I'm really disturbed from what I saw on this Dr. Phil video. I've always had respect for what he does but now he has hired someone who clearly does not know what they are talking about. Just because you have an M.D. does NOT mean you are the answer and that you have given a fair assessment of the current research and the medical history of kava in general. Honestly unless he is a kava expert, most practicing physicians do not have the time to research something like this to go on national TV and make the statements he has made. It clearly demonstrates his lack of medical knowledge in this area of research. It's shocking actually. There is no explaining the differences between the old ethanol/acetone herbal extracts that started all of the hepatic toxicity issues in a few case studies around the world and the traditional noble kava preparation that has been found to be safe for consumption, there is no mention of the different types of kava Tudei vs. Noble and the components in the plant vs. the roots, there is no talk of the recent evidence about what is understood about the toxic molecules of interest mostly seen in Tudei - flavokavains and their cellular activities and the actual low likelihood of being able to extract them with water, there is no talk of the differences of low, moderate, high doses and what is recommended per week, and most importantly he never mentioned the World Health Organizations view on kava.
http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/10665/43630/1/9789241595261_eng.pdf
I find this assessment very educational as well: did he mention any of this? Nope.
https://www.1hourbreak.com/kava-safety/
Here's what he did most likely, he went to this page below, looked at the few single case studies for kava herbal extracts (4), typed them up on his power point screen and BAM! he's now a kava expert !
http://www.hernativeroots.com/ns/Di...g03n0et9dfgapv2&DocID=basic-interactions-kava
This is the closest thing I could find on some of his statements including the one finding of hematuria for a study done in an Aboriginal community in Australia. Notice the date of publication, 1988. Seriously? Who knows what the hell else they were eating or drinking or even what form of kava they had gotten their hands on, my bet is that it was not a noble variety. Can you say Piper wiichamannii?
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3374423?dopt=Abstract
If anything he should have talked about the known addiction one can acquire to K@, the current opioid crisis and how legal agents such as this are only making the situation worse. The only thing I do agree with were their views on this woman's activities which is unhealthy for anyone for any abused substance including legal prescription pills such as Valium and Tylenol. A psychologist with a good listening ear might be the answer here.
I don't know, if you ask for someone to do a witch hunt, a witch hunt is usually what you will get, because that is what sells on national TV my friends . . .