E22: Dr. Jen VanDeWater

A Pharmacist's Rude Awakening and How to Not Be Rx Dependent

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Christian Elliot

Alright, hello everyone. Welcome to today's episode. I got another special treat for you. My guest is Dr. Jen VanDeWater. So Jen, a little bit of background on her. She began her career as a pharmacy technician in 2006 and graduated from the Albany College of Pharmacy. She is licensed actually in three different states, New York, Maine, and Vermont. And over the years in her industry, she became a little bit dismayed by how her profession.

 

Became more about dispensing drugs and giving injections and billing insurance and really putting profits over people. And so in 2020, like many of us, she kind of had her awakening and she saw how the health profession was being manipulated. So she started standing up and pushing back. She even got so fired up, she ran for office in one. And so now she calls herself the people's pharmacist because she answers to the people and not to big pharma. So you have a very fascinating story and it's been fun getting to know you and hearing about it.

 

kind of your awakening. So I cannot wait for this conversation. So Jen, thank you so much for taking the time to talk to us today.

 

Dr. Jen VanDeWater

Yes, thank you, Christian, for the introduction and I'm happy to be here and share the truth.

 

Christian Elliot

Right on. Okay, so let's start with your origin story or just how you got into this. So did you always know you wanted to be a pharmacist when you were a little girl or how did you get into the work you do?

 

Dr. Jen VanDeWater

Yeah, actually, when I was a little girl, I wanted to be a lawyer. Thankfully, I did not take that road. yeah, I started working actually, it was 1998 that I started working as a pharmacy technician, but I graduated pharmacy college in 2006. But it was by working as a pharmacy technician. I kind of liked being out in the community. you know, I worked with pharmacists who just sat there reading newspapers all day.

 

And I thought, how boring, like you've got these amazing people that are coming in with such fantastic stories of trips they've been on or grand babies or their farms. And I just love listening to them come to the counter and share. So.

 

I looked around and thought, maybe I should just be the pharmacist instead of just the technician. Like, can I actually do this? And so I took on that journey and it was right at the end of high school. So it was perfect timing. I went to college and, you know, worked my way through to become a pharmacist. And I wanted to be one that wasn't what I had seen in all my years as a pharmacy technician.

 

Christian Elliot

Okay, fantastic. So admittedly, my knowledge of pharmacists or their background is limited. So tell us a little bit, so what is a pharmacist study in school and what differentiates them from say what an MD studies?

 

Dr. Jen VanDeWater

So pharmacists pretty much are learning pharmacology, pharmacoeconomics, pharmacodynamics, all about the absorption, metabolism, distribution and elimination of pharmaceuticals. So it's all the background. We do take pathophysiology and we take some medical courses because we have to know the anatomy of the body and understand disease states to understand which medications are appropriate, dosing, how the body works with it. That's pretty much what

 

we go through. We don't have cadavers. That's why I chose this career too. was like, I don't have to do any of that. And actually in the beginning, I really liked it because pharmacists didn't have to give immunizations.

 

I was not one who wanted to be around needles. So I figured, well, nursing was never something I would be interested in, and MD was not something I wanted to do. I really just loved that pharmacists could be a part and a role in the patient's care, but not be hands-on. So that's what I liked. I wanted to just be there as someone who could research the medication, research what they needed, get them the information, and help them that way in their health journey.

 

Christian Elliot

Okay, so just quick aside. So do pharmacists have any training in nutrition or lifestyle modification? Is that part of the schooling that you guys go through?

 

Dr. Jen VanDeWater

The answer to that is no. ⁓ There is one, I know, there's nothing on nutrition. There was nothing on lifestyle, nothing on spiritual health. It was all just the body, but the body compartmentalized, not that it's all interconnected and you don't need five meds to treat one issue that's the same. It's always add, add, keep adding. And what they teach you in pharmacy colleges, the more medications, ⁓ there's quality of life.

 

And so you're taught that these medications give life to the patient. And that's actually the opposite of what I saw when I was practicing.

 

Christian Elliot

I cannot wait to deconstruct that with you because what you have learned as the years have gone by is so fascinating. I guess for most of my life, it never really occurred to me that someone could develop a relationship with the pharmacist. more or less just thought of the pharmacist was just, there's almost like a cashier. There's this person behind the counter who is kind of my link to the brown bottle with the white cap and the fun crinkle bag that I can take home and hopefully make me feel better. But it never occurred to me there actually could be a person with a wealth of knowledge who could steer me.

 

away from some wrong turns and help me maybe not, you know, die from a properly prescribed drug or see drug interactions or help me think more broadly about what was going on. So I guess I want to start with more of the rosy version of give us a kind of a job description of a day in the life of a pharmacist or what do pharmacists who are doing their job well, what is their day to day like?

 

Dr. Jen VanDeWater

So. ⁓ I don't know if this is so rosy, but what pharmacy became, I'll give you two. I'll give you the version of what I think a pharmacist should be versus what a pharmacist is. So what Big Pharma has pharmacists is a machine. You are there to just check prescriptions. It's no longer interacting with that patient, building the relationship. You are just there to take that prescription that came from the provider's office, have the technician enter the information, and your job is to do drug utilization review, drug food

 

interactions, drug disease interactions, other drug drug interactions, and just make sure that that technician took all the information from that prescription and entered it correctly and you are just there to check. So sending it through like an assembly line, almost if you kind of look at it and the pharmacist is the last one before it gets bagged for the patient to pick up.

 

That's not pharmacy to me. Like that is not what it was in the late 90s as a technician. And I was really surprised how quickly it turned to that by the time I graduated pharmacy college. So what I envision is yes, we are going to check prescriptions. That's definitely a guarantee. But what about consults, private consults? What about sitting with a patient going over their medication, you know, ⁓

 

list and making sure they're doing things appropriately. Are there meds we can eliminate because people are on too many medications? Working with the providers and saying, hey, you know, I'm looking at Jane Doe's medication list and these two could be a problem. Let's change things now. Like actually engaging, but not engaging for the betterment of Big Pharma, actually engaging for the betterment of the patient because what Big Pharma has, and I know we touched on this briefly on a call before, is medication therapy management.

 

It sounds good. It's like, ooh, we're going to manage their medications and make sure they're doing things appropriately. But it's all run by the insurance companies. And it's all to make the patient take whichever medication the insurance company wants. Or it's to have them change medications or increase medications or make sure they're compliant with the dosing. And sometimes these people, they know better what their body needs than an insurance company.

 

Christian Elliot

Right. Okay. Well, now we start to get into some of the fun stuff, depending on your starting point, the fun stuff. So before COVID kicked off, you were already seeing some of the industrial machinery or what the medical industrial complex does and how it, with COVID, it just really started, I guess, flexing its muscle for profit or for an agenda at the expense of the individual. So start pulling back the curtain for us some and talk to us about what the average person doesn't know goes on behind the scenes.

 

and a pharmacy or just more broadly in the interaction between pharmacies and insurance companies and doctors and ⁓ so many different topics we can get into related to that. But I'll let you take the lead and then I'll kind of hit you with particular questions as we go.

 

Dr. Jen VanDeWater

Okay, sure, yeah, this is where it does get fun because I graduated pharmacy college and I thought and I believed it was gonna be retail pharmacy until the day I retired. Like I'm like, yep, throw me in. I love the community atmosphere. I can deal with the 12 hour days. Like just put me in a coach. I wanna play this game. Like I was all set to go. But then I started working for these big chain pharmacies and I couldn't handle that they didn't care about the people. It just crushed me to see that

 

These people looked to us for help and we were told to, the help was the pharmaceutical. The help was not in nutrition, lifestyle, ⁓ know, reducing medication burden. It was all about, you know, the profit. It was really not about the people. And so after about, I think I only worked in the industry in chain pharmacies for probably three years after I graduated pharmacy college. And that was enough for me to say,

 

I'm not doing this anymore. And I looked into working for independent, the mom and pop pharmacies because

 

I thought maybe they'll have more of the hometown feel and actually caring and they did. So I had this amazing job. was a pharmacy manager at a cute little store in Vermont at the base of a ski mountain. I loved it. And the people really, they thought I grew up in that town. They used to come in and say, where, where did you graduate? I'm like, I'm not from here. But I just loved that that gave that feeling back that I had in the late nineties of like, this is where it is. It's helping the people, talking to the people and being there for the people.

 

But that job for me was over an hour drive and in the winter it was like two and a half hours in snow. So I could not keep it up and I moved to another independent pharmacy. Thankfully they were hiring. But what I kept witnessing even before and then and the next job was that the big pharma grab through the insurance companies was like a stranglehold on these mom and pop pharmacies. And it was bothering me because I could see every time I

 

ran a prescription through the insurance company and was billing the pharmacy back money. So there were times we would lose anywhere from two cents to $300 running a claim through the insurance company. Now, if you were one of the big chain pharmacies and you ran that through, that was a positive. You never got a negative at the big chains. So I started to realize that there was somewhat of...

 

a disproportionate balance here that the chain pharmacies were being taken care of and these mom and pops were being robbed. So now you add in the medication therapy management like I mentioned before. These independent pharmacies partnered with the insurance companies to do these because if they did them, they got paid.

 

And so these pharmacies were already struggling and then they agreed to these management systems through the insurance company. And every time a pharmacist completed the task, whether it was adding a medication, increasing a dose of a medication, changing a medication, that pharmacy got cut a check from the insurance company. And I could not stand what I was seeing. Then there's just so much more to this. There's a lot here, Christian.

 

Christian Elliot

Okay, keep coming. You're great.

 

Dr. Jen VanDeWater

Keep them coming. Okay, so the last pharmacy I was at, Independent, they had a retail section, which I worked, where people come in off the street and fill their scripts, but we also had a long-term care department. That's where...

 

it really hit me because in long-term care you're packaging meds for assisted living facilities, nursing homes, troubled boys and girls schools, and I could not believe the amount of medications these people were taking. I literally had my hand and had a package and they were

 

loads of pills and I would be gagging and I wasn't the one taking them and I just said something seems odd here. So this was probably 2018 so before 2020 I started to ask questions. I started saying to the the patient's children that would come in to pick up the meds, hey you know your mom's on you know atorvastatin 80 milligrams and she's 80 years old like it's a cholesterol med at the highest dose. What is she eating and how does she look? And she's like my mom's pretty

 

frail, she's lost a lot of weight. they put her on that when she was in her 50s. I'm like well I don't think she needs it anymore. Like I would just say this and the do you know these children of these parents on these meds said ⁓ thank you for reassuring me because I've been questioning this and I asked the doctor and the doctor says this is necessary for her optimal health and I said but it's not.

 

Like she's not eating the way she would and even we now know too the nutrition was probably not the problem. She's probably eating steak and butter and salt and probably just fine. But they have her on all these medications and I really just would take these people aside and talk to them and say listen here's what you need empowering the individual. I'm not going to be the one

 

to make the difference, my goal was to turn on their critical thinking, turn on the power within them to speak up to their parents' providers and say, listen, my mom does not need this anymore. We're not taking it. And telling that doctor, now there were some people that did get empowered and they were happy and grateful, and then there were others that weren't. But I started realizing then, I was so happy and so thankful to get out there and communicate with the people, but I felt also very hindered.

 

because of the atmosphere I was in. I was kind of feeling icky being a pharmacist and being in this environment. And I thought, okay, I pray. I'm like, Lord, where do you want me? I don't know if this is where I should be. And he really put on my heart to work alongside the doctors. And I was like, okay, all right, here we go. I'm gonna do this. So I reached out to an office. They were hiring. They said, you got the job. That was January of 2020.

 

So I put my resignation into my job and by March, COVID was exploding and I got a call that that job was terminated. So I ended up being on the sidelines, not knowing, and I was of course like, like, God, you told me this is what you wanted me to do. I'm so confused right now. But what I had no idea that he had envisioned was that through this journey, I've met amazing providers who I now collaborate with and bring true health and healing and

 

wellness to the people outside of the mainstream big pharma, you know, the grab.

 

Christian Elliot

Wow. And there's so much more. Stay tuned. So tell us a little bit about, because you were around for the era when drug advertising was finally approved. So direct to consumers where all the drug ads, can't make it through any commercial break on any mainstream media without hearing about whatever drug and all the side effects that you can experience while you're on permanent vacation. So tell us a little bit about that awakening or what started happening. What did you see behind the scenes in the pharmacy industry?

 

Dr. Jen VanDeWater

Yeah, happy to. So 1998 when I started as a technician, pharmacy technician, no advertising. Okay, there was nothing. So nobody came in asking for anything. They just came in looking for us to give them guidance. Okay, fast forward to when I graduated. That's exactly when advertising hit the scene around 2006. So now here I am as a practicing pharmacist and everybody coming in is like, I want the medication I saw on TV.

 

And I'm like, what? And not only was it on TV, it was in magazines too. So the advertising people are reading their magazines, their home living, and here's an advertisement, how you can feel better. It's all in a magic pill. And they would come in and ask for this.

 

And it even got to the point, Christian, where I had a patient come in when I was in that cute little Vermont pharmacy. He came in, he came skiing down the hill and he came in, he's like, I'm not sleeping at night. And I was like, okay, he's like, I saw a commercial for Zequil. I want some Zequil. So I took him out to the shelf and I said, here it is. He goes, wow, wow, that's expensive for that. And I said, listen.

 

The active ingredient is diphenhydramine, which is Benadryl. I said, here you go. Here it is for two bucks versus eight bucks. He looked at both of them. He goes, but the TV told me I need Zequil. TV told you you need Zequil? And I'm like, looking at my badge. Yeah, doctor of pharmacy. Okay, sure. So that just goes to show you the power of advertising really took hold of the minds of the people.

 

Christian Elliot

We're going.

 

Dr. Jen VanDeWater

lying to them that these medications were a quick fix, that they could have optimal health and live in great wellness. Like you say, on the permanent vacation, they're going to be dancing on the clouds and riding their bikes along the ocean. And what happens is it's a false illusion.

 

And then they go in, they get these medications and they realize it's not helping. And then they get another medication and another medication because that's the whole plan of Big Pharma. And these providers are trained. Well, if they come in on one and it's not working, you got to add another one. And that's what ends up happening. And then in a short period of time, they're on multiple medications. ⁓

 

Christian Elliot

Right, Well, and a lot of people don't know this either, but there's some knowledge of what drugs interact and don't do well together. But there's never been a double blind study on two medications at the same time to find out what the outcomes are, what it's doing to the body. And yet how many people are on more than one medication? It's just, there's no science, there's no basis for that approach to health. Yet, I mean, numbers of pharmaceutical people are on, it's like 12 or more per person in the country when you look at.

 

how many medications, and I'm not taking any, so somebody's getting double. And that realm is, in my mind, such a black eye of chemical monkey wrench after chemical monkey wrench, and there's no understanding of it. I guess I'm saying back me up a little bit and explain to people, ⁓ elaborate a little bit more on what you were saying about the way the drugs are just stacked without necessarily the betterment of the person.

 

Dr. Jen VanDeWater

Yeah, the provider starts treating the...

condition, I guess, with the patients explaining instead of getting to the root cause. So a patient comes in and says, ⁓ I'm depressed, I have anxiety, they'll throw them on a medication and there will be a short term relief because they are going to do something, but it's short-lived because the root problem has not been properly addressed. And so they go back to the provider and like you say, there's no study to prove anything is synergistically working.

 

for the body or against the body. It's all trial and error at this point. People have adverse reactions and drug-drug interactions all the time because everybody's different. So what works for Susie won't work for Timmy. It's just part of it. And so these people come in and they end up getting multiple medications because the effect, the benefit is very, very short-lived because again, it's mind-body-spirit alignment. And these providers out there are just looking at the body.

 

They're not even touching the mind and we know they won't touch spiritual health. So these people are in a false hope. They believe that they're going to get better.

 

but it's not fixing the problem. It's very short-lived and then they do start to take multiple medications, have drug-drug interactions, have adverse events. And eventually, like you say, 12 or more, it's without a doubt. I've seen people on 20 plus. I just don't know. Their life is just taking medications. I can't figure it out. I don't know how you'd want to, why you'd want to. It just seems like ⁓ it's so sad to me because there's real...

 

wellness available at their fingertips that's a lot that's actually free you know and they're looking to Big Pharma and paying Big Pharma for a fix that's that's an illusion it's not real.

 

Christian Elliot

Yeah, it's just a slippery slope of symptom whack-a-mole down to the next medication to the next medication and constantly chasing your tail. And what you've realized is there's such a better way to approach wellness. So before I get into that, guess a couple more things about the industry in particular, your experience during COVID. So that really, I guess, was the media weaponizer that whoever's pulling levers, pitted doctors and pharmacists against each other. Doctors write a prescription and pharmacists were given orders not to fulfill that.

 

So what did you see during that time or what stories would be relevant that might help somebody have a little more discernment about what's going on and where the Hippocratic Oath is being violated? Talk to us a little bit about that pickle that doctors and pharmacists were in during COVID.

 

Dr. Jen VanDeWater

Yeah, that was something I had never seen of or heard of before. let me at least start by saying off-label use is like 80 % of prescriptions. So when that whole big, you know, topic came out, well, it's off-label use. The pharmacist can't fill it. It's off-label use. We doctors try things all the time. And our role is not to say the efficacy. Our role is the safety in the dosage, how the prescription was written. they have it the right quantity for the days dispensed? Do they have the right

 

directions for this medication. And honestly, there are times when I have seen things come through and I've questioned it. I've called the provider and the provider would tell me, I'm filling it anyway. Don't worry about it. I would say, okay, I'm noting it on the script and in the patient's chart that we spoke at this time and you okayed this because that covers me if anything ever happens because the pharmacist is the last resort. We are the last check in the patient's health journey. And to see what happened

 

blew my mind. Now, I wasn't practicing pharmacy at that time. And I didn't feel comfortable to jump back in because I went down a lot of rabbit holes in 2018 and 19 before 2020. That kind of put me on pause to say, do I want to walk back into that industry knowing what I know? How could I go with integrity and fill prescriptions for people knowing what big pharma's agenda really is? So

 

I sat on the sidelines. It was kind of a blessing in disguise because I was in between jobs and then I just watched and waited. But I talked with other farmers. She says you wouldn't even recognize it. Now mind you, I saw what I saw. I can't imagine what it's like today. Just can't even imagine.

 

Christian Elliot

Well, it was around that time that you got recruited to participate in with or be involved with America's frontline doctors and I imagine that gave you windows into Where is this control coming from or some of the because it's kind of you know, theoretically It's a group of doctors who were saying wait a minute there you're violating our doctor-patient relationship You're forcing us to not honor the Hippocratic oath and we're just for robotic obedient Serves we're supposed to just do whatever you're you're telling us

 

based on this pop-up on the screen. So is there anything particular about your time there that gave you a window into where some of these control mechanisms are coming from or what the, who are the puppet masters behind the scenes? Did you get any intel on that?

 

Dr. Jen VanDeWater

Yeah, well, it's definitely a big pharma. you know, when you, you go back into our history and you actually look into Rockefeller medicine, you can understand leading up to today why things took place the way they did. It makes sense. You're like, ⁓ okay. They don't want people to find out there's real ways to help yourself. That doesn't require a pharmaceutical.

 

So that's the first thing. The second thing which I am completely against is there's egos and stroking of egos. Who has the say? Who has the power? Who has the authority? The answer is none of us. Okay? And our role in health is the patient. It's not about us and our jobs and our professions. We should be coming together and uniting as a team as a force for the patient, not for who's right, who's wrong. And when I joined America's Frontline Doctors, that was...

 

uplifting because I met providers, I met other pharmacists, and I realized I wasn't alone. And for the first time in all my career, providers and doctors were uniting. And through that organization, that's what I found. And I still am in contact with so many great, amazing providers I met and even pharmacists I met during my time there that was valuable because it made me realize things can change. There's hope on the horizon.

 

we're out there and it'll come. It's going to take time to knock down this whole big mindset and big farmer grab, but it'll happen because there's enough of us out there that see it and want to make that change.

 

Christian Elliot

Yeah, yeah. Okay, well, what's fun about you, if anybody that's been following the show or who knows my work knows I don't have a lot of kind things to say about the pharmaceutical industry or about the medical industrial complex. I'm, as a coach, I can't prescribe and I don't treat anything. I just look for what burdens the body and I look for ways to empower the body to heal. And I just teach people that. But knowing that background, as when I came across you and your work, there were two things you said that really endeared me to you.

 

She gets it. The first was when you use the phrase Rockefeller medicine to describe Allopathic medicine. So for people who don't know what you mean by that, tell us what you mean by Rockefeller medicine.

 

Dr. Jen VanDeWater

yeah that was my fun journey in realizing and that was actually what made me not want to go back into the pharmaceutical industry. So the Rockefellers back in the early 1900s weren't too happy that people were living well and eating well and everything came from nature. So they had to find a way to market and profit ⁓ you know off of of medicine and so here we have synthetic petroleum based meds which are our today's pharmaceuticals. Now

 

I'm not against all pharmaceuticals. I've hermetic and hydroxychloroquine. I've done wonders. I'm not saying stop your pharmaceuticals. I'm saying you got to talk to a trusted health provider before you decide what's best for you because after time your body's adjusted to these medications and you don't want to just stop and say, my gosh, now I'm worried. But that's what the Rockefellers did. The Rockefellers created synthetic medications. Now these synthetic medications never give you the cure.

 

hence the refills, you've got to stay on them, never actually addresses any of the real issues. Like you say, the burden on the body, it's not addressing the burden, it's only band-aiding a problem. Now, there are some medications that people like blood pressure or certain heart medications that have saved lives.

 

but there are a lot of medications that have come on the scene. You've got antidepressants, anti-anxiety. Nobody knows how to live life anymore. Nobody knows how to understand that you're gonna have good days and bad days. Because if you don't have the bad days, you don't know what a good day is. And so nobody likes to feel. I don't like to feel either, okay? I don't want it to go through yucky times. But when you come out the other side without the... ⁓

 

you know, taking medication or going to alcohol or anything else. When you come out the other side, there's beauty that comes from walking through that pain and healing through that journey that nothing can ever take place, you know, take that place like a pharmaceutical. But that's the Rockefellers. Now, I also encourage people to look up the Flexner report that took place in Congress. I think it was 1910. They literally eliminated all natural and holistic therapies and all colleges and

 

know, institutions and they funded all the ones that agreed to the Rockefeller's ideology, the Rockefellers and the Carnegie's and the way they wanted to, you know, take hold of medicine. Now, this rabbit hole goes deep for me because I believe they created some diseases to create the pills to come up and say, we've got the cure. I think they've caused a lot of the problems that we see today. And there's a lot of unraveling and walking back that we have to do as people.

 

to take back our health, to take back who we are, and pretty much tell those people, those wicked and evil people that did not care about humanity, we're not falling for this propaganda.

 

Christian Elliot

Right. Well, and yeah, for those of you who haven't heard episode two of this podcast, where I deconstructed the history of conventional medicine and touched on a lot of what Jen has talked about. you mentioned the word evil in there. And so the second thing, besides you saying Rockefeller medicine, that really endeared me to you was we talked about your recognition of where the word Pharmakeia comes from. And most people don't know that Pharmakeia is where we get pharmacology or pharmaceuticals.

 

And the word literally means witchcraft, which is kind of like, I don't want to, most of us don't want to participate in witchcraft, but that's essentially we're making potions or pills or things that we insert into the body to get some physiological reaction. And so I guess when in your journey, did you realize that what we today call allopathic medicine is really, it's, Pharmakeia, it's cut witchcraft at its founding. How did that impact you personally?

 

Dr. Jen VanDeWater

Yeah, that was in between 18 and 20, 2018, 2020, when I started going down the rabbit holes. And that was actually the reason I could not walk back in and dispense pharmaceuticals. Because when I realized that Pharmakeia, what it meant, and not that I'm saying I'm going to get rid of saying I'm a pharmacist because maybe you could change the pH to an F. I don't know. But I definitely was, I could not go and do.

 

Just fill prescriptions knowing what I know and answer to God someday. And he said, you did it for a paycheck. You poisoned my people for a paycheck. That's just not me. And yes, I've lost in the last few years. My career was booming back then, you know? And I don't care about the career because I have to answer to God in the end. And I can't go back into pharmacy.

 

I could go into, they have some cute compounding pharmacies that do hormone replacement. I'm not even a compound, I don't like compounding. I want to engage with the people. So I would never do well in a hairnet and scrubs in the back room. I would go insane. So as of now, I just have no desire to go and actually fill prescriptions because I now know what they are. And when I realized that, I remember sitting on my sofa.

 

and watching this video that explained the Rockefellers and the pharmakeia and when it was over I must have looked like a ghost. I must have just been like in just complete shock. My husband looked at me he goes, what's wrong? And I said, I can never be a pharmacist again. He goes, wait, what? Like, wait, what are you talking about? Like we just paid huge money for you to go to college. You have your doctorate. He's like, what are you talking about? I said, I'd rather wait tables. I said, because then I'm not.

 

I'm not a hand to Big Pharma. I'm not being used by Big Pharma. Now, I will say this. I struggled when I realized this. What did I just do, Lord, all these years? What did I just do? I just worked for the evil empire. And I was at an event and I mentioned this. I said, I feel very used by Big Pharma. And after the event was over, this woman comes running up to me. She's like, I've got a message from God for you. And I'm like, I'm all ears. Like, I want to hear this. And she says,

 

She goes, God told me when you said that Big Pharma used you, he says, no, I used you. I put you there so you could see the corruption that's taken place so that you can go out there and tear it down. So.

 

I was like, all right, God, I feel better now, but I still don't like that I participated in that. But he has to bring you into a lot of these situations to reveal to his people, to reveal what's going on so we can share the word, share the truth and educate, you know, knowledge and using that knowledge as power. You have to understand what we're telling people through this show, you know, is that there's things happening out there. And...

 

If people are concerned and they're like, you know, I'm using these big chain pharmacies. I don't, I do need these medications. I'm not off of them yet. Or what do I do? Find a local independent pharmacy that's aligned with your values. That's so important because the more you go to those big chain pharmacies, you're funding the big pharma.

 

and the insurance company and all of their ways and they're never gonna go away as long as the money keeps flowing. So it's so important to do your due diligence, research the local pharmacies in your area, find one, walk in, talk to them. It's not just getting your meds. It's knowing that that person and the group of people behind the counter have your best interest at heart.

 

so that when there's a crisis and you call them, they're gonna be there to help you. They're not gonna just be too busy to talk to you because they're a machine. They're there to just check prescriptions. You want the pharmacy that values life and values people.

 

Christian Elliot

Yeah, well said, Jen. I can imagine just any profession that has been weaponized or has in hindsight been used as part of a control mechanism or you've come to understand whether it's media or military or pharmacy or any number of organizations where you've had the awakening that you're a puppet. That is a very uncomfortable pill to swallow. And I just so applaud you for...

 

having the courage to speak up. I applaud you for ⁓ talking today. think in some ways this, maybe this episode is somewhat a fulfillment of that word that lady had for you. Like, yeah, you needed to see what was going on on the inside so you could tell people what was actually happening and start to give them a way to see it differently. So I know now you call yourself the people's pharmacist. So I guess what does that mean to you or what differentiates you now from the Jen of a year ago?

 

Dr. Jen VanDeWater

I think I always was just never gave myself the name the people's pharmacist because that's why I became a pharmacist when I started realizing things and I kind of came up with that around 2020-2021 when I started realizing there were no pharmacists on the scene which is why I reached out to America's frontline doctors because I'm like I can't be the only pharmacist seeing what I'm seeing all these doctors and nurse practitioners physician and assistants everyone was coming out of the woodworks but pharmacists so I stepped forward and

 

I want to share this because this is really what helped me make that step. know, before I reached out to America's Frontline Doctors, before I actually took a stand, I was taking a stand inside, like learning and growing and the Lord was showing me and revealing truths to me. I remember sitting on my sofa another time, I spent a lot of time there, I was praying to the Lord. And I said, if I'm not a pharmacist, like, who am I?

 

I thought this was the road you wanted me on. Like I'm so confused right now and I felt this overwhelming sense of fear. And he spoke to me and he says, no, no, no. He says, you do not fear the devil. He should fear you. I have created you. I have made you a warrior in this fight. The courage Christian comes from God within. He empowers me to keep going out there and speaking the truth. There's something inside of me. I would love to just not like.

 

I would love just hiding in a cave and just live out my days, but there's this fire burning inside me that's like, no, you've got to go speak the truth. Like Moses, you know, in the wilderness, you've got to go free my people. Moses is like, I don't want to do it. You know, it's the same thing that, but you get that feeling inside that God's calling you to do it. And so I do it because it's the right thing to do.

 

And so that's why I do it. And that's why I call myself the people's pharmacist, because I'm doing it for the people. It's no benefit to me. It's zero benefit to me. I've lost my whole career. Everything I thought I was going to have, like I said, retail until I retire. Boy, did I get thrown a curve ball. It has been a bumpy road since. But there's something about after this life, when I cross over and I'm going to hear the words, well done, good and faithful servant.

 

So I'm going to do what I'm asked to do and that's the people's pharmacist. know, answer to the people, not to Big Pharma.

 

Christian Elliot

Fantastic. You're just a breath of fresh air to realize that people can come out of that kind of shackling. And even when their paycheck's dependent on it, they will still say, I have to do right by my conscience. I'm not going to look back with that much regret. And at one place people can find you is your telegram channel. I have to say, for lack of a better term, you've really gone holistic. You've approaching health from a healing paradigm rather than a treatment paradigm. It's been so fun to read and follow what you've

 

you talk about there. So I guess give people a little taste of what they can find on your telegram channel or what ways that you are framing and helping people with their health today.

 

Dr. Jen VanDeWater

Oh, certainly. And it's mind, body, spirit. It truly is the alignment. If you have one that's off, the rest will be off. And we've all experienced it. It doesn't mean we always stay balanced. Things get thrown at us in life and knock us off our feet, knock the wind out of us. And we've got to come back and we've got to refocus, however that is, wherever that looks like, everyone's different. And that's really important too. Big Pharma puts everybody in a box, the same box. And that's not how we were created.

 

We're all created unique and different and we approach different situations in different ways. And so it's so important for me when I post on my telegram channel, I'm posting from my heart messages that God tells me the people need to hear. It's never drama or I mean, I try to get a little funny at times and mock Big Pharma because it's fun, but you know, it's mostly showing people food. Food is medicine. It's showing them that they can find ways by walking in their yard.

 

and finding things that are nutritious. Dandelions, end up harvesting the whole plant, know, and end up using the whole plant. It's amazing what you can find that was given to us by God, not by man, that we can use to actually help heal our bodies and live healthy. I mean, we've been burdened with sickness for so long. And if you actually trace it back, it starts with the Rockefellers. Before that, people were healthy. So we've got to get back to that way of living.

 

Christian Elliot

Okay, so let's let's try to speak to the person who may be listening to this and they're thinking my gosh one That was a red pill that I didn't want to swallow But now that I'm starting to think is there hope for me I've been on a lot of medications or I'm taking them now and I don't know what it would take to disentangle from this and I'm nervous and even I did a different episode with a doctor Heather guess thing and we talked about just the mindset people get into about But I can't disobey my doctor. It's like there's

 

they're a bad person if they think about getting off medication. So for somebody who's on half a dozen or a dozen medications, or they've been on them for let's say decades, and they're starting to think maybe there is a better way to live, how would you advise them? Is there hope for them? Where can they go and start to find a better way to approach their health and really disentangle from this medical cocktail they're on?

 

Dr. Jen VanDeWater

Yeah, there's definitely hope. mean, that's for sure. There's never, you never reach a point where there's no, there are no options. There's options for people. The first thing is everyone needs to have a provider they trust. So if people are using mainstream providers, they're going to be your pill pushers. They're going to tell you, you are crazy to want to come off of pharmaceuticals. going to say, oh no, no, these are keeping you balanced. Well, the individual knows it's not working because they keep going back and keep getting more and more. So it's really important to

 

find someone in your area that is a local, known, trusted provider. That's the first thing. Then through that conversation, that provider will be happy to start de-prescribing because if they are someone you vet, you talk to and you know that they're against over-prescribing, they want to help you find...

 

what medications you can come off of, what ones can you reduce, and through lifestyle changes, can we actually eliminate all? It's a possibility. I've seen it happen. I've seen patients come off of all medications and they're living free, free from pharma. I mean, that's amazing. So it can happen. It's just finding the fit. And then again, it's also finding the pharmacy that will work with your doctor because a lot of times these doctors have not deprescribed before. They've always prescribed and they've always added.

 

But to actually reverse that is fearful to some of these providers because they've never done it before. They've been trained to just write another script and to go backwards sometimes is daunting. But with the help of good pharmacists and good providers, it can be done. It can be done. I've seen it done. I have helped people. Friends have reached out to me. I've worked with them, with their provider to help them find a plan and a process. And it is going to be, it's a journey. That's really the important thing. It's a process and it's a journey.

 

And it's really important too, when you meet with your provider, start with one. Don't just take three and we're gonna start limiting three. Because if there is something happening, you're not gonna know where it came from. So you start with one, start reducing the dose. And then when you get off of that one, you can start weaning off the next. And if you have a setback, that's okay too. Because I had a patient once and she had a setback, but she ended up getting off all of her antidepressants and anti-anxiety meds. And she's now living free and she's happy without medication. I mean it's amazing and I just love seeing that she's doing so well.

 

Christian Elliot

Fantastic. Yeah, I guess if I were as a coach if I were to add anything to that or where I've been able to give a client courage to ask their doctor tougher questions or to lean into a different paradigm one of the things I do I'll point out or help them realize Any drug you're on will deplete nutrients from your body and so when you understand what? Nutrients are needed for or what functions of the body depend on particular nutrients and the easiest medication to pick on is always statins It's the cholesterol medications

 

And one of the things they deplete is CoQ10, which if you look at the symptoms of CoQ10 deficiency, the top seven are all heart related. They're all the very thing you're trying to prevent. But what that nugget can do for somebody is give them the ability to go to their doctor and say, so I was looking in this drug-induced nutrient depletion handbook or I've spoken around on the internet and what I found was this medication depletes this nutrient. So could I maybe just use that nutrient or what do I do about the

 

depletion of this and the side effects that are coming off, because it almost seems backwards from what you're asking me to do. And if you can approach that in a reasoning frame and a collaborative approach, not with a combative approach, but just somebody who's genuinely seeking understanding, I've often found conversations like that, or another good one is the proton pump inhibitors, right? The antacids, the things that make your stomach stop producing acid. Well, you kind of need that to get minerals out of your food or to digest protein.

 

And so how are we going to get nutrients or nutrition from what we eat if I'm stopping my body's ability to make acid? Yes, the heartburn goes away, but at what cost? And it's just simple things like that where clients have reported, they go ask their doctor these questions and the doctor goes, you're right. And maybe we should figure out a way to get you off of these. And so it's not an impossible dream. There can be withdrawal symptoms and things to manage, especially if you're on psych meds, but I'll echo what Jen said. There's definitely hope.

 

And it's just a patient process of finding people you trust who can shepherd you through that. And ⁓ you go from there. So anything to add to that, Jen?

 

Dr. Jen VanDeWater

No, you're absolutely right. And those are the two most common prescribed meds I see everybody on is the statin and the proton pump inhibitor and the effects that it's doing on the body. It is definitely ⁓ wreaking havoc and we don't want to see that continue. We want to help people not have acid reflux cholesterol. I feel it is another lie we've been told. I don't think that we really have to worry about it as much as we're told. I think people are being put on these medications again, bringing on the disease state that they're trying to prevent.

 

⁓ So yeah, I definitely agree you're right on there with finding whatever tool you can use to open up to your provider. But as soon as you find out that provider's not willing to start deep prescribing, it's definitely important to find one who will. Because if it's something you feel as the patient, this is important. It's good to have the conversation, but if they're not willing to listen,

 

the doctor, are not white coat gods. You are the one, it's not the doctor, it's the patient. And to go in and think that they can just dictate care.

 

or what's best and not give options, not give the patient saying, okay, here's what I see, here's what I'm noticing, these are your options. I even as a pharmacist, people would show up and I'd give them options. Here's like the guy with the Zequil, I gave him Benadryl, the diphenhydramine, he took the expensive Zequil. I give options and at the end it's the patient's choice. It needs to be the choice of the patient. So that's really important to remember.

 

And just have that empowerment. Walk in empowered. Walk in like you own it and you let the doctor know and if they're not willing to work with you, find someone who will. It's really important. If this is something that you feel strongly about, I think that you can find the right people.

 

Christian Elliot

Yeah, and I guess maybe that frames one of the better questions you can ask. If you ask it humbly and kindly, it's just, are you willing to help me, Deep Prescriber, to wean off of these, to get off these medications? And if you have to be on it for the rest of your life, that may be your sign that you need to find somebody else. And guess in fairness to doctors, similar to what I asked you about, do pharmacists ever study nutrition? Doctors don't either. And to ask them to...

 

find the tools that they've never studied to get you off. Like if I take you off of this, your symptoms get worse. Well, where are the symptoms coming from isn't always a question they know how to answer. So that may be an argument for kind of expanding your health board of advisors, you will, having other people who can help you get at the roots of where things are coming from or the nutritional deficiencies that have compounded and have kept your body from being able to heal. So yeah, if you can get a team you going, that would be a great way to start thinking about.

 

building your health from there. So, all right, so personal question for you, I guess then, if you were knowing what you know now to go back and beginning of your professional career and choose a path of everything in the health realm, where do you think you'd go? Because I imagine there might be somebody hearing this and who's kind of at that precipice of deciding what kind of life and what kind of way they want to help people with their health. With all you know now, where would you, if you had a do over, where would you go?

 

Dr. Jen VanDeWater

probably be a naturopath. I seriously probably would be a naturopath but but with that being said we need good people to be in every industry. So we need nurses, we need pharmacists, we need nurse practitioners and physicians assistants and medical doctors and we need them still in the system. God didn't call me to stay.

 

Okay, I don't know, maybe he'll call me back someday. I don't know. he did, rather right now, it's not where he wants me. But I know plenty of amazing pharmacists who work in the system and they do everything they can to help the people from inside. And it's necessary. You can't just, you know,

 

People are still gonna go there. People that aren't listening to this aren't aware and they're going in. And if they encounter big pharma pharmacists, they're never gonna know what living in good health is. But if there are people like me that are working behind the counter still, that care about the people that are dealing with the...

 

my goodness, being a machine all day, mean, God bless them. It's a calling on their life and I really wish them the best because I cannot imagine, you know, feeling that but it's everyone, however God calls you. So if you feel really compelled to go into pharmacy or go into the medical and maybe you are compelled to be a naturopath, just definitely pray about it because we need people in every area. It's not, it's not over yet. It's not over and we need to have the good people still there.

 

Christian Elliot

Okay, so last question before we wrap up then. So I guess from your perspective, I wanna put you in the visionary role for just a second and give us a little bit of vision of, as time goes on, the medical industrial complex kind of collapses under the weight of its own corruption as the reality of an upside down model of health takes itself to its logical conclusion. What is it that you see rising from the acid? What's the Phoenix? What is the better version of

 

health and healthcare that we have to look forward to on the horizon and give people some vision so they can maybe start to use their own life and their own story to help make that more our reality than what we have today.

 

Dr. Jen VanDeWater

Yeah, I believe it's gonna come back to the community. See, we've become so big, we've lost focus on where we're from. And it's gonna be coming back to looking to the land, living off the land, having your neighbors, who has whatever that they do that they can share and bring to the table. It's gonna be getting back to that, like how our ancestors used to live. And we've been kind of lied to in the propaganda that the world is...

 

you know, your playground and leave your community and nobody stays together anymore. Everybody's gone, you know, and I think there's something about community living, bringing it back to the local level, having your neighbors and your health is going to come from that environment and you're going to then, you know, learn from each other. I mean,

 

Every time I go on a hike, I find things and I'm so intrigued. Ooh, what's this? What's this new plant? I'm always, you know, that needs to come back to all of us to be excited and not look at our yard as being manicured as a, you know, with roundup, killing those medicinal weeds. You know, like we really need to come back to understanding that way of living. And I feel that that's what's coming back. I feel there's going to be a community rising where it's going to be local level.

 

And that's what's going to push out the big pharma because that's exactly what they are, the big. They started to take hold of the hospitals and then the local offices. And you start to look around, people want that sense of security. They want trust. They want to know that they can rely on that provider and that network. So I believe it's going to be a community.

 

Christian Elliot

Well, that's a great note to wrap up on and wherever you are in your journey, go think about where you can be part of that. Think about where your connections, your community, your ⁓ budding new paradigm of health and healing might be an asset to helping. Really we choke this industry out by not giving it our life force anymore, by not spending our money on it, by robbing them of the opportunity to put their witchcraft potions inside of us. ⁓

 

leverage where they do something helpful and then shun them where they don't and really roll up our sleeves and farm and learn new skills and to develop an intuition like Jen said about how to use plants and nature's pharmacy. So ⁓ Jen, thank you so much for taking the time to come on and talk to us today, tell us your story and to just give us the background of what it was like going through that during COVID. It was an honor to have you. So tell people where they can find you or follow your work or anything else you'd like them to know.

 

Dr. Jen VanDeWater

Thank you, Christian. It's been a pleasure sharing and I hope your audience gets encouraged and empowered to own their health. People can find me on Telegram and that's at Dr. VanDeWater. I'm on Twitter at Dr. Jen. VanDeWater. I'm on Instagram at Dr. Jen, the People's Pharmacist. So those are all my social accounts. And then if people are interested, I have the People's Pharmacist Ministry and that's at www.thepeoplespharmacist.com.

 

They can go there and if they'd like a consult, can reach out to me and I can help them on their journey.

 

Christian Elliot

All right. Well, thank you everybody for joining us today. We will see you in the next episode.