This episode of American Alchemy features host Jesse and guest Brigham Buhler, founder of the functional health company Ways to Well, in a wide-ranging conversation about the corporate capture of the American healthcare system, suppressed medical science, UFOs, and the hidden connections between government black programs and big pharma. The central thesis is that the modern health system is not designed to heal but to monetize chronic disease — and that this pattern mirrors the secrecy and institutional deception seen in the UFO cover-up.
The Corporate Takeover of American Medicine
John D. Rockefeller set out to monopolize medicine the same way he monopolized oil, pushing synthetic, patentable pharmaceuticals derived from petroleum while stamping out natural and holistic competitors.
The 1910 Flexner Report, funded by Rockefeller and Carnegie and written by Abraham Flexner, condemned most U.S. medical schools — especially those teaching non-drug-based approaches. Over half were shut down; the rest were brought in line. The American Medical Association (AMA) became the enforcer.
Before Flexner, 20–30% of U.S. doctors were osteopaths, homeopaths, or practitioners of unconventional modalities. The post-Flexner system was never about health — it was about creating a sick-care system designed to turn illness into profit.
The same financial networks behind the Brown Brothers Harriman investment firm (which funded the CIA and overlapped with the Federal Reserve’s founding) are traced as part of the same power structure.
Human Experimentation: Unit 731 and the U.S. Deal with War Criminals
Unit 731, Imperial Japan’s secret biological warfare unit under General Shiro Ishii, conducted horrific experiments on live prisoners — vivisection, deliberate infection with plague and syphilis, pressure chamber tests, and weapons testing.
After WWII, Ishii and his team were granted full immunity by the U.S. in exchange for their research data, which was classified and used to advance American biological warfare capabilities during the Cold War.
This established a pattern: human suffering converted into usable data, with accountability waived for strategic value.
Bayer, Monsanto, and the Machinery of Death
Bayer had deep operational ties to the Nazi regime, including correspondence with Third Reich generals and the testing of compounds on concentration camp prisoners.
In the 1980s, Bayer knowingly shipped HIV-contaminated hemophilia medications to developing countries rather than destroy the lots.
Monsanto was a primary supplier of Agent Orange during the Vietnam War. A contaminant, dioxin, caused cancer, birth defects, and epigenetic mutations passed through generations. Monsanto paid U.S. veterans but excluded Vietnamese civilians.
Monsanto later rebranded as a biotech giant, engineering crops resistant to its flagship herbicide Roundup (glyphosate) — linked to cancer and now pervasive in soil, water, and human bodies.
Bayer acquired Monsanto in 2018, consolidating two of the most toxic corporate legacies in history.
MKUltra, Behavioral Control, and the CIA–Big Pharma Pipeline
The CIA’s MKUltra program experimented on unwitting citizens with LSD, hypnosis, and other methods of mind control. When it was supposedly shut down in the 1960s, a successor division — the Office of Research and Development (ORD) led by Stephen Aldrich — continued the work with better funding and fewer questions.
ORD explored psychosurgery, memory erasure, electrode implantation in animal brains, and even the use of reptiles to deliver biological weapons. Experiments continued at Holmesburg State Prison in Philadelphia into the 1970s.
The CIA’s Scientific Engineering Institute was quietly transitioned into the private sector in the late 1970s, rebranded as SRI International, a subsidiary of G.D. Searle — the pharmaceutical company chaired by Donald Rumsfeld. Rumsfeld helped orchestrate the sale of Searle to Monsanto in 1985.
The line between covert government operations, human experimentation, and big pharma is described as “very, very blurry.”
Suppressed Science and Forgotten Innovators
Royal Raymond Rife claimed in the 1930s to have invented a powerful microscope and a machine that could destroy pathogens by broadcasting their “mortal oscillatory rate” — like an opera singer shattering a wine glass. A California clinic reportedly treated cancer patients with it. The AMA refused to validate his findings; his lab was raided, equipment confiscated, and he died discredited.
Rife was part of a broader wave of early 20th-century inventors exploring electromagnetic healing — from George Lakhovsky’s multi-wave oscillators to Tesla coils and radionic devices.
Nikola Tesla’s papers were seized by the FBI after his death and reviewed by John Trump (MIT professor and uncle of Donald Trump) for potential tactical advantage — not for healing applications.
Modern derivatives like the Rife machine and amp coil are still used by many chronic illness patients, including Lyme disease sufferers. Even Ross Douthat, a New York Times columnist skeptical of UFO conspiracies, has used one.
DNA, Energy, and the Body Electric
The book The Body Electric documents that the body’s bioelectric field controls cell communication, morphology, and limb development — electromagnetic charges are upstream of DNA in determining biological form.
Luc Montagnier, the French Nobel laureate who discovered the HIV genome, spent his later years researching aqueous nanostructures in DNA that transmit information via electromagnetism and was critical of COVID vaccines.
Panspermia — the theory that life’s building blocks arrived on Earth via comets or asteroids — was proposed by Francis Crick, co-discoverer of DNA’s double helix, who believed DNA was too complex and elegant to have emerged by accident.
The double serpent spiral motif (as in the caduceus) appears across Hindu, Greek, Mesoamerican, Aboriginal, and Sumerian traditions — often associated with life, knowledge, and beings from the sky.
About 98% of the human genome was once dismissed as “junk DNA.” Some researchers now propose DNA acts as a fractal antenna capable of responding to electromagnetic frequencies.
Russian scientists in the 1990s reported DNA phantom experiments where laser light continued to scatter as if DNA were still present hours or days after removal — an energetic residue or imprint.
Biophotons — ultra-weak light emissions from living cells — may play roles in cellular communication or consciousness.
The Human Genome Project and Government Secrecy
The Department of Energy (DOE) — the agency connected to UFO nuclear secrets and reverse engineering — also conducted the Human Genome Project, meaning it may know more about human DNA than any entity on Earth.
The episode raises the possibility that DNA is not just a molecule but a method of communication — across millions of years of evolution or potentially across millions of light-years of space.
Regenerative Medicine and Modern Healing Technologies
Ways to Well offers red light therapy, hyperbaric oxygen, stem cell therapy, comprehensive hormone optimization, and other modalities that Buhler says are ignored or stigmatized by mainstream medicine.
Red light therapy has been shown in UK studies to restore degenerative eyesight by penetrating to the cellular level and refueling ATP (cellular energy).
Buhler emphasizes that most modern clinicians receive zero nutritional training and that the system is designed around what insurance covers and what can be patented — not what works.
Corporate Capture and the Innovation Lock
Between 2011 and 2019, 356 blockbuster drugs were released. Buhler claims zero to two were innovated by big pharma — the rest came from taxpayer-funded research that was licensed to pharmaceutical companies for pennies on the dollar.
GLP-1 weight loss drugs were discovered by studying Gila monsters. Taxpayers funded the research; big pharma acquired it after risk was eliminated.
Buhler testified before the U.S. Senate alongside RFK Jr., citing Eisenhower’s warning about the corporate capture of the scientific-academic complex — the loss of the “garage tinkerer” and the suppression of innovation in the name of profitability.
Anthony Fauci held dual roles in bioweapons research and NIH funding. In 2017, a modified SARS spike protein proposal was rejected by DARPA as too dangerous and redirected to the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
Buhler argues gain-of-function research is a euphemism for bioweapons development, noting that no gain-of-function project has ever produced a cure after creating a new pathogen.
The Alien Connection: PCR’s Inventor and Abduction
Kary Mullis, inventor of PCR (polymerase chain reaction), reported an alien abduction experience. He was also skeptical of the HIV narrative — a connection the episode highlights as part of the broader intersection of fringe science, consciousness, and suppressed knowledge.
The Immortality of Jellyfish and Human DNA
The jellyfish (Turritopsis dohrnii) can revert from adult to juvenile state, effectively cycling through life without aging. Its genome has been sequenced, and researchers are studying how it removes all markers of aging through DNA demethylation.
Buhler notes that human reproduction already accomplishes a version of this: a 40-year-old man and 40-year-old woman produce a zero-year-old baby — the gametes are immortal even as the soma ages. The DNA in human bodies has been traveling through time for 7 million years of evolution.
America’s Chronic Disease Crisis
1.7 million Americans die annually of chronic disease — more than every war the U.S. has ever fought combined. The vast majority are preventable.
The system is built to monetize chronic disease, not prevent it. Average clinician visit time: 6 minutes.
Buhler advocates for proactive, predictive, preventative medicine using extensive biomarker panels (70+ markers), DEXA scans, VO2 max testing, wearable data, and AI-driven analysis to catch disease years or decades before onset.
The “decade of decline” — the 40s — sees the average man age 12 years biologically and the average woman 17 years, driven by precipitous hormone decline. Maintaining optimal hormone and biomarker levels can slow or prevent this.
Loneliness, Meaning, and the Power of Community
Blue zones (Sardinia, Okinawa) show that diet alone doesn’t explain longevity — community, purpose, and connection are major factors.
Deaths of despair in America are at an all-time high, exceeding levels during the Great Depression.
Social media creates a hall of mirrors of infinite comparison while functioning as a surveillance mechanism. Buhler’s personal rule: “Is this person going to be in the front row of my funeral?”
Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning is cited — concentration camp survivors who had purpose outlasted stronger men who did not.
RFK Jr., Fauci, and the Regulatory Revolt
RFK Jr. and Dr. Makary (now FDA head) represent an outsider challenge to the captured regulatory apparatus. 10 of the last 11 FDA heads went to work for big pharma afterward.
Buhler testified before the Texas Senate to remove soft drinks from government food programs for low-income families. The American Heart Association testified against the measure — then failed to show up for the next hearing after public backlash on the Joe Rogan podcast.
The AHA’s funding comes from PepsiCo and Coca-Cola, illustrating how institutional health organizations serve corporate sponsors over public health.
Vaccines, Autism, and the Limits of Inquiry
Buhler does not deny that some vaccines are beneficial but questions the current schedule — noting that autism rates have risen to 1 in 12.5 children in California.
He criticizes the suppression of adverse reaction data and the refusal to study natural immunity seriously, citing a leaked video of Fauci in the 1990s acknowledging that natural flu infection confers better immunity than the flu shot.
The episode raises concerns about myocarditis risk in young men post-COVID vaccination and the broader question of whether the establishment is willing to investigate these correlations honestly.
Food, Dyes, and the Slow Poisoning
Food dyes are tested at adult dosage levels and serving sizes, but children consume multiples of those amounts across multiple meals and products, leading to cumulative bioaccumulation.
Glyphosate (Roundup’s active ingredient) is water-soluble and pervasive — Buhler describes it as essentially “Agent Orange water.”
The episode argues that the American environment — food, water, chemicals — is systematically perpetuating chronic disease, obesity, and metabolic dysfunction, and that blaming individuals (“fat and lazy”) is a convenient lie.
UFO Disclosure and Health Awakening
Buhler sees the UFO disclosure movement and the health freedom movement as parallel awakenings — both involve suppressed truths, institutional deception, and a public slowly realizing the scope of the cover-up.
He is optimistic that free speech platforms (podcasts, X, YouTube) are making it increasingly difficult for institutions to hide dark deeds.
Tulsi Gabbard, as Director of National Intelligence, has publicly committed to exposing UAP information — a sign that the “dam is starting to crack.”
Buhler’s personal rule for navigating UFO content: start with the most confident claim — that unidentified objects repeatedly appear around nuclear sites — and build outward from there.
Taking Ownership of Your Health
Buhler’s core advice: take sovereignty and autonomy over your health. Nobody else will do it for you.
Get comprehensive blood work and biomarker testing done proactively — not after disease manifests. Chronic disease that appears in your 40s or 50s had leading indicators in your 20s and 30s.
Conventional medicine compares patients against a sick population baseline (chronically ill Americans on 4+ prescriptions). Functional medicine narrows tolerances to what a healthy 20-year-old would look like.
The goal is to extend healthspan — delay the onset of chronic disease — which indirectly extends lifespan and buys time for the next generation of breakthroughs in AI, CRISPR, and regenerative medicine.
Building a Scalable, Aligned Future of Health
Buhler’s vision for Ways to Well is to make proactive, predictive healthcare accessible and scalable while keeping incentives aligned between patient and practitioner.
He believes choosing people over profits as a “north star” is both morally right and ultimately profitable — and that the current system’s corruption is increasingly exposed by the free media landscape.
The episode closes with a sense of cautious optimism: the convergence of AI, biomarker science, free speech platforms, and a public hungry for truth may finally begin to dismantle the dystopian health system built over the last century.
