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tv   60 Minutes  CBS  January 1, 2023 7:00pm-7:59pm PST

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where do an estimated 11 million russians get straight objective news? from radio free europe. the u.s. government-funded cold war relic is as relevant as it's ever been. with reporters on the front lines, it's run from prague and employs journalists from all over the world. >> do all of you expect to return to russia? >> not before putin dies, i think. la monthe naofworlrieed to .
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but thead this meetingand e goa. leading biologisar time is running out to slow the rate of extinction around the globe. >> which is exactly why i and the vast majority of my colleagues think we're -- we've had it. that the next few decades will be the end of the kind of civilization we're used to. if you diet, you lose weight. right? >> the number one cause of obesity is genetics. that means if you are born to parents that have obesity, you have a 50 to 85% likelihood of having the disease yourself, even with optimal diet, exercise, sleep management, stress management. so when people see families that have obesity, the assumption is, what are they feeding those kids?
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i'm lesley stahl. >> i'm bill whitaker. >> i'm anderson cooper. >> i'm sharyn alfonsi. >> i'm jon wertheim. >> i'm scott pelley. those stories and more tonight on "60 minutes." detect this: living with hiv, i learned i can stay undetectable with fewer medicines. that's why i switched to dovato. dovato is for some adults who are starting hiv-1 treatment or replacing their current hiv-1 regimen. detect this: no other complete hiv pill uses fewer medicines to help keep you undetectable than dovato. detect this: most hiv pills contain 3 or 4 medicines. dovato is as effective with just 2. research shows people who take hiv treatment as prescribed and get to and stay undetectable can no longer transmit hiv through sex. don't take dovato if you're allergic to its ingredients, or if you take dofetilide. taking dovato with dofetilide can cause serious
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frank is a fan of fast. he's a fast talker. a fast walker. thanks, gary. and for unexpected heartburn... frank is a fan of pepcid. it works in minutes. nexium 24 hour and prilosec otc can take one to four days to fully work. pepcid. strong relief for fans of fast. americans familiar with radio free europe and radio liberty might consider them cold war relics, vestiges of a time when broadcasting straight news behind the iron curtain was considered key to promoting democracy. but with a new cold war
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descending and a hot war blazing in the heart of europe, rfe/rl, as they're also known, are back in vogue. with a $20 million boost from congress, the u.s. taxpayer-funded broadcasters are beaming and streaming original content, mostly video these days, into many of the same former soviet republics they targeted in the 1950s. marian kushnir is a familiar face on radio free europe. a ukrainian war correspondent, he's been slogging alongside his country's troops with his camera ever since the russians invaded.
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we spoke with him in november from a prague control room alongside his editor. kushnir was in bakhmut, under siege by russian troops. >> translator: i will say this in ukrainian. this is the place where they help ukrainian soldiers who come here from the front line. this is a field hospital. there are about 100 wounded in here. >> reporter: you were talking about the routine of it all, but does it feel to you that you are daily putting yourself in harm's way? >> translator: this is the war. i am always at risk. even being right here in this hospital i understand that next to it some shelling is happening right at this moment, but everyone in ukraine is now in danger. >> reporter: kushnir's harrowing accounts can be seen in many vi youtube, tiktok, conveying as much as he can the reality of humanity's ultimate folly. >> translator: the war for me is the stench of blood, gunpowder,
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sweat, and constant mud. and there's no romance about the war. it is about fear, grief, and tears. no footage, photos, or words can express what is happening right here in the battlefield. >> we're an international public broadcaster, and we operate in countries where freedom of the press either doesn't exist or is under assaulted. >> reporter: jamie fly, former adviser to the george w. bush administration is the ceo of radio free europe radio liberty, which is based in prague, the capital of the czech republic, since 1995. >> we're funded by the u.s. congress. but by law, we're editorially independent of the u.s. government. >> reporter: today, it's not just radio, it's mostly video, correct? >> yeah. so we constantly are debating when to change the name, and that may come in the years ahead. >> so it's mostly seen on the internet.
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>> it varies depending on what market we're in. on iran, we're on radio. pakistan, we're available on radio. but in places like russia, belarus, ukraine, people are primarily engaging with our content on social media. >> reporter: this modern news room is like a journalistic version of the united nations. each service, russian, ukrainian, iranian, and 19 others is made up of emigrees and ex-pats from those countries. they have their own news rooms and broadcast facilities. >> you can read our journalistic standards document online, and we have a rigorous editorial process that determines what s many of our 20 bureaus as possible. >> reporter: russia's multi-billion dollar effort to push disinformation abroad has given the cold war radios new life. they're adding two new bureaus
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and constructing studios here in prague for an additional russian language channel, featuring documentaries, music and comedies. this is your area of coverage? >> yes. >> reporter: fly says 40 million people from 23 countries across this broad land mass tune in to their coverage. 11 million inside russia, despite the kremlin's labeling them a foreign agent. >> that is a common refrain we hear from the kremlin, from authoritarians that don't like us, and we've dealt with that by being very transparent. we cover governments, even governments that are friendly towards the u.s. just as tough as we cover the kremlin. >> reporter: radio free europe was created and nurtured by legendary cold warriors, including diplomat george kennan, cia director, alan dulles, and presidents truman, eisenhower, and kennedy. this place, it oozes with
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history. can you tell me about the driving force, the soul of this place? >> certainly for the journalists, it's a commitment to the truth. we live right now in what some would call a post-truth age, where people increasingly don't even believe in an objective truth, but this was an organization in the 1950s that was founded on the notion that there is an objective truth. >> radio free europe combats the soviet line with 21 transmitters. >> reporter: one truth the broadcasters still struggle with is the fact that they were originally funded by the cia. congress ended that affiliation in 1971 and mandated the radios operate without any u.s. government interference. but that hasn't stopped other governments from interfering with them. the history of radio free europe is filled with cold war intrigue. the american broadcaster has been a perennial target of soviet and later russian spies. a number of deadly plots have
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been foiled including one to poison salt shakers in the cafeteria. still, some high-profile journalists have been assassinated. including rfe host and bulgarian dissident, who was jabbed with a poisoned umbrella tip in london in 1978. the terrorist known as carlos the jackal bombed its munich headquarters in 1981. all told, 18 radio free europe journalists have been killed, two are imprisoned in belarus, one in crimea. pavel butorin runs rfe's 24/7 russian language television channel, current time.p s soared since the invasion of ukraine. how many viewers are you getting? >> for tv alone, we report 6.2 million weekly views. but for digital platforms this year, we've reported 3 billion
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online views. >> reporter: he says many russians watch their live youtube feed in secret, using virtual private networks. recently, these stickers started showing up in russian cities. they appear to be ads for cheap sugar, but when you scan the bar codes -- >> the qr code, the quick response codes, takes you to the current times' website. another one was an ikea sale. but the actual qr code took you to our youtube channel. and we had nothing too that. >>or22, thelied bacclk. itnemeouscow o owitgaal in ukraine a war, with punishment up to 15 years in jail. as anchor of current times' nightly newscast, this reporter
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flouts that law nearly every day. born and raised in moscow, she is essentially exiled here in prague. do you think you will be able to go home some day? >> i honestly don't know. >> reporter: really? >> there is a chance, you know, that me or any of my colleagues could be, you know, detained at the airport. i think there is a reason why almost every fair journalist left the country since the beginning of the war. >> reporter: can you explain to those of us from outside of the country what's happening in russia? >> i think that things are moving in a very scary direction. i'm sure that this war brings disastrous consequence, not only for ukraine and ukrainian, but for russia and russians. >> reporter: a million russian citizens have fled the coundhal including these four radio free europe journalists, who until recently, worked in its moscow
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bureau. >> journalists, especially russian journalists. >> reporter: fatalists? >> fatalists, yes. >> reporter: sergey is an investigative reporter. do all of you expect to return to russia? >> not before putin dies, i think. >> reporter: it's home, though? >> yes, i still consider russia to be home. to me, russia is occupied by putin. and also the russian people are occupied, many of them, by russian propaganda. >> reporter: natalia covers human rights. >> when i came to our funeral, i understood that these media gives you a chance to tell the truth, to cover your stories as you see it, as you want to present it, and pressure of some guidelines from the government. >> reporter: anastasia is at odds with both her country and her parents who believe russian propaganda.
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>> i tried to send them my reports, but they still believe, not to me, but they still believe to russian invasion. they're afraid of truth. >> reporter: afraid of the truth? >> yes. that's how propaganda works. >> reporter: alexi alexandroff did a stint in ukraine before leaving russia. >> after the war begins, i decided that i would like to go back to ukraine, not to russia. because i feel responsible, anyway, for this war, but -- >> reporter: what do you mean you feel responsible? >> as a part of russian society. and probably i would like to go back to ukraine to help the people in ukraine to rebuild their country. >> reporter: his radio free europe colleagues inside ukraine have been doing just that. natalie sedletska is host and executive producer of an
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investigative news series. her reporting helped expose of former ukrainian president viktor yanukovych. who fled to russia. now she's uncovering bigger crimes. >> when the full-scale war started, me and my team found out that our investigative skills can really help now in new reality. and we started to investigate russian atrocities in ukraine. >> reporter: you uncovered, you documented war crimes. >> that's true. you've heard of bucha, right? >> mm-hmm. >> unfortunately there are dozens, if not hundreds of such cities that suffered so much from russian atrocities. >> reporter: bucha was the site of mass murder of ukrainian civilians by russian troops. sedletska works in the kyiv bureau under constant threat of
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russian missiles. >> if you can imagine any tragedy, a mother lost a child, a child lost his mother and dad, like, imagine all horrible things, they are going on now in my country. >> you've decided to stay? >> being a reporter in ukraine, it's our mission, of course. so why i'm telling you this story is because i'm afraid of untold stories. i'm afraid that we will not be able to tell all of the truths that is going on, because so much is going on. introducing... weightwatchers simplified program. with an easy to use app and over 200 zero-point-foods you'll never go hungry. losing weight with weightwatchers just got easier.
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hi, i'm ron reagan, an unabashed atheist. and i'm alarmed, as you may be, by the intrusions of religion into our secular government. that's why i'm asking you to join the freedom from religion foundation, the nation's largest and most effective association of atheists and agnostics working to keep state and church separate, just like our founders intended. please join the freedom from religion foundation today. ron reagan, lifelong atheist, not afraid of burning in hell. lactaid is 100% real milk, just without the lactose. tastes great in our iced coffees too. which makes waking up at 5 a.m. to milk the cows a little easier. (moo) mabel says for you, it's more like 5:15. man: mom, really? my dad was a hard worker. he used to do side jobs installing windows, charging something like a hundred bucks a window when other guys were charging four to five-hundred bucks. he just didn't wanna do that.
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in what year will the human population grow too large for the answer is, about 1970, according to research by the world wildlife fund. in 1970, the planet's 3.5 billion people were sustainable, but on this new year's day, the population is 8 billion. today, wild plants and animals are running out of places to live. the scientist you're about to meet say the earth is suffering a crisis of mass extinction, on a scale unseen since the dinosaurs. we're going to show you a possible solution, but first, have a look at how humanity is already suffering from the vanishing wild. in washington state, the sailish sea helped feed the world.
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>> with this weather and the way things feel when i get out here, it's time to be fishing. that's what it feels like. >> reporter: commercialman fisherman dana wilson supported a family on the sailer sea's legendary wealth of salmon. he remembers propellers churning the water off of blaine, washington, and cranes straining for the state's $200 million annual catch. >> that used to be a buying station. they'rne now they don't buy anymore. so that building over there used to buy salmon. they don't buy salmon anymore. it's just -- it's just not here. >> reporter: in 1991, one salmon species was endangered. today, 14 salmon populations are foundering. they've been crowded out of rivers by habitat destruction, warming, and pollution. dana wilson used to finish all summer. today, a conservation authority grants rare, fleeting permission to throw a net.
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there was a season? >> there was a season. >> reporter: now there's a day? >> there's a day. sometimes it's hours. sometimes you might get 12 hours, 16 hours. that's what we're down to. >> reporter: here, the vanishing wild scuttled a way of life that began with native tribes a thousand years ago. >> i don't remember anybody doing anything other than fishing. >> reporter: fisherman armondo is a member of the lumy tribe, which calls itself people of the salmon. he didn't imagine the rich harvest would end with his five fishbo >> all of a sudden, you're trying to figure out, how am i going to make that paycheck for my family? for me it was i have a backup for a backup for a backup for a backup. >> reporter: his backup includes a food truck, switching to crab fishing and consulting on cannabis farms. his scramble to adapt is being repeated around the world. a world wildlife fund study says
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that in the past 50 years, the abundance of global wildlife has collapsed 69%. mostly for the same reason. >> too many people, too much consumption, and growth mania. >> reporter: at the age of 90, biologist paul urlic may have lived long enough to see some of his dire predictions come true. you seem to be saying that humanity is not sustainable? >> humanity is not sustainable. to maintain our lifestyle, yours and mine, for the entire family, planet, you would need five more earths. not clear where they're going to come from. >> reporter: just in terms of the resources that would be required? >> resources that would be required, the systems that support our lives, which of course are the biodiversity that we're wiping out. humanity is very busily sitting on a limb that we're sawing off. >> reporter: in 1968, urlich a biology professor at stanford
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became a doomsday celebrity with a best seller forecasting the collapse of nature. >> when "the population bomb" came out, you were described as an alarmist. >> i was alarmed. i am still alarmed. all of my colleagues are alarmed. >> the alarm urlich sounded in '68 warned that overpopulation would trigger widespread famine. he was wro about that. the green revolution fed the world. but he also wrote in '68 that heat from greenhouse gases would melt polar ice, and humanity would overwhelm the wild. today, humans have taken over 70% of the planet's land and 70% of the fresh water. >> the rate of extinction is extraordinarily high now and getting higher all the time. >> reporter: we know the rate of extinction is extraordinarily high because of a study of the fossil record by biologist tony barnovski, urlich's stanford colleague.
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>> the data are rock solid. i don't think you'll find a scientist that will say we're not in an extinction crisis. >> reporter: barnovski's research suggests that today's rate of extinction is up to 100 times faster than is typical in in the nearly 4 billion year history of life. these peaks represent the few times that life collapsed globally and the last was the dinosaurs, 66 million years ago. >> there are five times in earth's history where we had mass extinctions. and by mass extinctions, i mean at least 75%, three quarters, of the known species disappearing from the face of the earth. now, we're witnessing what a lot of people are calling the sixth mass extinction, where the same thing could happen on our watch. >> it's a horrific state of the planet when common species, the ubiquitous species that we're
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familiar with are declining. >> reporter: tony barnovski's colleague in the study of extinction is his wife, biologist liz hadley, faculty director at stanford's jasper ridge research preserve in california. >> you know, i see it in my mind. and it's a really sad state. if you spend any time in california, you know the loss of water, the loss of water means that there are dead salmon, you see, in the river right before your eyes. but it also means the demise of those birds that rely on the salmon fishery. eagles. it means things like minks and otters that rely on fish. it means that our habitats that we're used to, the forests, 3,000-year-old forests are going to be gone. it means silence. and it means some very catastrophic events, because it's happening so quickly. >> i mean, you look out your window and three quarters of what you think ought to be there is no longer there.
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that's what mass extinction looks like. >> what we see just in california is, you know, the loss of our iconic state symbols. we have no more grizzly bears in california. >> reporter: the only grizzly bears in california are on the state flag? >> that's our state mammal and they're not here anymore. >> reporter: is it too much to say that we're killing the planet? >> no. >> i would say it's too much to say that we're killing the planet, because the planet's going to be fine. what we're doing is we're killing our way of life. >> reporter: the worst of the killing is in latin america, where the world wildlife fund study says the abundance of wildlife has fallen 94% since 1970. but it was also in latin america that we found the possibility of hope.
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mexican ecologist, the leading scientist on extinction told us the only solution is to save the one third of the earth that remains wild. to prove it, he's running a 3,000-square-mile experiment. in the colic bowl biosphere reserve near guatemala, he is paying family farmers to stop cutting the forest. >> we're going to pay each family certain amount of money that is more than you will get cutting down the forest, if you protect it. >> reporter: and how much are you paying out every year? >> we're paying each family here will get around $1,000. >> reporter: more than enough here to make up for lost farmland. in total, the payouts come to $1.5 million a year or about $2,000 per square mile. the tab is paid through the charity of wealthy donors. >> the investment to protect what is left is, i mean, really
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small. >> reporter: the payoff on thabe s 30 years ago, the jaguar was very nearly extinct in mexico. now he says they've rebounded to about 600 in the reserve. ther increase the populations of certain species, but i wonder, are all these little success stories enough to prevent mass extinction? >> all the big success that we have in protecting forests and recovering animals like tigers in india, jaguars in mexico, elephants in botswana and so on are incredible, amazing successes. but there are like grains of sand in a beach. and to really make a big impact,
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we need to scale up this ten thousand times. they are important, because they give us hope, but they are completely insufficient to cope with climate change. >>l,t we would h hat would the ? and then put all of the machinery of society, political, economic, and social towards finding solutions to the problems. >> reporter: finding solutions to the problems was the goal to weeks ago at the u.n. biodiversity conference, where nations agreed to conservation targets. but at the same meeting in 2010, those nations agreed to limit the destruction of the earth by 2020 and not one of those goals was met. this despite thousands of studies, including the continuing research of stanford biologist, paul urlich. you know that there is no
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political will to do any of the things that you're recommending. >> i know there's no political will to do any of the things that i'm concerned with. which is exactly why i and the vast majority of my colleagues think that we've had it. that the next few decades will be the end of the kind of civilization that we're used to. >> reporter: in the 50 years since urlich's population bomb, humanity's feasting on resources has tripled. we're already consuming 175% of what the earth can regenerate. and consider, half of humanity, about 4 billion, live on less than $10 a day. they aspire to cars, air-conditioning, and a rich diet. but they won't be fed by the fishermen of washington's sallish sea. including armando.
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the tribe has been fishing salmon here for hundreds of years? >> yeah. >> reporter: and your generation is seeing the end of that? >> it's getting harder and harder. i hate to say it -- i don't want to say it's the end of it. >> reporter: why do you feel so emotionally attached to this? >> it's everything we know. i'm fortunate enough to know where i know a lot of different things, i've done a lot of different things in my life. i've gotten good at evolving and changing, but not everybody here is built like that. and to some of us, this is what they know. it's all that they know. >> reporter: the five mass extinctions of the ancient past were caused by natural
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calamities, volcanos and an asteroid. today, if the science is right, humanity may have to survive a sixth mass extinction in a world of its own making. cbs sports hq is presented by progressive insurance i'm james brown with the scores from the nfl today. new england stays alive as miami suffers the south peach sorrows. minshew lost his magic and the game for the eagles. new year, same goat. as brady brings the bucs back to the post season while the commanders wince in pain after their playoffs hopes end. go to cbs spsportshq.com for mo highlights. okay. can anyone tell me what julie did wrong there? you got to repeat the number. i mean, no one's ever gonna get it the first time. -nope. -didn't leave her last name. no, the -- the phone tells you who called. she didn't mention a good time to call her back.
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almost half of american adults have obesity, a condition that was a fraction of that just 40 years ago. and scientists don't agree on what's caused the dramatic increase. what everyone does agree on is that it's a major health crisis, because obesity can cause type
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ii diabetes, hypertension, stroke and more than a dozen cancers. now there's a medication that leads to dramatic weight loss, but it's wildly expensive. hollywood celebrities take it to flatten their tummies, but few can afford the thousands of dollars it costs a year. and very few insurance companies will cover it, even though in 2013, the american medical association, some would say finally recognized obesity as a disease. >> it's a brain disease. >> it is? >> it's a brain disease. the brain tells us how much to eat and how much to store. >> reporter: dr. fatima cody stanford, an obesity doctor at mass general hospital, an associate professor at harvard medical school says common beliefs about obesity are all wrong. >> it is your turn to get on that scale. >> reporter: and diet shows, like "the biggest loser."
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>> you lost 128 pounds! >> reporter: are snookering people. if you diet, you lose weight, right? >> for many of us, we can go on a diet, something like "the biggest loser." you go and restrict people. you make them work out for ten hours a day and feed them 500 calories. for most people, they will acutely lose weight. but 96% of those participants in "the biggest loser" regained the weight, because their brain worked well. it was supposed to bring them back to store what they think they need. >> so willpower? >> throw that out the window. my last patient i saw today was a young patient who is 39 who struggles with severe obesity. she's been working out five to six times a week, consistently. she's eating very little. her brain is defending a certain set point. >> reporter: a set point, says dr. stanford, is a range of weight your brain is in charge of maintaining by controlling
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how much food you eat and how much of it you store. one theory is that it's an evolutionary survival mechanism that helped retain fat during famine. so we had covid. lots and lots of people gained weight. do those people have a new set point that's higher now? >> absolutely. >> so when you have a chronic stressor and get to a certain weight and maintain that weight for at least three to six months, then you recalibrate that set point to a different set point. >> i've always heard that it's the fast food, the diet cokes, that kind of thing that is the instigator. is that true? >> so i think we have to look at the different cause of obesity as a big pie. that's one factor. but notice how i'm using this part of the pie. but the number one cause of obesity is genetics. that means if you are born to parents that have obesity, you have a 50 to 85% likelihood of having the disease yourself,
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even with optimal diet, exercise, sleep management, stress management. so when people see families that have obesity, the assumption is, what are they feeding those kids? >> yeah. >> they're doing something wrong. actually, do you know this? 79 to 90% of physicians in the united states have significant bias towards individuals that are heavier. now, doctors listening to me may say, oh, it's not me. hold your horses, because has that patient come to you and told you, look, doc, i'm eating well, look, doc, i'm exercising, and the doc says to them, are you sure? i don't believe that that's really what you're doing. >> wait, are you saying that doctors don't understand obesity? doctors? >> doctors do not understand obesity. >> reporter: in one of her published studies, dr. stanford found that most medical schools don't teach that obesity is a disease, and in fact, don't even offer courses on it, even though it's the second leading cause of preventable death in the country
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after smoking. nicole sams, mother of five from do.u knowi sat, had the rubber foods come in front of me, only eat this portion. i'm like, oh. >> reporter: maya cohen went on her first diet when she was 13. at her heaviest, at 5 feet tall, she weighed 192 pounds. >> did you feel that people looked at you and said, why doesn't she stop eating? she's eaten her way to that? >> you look at someone and you internalize, oh, they must think i'm eating too much. so after a while, you personally think that, okay, everyone's telling me that this is a flaw in my character, therefore it must be true, so you start believing this. don't you think if people walking down the street with
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obesity, stigmatized as they are, shunned, don't you think if they could lose weight and keep it off, they would? >> dr. caroline, co-director of wellness center in boston -- >> exercise is good, i'm walking a lot. >> who sees both maya cohen and nicole sams, is relieved that at last she has a highly effective medication to offer her patients that's safe, according to the fda. >> what the medication does -- >> it's part of a new generation of medications that brings about an impressive average loss of 15 to 22% of a person's weight, and it helps keep it off. >> a major issue -- >> these doctors have been advising companies developing drugs for obesity, including the danish company, novonordisc, an
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advertiser on this project, it makes the drug you inject yourself once a week with it's not easy to get. the drug is currently in short supply. and it costs more than $1,300 a month. >> people in hollywood can afford these expensive injections. and they're taking them. >> right. >> and they're not necessarily people with obesity. >> yeah. we have a national shortage on these medications. if those that have the means are able to get them, yet the people that really need them aren't able to, then that creates a greater disparity, the haves and the have not s. >> the vast majority of people with obesity simply can't afford it and most insurance companies refuse to cover it, partly because, as ahip, the health insurance trade association explained in a statement, these drugs have not yet been proven to work well for long-term weight management, and can have
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complications and adverse impacts on patients. >> what we've seen so far is really nausea, vomiting, you know, that's why these drugs are dosed slowly and starting with low doses and build up. >> most of the side effects go single day, wseen ight, tns shearase, ae cagive them this fabulous, robust medication that is very effective and safe. and we can't give it to them, because insurance won't cover it. i receive e-mails about denials that state that we're denying this because the doctor has not counseled the patient on behavior change, as part of this.
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that's where the stigma of obesity comes in. the idea that the patient can do it with diet and exercise. you would never do that to a patient with hypertension or heart disease or type ii diabetes. tell them, just don't eat sugar, you'll be fine. >> reporter: novonordis also makes a drug for type ii diabetes called ozempic, which most insurers and employers do cover. what frustrates the doctors is that they are exactly the same drug although wegovy for is usuallyt a aya cohented the medi for obesity. my innc they consider it vanitdry drhat ider d? >> correct >> nicole was also denied coverage.
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on its website, her health plan, through the state of rhode island puts anti-obesity medications in the same category for erectile dysfunction and cosmetic purposes. there are about 110 million americans eligible for an anti-obesity medication, making it a costly investment for insurance. but if they covered it, overall government and private health care spending would probably come down. just take diabetes, that is in many cases caused by obesity. diabetes costs more than $300 billion a year, most of which is covered through medicare and medicaid. but university of chicago health care economist thomas phillipston points out that there's actually a law that prevents medicare from covering weight loss drugs. >> you would think that that tohese d.a
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>> a third of medicare spending is diabetes, which is highly tied to obesity. and medicare kind of seized all the health care expenses when you get older. when you have heart disease, et cetera, from your obesity. i think what ultimately will drive it is that they have evidence that this actually is going to lower total medicare costs. >> great, great. >> reporter: when dr. opovian told both maya and nicole that their obesity was not a weakness of willpower, they were blown away. >> i looked at her and i said, i don't believe you. i said, what do you mean it's not my fault? it is my fault, because it's what i heard for my entire life. >> i went home that day, like a boulder had come off my shoulders. like, okay, there's finally hope. there's hope. >> did you cry? >> i did. a lot. >> all of those years of
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thinking that somehow you have no willpower and it's your moral failing and you're a glutton, and why did you eat so much and feeling shame. it's the shame. >> yeah. yeah. it's the shame. >> it's the shame. >> maya was ultimately able to get the medication covered by her insurance because she has type ii diabetes. she's lost more than 50 pounds. dr. opovian says she does have to continue dieting and exercising, and like most patients, will be taking the drug indefinitely to maintain her weight. nicole doesn't have type ii diabetes. >> nicole, we called your insurance company and they gave us a statement. >> okay. >> earlier this year, the state of rhode island in consultation with its pharmacy benefits manager decided that health insurance for the state of rhode
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island employees would cover the entire class of anti-obesity drugs. >> really? >> this coverage change goes into effect january 2023. >> okay. >> i'm so happy for you. >> yes. >> yes. >> this is great. this is great. wow. wow. >> in its statement, the health insurance trade association said, obesity is a complex disease and the evidence and clinical guidelines related to obesity treatment are evolving rapidly. health insurance providers will continue to review the clinical evidence. we're just giving patients a little more of that fullness hormone. >> the science of weight management drugs at 60 minutesover time.com. nurtec od.
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♪ focus on what matters in life... being together. celebrating together. ♪ ...without letting anything and stay...together. ♪
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next sunday on "60 minutes," prince harry has an explosive new memoir coming out. what's inside? his revealing interview with anderson cooper only on the award-winning "60 minutes" all new next sunday on cbs and streaming on paramount plus.
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minutes" is sponsored by united health care. get medicare with more. last night marked not only the end of a year, but also the end of an era. dr. anthony fauci at 82, president biden's chief medical adviser and director of the national institute of allergy and infectious disease, stepped down after nearly 39 years. in eight "60 minutes" stories, dr. fauci spoke with our late colleague ed bradley about the development of aids drugs, with us about questionable cures for aids. lesley stahl asked about drug resistant super bugs. steve croft talked with him about h5n1 bird flu.
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in 2016, it was mosquito-born zika, and recently covid-19. dr. fauci spoke directly in language the average american could understand. and he wasn't afraid of a little controversy in the service of science and medicine. i'm scott pelley. we'll be back next week with another edition of "60 minutes" and happy new year. i was always the competitive one in our family... 'til my sister signed up for united healthcare medicare advantage. ♪wow, uh-huh♪ now she's got a whole team ♪wow, uh-huh♪ with coverage that's better than ever for dental... ...vision... ...prescription drugs and more. advantage: me! can't wait 'til i turn 65! aarp medicare advantage plans, only from unitedhealthcare. gels have laser drilled holes.e
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♪ ♪ and still lose weight. thank you for considering my request for parole. first, i want to say i take full responsibility for my actions. i understand that i committed a serious crime. i stand before you a different man than the one that robbed an innocent, hardworking man at gunpoint. i'm so sorry. you didn't deserve that. (banging on door) (buzzer sounds) guard: you got ten minutes, ma'am. ana: i'm sorry, bode. i really thought that we had a chance for parole. but if you do that program i told you about... here's the application. cal fire is hungry

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