The Fat Doctor Podcast
How would you react if someone told you that most of what we are taught to believe about healthy bodies is a lie? How would you feel if that person was a medical doctor with over 20 years experience treating patients and seeing the harm caused by all this misinformation?In their podcast, Dr Asher Larmie, an experienced General Practitioner and self-styled Fat Doctor, examines and challenges 'health' as we know it through passionate, unfiltered conversations with guest experts, colleagues and friends.They tackle the various ways in which weight stigma and anti-fat bias impact both individuals and society as a...
There Is No Solution
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Everything you've been told about weight loss is a lie. We can sum up the driving force behind all of these lies in two simple words: racial capitalism. It is the reason fat people are both hated and exploited in equal measure. In this episode, I argue that putting an end to medical weight stigma requires us to do away with racial capitalism, and the people in power will never allow that to happen. That doesn't mean we should give up – it means it's time to start getting creative. Once you stop hoping fo...
I'm Done Being Nice
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Asher's 10 rules for how to stop being nice:
1. Stop following the rules that were designed to make you smaller or disappear altogether.
2. Don’t worry about being cancelled.
3. Don’t waste time trying to be agreeable. Don’t modify your tone. Don’t fix your face. Don’t smile more.Â
4. Skip the small talk: say what you mean and mean what you say.
5. Remember that you’re pretty fucking great, actually (no matter what you were told growing up).
6. Stop apologising when people don’t like something you say or do...
When "Everything's Normal" Isn't Good Enough
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When your blood tests come back normal and your doctor sends you on your way, that's not a diagnosis – that's a dismissal. In this episode, I follow Priya, a self-employed autistic woman in her late 30s whose 18 months of worsening fatigue, hair loss, skin changes, and irregular periods have been met with advice to exercise more and download a mindfulness app.
I walk you through why "normal bloods" and "everything's fine" are not the same thing, which conditions are routinely missed in fat patients, and what it actually looks like when a...
My Pain Keeps Getting Dismissed!
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 Fat patients with chronic pain are routinely sent away with a weight loss lecture. No examination, no blood tests, no referrals. In this episode, I introduce Suki, a teacher and mother whose two years of worsening hip and back pain have been dismissed at every turn, while her thinner colleagues walk away with physiotherapy and x-rays. I break down exactly what conditions get missed, why weight stigma is a clinical shortcut that the system is designed to profit from, and (most importantly) what to say in the room to finally get the care y...
Why avoiding your doctor makes complete sense
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 Weight stigma doesn't just happen inside the consultation room: it keeps fat people out of it entirely. In this episode, you'll meet Ren. Ren hasn't seen their GP in eighteen months, not out of laziness or neglect, but because the last appointment cost far more than it was worth.Â
I make the case that medical avoidance is a completely rational response to a system designed to punish fat bodies. The resulting missed diagnoses, untreated conditions, and compounding health consequences aren't a fat problem, they're a doctor problem.Â
But this epi...
No Weigh! The Live Book Launch
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 For 20 years, I prescribed weight loss without question at the same time as I was experiencing weight stigma myself as a fat doctor in a fatphobic system. In this special live episode, I'm launching my book No Weigh! Everything You've Been Told About Weight Loss Is A Lie, and sharing exactly what's in it: the lies, the money, the harm, and the tools fat people need to fight back. This isn't a book about fixing yourself. It's a book about reclaiming your power.Â
Don't forget to order your copy today and ma...
Big Pharma's Playbook: How the Weight Loss Industry Bought the World
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The pharmaceutical industry didn't just create a weight loss drug — it created a world in which you cannot escape it. In this episode, I trace Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly's systematic strategy to buy the guidelines, bribe the charities, train the doctors, and lobby the politicians — and I show you exactly how they copied it from the people who gave us the opioid crisis. This isn't conspiracy theory. It's a paper trail. And once you see it, you cannot unsee it.Â
Pre-order your copy of No Weigh! here
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The Lesser Known GLP-1 Lies
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GLP-1s are being prescribed for everything from arthritis to sleep apnea to low testosterone — with almost no evidence they treat any of it. In this episode, I expose the industry-funded research underpinning the semaglutide gold rush, the risks nobody's talking about (including one that affected a quarter of participants in the study used to license the highest dose), and the logical fallacy that's driving doctors to reach for Ozempic no matter what's wrong with you. You deserve to know the truth before you pick up that pen.Â
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Diab*sity: The Weight Loss Industry's Favourite Couple
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The marriage between diabetes and ob*sity is nothing more than a PR stunt dressed up as medicine — and it's been running for 25 years. In this episode, I expose how the pharmaceutical industry invented a fictional condition called prediabetes to create a market of 115 million Americans, and then quietly funded the guidelines that put weight loss at the top of the treatment agenda. This one's personal: I have diabetes and I'm done carrying the shame they built for us.
My book, No Weigh: Everything You've Been Told About Weight Loss Is a...
This is Bad Medicine
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CW: Fertility treatment, organ donation, BMI based surgical denial
Fat people are being denied fertility treatment without evidence to support it, denied organ transplants they would benefit from, and in some cases denied the chance to save a loved one's life. This episode examines the guidelines behind these decisions — and finds them cruel, discriminatory, and scientifically indefensible. This is not just bad doctors. This is bad medicine.
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Your Numbers Don't Mean What They Told You
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Your doctors told you that losing weight would help you live longer, improve your numbers, and protect you from serious illness. It was a lie, and it goes deeper than weight loss. In this episode, I break down why the "ob*sity reduces life expectancy" claim is built on bad maths, why fat may actually protect your health, and why the blood sugar, blood pressure, and cholesterol targets your doctor is chasing have never been shown to prevent the outcomes they're supposed to prevent. Drug companies set the targets. You pay the price.Â
"I Lost Weight And My Health Improved" (did it?)
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 Your lived experience is real. You lost weight, your health improved, and I'm not calling you a liar. But I'm still going to tell you that weight loss didn't cause it. In this episode, I get into the post-hoc fallacy, the neuroscience of the placebo effect, and why weight loss is the perfect storm for a powerful — but ultimately unsustainable — placebo response. The benefits are slim to nil. The risks are well documented. And there are always other options.Â
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Doctors Are Prescribing Eating Disorders
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Doctors are prescribing eating disorders to fat patients — not by accident, not in spite of the guidelines, but because of them. In this episode, I bring the clinical evidence to back up what the fat community has known for years: that severe dieting causes eating disorders, that eating disorders look nothing like the stereotype, and that fat people with eating disorders are being failed at every stage — dismissed, gaslit, and denied treatment. If you've been told to lose weight by a healthcare professional, you have the right to ask them why they're willing to p...
We've Known About the Harms of Dieting for 80 Years
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In 1944, a group of healthy young men volunteered to be starved in the name of science. What happened to them — physically, psychologically, and socially — is one of the most important pieces of evidence we have about what dieting actually does to the human body. Evidence that has been ignored for 80 years. This week, I break down the Minnesota Starvation Experiment, asks why medicine continues to prescribe a treatment it knows causes harm, and make the case that forcing fat people to diet isn't medical care — it's cruel and unusual punishment.
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Fat, cancer, and the 1 in 20 lie
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 Cancer Research UK calls being fat the second biggest cause of cancer in the UK. It's a claim built on manipulated statistics, false assumptions, and funding from the weight loss industry - and it's actively killing people. In this episode, I show why the evidence for weight and cancer doesn't come close to the evidence for smoking, why population attributable fractions are a chocolate teapot, and why the breast cancer data is far more complicated than anyone is letting on. If you've ever been told your cancer risk is your own fault, this o...
Disease Mongering: Inventing Illness To Sell A Cure
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Disease mongering has transformed human body diversity into a medical crisis requiring pharmaceutical intervention. When Ray Moynihan wrote that "there's a lot of money to be made from telling healthy people they're sick," he exposed a corporate strategy that reaches its most devastating form in the creation of "ob*sity" as a disease. This wasn't accidental harm caused while trying to help people - this was intentional pathologization of natural human variation, funded by pharmaceutical companies and legitimized through corrupt alliances between industry, doctors, and supposed patient advocacy groups.Â
In this e...
Why Lifestyle Advice is BS: The Mediterranean Diet Edition
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The Mediterranean diet has become medical gospel—promoted by diabetes organizations, heart health foundations, and doctors worldwide. But when I looked at the actual evidence, I found something shocking: the one major study proving its benefits was so flawed it had to be retracted. And when NICE updated their cardiovascular disease guidelines in 2023, they admitted there was "no available evidence" comparing dietary interventions to normal diets, so they made recommendations based on "clinical experience and expert opinion" instead.Â
In this episode, I expose how decades of lifestyle advice rest on a fou...
The Big Fat Lie: Why Your Weight Didn't Cause Your Health Condition
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Medicine has built an entire mythology around weight as the root cause of disease, including diabetes, sleep apnea, and arthritis. In this episode, I introduce you to three fictional patients whose stories expose the fatal flaws in this narrative. Through Madison's diabetes diagnosis, Mason's struggle with sleep apnea struggle, and Morgan's joint pain dismissal, I dismantle the logical fallacies that confuse association with causation.Â
The truth is simple. Your weight didn't make you sick - but being blamed for it, denied treatment, and forced into weight cycling absolutely will. I challenge yo...
Wellness Influencers: A 400-Year History of the Same Old BS
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Wellness culture didn't start with Instagram. From George Cheyne's 1724 bestseller to Dr. Lulu Hunt Peters redefining fat bodies as "the enemy within," the methods and ideology haven't changed in four centuries—even as the evidence proves they've never worked. In this episode, I trace wellness influencers back to the 17th century, exposing how former fat people turned their weight cycling into moral crusades, transforming fat bodies from "friendly jokes" into threats deserving punishment. These aren't just historical curiosities—they're the architects of today's war on ob*sity, and understanding their playbook helps us see...
It's Not Your Fault: The Real Factors That Control Your Weight
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The weight loss industry has convinced us that being fat is a personal failure—a consequence of eating too much and moving too little. But the truth is far more complex and liberating. Your weight is controlled by genetics, epigenetics, environmental factors, trauma, chronic stress, and systems of oppression that were intentionally designed to control marginalized bodies.Â
In this episode, I break down the scientific evidence showing why the "calories in, calories out" narrative is a lie, explore how everything from urbanization to discrimination drives weight gain through cortisol, and reveal how...
When Doctors Lie: The Guidelines That Recommend Diets They Know Don't Work
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In 1992, a room full of weight loss experts admitted diets don't work and that weight regain is almost inevitable within five years. Then they recommended diets anyway. Fast forward to 2025, and the UK's NICE guidelines acknowledge weight cycling causes harm, that the evidence is overwhelmingly poor quality, and that people will likely regain the weight. Yet they still recommend 800-calorie diets, even for people with eating disorders.Â
In this episode, I expose how medical guidelines have become a masterclass in institutional lying—where committees acknowledge the evidence shows diets fail, cause har...
How Big Pharma Made Up a Disease
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In 1995, the WHO published a report stating clearly: "There are no clearly established cutoff points for fat mass or fat percentage that can be translated into cut-offs for BMI." Just three short years later, they published a completely different report calling ob*sity a "disease". Not just a disease, but a "rapidly growing threat" and a "global epidemic" that needed managing. What changed? Professor Philip James established the International Ob*sity Task Force—funded by the pharmaceutical industry—specifically to persuade the WHO to create ob*sity policy. When asked how he determined BMI...
There is no such thing as a healthy weight
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We've been told our entire lives that there's such a thing as a "healthy weight" - but the foundations of this belief are built on quicksand. In this episode, I trace the shocking history of how weight categories were created, exposing the corrupt origins of BMI and "ideal weight" tables invented by life insurance companies to maximize profits. I reveal how Louis Dublin, an employee of the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company who literally wrote a book called "The Money Value of a Man," created arbitrary weight standards that had no basis in reality...
I Wrote A Book!
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 After three false starts and years of research, I've finally finished the first draft of No Weigh. This wasn't supposed to be just another book debunking weight science—it became something more fundamental. I realized I'd been centering myself as a doctor, performing credibility for my colleagues, when I should have been writing for fat patients. This book is for us, about us, written by one of us who happens to have a medical degree. I'm done performing humility and apologizing for the evidence. I'm done trying to convince resistant doctors who already see...
Seasons Greetings from the Fat Doctor
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 In this season finale, I'm stripping away the should-dos and reminding you of what truly matters: your rest is non-negotiable, your boundaries deserve enforcement, and joy isn't something you earn—it's your birthright. I share what I've learned about unmasking, choosing authenticity over performance, and grabbing those small moments of joy even when the world feels overwhelming. This isn't about toxic positivity—it's about protecting your peace in a world that constantly demands you put yourself last.Â
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Destroying 10 Lies That Are Used to Justify Weight Based Discrimination
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After a year of exploring wellness culture and its discriminatory foundations, I've identified 10 arguments people use to justify discrimination against fat people—and I'm dismantling every single one. From the "health concern" disguise to the false claim that being fat is a choice, from economic justifications to the burden of proof fallacy, these arguments collapse under scrutiny.Â
The truth is simpler and darker: discrimination against fat people isn't justified by evidence or ethics—it's justified because it makes people feel morally superior, saves institutions money, and allows society to continue a comfo...
The Logical Fallacies That Season Your Holiday Fatphobia
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This holiday season, you'll hear countless claims about weight and health dressed up as concern or common sense. But beneath every "everybody knows" and "the experts say" lies a logical fallacy waiting to be dismantled. In this episode, I arm you with the tools to recognize and challenge the flawed reasoning behind anti-fat rhetoric from ad hominem attacks to deliberately vague language designed to make illogical arguments sound scientific." Whether you're facing concern trolling from relatives or rage-watching haters online, understanding these patterns of illogic reveals what's really happening: weak arguments from people...
When Healthcare Becomes Compliance Theater
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Healthcare's approach to diabetes has become less about treating a disease and more about fixing the person. In this episode, I walk through Cosmo's fictional-but-familiar journey from diagnosis through multiple medications to a specialist referral that came with a homework assignment. When we receive forms asking us to set goals, rate our confidence, and think about what our blood sugar levels "mean to us" before we've even met a clinician, we're being set up to fail. I examine how medical professionals have shifted responsibility for treatment outcomes onto patients, turning a manageable chronic...
Ignoring the Harm: Why We Justify Suffering for Weight Loss
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 When doctors recommend weight loss, they describe the supposed benefits but remain silent about the harms—reduced metabolism, increased appetite, hormonal disruption, eating disorders, and profound mental health impacts. This ethical failure extends beyond outdated diet advice to newer interventions like GLP-1 medications, where we celebrate short-term metabolic improvements while ignoring gastrointestinal distress, financial burden, social isolation, and unknown long-term consequences.Â
In this episode, Asher challenges the dangerous assumption that fat people should suffer to become thinner, exposing how this narrative serves the weight loss industry's profits while treating fat bodies as u...
Why It's So Hard To Just BE Fat
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 We've been taught to hate and fear fat bodies in equal measure—for social reasons, moral reasons, and medicalized health reasons that justify the first two. Society tells us fat people don't belong, that we're unacceptable, abnormal, and undesirable. We're judged as lazy, undisciplined moral failures who are stealing resources from those who deserve them. And when these prejudices become too uncomfortable to defend, health concern provides the perfect cover. In this episode, I break down exactly why it's so hard to accept that it's okay to be fat, even for rational, critical-thinking peo...
Taylor's story: What if everyone else is right and we're wrong?
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Taylor was diagnosed with sleep apnea six months ago and told the only real solution was weight loss. Like so many fat people, they've tried every diet imaginable—keto, Weight Watchers, calorie counting—and watched their weight cycle up and down for years. When a friend introduced them to intuitive eating and the anti-diet movement, it felt revolutionary. But the what-ifs started creeping in. What if I just keep eating and never stop? What if this damages my health? What if everyone saying "just lose weight" is actually right, and I'm the one who...
The Weight Loss Lie: A History of Medical Mistakes
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 We've been told our entire lives that losing weight will prevent health problems. But where did this belief come from? In this episode, I trace the shocking history of how insurance companies, pharmaceutical funding, and arbitrary statistical cut-offs created the mythical illness we now know as "ob*sity" crisis. From Quetelet's obsession with the "average man" to the International Ob*sity Task Force's pharmaceutical funding, I expose how we've been working off logical fallacies for over a century. There's no evidence that being fat causes health conditions, no evidence of a "healthy weight f...
You Deserve Better: The Fat Doctor's Reassurance on Your Right To Healthcare
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In a healthcare system that routinely dismisses, blames, and denies treatment to fat patients, it's easy to doubt whether choosing to stay fat is the right decision. But here's the truth: you deserve a doctor who listens, believes, and validates you—regardless of your size. You have the absolute right to refuse to be weighed, to refuse weight loss, and to demand treatment without prerequisites. The ethics are clear, even when the reality feels impossible. This episode is your reminder that you're making the right choice, and that the fight for dignified healthcare is...
Casey's story: When good intentions aren't enough
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 Casey is a passionate, well-meaning therapist who believes in weight-inclusive care but freezes when clients bring up medical concerns. They've learned about anti-diet principles through Instagram and podcasts, but lack the medical knowledge to counter doctors' weight-focused advice. When a client receives a devastating diabetes diagnosis with the usual "lose weight" lecture, Casey wants to help but secretly wonders if the doctor might be right. Add in family pressure about their own weight, hostile colleagues questioning their approach, and the constant fear of professional consequences - and you have a dedicated professional caught b...
Weight Loss Doesn't Improve Your Health
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Weight loss doesn't improve your health—and I'm tired of having to prove it. While doctors continue pushing weight loss as a cure-all, the evidence tells a different story. The Look AHEAD Study followed 5,000 diabetics for 10 years and found that weight loss didn't prevent heart attacks or strokes. Similar studies show no long-term benefits for diabetes, arthritis, blood pressure, or fatty liver disease. Yet fat patients are still forced to advocate for basic medical care while being blamed for conditions that have nothing to do with their weight. It's time for healthcare professionals to...
When 'nice' isn't enough: The search for truly safe care
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Some healthcare professionals are nice. Some would go so far as to call themselves “body positive" or “HAES aligned”. But being pleasant doesn't make you safe for fat patients. There's a crucial difference between practitioners who are steadfastly kind while perpetuating harm, and those who actively work to counter medical weight bias. In this episode, I expose why often times anti-diet isn't enough, how well-meaning professionals can cause more damage than obvious bigots, and why fat people are trapped in an endless cycle of seeking help, getting weight loss advice, and avoiding care until...
Jordan's Story: When Endometriosis Gets Blamed on Being Fat
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Jordan's seven GP visits for debilitating period pain, fatigue, and pelvic symptoms should have led to an endometriosis diagnosis within the first appointment. Instead, every symptom was blamed on weight, leaving them dismissed, traumatized, and untreated. In this episode, I expose how medical fatphobia intersects with misogyny to deny fat people proper gynecological care, and why being fat makes you fundamentally unsafe with most doctors. Through Jordan's story, I reveal the devastating reality that fat patients face when seeking help for legitimate medical conditions.Â
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My Weight Says Nothing About Who I Am
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Society has conditioned us to believe that our weight reveals everything about our character, intelligence, willpower, and worth as human beings. From childhood, we're taught that fat bodies represent moral failure, laziness, and unworthiness of love or respect.
In this raw and powerful episode, I dismantle the extensive list of harmful stereotypes we've internalized about ourselves and call out healthcare professionals who perpetuate discrimination. I explore how these beliefs shape our relationships, our sense of self-worth, and our right to exist fully in the world—and why it's time to reject th...
Fat People Are Not Entitled to Autonomy
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Medical autonomy is supposedly a fundamental pillar of healthcare - the right to make informed decisions about your own body without coercion. But as I discovered in a conversation with my husband Junior, a fat dentist, this principle simply doesn't apply when you're fat. In this episode, I expose how the medical profession systematically denies autonomy to fat patients, exploring the difference between theoretical rights and practical agency, and why doctors can get away with withholding treatment until you lose weight. I also introduce The Weigh Forward - my new service to help...
Riley's Story: The Bariatric Surgery Risks Nobody Talks About
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Riley's doctor recommended bariatric surgery as the solution to their health concerns, but when Riley came to me for advice, I realized they hadn't been told about the real risks. From anastomosis leaks with 15% mortality rates to spontaneous bowel perforations years later, the complications of weight loss surgery extend far beyond what most patients are counseled about.Â
In this episode, I walk through the evidence-based risks that every patient deserves to know before making this life-altering decision, because informed consent requires the whole truth. If you or someone you know is c...
