Pro-Iran Hackers Attack US Healthcare Giant Stryker

Stryker cyber attack by Handala Hackers; Iran’s new supreme leader - is he even alive?; DOGE dummy Justin Fox can’t explain DEI; Timmy Chalamet messes with the wrong opera house

DOGE & DEI:

• Arghavan’s video about the DOGE bro who can’t even define DEI

Stryker Attack:

• Ransomware Attacks and Data Breaches in US Health Care Systems
• Al Jazeera reporting
• How ‘Handala’ Became the Face of Iran’s Hacker Counterattacks
• Cybercrime integration in Iran’s government

Iran Power:

• Summary of Mojtaba Khamenei’s statement
• English translation of Mojtaba Khamenei’s full statement
• Overview of Mojtaba Khamenei via NYT
• Summary of Iranian women’s soccer team situation
• Iranian women’s soccer team lands in Malaysia
• Arghavan’s video about the Iranian women’s soccer team
• Khamenei senior had expressly stated in the past he did not want his son to succeed him because that goes against the Islamic revolution, part of which was to end hereditary succession.
• Trump had said appointing Mojtaba was “unacceptable” to him, which may have further incentivized the Islamic Republic of Iran to choose him.

💊Take Two and Call Me in the Morning💊

• Smiling Kokaka (quokka eating a leaf)
• Rodent eating peas in a pod
• Summary of Timothée Chalamet’s ballet and opera controversy
• Seattle Opera’s Timothee promo
• Metropolitan Opera’s post
• Antarctica Dive
• Rescued Marine Veterinarian

Thanks for listening to The Present Illness! 

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Credits

• Production by Arghavan Salles & Alyssa Burgart
• Editing by Alyssa Burgart
• Theme Music by Joseph Uphoff
• Social Media by Arghavan Salles

Transcript

Arghavan (00:00)
Hey there, fellow nerds. Welcome to another episode of The Present Illness. This is a podcast where two physicians try to make sense of a world that's a little febrile and definitely underdiagnosed. I'm Arghavan Salles, a surgeon scientist, and your friendly neighborhood doom scroller in residence.

Alyssa Burgart (00:16)
And I'm Alyssa Burgart an anesthesiologist and bioethicist who tracks news and health law like they're EKGs full of spikes and surprises. The present illness is where we dig into public health, politics, culture, and ethics with a scalpel in one hand and a meme in the other.

Arghavan (00:30)
Big thanks to everyone listening, an extra love to our subscribers and our followers, and a special warm welcome to anyone who just stumbled in from learning how much the Pentagon wasted in September.

Alyssa Burgart (00:44)
and how much did the Pentagon waste in September?

Arghavan (00:48)
93 billion with a B dollars in one month?

Alyssa Burgart (00:56)
⁓ it's

Okay, okay, and I'm just think

Arghavan (01:00)
Yeah, because remember what was happening?

Do you remember what was happening in September? They were cutting snap.

Alyssa Burgart (01:05)
That's exactly what I was just thinking of. was like, wait, so we spent that much money for the Pentagon, but we were like, no, children should not have food.

Arghavan (01:13)
But it's even better because you wanna know like some of the things that they spent money on. $225 million for furniture. $5 million on Apple devices. $2 million on musical instruments. I mean, I love music, but. ⁓

Alyssa Burgart (01:29)
I'm sorry, what

musical instruments does the Pentagon need? That's not their job.

Arghavan (01:32)
Well, included,

so one, I don't have the detail on this specific thing, but I know I read that one of the things was a grand piano for somebody's home.

Alyssa Burgart (01:42)
Yeah, well, those are expensive.

Arghavan (01:44)
and it'll add up, you know? Yeah, was a, actually I found that, it was an almost $100,000 Steinway & Sons grand piano for the Air Force Chief of Staff's home.

Alyssa Burgart (01:51)
I

was literally wondering if it was a Steinway. And I'm sorry, you said it was for somebody's home?

Arghavan (02:00)
Correct. The Air Force Chief of Staff's home. $7 million on lobster tail. $2 million on king crab. $15 million on ribeye steak.

Alyssa Burgart (02:14)
Listen, let them eat cake. I mean, what sort of farcical government are we in right now?

Arghavan (02:24)
$140,000 worth of donuts.

Alyssa Burgart (02:28)
Well, that's not cake, but okay.

Arghavan (02:30)
I'm just saying in one month,

I just, I think it's hard to fathom how much one billion, one billion is.

Alyssa Burgart (02:39)
I can't imagine it.

Arghavan (02:41)
And this is 93 billion in one month because the explanations have been given is that like they're, if they don't spend the money, then, you know how like a lot of budgets are. If you don't spend the money, then the next budget season, they're like, oh, well, you didn't need the money. So we're gonna lower your budget. And so this was like supposedly spending to make sure they zeroed out the budget so that they could continue to get astronomical amounts of funding for.

Alyssa Burgart (03:06)
But like,

know how it's like you have an extra ticket to a concert and you're like, wow, it's a real bummer. I can't use that ticket. I couldn't find anybody to go with me. You know what? I'm going to give it away. Wouldn't that be cool? Like, what if they were like instead, they were like, wow, we have a boatload of money. Like we have so much money for, you know, war and whatnot. What if instead, now hear me out, we were like, wow, it seems like there's a lot of Americans that could really benefit from having access to health care and food.

Arghavan (03:17)
Yeah. Yeah.

Alyssa Burgart (03:36)
Maybe we should just, you know, do a little transfer. Well, little funds transfer. I mean, I feel like that would have been better. I mean, I'm just saying.

Arghavan (03:45)
Listen, you don't have to convince me. I think that would have been great. And you know, what else could I use that money is research funding. So yeah, there were ⁓ other uses of that money that I think might have been more helpful. And just a reminder for everyone that this is the administration that was intent on eliminating waste, fraud and abuse.

Alyssa Burgart (03:50)
⁓

I mean, empty the swamp, bitches.

Arghavan (04:10)
No, they brought the swamp in. They built the swamp. In fact, that's why they took out the East Wing of the White House so they can build a swamp right there and they can all feel at home.

Anyway, yeah.

Alyssa Burgart (04:23)
or a data center, who knows?

my gosh. Well,

listen, people, we are so glad that you are here. We know that none of you would spend billions of dollars on the Pentagon when you could feed children. As a note to our new listeners, we often talk about topics that can be intense. They can be kind of a lot. So you may not want to listen to this with your little ones. ⁓ But I thought before we get into the episode, I thought that I would share a listener shout out. And you know, you know, I love reading these to you. I love it.

Arghavan (04:54)
Please do.

I

love hearing them.

Alyssa Burgart (04:58)
Okay, so first of all, five out of five stars, obviously. This is, it says, Dr. Salles and Burgart are informative and funny and appropriately disgruntled slash enraged. If you're interested in the intersection of science, healthcare and politics, check this one out.

Arghavan (05:18)
got it down. They nailed it. Thank you so much. ⁓ Who was the do you know who the person was what their name was?

Alyssa Burgart (05:21)
We accept.

⁓ it was somebody

whose ⁓ nickname is called not seeing it or their handle. Yeah. Thank you. Not seeing it.

Arghavan (05:29)
Okay, great. Well, thank you so much.

Because I think you saw it. That does make me think I just one thing before we get into our main topics for today. ⁓ Something that I think we won't have time to discuss in much detail today is that there's ⁓ yesterday I saw or I think it was yesterday, we're recording on Thursday, March 12. ⁓ Video of the deposition of one of the Doge employees who was responsible for

Alyssa Burgart (05:34)
You did. We agree.

Arghavan (05:58)
basically identifying which grants to terminate. And it was, someone whose grant was terminated, it was so infuriating. Like it would be funny if these folks had not caused so much damage because the way it went, this is almost exactly, to our listeners, this is almost exactly how it went. It was like the questioner asks him, his name is Justin Fox. The questioner asks him, know,

how do you know if something is DEI? He goes, well, it was in the EO. Okay, what does it say in the EO? And he goes, I don't know, I don't remember what's in the EO. And the questioner goes, okay, well, do you have an understanding of what DEI is? And he's by the way, nodding his head vigorously this whole time. And he's like, yes. And then the questioner is like, so what is DEI? And he goes, it's in the EO. And the questioner is like, but let's just step back from the methodology that you all use.

Do you yourself sitting right here today have an understanding of what DEI is? And he goes, yes. And so the questioner is like, what is it? And then the guy goes, it's what's in the EEO. was just like going around in circles. Again, I'm laughing because it's so absurd. And if there had not been huge consequences for so many people, including myself, it really would just be funny. But instead it is extremely aggravating that people who don't even know what they're talking about

were put in charge of determining what research was allowed to continue and not. And this was part of a briefing ⁓ for a case that involves the National Endowment for the Humanities. So they went on to ask him about funding they had terminated for a documentary about women in the Holocaust, Jewish women in the Holocaust. And he says, well, that was DEI and it's discriminatory.

And the questioner is like, what about it is discriminatory? Of course he can't say, but he says, well, it's because it's about a specific group. And then he's like, what group? And he's like, females, since it's about females and Jewish people.

Alyssa Burgart (07:56)
I mean, let's be honest, if you hear

anybody refer to women as females, you know that they are very down with discrimination. Down with it. That's a red flag.

Arghavan (08:04)
That's correct. They have gone somewhere Yeah,

and they're down the red pill pathway. Anyway, it you know, this is coming from that last piece I just mentioned because this coming from the administration that supposedly is fighting anti-semitism that's like their big thing that they hide behind to carry out a lot of their harm that they've inflicted on higher education and that this grant that was for

Creating a documentary about the Holocaust is one of the things they chose to terminate because it was so called discriminatory Dei and last thing I'll say is that as I was watching this guy flounder Really Justin has no idea what he's saying and he's trying to justify decisions that make no sense ⁓ He's and he's using these labels like discriminatory I was reminded of the words that they were searching for in some of these grants. There was an NSF word list that was

leaked and women and female and females were on those lists, all the various versions that we saw, but we never saw male or males or men on those lists. So you have to imagine, like I was thinking about like the baseball documentary by Ken Burns, right? Like is that discriminatory in Justin's mind? I'm sure it's not because it's men. Anything about men is fine, but anything about women or anything about Jewish people, anything about, he even used the phrase marginalized voices, which I thought was interesting. was like, I didn't even know you.

knew that, but it was probably written in the grant. It's probably where he got it from.

Alyssa Burgart (09:32)
I mean, it was

funny because the only clip of this that I've seen so far was actually your clip ⁓ that I just happened to see right before we logged on to record this episode. I mean, what was wild to me was that they kept asking me, I'm like, so what is DEI? And like, he couldn't even come up with three words that started with D, E and I, like, and he didn't try. I don't know that he could have remembered. He didn't even, I mean, he literally couldn't just be like,

Arghavan (09:37)
Yeah.

Alyssa Burgart (10:02)
things that are associated with diversity, equity and inclusion. Well, and the EO didn't use those words, it just said DEI. Because it's like, it's just, anyway, these people are too stupid to be in charge yet here we are.

Arghavan (10:09)
That's That's right. think ⁓

exactly right. It's just like another symptom of the elevation of incompetence under the guise of meritocracy, is what this administration is really ⁓ excelling at, to be honest. Incompetence and lack of insight, lack of planning, it's just like whatever, fly by the seat of our pants.

Alyssa Burgart (10:24)
and carelessness. Yeah.

Arghavan (10:41)
Anyway, so that's apparently how they were making these decisions. People who had no idea what they were talking about. I will say in Justin's defense that I think I may have seen a clip somewhere where he did use the words diversity, equity, and inclusion, but when they were asking him like, does that mean, he just couldn't come up with anything other than it's what's in the EO. And the EO's viewpoint was

Alyssa Burgart (11:01)
What a time to be alive.

Arghavan (11:02)
And the EO, as you said, was very vague. So I don't even know what he means when he says they would consult the EO for what? Like the EO was a bunch of garbage. Anyway, all right, shall we move on to our main topics for today?

Alyssa Burgart (11:15)
Absolutely. Well, let me tell you, I... It's, you know, when you and I started this, we could not have anticipated how much activity there would be in Iran. You know, like you and I weren't like, hey, let's do a podcast about Iran. Let's talk about Iran all the time. Like that was not the pitch. ⁓ But there's news today, and like you said, we're recording on March 12th, late on March 11th, which is...

Arghavan (11:28)
Yeah!

No.

Alyssa Burgart (11:45)
Wednesday of this week that our episodes coming out. ⁓ There was a massive cyber attack on Stryker, which is one of the, it's like a mega healthcare corporation. make tons of, as you know, medical devices, artificial joints. They operate ⁓ a bunch of health technology, both devices and software. And when people are like, why are you guys talking about Iran so much?

How does Iran connect to health? Well, today's the day for that to be as absolutely obvious as possible to many Americans is this wiper attack that took place was in retaliation for bombing potentially of the school in, was it Manab? Am I saying that right? And the hacker group

Arghavan (12:32)
Mm-hmm. ⁓

Alyssa Burgart (12:37)
It's both a pro-Palestinian and a pro-Iranian group. It sounds like it's funded in many ways through the Iranian government, the Handala hack team is apparently linked with the Ministry of Intelligence and Security. So for folks who start ⁓ reading about this online, you might see MOIS, and that's what that's in reference to.

And so Handala wiped apparently more than 200,000 of Stryker devices. Apparently a bunch of Stryker employees and they have like, I don't know, 56,000 people in many, many countries. And a bunch of people use their phones as I do. I use my phone as an alarm clock and a lot of people did not wake up. Their alarm didn't go off and they, that was because their phone had been wiped in the night by Handala. ⁓

Arghavan (13:26)
Wow.

Alyssa Burgart (13:30)
And when people showed up to work, there was literally a sign posted. ⁓ Portage, Michigan is where the main Stryker headquarters is. And they had signs on the doors saying like, business is closed today. Please do not open your computers. Do not use your phones. ⁓ There's this massive, massive ⁓ data problem. So apparently for the people who had shown up to work on time who have maybe regular alarm clocks.

Arghavan (13:57)
you

Alyssa Burgart (13:57)
When they went to open their computers, they were greeted with this symbol of the Handala hacker group. And I didn't realize this, the logo that apparently appeared, I just was doing a little bit of searching. It's a 1969 cartoon from somebody named ⁓ Najee Al Ali. I hope I'm saying that correctly. And it's apparently an iconic figure that represents a 10-year-old Palestinian refugee who refuses to show his face until he returns to his homeland.

And so the picture is sort of of a little child who's facing away and his backside looks quite dirty. And then it says like Handala around it. So I'll put a link in the show notes to a little bit more about that also. But I did not expect that this morning I would be learning so much about ⁓ hacktivist groups that are affiliated with Iran and trying to support Iran. And it's very interesting because of course,

This is a way to attack Americans that doesn't require any bombs at all. It's keystrokes. know, hacker groups are, and for folks who don't realize also like hospitals and healthcare systems are constantly being under cyber attack. And so any sort of weakness in these cyber systems can be found by a hacker group that's very motivated and then exploited. And so,

Arghavan (15:01)
Mm-hmm.

Alyssa Burgart (15:25)
There is not a hospital in America, as far as I know, that doesn't have at least some product or device that is affiliated with Stryker. That is just, that is a common word to hear around the operating room. I hear the word Stryker all day long in our ORs.

Arghavan (15:31)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, I mean, we

use Stryker devices ⁓ for laparoscopy frequently, either their insulators or their cameras or other devices. So they are, yeah, they're quite prevalent in operating rooms. I'm curious, haven't, I had kind of seen the headlines about this, but hadn't read about it in depth. And I was curious about, well, here's what I heard. I had heard that apparently they got in through some admin account that had like,

control over or not maybe not controller but has access to all the other devices that are like part of the company's devices and then because they were able to get into that one account they could wipe out all these other devices what I hadn't heard and I don't know if you know is how like any of these devices that are being used in hospitals were they affected by this hack like were they not able to use were there like cases that had to be canceled like do know what the extent of the impact was

Alyssa Burgart (16:37)
I don't think that we know the full extent yet. And part of it, I think, is that this has just started. We're not even 24 hours into this attack. ⁓ I know that ⁓ our hospital system sent out multiple emails this morning saying, like, we are aware of this issue. We're figuring out what's happening. Stryker does run something called the LifeNet system, which is a data and asset management system that's supposed to help

Arghavan (16:43)
Thank

Alyssa Burgart (17:01)
⁓ patient devices communicate with healthcare systems, they say that that particular tool was not impacted, ⁓ which is reassuring because that's obviously a big connection where for patients, for example, who have monitoring devices that are meant to provide alerts to their healthcare providers, they're saying that that hasn't been impacted. Again, I think we're gonna find out more as this unfolds. ⁓ But yeah, apparently,

Arghavan (17:19)
Mm-hmm.

I see.

Alyssa Burgart (17:30)
the hacker group was able to find at least some access to administrator level data. And whether that was through one particular account or if there were others, it's not entirely clear. ⁓ It is disconcerting to me that...

Arghavan (17:41)
Mm-hmm.

Alyssa Burgart (17:52)
Stryker was not perhaps more prepared for this. And I think that this incident is going to be a massive wake up call to every single health technology company and banks and like other ⁓ businesses that like, a lot of our data is very insecure. We want to believe that it's secure, but ⁓ apparently Handala has basically just wiped.

Arghavan (17:55)
Hmm.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Alyssa Burgart (18:21)
terabytes of data, just gone. you know, that's a real, it's interesting because it's different from ⁓ a malware attack where you would insert code that would sort of pollute your system or a ransomware attack where you would hold a system hostage to achieve some goal. ⁓ This was just straight up destruction. They were like, wiping it out.

Arghavan (18:38)
Mm-hmm. Right, right.

Yeah, that's

scary. It's really scary how easily that can be done.

Alyssa Burgart (18:51)
Yeah, and so,

and you know, what I'm not clear about as well is for Stryker devices that are in hospitals, I'm very curious to find out what may have come of that or, you know, because certainly if you think about the laparoscopy equipment, know, some of it, it's equipment that works on its own. It's not connected into any sort of like Stryker system necessarily.

Arghavan (19:05)
You're good.

Yeah.

Alyssa Burgart (19:18)
But I imagine that some of their more complex tools that are used for like, you know, stereotactic procedures or other things that actually do require ⁓ Stryker software. I don't know if those things are impact, have been impacted in this, in this attack. It's interesting too, because I will also be curious if all of this data has been lost. there backups? Like what, how?

Arghavan (19:26)
huh, huh.

Yeah.

Alyssa Burgart (19:48)
prepared was Stryker in terms of how much of this is just straight up lost. How much of that was data that was being maintained that they're just gonna have to live without? I don't know.

Arghavan (19:50)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah, that will

be I mean I was interested when I heard the story and ⁓ I'll be curious to see what more we learn and whether there will be more because I don't know if you saw but I'm like Gavin Newsom Newsom made some comments yesterday about the risk of Iran launching something at California and Like a missile, you know, like at California and what they're what steps they're taking to like protect ⁓

us, guess, you know, since we're both based in California. ⁓ But I don't think that's super, I mean, they're very far away from us. I think it would be, I think that would be less likely to happen. And I think we're more likely to see more things like this, like they might, you might start to see more sectors affected by these types of cyber attacks as a way of ⁓ overcoming the geographical challenge.

for folks who are that far away. So like, you we can't, we don't have a bomb we can send over there, but we can do a lot of damage otherwise ⁓ as long as this war continues.

Alyssa Burgart (21:05)
Well,

absolutely. for folks may or may not recall, back in 2024, there was a ransomware attack on the Change Healthcare system, which is like multiple hospitals that are all connected in a system. And that was a different kind of attack. It was a ransomware attack, not a data wiping attack. But 100 million Americans' health data, their private health data, was exposed.

It disrupted care across the United States to all sorts of facilities that are part of this change healthcare network of service providers. And it ended up costing $2.4 billion in terms of the cost to respond to it. Now that's nothing on the Pentagon cost. mean, okay. It's like little, but $2.4 billion is still a lot. Billion with a B.

Arghavan (21:44)
Mm-hmm.

Sounds like a lot to me.

Alyssa Burgart (22:03)
Yeah, well,

the other thing that I, and I think about this all the time, because I think about cyber attacks and I, we, I know that there are many attacks that happen on organizations. And also if you think about, even just for people like calling in like a bomb threat, for example, right? Like if somebody fakes a bomb threat, ⁓ you can still shut down an entire hospital. And so this is also a way where,

Arghavan (22:28)
Yeah, that's right.

Alyssa Burgart (22:32)
I think we're gonna see increasingly complex ways that hacktivists are able to disrupt not just healthcare, but other sectors as you mentioned.

anytime that like the epic system goes down, even for a few hours, it is a wild disruption. I think that at this point, you know, patients are very, you know, patients say all the time, like, it's in the computer. It's in the it's in the record. Can't you look it up? And

Arghavan (22:56)
You

Alyssa Burgart (23:00)
I will tell you the first time, and like you and I are both of the millennial, the elder millennial age that like, you know, we've had exposure to paper charts and like kind of know what that used to, I used to chart all of my anesthesia charting was on paper on triplicate. had like triplicate papers that I wrote all my anesthetic records. And when epic goes down, you go from having like this comprehensive, incredible

Arghavan (23:14)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Alyssa Burgart (23:23)
story you can put together of like where your patient's been and what's their journey been and when did they get diagnosed with something and here's all the medications they tried and here's their allergy list and when that system goes down what you have is nothing you have to go back to basics and do an entire from scratch history and physical about like their entire life to be like so I want you to be safe today and I literally know nothing about you so

Arghavan (23:26)
Mm-hmm.

Alyssa Burgart (23:53)
we're gonna have to figure that out together. And it's a massive disruption of care. And as much as I don't love the electronic healthcare record, I think there's a lot of room for it to be improved. It is absolutely something that we rely on. And so I certainly hope that Epic is doing a lot of work right now to shore up their cybersecurity. Because can you imagine?

Arghavan (23:55)
Ha

I do too. I mean, that would be really catastrophic

if they got hacked. So many hospitals rely, and clinics, not just hospitals, rely on Epic. ⁓ Well, thank you for bringing us that story. I will be interested to see how this develops. Related? Mm-hmm.

Alyssa Burgart (24:35)
Well, and I'll tell you, I was

very proud to be the one who got to bring the Iranian story today.

Arghavan (24:42)
I mean, at this point,

I feel like you're also Iranian. It's like, you know, Iranian by proxy, so.

Alyssa Burgart (24:48)
I'm

Iranian adjacent. I'm learning Tahrif.

Arghavan (24:52)
You sure are. Well, I think so this is a good spot to segue, I think to the new Supreme Leader in Iran. yeah, so I want to tell you more, but I want to start with what connects most closely to what you said, which is that, and the story about the hacking. He made a statement, supposedly, I should back up and say that we're not totally sure that he's alive and well. ⁓

Alyssa Burgart (25:02)
Ugh, okay. Tell me more.

Arghavan (25:22)
The statement that came out was read by somebody on TV with like a photo of him on the screen. ⁓

Alyssa Burgart (25:27)
So

this is something that was attributed to him, but we don't have any proof of life.

Arghavan (25:30)
Correct.

Correct. There are people, I have heard Iranians saying that he's in an ICU somewhere on a ventilator. There are definitely suspicions that he was injured. Actually, I think even Iran, the Iranian government admitted that he had been injured. you're, if folks remember the day that his father, Khamenei, the previous Supreme leader was killed, Moishtaba's mother, his dad's

wife was also killed, Mostaba's wife was also killed, and then one of Mostaba's sons was also killed in that attack. And so it's not surprising that he might've been injured because he was presumably in the same place as his loved ones. how severe the injuries are, no one really knows, ⁓ but he's not been on TV. We've not seen him. ⁓ Even as they've like celebrated his ascent to the role of Supreme Leader.

following in his father's footsteps. So today was the first kind of communication that supposedly came from him, but like you said, it's attributed to him unclear whether he actually is alive, unclear whether he, ⁓ if he is alive, has the capacity to be making a statement or writing a statement like this. And it's quite a long statement and we're not gonna read it, but the part I wanted to highlight is,

where he talks about kind of how he's thinking about this current war. And he says, I assure everyone, this was translated by an Iranian news agency, I assure everyone that we will not forego taking vengeance for the blood of your martyrs. He's talking to the Iranian people.

The vengeance we intend is not solely related to the martyrdom of the great leader of the revolution, rather every member of the nation martyred by the enemy is a separate subject for the vengeance file. Of course, a limited amount of this vengeance has materialized so far, but until its full extent is achieved, this file will remain on top of other matters and we will have particular sensitivity regarding the blood of our children. Therefore, the crime deliberately committed by the enemy at the Shadjah Rehtayyeh Bah school in Minhab and similar incidents

holds a special significance in this regard. ⁓ And he goes on later in the statement, I won't read this part to you, but he goes on to talk to the leaders of the other kind of Gulf countries, countries in that region and the countries where Iran has been bombing US military bases, saying that he basically requests that these countries close those bases as a rejection of the US's, ⁓ he says,

of establishing security and peace. And he tries to make clear that these attacks on these military bases are intended to only be attacks on the United States. They're not trying, he says, or whoever wrote this says, to ⁓ fracture relations with these countries that they value and see as friends, supposedly. That's kind of what the gist of that part is. ⁓ He also says that the Strait of Hormuz will...

remain closed, as long as this goes on apparently. ⁓

Alyssa Burgart (28:51)
And can you just, for people who don't understand, why does the straight-up hormones matter? Like, why is that such a power point?

Arghavan (28:56)
Yeah.

So 20 % of the world's oil comes through the Strait of Hormuz and ⁓ that strait is really controlled by Iran. They, when people have asked me like, you know, is it like, what do mean by closed? So it's not a physical barrier. It's that they have threatened that anybody trying to go through there will get attacked and they have attacked multiple oil tankers and other ships that have gone through there.

What is a very interesting kind of power move by the Iranian government is that their own oil is still being able to move through the strait. And so they're still able to ship their oil out while preventing anyone else from doing so, which is another way to hurt the US and the rest of the world while still profiting off the land themselves. That's what they're very, very good at. The Islamic Republic of Iran is taking advantage of and exploiting

the land that really should belong to the country. anyway, it's, you know, there's been issues with insurers not wanting ships to move through there saying they won't cover any damage that is incurred because it's not safe to go through there. And that's part of why there's lower traffic, but also just people making rational decisions that it's not worth the risk of having your ship.

bombed because they've been very clear that that's what they're going to do to ships that are moving through there. And so that's why we've seen the price of oil rising. Last I heard was $180 a barrel apparently. No, I'm sorry, $120 a barrel. And apparently it had gotten to over 140 some odd was the last time it was really high and that was in 2008.

Alyssa Burgart (30:41)
I should have bought gas last week. I always wait too long.

Arghavan (30:44)
I know I was so lucky

I filled up on Thursday right before the Saturday strikes and I don't drive that much so I'm okay for the moment but obviously we all need gas because we have not chosen to adopt really full-scale alternate energy sources because in part in large part because of this current president who stopped all green energy efforts basically. ⁓

Anyway, so we could have been in a position where we were less dependent on oil, but we have made choices. Well, not you and I, but people in charge have made choices that continue to force us to be reliant on oil. And some people have said in my comments, like, well, they can just get the oil from Venezuela. the oil companies have been very clear that they can't actually use that oil. It needs a lot of processing because of the state that it's in just naturally there in Venezuela. And so it's really not usable.

So that's not likely to be a short-term outcome here. What's most likely is that just oil prices are going to continue to go up and Iran is going to use that as leverage. I mean, that's basically what this statement says. This is leverage that we have and we'll continue to use it. You know, one of the things that I think is concerning to a lot of people around the world is that this is totally foreseeable. Like, I mean, there's no, it's not surprising that they would do this and how did...

I mean, this is what you would ask with a rational administration, like how did you not have a plan for this? But obviously we know that this administration has no plans for anything. In fact, Donald Trump earlier this week said, we've won the war, even though it's continuing. And the people, okay, this is funny, I'll just say this for a minute. He did say that somebody asked him like,

Percentage-wise like how far are we in this war as your assessment? He was like, the war is nearly complete I know what it's kind of a weird question to ask that so he said the war is nearly complete and the person said well But he peaked Pete Hex that said today that is just starting and he said well, it's both ⁓ For us, it's nearly complete. But for them, it's still going I Don't know. I mean you have to see it to believe it

Alyssa Burgart (32:47)
mean, and meanwhile,

like the war in Ukraine just hit four years. Like, I mean, I

Arghavan (32:53)
He was supposed to stop

that. He was supposed to stop that, you know, what did he say? His first week in office, he was going to end that war?

Alyssa Burgart (33:00)
Well, we stopped the participating in Afghanistan and look how well that's gone.

Arghavan (33:06)
Yes, yes, and we meaning he released a bunch of Taliban before we left from prison, before we withdrew. So that's why women in Iran, girls in Iran can no longer go to school or get education or become doctors or dentists. And so other women can't ⁓ get health care. That's really going swimmingly. OK, so back to this guy, Mujtaba. I do want to say because not that this person is listening to us, but I saw a newscaster calling him Mujtaba.

Like there's a J in the middle of this guy's name. We don't have the J as an H sound in Farsi. It's Mojtaba. It's not Mojtaba. Yeah, exactly. Spanish is lovely, but yeah, different language. Anyway, so Mojtaba. Mojtaba. So anyway, this guy, so he's the second son of Ali Khamenei. Ali Khamenei being the second supreme leader, the one who was just killed by the United States.

Alyssa Burgart (33:36)
⁓ huh.

⁓ that's very Spanish. That's for different language.

So say it again, how do you say it? Okay.

Arghavan (34:02)
The first supreme leader of Iran from the 1979 revolution was Khomeini. ⁓ And he's been dead since 1989. Thank goodness. Anyway, so Mojtaba was born in Mashhad, which is a very religious city. It's also where his father, the previous supreme leader was born. They moved to Tehran ⁓ somewhere along his youth. He served in the Iran-Iraq War. And ⁓ interestingly, he served, as I read, ⁓

He served under the IRGC so not under the army the Navy the Marines the the official part of the military but under the IRGC which is the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps So I just want to yeah pause for that because I see the confusion there so the IRGC is we've talked before that it's not just a military force or security force, but it's also like involved in the Economy extremely like involved. They say maybe responsible for roughly half of the Iranian economy and also

deeply embedded in the politics of the country. It's a very powerful group, but it's not a military, like it's not the traditional forces that we have in other countries. They are in addition to those forces. And part of the reason is that as the name suggests, Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, their purpose is to protect the Islamic Revolution that happened in Iran. And so it's not to defend the country, it's to protect the revolution.

maintain this system of governance. And that's important because back when the Shah was overthrown in 1979, part of the way that that happened is that the military turned against him, defected, joined with the people. And so this Islamic Revolution Guard Corps,

of its function is to prevent that from happening because even if say the army the navy so on at this moment in time just chose to defect the IRGC is still there defending this system of governance and they're gonna it is confusing yeah i agree so anyway so he had served as i read under the IRGC not under one of the branches of the military and then he later went on to lead the besties the besties is another paramilitary force that is volunteers

Alyssa Burgart (36:03)
I see. I didn't really understand that before.

Arghavan (36:21)
And they're usually plain clothes. So when you see them on the streets, you'll see people looking like you and me. Well, except for their men, you know, I don't think there's I'm not even sure there's any women that are allowed in the business. But anyway, they're they're wearing normal clothes, but carrying a gun. And that's how you know that they're besieged because regular people in Iran don't have a gun. Yeah, they're just walking around with weapons. Yeah. So.

Alyssa Burgart (36:37)
⁓ just open carry.

Arghavan (36:43)
He, Moshtaba was for some period of time at the head of the Basij, which is a rather large force. We don't actually know how many people, I've seen estimates from 1 million to 10 million. It's unclear how many people are part of the Basij. And so he was in charge of that group during the Green Movement. So back in 2009, there had been an election in Iran where the people had been hoping for reform and there had been a reform candidate for president. And I'm not,

going deep into that history right now, but I'll just say that there's a lot of controversy around whether the announced results of that election reflected the votes of the people and the person who won was another hardliner move on to continue the Islamic Republic and not make any changes in support of the people. And there was a massive uprising at that time. So I've often said when we've talked about uprisings, I've mentioned 2009. So that was why it had to do with this election. And so

Around that time, Mojtaba was in charge of the Basij and led a crackdown on the protesters in 2009. So he's known, we don't know a lot about him, at least what I've read in ⁓ English media. My Farsi reading is very slow, just to be fair. So I don't do a lot of my reading in Farsi. So what I've seen in English written media is that he...

is known for being involved in these repressions of people on multiple times over. There are some thoughts that he is, or many thoughts that he is more hardline than his father. I did read somewhere, I forget which outlet today, but US media that maybe he wasn't. I don't trust that as much as what I'm hearing from Iranians, which is that everyone is concerned that he's more hardline than his father. And then these, ⁓

Alyssa Burgart (38:28)
Yeah, I mean, and like,

but also in my been really bad with his dad. It was not great.

Arghavan (38:35)
Right, exactly. So that's the other thing is that people are saying, well, whatever he might have been, I he clearly lost multiple members of his family due to the U.S. And so he's not likely to back down from this war. And certainly that's what we saw in this statement. There was no sense of and we haven't seen that from anybody like the foreign minister or anyone else who's spoken out. We haven't seen signs that they're like willing to negotiate. I mean, the U.S. has asked multiple times since this war started for a conversation and

the leaders in Iran have said, way, why would we talk to you? I mean, the foreign minister went on the news in the US news and said, ⁓ why would we negotiate? Like we, last two times we've negotiated, we've come for multiple rounds of negotiations. We've thought we were making progress and then we get bombed in the middle of it. So why would we do that? And you know that I hate these guys, but like, I mean, that's a reasonable point to make. Like, what are we, why would they negotiate if it's not done in good faith, which is what their assessment is of the US in these negotiations.

Alyssa Burgart (39:28)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Arghavan (39:31)
So basically, yeah, we've got whatever, whatever Mojtaba's like, predilection might have been or whatever his positions might have been before this, there is definitely concern that he's going to be even more anti the US now because of what's happened to his family. And the statement that was put out that was attributed to him certainly is in line with that, you know, he's we're going to get vengeance for every single life that was lost in our country. It's worth noting that

While this is all happening, the government of Iran is also threatening its own people. ⁓ And in many ways, and they're also threatening Iranians in the diaspora saying that our assets will be seized there if we are saying anything against the regime. I mean, many of us have known that they're monitoring us for years now when we post about the Islamic Republic of Iran. And so

They've threatened us, they've threatened, I think we talked before about a threat to people's children. Like if your children are saying the words of the enemy or supporting the enemy, then we will have to kill them and we don't want to do it, but we're going to have to do it. And now they have even more explicit threats saying that anyone who goes out in the streets disagreeing with the Islamic Republic of Iran will be treated as an enemy and will be shot and killed. We're ready to shoot and kill everybody. I mean, that was on state television this week.

It's worth pausing there for a minute because Laura Ingraham was I mean not that like we should pay too much attention what someone like her says but she was like well, aren't Iranians uprising and Trump himself had said if folks recall in the early days of the war well, we did our part now it's in the hands of the Iranian people and When you ask like why aren't they uprising? I mean it just shows such an ignorance of the situation But they're not out in the streets because well one we're raining bombs down on them

And two, because their own government is telling them that if you come out in the streets, we will kill you point blank. And they've set up checkpoints all over cities across the country at night. I mean, I've seen these videos. They have military vehicles that are just running down the streets, an intimidation factor. And they are continuing to do what we've seen them do before, which is to shoot into the windows of people's homes if they're chanting even from inside their homes. So there was

a clear military state there from the government imposed on its own people to make sure that they don't come out in the streets. So I would love for Laura to go to Iran and protest in the streets and see how that goes. Laura ⁓ Ingraham.

Alyssa Burgart (42:05)
Which Laura? ⁓

yeah, she said something. Well, anyway. Yeah, got it.

Arghavan (42:10)
Yeah. So,

you know, if you're going to sit there and say, why aren't they doing that? You know, when you when I just can't imagine that she would under those circumstances. And it's not I don't think it's a reasonable ask ⁓ and to judge people for like not doing that. You know, we I think we talked about this last time that the only survey data really that we have suggest that 70 to 80 percent of Iranians oppose this regime. So it's not like they're not out in the streets because they want to keep this regime, you know.

Alyssa Burgart (42:38)
Well,

but this is also something where I think many Americans do not understand or appreciate that we live in relative safety. you know, we've been able to say whatever we want about our government. It's supposed to be a core tenet of who we are. ⁓ Obviously, the last year or so has started to bring that into question. But I think it's a real example of how folks who are

Arghavan (42:50)
Mm-hmm.

Alyssa Burgart (43:07)
very US centric and don't really know much about what it's like to live in another country so easily dismiss or judge whatever people in other places are doing. And it's like, you have no idea what their lives are like. I wanted to ask you, do you have an update on the soccer players? I've been really worried about the Iranian women's soccer team.

Arghavan (43:19)
That's right.

Yeah, so thank you for bringing that up. ⁓ So the Iranian women's soccer team, in the midst of all of this that's been going on in Iran, they happened to be in Australia for a tournament, the Asian Cup. And their first match for the Asian Cup, they chose, the entire team chose not to sing the national anthem. So the music was playing and they did not sing. After that, they received threats via ⁓ television in Iran, calling them traitors and

saying that they deserved severe punishment because they were traitors during war and this is treason and so there were concerns that they might even be at risk of execution. ⁓ In Australia, there were calls for the Australian government to protect them. The Australian government offered all of them humanitarian visas, which was great. And seven members of the team, including at least one staff member accepted those humanitarian visas. ⁓

which I think is a really remarkable thing to do because at first it was five, ⁓ five players who had accepted the visa. And we knew at that time that the members of three of those five were already being harassed by the police in Iran. ⁓ And that's what they do. mean, they go after people's families to manipulate their behavior. And so if you're a player, if you are one of these women and you're in Australia, you're thinking,

Alyssa Burgart (44:44)
the family members.

Arghavan (44:56)
I don't want to go back. I mean, you may be thinking, I'm concerned about going back because they may put me in prison, they may rape me, they may kill me. But if I don't go back, they will likely torture my family. And so that's a terrible, terrible position to be in. ⁓ And so what ended up happening was seven people accepted the humanitarian visas, but then one of them changed their mind.

⁓ Which caused a problem because they had gone to the Iranian embassy and so they then knew the location of the other six And then they had to be moved to another location Anyway, so that's so six in the end accepted those humanitarian visas the rest of the team aside I don't know what happened with this the timeline of this one person who changed their mind But the rest of the team I had seen video that they had landed in Malaysia So they had taken off from Sydney a couple of days ago and they landed and nobody

Well, I didn't know I wasn't able to see or find out where they were going to because they can't fly into Iran ⁓ Damage to the airport, but also the airspace is closed. So they Landed in in Malaysia and we saw the same thing there that we had seen in Australia, which is people Following them saying please stay here You know don't go back because they're also very concerned for these women's safety I'm not sure that's the last thing that I saw when I looked today. I didn't see any further news beyond that

I'm not sure if the plan is to keep them there for a while or if they're going to be going one of the australian reporters had said Her understanding was they were going to go to a country closer to iran and then make a land crossing Which is also possible. So i'm not Totally sure that's as as much information as i've seen ⁓ Up to now so i remain i remain as as i think we all do very concerned for the women

the women who are going back and then the families of the women who did not go back.

Alyssa Burgart (46:50)
Yeah, wow. Well, thank you so much for that ⁓ update. And I really feel like that's the perfect downer topic for us to just transition into take two and call me in the morning.

Arghavan (47:02)
Yeah, let's do it. Just whiplash right along.

Alyssa Burgart (47:07)
Ugh. So

now that that's behind us, Argevan, what do you prescribe to our listeners? What social media gems?

Arghavan (47:13)
Okay, I have two main things. Yes,

I have two main things that I think might put a smile on people's faces. One is ⁓ there's Instagram has finally learned that I like cute animals. So it's serving me more animals doing cute things. And so I saw a video of a, guess it's called a quokka, which is a small brown marsupial. I learned right before this. ⁓ And it's just chewing a leaf.

Alyssa Burgart (47:27)
Mm.

Arghavan (47:41)
And it's so very happy chewing a leaf. And it just made me think, what a life that would be where like your biggest concern would be whether you can get a nice leaf. I would like that life. It just sounds so lovely. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly. It's a very sweet video. I'll put a link in the show notes. And then there's another one. I don't know what this creature is. It's some kind of rodent as far as I can tell, but the caption doesn't say what it is exactly. Anyway, there's a creator who's, I guess,

Alyssa Burgart (47:52)
And they always look like they're smiling, don't they?

Arghavan (48:11)
you know, posting this creature, whatever it is. And ⁓ there's multiple videos of this ⁓ rodent doing different things. So I saw one that was super cute. That was this ⁓ animal chewing a pod of peas. And so like the pod is open and he's like first or there.

I don't know their gender, chewing the outside of the pod and then they get to like one of the peas and you know ⁓ anyway it's really cute. They're like reclined, the animal's reclined in somebody's hand like this and then just like anyway yeah it's really cute.

Alyssa Burgart (48:44)
Stop it. Stop it.

Arghavan (48:47)
now. Okay, the second thing I had was ⁓ Timothy Chalamet made some absurd comments about ballet and opera, and that's not the thing that's bringing me joy, but the responses. ⁓ Yes.

Alyssa Burgart (48:52)
UGH

Well, and isn't

he pitching or he's marketing his show about ping pong or some nonsense?

Arghavan (49:08)
Yes, the movie that he was nominated for an Oscar for is about a guy who plays ping pong. And he's there. Yeah, he's there criticizing ballet and opera. What he said, I don't have I didn't prepare to show you that video, but I can tell you what he said. And also for our listeners, in case they didn't see exactly what it was. It was something. Sorry, give me one second. was something like nobody likes. Nobody cares about. yeah. Here.

Alyssa Burgart (49:15)
The ballet, whatever.

Arghavan (49:37)
I don't want to work with ballet or opera where it's like, hey, let's keep this alive even if no one else cares. But all respect to the ballet and opera folks. Ha ha ha. It's gross. Anyway, so in response.

First of all, the very best thing is that ballets and operas around the world, around the, everybody took this very seriously. We're like, here's what our theater looks like. See all these people coming to see us. And then there's like videos of them, you know, dancing and singing.

Alyssa Burgart (50:11)
Can you imagine if a

movie theater could get that many people to a movie?

Arghavan (50:15)
of that size. I mean, it just doesn't happen anymore. I mean, that's the thing is like for him to say that while movie theaters are closing too. it's anyway. So so much beautiful opera and ballet being put out there by the best opera and ballet houses in the world. So that's just like everywhere all over my timeline. And then there are a lot of responses from individuals I really like. But this is from the Seattle Opera House.

this I think might be my favorite, but they said they created a promo code right after this happened and it's promo code Timothy. And you can save 14 % off seats for Carmen. And the 14%, I have to tell you, it's very specific because after Timothy had made those comments, he goes, I guess I'm gonna lose like 14 cents in royalties now, ha ha ha. So yeah, so Seattle Opera House, 14 % off promo code Timothy is just.

Brilliant, well done. ⁓ I also appreciated this person said the viral amount of hate he's taking, he already lost the popular affection. This is translated, I should say from Portuguese. Finally, we healed from the Chalamet pandemic.

Somebody else said, can tell he thinks he's a generational talent. ⁓ Opera singer, Isabelle Leonard said, honestly, I'm shocked that someone so seemingly successful can be so in eloquent and narrow minded in his views about art while considering himself as an artist, as I would only imagine one would as an actor. Only a weak person slash artist feels the need to diminish in fact,

the very arts that would inspire those who are interested in slowing down to do exactly that. ⁓

Here's another one that's relevant. I'll stop soon. It's so funny how he built his initial fan base on people who thought he was this deep artsy guy with films like Call Me By Your Name and Lady Bird when he's really just this and then it's a bunch of crying emojis. Anyway, ⁓ there's a lot of that out there. if people want to see, anybody who's been harboring maybe not the best feelings about Timothy Shalabay, ⁓ this is a good moment for you.

I personally, look, I'm not deeply invested in celebrity stuff, but what I didn't like was he had, I had seen a video of him a few months back where he was talking about how he deserved an Oscar because he had worked so hard. And I just feel like nobody, exactly, mean, it's just kind of gauche to be like, deserved it and I didn't get it and now I definitely deserve this one. And this has all been part of his Oscar campaign.

Alyssa Burgart (52:40)
Please. I'm sorry. What? Shut up. Nobody deserves anything.

Arghavan (52:58)
Anyway, I just think it's gross. Like I'm sure he has worked hard, but so do a lot of people. And there are so many talented people out there, especially when we're talking about actors and to be so full of himself, it's just off-putting.

Alyssa Burgart (53:07)
their art.

two of my cousins were professional ballet dancers. I mean, it's that.

Arghavan (53:14)
Well, his mom and his sister,

his mom and his sister are both ballet dancers. Yeah, he grew up, yes, he grew up in New York across the street from ⁓ Lincoln Center for Performing Arts.

Alyssa Burgart (53:19)
I'm so- what? No! No!

⁓ that makes it so much worse. I didn't know that. That makes it even worse. ⁓ I did love the Met Opera. Did a big response to him and that was beautiful. ⁓ also I had no idea how much ticket sales the Met Opera generates. I mean, you you talked about them pointing out like, wow, we fill this whole opera house.

Arghavan (53:29)
Exactly.

Absolutely.

Yes.

I was in Italy a couple of years ago, I went to see a ballet at La Scala. I'm lucky and fortunate to be able to do that. I think one of the things people said in response to him was like, recognizing that these arts are somewhat inaccessible, that would have been an appropriate thing to say, right? Like I wish more people could see ballet and could see opera because they are very expensive. They're really not accessible to a lot of people.

Alyssa Burgart (54:05)
Sure, absolutely.

Absolutely.

Arghavan (54:15)
Like if he had said that, think people would have been like, absolutely, like what a shame that we can't figure out a way to make this more affordable. But that's just not what he said. And people tried to twist it into that, people who were defending it, but like literally that's not what he said.

Alyssa Burgart (54:29)
I love the athleticism of ballet like it's it's stunning it's beautiful and the things that ballet dancers are able to do with their bodies I just like I will never be able to do any of those things that's wild and there's a male ballet dancer who made a video in response to Chalamet's comments and he is on a bosu ball so one of those like half balls that's inflated and he's got the flat side on the ground

Arghavan (54:31)
Yeah.

Alyssa Burgart (54:56)
and he literally gets up on his pointed toe in this incredible position and just holds it and all it's, yeah, it's just stunning. you know, Timothy, you saw it. Yeah.

Arghavan (55:03)
Yeah, I think he was in an arabesque.

When you can see his like foot and ankle are like struggling so hard. Yeah, I happen

to see that video too. But yeah, you can see how hard his foot and ankle have to work to keep him upright in that position on that board.

Alyssa Burgart (55:17)
on an

totally amazing.

Arghavan (55:20)
I will just say to that point that multiple people were like, as if Timothy could do ballet or opera. Because that's also implicit in his statement that he could do those things, but chooses not to because no one cares about them or whatever. And the amount of years of training it takes to do like that video that you're just describing, I mean, it's incredible.

Alyssa Burgart (55:41)
my gosh.

Arghavan (55:43)
Could he theoretically maybe have achieved that? I don't know, but he certainly didn't. Anyway, please tell us what you recommend for folks for your take two.

Alyssa Burgart (55:52)
So I know you love animals, so you're gonna love this video. So there is a ⁓ Marine Mammal Rescue Society that wanted to honor a veterinarian, a marine veterinarian who's been with the organization for 20 years. And the entire frame of this video, they have 20 years of like photos of him and little videos of him and you know, doing work with these marine animals.

But what they do is they frame it as though he is a rescued animal that they rescued him 20 years ago. And like, they kept trying to reintroduce him to the wild and they'll show him like out on a boat or they'll show him like at the shoreline and they'll be like, but he just kept coming back. And eventually we just had to accept that he was never going to be able to be released. He was really too habituated to human contact. Anyway, it's very sweet. ⁓

and just such a adorable and heartfelt way to honor somebody who clearly means so much to this organization, who has done so much. They talked a lot about his teaching and about the ways that like he continues to contribute to the humans that he works with by teaching them things. It's just really sweet. And then the other thing is,

know, Wes Anderson movies have such a specific look to them. And so every now and then you'll get somebody who says they'll put a thing that says, well, don't turn it into a Wes Anderson film. And then somebody does. And so one that I saw recently that I thought was very funny was it's a group of people who do scuba diving in Antarctica for some scientific work. And, but they made it Wes Anderson and.

So there's just a lot of clips of very specific equipment and it's got the soundtrack that sounds like a Wes Anderson movie and it was cute. So I'll share it with you and you get a cool view under the ice of these folks diving, which was really impressive.

Arghavan (57:45)
Go see Drake.

Nice, yeah, well I'll look forward to that. ⁓ And I think that's it for this week's episode. If you didn't like what you heard, this has been the Emergency Meeting, which is the Tate Brothers podcast if you didn't know. If you liked what you heard, don't forget to subscribe ⁓ and follow The Present Illness. Leave us a review and a rating if you can and let folks know how much you like the show.

Alyssa Burgart (58:11)
And we know you love it because you've stayed this long. Please follow us on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube. We're at the present illness and you can stay on top of all of our TPI related news.

Arghavan (58:21)
And we will be back next week with more headlines, hot takes, and doom scrolling, hopefully wrapped in some laughs.

Alyssa Burgart (58:26)
So until then, agitate, hydrate, and take a nap. See you next time on The Present Illness.

Production by Arghavan Salles and Alyssa Burgart editing by Alyssa Burgart, social media by Arghavan Salles, original music by Joseph Uphoff. Don't take medical advice from random people on a podcast. This shows for informational purposes and it's meant to be fun. It's certainly not medical advice. So please take your medical questions to a qualified professional.