American Thought Leaders

The Epoch Times
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At a time when our nation is portrayed as increasingly polarized, media often ignore viewpoints and stories that are worthy of attention. American Thought Leaders, hosted by The Epoch Times Senior Editor Jan Jekielek, features in-depth discussions with some of America’s most influential thought leaders on pertinent issues facing our nation today.

  1. New Evidence Shows SSRI Antidepressants Can Cause Permanent Harm to Sexual Function | Dr. Irwin Goldstein

    3D AGO

    New Evidence Shows SSRI Antidepressants Can Cause Permanent Harm to Sexual Function | Dr. Irwin Goldstein

    Dr. Irwin Goldstein is one of America’s leading sexual health physicians, a pioneer in the field, and the director of San Diego Sexual Medicine. In this episode, he breaks down his latest research into what’s known as post-SSRI sexual dysfunction (PSSD)—a condition that’s not uncommon but rarely discussed publicly. He’s found that a class of antidepressants known as SSRIs can cause lasting physiological damage even after patients discontinue the medication—contrary to what many patients are told. “When they stop the medicine, the usual teaching is that everyone returns to their pre-medication sexual function, and that’s not what we’re seeing in our sexual health clinic here,” Dr. Goldstein says. His recent research showed that SSRIs can cause structural damage to genital tissue as well as many other physiological problems, like genital numbness, erectile dysfunction, and loss of libido. These problems persist long-term after discontinuing SSRI antidepressants. “It’s kind of an awful thing, and it doesn’t go away,” Dr. Goldstein says. “These individuals in my clinic who have been given the medicines: Our youngest is age 11. They'll never experience what one would otherwise consider a normal sexual life.” Dr. Goldstein holds a degree in engineering from Brown University and a medical degree from McGill University in Montreal. He is credited with advancing the study and treatment of both male and female sexual dysfunctions and has authored more than 360 academic publications in the field. Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

    25 min
  2. David Green and Bill High: How One Family Built a Billion-Dollar Company That Gives Away Half Its Profits

    4D AGO

    David Green and Bill High: How One Family Built a Billion-Dollar Company That Gives Away Half Its Profits

    What happens when a business decides faith matters more than profit? Apparently, it flourishes. Hobby Lobby, founded by David and Barbara Green in Oklahoma City in 1972, is a private, family-owned corporation now with over a thousand arts-and-crafts stores nationwide. The stores are closed on Sundays, do not sell any Halloween-themed products, operate debt-free, and are run according to Biblical principles, emphasizing the value of faith and family life. David Green told me in our recent interview: “God blesses us when we do what we should do, rather than what’s maybe most profitable.” “When we closed on Sunday, we did less business. When we stopped selling Halloween, we did less business. I can name seven or eight different things that ... cost us, but it was the right thing to do,“ he said. ”So I think God is asking us to do the right thing and not what’s most profitable.” In 2012, the owners of Hobby Lobby sued the federal government for requiring company insurance plans to cover four specific contraceptives—two morning-after pills and two copper IUDs—that they argued could end life after conception. Facing daily fines of $1.3 million, the Green family filed a lawsuit that culminated in a 5–4 victory at the Supreme Court. In my interview with Green and his longtime friend and co-author of his many books, Bill High, we talk about their latest book “The Legacy Life.” How do we build a lasting, meaningful legacy? How do we become good stewards of our resources, time, and talents? How can families ensure their values are truly passed on to later generations—and not lost over time? Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

    36 min

  3. 5D AGO

    Here’s How Trump Can Leverage the CCP’s Greatest Vulnerability | Ambassador Sam Brownback

    What if the most potent weapon that America has against the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) isn’t nukes or tariffs? “This isn’t a competition between the largest economy and the second largest economy. This is a competition of ideals—and we’ve got the better ones,” says former Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom Sam Brownback. “If you want to hit them where it hurts, hit them on human rights issues, genocides in their own country, religious freedom that they don’t grant any of their people—whether they be Buddhist, Muslim, Falun Gong, Christians. That’s where they’re the weakest. It’s where they’re the most vulnerable.” Ahead of President Donald Trump’s expected meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, I sat down with Brownback to understand what he sees as the Chinese regime’s greatest vulnerabilities, its deepest fears, and how those can be strategically leveraged by the United States. Brownback is co-chair of the International Religious Freedom Summit. He previously served as governor of Kansas from 2011 to 2018 and as a U.S. senator from Kansas, 1996 to 2011. His upcoming book is titled, “China’s War on Faith.” Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

    39 min
  4. What Doctors Often Don’t Tell You About Antidepressants | Dr. Josef Witt-Doerring

    6D AGO

    What Doctors Often Don’t Tell You About Antidepressants | Dr. Josef Witt-Doerring

    More than 11 percent of Americans take antidepressants, including rising numbers of kids and adolescents and even pregnant women. The majority of Americans believe that depression is linked to a chemical imbalance in the brain, and that drugs can fix this imbalance—just as someone with Type 1 diabetes might take insulin. But that’s not true, according to board-certified psychiatrist Josef Witt-Doerring. “There’s never been any evidence that there’s been a chemical imbalance,” Witt-Doerring says. “There is no way to differentiate patients who are depressed from those who are not depressed using any objective markers.” Instead of fixing a chemical balance, what antidepressants really do is mask symptoms, he says. A former FDA officer and now director of TaperClinic, Witt-Doerring helps people safely get off of psychiatric medications. In this episode, we dive into the realities of antidepressant drug use, what most patients often aren’t told by their doctors, and how a patient can be weaned off of psychiatric drugs safely and avoid devastating withdrawal symptoms. How do these drugs affect people long-term? Are they really safe for pregnant women? And what kinds of potential side effects do they have? And we dig into perhaps the most taboo subject of all: Is there a link between antidepressants and mass shootings? Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

    52 min
  5. Charles Murray: I Thought Religion Was Irrelevant to Me. I Was Wrong.

    OCT 25

    Charles Murray: I Thought Religion Was Irrelevant to Me. I Was Wrong.

    Political scientist Charles Murray has written many well-known books over the course of his lifetime. Many of his works—including “Losing Ground,” “The Bell Curve,” and “Coming Apart”—have deeply influenced the intellectual discourse and zeitgeist of our times and provoked heated debate about the roots of major social problems in America. His latest book covers a topic that he has never covered deeply before: religion. Murray writes in the foreword of his book “Taking Religion Seriously,” “Millions are like me when it comes to religion: well-educated and successful people for whom religion has been irrelevant. We grew up in secular households or drifted away from the faiths in which we were raised and never looked back. For them, I think I have a story worth telling.” In our conversation, he recounts how he slowly came to question his assumption that there was nothing in religion for him. He began to grapple with questions such as: How did life come to be? Why is there something rather than nothing? What happens to purely secular societies? What happens to art that no longer acknowledges beauty, truth, and the good? He said: “I finished the book by comparing myself to a kid whose nose is pressed against the glass watching a party that’s going on inside that he can’t join. I have had the good fortune to meet a number of people who have had a very full, rich spiritual experience. ... I look at the kind of people they are, and I say to myself: I want more of that.” Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

    57 min
  6. CCP Power Plays in Tariff Talks Explained | John Moolenaar, Chairman of the House CCP Committee

    OCT 23

    CCP Power Plays in Tariff Talks Explained | John Moolenaar, Chairman of the House CCP Committee

    Rep. John Moolenaar (R-Mich.) has been spearheading efforts in Congress to combat the threat posed by the Chinese regime to American interests—from economic warfare to espionage and infiltration—as chairman of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party. “With rare earths, China is basically firing a loaded gun ... on our economy,” he says. He’s pushing a bill that would phase in a 100 percent tariff on all strategic goods from China. The tariff would not just penalize China but also incentivize “other countries, as well as the United States, to invest in this almost as if it’s a Defense Production Act activity.” Beyond rare earth minerals, what leverage does the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) have exactly in trade talks with the United States? What will the CCP’s strategy be? How should President Donald Trump respond to the CCP’s coercive tactics and its recent attempts to gain additional leverage? And what can America do to extricate itself from its dependence on China for some of its most critical manufacturing technologies? Moolenaar points out that the CCP is using its leverage not only over trade but also over Chinese nationals studying or working in America via its extensive United Front operations. “Under their recent national security laws, any Chinese national who doesn’t carry out the will of the Chinese Communist Party, no matter where they are in the world, on U.S. soil or somewhere else in the world, [is] in violation of national security laws,” Moolenaar says. On the other hand, is the position of the CCP really secure? And what about Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s position in particular? What signs of dissatisfaction and unrest are there among the Chinese population? Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

    47 min
  7. Against the Grain: The NBA Player Who Refused to Kneel or Get the Shot | Jonathan Isaac

    OCT 22

    Against the Grain: The NBA Player Who Refused to Kneel or Get the Shot | Jonathan Isaac

    NBA player Jonathan Isaac is known not just for his talent on the court, but for his convictions and outspoken faith. He’s the author of the 2022 best-selling memoir “Why I Stand.” As a youth, he struggled with anxiety—but a chance encounter in an elevator with the man who would later become his pastor changed the course of his life. Faith helped him triumph over his battle with anxiety, but it also later put him at the center of a national debate. After George Floyd’s death, at the height of the Black Lives Matter movement, most NBA players chose to kneel during the national anthem. But Isaac chose to stand. Later, his decision to decline the COVID-19 vaccines also drew intense media scrutiny. In this episode, he shares his story, his convictions, his choices and why he made them, and what it means to believe in something bigger than yourself. Now, through his UNITUS shoe line, Isaac shares Bible verses and a message of hope. Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

    47 min
  8. The CCP’s Gloves Are Off in Trade War—What’s Next? | Lee Smith

    OCT 18

    The CCP’s Gloves Are Off in Trade War—What’s Next? | Lee Smith

    The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) recently imposed unprecedented export controls on rare earths, escalating the U.S.–China trade war. How is it that the Chinese regime managed to gain control of many of the most essential supply chains, from critical minerals to pharmaceuticals? How should the Trump administration approach this threat to national security? In this episode, we sit down with Lee Smith, author of “The Plot Against the President,” and the soon-to-be-released book, “The China Matrix: The Epic Story of How Donald Trump Shattered a Deadly Pact.” “It was simply American corruption that has allowed all of this to happen. And that’s certainly the point that [U.S. President] Donald Trump makes in the book,” Smith says. What is Trump’s strategy when it comes to China? How does he actually view Chinese leader Xi Jinping? Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times. Editor’s Note: Lee Smith previously hosted the EpochTV program “Words That Matter.”

    45 min
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    At a time when our nation is portrayed as increasingly polarized, media often ignore viewpoints and stories that are worthy of attention. American Thought Leaders, hosted by The Epoch Times Senior Editor Jan Jekielek, features in-depth discussions with some of America’s most influential thought leaders on pertinent issues facing our nation today.

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