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249- Film Review: The End of Medicine (2022)
101 Plays5 days ago
Essential hard-hitting content...or just bloody depressing? Make, Shane, Kate & Ant examine all things Antimicrobial Resistance and pandemic prevention with Alice the Pig Vet, aka Dr Alice Brough. It's a tough watch, but we're with you all the way listeners x
For more about the movie & to watch, visit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAYHTr7NDdQ
As ever, we love hearing your views on the topics under discussion (or anything else!) so do drop us your thoughts via enoughofthefalafel@gmail.com
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Enough of the Falafel is a community of people who love keeping on top of the latest news in the world of veganism & animal rights. With the Vegan Talk podcast, we aim to develop listeners' (& our own) thoughts around key issues affecting veganism & the animal rights movement; giving our opinions, whilst staying balanced; remaining true to our vegan ethics, whilst constantly seeking to grow & develop.
Each week we home in on one topic in particular and pick it apart in more detail. If you have a suggestion for a future show, do get in touch via enoughofthefalafel@gmail.com.
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Thanks everyone for listening; give us a rating and drop us a message to say "hi"; it'll make our day!
Mark, Kate, Shane & Anthony
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Vegan Talk and 'The End of Medicine'
00:00:00
Speaker
Hello everybody. Now, breaking news. You'd better start hoarding your paracetamol, your amoxicillin, and your throat las and gs lozenges. Because on the horizon is the end of medicine. I'm Anthony, and joining me for this episode of Vegan Talk are Mark, Shane, and Kate.
00:00:21
Speaker
So I think vegans go looking for trouble even when they're not looking for trouble. That's not what butt is used for. Brrr! Take your crab roll meat elsewhere. We're not doing that in the state of Florida.
00:00:34
Speaker
Should I call the medium and say, hi, sorry. True education. younger generation are getting to know how brutal these practices are. That leaves a lot of pizza delivery companies in problems with things.
00:00:45
Speaker
What is this? What kind of movie is this? It's comedy gold maybe. Any form of social...
00:00:55
Speaker
As long as you don't get the wee brunions with the horns, you'll be alright. Does veganism give him superpowers?
00:01:04
Speaker
No, I cannot fly around the city. I don't have laser vision. Hello everybody, it's Kate here. Welcome to this episode of Vegan Talk. Thank you so much for joining us. Hey everyone, this is Shane and Vegan Talk is our in-depth discussion of a vegan or animal rights issue.
00:01:23
Speaker
These podcasts are evergreen and available in your podcast feed. So scroll down and download the episodes with the topics that interest you. Hi everyone, this is Mark here. Today we're going to discuss the 2022 film The end of medicine.
00:01:40
Speaker
Indeed we are. Indeed we are. Now, as always happens in our film review episodes, we are going to spoil things. We're not going to hold back on on plot points, although it's fair to say that this is you know non-fiction. It's a documentary. So there's not necessarily a plot per se, but we're going to go right there. with this one. So if you would much prefer to have watched the film before you hear us talk about it, then we'd very much encourage you to follow the link in the show notes. You can watch this one on YouTube, as well as a number of other platforms, but I imagine... Most of us watched it on YouTube. i certainly did because it's free in it. In terms of what what the film is, as Mark says, it was released in 2022.
00:02:27
Speaker
You might have heard of Keegan Coon. He has featured on the production, directing, writing... of several vegan documentaries and he is credited on IMDb as the writer of this one. The director was Alex Lockwood.
COVID-19 and Film Relevance
00:02:43
Speaker
IMDb describe it as a feature-length documentary exploring the link between our treatment of animals and emerging health threats such as pandemics and antibiotic resistance. In fact, the the fact of the COVID pandemic of a few years ago I don't know whether it was coincidental. The impression I got was that they kind of already started deciding they were doing this film and then this was happening at the same time and Shane is nodding. So we'll we'll go with that. do Do write in if you think differently. But yeah, it seems like that happened to just be, well, fortuitous timing.
00:03:24
Speaker
In the guise of the film, obviously, COVID was not a fortuitous event. But yeah, it's an hour and 10 minutes long. I would not say that there is huge amounts of footage that is graphic, but there's definitely upsetting footage. And I'd i'd say, actually, just for me personally,
00:03:44
Speaker
I think the most upsetting thing was the kind of existential ah crisis that is is very heavy in the film. If it's an hour and 10 minutes long, I would say for a good 45 plus minutes of it, I was feeling quite glum. I didn't by the end, but actually, ah you know, there is a sensitivity warning there in terms of when you're watching it,
00:04:09
Speaker
If you're watching it alone, you know, I think it's I'd recommend having some accompaniment in watching it. Maybe that's just me being a bit a bit overly sensitive. But we've got links in the show notes if you want to see other sources of what people have said about the film or more details about it. how and when it was filmed. Shane, we have done a film review episode before, and I think you did an excellent job of giving a synopsis. Would you be happy to give us a synopsis of The End of Medicine?
00:04:41
Speaker
Yes. So briefly, The End of Medicine is a documentary produced by Rooney Mara and Joaquin Phoenix.
Synopsis and Reactions to the Film
00:04:48
Speaker
It follows the journey of a former pig farm veterinarian named Alice Bra as she discusses how she came to realize that even though she became a vet to help animals, she was actually hurting them and all of humanity.
00:05:02
Speaker
It is broken into four parts, and each part features experts in their field. Part one is titled Washing Our Hands, and it discusses the link between factory farming and the spread of diseases, including some of the world's most deadly pandemics.
00:05:16
Speaker
Part two is titled Resistance Problem, and it focuses on the rise of AMR, which is antimicrobial resistance, and what that means for medicine and for people.
00:05:28
Speaker
Part three is patching over and it offers and then rejects with reason several popular solutions like small scale farming. And finally, part four is called going upstream and it presents the solution of veganism.
00:05:43
Speaker
Yeah, nice one. Thank you, Shane. Is it fair to say that the sections get shorter as they go along? It's certainly not each one gets an equal quarter, is it? Like the going upstream bit is is very much near the end. And there's there's a lot at the start of of the the washing our hands section and and the resist antimicrobial resistance bit. That's what I found. I had a lot of notes for the first like section and then second section and then very few for three and four.
00:06:11
Speaker
Okay, so like I say, listeners, you can watch this too. um And I think I would personally say I'd recommend you you do so. I think it's a film I would recommend folk watching. Let's get Kate and Mark and Shane's just personal reactions to the film. Let's have a couple minutes from each of you, Max, and then we'll we'll go into a bit more. going to go on the order that you're sat in front of me. So let's go to you first, Kate. What was your personal response to this film? Was it was this week the first time you watched this in preparation for the show? No, this is probably my third time of watching it. I have to say, i think it is excellent, if terrifying. Yeah, um I don think an incredibly important message, you know whether we find it a hard watch or not, I think it's something we should watch and encourage as many people as we know to watch it too.
00:07:09
Speaker
Can I ask when you first watched it? im Probably about two years ago, something like that, I think. And was that online? or I know sometimes you go to these premieres where they they show them in a cinema and stuff, these vegan films. Yeah, no, this this was online. This was online. And I can't remember if it was on YouTube then. i have to say, yeah, like I can't actually remember. But I think it's certainly for me because I've got a very slow brain, i think it certainly bears more than one watch, actually, to be honest, as well, you know, especially maybe some people might get confused between, you know, some of the, ah you know, like, what is how is a pandemic caused? Where does antimicrobial resistance come in All these things that, you know, it it might take a little while for some people to tease those out. I know it took a while for me to kind of get my head around all these things. Yeah, for sure. For sure. What about you, Mark? Was this your first time? It's my first time seeing this this particular documentary. I have been aware of this as an issue for quite a long time. I think most vegans are certainly vegan activists have been deeply terrifying.
00:08:22
Speaker
ah All we're waiting for is this to happen again. A friend of mine, there was an E. coli outbreak in a part of Africa that a friend of mine back in the UK went over to volunteer to help that once.
00:08:34
Speaker
And I think I'm getting my zoonotic diseases right. But he he he was saying to me that E. coli was a disease that was relatively hard to spread, but killed so many of these. whereas something like COVID spread like wildfire, but its death toll was comparatively a lot smaller.
00:08:59
Speaker
There's no reason why a new zoonotic disease couldn't break out at any moment that combined both the virility of COVID-19 and the death toll of E. coli. So it'll spread really fast and it'll kill most of the people it affects.
00:09:15
Speaker
I've also known that the human race is probably going to die of stupidity in any case, whether that's going to be nuclear war or the environmental breakdown, climate crisis or something like this. This is sort of a backdoor thing for so many people. They aren't aware of how much this potentially will affect them and their kids in the future. i mean, so simply so something like 90% of all the production of vitamin B12 is fed prophylactically to farmed animals. 90%.
00:09:44
Speaker
So when meat eaters say, oh, I get all my vitamins, including B12, direct from from nature, from eating animals. No, you don't. You're actually getting them as a supplement via the animal itself. So that there's so much ignorance around this. And it may well be the kill the thing that annihilates a lot of us.
00:10:02
Speaker
Deep, deep things we're talking about here. Shane, what what were your emotional responses watching this? I think just what I kept thinking over and over again was how can we make people care about this?
00:10:14
Speaker
How can we make people want to watch this and care? yeah so sort of ah a helpless for response, I guess. was going to say, did you did you come up with an answer to that question? No, I'm hoping you guys do.
00:10:28
Speaker
Okay, okay. Well, we've got a few minutes, I'm sure. We'll we'll give it a good go for you, Shane. I mean, but but one of my responses, genuinely, I'm not being facetious here, was what is the most nutrient-dense, healthy food that I can just start stockpiling and keeping in my loft?
00:10:47
Speaker
frankly, because the the the the film does portray, as you've mentioned there, Mark, like quite how grave the circumstances could be with us continuing our current trajectory in terms of how we treat non-human animals and how that can can lead to a catastrophic event that that threatens each and every one of us on the planet. And I was thinking, well, I mean, i i very much don't believe in an individualist um or individualism, an individualist stance to life. And and ah yeah, I'm not an individualist, but at the same time, like if I know that there's a good chance
Vegan Activism and Policy Impact
00:11:28
Speaker
that this could happen, like want to... want to protect myself, you know? i think Shane and I spoke about this very briefly yesterday. We were having conversation yesterday and I was saying that whilst for most of the film I was feeling quite down, by the end of it my feeling was of renewed vigour, I suppose, towards my vegan activism
00:11:55
Speaker
Such that I've not felt for a few years. And that might just be speaking to my life journey and what have you. Five years ago, I was running a vegan business, like almost literally 24 seven. I mean, i did sleep, but when I was awake, that's all I was focusing on. And so kind of coming down from that, I i imagine my brain and my my body certainly needed a bit of a, not not a break from it because we've been doing this pod, but like the intensity of things perhaps needed to come down a bit. But like this really geed me up to be like, right, come on, I want to be i want to be doing things. And particularly the bit where they were talking about the the risks of folk that live close to intensive animal ag. I've got a unit, I don't own it, um probably less than a mile as the crow flies from my house where there's 40,000 chickens being farmed in in barns. And I was like, oh, okay, okay, right. um let's Let's start investigating that unit then. Who owns that? What else do they own? So maybe that's my personality and it won't be the same response for everyone. But by the end of it, I was like, right, come on, need to need to notch things up a few gears. It sounds like it caused you some existential dread as well as maybe turning into into a bit of a prepper.
00:13:17
Speaker
Do you know what a prepper is? Someone preparing for the apocalypse? Yep, that's what it is. Yep, I have a friend who has several bags packed and has done for for years. um Yeah, you need a shotgun to to to to guard your sacks of beans. Against the A44 yeah. um So, I mean, were're we're speaking ah about, like, it's clear that the potential emotional response to this film is taking one to quite a dark place.
00:13:48
Speaker
Dominic has mentioned on the show a couple of times a horror writer, and their name is not coming to the front of my mind at the moment, but that in their writing, they will talk about the fact that and if you scare people too much, they'll just switch off. And we've spoken about that with regards to animal rights. Oh, Stephen,
00:14:07
Speaker
It was Stephen King, I think. Yeah. Well done, Shane. You win. Yeah. And do we think there's a risk with with that here? Like, how how did we personally find that balance? Like, did they need to pare it back a bit? Do you think? Because we're all sat here, enthusiastic, happy people, feeling quite glum or like somber. Like, did they did they push it too far? I think that they need to present the facts as they find them. And if it's a horrifying situation, then it needs to be portrayed as such. And we need to be generally as a society grown up enough to to accept the reality or the potential reality for what it is and act accordingly. It was hard to watch. I always find footage of of any animal abuse situation.
00:14:51
Speaker
very difficult to watch because the emotions stirs up. and But this was quite straight down the line. It was giving you the science. It was underlying the extreme link between the dairy and meat industry and government policy.
00:15:06
Speaker
And I think the fact that more people aren't aware of that of this and it isn't part of government policy the way it should be is a testament to the strength of the lobbying industry forces behind animal agriculture. It's huge. They essentially, in large part, they are the government to an extent and they set the tone and they are the ones who were referred to and who the whole thing is about. It's about protecting their profits and their are longevity.
00:15:31
Speaker
So and it underlines that. it It is deeply disturbing and because of that, it should be more widely known. But I think it comes from it from quite a clever angle, but it it concerns us. that This is an animal welfare issue that concerns us as animals as much as any other animal liking the way they emphasized how during the COVID-19 pandemic we were all mandated by law to keep a certain distance away from each other.
00:15:59
Speaker
Meanwhile on farms, animals were being squashed in to the point where they couldn't even turn around and the hypocrisy was laid bare and again the the links between animal ag and government policy couldn't be clearer.
00:16:12
Speaker
Shane, what about you? Like, do you do you feel like the the balance was okay there? Or or is there ah is there a turn off risk to like, we we don't just want vegans to watch this, do we?
00:16:24
Speaker
No, I mean, I think especially this is ah a movie for non vegans, because I think a lot of vegans already know this. And even if they don't, they're not the ones who need to make the change as much I mean, do I feel like it? Yeah, honestly, I do. And I don't know that that's their fault. That's the situation that we're in. But I do. Usually when I watch something, I just watch it. But I was looking at the time, like how much more of this do I have to watch? So it was it was a difficult watch for me. Yeah.
00:16:54
Speaker
Yeah, so I mean, policymakers need to watch this, but I suspect they must know because it had um Dame Sally, I forget her second name, who's... Davies, Dame Sally Davies. Yeah, thank you, who's been a government advisor on policy um prevention of pandemics and stuff. So,
00:17:17
Speaker
And she was on it. So it they had some quite eminent scientists on it. So just, yeah, like you say, it just shows what they're up against, you know, the greed of animal agriculture, you know, the the lack of care, the lack of care towards local communities, the lack of care towards the animals. It's just profit driven.
00:17:40
Speaker
and I do think that it's a really good film to show to people who are living in an area where there are new factory farms proposed. I think that's a really, you know, a really good educational film that, you know, warning of of some of the the horrors that might await them. I mean, that is really scary when, ah you know, around here, actually, you've got quite a few factory farms, but you've also got like a lot of pigs out there.
00:18:08
Speaker
out in the open. And on a summer's day, the smell, I think even that they're still and actually, you see pigs in the field, eating, you know, rummaging around and then hundreds of 1000s of like seagulls and other birds mixing in. I mean, what's that all about? You've got the possibility of, of bird flu, swine flow I mean, how do we know that they're not going to cross over? And obviously, I don't know much about these things. But you know there's There's a possibility there of ah of a crossover. I mean, it's just to all complete madness. Following along from what you were saying there, Kate, and yes, it's it's information like this that is enough to turn people off.
00:18:54
Speaker
Having ah in in infrastructure like that near them, I do know that there's there's a there's a campaigning group here in in New Zealand based in Auckland called Direct Animal Action, and they took on Teagle, one of the biggest, I think they're poultry,
00:19:09
Speaker
factory farm industries here and in New Zealand and they wanted to set up a massive processing plant and in Northland which is quite a poor area it's populated by what you might call the underclass there's lots of Maori and Pacifica there they have very little sway in the in the corridors of power but when direct action direct animal action came in and show them video footage of how they get rid of their slurry after wind by pumping it as a mist into the air for for the community around it to inhale. That was enough to turn people, to get people to sign a petition against Teagle setting up their factory, which worked.
00:19:49
Speaker
Obviously, Teagle went on to appeal that and they lost and they're probably trying to set a factory elsewhere in the country. But it's information like that where you can show clear factual information of how this industry affects you as as a human being, regardless of your attitude towards animal welfare or animal rights. That's the sort of information that can sway people in our favor, if only temporarily.
00:20:12
Speaker
I would say like for for my tastes, it wasn't too much, but I thought it was going to be. It was a close run thing. But as I've said at the top, like it was enough to give me a renewed vigor. And I'm aware i am not a typical person like I'm like the three of you I'm our listeners, like I'm vegan before the vast majority of the world is vegan.
00:20:41
Speaker
ah and And I don't know, i'm I'm liable to making quite bold life decisions, like relocating or starting a vegan business or something like that. Like I'm not afraid of doing those things. And we know that human beings are very often might bury their head in the sand or have that kind of, that there's that sort of eco-psychology phenomenon isn't there at the moment that a lot of people are talking about that like climate crisis, getting people down and it's just turning them
Engaging Non-Vegans and Highlighting Contributors
00:21:11
Speaker
off. It's numbing them to it. So I am concerned about that. One thing I will say
00:21:17
Speaker
is the fact that there is such a focus on like AMR, the antimicrobial resistance and the impact that the animal ag has on communities that that live around it and stuff like that and and pandemics.
00:21:32
Speaker
Like they're all focuses for an animal rights film that I've not seen done so strongly before. And I think that gives you a pass as a vegan to say to your non-vegan friends and family, I've got to share this with you. Now, if I was to say to my family, I've got to share this documentary with you. And I sent them a link to Dominion.
00:21:54
Speaker
They'd be like, Anthony, you you've showed us stuff like this 15 years ago when you went vegan. And we told you then we don't want to watch it. Like that's, you know, I've played that card and I kind of, I might be talking nonsense here, but I think you you kind of only get so many lives with these things, only so many turns. But this feels different in the same way that Game Changers was different. It's like, hey, look, not only can a,
00:22:16
Speaker
plant-based diet be not worse for you in terms of your health and your athletic performance, but it might actually make you better. That gives you an excuse to share it. And I think it has that going for it. And I know that there's a lot of people it would just be too much for So I don't know if there's a clever way that you could do it, that it wasn't too heavy and you could still get the seriousness across. But for for me, it wasn't too much. I'd like to just quickly like break up the heaviness by asking each of the three of you really quickly, who was your favorite talking head?
00:22:52
Speaker
in the film. There's the main protagonist, you don't have to know their name, you can just describe them. I will say my favourite talking head was the guy, he was like the CEO, I think he was Indian, and he was like the CEO of an organisation that was called something like Ethical World or something like that. It's not Salish Rao, is that his name?
00:23:15
Speaker
possibly possibly but he we didn't see much of him until like the end of the film but he just said some real brilliant nuggets basically like lying is not sustainable only truth is sustainable and he just had these brilliant little sound bites and was like oh want to watch a whole movie of this guy he was my favorite what about the rest of you i i I'm going to have to say Alice because I've met her and she is just adorable and ah a beautiful human. And um I mean, I thought I'd love loads of people in there. But, you know, she now stands up.
00:23:56
Speaker
as a vet to the pig industry trying to hold them to account trying to um make a difference for for animals for pigs in particular so yeah alice she's well she was in pig number wasn't she she was yeah she's such a brave human she really is and did this guy a called uh rick dove he's the senior advisor for the waterkeeper alliance i haven't remembered that i've called up this still on youtube there's no way i remember his name And he was talking but very sort of matter-of-factly sort of man on the street sort of he's not a vegan but he is concerned about keep keeping water quality up and all that and he was very damning in his appraisal of this whole system as well and it's having people like that on our side who aren't hardcore vegans who don't have this identity who don't have ah who who don't stir up the emotions of people who would
00:24:51
Speaker
ordinarily be a little bit opposed to people like us. He's coming at it from a more man-on-the-street sort of every-man sort of ah point of view, and he's just as damning as anyone else is in this documentary about the impacts of of of the animal agricultural industry on us. And it's voices like his that are an open door for people who wouldn't normally listen to people like us into our sort of movement, I suppose.
00:25:21
Speaker
he i mean his His words about ah ah like the the the life chances of his grandchild who was like being was being born like as the as the interview was happening, not not live I should say, but he was aware that he was welcoming a ah grandchild into the world. um on the day that he was being interviewed and he was just really frank wasn't he is just like the rate we're going I really really feel sorry for them because I think their life is is going to be so severely hampered but because of what's happening to the environment he was talking about the environment where rather than amr or or pandemics wasn't he Like Kate, I also liked Alice the best. I think um so i think for me, the biggest like shock was seeing Eric Adams in the last section. He is the former mayor of New York City. And I was like, whoa, what's he doing here? i knew he was vegan. I believe he went vegan for a health reasons. So was interesting to see him in there considering all the, I don't know, all the crimes that he's been accused of and then got out of consequences for. so
00:26:31
Speaker
They probably wouldn't put him in there if they knew where he was going. But anyway, i was like, whoa. And before before we get a stream of emails, I think it's been shown that he's not the world's strictest vegan. However, like i I think what he has done in his term of office in terms of making plant-based meals the default in New York hospitals... like yeah goodness the number of animals that that has saved um credit to him i don't think i've ever heard him speak before he sounded proper gangster my goodness yeah his voice was scary and he and he is gang sir so hope for left pen a heck flipping turned out to be one yeah want to get on the wrong side him no he just sounded very new york yeah Yeah, yeah.
00:27:16
Speaker
Okay, cool. we've had our We've had our favorite talking heads then. So in terms of what are we gonna do with this film then? So we've we've watched it, we've told folk about it, we're gonna share it with anyone and everyone.
Distribution and Advocacy Strategies
00:27:30
Speaker
is it Does it have a specific audience that we think it would really hit home with or quite the opposite, an audience that it wouldn't do so well with? Mark, why don't we start with you? What are your feelings? I mean, I think it would be great this if stuff like this, including this, was available on Netflix and was just sort of casually available to the average viewer to to stumble across, perhaps, or to to but to be referred to and then watch.
00:27:54
Speaker
I know I'm going to be putting it on to the social media that I'm attached to, but that is all vegan-based viewership. So the amount of cut through what going to have is going to be limited default. So it is stuff like this that needs to be given a much wider platform.
00:28:10
Speaker
And something like Netflix, taking it on board would be ideal, but obviously i have no influence on that. the These in information like this, people tend to almost intuitively try and avoid because they know it's going to be hard hitting and they know it's going to make demands on them.
00:28:28
Speaker
And most people want to avoid those things. They don't want the pressure to change because they're afraid of it. Unfortunately, this is why we're in the situation we're in partly so. how you get someone to sit down and pay attention to this. You can bring a horse to water, but you can't make him drink it sort of thing.
00:28:45
Speaker
it's It's hard to know. It's only when people's backs are against the wall that they really start paying attention to stuff like this. I would have thought that something like the COVID-19 pandemic and the impact that that had on society would have been enough to get people to sit up and pay attention. But even that really sort of has faded into the rear view mirror.
00:29:04
Speaker
So if something as big as that can be allowed to be forgotten or people don't make the links between their behaviour and the COVID-19 outbreak, it's hard to know what will.
00:29:16
Speaker
I think loads of people should watch this. Planning authorities, local authorities and their planning departments, you know, should watch it. And perhaps they'll be more inclined to refuse um applications for factory farms. I think medics should watch it and scientists, but particularly health professionals. If I can just say, you know, we we touched on the antimicrobial resistance, but actually i don't know if any of you know people, because I certainly do, who've had...
00:29:50
Speaker
like an accident or something recently, you know, and a wound, and it's taken flipping ages to heal. It just wouldn't heal. Several people i know that's happened to.
00:30:01
Speaker
And actually, it's not that long ago when we didn't have any, we hadn't have penicillin, we didn't have any of those those drugs. And my grandma, when she was 13,
00:30:15
Speaker
She got a wound in her leg. It became an ulcer and that she was taken all over to try and get it to be healed. It never healed. Eventually she died in her thirty s I never even met her.
00:30:28
Speaker
sort to me This is going to become the norm. I mean, it was it was touched on in the film and it is going to become the norm. So everybody, I think, should, you know, if we can somehow drag them to it, should watch it and realise that unless we do something, this is going to become a reality. So just go vegan, go vegan. yeah Shane, are your personal feelings and responses to the film, like would that affect how readily you would recommend it to others, do you think?
00:31:02
Speaker
Um, it might. I mean, I probably wouldn't offer to sit down and watch it with them unless they were really gung ho. Yeah. But I think that's reasonable, isn't it? Like if if something's made us feel a certain way ourselves, like it's, it's reasonable to have a reluctance to, to share it. Yeah. I might just, if I recommended it and i agree with Kate that I think this would be really good for health professionals because I think it has a very scientific slant. And, um, I think the information um,
00:31:29
Speaker
that microbial resistance is would be really interesting to them and would make a lot of sense. um Whereas sometimes when people don't care about animals, maybe they care about something like that that could affect them.
00:31:41
Speaker
So I might just give it a ah like a warning like, oh, it's a little bit tough to watch, but the information is really important. I think you'll find it really interesting. So maybe I'd kind of give a a caveat.
00:31:52
Speaker
And ah like Kate, also, I have known people who've had these these resistant illnesses. I know somebody who dealt with MERS after ah having to go into the hospital for just something routine and ended up ah getting that. So, um yeah, it can be a real problem.
00:32:08
Speaker
I think that but there's a great analogy I was taught many years ago of the difference between an amateur joke teller, i.e. most of us, and a professional joke teller. The professional joke teller when they come across a new joke is they they file it in their filing system and they bring out the perfect opportunity when They are in a situation where there happens to be a vicar and a cucumber sandwich and whatever else makes the joke particularly relevant for that time. And I think ideally as vegan advocates, like we have a bank of these stored in our minds or on our phones or whatever. And we're like, oh, this is the perfect situation to recommend this resource. And I'm thinking of of folk that I have in my life who really care about the environment, for example. And there's big parts of environmental justice in this film that I think mean that it's credible to offer this as a resource.
00:33:07
Speaker
When that topic comes up, I think it can be tempting to share stuff as soon as we come across it. And I think if we feel so compelled, then yeah, be authentic, share it, be like, this really moved me. And I want as many people to see it as possible because it's existential and it's big. And actually the ask that it's making of us as individuals is not actually that big because I've been vegan for ages and it's fine. So if you want to do it like that, then go for it. But actually I think personally, what stuck I thought initially when the credits were up, I was like, right, I'm getting straight on Facebook and recommending this. Now I'm thinking, hmm, I reckon there's going to be opportunities in the next 12 months the conversations I sort of have in my day to day, because I'm lucky enough to be surrounded by lots of woke, eco-conscious, caring, compassionate people.
00:33:55
Speaker
There's going to be stuff that links into this perfectly. And the fact that it's available on YouTube for free, then you're far more likely, I think, to get a good response. Or I am anyway, because I'm not as persuasive ah a speaker as as many people. During the 1980s in Australia, at least, there was probably elsewhere in the world as well, When the issue of smoking tobacco was a big political thing and the advertising of tobacco products was still legal, ah there was groups of doctors who would and and assorted health professionals who would leave their hospitals during lunch hour. in their white robes with the stethoscopes around their neck and go around to nearby billboards advertising Marlboro cigarettes or whatever and spray paint on them that this is these are cancer sticks and all the rest of it the police would sit by and let them happen because they don't want to be seen to be arresting half the hospital staff who are on duty that day okay so it wasn't clinically expedient to stop them from doing this so they were allowed to go around the place essentially vandalizing billboards
00:34:57
Speaker
alerting people to the dangers of smoking. I would like to see groups of doctors and nurses going around the city in their uniforms, defacing advertising for milk and dairy because of the health implications it has, because of the workload it puts on the health system and treat it a bit like the highly successful anti-smoking campaigns during the 80s and 90s that revolutionized how we see things like tobacco.
00:35:23
Speaker
and allow them to deliver this information because so much depends on who's telling you this. If it's someone like me, an angry ex-punk rocker, it's easy to turn off. If it's your doctor saying the same thing, in the same words, people absorb it a lot more readily.
00:35:38
Speaker
So and rather than me trying to qualify to become a doctor, which is never going to happen, I would like doctors to take this on board and as a health imperative to go around and to confront these industries head on because the police won't arrest them and take a leap out of their book. Yeah, well, like like you say, it it really does depend who's who's getting the message, which is why, I mean, maybe it was the fact that he was backed by the mob, but ah Eric Adams did seemed to do such a good job. We need to get the mob on board. Yeah, it's gangsters for veganism. um
00:36:17
Speaker
But yeah, that that may that's why it had such such a big impact in those those New York hospitals and hopefully is still doing so. We'd better wrap things up for there. Thank you everyone.
00:36:29
Speaker
for listening to our, to our synopsis of that film. Like I say, it's free to watch on YouTube as well as other platforms. Um, and yeah, just, just have someone you care about, uh, at the end of the phone or next to you whilst you watch it would be, would be my tip and, uh, several of our tips too. But, um, Kudos to everyone involved in producing the film that's ah got a very important message.
Conclusion and Call to Action
00:36:52
Speaker
If you do watch it, we hope you enjoy it. If you listen to this podcast, we hope you enjoyed this. And it's that time of the show where we ask you a little favour to help us out.
00:37:02
Speaker
If you've enjoyed today's show, we'd love it if you could take just a few seconds to share it with someone else who you think might enjoy it too. We don't have a marketing team or a budget to spend on advertising, so your referrals are the best way of spreading the free Enough of the Falafel Joy further still. And if you haven't already, we'd be really grateful if you could leave us a rating on your podcast player.
00:37:27
Speaker
That will also help the show pop up when people search for vegan or animal rights content online. Thanks for your help.
00:37:39
Speaker
Super stuff. Thank you, Mark. Thank you, Kate. Thank you, Shane. Great conversation, I thought. Great combo. Very enjoyable. We don't want to just listen to ourselves. We want to hear from you. So please email us with your questions or comments. The email is enoughofthefalafel at gmail.com.
00:37:58
Speaker
I think the only people we don't want to hear from are the mob and anyone representing Eric Adams' is I don't know, yeah um his reputation or or anything like that. His lawyers.
00:38:13
Speaker
Yeah. We were talking about a different Eric that we know from a different New York. it's So it's all fine. We don't want to hear from you. It's fine. So thank you, everyone, for joining us. um that is Here's a little um heads up for you for our next episode, and which is coming out on Monday, the 23rd of February. And it has on it Paul, Shane and Ant.
00:38:41
Speaker
And it's an episode of Vegan Week, which is our usual weekly roundup of the latest vegan and animal rights news. Anyway, that's enough of the falafel for this episode. Thank you to Kate, Shane, and Anthony for all your contributions. Thanks, everyone, for listening.
00:38:58
Speaker
I've been Mark, and you've been listening to Vegan Talk. from the enough of the falafel collective
00:39:07
Speaker
This has been an Enough of the Falafel production. We're just a normal bunch of everyday vegans putting our voices out there. The show is hosted by Zencaster.
00:39:18
Speaker
We use music and special effects by zapsplap.com. And sometimes, if you're lucky, at the end of an episode, you'll hear a poem by Mr Dominic Berry. Thanks all for listening and see you next time.
00:39:48
Speaker
This episode may have come to an end, but did you know we've got a whole archive containing all our shows dating back to September 2023? twenty twenty three That is right, Dominic. There's over 100 episodes on there featuring our brilliant range of different guests, people's stories of going vegan, philosophical debates, moral quandaries, and of course...
00:40:09
Speaker
around a dozen news items from around the world each week. So check back on your podcast player to hear previous episodes. And remember to get an alert for each new episode, simply click like or follow and also subscribe to the show.
00:40:24
Speaker
Thanks for your ongoing support wherever you listen to us from.