 years ago, and “5 billion gallons of pesticides” poured on the food supply have estrogen-like binding properties that may help explain earlier puberty and rising breast cancer (he cites a 1-in-8-or-9 lifetime risk for women). He recounts that his earlier book Unaccountable became the Fox series The Resident, and that The Price We Pay led to Trump’s price-transparency executive order, which the Biden administration kept — his example of healthcare as a bipartisan issue.
Later segments cover antibiotics and the gut microbiome, inflammation, and what individuals can do — with a closing discussion of hormone replacement therapy that foreshadows Makary’s later FDA actions on the issue. Makary also attacks the NIH’s record — citing its transgender-youth study with no control group, in which he says several children died, and the NIH-funded analysis behind the “Lucky Charms is healthier than steak” headline — and says the H in NIH “stands for health,” not just drug development.
The episode also touches on vaccines and masks, per its chapter markers — topics Makary addressed more as a public commentator in 2024 than as the regulator he would become. (He served as FDA Commissioner from early 2025 until his resignation on May 12, 2026.)
Key points
- Makary argues C-section rates are inflated by a system biased toward surgical intervention.
- He contends chronic illness is rising while medicine’s track record on it is poor.
- He claims perverse incentives reward sickness over health in medical institutions.
- He revisits the peanut-allergy reversal, skin-to-skin contact, and delayed cord clamping as examples of corrected dogma.
- He argues antibiotics are damaging the gut microbiome with underappreciated consequences.
- He discusses HRT’s benefits — a theme he would act on as FDA commissioner.