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MAHA’s Scorecard: Zero Promises Kept · Paging America

0:00
SPEAKER_02: And in the last presidential,
0:01
SPEAKER_02: Trump won, I think, seven states by a very small margin in each state.
0:04
SPEAKER_02: And one has to assume a significant portion of those margins were that Maha vote
0:09
SPEAKER_02: that he brought in by bringing RFK Jr. and making promises to him.
0:12
SPEAKER_02: If that goes away, yeah, that seems like a problem.
0:15
SPEAKER_02: And as much as we all wet the bed over, are there polling errors and is all this Hopi too much?
0:20
SPEAKER_02: This is maybe another piece going to the other side that isn't being accounted for.
0:28
SPEAKER_03: Rob, what is your anxiety level about the election right now?
0:32
SPEAKER_02: We're in like- What kind of scale are we talking about?
0:34
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I'd say like one to 10.
0:36
SPEAKER_02: Like 28, 27.
0:36
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
0:37
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it's- I don't like it.
0:42
SPEAKER_02: I hate caring about this shit.
0:44
SPEAKER_02: It would be so nice just to kind of be going through life thinking,
0:46
SPEAKER_02: la la la, just
0:47
SPEAKER_03: go do my job and that's
0:48
SPEAKER_02: all.
0:49
SPEAKER_02: How about you?
0:50
SPEAKER_02: You're good?
0:50
SPEAKER_02: You're settled?
0:51
SPEAKER_03: This is a crazy way to pick who's in charge of everybody.
0:55
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
0:55
SPEAKER_03: No, no, it's good.
0:57
SPEAKER_03: We're for free and democratic elections.
0:59
SPEAKER_03: I just find, yeah,
1:00
SPEAKER_03: this post-October, once people start voting, I am bedwetting three times a day.
1:06
SPEAKER_03: I have to change my sheets.
1:07
SPEAKER_03: I'm so nervous.
1:08
SPEAKER_03: You know, I just, it's really, it's a lot going on, but things are looking good out there.
1:12
SPEAKER_03: And so, you know, I'm trying to believe my lying eyes when
1:17
SPEAKER_02: the poll is
1:18
SPEAKER_03: coming back.
1:19
SPEAKER_03: yeah, yeah.
1:19
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean, big Senate race here in Michigan.
1:22
SPEAKER_02: We recorded before the first debate between Dr. Abdul El-Sayed and Mike Rogers.
1:30
SPEAKER_03: It was quite a contentious debate, but I mean,
1:32
SPEAKER_02: it was good.
1:33
SPEAKER_02: We had a big contingent of docs and nurses out before the debate with signs
1:36
SPEAKER_02: and rallying kind of in support of someone who knows the system and wants to fix
1:40
SPEAKER_02: the system.
1:41
SPEAKER_02: And then apparently Mike Rogers' campaign now is just giving out $10 guest cards.
1:44
SPEAKER_02: That's how they're getting votes.
1:46
SPEAKER_02: It's just...
1:46
SPEAKER_02: It's insane here, Mishka.
1:49
SPEAKER_03: The fact that they're handing out cash in Detroit,
1:50
SPEAKER_03: the Republicans are handing out cash in Detroit,
1:52
SPEAKER_03: it would make a Chicago alderman blush.
1:55
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:56
SPEAKER_02: It's just really something that they're just down to bribery at the gas station.
2:01
SPEAKER_03: Anyway, welcome back to Paging America.
2:04
SPEAKER_03: This is a show where we explore the power and profit shaping American healthcare
2:07
SPEAKER_03: and your home base for news and interviews from people building
2:09
SPEAKER_03: the universal healthcare movement.
2:11
SPEAKER_03: I'm your host, campaign strategist, Miles Baker.
2:13
SPEAKER_03: I'm Dr.
2:13
SPEAKER_03: Rob Davidson.
2:14
SPEAKER_03: And we have a great show for you today.
2:17
SPEAKER_03: Before we get started, please like us on YouTube.
2:20
SPEAKER_03: If you want to give us a follow over on YouTube page,
2:22
SPEAKER_03: we're trying to grow our audience on the platform with the most disinformation.
2:26
SPEAKER_03: Or you can rate the show if you like what you hear on wherever you find your podcasts.
2:31
SPEAKER_03: Rob, the back half of the show, you have a great interview with Dr. Paul Offit.
2:37
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
2:38
SPEAKER_02: Great, great interview.
2:39
SPEAKER_02: Professor at UPenn and just, like, smart dude.
2:42
SPEAKER_02: Like, kind of all about vaccines,
2:44
SPEAKER_02: the success of vaccines and sort of where he sees where things are going,
2:48
SPEAKER_02: where they're at and where they're going.
2:49
SPEAKER_03: A little bit of a palate cleanser if you're living in the election news cycle.
2:53
SPEAKER_03: This is a little bit more of a long-form way to learn some things.
2:56
SPEAKER_03: So I encourage people to stick around.
2:58
SPEAKER_03: It's really interesting.
3:00
SPEAKER_03: But on the front half of the show today,
3:02
SPEAKER_03: we're gonna be talking about public opinion around universal healthcare and Medicare
3:06
SPEAKER_03: for all.
3:07
SPEAKER_03: The implosion of Maha seems to continue.
3:11
SPEAKER_03: We're going to explore that a little bit.
3:13
SPEAKER_03: And Kratom makers are poised to see their investments from Trump finally pay off.
3:18
SPEAKER_03: So we have some like drug dealing out of the administration that we're going to talk
3:21
SPEAKER_03: about and things.
3:23
SPEAKER_03: And if you didn't think Florida could get any weirder, they're getting weirder.
3:26
SPEAKER_03: So why don't we jump right into it?
3:28
SPEAKER_03: We got a packed show.
3:29
SPEAKER_03: All right, let's go.
3:31
SPEAKER_03: All right.
3:32
SPEAKER_03: So do we want to recap a little bit about how did you think the debate went?
3:36
SPEAKER_03: We were there.
3:37
SPEAKER_03: We were outside the Mike Rogers, Dr. Abdul El-Sayed debate.
3:42
SPEAKER_03: We recorded right before that debate, so we hadn't had a chance to debrief it together.
3:46
SPEAKER_03: I thought it was hard to watch.
3:48
SPEAKER_03: It was so contentious.
3:49
SPEAKER_03: I mean, they were really fighting the whole time,
3:51
SPEAKER_03: but I think obviously Dr. El-Sahed seemed to kind of clean up.
3:55
SPEAKER_03: If there was a winner, there might have only, if there was a winner, it was him.
3:58
SPEAKER_03: Mike Rogers at least was definitely a loser.
4:01
SPEAKER_02: Right,
4:02
SPEAKER_02: A couple things.
4:03
SPEAKER_02: One, I think the way he framed the entire debate right at the beginning was truly brilliant.
4:08
SPEAKER_02: It was just saying,
4:11
SPEAKER_02: Rogers is going to make it about him and about me,
4:13
SPEAKER_02: and he's not going to want to talk about you.
4:15
SPEAKER_02: And that's what I want to talk about.
4:16
SPEAKER_02: So really,
4:17
SPEAKER_02: every time Mike Rogers went at him with blatant,
4:19
SPEAKER_02: racist, Islamophobic attacks against him, he just reverted.
4:24
SPEAKER_02: It was a good kind of anchor for him in the debate.
4:27
SPEAKER_02: But I did see some analysis here in Michigan of the debate saying,
4:31
SPEAKER_02: if you were an undecided voter going into the debate,
4:33
SPEAKER_02: maybe you just decided not to vote.
4:35
SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
4:38
SPEAKER_02: It was just sort of brutal.
4:39
SPEAKER_02: We were watching a kind of big room with 100 or so people.
4:43
SPEAKER_02: And yeah, it just felt like kind of a dick swinging contest.
4:47
SPEAKER_02: And I definitely think Abdul won if there was a winner.
4:51
SPEAKER_02: But yeah, Rodgers, obviously the ultimate loser.
4:53
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
4:55
SPEAKER_03: I think one of the themes that is coming up with a lot of these debates,
4:58
SPEAKER_03: you saw it with the Ossoff debate,
5:01
SPEAKER_03: the Democrats genuinely don't like the Republicans on the other side.
5:04
SPEAKER_03: I think if you think it like most of my life...
5:09
SPEAKER_03: You would watch debates and they were, like, collegiate affairs.
5:12
SPEAKER_03: Maybe they would get a little spicy,
5:14
SPEAKER_03: but I think you have,
5:15
SPEAKER_03: because the Republicans in these debates are people with, like,
5:19
SPEAKER_03: real personal failings and real questionable moral standing in the way
5:23
SPEAKER_03: that they're supporting the Trump administration,
5:25
SPEAKER_03: sort of lockstep still to this day,
5:27
SPEAKER_03: even after all we've seen,
5:28
SPEAKER_03: that the Democrats, like, genuinely don't like the Republicans on the other side.
5:32
SPEAKER_03: And it makes for something that's,
5:34
SPEAKER_03: like, a little harder to watch, although I think it's a little more honest, frankly.
5:38
SPEAKER_02: I was uncomfortable watching clips from that John Ossoff and Colin's debate.
5:44
SPEAKER_02: It was brutal.
5:47
SPEAKER_02: I didn't, but I almost felt sorry for Colin just standing there taking it.
5:51
SPEAKER_02: And kudos to Ossoff.
5:53
SPEAKER_02: He brought the receipts and he prosecuted the case against Collins so surgically
5:59
SPEAKER_02: and masterfully.
6:00
SPEAKER_02: He didn't sound angry.
6:01
SPEAKER_02: He just sounded absolutely steadfast and like, no, this is who you are.
6:06
SPEAKER_02: This is what this is about.
6:07
SPEAKER_02: And I'm amazed Collins was still standing at the end of that.
6:12
SPEAKER_03: John Ossoff said he did a great interview with Chris Hayes where he said the fact
6:16
SPEAKER_03: that this guy's like a bigot and a white nationalist and he uses neo-Nazi propaganda
6:19
SPEAKER_03: and he creates neo-Nazi propaganda out of his government offices disqualifying.
6:22
SPEAKER_03: I do wish some other Democrats were able to Be clear.
6:27
SPEAKER_03: I feel like the affordability message Democrats have gotten really good.
6:31
SPEAKER_03: Like there's broad uptick in talking about what's the problems with Medicaid cuts.
6:35
SPEAKER_03: The stuff that we really care about on this show,
6:37
SPEAKER_03: Democrats seem to be doing a good job of communicating.
6:40
SPEAKER_03: John Ossoff seems to be the only one who is like,
6:43
SPEAKER_03: Really excelling at talking about this other very icky component of
6:48
SPEAKER_03: the Republican Party,
6:49
SPEAKER_03: which is maybe not all of the Republican Party,
6:50
SPEAKER_03: but is a huge swath of it,
6:52
SPEAKER_03: where they really have filled their ranks with people who come from a background of
6:56
SPEAKER_03: whether it's like the Groypers and like the Nick Fuentes crowd
7:00
SPEAKER_03: or They're like actual white nationalists
7:03
SPEAKER_03: or they're like actual Christian nationalists, like committed ones.
7:06
SPEAKER_03: And he's articulating that and he's doing it in the South,
7:10
SPEAKER_03: which is why I think it's so exciting that he's doing it in Georgia of all places
7:14
SPEAKER_03: and making a really cool case.
7:15
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
7:16
SPEAKER_02: It's wild.
7:16
SPEAKER_02: And Republicans have an answer for this, right?
7:18
SPEAKER_02: They've got their secret weapon out on the campaign trail in Donald Trump, right?
7:22
SPEAKER_02: So, I mean, I think we have a couple of clips of Trump stumping.
7:25
SPEAKER_02: I don't know where the hell he was,
7:26
SPEAKER_02: somewhere where Republicans shouldn't be stumping two weeks out or shouldn't have
7:30
SPEAKER_02: to be.
7:31
SPEAKER_02: But I think we have a couple of clips of Donald Trump's closing message heading into
7:35
SPEAKER_02: the midterms.
7:36
SPEAKER_01: If you can put them in order, you get a lot of points.
7:39
SPEAKER_01: Go hat, hair, logo, white.
7:46
SPEAKER_01: Is he right?
8:14
SPEAKER_01: It is so amazing to me
8:17
SPEAKER_01: that a test that normally you just wouldn't have to take
8:21
SPEAKER_01: unless
8:21
SPEAKER_02: somebody had a concern that
8:23
SPEAKER_01: you should take it.
8:24
SPEAKER_01: He brags about taking it.
8:26
SPEAKER_01: A test that sort of normal
8:28
SPEAKER_02: table stakes for just
8:29
SPEAKER_02: for being like cognitively intact is that you do well on the test, right?
8:34
SPEAKER_02: It is.
8:35
SPEAKER_02: It's not a test where it's like A, B, C, D, F. And if you fail, you have cognitive decline.
8:40
SPEAKER_02: If you get an A, you're a genius.
8:42
SPEAKER_02: And then in between, you're sort of average.
8:43
SPEAKER_02: No, no.
8:44
SPEAKER_02: It's like you get a high score.
8:46
SPEAKER_02: That is normal.
8:47
SPEAKER_02: That's you.
8:48
SPEAKER_02: That's me.
8:48
SPEAKER_02: That's hopefully our producers on this thing.
8:50
SPEAKER_02: Most people are listening to this program.
8:53
SPEAKER_02: And yet he brags about this.
8:56
SPEAKER_02: Taking it multiple times,
8:57
SPEAKER_02: which again,
8:58
SPEAKER_02: you don't do unless there's a problem and somebody's concerned about you.
9:01
SPEAKER_02: And then lies about the fact that someone told them you're a freaking genius
9:05
SPEAKER_02: and nobody's ever done that.
9:07
SPEAKER_02: Almost everybody does that.
9:09
SPEAKER_03: That is just the norm.
9:11
SPEAKER_03: I think a lot of people who watch this show are familiar with the cognitive test
9:13
SPEAKER_03: because you gave it to Jim Acosta and you administered the cognitive test.
9:18
SPEAKER_03: But we'll put it in the show notes.
9:19
SPEAKER_03: If you want to go back and see This test that he's bragging about, you can check it out.
9:24
SPEAKER_03: It is a very simple test.
9:26
SPEAKER_03: I can't believe he's still talking about it.
9:27
SPEAKER_03: It's absolutely incredible.
9:28
SPEAKER_03: All right, Rob, so we are in an era where there is like an explosion of polling.
9:36
SPEAKER_03: I think I've actually find it as a longtime political practitioner,
9:39
SPEAKER_03: like the amount of research that is coming out of
9:42
SPEAKER_03: the field is like totally incredible.
9:44
SPEAKER_03: A couple of different things are happening because of that is like
9:47
SPEAKER_03: the way they do online polls is actually breaking down as we get closer
9:50
SPEAKER_03: the election because so many people are out in the world doing online polls.
9:54
SPEAKER_03: And there's just like this enormous volume of information about horse race polling.
10:00
SPEAKER_03: But we did get some interesting polling.
10:03
SPEAKER_03: And I want to say, I don't think this is breaking out.
10:04
SPEAKER_03: This is a really great pollster.
10:06
SPEAKER_03: KFF does really great research.
10:07
SPEAKER_03: We've had them on the show before.
10:08
SPEAKER_03: They're showing that support for universal health care and Medicare for all is on
10:12
SPEAKER_03: the rise as they're doing some issue polling
10:14
SPEAKER_03: that is not particularly It's clearly political,
10:16
SPEAKER_02: but it's in the context of the election season when everyone's paying attention
10:18
SPEAKER_02: to issues.
10:19
SPEAKER_03: New polling from KFF shows that Medicare for All in particular is surging.
10:22
SPEAKER_03: Two-thirds,
10:23
SPEAKER_03: 66% of US adults now support Medicare for All,
10:26
SPEAKER_03: up from 53% when KFF last asked the question in October 2020.
10:30
SPEAKER_03: Views of single-payer systems remain highly partisan,
10:32
SPEAKER_03: with majorities of Democrats 84% and 72% of independents saying they favor it,
10:37
SPEAKER_03: with 66% of Republicans who oppose such a plan.
10:39
SPEAKER_03: But that is a lot of movement of Republicans towards universal healthcare as well.
10:44
SPEAKER_03: And then surprisingly, 34% of Republicans support Medicare for All.
10:48
SPEAKER_03: The poll results also suggest that how you present Medicare for All for voters makes
10:51
SPEAKER_03: a large
10:51
SPEAKER_02: difference in how people respond.
10:53
SPEAKER_03: It remains true that Medicare for All is like this really popular issue on
10:58
SPEAKER_03: a top-line poll,
10:58
SPEAKER_03: and it's also an issue that has a terrible glass jaw as soon as you start Describing
11:03
SPEAKER_03: the details, you get like sort of precipitous decline.
11:08
SPEAKER_03: The minute you talk about taking away private insurance
11:11
SPEAKER_03: or changing people's private insurance,
11:13
SPEAKER_03: you get massive drop off from initial support.
11:16
SPEAKER_03: With that caveat,
11:17
SPEAKER_03: it does seem like concepts around universal healthcare are on the rise broadly
11:23
SPEAKER_03: and not just among partisan Democrats, but sort of across the political spectrum.
11:27
SPEAKER_03: What do you think, Rob?
11:28
SPEAKER_02: Well, yeah,
11:28
SPEAKER_02: I think we have,
11:30
SPEAKER_02: I would say,
11:30
SPEAKER_02: reached but far surpassed the breaking point of the vast majority of people
11:34
SPEAKER_02: in this country of what health care costs, right?
11:37
SPEAKER_02: And so lack of access,
11:38
SPEAKER_02: lack of ability to pay,
11:40
SPEAKER_02: rising medical debt,
11:42
SPEAKER_02: you know,
11:44
SPEAKER_02: I think our friend Wendell Potter had a report out about UnitedHealthcare's profits
11:48
SPEAKER_02: in the third quarter,
11:49
SPEAKER_02: exceeding the profits of last third quarter,
11:52
SPEAKER_02: even though they're bringing in less money overall
11:54
SPEAKER_02: because they're just spending less money on people's health care.
11:58
SPEAKER_02: As all of those things just keep being true, I think people have just reached a breaking point.
12:04
SPEAKER_02: And it's almost like, yeah, well, screw it.
12:06
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, hell yeah.
12:06
SPEAKER_02: Let's go.
12:07
SPEAKER_02: Let's do something, right?
12:08
SPEAKER_02: Do something rather than the nothing that has...
12:11
SPEAKER_02: Seem to be perpetually being done by folks in Washington.
12:14
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
12:15
SPEAKER_03: It's also interesting,
12:16
SPEAKER_03: too, because, you know, people want government to do something about this.
12:20
SPEAKER_03: There is, like, the cost element.
12:22
SPEAKER_03: The thing that is, like, less researchable and, like, less... Or there's just not...
12:28
SPEAKER_03: I think you could do research on it.
12:29
SPEAKER_03: People have done less research on it.
12:31
SPEAKER_03: It's, like, how many people can afford their health care?
12:33
SPEAKER_03: Maybe it's at a big cost, so it's, like, an annoyingly large part of their budget.
12:37
SPEAKER_03: But they can afford their health care, but they're mad about it because it's so opaque.
12:41
SPEAKER_03: And it's so difficult to navigate.
12:43
SPEAKER_03: And it's so frustrating to get a primary care.
12:46
SPEAKER_03: And there's just like this compounding level of like,
12:49
SPEAKER_03: it's just, it's like a real tax on, it's like a time tax on your life.
12:54
SPEAKER_03: You know, even if you're like a healthy adult who just wants to do like maintenance.
12:57
SPEAKER_02: So yeah.
12:59
SPEAKER_02: So I was listening to a really good conversation with an economist on
13:03
SPEAKER_02: a different podcast talking about the last four decades since Reagan of like
13:07
SPEAKER_02: of government, like big government being the problem.
13:09
SPEAKER_02: Right.
13:10
SPEAKER_02: And letting private industry kind of take over and trickle down and all that.
13:13
SPEAKER_02: And then we're talking three.
13:14
SPEAKER_02: It's been three decades since Bill Clinton declared,
13:15
SPEAKER_02: you know, the era of big government is over, all that.
13:18
SPEAKER_02: But what people are seeing is with government stepping out of the way
13:22
SPEAKER_02: and letting private industry take over and the promises of,
13:25
SPEAKER_02: well, no, the markets will solve all of this, right?
13:28
SPEAKER_02: With private insurance companies now owning more than half of Medicare plans
13:33
SPEAKER_02: for people and millions of people getting letters now at the end of the year saying,
13:37
SPEAKER_02: oh, sorry, your Medicare Advantage plan is gone.
13:39
SPEAKER_02: Figure something else out.
13:41
SPEAKER_02: With all of that being true,
13:42
SPEAKER_02: and specifically with regards to healthcare,
13:44
SPEAKER_02: although I'm sure it bleeds over just so much more,
13:47
SPEAKER_02: but specifically with healthcare,
13:48
SPEAKER_02: people are saying,
13:49
SPEAKER_02: yeah, this system you promised us was the panacea of all our ills.
13:53
SPEAKER_02: It isn't worth it.
13:55
SPEAKER_02: It's worse.
13:55
SPEAKER_02: It's getting worse by every single year.
13:58
SPEAKER_02: And so I think you're seeing a bit of a backlash against that sentiment that,
14:02
SPEAKER_02: oh, no, no, private industry is going to fix this.
14:04
SPEAKER_02: Government has no role.
14:06
SPEAKER_02: People are saying, yeah, I don't know, man, that's not working for me.
14:09
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so I guess we'll see what the Democrats do with that, right,
14:12
SPEAKER_02: if they get control of one or both houses and kind of heading into 28,
14:16
SPEAKER_02: where that goes.
14:17
SPEAKER_02: But it sure seems like running on universal health care has to be table stakes.
14:20
SPEAKER_03: Universal healthcare,
14:22
SPEAKER_03: for sure,
14:22
SPEAKER_03: will be table stakes in the presidential,
14:24
SPEAKER_03: and that'll be sort of where that debate takes place.
14:26
SPEAKER_03: I just want to do a quick little plug for something that's exciting in the states,
14:30
SPEAKER_03: because there will be state action on healthcare before there is federal action
14:33
SPEAKER_03: on healthcare.
14:34
SPEAKER_03: There will be lots of states with new trifectas,
14:37
SPEAKER_03: fingers crossed,
14:38
SPEAKER_03: in the United States, and those places will be able to take action on healthcare.
14:41
SPEAKER_03: David Crowley,
14:42
SPEAKER_03: who's running for governor of Wisconsin,
14:44
SPEAKER_03: has proposed not just expanding Medicaid,
14:46
SPEAKER_03: Wisconsin being the only northern state that has not expanded Medicaid.
14:50
SPEAKER_03: But not only are they going to expand Medicaid,
14:52
SPEAKER_03: which they in Wisconsin call BadgerCare,
14:54
SPEAKER_03: they're also interested in creating a public option so you could buy into expansion
15:00
SPEAKER_03: and routing that not through UnitedHealth Group,
15:02
SPEAKER_03: which is one of the big insurers in Wisconsin,
15:04
SPEAKER_03: but putting it right in their health and human services department.
15:08
SPEAKER_03: So that would be a true public option housed in the government as proposed by
15:12
SPEAKER_03: the gubernatorial candidate who's winning and possibly will have a trifecta
15:16
SPEAKER_03: to back up his agenda.
15:18
SPEAKER_03: That's obviously the payer problem is not
15:20
SPEAKER_03: the whole universal healthcare conversation,
15:22
SPEAKER_03: but it is like a real,
15:23
SPEAKER_03: it's like a substantive policy piece that's viable, that's on the table today.
15:28
SPEAKER_03: And I couldn't be more excited about it, Rob.
15:30
SPEAKER_03: Anyway.
15:32
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, go Wisconsin.
15:33
SPEAKER_03: Okay, on the topic of Maha voters being disaffected,
15:36
SPEAKER_03: the drumbeat of discontent from Maha adherence continues apace.
15:40
SPEAKER_03: Two weeks ago,
15:41
SPEAKER_03: we talked about how Maha supporters are walking away from Republicans
15:44
SPEAKER_03: after feeling abandoned by Trump and RFK Jr.
15:47
SPEAKER_03: Despite reports that Trump has unleashed RFK Jr., all signs suggest it's not good.
15:52
SPEAKER_03: A group of Maha adherents have released a scorecard that shows
15:56
SPEAKER_03: the Trump administration has profoundly let them down.
15:59
SPEAKER_03: And these are folks that are actually pretty mobbed up with Robert Kennedy in a previous life.
16:06
SPEAKER_03: These aren't like paid protesters.
16:09
SPEAKER_03: These are people that were firmly in the fold who are now very critical.
16:14
SPEAKER_03: So NBC News reports that the group involved includes Dave Murphy,
16:18
SPEAKER_03: a former fundraiser for Kennedy's campaign,
16:20
SPEAKER_03: and Charles Eisenstein,
16:22
SPEAKER_03: Kennedy's former chief speechwriter,
16:24
SPEAKER_03: in other words,
16:25
SPEAKER_03: his main folks,
16:28
SPEAKER_03: plus the person who put together the scorecard being a pretty prominent influencer
16:33
SPEAKER_03: in the Maha world.
16:34
SPEAKER_03: And basically,
16:35
SPEAKER_03: it just kind of lays out all the promises by Trump,
16:38
SPEAKER_03: Bobby, and then it scores them, and it says zero promises kept.
16:44
SPEAKER_03: I don't know if we could put up a show,
16:46
SPEAKER_03: the Maha Promises Scoreboard,
16:47
SPEAKER_03: but I'd encourage anyone who's watching Who is like Maha watchers who are interested
16:53
SPEAKER_03: in what this coalition is and if it's falling apart or not.
16:56
SPEAKER_03: To take a spin through their scorecard that they published, it's really quite impressive.
17:01
SPEAKER_03: Rob, did you get a chance to take a look at it?
17:05
SPEAKER_03: What were your thoughts?
17:06
SPEAKER_02: I mean, I think it's fascinating.
17:08
SPEAKER_02: I'm sorry, I just keep getting stuck on RFK Jr.'s speechwriter.
17:12
SPEAKER_02: Can you imagine being a speechwriter for that guy?
17:14
SPEAKER_02: Like having to think in that voice and trying to put out a message?
17:16
SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
17:19
SPEAKER_03: He's really captured my voice by taking a bag of marbles and hitting the table with it.
17:27
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean, listen, I mean,
17:28
SPEAKER_02: in the last presidential,
17:30
SPEAKER_02: right, Trump won, I think, seven states by a very small margin in each state, right?
17:34
SPEAKER_02: The tipping point, like, allowed him to become president again.
17:37
SPEAKER_02: And one has to assume,
17:39
SPEAKER_02: just given the numbers, like,
17:41
SPEAKER_02: a significant portion of those margins were that Maha vote that he brought in
17:45
SPEAKER_02: by bringing RFK Jr. and making promises to him.
17:48
SPEAKER_02: And so if that if that goes away, right,
17:51
SPEAKER_02: never mind that the normal fall off from a presidential,
17:54
SPEAKER_02: particularly with this president,
17:55
SPEAKER_02: like his last midterm,
17:57
SPEAKER_02: you know,
17:57
SPEAKER_02: when he's not on the ballot,
17:58
SPEAKER_02: a lot of those MAGA Trump acolytes kind of seem to stay home.
18:02
SPEAKER_02: Right.
18:02
SPEAKER_02: They don't seem to get too involved.
18:04
SPEAKER_02: If this is another group of people that they counted on in 24 for the surprise win
18:09
SPEAKER_02: or not so surprised, depending.
18:11
SPEAKER_02: That, yeah, that seems like a problem.
18:13
SPEAKER_02: And as much as we all wet the bed over,
18:16
SPEAKER_02: are there polling errors and is all this hopium too much?
18:19
SPEAKER_02: Like this is maybe another piece going to the other side that isn't being accounted for.
18:24
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I mean, I guess we'll see what happens.
18:27
SPEAKER_03: We're going to get our first data point on whether these people are still riding
18:32
SPEAKER_03: with the Trump project or not at the midterms.
18:36
SPEAKER_03: I suspect we're going to see quite a bit of defection over to the Democrats.
18:39
SPEAKER_02: I mean, when they do exit polls, I wonder if they'll get us any data on the Maha folks.
18:45
SPEAKER_02: That'll be interesting to see.
18:47
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I'm sure we're going to get some information after the fact,
18:51
SPEAKER_03: and we'll be Stay tuned here.
18:53
SPEAKER_02: We're going to be looking for it.
18:54
SPEAKER_02: So if you're interested in it,
18:54
SPEAKER_02: we're going to try to find what we can out there and bring it here.
18:56
SPEAKER_03: There is another group of people that seem to be shaky inside the Republican coalition.
19:01
SPEAKER_03: And these folks are like the longstanding Republicans.
19:06
SPEAKER_03: But anti-abortion zealots are now issuing threats.
19:09
SPEAKER_03: This past week,
19:10
SPEAKER_03: they were dealt another snub when news came to light of
19:13
SPEAKER_03: the Trump administration's slow walking at Smith of Pristone.
19:16
SPEAKER_03: Fake safety review.
19:17
SPEAKER_03: They're doing this fake for those who are not following it.
19:19
SPEAKER_03: The FDA is doing essentially a BS safety review of mefepristone to tee up,
19:24
SPEAKER_03: trying to take it off the market or regulate it in some sort of way,
19:27
SPEAKER_03: using weaponizing and politicizing the administrative review.
19:31
SPEAKER_03: This is reporting from the conservative Daily Caller.
19:34
SPEAKER_03: Despite the administration's denial triggered backlash from pro-life leaders on social media.
19:38
SPEAKER_03: Unborn children cannot be put on a political calendar.
19:41
SPEAKER_03: Their lives do not become more valuable after election day.
19:44
SPEAKER_03: Live action president Lila Rosa wrote on X.
19:46
SPEAKER_03: It's not just the delay of the review that has anti-abortion groups up in arms.
19:49
SPEAKER_03: One group called the review fool's gold instead of the gold standard
19:52
SPEAKER_03: because it doesn't include elements they want considered.
19:56
SPEAKER_03: A final safety report won't be completed until March of 2027,
19:59
SPEAKER_03: and the status report makes no mention of reviewing commercial databases
20:02
SPEAKER_03: or crucial Medicaid data following the permanent elimination of
20:06
SPEAKER_03: the in-person dispensing requirement in 2023.
20:10
SPEAKER_03: What the administration is doing is crazy.
20:12
SPEAKER_03: And what a bunch of the pro-life groups want is to,
20:16
SPEAKER_03: like, have it be way crazier, be more punitive, be more severe.
20:21
SPEAKER_03: Like, they're, like, not, it's, like,
20:24
SPEAKER_03: not enough to, like,
20:26
SPEAKER_03: Destroy the credibility of the FDA in order to achieve their anti-abortion goals.
20:32
SPEAKER_03: They, like, want more.
20:34
SPEAKER_03: And it sounds like they're getting mad,
20:36
SPEAKER_03: and they're getting mad, you know, right in time for the election.
20:40
SPEAKER_03: So we'll see how that goes.
20:43
SPEAKER_03: This whole thing feels really out there in a fringy world, but it's not a small group of people.
20:48
SPEAKER_03: It's not a majority of Americans by any stretch,
20:50
SPEAKER_03: but it's not a small group of people who are organized
20:52
SPEAKER_03: into these really far-right religious groups.
20:54
SPEAKER_02: Talking about close elections and you're talking about these tight races,
20:56
SPEAKER_02: I mean, all these folks, like if some Maha people stay home, if some...
21:02
SPEAKER_02: You know,
21:02
SPEAKER_02: vehemently anti-abortion,
21:04
SPEAKER_02: pro-lock up the doctor, lock up the pregnant woman groups if they stay home.
21:08
SPEAKER_02: Like, you add that all up.
21:10
SPEAKER_02: I mean, I think this FDA bullshit review is
21:13
SPEAKER_02: a big reason why people should be absolutely locked in Opposing Heidi Overton as
21:19
SPEAKER_02: the next FDA commissioner, right?
21:21
SPEAKER_02: Because she, like,
21:22
SPEAKER_02: I don't know her views on locking people up and all that,
21:24
SPEAKER_02: but she has expressed very extreme views on the abortion pill,
21:29
SPEAKER_02: you know, and celebrating the fall of
21:31
SPEAKER_03: Roe v. Wade.
21:31
SPEAKER_03: Like, she is an anti-abortion zealot in her own right.
21:35
SPEAKER_02: It's a little surprising to me that the groups are chirping so much
21:38
SPEAKER_02: when someone like this is who they put.
21:40
SPEAKER_03: It struck me that both the Heidi Overton nomination,
21:44
SPEAKER_03: but not bringing it to a vote,
21:46
SPEAKER_03: And the Misfits of Preston Safety Review being pushed past the election.
21:50
SPEAKER_03: And the maternal mortality study that they postponed in Texas.
21:57
SPEAKER_03: Because I think largely a lot of people believe that they postponed the results of
22:02
SPEAKER_03: that study till after the election because they didn't want to imperil Greg Abbott.
22:08
SPEAKER_03: You have all of these things happening where you're trying to like have your cake
22:13
SPEAKER_03: and eat it too,
22:14
SPEAKER_03: where you want to like shore up support from the anti-abortion folks prior to
22:18
SPEAKER_03: the election.
22:19
SPEAKER_03: And then you don't have to deal with any consequences for what that would mean after
22:22
SPEAKER_03: the election.
22:23
SPEAKER_03: Maybe you never even bring her Heidi Overton to a vote.
22:26
SPEAKER_03: Maybe you abandon the safety study at the FDA so you can try to like get their votes
22:31
SPEAKER_03: and then maybe not have to deal with the extremely bad electoral consequences
22:35
SPEAKER_03: of Pushing anti-abortion members post-election.
22:38
SPEAKER_03: It's a really cynical strategy that it seems like a good chunk of
22:42
SPEAKER_03: the administration is in on,
22:44
SPEAKER_03: that they've played this game before and they've played these anti-abortion groups
22:48
SPEAKER_03: for fools for years, right?
22:50
SPEAKER_03: Donald Trump was the first person,
22:51
SPEAKER_03: by getting a supermajority on the Supreme Court, they actually got an outcome.
22:55
SPEAKER_03: But yeah, it's surprising that they're chirping.
22:58
SPEAKER_03: And also,
22:59
SPEAKER_03: I wonder if they see that that's what they're doing,
23:02
SPEAKER_03: that they're trying to do both things at the same time.
23:06
SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
23:06
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
23:07
SPEAKER_02: Stay tuned.
23:08
SPEAKER_03: Natural kratom makers are about to get a gift from RFK Jr.'s HHS.
23:14
SPEAKER_03: So, for those who don't know what kratom is, it's a drug.
23:17
SPEAKER_03: It's an herbal extract from the leaves of evergreen trees sold in gas stations
23:21
SPEAKER_03: that comes from the country of Thailand.
23:23
SPEAKER_03: It gets sold in vape stores.
23:25
SPEAKER_03: It's, like, sort of, if you're in, like, a downscale gas station, it plays, like, often kratom.
23:31
SPEAKER_03: Or like a head shop.
23:32
SPEAKER_03: I don't know if they call them vape stores now.
23:34
SPEAKER_03: I think people used to in college.
23:36
SPEAKER_03: When I was in college, people called it a head shop.
23:39
SPEAKER_03: It is not approved.
23:40
SPEAKER_03: It is not regulated by the FDA.
23:42
SPEAKER_03: It is not approved or legally regulated by the FDA.
23:45
SPEAKER_03: But it is still legal in over 40 states.
23:47
SPEAKER_03: So as long as it is not sold as a dietary supplement, food additive or approved drug.
23:52
SPEAKER_03: It is addictive.
23:53
SPEAKER_03: It can cause liver damage,
23:54
SPEAKER_03: seizures,
23:54
SPEAKER_03: and life-threatening respiratory depression,
23:56
SPEAKER_03: and it is linked to thousands of deaths.
23:58
SPEAKER_03: And Oregon Senator Ron Wyden sent a lender to RFK Jr.
24:01
SPEAKER_03: in August where he said,
24:02
SPEAKER_03: a quid pro quo seems to be unfolding between the Trump administration and
24:05
SPEAKER_03: the Kratom industry.
24:06
SPEAKER_03: In his letter,
24:07
SPEAKER_03: Wyden focused on recent actions of Jerry Ross,
24:10
SPEAKER_03: founder of the Kratom company Botanic Tonics and a major donor
24:14
SPEAKER_03: to Kennedy's presidential campaign.
24:15
SPEAKER_03: A Trump administration official is implicated as well.
24:18
SPEAKER_03: This is via Stat News.
24:19
SPEAKER_03: Doing great reporting over at Stat.
24:21
SPEAKER_03: Wyden's letter also notes The Times reporting
24:23
SPEAKER_03: that Homeland Security Secretary Mark Wayne Mullen has advocated
24:26
SPEAKER_03: for policies favorable to botanic tonics while holding a large financial stake in
24:31
SPEAKER_03: the company worth as much as a million dollars.
24:33
SPEAKER_03: So Wyden points out in his letter that the DEA's recently announced plans
24:36
SPEAKER_03: to temporarily ban concentrated and synthetic seven OH products,
24:41
SPEAKER_03: a psychoactive compound also found in trace amounts of kratom,
24:44
SPEAKER_03: will benefit botanic tonics.
24:46
SPEAKER_03: This regulatory action is exactly what Secretary Mullen wants.
24:49
SPEAKER_03: It will remove Botanic Tonic's synthetic competitors from the shelves so
24:53
SPEAKER_03: that your products gain market share and his investments will soar.
24:57
SPEAKER_03: There's a lot more to this reporting, but that's the basic gist of this story.
25:02
SPEAKER_03: It does sound like Kennedy is going to be enabling drug dealing
25:10
SPEAKER_03: Essentially drug dealing.
25:12
SPEAKER_03: And they've all got a financial stake in it.
25:16
SPEAKER_03: There's been a lot of jokes too, right?
25:17
SPEAKER_03: That the Trump administration was going to get into the cocaine business
25:21
SPEAKER_03: after they kidnapped the president of Venezuela.
25:23
SPEAKER_03: But it seems like they're settling for Kratom.
25:26
SPEAKER_02: I mean, this kind of falls in that category of like all things
25:28
SPEAKER_02: that are natural aren't necessarily good for you, right?
25:31
SPEAKER_02: Sure.
25:31
SPEAKER_02: So Kratom,
25:32
SPEAKER_02: I think originally marketed as a stimulant,
25:34
SPEAKER_02: I think the reason sold at like kind of gas stations and off-road,
25:38
SPEAKER_02: you know,
25:39
SPEAKER_02: to like truck or long haul truck drivers,
25:40
SPEAKER_02: you know, like trying to stay awake, right?
25:42
SPEAKER_02: Drive hours and hours.
25:44
SPEAKER_02: And in low doses, it does have that effect.
25:46
SPEAKER_02: In high doses, it has opioid-like effects, okay?
25:50
SPEAKER_02: And really high doses, it has opioid overdose effects.
25:53
SPEAKER_02: Like you stop breathing, right?
25:55
SPEAKER_02: And you need Narcan to make you breathe again.
25:57
SPEAKER_02: And you might need mega doses of Narcan.
26:00
SPEAKER_02: Or when the Narcan wears off, you need more Narcan.
26:04
SPEAKER_02: This can be really nasty stuff.
26:06
SPEAKER_02: And it just drives me crazy when you hear, no, but it's natural.
26:10
SPEAKER_02: We're just allowing the natural thing.
26:13
SPEAKER_02: Isn't that a good thing?
26:14
SPEAKER_02: Isn't that Maha?
26:15
SPEAKER_02: And it's like, well, shit, lots of things that are natural will kill you.
26:19
SPEAKER_02: Castor beans, if you chew them up, you have ricin, you'll die.
26:22
SPEAKER_02: If anyone watched Breaking Bad, you remember him extracting ricin from castor beans.
26:27
SPEAKER_02: If you like puffer fish and you eat it prepared properly, you won't die.
26:32
SPEAKER_02: If you don't, it's got one of the most deadly poisons imaginable that you'll die.
26:36
SPEAKER_02: It's like So yeah,
26:39
SPEAKER_02: the whole natural piece of all this drives you crazy
26:42
SPEAKER_02: and clearly they're enriching themselves and quid pro quo along the way.
26:47
SPEAKER_02: It's just kind of seems like what they do.
26:50
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
26:51
SPEAKER_03: And it's,
26:51
SPEAKER_03: you know,
26:52
SPEAKER_03: it's a relatively complicated, like,
26:54
SPEAKER_03: scheme here where they're regulating component parts of it,
26:58
SPEAKER_03: but they're basically creating a moat around a company that
27:01
SPEAKER_03: the DHS secretary is invested in.
27:03
SPEAKER_03: And so, like, the level of greed, I mean, these people can't help themselves.
27:11
SPEAKER_03: It's not just Kennedy.
27:13
SPEAKER_03: It's not just Trump.
27:14
SPEAKER_03: It's like every single department is turning into a profit engine for these folks.
27:19
SPEAKER_03: It's really something to watch.
27:21
SPEAKER_03: And I got to imagine this is part of the investigatory agenda once
27:26
SPEAKER_03: the Democrats take back the House because there's blood on folks' hands
27:30
SPEAKER_03: if they're doing this to get rich.
27:32
SPEAKER_03: And it's really something that should come to light.
27:34
SPEAKER_03: Anyway, we'll be on this one.
27:36
SPEAKER_03: We're going to follow this because...
27:37
SPEAKER_03: It's the repurposing of the public health infrastructure in order for these people
27:40
SPEAKER_03: to make money.
27:41
SPEAKER_03: And we're going to talk about it more.
27:43
SPEAKER_03: Rob, our last topic before we get to the interview is things are getting even weirder.
27:47
SPEAKER_03: In Florida,
27:48
SPEAKER_03: at a meeting of Florida health leaders to discuss plans to remove four vaccines from
27:52
SPEAKER_03: the state childhood vaccine schedule,
27:53
SPEAKER_03: State Surgeon General Joe Latipo had this to say.
27:57
SPEAKER_03: One thing that disturbs me is the doctors who dismiss a mother's intuition.
28:01
SPEAKER_03: How do you go to medical school and think you know more about a child's health One
28:05
SPEAKER_03: of those mothers,
28:06
SPEAKER_03: Allison Euchre,
28:06
SPEAKER_03: who said her child was injured after taking a vaccine,
28:09
SPEAKER_03: proceeded to prove her profound lack of scientific and medical knowledge.
28:12
SPEAKER_03: It's this oddly cultish behavior of the sick system, she told Politico.
28:16
SPEAKER_03: They're saying the vaccines are in the name of safety,
28:19
SPEAKER_03: but they can't provide the evidence to back it up.
28:21
SPEAKER_03: Tracy Lynn Eisenberg with the Florida Osteopathic Medical Association asked if
28:26
SPEAKER_03: the Florida Department of Health had any evidence proving
28:28
SPEAKER_03: that four vaccines were no longer effective.
28:31
SPEAKER_03: She pointed out that the decreased rates of vaccine preventable illness are
28:35
SPEAKER_03: the reason to continue promoting vaccines, not the opposite.
28:38
SPEAKER_03: The successive vaccination should not become the justification
28:41
SPEAKER_03: for abandoning what made this successful, Eisenberg said.
28:44
SPEAKER_03: So the move to remove the four vaccines, chicken pox, hepatitis B. Oh, here we go, Rob.
28:49
SPEAKER_03: I'm going to give you one for today.
28:51
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
28:53
SPEAKER_03: Amyophilus Influenza Type B.
28:55
SPEAKER_03: Not a mopful list.
28:56
SPEAKER_00: No, a mopful list.
28:57
SPEAKER_00: Damn it.
29:00
SPEAKER_03: Oh, okay.
29:01
SPEAKER_03: Thank you, producer Chris, for that little nugget.
29:03
SPEAKER_03: Yep.
29:04
SPEAKER_03: Thank you.
29:04
SPEAKER_03: Everyone can laugh at me now.
29:06
SPEAKER_03: From the list of mandated vaccines for school kids is part of a larger effort
29:10
SPEAKER_03: by Lattipo to remove
29:11
SPEAKER_02: all vaccine mandates in the state under the guise
29:13
SPEAKER_02: of medical freedom.
29:15
SPEAKER_03: Every last one of them is wrong and drips with disdain and slavery,
29:18
SPEAKER_03: Lattipo said, of vaccine mandates in September 2025.
29:22
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
29:22
SPEAKER_03: Lattapo is like, I mean,
29:24
SPEAKER_03: he is this like longstanding quack character down in Florida who continues to do
29:29
SPEAKER_03: the shovel work of undermining vaccines across the Sunshine State.
29:34
SPEAKER_03: I'm wondering what your thoughts are on the removal of these four vaccines from
29:37
SPEAKER_03: the childhood vaccine schedule, Rob.
29:38
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
29:39
SPEAKER_02: I mean, like this is malpractice, right?
29:40
SPEAKER_03: This is public health malpractice.
29:42
SPEAKER_02: And this leads really well into the interview with Dr. Offit,
29:44
SPEAKER_02: who's a pediatrician and Help develop a vaccine for rotavirus that saves,
29:49
SPEAKER_02: you know, 165,000 lives a year.
29:51
SPEAKER_02: And he talked about, we talked very in detail about Haemophilus influenza B.
29:56
SPEAKER_02: It's like, it's this thing people don't really hear about or think about.
29:58
SPEAKER_02: But as emergency docs, as pediatricians, we know this so well.
30:02
SPEAKER_02: And I came up in medicine in the late 90s training then, and it had been pretty much changed.
30:09
SPEAKER_02: Eradicated or not eradicated, but like it wasn't a thing we had to think too much about.
30:13
SPEAKER_02: My attendings who trained 20,
30:14
SPEAKER_02: 30 years prior told horror stories of kids with horrible infections in their throat
30:20
SPEAKER_02: where you had to like secure an airway,
30:22
SPEAKER_02: like cut into their neck to get an airway for them or horrible cases of meningitis
30:26
SPEAKER_02: that this vaccine eliminated, like just gone.
30:30
SPEAKER_02: Like we don't see it.
30:32
SPEAKER_02: He said there are pediatric residents he has that don't know how to do spinal taps.
30:36
SPEAKER_02: We did a fair number when I was in training.
30:38
SPEAKER_02: You do so many fewer now because we've gotten rid of the reasons kids needed
30:42
SPEAKER_02: so many damn spinal taps.
30:44
SPEAKER_02: Maybe we should be making public information campaigns showing kids getting needles
30:51
SPEAKER_02: stuck in their backs to the parents.
30:53
SPEAKER_02: Is this what you want for your kid?
30:55
SPEAKER_02: This is what we got rid of.
30:57
SPEAKER_02: Or kids who are deaf or kids who are having repeated seizures because of these things.
31:02
SPEAKER_02: Because, like,
31:02
SPEAKER_02: just to say, well,
31:03
SPEAKER_02: you know,
31:04
SPEAKER_02: show me the safety, it's like, well, I'll show you the danger of not doing it.
31:07
SPEAKER_02: Like, that's a reality.
31:09
SPEAKER_02: We just don't live it anymore.
31:10
SPEAKER_03: And Lattapoe appealing to,
31:12
SPEAKER_03: like, quote, mother's intuition as, like, his, like, public is so predatory.
31:17
SPEAKER_03: Like, it is.
31:19
SPEAKER_03: It's...
31:21
SPEAKER_03: He knows exactly what he's doing when he's saying stuff like that out in public
31:27
SPEAKER_03: to like garner the vaccine,
31:29
SPEAKER_03: like sort of recruit the vaccine skeptical onto their side saying that like,
31:33
SPEAKER_03: you know best and that,
31:35
SPEAKER_03: But it is really predatory and it's hard to say anything else besides there's
31:42
SPEAKER_03: a straight line to blood on this guy's hands.
31:45
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
31:45
SPEAKER_02: But he's also acting as if doctors and public health practitioners say to a mother Yeah.
32:10
SPEAKER_02: You may do another test or not,
32:13
SPEAKER_02: but they're coming to you because you did have the training and you can say,
32:17
SPEAKER_02: you can explain,
32:18
SPEAKER_02: here's why what you're feeling is valid,
32:21
SPEAKER_02: but here's why I'm less concerned about this really severe thing or what have you.
32:25
SPEAKER_02: It's the same thing.
32:26
SPEAKER_02: I mean, it's with informed refusal.
32:27
SPEAKER_02: I think parents who are refusing vaccines should have to watch videos
32:32
SPEAKER_02: of these horrible diseases because, I mean, we deal with it all the time.
32:35
SPEAKER_02: People don't always want to do the things that you know are medically right to do, right?
32:40
SPEAKER_02: They don't want to stick And I'll have people tell me, oh, no, no, I'll be fine.
32:55
SPEAKER_02: I'll just say, wait a minute.
32:57
SPEAKER_02: I'm not saying you can't leave.
32:58
SPEAKER_02: You can do whatever you want, but I don't want you to leave thinking, no, no, I'll be fine.
33:02
SPEAKER_02: I want you to understand there is this percent risk of this really bad thing.
33:06
SPEAKER_02: And if knowing that, you say, I still don't want to do it.
33:08
SPEAKER_02: Okay, that's cool.
33:11
SPEAKER_02: And so, yeah,
33:12
SPEAKER_02: he's playing on that little piece where doctors are gods and they don't want
33:16
SPEAKER_02: to listen.
33:16
SPEAKER_02: It's like, that's such bullshit.
33:18
SPEAKER_02: And he knows it.
33:19
SPEAKER_02: And it's predatory and it's all for his agenda.
33:21
SPEAKER_03: Florida's a real long shot.
33:23
SPEAKER_03: Florida's gonna be so hard for the Democrats to win,
33:25
SPEAKER_02: but, I mean,
33:25
SPEAKER_03: man...
33:26
SPEAKER_03: But, you know,
33:27
SPEAKER_03: the woman running for governor is a criminal who stole money out of
33:31
SPEAKER_03: the public coffers.
33:33
SPEAKER_03: And David Jolly's a good candidate.
33:35
SPEAKER_03: And if David Jolly wins this, like,
33:37
SPEAKER_03: reign of terror from Joe Latipo that's just lasted way longer
33:41
SPEAKER_03: than anyone expected will hopefully come to an end.
33:43
SPEAKER_03: So, rooting for you, David.
33:45
SPEAKER_03: Um...
33:46
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
33:46
SPEAKER_03: All right.
33:46
SPEAKER_03: Well, why don't we go to the interview and we'll hear from Dr.
33:49
SPEAKER_03: Paul Offit and a great conversation between you two.
33:53
SPEAKER_02: All right.
33:54
SPEAKER_02: Welcome back, everyone.
33:55
SPEAKER_02: Really excited to have with me a very special guest, Dr. Paul Offit.
33:59
SPEAKER_02: Dr. Offit is the director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children's Hospital
34:03
SPEAKER_02: of Philadelphia,
34:04
SPEAKER_02: as well as the Maurice R.
34:06
SPEAKER_02: Hilleman Professor of Vaccinology and a professor of pediatrics at
34:09
SPEAKER_02: the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.
34:13
SPEAKER_02: Dr. Offit was recently a voting member on the FDA's Vaccine Advisory Committee
34:17
SPEAKER_02: and has previously served on the Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices,
34:21
SPEAKER_02: or ACIP, to the CDC.
34:23
SPEAKER_02: He is also the co-inventor of the rotavirus vaccine,
34:26
SPEAKER_02: Rotatec,
34:26
SPEAKER_02: recommended for universal use in infants by the CDC in 2006 and by the WHO in 2013.
34:33
SPEAKER_02: This vaccine has been estimated to save about 165,000 lives a year.
34:37
SPEAKER_02: He is also the author of 11 books written for the public about science, medicine, and vaccines.
34:42
SPEAKER_02: Dr. Offit, welcome to Paging America.
34:44
SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
34:45
SPEAKER_00: It's my pleasure.
34:45
SPEAKER_02: Boy, before we get into this, I just have to say 165,000 lives a year.
34:50
SPEAKER_02: I tell people all the time,
34:51
SPEAKER_02: I went into emergency medicine, you know, a lot of that is to save lives, right?
34:55
SPEAKER_02: And certainly I have in my life, one at a time, one at a time.
34:57
SPEAKER_02: But we were told when we graduated medical school that the people
35:00
SPEAKER_02: The people doing public health,
35:01
SPEAKER_02: the people developing vaccines,
35:03
SPEAKER_02: they're the ones saving the lives that we can only imagine in one career
35:08
SPEAKER_02: at Bedside Medicine.
35:09
SPEAKER_02: So just that number is so eye-popping,
35:11
SPEAKER_02: and I think it's really important for people to take that in,
35:14
SPEAKER_02: that folks who do what you do are actually saving lives behind the scenes
35:19
SPEAKER_03: at such
35:20
SPEAKER_03: a scale we can't even imagine it.
35:21
SPEAKER_03: So thank you for that.
35:22
SPEAKER_02: Well,
35:22
SPEAKER_02: we spent a good deal of time on this show examining claims about vaccines coming
35:26
SPEAKER_02: from the administration, including from HHS Secretary RFK Jr.
35:30
SPEAKER_02: Earlier this year,
35:31
SPEAKER_02: he seemed to soften his messaging on vaccines,
35:33
SPEAKER_02: and then he headlined the Children's Health Defense Conference.
35:36
SPEAKER_02: Just want to know your take on that.
35:38
SPEAKER_00: For 20 years,
35:39
SPEAKER_00: Robert F.
35:39
SPEAKER_00: Kennedy Jr.
35:40
SPEAKER_00: has been an anti-vaccine activist, science denialist, and conspiracy theorist.
35:45
SPEAKER_00: For the past 10 years,
35:47
SPEAKER_00: he has founded an organization originally called the World Mercury Project,
35:51
SPEAKER_00: now called Children's Health Defense,
35:53
SPEAKER_00: that pays him up to $500,000 a year to be an anti-vaccine activist,
35:57
SPEAKER_00: basically to do what he does,
35:59
SPEAKER_00: which is serve as a personal injury lawyer to represent people
36:02
SPEAKER_00: who believe vaccines are on their children.
36:05
SPEAKER_00: That's who he's been.
36:07
SPEAKER_00: Now he was confirmed in February of 2025 as Secretary of Health and Human Services.
36:12
SPEAKER_00: He's not being paid by Children's Health Defense anymore.
36:15
SPEAKER_00: He's being paid by you and me, the American taxpayer, to represent the health of all children.
36:21
SPEAKER_00: But he doesn't do that.
36:22
SPEAKER_00: He's still the same anti-vaccine activist he always was.
36:25
SPEAKER_00: He's done everything he tend to make vaccines less available, less affordable and more feared.
36:31
SPEAKER_00: And you can see the results by what's going on right now in this country in terms
36:35
SPEAKER_00: of outbreaks of vaccine preventable diseases.
36:37
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, thanks for that.
36:38
SPEAKER_02: And that goes right into my next question,
36:39
SPEAKER_02: because I think you're coming to us from Pennsylvania,
36:42
SPEAKER_02: and five measles-associated deaths in Pennsylvania have drawn attention
36:45
SPEAKER_02: to how serious measles can be.
36:47
SPEAKER_02: In the middle of this outbreak,
36:48
SPEAKER_02: the CDC announced it is working to redefine what counts as a measles-related death.
36:53
SPEAKER_02: Is there any scientific case for that?
36:56
SPEAKER_02: And I guess, what do you make of this timing?
36:57
SPEAKER_02: And maybe you can just tell us kind of what you're seeing, what you're hearing from the state.
37:01
SPEAKER_00: Right, so as of yesterday,
37:02
SPEAKER_00: there were 1,066 cases of measles in Pennsylvania,
37:05
SPEAKER_00: about 200 hospitalizations and five deaths.
37:08
SPEAKER_00: And if you look at the details of those deaths, those are deaths caused by measles.
37:12
SPEAKER_00: In other words, those children or adults wouldn't have died had it not been for measles.
37:18
SPEAKER_00: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is playing games with this.
37:20
SPEAKER_00: If you look on the CDC website,
37:22
SPEAKER_00: normally the way it works is we report our cases,
37:24
SPEAKER_00: we report our hospitalizations,
37:26
SPEAKER_00: we report our deaths, and that then gets reported And the CDC website under measles.
37:30
SPEAKER_00: But if you look under measles, 2026 deaths, it only lists two deaths for measles.
37:35
SPEAKER_00: So they're playing games.
37:37
SPEAKER_00: I know that Deborah Bogan,
37:38
SPEAKER_00: who's our Secretary of Health and Human Services or Secretary of Health here
37:42
SPEAKER_00: in Pennsylvania, doesn't like this.
37:44
SPEAKER_00: I mean, CDC has offered help to come into And she has basically refused saying,
37:52
SPEAKER_00: until you recognize what's going on here,
37:54
SPEAKER_00: we don't want your help because the CDC isn't the CDC anymore.
37:58
SPEAKER_00: It's RFK Jr. CDC, which is to say, it's something you can't trust anymore.
38:02
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
38:03
SPEAKER_02: And when the CDC director was confirmed,
38:06
SPEAKER_02: right, she said she, you know, she would trust science, said she trusted vaccines.
38:10
SPEAKER_02: You know, she would be willing to kind of speak truth to power, paraphrasing.
38:15
SPEAKER_02: But then now that she's been there,
38:17
SPEAKER_02: I don't know that I've seen any of that when it related to this.
38:21
SPEAKER_02: Like she seems to have capitulated.
38:23
SPEAKER_02: I don't know if you have any thoughts on her leadership of the CDC right now and
38:27
SPEAKER_02: the games they're playing.
38:28
SPEAKER_00: During her confirmation hearing,
38:29
SPEAKER_00: she was asked the question,
38:31
SPEAKER_00: if Robert F.
38:31
SPEAKER_00: Kennedy Jr.
38:32
SPEAKER_00: asks you to do something that you think is adverse to the science,
38:36
SPEAKER_00: will you stand up to him?
38:37
SPEAKER_00: And she said, well, he would never do that.
38:39
SPEAKER_00: Makes me think she's paid no attention to what he's been doing over the past 20 years.
38:43
SPEAKER_00: But you're right.
38:44
SPEAKER_00: She's completely capitulated to him.
38:46
SPEAKER_00: It's really hard to watch.
38:47
SPEAKER_00: I mean, we're in the midst in this country and it's certainly in our state in
38:50
SPEAKER_00: a massive measles epidemic.
38:52
SPEAKER_00: Normally what would happen is you would be hearing from
38:55
SPEAKER_00: the CDC director every other day about,
38:57
SPEAKER_00: okay, here, We're identifying high-risk areas.
39:00
SPEAKER_00: Here's how we're sending vaccines.
39:02
SPEAKER_00: Here's how we're working with local communities.
39:04
SPEAKER_00: Here's what to expect.
39:05
SPEAKER_00: None of that.
39:06
SPEAKER_00: And this is bad.
39:07
SPEAKER_00: I mean, when you see 200 people being hospitalized in our state for a virus
39:11
SPEAKER_00: that typically has a hospitalization rate of 10%, it's not 1,000 cases.
39:15
SPEAKER_00: It's at least 2,000 cases.
39:18
SPEAKER_00: For a virus that has a mortality rate of one in a thousand, I think it could be 5,000 cases.
39:23
SPEAKER_00: It could be 10,000 cases.
39:24
SPEAKER_00: And when you talk to Deborah Bogan, who's our Secretary of Health, she'll tell you that.
39:28
SPEAKER_00: She'll say, we are vastly underestimating I think the same thing happened in West Texas.
39:33
SPEAKER_00: If you talk to Katie Wells there, she'll tell you the same thing.
39:36
SPEAKER_00: It's bad.
39:37
SPEAKER_00: And it's October.
39:38
SPEAKER_00: I mean, measles is typically a winter spring disease and kids are back in school.
39:43
SPEAKER_00: And we have a fair number of children who have chosen religious
39:46
SPEAKER_00: or philosophical exemption to vaccination.
39:48
SPEAKER_00: This is going to be bad.
39:49
SPEAKER_00: The one other thing people don't quite understand.
39:53
SPEAKER_00: We have an adult population now that not only was never naturally infected,
39:57
SPEAKER_00: they weren't vaccinated.
39:59
SPEAKER_00: Look at the deaths in Pennsylvania.
40:01
SPEAKER_00: We have an 18-year-old that died,
40:03
SPEAKER_00: a 20-year-old that died,
40:04
SPEAKER_00: a 40-year-old that died,
40:05
SPEAKER_00: a one-day-old that died because his mother had measles and then
40:10
SPEAKER_00: the child had congenital measles.
40:11
SPEAKER_00: We have four other cases of congenital measles, two in the NICU, neonatal intensive care unit.
40:16
SPEAKER_00: We need to vaccinate adults as well as children.
40:19
SPEAKER_00: And that's much harder because with children,
40:21
SPEAKER_00: at least you can have school vaccine entry requirements, mandates, not with adults.
40:25
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, actually, so I was born in 71.
40:29
SPEAKER_02: I think I'm young enough to have gotten the two doses.
40:34
SPEAKER_02: I forget the details.
40:35
SPEAKER_02: Can you explain that?
40:36
SPEAKER_02: Like, which adults should be?
40:38
SPEAKER_02: Are the people who are particularly high risk who should be?
40:41
SPEAKER_02: Or is it a timing thing of when they may have been vaccinated or been exposed?
40:45
SPEAKER_00: So if I was born in the early 1950s, like pretty much everybody born before 1957, I had measles.
40:51
SPEAKER_00: I am protected against measles for the rest of my life.
40:54
SPEAKER_00: The first measles vaccine came in 1963.
40:57
SPEAKER_00: The last best measles vaccine, the so-called Morton strain came in 1968.
41:02
SPEAKER_00: That was combined with a mumps and rubella vaccine in 1971.
41:05
SPEAKER_00: That was all a single dose vaccine.
41:07
SPEAKER_00: That remained a single dose vaccine until 1989,
41:11
SPEAKER_00: at which time there were outbreaks that involved about 50,000 hospitalizations
41:14
SPEAKER_00: and 160 deaths from measles.
41:16
SPEAKER_00: And so the second dose was recommended.
41:19
SPEAKER_00: And so with that,
41:20
SPEAKER_00: you went from a protective efficacy of 93% with a single dose,
41:24
SPEAKER_00: which is excellent, to 97% from two doses.
41:27
SPEAKER_00: But I think with one dose of vaccine, you likely are highly protected, 93% chance of protection.
41:34
SPEAKER_02: But if there's folks who are in that kind of mid-60s,
41:36
SPEAKER_02: late 60s,
41:37
SPEAKER_02: you know,
41:37
SPEAKER_02: when it was first coming out and all that,
41:39
SPEAKER_02: they should at minimum check with their doctor, right?
41:42
SPEAKER_02: I mean,
41:43
SPEAKER_02: people do trust their own physician and the vast majority of primary care doctors
41:47
SPEAKER_02: in this country, you know, family doctors.
41:49
SPEAKER_02: Docs, internists, pediatricians recommend people get vaccinated.
41:52
SPEAKER_02: People should just definitely check in with their PCP,
41:55
SPEAKER_02: the person they trust, and figure out, man, am I susceptible?
41:58
SPEAKER_02: Because if you are even a little bit susceptible in this current environment,
42:03
SPEAKER_02: it seems like it would be insane not to go and protect yourself.
42:06
SPEAKER_00: Right.
42:06
SPEAKER_00: And remember, adults,
42:07
SPEAKER_00: when they get measles,
42:08
SPEAKER_00: pneumonia,
42:09
SPEAKER_00: are 10 times more likely to be hospitalized and 10 times more likely to die.
42:12
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I'm of an age where people had measles parties,
42:15
SPEAKER_00: where you wanted children to get measles as a child because there was no vaccine.
42:18
SPEAKER_00: And because that way they had a lesser chance of being seriously infected.
42:23
SPEAKER_00: Now you have a lot of adults who haven't been naturally infected or vaccinated who are at risk.
42:27
SPEAKER_00: And if you have any question about whether or not you've been adequately vaccinated,
42:30
SPEAKER_00: you should get another dose of MMR vaccine.
42:32
SPEAKER_02: Amen.
42:33
SPEAKER_02: Well, thank you for that.
42:34
SPEAKER_02: So you brought up MMR when they combined it and the president has called
42:37
SPEAKER_02: the MMR vaccine quite lethal.
42:39
SPEAKER_02: And Secretary Kennedy has suggested vaccines may do more harm than good.
42:43
SPEAKER_02: Like I said in the intro,
42:44
SPEAKER_02: you co-invented a rotavirus vaccine estimated to save 165,000 lives a year.
42:49
SPEAKER_02: What does the evidence actually show about the kind of safety benefit risk ratio
42:55
SPEAKER_02: when it comes to vaccines?
42:57
SPEAKER_00: Remember,
42:57
SPEAKER_00: this was the same man that said you should drink bleach and exposure
43:00
SPEAKER_00: to internal UV light if you want to rid yourself of COVID.
43:03
SPEAKER_00: So I'm not sure he's your go-to guy for medical advice.
43:08
SPEAKER_00: What's interesting about the separating the vaccine part,
43:10
SPEAKER_00: which is what he did,
43:11
SPEAKER_00: he went on national television and said that the measles, mumps,
43:14
SPEAKER_00: rubella vaccine should be separated to three vaccines so that instead
43:18
SPEAKER_00: of getting two shots, you're getting six shots.
43:20
SPEAKER_00: Because he said that because it was combined as one vaccine,
43:24
SPEAKER_00: that was explosive and quite lethal.
43:26
SPEAKER_00: Thank you, President Donald Trump.
43:28
SPEAKER_00: But where that was born was Andrew Wakefield published a paper
43:31
SPEAKER_00: in 1998 falsely claiming that the MMR vaccine caused autism.
43:36
SPEAKER_00: Published in the Lancet, it was ultimately withdrawn.
43:39
SPEAKER_00: First of all,
43:39
SPEAKER_00: 24 separate studies have shown you're at no greater risk of autism if you get
43:43
SPEAKER_00: the MMR vaccine or if you don't.
43:44
SPEAKER_00: But in addition to that,
43:46
SPEAKER_00: the day after that he published that paper,
43:48
SPEAKER_00: he had a press conference where he said,
43:50
SPEAKER_00: if you want to lessen your risk of autism, you should separate the MMR vaccine.
43:54
SPEAKER_00: Into its three component parts because when it's combined,
43:56
SPEAKER_00: it's overwhelming your immune system.
43:58
SPEAKER_00: That's what he said.
43:59
SPEAKER_00: That's what this British doctor said.
44:01
SPEAKER_00: And so that's when that notion was born.
44:04
SPEAKER_00: And now you have almost 30 years later,
44:05
SPEAKER_00: the president of the United States saying the same thing.
44:08
SPEAKER_00: It's like Jaws 2.
44:10
SPEAKER_00: I can't believe we're back here again.
44:12
SPEAKER_02: Well, someone who's in the news or has been in the news,
44:14
SPEAKER_02: and I know the organization I help run,
44:16
SPEAKER_02: the Committee for Healthcare, has tried to keep her in the news for various reasons.
44:19
SPEAKER_02: Heidi Overton,
44:21
SPEAKER_02: nominated to lead the FDA,
44:22
SPEAKER_02: she was in the Oval Office when Trump called it quite lethally.
44:25
SPEAKER_02: He talked about a soda pop volume of,
44:28
SPEAKER_02: I think he said, a volume of vaccine is injected into babies.
44:33
SPEAKER_02: I mean, just painting this picture that has no basis in reality.
44:36
SPEAKER_02: She has expressed support for his views on child vaccination.
44:39
SPEAKER_02: She read a statement in the Oval Office about that.
44:41
SPEAKER_02: There is reporting that that entire policy of splitting up wouldn't have happened
44:47
SPEAKER_02: without Heidi Overton signing off on it.
44:49
SPEAKER_02: Now she's being nominated to run the FDA, right?
44:52
SPEAKER_02: I wondered what you make of her nomination and what would that confirmation to
44:57
SPEAKER_02: that position mean for vaccine policy?
44:59
SPEAKER_00: I make it for a nomination.
45:00
SPEAKER_00: The same thing I make of all nominations that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. put forward.
45:04
SPEAKER_00: I don't trust them because I think in his world, you have to go along to get along.
45:08
SPEAKER_00: You have to agree with what he's doing.
45:09
SPEAKER_00: You're right.
45:10
SPEAKER_00: She was standing right there when he said that,
45:12
SPEAKER_00: as was RFK Jr.
45:14
SPEAKER_00: And he said pointedly that He's seen children get like a soda bottle's worth
45:18
SPEAKER_00: of fluid at little baby.
45:20
SPEAKER_00: So a soda bottle, there's roughly 2,000 milliliters of the sort of big soda bottle.
45:24
SPEAKER_00: The actual dose of the vaccine is 0.5 milliliters.
45:28
SPEAKER_00: So a soda bottle contains about 4,000.
45:32
SPEAKER_00: So again, I know it's hard to believe, but Donald Trump got it wrong.
45:36
SPEAKER_00: And that's okay.
45:37
SPEAKER_00: I mean, he's a real estate developer.
45:39
SPEAKER_00: I don't expect him to know anything, but I expect Heidi Overton to.
45:42
SPEAKER_00: And I expect Eric Schwartz to.
45:44
SPEAKER_00: And I expect Jay Bhattacharya to.
45:45
SPEAKER_00: And Mehmet Oz too.
45:46
SPEAKER_00: And yet,
45:47
SPEAKER_00: nonetheless,
45:48
SPEAKER_00: you know,
45:48
SPEAKER_00: they're very reluctant to ever challenge either what Trump says or what RFK Jr.
45:53
SPEAKER_00: says.
45:53
SPEAKER_00: So when he said,
45:54
SPEAKER_00: for example, Trump,
45:55
SPEAKER_00: that this vaccine was,
45:57
SPEAKER_00: quote unquote,
45:57
SPEAKER_00: quite lethal,
45:58
SPEAKER_00: the only person in public health who ever contradicted him,
46:01
SPEAKER_00: and it was slightly,
46:02
SPEAKER_00: was Mehmet Oz on a national show, I think, Meet the Press with Margaret Brennan.
46:06
SPEAKER_00: And he was hesitant to contradict him.
46:08
SPEAKER_00: He kept sort of, it took three times before he said, no, it's not, it's not lethal.
46:13
SPEAKER_00: So I don't know.
46:13
SPEAKER_00: It is hard to watch this.
46:15
SPEAKER_00: It's like the world's turned upside down.
46:17
SPEAKER_00: Everything that used to matter,
46:18
SPEAKER_00: that used to carry weight and always weighed the same has been thrown out
46:21
SPEAKER_00: the window.
46:22
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean,
46:23
SPEAKER_02: as doctors,
46:24
SPEAKER_02: at least for me,
46:24
SPEAKER_02: watching the doctors that you mentioned, right,
46:27
SPEAKER_02: Bhattacharya, Dr. Oz, Dr.
46:31
SPEAKER_02: Overton,
46:32
SPEAKER_02: watching them sort of cave and kind of take on the talking points,
46:36
SPEAKER_02: the folks who know better.
46:37
SPEAKER_02: I mean, I did emergency medicine, right, my training.
46:40
SPEAKER_02: I did a peds rotation.
46:42
SPEAKER_02: I did peds rotation in med school.
46:44
SPEAKER_02: So it wasn't like I'm a highly trained pediatrician or vaccinologist,
46:47
SPEAKER_02: but I learned the basic things.
46:49
SPEAKER_02: The basics about how vaccines work, the safety.
46:52
SPEAKER_02: You know,
46:53
SPEAKER_02: I've seen kids get,
46:54
SPEAKER_02: when you say a half of 0.5 mls,
46:56
SPEAKER_02: that's like one-tenth of a teaspoon is the volume that they get injected.
47:01
SPEAKER_02: Like these people know better.
47:03
SPEAKER_02: And that is, I mean, RFK Jr. may not know better.
47:06
SPEAKER_02: I don't know what he does or doesn't know.
47:07
SPEAKER_02: He certainly has ulterior motives for his views, but he may not know better.
47:11
SPEAKER_02: He's not a doctor.
47:12
SPEAKER_02: He didn't get any training.
47:13
SPEAKER_02: He claims to know a lot.
47:15
SPEAKER_02: These folks actually know and still they tout this party line and they follow this guy.
47:19
SPEAKER_02: And Overton couldn't even admit that he could be wrong.
47:23
SPEAKER_02: I mean, it's incredible to me and really distressing.
47:25
SPEAKER_02: Really hard to watch.
47:27
SPEAKER_00: I just can't wait till we get past this era of just rejecting science.
47:32
SPEAKER_00: It's just painful.
47:34
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so getting to a little bit of Kennedy and his views on science,
47:38
SPEAKER_02: you wrote in your Substack that Kennedy rejects germ theory
47:41
SPEAKER_02: and embraces terrain theory,
47:43
SPEAKER_02: the idea that the terrain is everything, the microbe is nothing.
47:46
SPEAKER_02: I don't know if you could explain that a little more and then tell us,
47:49
SPEAKER_02: are there any serious scientists left since like the mid-1800s
47:52
SPEAKER_02: who reject germ theory?
47:54
SPEAKER_02: No.
47:55
SPEAKER_00: So the germ theory states that specific viruses or bacteria cause specific diseases.
48:00
SPEAKER_00: This was pretty much firmly established in the sort of mid to late 1800s
48:05
SPEAKER_00: when it was found that Bacillus anthracis was the cause of anthrax.
48:09
SPEAKER_00: This was very clear, very specific that viruses cause these diseases.
48:15
SPEAKER_00: He believes that in the so-called terrain theory,
48:17
SPEAKER_00: which is to say that if you're well-nourished and you have adequate nutrition,
48:22
SPEAKER_00: you eat well,
48:23
SPEAKER_00: you exercise, that you're never going to be felt or hurt by a serious infection.
48:28
SPEAKER_00: He believes that.
48:28
SPEAKER_00: So, for example,
48:29
SPEAKER_00: when those two little girls died in West Texas,
48:32
SPEAKER_00: a six-year-old and eight-year-old healthy little unimmunized girls died
48:36
SPEAKER_00: of measles pneumonia.
48:38
SPEAKER_00: He said, well, they're in a food desert, meaning that they were malnourished, which wasn't true.
48:42
SPEAKER_00: And the doctors immediately stood up and said that wasn't true.
48:44
SPEAKER_00: And then he said that they needed vitamin A, that vitamin A would do this.
48:48
SPEAKER_00: Now,
48:49
SPEAKER_00: vitamin A is of some value in preventing hospitalization and death from measles in
48:53
SPEAKER_00: the developing world where vitamin A deficiency is common,
48:56
SPEAKER_00: but not in the developed world where the vitamin A deficiency occurs in fewer
49:00
SPEAKER_00: than 0.5% of people in this country.
49:02
SPEAKER_00: And there've been studies done showing that vitamin A doesn't do anything.
49:05
SPEAKER_00: But see,
49:05
SPEAKER_00: this is the terrain theory for him,
49:06
SPEAKER_00: that you just need to,
49:08
SPEAKER_00: the microbe, that the terrain is everything, the microbe is nothing.
49:12
SPEAKER_00: And he believes that.
49:13
SPEAKER_00: I mean, he's that far gone that he actually believes that.
49:17
SPEAKER_00: I mean, when he went to Samoa and there was a major measles outbreak
49:22
SPEAKER_00: in this small island nation of 200,000 people where there were like 56,000 cases
49:27
SPEAKER_00: of measles and 83 deaths, mostly in children less than four.
49:31
SPEAKER_00: He wrote a letter to the president or prime minister of Samoa saying this wasn't measles.
49:36
SPEAKER_00: It was a defective measles vaccine that's causing all this.
49:40
SPEAKER_00: He just can't buy into the notion that he's been a very successful anti-vaccine activist.
49:47
SPEAKER_00: And we're now seeing more cases of measles and deaths from measles and deaths
49:50
SPEAKER_00: from whooping cough and deaths from flu than we've seen in decades.
49:54
SPEAKER_02: I mean, I'm telling you,
49:54
SPEAKER_02: it's hard for us older docs to keep up because these are things we learned
49:58
SPEAKER_02: about almost, I mean,
49:59
SPEAKER_02: you learn about them in the various hard science classes,
50:02
SPEAKER_02: but some of it's almost like a history of medicine you would learn as you were going
50:06
SPEAKER_02: through.
50:07
SPEAKER_02: And some of the older attendings,
50:08
SPEAKER_02: You know,
50:09
SPEAKER_02: who are maybe like in their early 60s when I was in my 20s would talk to you
50:13
SPEAKER_02: about these cases.
50:15
SPEAKER_02: God, I remember Haemophilus Influenza,
50:17
SPEAKER_02: meningitis that I didn't see,
50:19
SPEAKER_02: but people telling me about how horrible and,
50:21
SPEAKER_02: you know, the difference between croup and epiglottitis.
50:25
SPEAKER_02: Those aren't often thought of as much because they don't make the news.
50:29
SPEAKER_02: But these horrible diseases that an entire generation or multiple generations now
50:33
SPEAKER_02: of doctors just haven't had to experience, thank God.
50:37
SPEAKER_02: And these guys seem hellbent.
50:38
SPEAKER_02: I'm bringing them back.
50:39
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, I was a, I'm older than you.
50:42
SPEAKER_00: I was a pediatric resident between 1977 and 1980.
50:46
SPEAKER_00: And we did, we would have these 12 hour on, 12 hour off emergency department rotations.
50:51
SPEAKER_00: When I was on for those 12 hours, I would do two to three spinal taps a night.
50:55
SPEAKER_00: We didn't have a haemophilus influenza B vaccine,
50:57
SPEAKER_00: didn't have a pneumococcal vaccine, didn't have a meningococcal vaccine.
51:00
SPEAKER_00: Hib, haemophilus influenza B.
51:02
SPEAKER_00: It dominated my life.
51:03
SPEAKER_00: I mean, we were over 20,000 to 25,000 cases of invasive hemophilocins,
51:08
SPEAKER_00: the ones that would be, you know, every year.
51:10
SPEAKER_00: And what's odd is that most pediatric residents at our hospital,
51:14
SPEAKER_00: Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, don't know how to do spinal taps.
51:17
SPEAKER_00: It's usually the interventional radiologist that does it.
51:20
SPEAKER_00: But, you know,
51:21
SPEAKER_00: with RFK Jr.'s success as an anti-vaccine activist,
51:24
SPEAKER_00: there was just a child in Montana who died of Hib meningitis.
51:26
SPEAKER_00: There have been a handful of cases in Florida that died from Hib.
51:29
SPEAKER_00: So it's back.
51:32
SPEAKER_00: It's just so sad.
51:33
SPEAKER_00: It's such a devastating illness.
51:34
SPEAKER_00: And epiglottitis, by the way, scared the hell out of us.
51:38
SPEAKER_00: I mean, so the epiglottis is that tissue that sits on top of the windpipe.
51:42
SPEAKER_00: And when it swells, it can block the windpipe and cause you to stop breathing.
51:46
SPEAKER_00: These kids would come in and they had this frightened, terrified look on their face.
51:51
SPEAKER_00: They were leaning forward and breathing slowly because they feared
51:54
SPEAKER_00: that this was going to just occlude their airway.
51:56
SPEAKER_00: So we had a protocol where we had a dark room with an aquarium.
52:00
SPEAKER_00: We would bring the mother and the child into that room.
52:02
SPEAKER_00: We would let them sit there quietly.
52:04
SPEAKER_00: We then had a special staff that would come down from the surgical suites
52:08
SPEAKER_00: with anesthesiologists that would go into that room,
52:10
SPEAKER_00: then bring them up slowly and comfortably into the surgical suite
52:14
SPEAKER_00: where they could intubate them.
52:16
SPEAKER_00: We had a protocol for that.
52:17
SPEAKER_00: And yet recently there was a case of Hib epiglottitis that was transported
52:22
SPEAKER_00: to our hospital by ambulance.
52:24
SPEAKER_00: What are you doing?
52:25
SPEAKER_02: I mean, which tells you it's- Every turn, every bump.
52:28
SPEAKER_00: Doctors aren't used to this.
52:30
SPEAKER_00: I've had doctors in our hospital chop tell me they've never seen a case of measles before.
52:34
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
52:35
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
52:36
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
52:36
SPEAKER_02: Incredible.
52:37
SPEAKER_02: Boy, thanks RFK Jr. for
52:38
SPEAKER_03: bringing all that back.
52:40
SPEAKER_02: I'd love to know your thoughts on where we are,
52:44
SPEAKER_02: where the public debate over vaccines and mandates stands today,
52:47
SPEAKER_02: and kind of looking ahead, what it may take.
52:49
SPEAKER_02: You said you can't wait for this to be over.
52:51
SPEAKER_02: I agree.
52:52
SPEAKER_02: What's it going to take to repair and strengthen the public health infrastructure,
52:56
SPEAKER_02: and what should that look like?
52:57
SPEAKER_00: Well, there's two ways out of this.
52:59
SPEAKER_00: Either one,
52:59
SPEAKER_00: we can do an even better job of educating about the importance of these vaccines,
53:03
SPEAKER_00: how they work,
53:05
SPEAKER_00: what their limitations are,
53:06
SPEAKER_00: and the seriousness of the diseases that they're preventing.
53:10
SPEAKER_00: So that's one way to educate.
53:11
SPEAKER_00: But I think in the end,
53:12
SPEAKER_00: frankly,
53:12
SPEAKER_00: it's going to be the viruses and bacteria that are going to be doing the educating.
53:16
SPEAKER_00: As this gets worse and worse, I think people are going to have had enough.
53:19
SPEAKER_00: I mean, there's really if you look at measles,
53:22
SPEAKER_00: for example, which I'm dealing with every day here in the state of Pennsylvania.
53:26
SPEAKER_00: You basically have two weapons.
53:27
SPEAKER_00: You have quarantine and you have vaccination.
53:30
SPEAKER_00: And, you know,
53:31
SPEAKER_00: when there have been outbreaks of measles in the past,
53:34
SPEAKER_00: you know,
53:34
SPEAKER_00: we were able to do both those things,
53:36
SPEAKER_00: especially,
53:37
SPEAKER_00: you know,
53:37
SPEAKER_00: sort of mandate vaccination,
53:39
SPEAKER_00: which is you can't go to school unless you've gotten a vaccine.
53:42
SPEAKER_00: Now you have people in Florida like the Surgeon General there.
53:45
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
53:47
SPEAKER_00: Who said, no, he doesn't want to quarantine.
53:49
SPEAKER_00: No, he doesn't want to sort of require mandates,
53:52
SPEAKER_00: even if there's a school where there's a measles outbreak.
53:54
SPEAKER_00: So we've taken the two biggest tools that we have and tied our hands behind our back.
53:59
SPEAKER_00: And it's going to get worse and worse.
54:00
SPEAKER_00: I don't think people realize how contagious this virus is.
54:03
SPEAKER_00: I mean, let me put it this way.
54:05
SPEAKER_00: There's something called a contagious index,
54:07
SPEAKER_00: meaning how many people will you infect during a day?
54:08
SPEAKER_00: It's assuming you're contagious or infected and everybody you come in contact
54:12
SPEAKER_00: with is susceptible.
54:14
SPEAKER_00: For viruses like SARS-CoV-2,
54:16
SPEAKER_00: the cause of COVID,
54:17
SPEAKER_00: or respiratory syncytial virus or flu, the contagiousness index is 2 to 4.
54:23
SPEAKER_00: For measles, it's 15 to 18.
54:26
SPEAKER_00: You don't have to have direct contact with someone with measles.
54:28
SPEAKER_00: You just have to be in their airspace within two hours of them being there.
54:31
SPEAKER_00: When somebody comes into our hospital and has measles taken back to a treatment room
54:36
SPEAKER_00: and then leaves that room, no one can walk in that room.
54:39
SPEAKER_00: It's that contagious.
54:41
SPEAKER_00: So I remember what the beginning of this just is one of the many laughable things
54:44
SPEAKER_00: that RFK Jr.
54:45
SPEAKER_00: said is when that outbreak first occurred in West Texas
54:49
SPEAKER_00: and kids were being hospitalized with measles pneumonia or measles disease.
54:55
SPEAKER_00: He said, no, no, they're just being quarantined there.
54:58
SPEAKER_00: Yeah,
54:58
SPEAKER_00: that's the last place you want to bring people who've been exposed to measles is in
55:03
SPEAKER_00: the hospital where you have a vulnerable population of children,
55:06
SPEAKER_00: many of whom can't be vaccinated.
55:07
SPEAKER_00: He's that off.
55:09
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
55:10
SPEAKER_02: I mean, I think it's a really telling statement when you say,
55:13
SPEAKER_02: you know, the viruses and bacteria are going to be the ones to do the educating.
55:16
SPEAKER_02: And, you know,
55:17
SPEAKER_02: in some ways,
55:18
SPEAKER_02: vaccination policy and people who develop vaccines kind of have been the enemy
55:23
SPEAKER_02: of their own success because people just haven't seen these things.
55:26
SPEAKER_02: You know, RFK Jr. can laugh about measles parties.
55:28
SPEAKER_02: You mentioned measles parties.
55:29
SPEAKER_02: I mean, it's just a statement of historical fact.
55:31
SPEAKER_02: That is what happened, right?
55:32
SPEAKER_02: I remember chicken pox parties when I was a kid.
55:35
SPEAKER_02: And now, thankfully, kids don't have to endure that.
55:37
SPEAKER_02: And I will say probably the sickest person I ever saw in my entire training was Was
55:41
SPEAKER_02: an adult with varicella pneumonia, right?
55:44
SPEAKER_02: Got chicken pox as an adult and ended up in the ICU for three months.
55:47
SPEAKER_02: Eventually succumbed to complications of the hospitalization.
55:50
SPEAKER_02: And so like we should reflect and talk about what it was like before,
55:55
SPEAKER_02: but not the way he does, right?
55:56
SPEAKER_02: Not joking about it as if like, what are we afraid of?
55:59
SPEAKER_02: Like you said,
56:00
SPEAKER_02: if you're strong enough,
56:01
SPEAKER_02: if you do enough pushups and workouts in your genes,
56:05
SPEAKER_02: like he does, you're not gonna fall to this stuff.
56:08
SPEAKER_00: And it's just nonsensical.
56:09
SPEAKER_00: You just have to cold plunge with Kid Rock.
56:11
SPEAKER_00: I think that- Oh my God.
56:13
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
56:13
SPEAKER_00: Actually, no,
56:14
SPEAKER_00: ironically, he,
56:15
SPEAKER_00: RFK Jr.,
56:16
SPEAKER_00: gave a talk in the Lancaster County community at July 2021,
56:22
SPEAKER_00: where he said, he praised them.
56:24
SPEAKER_00: He said, you know, you guys get it.
56:25
SPEAKER_00: You're the control group the CDC doesn't want to know about
56:28
SPEAKER_00: because you're not vaccinated,
56:30
SPEAKER_00: and yet you have no autism in your community, which, first of all, wasn't true.
56:34
SPEAKER_00: Even then, there was clearly autism that occurred in that community.
56:39
SPEAKER_00: But and then he said that he praised him for not being vaccinated.
56:42
SPEAKER_00: Then he said exactly what you just said.
56:44
SPEAKER_00: When he had measles, he said, you know, it was horrible sort of being saying it sarcastic.
56:47
SPEAKER_00: You know,
56:47
SPEAKER_00: I had to stay home with my brothers and sisters and watch TV,
56:51
SPEAKER_00: thus recounting that Brady Bunch episode from 1969 where Peter gets measles and
56:55
SPEAKER_00: then everybody in the family gets measles.
56:57
SPEAKER_00: And then Marsha Brady eventually says,
56:59
SPEAKER_00: You know, if you have to get sick, there's nothing like the measles.
57:02
SPEAKER_00: And Carol Brady says, you know, Peter had a few spots and a low-grade fever and lots of smiles.
57:09
SPEAKER_00: To the credit of Marie McCullough, I think was the name of the actress that played Marsha Brady.
57:16
SPEAKER_00: She later felt terrible about that and said, no, when I was sick and my children were back.
57:21
SPEAKER_00: McCormick, Marie McCormick.
57:23
SPEAKER_02: I just want to give props to someone who helped develop a vaccine
57:26
SPEAKER_02: to save 165,000 lives a year and can throw in a Brady Bunch reference with
57:31
SPEAKER_02: the actress's name.
57:32
SPEAKER_02: I don't know, man.
57:33
SPEAKER_02: That's a first, and I think I would be proud of that for sure.
57:37
SPEAKER_02: Well, before I let you go,
57:39
SPEAKER_02: I wonder if you could tell us about a book you have coming out,
57:42
SPEAKER_02: when it will be published, and tell us more about it.
57:44
SPEAKER_00: So I have a book called The Nobel Delusion.
57:46
SPEAKER_00: And then the subtitle is Who Can You Trust
57:48
SPEAKER_00: When Even World-Renowned Experts Give Dangerous Advice?
57:52
SPEAKER_00: It's University of California Press, should be out by the middle of next year.
57:55
SPEAKER_00: But it sort of gets it at who can you trust these days?
57:58
SPEAKER_00: I mean, in the end, it's about the data.
58:01
SPEAKER_00: You know, I mean, the data is key.
58:03
SPEAKER_00: But, you know, data don't speak for themselves.
58:05
SPEAKER_00: Most people don't have the expertise to read through those data or have access to the journal.
58:09
SPEAKER_00: So someone is always going to be speaking for them.
58:11
SPEAKER_00: So who can you trust?
58:12
SPEAKER_00: And I go through a series of Nobel Prize winners who proceed to sort of fall off
58:16
SPEAKER_00: the edge of the earth and give a series of terrible advice.
58:19
SPEAKER_00: And so and then at the end,
58:21
SPEAKER_00: I'm trying to pull it all together with what are the markers for who you can trust?
58:25
SPEAKER_02: That's fascinating.
58:26
SPEAKER_02: We all learn evidence-based medicine, right?
58:28
SPEAKER_02: That's how you practice medicine, looking at data, right?
58:30
SPEAKER_02: Culling that and figuring out the best.
58:32
SPEAKER_02: Then the counter to that was eminence-based medicine, right?
58:35
SPEAKER_02: So somebody with enough letters after their name,
58:37
SPEAKER_02: enough maybe Nobel Prizes, like if they tell you something, must be true.
58:40
SPEAKER_02: And I think this shoots a hole into that idea of eminence-based medicine,
58:44
SPEAKER_02: or at least simply trusting someone because of that hardware.
58:48
SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
58:48
SPEAKER_02: My pleasure.
58:49
SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
59:10
SPEAKER_03: Bob, that was great.
59:11
SPEAKER_03: I think I'm gonna read us out now.
59:12
SPEAKER_03: Today's episode was written by Chris Savage, Dr.
59:14
SPEAKER_03: Rob Davidson, and me,
59:15
SPEAKER_03: Miles Baker,
59:16
SPEAKER_03: Paging America,
59:17
SPEAKER_03: The Situation Womb,
59:18
SPEAKER_03: and all of our on-call segments this week were produced by Peter Ogburn
59:21
SPEAKER_03: and Chris Savage.
59:22
SPEAKER_03: All shows were edited by Peter Ogburn and April Stewie,
59:25
SPEAKER_03: and our music is by Annette Somerset at Duneflower Productions.
59:27
SPEAKER_03: Doctors, nurses, or other medical professionals are listening to this.
59:31
SPEAKER_03: Join us at www.committeetoprotect.org.
59:34
SPEAKER_03: If you want to find out more about the nonprofit organization that Dr.
59:37
SPEAKER_03: Davidson and I both work at, please go check it out.
59:40
SPEAKER_03: And Rob, it was great chatting with you this week.
59:42
SPEAKER_02: I'll talk to you soon.
59:42
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, same.
59:43
SPEAKER_02: See you then.