On September 9, 2024, I was back on television with Dr. Phil, this time on Dr. Phil Primetime, the nightly show on his new Merit Street Media network, in an episode titled "DIY Biology: Mad Scientists or Mad Smart?"
The episode's own description sets the stakes: "Dr. Phil dives into the controversial world of biohacking and DIY biology, where individuals push the limits of human enhancement in home labs. Are they on the verge of major breakthroughs or just mad scientists with dangerous practices?"
Where the 2022 daytime episode staged a debate about whether implants should exist at all, this one rounded up the practitioners. The panel: Rich Lee, who performs self-surgeries and tests experiments on himself; Dave Ishee, who is editing human and dog DNA in hopes of reversing genetic disorders; Tim Cannon, who says AI is coming and we need to accept it; a professional fact checker named Evan weighing in; and me, nine implants at the time, working to advance personal identity and simplify telemedicine.
Getting biohackers onto a primetime panel without a laugh track or a horror-movie soundtrack is rarer than it should be. Whatever you make of any single project on that stage, the underlying questions are not going away: who gets to modify what, and with whose approval.