The Musical Innertube - Volume 2 Number 175 - Paul Offit, Vaccines, Measles and RFK Jr.

JOHN

We are very glad today to welcome Paul A. Offit back to the Musical Innertube. Paul is director of the Vaccine Education Center and Professor of Pediatrics in the Division of Infectious Diseases at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. He's an internationally recognized communicator and expert in virology and immunology and was a member of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He's a member of the FDA vaccines and related Biological Products Advisory Committee as well. Welcome back, Paul.

PAUL

Thank you, John.  It’s my pleasure.

JOHN

Ours too. Paul, I gotta say I'm resisting the impulse to start our discussion by inviting you to just sit back and howl. I'm sure you feel like that sometimes, especially lately, but I would like to ask you to comment on one big sweeping thing. Ours is a country that has everything, is very rich, very creative, often humane. And yet we just can't seem to cozy up to public health. As a person who's been prominent all this Millennium in the public health discussion, do you have any thoughts about why that seems to be so?  What is it that we can’t, you know, get next to or can't accept.

PAUL

I think it's not a matter of not cozying up to public health. I think right now there's a significant percentage of this country that has disdain for public health. I think that the people that were hired by the Trump administration to lead Health and Human services, or the FDA or the CDC or the NIH, have disdain for those agencies. And people ask me, reporters have said to me, do I think that if Robert F Kennedy Junior is the head of Health and Human Services, that would cause people to lose faith in those, those public health agencies? No, I think the reason he was picked was because he doesn't trust those agencies. He represents the zietgiest.

DON

I was listening to an interview on the radio a couple of weeks ago, maybe not even that long, with a virologist, somebody who studies diseases like measles, that are very, very, very contagious, and he said, “We went through a pandemic, and in the middle of that pandemic, scientists identified the culprit and came up within days, within weeks, with an effective vaccination for it. And I thought, that's going to teach people how good science is nowadays.” And he says, “Nowadays it's even worse. People trust science even less than they did before, that huge undertaking, and that big success.” So it disappointed him, and I'm assuming that you're in the same boat.

PAUL

Yeah, I think people don't realize who, to me, the real hero of this pandemic was. I think the real hero of this pandemic was the National Institutes of Health. I mean, they had funded people like Carl Weissman and Katie Carrico, starting in 1997 to look at mRNA as a possible vaccine, and both of them ultimately won the Nobel Prize in 2023 for their work. They funded people like Barney Graham and Kizzy Corbett starting around 2002, 2003, when SARS one hit to try and make an mRNA vaccine against SARS One - now that virus really never came into this country, so we didn't do it. But by the time SARS, COVID 2. The cause of COVID we were ready. And so operation warp speed, for which you know Donald Trump got the credit, as he should, was really a production program more than a research and development program. So, when RFK Junior stands up and he says, “I think that we should let NIH give infectious diseases a break for eight years,” I mean. he has no appreciation for what NIH did.

JOHN

One of the great. Stories in recent technological application of medicine. And it's so hard to, as I remember when I was on the vaccine. Ethics Committee with you. We met with people who objected to this whole thing and it's very difficult. To explain that that this is not an intrusion in public life, it's it's a way to make it better. A way to make your children's lives better.

DON

Sure.

PAUL

I mean, it's and it's even. It's it's just. It's we've entered an age of science denialism. I think people simply declare their own truths, including scientific. I think science is losing its place as a source of. You see, for example, HIV denialists of being that HIV, human immunodeficiency virus is the cause of AIDS people. You know, we're saying that no, that's not true. Doesn't cause is it now there's like a resurgence of that. It's really. To watch how this is happening in our current head of HIV.

DON

HS is is not the guy who's gonna help bring us out of this. I think it hinges on that, that discredited study from England years ago that autism was caused by some of the additives that were in vaccines. That's been discredited almost almost from the time. That the the research came out. Why is that so?

JOHN

Tenacious.

DON

Lingering while hanging on. Why is that still something that people believe, right?

PAUL

You're right. In February 1998 Andrew Wakefield, a British guest on Ologist, or guest rogical surgeon, published a paper in The Lancet, which is a well respected General Medical journal that. The combination measles, mumps, rubella, MMR vaccine caused autism. Now it wasn't a. It was just a case series of eight children who got a vaccine, then within a month of getting that vaccine developed autism. There was no control. There was no way to tell whether the vaccine had caused or you might as well published a paper saying here's eight children that recently ate a peanut butter and Jelly sandwich that now have signs and symptoms of autism. Probably at that level. In any case, it was the nicest thing you could say was that it raised the question can MMR vaccine cause autism? A testable question and has been answered in a scientific venue again and again. Again, doing retrospective studies, looking at children who got or did get that vaccine to make sure you were controlling for confounding variables like medical background, healthcare, seeking behavior, social economic background, and when those studies were done in seven countries on three continents. Involving hundreds of thousands of children, we found it and then more didn't cause autism. But to answer your question. It's hard to unring the bell once you scare people, it's hard to unscare. And now studies were done at the time by groups like the Autism Science Foundation in New York. Which try to answer the question what percentage of parents of children with autism believe vaccines caused at that time? Like late 90s, early 2000s. Was like 90%. Now it's about 15%. So I think those studies were worthwhile doing in. I think it's convinced a lot of people otherwise, but you're never going to make it go away. Now it's just had an amazing resurgence because I think part. Rfk Junior believes the vaccines cause autism, no matter how many studies show that he's wrong.

JOHN

How did in the original study? I'm just I'm asking out of ignorance.

DON

John is very good at.

JOHN

Yes, I I specialize in this. How did Wakefield choose the children to be in the study in the first place? Procedure. Did he do you know? Any idea?

PAUL

Parents had come to him saying that I think vaccines cause autism. Do you? I mean, can you help me with this?

Speaker

Yes.

PAUL

So he he settled on MMR vaccine as 'cause when he earlier he had done work trying to say the vaccines were also causing Crohn's disease. You know, so inflammatory bowel disease. Which was wrong and ultimately he withdrew that paper. At least he apologized for being wrong. But here, he's never apologized for being wrong. He's wrong.

JOHN

That somebody says he's wrong just to say he's wrong because there's often somebody who's who stands up and shakes a study and says, no, wait, what about, you know? Then do the. What about some? But he has certainly been discredited for a long time. As far as I can tell. And but as as Don points out, there's a tenacious. D Against knowledge sometimes. So Paul, I'm sure. Looking at the at the news. Texas and New Mexico.

Speaker

Spend.

JOHN

We know how that got. The measles thing, do we know how that got started?

PAUL

Not sure who the index case was or the index case may have come from out of this country and then entered a population that was fertile ground for spread. Add in that Mennonite uh population in the Gaines County area near Lubbock. They umm they had immunization rates for about 80%. Which is not adequate to stop the spread of this virus. And then it's just taken off. So there's. At least today, 124 cases, one death that was reported today and school aged child who was unvaccinated. And it's tragic.

Speaker

Yes.

PAUL

Really is tragic and I mean this is there's a medicine we don't know. So much we can't do this, we know. Measles virus can cause hospitalizations to. We have a vaccine that is highly. It's to me the most amazing story about measles is it is the most contagious infectious disease. Not vaccine. Preventable. Infectious, period.

JOHN

Write another.

PAUL

Its form were contagious and Covic or flu. Rsv or? It's the most contagious. I mean, there's something in medicine called the contagious index, meaning how many people will you infect during a day, assuming that everyone you come in contact with is susceptible for diseases like COVID flu? It's about 2:00 to 4:00 for measles, it's 18. And the reason is you don't have to have direct face to face contact with measles. You just have to be in their air space within two hours of them being. That's why it's so impossible to contain the fact that we could eliminate this disease, which we did by the year 2000. Is there is a is a testament to the effectiveness of that vaccine, but the I think the problem is that not only have we largely eliminated, we've eliminated the memory of measles and people think, OK, well, now I just don't have to get the vaccine because it just. To be like a childhood rite of passage which a number of parents have recently said no, OK, I'm a child of the 50s. I had measles. Had. I had. I I had all those these you could argue rubella. German measles was a relatively mild disease of childhood. It was the severity, obviously, if it if it. A woman during her pregnancy. But umm, you could argue that was a childhood right of passage. Not. Measles made you sick, and any parent at that time knew measles made you sick.

DON

What is it about measles that makes it deadly? Since we have that that one child who has passed and there have been measles outbreaks in recent memory that have killed. Mostly children cause most of us. Right. When we were kids, we had measles and we went through it and we went about it. Our business, what is it that makes it deadly in certain instances?

PAUL

Right when you think of measles as raft, Beaver in a rash, it's pneumonia. It's also pneumonia. Measles virus often causes pneumonia, and it may not be clinical, a clinically evident, but if you get X-rays when everybody with measles a decent percentage will have abnormal chest X-rays associated with measles. And there is no specific treatment for that supportive treatment and hope for the. Best and I suspect if you had to guess, the most likely reason that child died of measles in in West TX, it most likely was measles pneumonia.

JOHN

It's so interesting, isn't it, that the three of us can sit around in wax? Nostalgia could get about our measles experiences, you know, I mean, I have to say when I got it, I had a lot of problems with my breathing and stuff. So I think you just hit the nail on the head there. Did not know that just until now that. It's really you. Look you're looking at. Pneumonia in some cases. And those things can can carry. Off really. It's it's it's, it's impressive. Just how quickly a person can round the bend and suddenly be in a situation that's very difficult to deal with.

PAUL

Exactly right.

DON

You mentioned earlier, before we went on the air before we started. Recording. You mentioned that there were pediatricians out there who were kind of at a loss. They had never seen a measles case. As you mentioned, it was eradicated by the by the vaccinations a a few years ago and there are now doctors in the system who have never. Anybody who has measles? That's. Kind of a weird situation, isn't it?

PAUL

Yes. And and even at our hospital, Children's Hospital Philadelphia, we had admitted a couple kids with measles. Thinking umm, that we really need to. This. Because Y you're admitting that for one of two reasons. One, they're severely dehydrated. And they need intravenous fluids to rehydrate them or two, they have pneumonia and require supportive therapy, either oxygen therapy or further supportive therapy for the pneumonia. But I remember when measles was I trained in Baltimore, you know, like in the did I train in this in the 70s and there was a big measles outbreak in North Baltimore. And similarly, I was in Philadelphia in 1991. You don't want measles in the hospital. You don't want measles in the hospital 'cause it's highly. You have a vulnerable population, children, many of whom can't be vaccinated and are immune compromised. You don't want measles in the hospital, So what we would do is we in the emergency department. If they were short of breath, you know you wanted to make sure that they're they were oxygenating well and that that they they they didn't essentially have severe anemia. And then tell them, you know, be careful that you know, if they have any more trouble breathing. But if they were breathing, you know, and oxygenating well and and they weren't weren't building up carbon dioxide, you know, great. Who went? And then if they, even if they were a little dehydrated, you want to make sure they could drink in front of you that they could rehydrate themselves. If they couldn't, then you would bring them in. If they were significantly short. You would bring them in obviously, but. You don't need those in the hospital, and I, I I bet that there are kids that are getting admitted, who who may not normally get admitted because we're not used to this disease. And and doctors probably don't have off the cuff.

DON

Protocols for this, in other words, a A measles comes in and they may have to look up OK. How do I? How do I deal with? How do I take care of this? Because maybe the first instinct is to admit. But like you said, you don't want measles in the. But you're your most contagious before the rat boy.

PAUL

They usually. That's what called 3C's cough, conjunctivitis. So conjunctivitis is just pink eye, chronic is running nose. And then it. Then it starts with sort of a raft, right at the hairline and then progresses down. And then there's so-called complex spots which are typical for the disease, and it's like little grains of sand on the inside of the cheeks. And then it spreads down to the TR. Arms. Legs. It's like your sort of measles rash is kind of poured on your head and then spreads downward. The kids are. They're always sick, and even though they may not have pneumonia or dehydration, they're photophobic, meaning they're intolerant of light. You often walk into the room and the lights are down and the kids looking down. And I can tell whether somebody asks me this in 30 seconds because they.

JOHN

Sick. How is it going with handling? This. I don't know what I want to call it, but this measles incident, as far as you can tell our our our doctors and and local clinics and hospitals are they doing what they should be doing as far as you know.

PAUL

I don't know.

JOHN

Miss.

PAUL

And I read the Texas Department of Health reports, which are, you know, pretty they tell you the number of cases. Tell you where they're happening. But they don't give you a lot of details on why children are getting hospitalized. Don't get that information.

DON

You may not get that information. In the future, the way these departments are getting chopped up.

JOHN

May I ask? May I ask about Kansas and tuberculosis? 'Cause I I know that they've been sort of. It may be a low level spread, but there have been a significant number of cases of tuberculosis in Kansas. It seems to have arisen among a factory workers first, where people are in close proximity to one another and. You know to to be humane about it. You can. Tuberculosis and not know it, you can. You can infect others without knowing it. It's just down the line that can get really terrible and and I'm this this. Is this the kind? Is this the same kind of thing as we've been seeing in Texas or is it a separate kind of? Occurrence.

PAUL

No, but in again. Where's the C? DC I I. Theoretically, local health departments are expected to take care of these outbreaks when they occur, and if they feel it's gotten out of hand, or if they feel they need a level of expertise they don't have internally, then they ask the. To come in, but I really. It would be nice to have the CDC commenting on what's going on with West TX commenting on what's going on in Kansas. Mean. It just seems like they're standing back. They're sort of under siege right now. You know, they've had about 10%. The workforce cut. You have at least a temporary suspension of the epidemic intelligence service, which kind of was sent a chilling effect, I think throughout the CDC people are scared and. I just don't think they're they're they're able to do their job. It seems right now when it's so desperately needed.

JOHN

Could you explain? What that intelligence service is and does, and why it's so terrible that it was, has been Hanford and you went past that quickly and I'd love it to be explained for my listeners.

PAUL

Truthfully, the the EI on EIS officer epidemic Intelligence service officer like I suppose there's an outbreak of salmonella pointsource outbreak of salmonella somewhere in this country. So they go there and they investigate because they're really good at this, to figure out what that possible source. So they can isolate it, make sure that others you know don't get infected in that you know that they do the proper. So they're like, you know, they're investigators. They're, you know, it's it's fun. They're. They're infectious disease detectives.

DON

Sounds like a TV show. Show to me infectious disease detective. Maybe if we had one of those people would, would you know, go ahead with science. If they could see it on their TV every week. Umm. What's the situation as far as getting people more comfortable with vaccines? I mean, obviously with RFK Junior in charge now, it looks like the the. At least the National Health Department is going to go in the opposite direction, but. You have been trying to educate people for years about the safety and effect efficacy of vaccine vaccines. How can you step that up in order to combat what we're going through, right?

PAUL

So there's two possible approaches. One is to educate people. To appear to their cerebral. You know that, OK. Here's what this disease looks like. Here's how the vaccine works. Here's here's what the safety profile is of the vaccine. Here's what we know about the vaccine and to know realize that when you choose not to get a vaccine. That is not a risk free choice. It's a choice to take a different and arguably more serious risk. Here's what that risk. I like the. I like that one. In 1000, people die. I like the one in 100,000 people, which, when you're talking about a virus that can affect 3 to 4 million children a year before the vaccine, can cause this disease, which has the long name subacute sclerosing, pan encephalitis, or sspe, which is a chronic measles infect. Of the brain, I've seen this five times. Now and umm, it's hard to. Usually a child has an since the measles and they get better and then five years later, seven years later, they start to have subtle deterioration in their handwriting skills and their personality. Then they have a loss of motor function and they have a loss of sensory function, and then they're essentially vegetative and they die. It may take years for them to die, but they die invariably. Nothing you can do about it. Have a chronic measles infection of the brain and there is nothing you can do. About it. And it's not that. Miss one per 100,000, which if you're talking about a sort of a massive outbreak, is not all that. And and again, the virus caused 500 deaths the year before the vaccine, and usually with pneumonia, but occasionally with, you know, with dehydration and also every year before the vaccine, there were 1000 children who had encephalitis, meaning inflammation of the brain, which would cause in one. Of those children, so about 250 year lioness or deafness? And so it's preventable. And and I, I guess I would like to see Donald Trump. Or Robert F Kennedy junior being asked the following two questions. Do you think measles is causing this? Because when Robert F Kennedy junior went to Samoa during a measles epidemic that that caused 5600 cases and 83 deaths, primarily in children less than 4. He refused to admit that the virus did it. He just said it was a defective vaccine that was spread from one child to another, which was nonsense. It was a wild type virus so-called DH strain of wild type measles virus. Knew that refuse to. And certainly refused to in any sense promote the measles vaccine. I suspect he's going to do the same thing here, if you. At. Organization Children's Health, defense. They just came out in the last day with this is not caused by measles virus. This outbreak in West TX is caused by a defective measles vaccine. Virus that's spreading from one person. Again, utter nonsense. But and and again, where is RFK Junior? And this is the head of Health and Human services. Stand up and support vaccines. It's important that you be vaccinated up for the children in this country. But he. He said in his book, The Real Anthony Faucher, which I don't recommend reading it. He's got a segment called Miasma versus germ theory. If you read that section 285 to 288, you will find that that RFK Junior does not believe in. Germ theory. Which was pretty much established by 1875 and it's why we live 40 years longer than we did in 1875 because specific viruses are bacteria do cause specific diseases and the treatment of prevention of them can save lives. HIV doesn't cause. He he he's just. A.

Speaker

He's a.

PAUL

He's he's beyond the science deniless. He doesn't believe in the germ theory of infectious disease.

DON

He's a. Science ignoramus at this point. This goes back, I guess, to something that and again lay people who don't have a huge amount of science that they're exposed to or when they're exposed to it, they just don't get it. But many people were. Kind of amazed when they learned that some vaccines used the virus in a in a inert form in order to build up antibodies in your body for it. His theory is that that's defective and we shot measles into these. Is that kind of what you're going for, or is what he's going for?

Speaker

So he there.

PAUL

Was a guy named Beauchamp. Who was. He was pastors, leading competitors. So Pastor also sort of proved the germ theory by showing that pasteurization, which is heating the milk or beer wine to a certain temperature for a certain length of time, could kill bacteria. But at the same time, retain through the bouquet of milk or beer or whatever. So that's. Of one of the proofs of the germ theory, the isolation of the the bacteria that caused anthrax proved the germs. But both camp didn't believe that he believed it was sort of just the terrain allowed for that, that that contagion or that disease to happen, that in other words, as long as you were healthy, you ate well. Your immune system was good, that you weren't going to get. Of these diseases. And so there you still hear strains of that today. And so to Robert F Kennedy junior, the the Miasmas, if you will believe that there were things that were were causing the, the some this contagion. So for example rot rotting organic material. In the streets. Would create this sort of bad air, and that if you were exposed to that bad air that you would, you could get ill today. Modern miasmas like RFK Junior believes it's things that are man made and among what you're vaccines, pesticides, reservatives. Dyes. All those are sort of the modern day Miasma sees that as your miasma, so you avoid that and you're fine. And he sees vaccines as a. That's why, he says. I said in 2023, no vaccine is. The polio vaccine vaccine killed many, many, many more people than it saved. Umm, HIV doesn't cause aids. I mean he.

DON

He is a modern day miasmas, which is not good for us. So so I I've read where he is on a crusade as part of his now agenda at the health department to get kids to eat better. And and all that. That sounds good. On the on the surface, but what you're saying is that's tied into a really bad belief that he has.

Speaker

I think.

PAUL

I think it's what made him popular. I think in both the right and the left, which is, he says, a number of things that are true. I mean, we do have a higher rate of obesity in this country than other countries and and the consequences of obesity, like type 2 diabetes or. Or. High blood pressure and we we probably. Over medicate. Children to some extent and and. Think we don't get bang for our? I mean, our longevity and infant mortality statistics don't compare well to other developed world countries.

DON

I think it's all true.

PAUL

I agree with that. So leave vaccines alone. Mantra. Just become why don't we make vaccines part of making America healthy again you.

JOHN

Know Paul, it's really a good thing that you're no longer on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Advisory Committee for immunization practices because they hear RFK is, is, is planning to S. Members of it. I don't quite what that is going to look like. He might target certain people who are very pro vaccine. He might, but I just don't know, he said. Members, he's going to sack. And this is a pattern that we are seeing in the new government. And I'm I'm wondering again, since you used to be on that board, you must have certain feelings about this.

PAUL

What upsets me in this is so take take Senator Cassidy. Bill Cassidy from a Republican from. He had a chance to completely kill this this confirmation. Did umm and I talked to him four times in the week before he umm voted. He called me and he's his guest. He's a good man. I mean he. We had long conversations 30 to 40 minute conversations every time he called and I was sure he was going to vote no. Mean he saw. Junior for what he was, but he. He voted yes and he said, but I have gotten assurances from RFK Junior on these 10 things. So we listed the 10 things he wrote them out. To list them right. Here on my desk.

JOHN

There they are. There's 10.

DON

Yeah, they are.

JOHN

I see ten of them right there, Paul. Yep.

PAUL

Yes, and and one of them was that he wasn't going to in any way mess with the advisory committees. Well, it so now we'll see. I mean, he threatens. It hasn't happened yet, but if it does, I think we should all write a letter to Senator Cassidy and said, look, here's the list that you said he was thinks he wasn't going to do and he's doing. So he lied to. What are you going to do now?

DON

Yes, that's that seems to be a theme lately with the administration. He lied to. What can you do about it, you know?

JOHN

Well, Speaking of immunity, it does seem as though the administration is immune to embarrassment. They you know, they they basically have really. I don't know what kind of how to extend this metaphor, but they certainly seem to have good defenses against criticism because of even when things are being shown not to really be. Very well. They just keep going through they it doesn't seem to faze them. It seems like it's a low information. Environment. Really.

PAUL

But shamelessness has become a superpower. Like shingles. This man right?

DON

Yeah, shamelessness, man.

Speaker

Yes.

DON

You go. You're talking about what? What officially can be? But what about somebody like you, me, John, and millions of other others like us, who do believe in science and do believe in the efficacy of of vaccines? What can we do personally to get this thing off the ground? It seems like the only thing that will really matter in. Fight on several levels of politics nowadays is grassroots, right?

PAUL

So. Science is on our side that matters. I. I mean the the story that I go back to that makes me feel bitter, even though you have to go back to the 1600s to find one. So, so Galileo. Galileo bought into Copernicus's theory that the Earth revolved around the sun, not the other way around. Around and but but his the Roman Catholic Church didn't want Galileo to say that that you couldn't embrace Copernicus because it contradicted the biblical notion that the earth was the center of the firmament. So he was brought up before Galilea was brought up before committee. A tribunal where he was censured, put in chains, carried away and he said it is probably apocryphal, but I love the story anyway, that he presumably said, presumably in Italian and regarding the Earth. And yet, he said it still. It still moves pains on me, but still revolves around the sun and RFK junior can say vaccines cause autism as much as they want. They don't. And congressman can say it, and sycophants can say it, and people in the media can say. But the fact of the matter is it's wrong and so it would not, and it cannot stand the test of time. And so I think. By having science on your side is a big. I do think the other thing is that that there are most people in this country. Most parents in this country do believe in vaccines. Just think we have to harness that energy on that side because all the passion is on the other side and frankly, all the money is with the other side and the misinformation disinformation business is a big business. Was the information business really isn't?

JOHN

That's interesting, isn't. That the people who work in science. Don't have the bullhorn, do they? So is it the the folks who are? The bench. The folks who are doing the the multi centered double-blind tests, these are not the same people who get in front of the microphone every day. Does seem to be a an imbalance of commutative.

PAUL

Power.

JOHN

Between the folks who really do the science and the folks who are actually running the joint now.

PAUL

In many ways, your scientific training is the opposite of being an effective communicator. And here's why I say that the biggest mistake you can make when you write a scientific paper is to ever go beyond the data in front of you. So figure discussion section full of caveats. Yeah, I can say this, but not this, not this. And technically? An epidemiological study is not a proof. It's it's these aren't mathematical. I mean, you can you, you take a hypothesis. Usually the null hypothesis MMR doesn't cause autism. You can either reject it or not reject it, but you can never accept it. Can never prove never. I mean, I can't prove that if I you know.

Speaker

Right.

PAUL

Lap my arms that I can't. I can try it a million times and that makes it all the more statistically unlikely, but it doesn't prove it and you always know that as a scientist. So if you listen to the way that they talk on television, you'll never say, for example, MMR doesn't cause aut. We'll saw all the evidence to. You know doesn't support hypothesis. Then Mark Zucker, which sounds weasely it sounds weak and it sounds like you're hiding something. So we. We have trouble. The personality is not. I mean, I inoculated mice in a windowless room at the Wistar Institute for 20 years. Was not training for being on the. Report.

DON

Yeah, definitely. And there's a certain sort of. Conundrum that's going on throughout the whole thing. Example you have Elon Musk. Who will throw out vaccines? But he the science of sending them to the moon, he believes. In that you have people who hate Big Pharma, but they also hate the government. So they they throw all of the bath water out and and the baby as well by getting rid of all of that vaccine stuff in their head. So it's kind of a weird situation where people believe. Again, it's a selective believability if you. They believe this, not that, even though the two are.

PAUL

Connected. Yeah, I know. So how do we win? I think that. What the other side has is an enemy, Big Pharma, which is never going to sound good, and it's impossible to defend in some ways with big pharmaceutical companies have acted unethically and aggressively and illegally, especially regarding the opioid epidemic. Mean that was shameful the way that all played out. But that doesn't mean they're always. It doesn't mean that they're always misrepresenting data. Mean. So. So what do you do? Think it's very hard. It's very compelling to have a a conspiracy theory and have big Pharma as behind that conspiracy. So what do? Have on the on our side. I think we have to do it some. Is to show that the RFK Juniors of the world and Dell, Big Theresa Mary Howells, I mean the people who who work, sort of. That side. Also, are doing things that you don't know about. I mean that they're they're how they're making money. Funding them. Where does their money come? I mean the RFK junior made whatever two and a half $1,000,000 last year. Part suing, you know, Merck for garassill, I mean, this is, you know, you're. Got conflicts of interest that are major and we don't hear about them. So. He says to you is big. Is. I'm going to take a look behind the curtain and you can trust me to find what I find. I had probably the most chilling e-mail I've gotten the last two weeks was from a nurse in Canada. Who said to me I've just seen a doc, a parent of a one month old parents with a one month old. I was giving them anticipatory guidance for vaccines. This child is going to get it two months of age and the father said to me and I. Quote umm I'm not anti vaccine but I wanna wait to see which vaccines RFK Junior recommends before I get any of them.

JOHN

Have a nice weight, you know.

DON

Yeah.

JOHN

It was interesting that today on the news, I should never watch it because it just makes me furious these days. But so a particular politician was claiming that 200,000 people died last year from opioid addiction. Now the number is closer to 60, I believe 60,000 and that is still a lot of. It's still, it's. It's more people than get that get killed on the highways, in, in cars and trucks it it is a terrible thing as you were just saying. One doesn't have to exaggerate the number. Number is still a terrible. Thing and and so the need sort of the need of the demagogue to exaggerate is very difficult to fight because it it seems to posit a whole realm of information that that can fight against the truth.

DON

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. When they go into the Social Security and they say, do you know people who've been dead for 150 years are claiming Social Security? I was like, OK. Who are these people? You know, I mean, are they coming out of there? We are. Are we funding? I guess is the question. It's just, yeah, it's just, I don't know. It's just it's it's to a lot of people. It's silly. But to a lot of people, it's also concrete. It's it's something that. Convinces them that they were right all along and and that they're the silly notions that come by are actually something that's real. I yeah, it's going to be difficult to fight, but I I think. Point we have to stand up and say shut up.

JOHN

Paul to to end this too short discussion, when you move through the year, I wonder if there are things that you're looking forward to either reports or? Studies of epidemiologic studies in China or are there things that are coming up that you're looking at as a practitioner right now?

PAUL

As far as fears of pandemics or what do you mean?

JOHN

As far as the science, as far as vaccines, what do? What's coming up?

PAUL

I guess the most interesting thing to me is messenger RNA vaccines were interesting. I mean they and they, they have a lot of potential, especially in the world of cancer because what what you do is you, you take a slip of nanoparticle which enables you to enter the cell fairly easily. You put it into a piece of messenger RNA and and. That enters the cell and joins 200 pieces of message or RNA that are in the cell, making the proteins and enzymes necessary to live so you can make now a protein that's put on the surface of that. That kid is much more easily recognized by immune cells, which can kill that cell. So now you can use the lipid nanoparticle to target cancer cells and then put in it a protein that's very easily recognized by the immune system. That would cause that cell to die. Via cells like the immune cells like cytotoxic T cells so-called killer cell.

Speaker

Right, right.

PAUL

So that's. I it's much more targeted way of trying to kill cancer cells rather than rather blunt way that we use using chemotherapy. So that's interesting and and and yet you have the state of Montana, for example, showing how bad this can be. There was one vote away, really just one legislative session away from banning all mRNA there. Their uh from their state all mRNA vaccines, period, even if their cancer vaccine all mRNA vaccines. So with that in Louisiana, for example, recently said that they are, they're not going to have any more bass vaccinations, period. Matter. Measles. Bird. No more mass. So we need into a libertarian left hook during this pandemic, and I think we're that punch.

JOHN

I think that's what is the basis on which Montana was going to ban all mRNA. They afraid that it wasn't tested enough and was going to take over the body. What did they think? What is the argument?

Speaker

It was.

PAUL

The culture of the time, we are not gonna take this anymore.

Speaker

I see.

PAUL

Not gonna take this these. These expert eggheads from the northeast. Hell.

JOHN

Well.

DON

Yeah.

PAUL

Look at us.

DON

Probably closer to the.

JOHN

Truth. Yeah, look at US 3. You know or or at least Don and you listen. You so much. It's so wonderful to have. Of you on, umm and I hate to say it, but we probably will talk to you some day soon. Umm, I don't want to say that, but thank you for coming on and thank you for. The good fight.

PAUL

Thank it's my. Happy to come back, sure.

JOHN

Cheers.