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The Current Transcript for March 14, 2023

Host: Mark Kelley

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

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I'm so tired of parents filming their children's embarrassing and low moments to have something to post in hopes it goes viral.

MARK KELLEY: Sharenting. It's a word to describe when parents who share and sometimes overshare their kids’ lives online. The cute or embarrassing moments may boost views and likes, but they're causing concern about children's privacy. We ask, are kids content and where should parents draw the social media line? That's in 30 minutes. Also this morning.

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The collagen industry is booming. Despite this, collagen production remains glaringly unregulated. Companies, they have no obligation to track its environmental impacts.

MK: Collagen is a beauty buzz word, a hair and skin care product that's getting celebrity endorsements. We'll hear why it's devastating for the Amazon rainforest and for millions of donkeys in Africa. Who knew? That's in an hour. But we start in California with a bank collapse also making waves on this side of the border. I'm Mark Kelly, moonlighting for Matt Galloway. This is The Current.

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SILICON VALLEY BANK COLLAPSE

Guests: Anya Klimbovskaia, Claire Brownell

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JIMMY STEWART: We've got to stick together, though. We've got to have faith in each other.

FEMALE SPEAKER: I need money. How am I going to live until the bank opens?

MALE SPEAKER: I’ve got lots of bills to pay.

JIMMY STEWART: Here's $2000. This should tie us over until the bank reopens. All right, Tom, how much do you need?

MK: Jimmy Stewart in the classic film It's a Wonderful Life, convincing his clients to keep their money invested when times were tough. That move kept his business afloat. But for clients of the Silicon Valley Bank or SVB, that scene may hit a little too close to home.

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FEMALE SPEAKER: I am in an airport bathroom at 6:30 a.m. crying. My company, the crew, like many out there banked with SVB. And needless to say, the past 72 hours has been intense.

MALE SPEAKER: We can't pay our vendors today. What happens when tens of thousands of companies can't pay their vendors anymore because they don't have cash in the bank? We're facing something much more than just my company potentially collapsing, but something economically very dramatic.

MK: Chances are you never heard of the Silicon Valley Bank until this week. It's relatively small with less than 20 branches and only about a quarter of the assets of banks like CIBC and Bank of Montreal. The California based institution catered to the tech industry. The majority of its clients were start-ups. Now, as the bank collapses, many of those companies and their investors are scrambling to get their deposits back. Anya Klimbovskaia is the co-founder and chief operating officer of the Toronto based Start-Up Diversio. Her company had deposits at Silicon Valley Bank. Good morning, Anya.

ANYA KLIMBOVSKAIA: Good morning.

MK: So walk me through it. When did you first get word and how did you first get word about the Silicon Valley Bank's collapse?

ANYA KLIMBOVSKAIA: You know, it's actually a bit of a funny question. So our company is based in Toronto, but we have operations in the U.S. as well. And so as a result, we have capital here in Canada, but we also have some capital in the U.S., which was with Silicon Valley Bank. And it was funny because the way we found out about the collapse of the bank is actually through the mother in-law of my co-founder, because our investors actually forgot that we banked with Silicon Valley Bank in the U.S. because they knew that we were with RBC in Canada. And so while they were calling their other start-ups, they kind of missed us. So yeah, my co-founder, his mother in-law called us and she was like, are you paying attention to this?

MK: And what was your reaction when you got the news from the mother in-law?

ANYA KLIMBOVSKAIA: Our reaction was, oh my God! And then we of course started calling our investors and calling the bank and we realized the extent of what was happening.

MK: Tell me about that feeling, though, that rushes in when you've got your deposits sitting in a bank that's going under.

ANYA KLIMBOVSKAIA: I think it's probably the same for any company. You just feel kind of, you know, scared. I mean, for us, it was first a little bit different just because like I said, we kind of have our capital split. So, you know, it wasn't as though our whole kind of life savings in the company was in one place. But you experience a lot of fear and uncertainty. And, you know, when you have to pay employees the following week. And for a lot of companies, you know, they wouldn't be able to make payroll. We were part of a group chat with a lot of Silicon Valley companies. And there was a lot of fear.

MK: And describe that group chat and what was going on because it's one thing for you to try to figure out what do you do for your own business. But when you look around and you listen to what's the fear and loathing that's out there, what does that do to your confidence?

ANYA KLIMBOVSKAIA: I think it definitely makes you, you know, in some ways kind of, I don't want to say question the system, but it definitely makes you kind of pause and start asking, you know, what is your kind of exposure? And it was really worrisome to see all these other companies kind of really struggle with the possibility that they might not be open tomorrow. And that's very scary because, of course, that's not only those companies going under, but all of their employees and those employees’ families.

MK: So, Anya, why did you choose to do business with Silicon Valley Bank in the first place?

ANYA KLIMBOVSKAIA: Great question. So I think a lot of VC funds, venture capital funds kind of encourage start-ups to engage with SVB, Definitely those in the U.S. And a lot of entrepreneurs are drawn to SVB because of its special programming. And, you know, they have offerings to start-ups like connecting start-ups to service providers, offering interesting programs, that sort of thing.

MK: And were they offering you something as an entrepreneur that other banks including banks in Canada couldn't?

ANYA KLIMBOVSKAIA: You know, in retrospect, it's interesting. I think probably not. Maybe to some extent. I think that they were kind of newer and potentially more dynamic in some ways. But it's interesting because I actually think, you know, not to plug our own banks in Canada or anything like that, but I actually think that in a lot of ways, our financial institutions are getting more creative and getting more innovative. And, you know, they are starting to offer those things to Start-ups. And, you know, hopefully they're also a lot more stable.

MK: Well, we saw what the Biden administration was proposing yesterday. It said it's going to do it. It’s guaranteed that they're stepping to cover deposits even beyond the federally issued ceiling of $250,000. Will you be covered by that and will you be made whole?

ANYA KLIMBOVSKAIA: Yes. Yes. We will be made whole. And all of the other companies who had deposits with the bank will be made whole, which, you know, thank God for that.

MK: So you have survived this, but this was the second largest collapse in U.S. banking history. What have you taken away from your terrifying 36 hours?

ANYA KLIMBOVSKAIA: You know, I think the same thing as the majority of Start-ups took away from it is that you just need to be, you know, I don’t want to say like constant vigilance, but you need to be very careful. You need to distribute your capital. You need to make sure that all of it is insured and not just a small part of it. And you also need to have plan B. Right now, we're exploring lots of different avenues with our Canadian banks actually that really stepped up during this whole crisis, you know, and looking at what could we possibly do over here just to make sure that just in case, you know, nothing like this ever happens.

MK: I mean, there's confidence in the U.S. banking sector. Well, let's start with that. I mean, you're paying tribute to just how solid the Canadian banking system is. But what about your confidence in the U.S. banking system now?

ANYA KLIMBOVSKAIA: I think for us, we're definitely still confident in the U.S. banking system because again, you know, the SVB was, as you kind of introduced it, it was a smaller bank. And it was very localized and sort of specific to start-ups. But I think the larger system is still solid, but there's definitely, I think, questions that people are now having and asking which I think are smart to ask. And, you know, maybe some things aren't what they seem.

MK: And what about the tech sector and the Silicon Valley itself? I mean, questions have been raised about the vulnerability of that sector itself. How do you feel about that?

ANYA KLIMBOVSKAIA: The tech sector has been changing quite rapidly over the last year to 18 months. The capital flows are absolutely not what they used to be in 2021. There is a lot fewer venture capital being invested, a lot fewer kind of money. But I actually don't think that this is necessarily a bad thing. I think that this means that Start-Up founders are now focusing on building, you know, real businesses that are ultimately going to be self-sustaining and going to be meeting sort of the threshold that business has been meeting for many centuries, which is that they can kind of run without constant influx of capital. We've always kind of operated at Diversio with that mindset. I think it's really helped us, and I do think that it's sort of becoming more pervasive across other start-ups now too.

MK: But do you think this is going to change your business in ways moving forward?

ANYA KLIMBOVSKAIA: You know what? I don't hazard a guess yet, but come back to me in like six months and we'll see what happens.

MK: Okay. We'll take you up on that. Anya, thank you for your time. And take a deep breath. You made it.

ANYA KLIMBOVSKAIA: Thank you. Yeah.

MK: Anya Klimbovskaia is the co-founder and chief operating officer of the Start-Up Diversio based here in Toronto. Claire Brownell is a reporter for the business and tech publication The Logic. She joins me in studio. Good morning, Claire.

CLAIRE BROWNELL: Good morning. Thanks for having me.

MK: Great to have you. You’ve just been listening to the conversation. What do you make of that?

CLAIRE BROWNELL: Yeah. I found what Anya was saying about the group chat particularly interesting because that's a lot of, you know, a big difference from the movie It's A Wonderful Life today in 2023. You know, VCs, Start-Up founders, they're in group chats, They're on Twitter, you know, they're talking to each other all the time. And that's a big part of what happened here and why this collapse happened so quickly over just 48 hours. You know, just people talking to each other, people putting panic posts on the Internet, riling each other up and, you know, pulling out their money on the go. You know, anywhere you are, you can pull out your phone and take your money out of the bank. And that’s what happened.

MK: And that's exactly what was happening. Tell us about that. Give us an idea of this bank run, like what the bank run is and how it was playing out in real time.

CLAIRE BROWNELL: Yeah. So essentially what happened is you kind of have to go back to 2021 in a way, which is, you know, tech start-up valuations got massively, massively high. You know, there was sort of easy money everywhere because of COVID stimulus. Interest rates were very low. And so, you know, in order to make a return, you're willing to take riskier bets. You're willing to bet on a company that, you know, might not be profitable for years and years and years to come. So that was very good for the tech sector. That was very good for Silicon Valley Bank which banks for the tech sector. They were able to, you know, double their deposits. Fast forward to 2023. Some of the bonds and other securities that they had invested in long term, they looked pretty safe, but they were vulnerable to interest rate hikes, which is what happened very quickly. So all of a sudden, they had a balance sheet problem. They tried to sell some of those securities. They had to sell them at a loss. And investors started panicking, worrying that it was insolvent. And, you know, like I was just describing, the group' chats started going, the Twitter started going, people pulled their money out and it all fell apart in 48 hours.

MK: And it wasn't just that bank. It was also the Signature Bank in New York that was financing cryptocurrency was closed by regulators Sunday. Is there a connection between those two closures?

CLAIRE BROWNELL: Yeah. Signature is an interesting one. I'm actually the cryptocurrency reporter. So that's sort of my specialty. And yeah, Signature, what we think probably happened is that they had a really high percentage of uninsured deposits. So deposits over $250,000. And so the regulators were out there looking for, you know, who could be the next Silicon Valley bank. There's also been some speculation that there was just some like we're generally nervous about cryptocurrencies. Another crypto bank had gone under earlier that week, Silvergate. And they might have been like, okay, where are you just going to pull the plug to be extra cautious here on Signature?

MK: But what it does for people on the outside, there are sort of shock waves and remnants of 2008 and the financial collapse. Is this the beginning of something much bigger?

CLAIRE BROWNELL: Yes, that's absolutely right. And so you're starting to see this morning, bank stocks around the world are down. People are just generally nervous and skittish. Obviously, the move by U.S. federal officials that they were going to make depositors whole is a big help in having people not panic and pull their money out. But are people still just a little bit nervous today? Yes, they are.

MK: Yeah. That's what I'm curious to know about. Some people say it's not a bailout. We'll call it a bailout for today. Has the Biden bailout erased doubts?

CLAIRE BROWNELL: It definitely helps, right? Because, you know, your deposits, the money that you put in a bank, if you're not confident in those deposits, if you're not confident that you can get that money back, that's bad. That's very bad for confidence in the financial system. Sort of one of the things that's underlined is, you know, there's a lot of just like sociological stuff at play. It's not just numbers and that. It’s people's feelings and sentiments and, you know, their general confidence in the system.

MK: And that's what I'm really curious about, the psychological effect that it can have. Like let's talk about four Canadian start-ups. We were talking about Anya’s company here. When they're seeing what's happening here, is this going to make them reluctant to get in the game? Is this going to have a real blowback on this emerging sector?

CLAIRE BROWNELL: I think it's certainly not going to help those Start-Up founders who are already struggling. You know, it's much harder for them to raise money now in this higher interest rate environment. And, you know, this is going to make that even harder probably. In the U.S., they've lost a venture debt funder. Like they've lost one avenue of being able to get financing. And just in general, you know, VCs, everybody else is going to be a little more cautious. Like Anya was saying, you know, maybe I'm going to take my money and just like put it in a few banks instead of just one. That kind of thing.

MK: Right. Anya was also referring to the difference on both sides of the border. And she's had her confidence shaken in the U.S. banking system. And yet at the same time, she's had it reassured by the Canadian banking system. So how have the Canadian bank regulators reacted to what's going on right now?

CLAIRE BROWNELL: Yeah. So OSFI our banking regulator has stepped in and taken over operations of Silicon Valley bank’s Canadian arm. We don't know what's going to happen yet, if they're going to sell it. What they're going to do, we’re not sure. Another thing they've done is the Globe is reporting, citing sources that apparently OSFI is going to be doing a daily liquidity test of the Canadian banks, you know, just to sort of make sure everything's all right.

MK: Is that necessary right now? Is there some concern that maybe things aren't all right on this side of the border with our banks?

CLAIRE BROWNELL: I don't think so in particular. I think actually, you know, having come out of the 2008 financial crisis, Canada's banks have a pretty good brand. We did well globally with people going, oh, you know, your banking system emerged relatively unscathed. So I think that's probably going to set us up for success here as well.

MK: And yet the daily liquidity tests makes me wonder, what are they concerned about?

CLAIRE BROWNELL: Yeah. I mean, certainly, you know, ideally they wouldn't feel the need to do that. But I think also it's just a measure of, you know, people want to know, what are you doing? Are you doing something? And, you know, here's something we can point to and say we're doing something.

MK: And I asked Anya about this. I'd like to get your view of what does the collapse of SVB tell us about the health of the tech sector in the U.S. and perhaps in Canada as well?

CLAIRE BROWNELL: Yeah. Well, it is certainly less healthy than it was two years ago. And I mean, over the weekend when we weren't sure if depositors were going to get their money back, it was looking like we might be facing essentially an extinction event that, you know, the entire sector may not be able to make payroll, you know, that they would just be gone, gone out of business by Monday essentially, thousands and thousands and thousands of businesses.

MK: So you got my attention with extinction events, really. I mean, was there some concern that we were on the verge of that?

CLAIRE BROWNELL: I mean, you know, I will also say that some of the most hyperbolic voices on VC Twitter have gotten some criticism for, you know, spreading panic and maybe exaggerating a little bit about it. But it was bad. It was big. And people in Canada, my colleagues and I spent Friday just calling up everybody with any exposure to SVB in Canada that we could think of. And like people were very worried, very worried and just glued to the whole thing.

MK: And what were they worried about especially?

CLAIRE BROWNELL: I mean, because we didn't know how bad it was going to get on Friday. We didn't know what was going to happen. But, you know, this backstop they put in where shareholders are going to lose their money, that the depositors are going to get it back, like it's not a bailout, but it's a half bailout. And, you know, people are a lot calmer today than they were over the weekend. But yeah, people were freaking out.

MK: And it's interesting because as I've been reading about, you know, the tech sector, Silicon Valley, there are lots of libertarians down there who prior to this were like government, stay out of my way. I'm doing my own business and I don't need you around me. Then when things got tough, it was government, help me now. How do you explain that?

CLAIRE BROWNELL: Yes. You are certainly not the first person to note that There's definitely been a lot of schadenfreude out there. Yeah. And there's a political element to this too, a big political element. Like the Silicon Valley founders and VCs are not your most popularity ran in opinion polls. They're not the most popular people in the country on both the left and the right. People get kind of frustrated with them. So there might have been an element of people saying, well, who cares about those guys? Let it all burn. But, you know, there are systemic impacts on the whole financial system as well.

MK: And after a near extinction event like this, what's the takeaway? What do we learn from this?

CLAIRE BROWNELL: Yeah. It's a great question. I think in the U.S. probably, you know, one lesson banks are learning is like maybe you should diversify your business, not just having one single high risk sector. In Canada, we don't really have that issue. Our banks are much more diversified. There's not really a bank like that that's just really focussed on one sector like that. But yeah, the interest rate hike is challenging and it's putting a stress on all kinds of banks.

MK: Okay. Claire, good to talk to you. Thanks for helping us understand all of this.

CLAIRE BROWNELL: Thanks for having me.

MK: Claire Brownell is a reporter for The Logic. The CBC news is next. Then.

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We should think before we talk about our kids online because all children deserve a private space to play, to make mischief, even make a few mistakes and grow up better for having made them.

MK: Thinking twice about what you post about your kids online and how far their digital footprint can reach. We'll look at the controversy over sharenting. That's coming up in six minutes. I'm Mark Kelley. Stay close. You're listening to The Current.

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SHARENTING

Guests: Sarah Adams, Alana Kayfetz, Leah Plunkett

MK: Hello, I'm Mark Kelley and you're listening to The Current.

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MK: Collagen supplements are the latest craze in the wellness industry. But all that collagen has to come from somewhere, and that demand is driving deforestation in the Amazon and the killing of donkeys in Africa. Yes, you heard that right. How collagen is affecting the health of the planet. That's in just under half an hour. But first, to post or not to post when it comes to your kids.

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MK: If you’ve spent time on social media, chances are you've come across videos of parents and their kids.

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MOM: I am going to be attempting to prank my kids for the entire day.

MAN: Here's my husband's reaction after I drew on fake eyebrows on my baby.

MOM: Spraying water on my toddler until she said stop.

MOM: Sonali, I need you to go put your shoes on right now.

CHILD: Why?

MOM: Because I'm about to go fight somebody and I need you to fight their daughter if I'm fighting somebody. Come on. I need you to get your shoes on real quick.

CHILD: Why?

MOM: Because this lady out here, she's trying to fight me and she has her son with her. And he said that he's going to fight you because she's fighting me.

CHILD: Oh, I'll knock him out

MOM: Go put your shoes on.

MK: Well, I remember battles over getting my kids to put their shoes on. But that approach is new to me. Well, it's just one of many parenting tricks and pranks along with family vlogs and dance videos. There's so much of this content online that it has a name, sharenting. Sharing, parenting, you get it. Maybe you've even done a bit of it yourself. But now, there's a growing concern that some parents are sharing too much about their children online. And officials in Washington state are considering a bill to protect the privacy of children of influencers. It was put forward by Chris McCarty, the founder of Quit Clicking Kids.

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CHRIS MCCARTY: House Bill 16 27 is a bill to protect children who are monetized on family's social media accounts, accounts that generate a significant amount of revenue as well as accounts that consistently feature their kids. So this legislation is tailored to provide financial compensation for kids working in these family vlogs, and it also affords them the right to request any video featuring them to be deleted once they reach the age of maturity, 18.

MK: In Canada, there are parents who support this move.

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SARAH ADAMS: Children are human beings who are entitled to privacy and dignity and respect. And I'm so tired of parents filming their children's embarrassing and low moments and dramatic moments and trauma to have something to post in hopes it goes viral. Like it needs to end. We need to treat children better.

MK: Well, that passionate person is Sara Adams in Vancouver. She runs the TikTok account Mom Uncharted. Her videos on the dangers of sharenting attract millions of views. Good morning, Sara.

SARAH ADAMS: Good morning. Thanks for having me.

MK: Well, it's an interesting discussion. I mean, tell us, why have you taken on what, you know, upon yourself to call out the dangers of sharenting?

SARAH ADAMS: You know, I call myself Mom Uncharted because we are truly in uncharted waters as it relates to parenting in this digital world. For the amount of time parents are online and sharing their children, I just didn't see enough conversations happening in regard to the other side of this, the negatives, the potential ramifications, the consequences, issues of privacy and informed consent. And while I was at home during the pandemic, I saw more parents sharing and oversharing. And I just thought other people, other parents specifically must think this is worrisome, must think this is concerning. And I just decided to articulate my perspective online hoping I could find like-minded parents who also agreed that this is getting a little out of control.

MK: Let's define our terms here because I'm sure there are a lot of parents who post things about their kids, grandparents who post things about their grandchildren. Let's define sharenting. I mean, where does it begin, where does it end and where does it go too far?

SARAH ADAMS: That is a great question and there's definitely a spectrum. A lot of what I talk about is in relation to the influencers and the family vloggers who have turned their children into content, who have, you know, monetized them and commercialized their childhood and whose accounts would not be successful without regularly featuring their children. However, there are parents and grandparents, as you stated, who also participate in oversharing online on public as well as private accounts. So for me, sharenting is really just the oversharing of images and information online, whether that be publicly or privately of your children.

MK: I've seen some of your posts. And I mean, you put it pretty bluntly, kids aren't content, full stop. But what do you see the harm in it for children who are exposed, they are shown online?

SARAH ADAMS: There's a few things. Like I worry about the invasion of their privacy, their lack of knowledge and informed consent. You know, these children don't even know that these videos are being filmed and posted publicly online to potential billions of people with the ability to save them or come back to find more content of them. There's a variety of issues that concern me, and I just know that I appreciate my privacy and the autonomy I have had over my digital footprint. And I really think children are going to appreciate that too. It is kind of a gift we can give them in this digital world.

MK: One of your most viral TikTok videos has you questioning why people would be interested in purchasing photo sets of young girls. I've seen that one myself. Can you explain that to our listeners?

SARAH ADAMS: Yes. So sadly, there are some parents online who are exploiting specifically their young girls in various ways. In regard to the case you're talking about, there was a private website where followers could go and purchase, you know, photo sets of young girls playing at the beach, young girls eating ice cream, young girls dressed up. We're talking girls between the ages of eight and 13. And there's various ways that parents can exploit their children online now. Instagram actually has a feature called the subscribe feature in which anybody can subscribe to exclusive access of children. That's happening behind a pay wall. And that's a really, really scary thought.

MK: Do you think that parents are aware of the realities of sharing content of their kids online? I mean, for some, it's a legitimate business. It's like having a child actor in a way except it’s on a different platform. Are they seeing this more as a business opportunity or the exploitation the way that you see it?

SARAH ADAMS: Yeah. First, Mark, I just want to touch on the fact that in regard to like the child actor thing, there are similarities, but it's really important for listeners to remember that these children have no protections. Child actors have protections under the law for their labour, for the money generated, whereas social media is kind of like the wild, wild West, right? So these kids can generate all of this income for their parents and potentially not see any of it when they turn 18. They could potentially be filmed and work and do these bits all day long. And that's work, right? So I think it's just important to note that they don't have any protections.

MK: But so you'd be in support then of sort of the legislation that's being discussed and debated down in Washington State about bringing in some sort of guidelines and, you know, strict control over what parents can and cannot share with regards to their kids online.

SARAH ADAMS: 100%. I think it is long past due to protect the safety and privacy and the income these children are generating. If they are being used this way, they deserve to see something in their future.

MK: Sarah, good to talk to you. Thanks. Sarah Adams runs the TikTok account Mom Uncharted. Alana Kayfetz is a content creator and the CEO and founder of Mom Halo. It's a network of millennial moms in Canada. She's with me this morning in studio in Toronto. Good morning, Alana.

ALANA KAYFETZ: Good morning.

MK: You've been listening in.

ALANA KAYFETZ: I have been.

MK: I've been hearing a few heavy sighs coming out. What do you think of what Sarah has to say?

ALANA KAYFETZ: I mean, Sarah's remarkable. I have to just tip my hat to her because she really is doing justice. But this is not honestly my fight song, this whole thing about sharenting. But I do participate in content creation. I have three young kids aged two, four and six. I have a pretty popular Instagram account based here in Toronto. And I would say sharenting is a very interesting phenomenon and one in which I want to say I have a toe into. Some of my content has to do with my kids. I would say one third of my content has to do with kids. But when sort of the phenomenon came about of like not putting your kids’ names on their backpacks or trying to protect their own identity for like what schools they go to and stuff like that, that to me is sort of where I draw the line. So I try not to share my kids’ names of schools or too much information about them or photos where they are on the bathroom or doing something embarrassing. But I mean, it's a learning curve, right? We have to take a pause. So I know some of these content creators who are massive, who are sort of family businesses to some degree.

MK: But you make that distinction between what you would see. Because if I understand what you're doing, the spirit seems to be that it's almost like a parents group, a moms group that's online where you can share some of your trials and tribulations of raising kids as opposed to, you know, exploiting goofy moments that happen with your kids.

ALANA KAYFETZ: Yeah. That's not how my company works. But I think for me, I find people especially during COVID were quite lonely and isolated and didn't have any sense of left or right. So there was sort of this explosion in family content creation and also this like need and desire to share with loved ones across the globe or in some cases in the same city. But in the height of COVID, I mean, my parents couldn't see my kids. So we were turning to social quite a bit for sharing. And of course, we do know some of the dangers, but every single decision we have to make for our kiddos, this is a one of a million things I have to decide for them without them necessarily giving me their consent right now. And even though some families do make a lucrative income from sharing their families online, to me, it's kind of a feminist issue because women are often the ones who are leading this entirety for their family dynamic. And if it was sort of a male dominated industry with dads leading the charge, I mean, people would hold them in high regard. So that's the issue I have.

MK: Let me into the lucrative side here. I mean, I looked online and I did see there was this young girl named Piper who's got 10 and a half million subscribers on YouTube. But what kind of money are we talking about that parents and their kids can make?

ALANA KAYFETZ: There is a lot of money to make. I will say as a content creator, it's not easy to make money in the industry. But some people, this is their full time job. This is their livelihood. But someone who has 10 million followers on Instagram or on YouTube or whatever medium they might be, if they work with advertisers, I mean, you're right. It is like a child actor in that way.

MK: But how do you react to the thrust of what Sarah's argument, which is kids aren't content.

ALANA KAYFETZ: Right. I mean, I would agree to some extent that is true. I mean, we have to tread carefully. And if anything, Sarah is really great on social media and on TikTok because she makes parents just take a pause a bit. I actually did a survey on my Instagram about this, about the dangers of sharing our kids on social media. And I did a poll. And anyone who took part of it was a 50-50 split exactly of people who share and don't share, think it's dangerous or don't think it's dangerous. But if you ask a content creator, everything is content.

MK: Yeah. And that seems to be the thrust of the argument here. Well, we heard from Chris McCarty earlier about the bill they're proposing in Washington State. Have a listen to what they have to say about generating revenue from sharenting.

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CHRIS MCCARTY: It's fine if you want to create content online and monetize that content. I think that's, you know, that's a fine way to generate revenue. But when you start involving your kids and monetizing things like your kids’ ER visits or your kid's’ first period or their mental health issues or their grades, I think there starts to be concerns. And if the reason people are following your account and providing your salary in a way, if the reason that they're doing that is because of your kids, I believe that the kid should have a say in how that information is used.

MK: Alana Kayfetz, how do you feel about that? What role do your kids have in deciding how much you are going to expose them online?

ALANA KAYFETZ: Yes. Well, it's funny because I had a conversation with my six-year-old recently. I said, are you okay with me taking your photo and putting it on Instagram? He's like, well, sometimes I am and sometimes I not. So I said to him recently, and honestly, I was just like, let me know. If this doesn't feel good and warm and fuzzy, then we won't do it. He was like, okay. So I think it is about getting to an age and stage where they can have that conversation. And I will admit I do have a child who does have very rare genetic disorder, and I do share our story quite publicly. But to me, that was my fight song. It was about advocating and spearheading initiatives for rare genetic diseases, for fundraising for hospitals. And I leverage social media because that's what you do to get messages out. So my son Henry who's two years old, who has a rare genetic disorder, anytime I talk about him, people are highly engaged because I really think they care and they're interested in his well-being. Not to mention it was a great way for me to connect with other people with his condition. He's one in 38 million. So that was to me how I share my kids online.

MK: But just in general, what I'm wondering here is are your kids really in a position? I mean, especially we're talking about kids. I mean, never mind under 18, we're talking about kids under the age of 10. Are they really in a position to be deciding what they feel is right and wrong in terms of how much they want to be exposed online?

ALANA KAYFETZ: I mean, frankly, not really. And if anything, as I said, Sarah in this conversation can help us take pause and say, let's be a little bit more conscious of how we post and what we share. And for some folks like myself, I really try to be maybe one third of my content is about my kiddos. And obviously, they don't have the independent ability to think and rationalize in that way. So I think as parents, we try to do one of a million things to protect our kids and give them good quality of life. And it's a really slippery slope.

MK: Okay. Well, we're going to talk even more about that. Alana, thanks so much. That's Alana Kayfetz. She's the founder and CEO of Mom Halo. Leah Plunkett heads the Learning experience and technology team at Harvard Law School. She's the author of Sharenthood: Why We Should Think Before We Talk About Our Kids Online. Good morning, Leah.

LEAH PLUNKETT: Good morning. Wonderful to be with you.

MK: Well, thanks for being with us. So why? You have me with the title of your book. Why should we think before we talk about our kids online?

LEAH PLUNKETT: We should think before we talk about our kids online because all children deserve a private space to play, to make mischief, even make a few mistakes and grow up better for having made them. And I don't just mean play in terms of board games or make believe, although those things are fun. But I really mean a range of personal freedom for exploration that is free from the unwanted gaze of others both now and in the future.

MK: By that definition then, do you think that any exposure of kids online is too much exposure?

LEAH PLUNKETT: I don't. I do think that sharenting, as some of your other guests have said, is a complex space, and that while there is a huge value to be placed on privacy, there are also competing values or at times hopefully complementary values that parents, kids and families need to balance along with privacy.

MK: Yeah, because I'm hearing from our two previous guests, I mean, a different way of framing this conversation and one where you're creating a space where parents can help each other and understand some of the issues that they're having raising their kids, and others where there's some, you know, kind of sheer exploitation of trying to monetize your children by selling pictures and videos of them. So where do you draw the line between, you know, what is good and what is too much?

LEAH PLUNKETT: I draw the line between what is good and what is too much in two different ways. The first way is an objective line drawing exercise. This is what happens when you talk to Alana. And the objective line drawing exercise is to say it is too much if sharenting involves parents doing things that are dangerous, illegal or criminal, or very likely to lead to embarrassment or other negative consequences for their children now or in the future. I also do think it is too much for parents to engage in commercial sharenting or what is more popularly called influencer content without treating their kids with protections that others would have in a labour industry. The other one which is also really important is more subjective. And that says that parents and kids and family units of all types enjoy a lot of privacy protection in our states and in our country as a whole to make decisions in the best interests of their kids and their family units. And in that more subjective space, I think there is a lot of freedom and there should be a lot of freedom for parents to also bring other values in addition to privacy, such as community building or generating a family business ethically, or creating space to find medical and mental health resources for kids who might need them. Again, a whole lot of different values that parents need to balance in the subjective space.

MK: But when we talk about privacy, I mean, this is a big one too because once a photo or a private information is shared online, I mean, that data can be picked up on a third party site. So artificial intelligence. I was reading one study estimates by 2030, nearly two thirds of identity fraud cases affecting today's children will have resulted from sharenting. Do you see that danger out there that this is just fodder for identity fraud?

LEAH PLUNKETT: It is. And I'm a former legal aid and consumer rights lawyer. That's part of how I got interested in this topic. And as a parent, I have two wonderful kids myself. So I have a personal interest in this too. But as a parent or grandparent or other trusted adult, you really do need to stop and think and realize that if you are sharing your child's full name, their date of birth, their home town, anything that can be used to identify them, you really are doing the equivalent of taking out an ad on a billboard by a highway. And not just a highway that some people will drive down, but a highway that potentially the whole world could drive down now and in the future. So absolutely. Even sharenting that may feel balanced and modest does expose kids to this heightened risk of criminal and illegal activities being perpetrated against them like identity theft.

MK: As we were talking before, I mean, this is a multibillion dollar industry here. There's a lot of money on the line that is clearly very tempting for families who are looking for a source of revenue. But I wonder what role do marketing companies and brands play encouraging people to sharenting?

LEAH PLUNKETT: There is a lot of interest from a number of marketing companies and other private sector companies in engaging with parents and families in terms of getting private information about their kids. And you're absolutely right that parents themselves did not create the commercial sharenting industry or the sharenting that may take place let's say from a mom, dad or parent who is not trying to make money as a commercial sharent, a.k.a an influencer, but is responding to a request from a brand on social media to share a cute pic or tell a cute story and tag it with that company's name or another campaign that they have going on. So you are absolutely right. This is not just a parent-led phenomenon.

MK: That Washington state bill that we were talking about earlier, it would be to protect. Children of influencers specifically. How useful do you think that would be, or is that too limited by attaching that to just social influencers?

LEAH PLUNKETT: The Washington State bill would be incredibly useful and incredibly impactful. It would be a much needed courageous step forward to say that kids who are being commercially sharented, who are in the vlogging influencer families who are trying to turn and actually turning a profit should be afforded basic labour law protections that child entertainers get in many states.

MK: So in the end, as I like listening to this discussion, it's almost like we're defining this as we speak about it and trying to figure out where those guardrails are. So I just wonder what kind of conversations do you think should be had between parents and children when it comes to sharing information on the Internet?

LEAH PLUNKETT: I think parents should model the kind of digital citizenship that they want their kids to have. And I think most of us parents, and I'll certainly include myself in this, want our kids to use and engage digital devices and services in developmentally appropriate, ethical and also fun ways. And as a parent, if you want your child to turn 16 and be thoughtful and respectful of themselves and others in terms of what they post and share, you need to start modelling that from a very young age. I think that having conversations with kids as a way to introduce them to the idea that everybody whose information may go up on social media should be included in that conversation. And I think ideally giving kids a veto unless there are really extenuating circumstances and you may be using social media to try to get help. I do think that parents are still the heads of the family unit here and that they should retain the discretion to make the final call when it comes to minors and family privacy. Because if we are taking pictures of our five-year-old in the bathtub or at the beach, we are saying to that five-year-old implicitly, hey, when you're 15 or maybe even younger, maybe a little bit older, go ahead and take pictures of yourself in the bathroom or on the beach. That's cool. And I don't think any parent really wants their kid to be taking pictures of themselves or anyone else in the bathroom or not fully dressed on the beach. That is a dangerous place for us to be telling our kids to go.

MK: Lots to think about. Let's end it there. Leah, thanks so much for your time.

LEAH PLUNKETT: Thanks so much.

MK: Lia Plunkett is the author of Sharenthood: Why We Should Think Before We Talk About Our Kids Online. She's also a faculty member at the Harvard School of Law. Coming up after your regional update, it's a product taking the beauty industry by storm. Collagen. The ads make a lot of promises, thicker hair, dewy skin and stronger nails. Those human health benefits are not proven, by the way. But what is becoming clear is that the industry is having a negative effect on the health of the planet. That story coming up in 90 seconds. I'm Mark Kelley and you're listening to The Current.

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COLLAGEN

Guests: Andrew Wasley, Sian Edwards, Michael White

MK: I'm Mark Kelley and you're listening to The Current.

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JENNIFER ANISTON: Nowadays, the simple things are vital. A good cup of coffee, silent mode, morning walks with the dogs, vital. Beyond that, it's rest, water, movement and vital proteins.

MK: Yes, those vital proteins. Actor Jennifer Aniston has put her name and her face behind vital Proteins. It’s just one of the many brands of collagen peptides, a health supplement that's taking the wellness industry by storm. Collagen has grown into a $6 billion industry globally. Collagen is marketed as a way to keep you looking young with thicker hair and tighter skin. But there's another side to the industry. A new report links collagen production to deforestation in Brazil. Andrew Wasley is the chief environment correspondent for the Bureau of Investigative Journalists. He's in Brighton, UK. Welcome, Andrew.

ANDREW WASLEY: Hello.

MK: Set us up for this conversation first with what exactly is collagen and where does it come from?

ANDREW WASLEY: Collagen is a product that's found in both cattle, but also sheep and other animals. And it's the sticky stretchy layer that's found under the hide of those animals. What happens is after animals are slaughtered, the collagen is extracted and it's boiled and ground down into the powder that we see now in health food shops and indeed as food ingredients and for use in the pharmaceutical industry.

MK: And I've heard about the desire for this bovine collagen now, and that's a by-product of beef production?

ANDREW WASLEY: Yeah. I think by product is slightly misleading because collagen, bovine collagen is actually becoming an increasingly financially attractive product in its own right. But yes, you're absolutely right. Cattle bred in Brazil, for beef production to produce meat, also for leather. But collagen is another product that the big meatpackers are now sort of cashing in on internationally.

MK: And you've done a big investigation. I'm curious to know, Andrew, why collagen? What drew you to want to know more about sort of the side effects of this collagen harvesting?

ANDREW WASLEY: Well, what had happened, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism spent three or four years focussed very heavily on commodities such as soy and beef in Brazil and repeatedly linking those products to deforestation both in the Amazon rainforest and in other tropical forests in Brazil. And during an investigation last year into the beef industry, we came across quite a large number of exports from Brazil for this product called collagen. And that really started off an entire chain that led us into all sorts of places to link deforestation in parts of Brazil with this consumer, as you say, wellness product that's now taking the world by storm.

MK: Okay. So walk us through that. What is that link between collagen harvesting and the deforestation in Brazil?

ANDREW WASLEY: Well, what the bureau found was that the cattle that are used quite often for the beef trade were increasingly being linked to deforestation and the invasion of indigenous lands. This is a sector, as we said, that had much far less attention than the actual meat trade. What we discovered specifically was that tens of thousands of cattle were being raised on farms that were damaging tropical forests in Brazil, and that the collagen that was extracted from those animals was finding its way to some of the brands internationally. Specifically, some 2600 square kilometres of deforestation was able to be linked to farms that were found to be within this collagen supply chain. The investigation itself was complex. We had to cross reference data along with satellite imagery, vast numbers of livestock movement records. They record the movements of cattle between individual farms and then on to abattoirs. We then sent a team into Brazil selling some of those farms to specific abattoirs and also tanneries where they take the skins for use in the leather industry. And from there, the collagen companies pick up their sort of by-product, for want of a better word, and, you know, ship it off elsewhere for processing.

MK: And you mentioned in passing the indigenous peoples in Brazil. I mean, we often equate the cattle ranching that's going on in Brazil with violence. What impact has this had on indigenous communities?

ANDREW WASLEY: Well, our team that went to Brazil to investigate found quite a number of examples where indigenous lands have been encroached on by cattle farmers and other types of farming. But beef farming is the big player. And there's long been allegations of land invasions, castle companies just moving into areas of forests where indigenous communities live in and they protect the rainforest. In one area they visited in September last year, an entire village was burned down. That was linked to the cattle industry. A school, dozens of houses and the patch of forest were reduced to ashes. The local people told our team that the fire was no accident and this community still lives in fear now. There's no suggestion that was directly linked to the collagen production, but the beef industry in that region was certainly implicated in that attack. So yes, this collagen is a commodity that is increasingly being linked to some of the problems we've seen in the beef sector and also the soy sector, although those have obviously been more well documented.

MK: And what kind of laws and regulations are there right now around this industry to try to keep this in check?

ANDREW WASLEY: Well, something that was interesting during our investigation, we found that even in Europe and the UK here where we have quite some tough legislation coming into place that's designed to force companies involved with sourcing commodities from places such as Brazil, so beef, soy, etc., palm oil, this legislation will force them to combat deforestation within their supply chains. But it emerged that collagen itself is not included on the list of commodities that will be covered by that supply chain legislation. So some campaigners are saying that's a loophole that urgently needs to be shut given that this is an expanding industry. And collagen as you said at the start of the program is taking the world by storm. So at the moment, there's a hole in the legislation that's designed to tackle some of these problems around deforestation and commodities from Brazil and elsewhere.

MK: When we talk about this global industry, we're also talking about companies involved in selling this like, you know, with names like Walmart, Costco, Amazon, Boots that you've got in the UK. How have these companies responded to your reporting?

ANDREW WASLEY: I think it's fair to say that this did take them by surprise. You know, clearly, the reporting has been taken seriously. I mean, no company wants to be linked to deforestation, particularly these big international brands. Nestlé, which owns Vital Proteins, which is one of the biggest collagen brands in the world, as you say, it's sold in Amazon Online, in Walmart in the US, Boots in the UK, Costco, you know, the list goes on. Nestlé told us that the allegations which have been raised were not in line with its commitments to responsible sourcing, that it’s taking quick action to contact the suppliers involved to investigate the matter. Something crucial there. They also added that it's taking steps to ensure that their supply chains are deforestation free by 2025. Interestingly, Vital Protein itself, which is the brand that's advertised by Jennifer Aniston, it told its customers in documents that we saw that it would be ending the sourcing from the Amazon region effective immediately. So I think the reporting took people by surprise and the companies were forced to take action given the outcry that followed.

MK: Well done. Andrew, thank you so much for your time.

ANDREW WASLEY: Brilliant. Thanks very much.

MK: Andrew Wasley is the chief environment correspondent for the Bureau of Investigative Journalists. Collagen is not just extracted from cow hides. It can also come from other animals including donkeys. Ejiao is a popular Chinese health product made primarily from collagen harvested from donkeys. Sian Edwards is the head of campaigns at the Donkey Sanctuary in the UK. Hi, Sian.

SIAN EDWARDS: Hello.

MK: What exactly is ejiao?

SIAN EDWARDS: Well, it's slightly different to some of the other collagen supplements we've been talking about in that it falls into traditional Chinese medicine and is actually given on a prescription in China. But also, it can be sold over the counter as well as includes another confectionary that has a degree of prestige attached to it as well. And it's basically sold with health benefits very often targeted at women. But like the other collagen supplements that are sold, it is basically the extraction of the collagen cells in this instance from donkeys, which is then mixed with other ingredients and sold with the ejiao very often as sort of a dark slab which you break off and then make into a tea.

MK: And what are the purported health benefits of ejiao now?

SIAN EDWARDS: Well, I'm not a medical practitioner in Chinese medicine, but the general reason why it's often popular is for women to help with periods, child birth, considered a blood tonic, those sorts of things. And it's very often gifted to women perhaps by other female members of the family, as I said, with sort of just the element of gift giving around it. So it's more than just going in and buying a packet of powder off the shelf. It does have kind of a cultural significance as well which can't be ignored.

MK: And what are you seeing with the harvesting of this? What are you seeing is the impact on the donkey population?

SIAN EDWARDS: Well, the issue with the product, aside from the donkey welfare issues, the demand and the multi-billion pound ejiao industry is so great. There simply aren't enough donkeys. Certainly not in China where the majority of the ejiao is sold. The industry requires about five million donkeys. So the producers of ejiao go around the globe and they basically extract donkeys from where there are higher donkey populations. And donkeys aren’t farmed very easily. They don’t reproduce like cattle or sheep might, but they are used for people's livelihoods. So they go to countries where there are high numbers of donkeys in communities precisely because the donkeys are needed. And those donkeys are sometimes willingly sold, but very often stolen or trafficked as well and then slaughtered in country. And then their skins are exported to China to be made into ejiao. So that's having a huge crisis for people, never mind the donkey welfare. It's really causing people who depend on donkeys for their livelihoods a huge problem. And children are getting pulled out of school to do the donkey work. And inevitably it falls to women to pick up the work that the donkeys would otherwise have done.

MK: Yeah. And I'm hearing that the focus has been on the African continent. So tell me more about that, the impact of the loss of donkeys that has on communities in Africa.

SIAN EDWARDS: Well, it absolutely is in Africa. And as you can imagine, all the jobs that donkeys do for communities where they need to have donkeys to cart water, to take their goods to market. If those donkeys are gone from communities, then literally there is no way for the families to sustain themselves and they lose their income and potentially, as I say, have to withdraw children out of education if they're being educated because the work force is needed. I must also say it's not just Africa. This is a global issue. And the donkey Sanctuary’s campaigns, which particularly in South America for example, we have a campaign team in Brazil, speaking to your previous guest’s point. And we have a campaign in Brazil at the moment to try and get Brazil to agree to a ban of slaughter of donkeys in order to safeguard the population that is there.

MK: I must admit, Sian, I knew nothing about this prior to doing my research about these conversations. How many donkeys are we talking about are killed to support this industry?

SIAN EDWARDS: From extrapolation from the ejiao industry's own figures, we reckon about five million donkeys every year were needed. And the demand is growing. So we can see that number increasing.

MK: Is that any way sustainable?

SIAN EDWARDS: It's not sustainable. That's exactly the problem that the industry has. We've already seen in the last five or 10 years where the ejiao industries have gone and have bought up the donkeys in certain countries and communities and now there are no donkeys there. They have to move. Our campaign is constantly moving because once the donkey population is depleted somewhere, they have to go somewhere else. There just simply aren't enough donkeys. And as I mentioned before, they just don't breed very well. China have tried to put a donkey breeding program in place. And they kind of produced some, but not enough for the demand that the industry requires. The good news is there are humane alternatives available. The cellular agriculture industry, for example, is already being used in terms of collagen and animal protein food and also in some instances, pharmaceuticals. So we see that as a potential area of growth to help provide enough collagen in a humane, clean and sustainable way for the ejiao industry.

MK: So are the companies hearing your alarm call here?

SIAN EDWARDS: Well, we think they are. We believe they are. And we obviously try and engage in conversation. But while there is an economic power that is able to be meaningful to countries that require economic support, and that economic support, perhaps that infrastructure that money provides in terms of social improvement. But it comes at a cost. And the cost is the country's donkeys and the livelihoods of the people that depend on those donkeys. So we know that there is a sense of this constantly, them having to move and constantly find new places to get their donkeys. And we are doing our best at the Donkey Sanctuary to have meaningful conversations with the ejiao producers so we can discuss these possible alternatives with them and hopefully see the trade end and the industry become sustainable, which they say themselves that's what they want. But as of yet, we aren’t seeing any outcomes to show that that's happening.

MK: Sian, thanks for your time.

SIAN EDWARDS: Thank you.

MK: Sian Edwards is head of campaigns at the Donkey Sanctuary in the UK. She was in Devon. As we mentioned, the collagen industry is worth billions, thanks to its enticing promise of youth. But the health benefits of these supplements aren't clear. Michael White is a pharmacist and distinguished professor at the University of Connecticut School of Pharmacy. Good morning.

MICHAEL WHITE: Hi. How are you?

MK: I'm doing well, and I'm fascinated to learn more about this collagen. And what exactly is the role of collagen in our bodies?

MICHAEL WHITE: Yes. So I think if we're talking about the skin itself, collagen and elastin are a couple of ingredients that are underneath the skin that help to provide a support structure, that help to hold your skin up, you know, and keep it in its place. So when you age, one of the things that happens is that the collagen that you're developing in your face, on your neck ends up becoming shorter and ends up becoming in disarray. So instead of being, you know, aligned in such a way that they're maximally helping to pull your skin up, you know, they kind of zigzag a little bit more. And in that process, they don't do as good of a job of holding your skin up and having the same level of tone. The other thing with collagen is that it helps to promote some increased fluid retention inside your skin. You know, what they would call hydration. And if your skin is a little more hydrated, then it ends up, you know, looking less wrinkly, right? Because you're a little puffier.

MK: But how effective are these collagen supplements? Is there research to show that these supplements actually make a difference?

MICHAEL WHITE: Yeah. There are some studies for collagen in general. Those are hydrolyzed collagen, but not for donkey collagen. Donkey collagen is like a huge black box where you'd have to extrapolate from the other collagen products. And guess what that benefit would be when you're talking about human trials. So in the human trials, one of the things that concerns me is that when they look at different markers, so some of the markers for skin hydration, it looks like, you know, there is some improvement in skin hydration overall when you look at all of the studies. But when you look at each individual study, what you see is that most of the studies are showing very little to no benefit. And then a couple of these studies are showing really, really big benefits. And so one of the things that concerns people that are in that field of doing meta-analysis is that there's the possibility for publication bias, right? So you want to sell these products. So you pay to do a study and you show lo and behold that there's no benefit or that it's actually a little bit worse. Do you ever publish that study? Probably not. If you do a study and then just based on chance, right, there’s one out of 20 studies that shows this really huge effect, you do rush out to publish that study and then that's the one that ends up in the marketing. Hey, you could see effects that are all the way out here when the reality is you see very, very little to no benefit in most of the different features. So skin elasticity, hydration and wrinkles all show when you put all the studies together a small degree of benefit that's promising, but it's certainly not proven given the kinds of the studies that are in there. And so when you do these studies, there's one thing they look at, which is this eye-squared statistic. And it looks for statistical heterogeneity. And if it's above 50%, then they say, hey, you know, this really isn't a homogenous population. You probably shouldn't be pooling all these studies together. The statistical heterogeneity for all of those end points we talked about is over 90%. So really, this is a pretty weak overall dataset. The second thing is that not whether or not there's a possibility that it can work because there is a possibility that it can work. But does it work better than things like green tea polyphenols or coffee polyphenols or hyaluronic acid or ceramides or lactobacillus? You know, some of the stuff that's in there like probiotics that are, you know, in yoghurt and other probiotic products. In there, we all see the same kind of effect when you look at the studies that have been done, very small levels of benefit. Seems like it's a little better than doing nothing. But I don't see that the collagen data is stand out and amazing in relation to all of these other products.

MK: So what sort of standards are in place to hold companies accountable for the claims that they make considering as we've heard this morning, the environmental impact the product has?

MICHAEL WHITE: Yeah. So, you know, if you're trying to sell it as a dietary supplement in the United States, then you need to put, you know, you need to say things like could promote healthy ageing or could promote something that's like that.

MK: Or could lead to deforestation in the Amazon.

MICHAEL WHITE: Right. Yeah. So the environmental impact is not something that's one of the requirements. And when you make one of those general statements, you then have to say in the United States, right, that the product isn't reviewed by the FDA, is not intended to cure, mitigate or treat any disease. But, you know, what happens is that people can go and they can get celebrity people to go in and talk about their personal experience. In an around about way, these social influencers or these celebrities, you know, can say, hey, you know, I tried it and I felt my skin was less wrinkly. I felt like I had greater tone. And it's a lot harder to be able to get around doing something like that, right? So that's something that people usually like to do there. Or, you know, you have people that write articles for cosmetic magazines and other things telling them about their personal experience or, you know, they'll go in and they'll pick studies, but they'll pick the outlier studies rather than the majority of the studies showing that the benefits are really small. And in those cases, you know, what they're doing is they're creating a selection bias where they went into the totality of all the studies and then they cherry picked the ones that they wanted you to see.

MK: Eye opening conversation. Michael, thank you for your time.

MICHAEL WHITE: Thank you.

MK: Michael White is a pharmacist and distinguished professor at the University of Connecticut School of Pharmacy. Well, I learned a lot on this morning's program, and that is our program for today. Q is next on CBC Radio One. Last night, I don't know if you were watching. I was. It was a big one for Canadian music. The 52nd annual Juno Awards were hosted in Edmonton. The Weeknd was the big winner, picking up enough awards to surpass Celine Dion and Bryan Adams in number of overall wins. He also got a few boos last night as well because he didn't show up. Now he just trails Anne Marie who holds the crown at 25 Junos. So to take us out, a song to dance to from The Weeknd. This is Take My Breath. I'm Mark Kelley. Thanks for listening to The Current.

[Song: “Take My Breath” by The Weeknd]

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Tuesday March 14, 2023 Episode Transcript

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