Latest / Curtis Sliwa & Larry Mendte In The Morning / Dr. Gregory Poland, Health and Medical expert Interview

Transcript

Dr. Gregory Poland, Health and Medical expert Interview · Curtis Sliwa & Larry Mendte In The Morning

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Time to bring in a dear friend, Dr. Gregory Poland,
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: health and medical expert who is a leader in vaccines
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: and infectious diseases. He's also director of research at the
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: Atria Research and Global Health Institute in New York and
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: co-author of a new book, The Illusion of Over, COVID-19, Speed, Trust, Power, Failure,
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: and the System that Saved and Broke America's Public Health.
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: Congratulations on the new book. That's quite a title.
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: Well, thank you. Yeah, it's a long one, isn't it? Yeah,
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: it really is.
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: Listen, there's so much to talk to you about, and
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: I want to start with ticks, because there has been, well,
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: the most in 15 years, visits to the emergency rooms
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: in the area, in New York City area, and in
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: the Northeast, because of tick bites. We had a whole
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: school district... that now has eliminated outdoor activity until further
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: notice because of problems with ticks in the area. What
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: is the big concern with ticks? What could it cause?
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, these tick-borne illnesses are much more common than people think,
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: and they cause a variety of diseases. In the Northeast Corridor,
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: probably the most common is Lyme disease, something that a
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: lot of people have heard about. But there are other
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: diseases that occur too. Like you've heard of alpha gal syndrome, um, uh, babesiosis,
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: a variety of diseases that can lead to real harm.
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: So prevention of tick bites is really important.
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: So preventing it in the first place, that means putting
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: on some lotion or wearing long clothes, long, not wearing
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: shorts when you're walking through the woods, that kind of stuff. Right. Yeah.
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: Staying out of a brush and, uh, bushes, that kind
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: of area, which is unfortunate because that's where kids want
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: to be, right? Running around outdoors. And those are really
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: important things to do. And the other is when you
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: get a tick bite, the tick needs to be identified
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: and potentially treatment started to prevent late complications.
• 2:15
  Speaker 3: Now, Dr. Poland, it's Russia, Russia, Russia. Everywhere you go,
• 2:20
  Speaker 3: you scroll on your Smartphone or iPhone or whatever device
• 2:25
  Speaker 3: you use, pneumonic plague, black plague, all coming from apparently
• 2:32
  Speaker 3: a hospital slash laboratory that was dealing with this pneumonic plague.
• 2:39
  Speaker 3: We've heard every conceivable explanation except not really from the Russians.
• 2:44
  Speaker 3: What do you make of it?
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, let me add the proviso as you did
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: at the end because it's really important. We need Russia
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: to be forthcoming. We need transparency. WHO teams need to
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: be able to get in there and see what really happened.
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: What we know is that a 28-year-old female laboratory worker
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: died of a severe pneumonia. Nothing has been reported yet,
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: though she did work in a laboratory that deals with plague.
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: Now there's speculation about a second case. Who knows? This
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: would be a little unusual because pneumonic plague is a
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: disease that's very severe. Anybody that she would have had
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: contact with would have gotten sick already and probably died already.
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: So I'm skeptical about pneumonic plague, but we have very
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: few details.
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: Well, I'm so upset about this story because it's so
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: easily preventable. Measles, there's been outbreaks across the country, Pennsylvania
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: and New Jersey. We are almost at 4,000 cases. That's
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: the most cases since 1991. And I'm sure you're on
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: the same page. We've talked about this before. 95% of
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: the people that get it are unvaccinated.
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: Larry, it's just incomprehensible in this day and age of
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: the 21st century, and all due to misfounded fears and
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: myths and disinformation and government confusion. And New York itself
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: has got 108 cases, seven of them now in New
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: York City. There have been five deaths in Pennsylvania. This
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: is not just a benign childhood illness as many people
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: want to make it out to be. This is a serious,
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: or is an illness that can have serious ramifications. And
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: it is so easily preventable.
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: Oh, I know. And the gentleman that now is living
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: in the, I shouldn't call him a gentleman, the scum
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: that is now living in this country that started all
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: of this, all of the disinformation for his own gain is,
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: is now living in Texas, and he should be in jail.
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: Where some of the biggest outbreaks have been. By the way,
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: he was stripped of his medical license in England and
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: has been a source of a lot of mis- and disinformation,
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: which is really unfortunate. Dr.
• 5:23
  Speaker 3: Pullen, we're getting clobbered here with Legionnaire's disease, which broke
• 5:28
  Speaker 3: out first in the Upper East Side, wealthy area, then
• 5:31
  Speaker 3: Yankee Stadium, South Bronx, poor area, Now Queens, a senior
• 5:36
  Speaker 3: citizen housing complex, two cases hospitalized. Staten Island yesterday, two
• 5:42
  Speaker 3: cases hospitalized. And I don't hear anything from the city
• 5:46
  Speaker 3: any longer. Can this be transported airborne? How could it
• 5:50
  Speaker 3: be spreading all over the city?
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah. What's happening is with hot weather, with cooling towers
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: and air conditioning towers that are not adequately maintained, cleaned,
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: et cetera, you are always at risk for a disease
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: like this. So they really have to get on top
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: of this. They have to have strict regulations and they
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: have to enforce them. Regular testing and enforcement.
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: Sorry about that. In a follow-up to Curtis's question, it
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: is springing up in one area, then springing up in
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: another and springing up in another and Can it go
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: from one area to another or are these all individual cases?
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: They're individual cases, Larry and Curtis. Basically what happens is
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: the bacteria grows in the water that sits stagnant in
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: these cooling and air conditioning towers. You then run that
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: water and it is airborne and aerosolized from that water
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: that you take a shower in or use. So that's
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: the source, and that's the way to attack this.
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: Dr. Gregory Polin, health and medical expert, a leader in
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: vaccines and infectious diseases at the Mayo Clinic and the
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: president of the Atria Research Institute in New York, and
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: co-author of a new book, The Illusion of Over COVID-19 Speed, Trust, Power, Failure,
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: and the System that Saved and Broke America's Public Health.
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: Quite a title. Thank you so much, Dr. Gregory Poland.
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: Great to hear your voice again.
• 7:34
  Speaker 3: Thanks.
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: And you.