Real Doctor asset, the real truth there. I prefer the I think most people prefer the real data rather than the real truth. But that's how I am is Yes, I have three fans. He's got a lot of money a lot more.
This was probably harder than making the rotavirus vaccine
will take 25 years hopefully But
Dr. offer you with us? I think I am. Yeah, I'm here. It's incredible. Wow, thank you so much for your patience sticking by this. I feel like we just accomplished something extraordinary getting you on here. Well, thank you for your we were the ones who had trouble getting on. Thank you. Oh, no problem. We have a lot of people who are waiting to hear you speak and I really appreciate you coming on. I was gonna do a little introduction. So people who don't know who you are, which is like, I mean, I guess there's a few people who don't but let me just tell everyone who you are. You're the director of the Vaccine Education Center and Professor of Pediatrics at the Division of infectious diseases at the Children's Hospital Philadelphia also Maurice R. Hillman professor of vaccinology at the Perelman School of Medicine at the at UPenn. You're an internationally recognized expert in the field of virology immunology and was also a member of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices to the CDC, you published more than 150 papers, and medical and scientific journals also the CO inventor of the rotavirus vaccine, which continues to save millions of lives around the world, not to mention preventing countless hospitalizations, costing the medical industry millions in revenue. You're also the author of multiple books on the topic of vaccines and science, including your latest book, tell me when it's over an insider's guide to deciphering COVID myths and navigating our post pandemic world. Wow, that's a long title. Dr. Offit. Welcome to The Real Truth or show. Thank you so much for being with us. Thanks for asking me, it's my pleasure.
Oh, great, you know, so just on a personal note, it means a lot that you're here. Even before the cola pandemic, you've been sort of a hero of mine standing up for science standing up for truth, standing up for children against all the sea of misinformation and disinformation out there. So this is just an incredible for me, just as on a personal note to be able to talk to you tonight.
My mine is happy to answer any questions you guys have. Awesome. So we're just gonna start right off since we're starting late, and we're gonna get into COVID and childhood vaccination stuff. And then we might talk about a certain presidential candidate. So as far as COVID, I wanted to it's 2024. Right now, the COVID pandemic is behind us. But the legacy of everything that happened good and bad, will be with us for a long time. And so I wanted to get your thoughts on like just looking at it right now and 2024, May of 2024 What do you think the legacy will be and say 20 years looking back on COVID pandemic and the vaccine? What do you think when you look when we look back, we will be talking about but I think one thing will be how remarkably quick we were able to make a vaccine. I mean, here's a virus that hadn't there was a that raised its head there that entered the human population SARS cov to enter the human population in late 2019. In the western section of the Hunan wholesale seafood market, the virus was isolated and sequenced in January of 2020. And then 11 months later, you had two large clinical trials, one by Pfizer, one by moderna, 40,000 people 30,000 people using a technology messenger RNA that had never been used before. The vaccine was remarkably effective, it was safe, meaning its benefits clearly outweigh its risks, although there were some risks. And you know, the the that to me, and so that was step one, I think step two, was we were able to mass produce not easy by the way for lipid nanoparticle vaccine mass mass production was not easy. Frankly, the hardest part of making vaccines always is making vaccines. So we mass produce mass distributed mass administered these vaccines, so that 70% of the US population was vaccinated by July of 2021. In a population where we really didn't have an infrastructure for mass vaccinating adults. So I think that was the good part. The amazing part, I really do think that was the most amazing scientific or medical treatment in my lifetime, and I'm old, so my lifetime includes the development of a polio vaccine. And then we sort of hit a wall. I mean, 30%, of United's of the US public just didn't want to get vaccinated. They didn't trust us. They didn't believe us, either. They just thought the vaccine was its risks were being hidden, or that the disease wasn't that bad. I think the mandates rub people the wrong way. And as a consequence, probably 200 or 300,000 people lost their lives unnecessarily. And I think that some of that was just a general sort of anti institutional backlash. I mean, not just against the FDA or CDC but against the Department of Defense or the Department of Energy or the FBI, or the Department of Justice, just you know, as witnessed by the, the insurrection, but but part of it was our fault. I think we could have done a better job of communicating what this vaccine could or couldn't do. I think we could have done a better job.
Making clear who really needed booster doses and who didn't
making clear what some of the weaknesses of the by Valent vaccine were. And in the end, you know, part of it is also that you learn as you go. I think if you ask people, do you think we'll know more about science and medicine 10 years from now that we know now that everybody would say yes, but when it comes to your disease, or in this case, our pandemic, people want to believe you know, everything you need to know. And that's not true. We were at some level, building the plane while it was in the air. And I think we needed to make that clear. Because we tended to be definitive when when the data weren't as definitive. And so I think I think those were all lessons, hopefully that will carry into the future.
Great. Yeah, I know, I want to talk about mandates and boosters, because you've had some interesting takes on both. But before we get there, what do you think is what was the biggest mistake of public health in their communication about this vaccine initially?
I think the biggest mistake occurred in July of 2021, when there was a now you're about six months, seven months into the availability of the mRNA vaccines.
You had an outbreak in Provincetown, Massachusetts in Barnstable County, where 1000s of men get together celebrate their July 4 holiday. I think the the immunization rate among that group was around 79%, which was excellent given the general immunization rate in the country. And nonetheless, it was an outbreak of COVID. So 346 men got COVID. All who were vaccinated for were hospitalized. So hospitalization rate of 1.2%, which is excellent. I mean, that's the vaccine working well. The remaining 342 had mild or asymptomatic infections. When the CDC reported that in their journal Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, the phrase they use to describe these asymptomatic or mild infections was breakthrough infections. Wrong word that suggested a failure breakthrough, which suggests failure of these this vaccine working well, the goal of this vaccine. The goal of the SARS cov. Two vaccine which is trying to prevent a short incubation period of mucosal infection is to keep people out of the hospital, keep them out of the intensive care unit and keep them out of the morgue. You're not going to prevent mild disease for long. It's true for any short incubation period infection, including the rotavirus infections or influenza infections, respiratory syncytial virus infections, those are always going to be infections where vaccination or natural infection will protect you against mild disease for a short period of time, and hopefully against severe disease for a longer period of time. But calling those breakthrough infections, set an unrealistic expectation for this vaccine. People said, you know, here I was mandated to get a vaccine. I've gotten my two doses by you know, July 2021. And yet I have, you know, fever and chills and runny nose and cough. You know, the CDC lied to me. And that's wasn't true, I think, interesting. Lindsey, Lindsey Graham got this right. Lindsey Graham said, and I quote, this would have he had he had like a three day illness, relatively mild, had sinusitis, and he said, quote, this would have been much worse if I hadn't been vaccinated. Right. He got that right. If you I was on CNN once a few times during this pandemic. And the you know, you sort of wait for a little while while you're before your segment comes on. So they were talking about Brett Kavanaugh, right Supreme Court Justice, he got routinely tested as he was walking into the Supreme Court chamber, found to be positive, he had an asymptomatic infection. If you watch the way that was carried on CNN, you would have thought that man was fighting for his life, he had an asymptomatic infection, he won the vaccine did what it was supposed to do. And we just didn't make that clear.
Absolutely, that's a great point. And now this leads into the boosters and I know you had some nuanced takes on the boosters that were in some circles considered controversial, in fact, so much so that anti vaccine advocates started using you, as an example, to spread their own sort of propaganda. Tell us your takes on boosters, specifically for people who had COVID younger people, healthy people, what your thoughts are, then like back in 2021 22. And now.
Right, so um, that was the second communications there. So in August of 2021, so now you're about eight months into the availability of a vaccine. President Biden stood up in front of the American public and said, as of the week of beginning September 20, we the administration are going to be offering a third dose of mRNA vaccine for everybody over 12 years of age. Now, this was still 2021. So Omicron, and the Omicron variance hadn't come into the United States yet. two doses was working well, and even up until December of 2021, which is when Omicron entered the United States two doses of Pfizer modernity vaccine was working well for all age groups. So that didn't make sense one, because what was it based on? Two it's he went he President binder, the administration went around the FDA and CDC and just declared this is what we're going to do. That's not the way it works. You have to go through those advisory bodies but I used to the FDA and I'm currently on, you know, the so called group PAC Committee to the FDA. And then you go to the advisory committee at the CDC. So what ended up happening was a couple things. One is we had an emergency meeting on September 17. We the FDA vaccine Advisory Committee, once we temper 17, to try and say, Are there data to support this, this declaration that was made by the Biden administration, and there weren't? So we basically said, No, we said it was reasonable for people over 65 to get a third dose based on Israeli data. And then, although there really weren't US data to answer that question, and the ACI P the Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices to the CDC said the same thing. No. And so now the public's confused, right, you have the Biden administering, say ministration, saying everybody over 12 years of age get a third dose, and you have the two Advisory Committee saying no, so so. So what did it mean to be fully vaccinated, and you had terms like fully vaccinated are up to date? And it just was really confusing to people? And I think so that was one and then when that when the vaccine then when overcrowding entered, and that sort of changed things in terms of, of how to recommend this vaccine because even if you've been vaccinated or naturally infected, you weren't going to be protected against mild disease, but you are so protected against spirit disease. So so at that point, the question is, what is the goal of this vaccine? The goal of this vaccine is to keep people out of the hospital and keep them out of the intensive care unit and the morgue. So the question at that point was, who was getting hospitalized? The CDC data showed there were four groups that were getting hospitalized people who were elderly and the CDC paper initially it was those over 75, which is good because I'm not quite there yet. And the US
I think where we left off was that that people got confused when the the, you know, the administration said one thing and then the advisory committee said another The other thing that nobody saw, because it was sort of somewhat behind the scenes, was when the administration declared this is what we're going to do. Without vetting it through the principal regulatory agency in this country, the FDA or the principal recommending body in this country to see to to senior people at the FDA quit in protest. Marion Gruber and Phil Kraske. was they were really angry that that was done. And I got it. That was it was it was just the wrong way to do it. So I think that was the second communications.
Great, yeah. So. So basically, right now 2024, I look at the recommendations for the CDC, I look at the recommendations for some countries in Europe, like, you know, countries like Sweden, Denmark, et cetera. And they are very different, as far as who they're targeting with their vaccines are very aggressive targeting boosters to 65 plus and those with medical conditions, but less a bit less for people under that. What do you think about the differences in the two countries and how public health has different recommendations?
No, that's a great question. So so what we do in this country, is we currently are likening SARS, cov, to to influenza, which is to say that every year, you were to get a a, quote unquote, booster dose, assuming you've had a primary series, starting at six months of age. So beyond six months, everybody six months of age and older should get a booster dose. We do that in Canada does that nobody else does that. Western Europe doesn't do that Scandinavian countries don't do that. Australia doesn't do that. The World Health Organization doesn't do that. So why do we do that? And I talked to Dr. Fauci about this, because I saw him at a recent national foundation of infectious disease meeting and said, because I had been saying basically what most of the other countries were saying, let's keep people out of the hospital. These are the people who we need to keep out of the hospital. Me Do you really need to vaccinate a healthy 22 year old male? And so Dr. Fauci was really good about this. I mean, he said, Yes, that's the goal. And so the question became a communications issue. It was his belief. And maybe he's right, it was his belief that if you have a nuanced message, meaning these are the groups that should get it, he believed that a nuanced message was a garbled message, and that you're much more likely to get people in those four groups to get a vaccine, if you basically recommend it for everybody. I'm not sure that's true. But the part of that that bothers me is does that mean that people who aren't really going to benefit from this vaccine need to inject themselves the biological agent, especially, you know, young men were you know, that myocarditis is a consequence, to some, you know, for some people, so I don't know, I think the European countries and Scandinavian countries got this right. Let's target house, because I think for the most part, that's what's happened. I mean, the booster dosing is, you know, maybe 20 to 25% of the population gets booster doses. I think it's, it's mostly those who are in high risk groups. But there's some people who are like it their 10th dose by now I think, what your 10th Oh, she got a free pizza. I'm pretty sure I need to check.
So yeah, you make a great point, like so you've had some nuanced views, especially on things like boosters and stuff. And public health hasn't necessarily done that. So how do we communicate these nuanced views that other countries need to be so successful that you you mentioned, countries like Denmark, and Sweden and the Nordic countries, they have some of the lowest excess mortality of any countries. Now, a lot of that, of course, has to do with their health, which is, I mean, that's another issue that we have. And that's why we did so poorly and COVID, among other issues, but like, how do we get such a nuanced message across instead of doing what we were doing?
See, this is the part that actually, for the last four years, this is why I wrote the book at some level, just because as a catharsis for having lived through this, I mean, so I'm basically a functional you ever ologists I mean, I, you know, inoculate mice in a windowless room at the Wistar Institute to try and understand rotavirus, because that's what I did for 20 plus years. And when you would do that, and when you would, you would generate scientific data, you would go to, you know, national or international meetings and present your data. Here's what I think. I think these two viral surface proteins are important and inducing protection against disease. Here's, here's the data that I think supports that and then people would criticize you what you want.
like love letters. He is no good doctor. We have been praying for you and your family for decades. And now finally, our prayers have been answered. I mean, I was asked to speak on Newsmax that's not a good sign if you're trying to get a good public health messaging out there. So that upset me because I think you shouldn't be in the pie. venlafaxine is a perfect example. I mean, it wasn't a bad idea, you know, you overcrowded coming to this country? Why are we still giving the Wuhan one strain? Should we at least include Omicron in this and so the thinking initially, was okay, we'll give a half the dose of Wuhan one and a half the dose of what ended up being Ba for ba five, the immunological data, were not terribly convincing. So I was a no vote, actually, when it came to our FDA vaccine Advisory Committee. And then the immunological data were published in the New England Journal of Medicine, I wrote a prospective piece of medicine saying, This is better than what we had, it's no worse, but it was no better. And then the clinical studies were done meaning looking at people who got either the mono Valent vaccine Wuhan one or the by venlafaxine, to have those have those really no difference in the two was no worse. Boosters boosted I think those at high risk benefit, but it was no better. Nonetheless, you know, you had public health officials out in front of the media saying it's much better and it really upset me, I called those public health officials and said, just stop saying it's better, because it's not better. It's okay not to get it right. The first time it is just explain that to people, let them go along with you on your thinking. Here's what we thought at the time. It didn't work out. It was a step sideways. It wasn't a step backwards, but just have enough trust in the American public to say that and we didn't, I was actually on CNN and Dr. Josh Shaw, who was the COVID response coordinator for the CDC was they showed a clip of him. Remember, it was Pamela Brown was at six o'clock at night. And she saw a clip of Dr. Joffe saying, you know, this is much better you need to get it includes Omicron. So it's gonna get much better protection than you got with the amount of allopathic book, we threw away all this vaccine, at least given other countries. But in any case, and so then she turns to me, and because she news, I know, I had written that piece in the New England Journal of Medicine, which by the way, is reviewed. Okay, so I'm not the only one that had this thought. He said, Well, is he wrong? That's not the question he would answer. I'm sure my hospital would really appreciate it. My criticizing the COVID, Response Coordinator for the White House. So I said, it doesn't matter what he says. And it doesn't matter what I say the only thing that matters is what the data show. And here's two papers just published in the Journal of Medicine showing it was no better. It was no worse, but it was no better. No,
that's true. Hey, doctor offer we can't hear you. Man,
Is our neighbor She's downstairs.
Okay, well say hi to us. For for, for us. But alright. So we're back. Sorry.
You lose me.
Anyone remember?
We went on this this rant about the difference between sort of presenting something at a scientific meeting versus public health. You
mentioned the monovalent how they trashed it, instead of using it in countries. And that's pretty much where I left off.
Yeah, I think that's what you were talking about, basically, about, you know, the by
Vaillant and the messaging, you say, oh, is the CNN you said as you stopped jaw was on there? Oh, good.
Okay. So that's pretty much the end of that. Okay, good.
Okay, cool. We're gonna quickly move along. So I want to talk a little bit about myocarditis, because that, you know, obviously, was a real vaccine side effect that was acknowledged early on, and what did you think about sort of the monitoring the messaging, and how that got played out in the media, among social media, etc. Because, I mean, it became a quite a mess, I believe.
So. So being a member of the voting member on the FDA vaccine Advisory Committee, here, you have, you're sitting down in December of 2020, looking at data in the case of Pfizer of 40,000 people, which is a placebo controlled study, so 20,000 people had gotten Pfizer's vaccine, and then you will get modernity vaccine, roughly 30,000 People get placebo control. So 15,000 People have gotten the vaccine. So 35,000, people had gotten the mRNA vaccines by December 2020. And you're looking at these data closely, knowing the other shoe is gonna drop that has to happen. And you're giving this vaccine to eventually hundreds of millions and billions of people based on data on 35,000 people. So the only question
that's true to this. Dr. John, you're on. Oh, did we lose him again?
...
we can I'm happy to do that. I just think probably frustrated, you
know, no, it's fine. I drop it, but are you moving or like what's
okay? Maybe I can try different parts of the house. We try that. Okay.
This sounds good right now.
But let me move here. How about that appreciate?
Yeah, this sounds good. All right. We're patient we're faced
Okay, so so so you you know initially if you look at the data that we looked at in December, it's a unilateral facial paralysis.
Alright, but Doctor off you're going in and out again. Can you hear us? Can you hear us? Can you guys hear him? No. Doctor off Can you hear us? It's like it's getting muffled and then going out.
Let me let me try even another place in the
house. Okay, that sounds good. Wait, this is good. It is it just Yeah. Are you talking to an iPad or iPhone, iPad? Okay, maybe just, you're not moving it.
Now I'm standing still.
Alright, free. Let's pray. Let's pray Elon won't screw us tonight. Okay, let's try again. Okay, so
initially, Bell's palsy looked like it might have been that that effect because there was a statistical significantly greater, although the numbers were very small. This is always the problem is sort of the tyranny of small numbers. But, you know, there's gonna be something that I think
the doctor often issues the speaker issue, it's a speaker as she like, maybe you know, his
microphone, this microphone. Is it on your like, is it on you? Like, it's not the internet? It's the microphone. Like, are you moving the microphone? Or like, No, I'm
just holding this iPad. It's not can
you put it? Can you put it down? Like, on a desk or something? I feel like maybe you're touching the microphone.
I can do that.
Hold it. Yeah, the people are just commenting. Well, we got a lot of like, people should maybe your fingers on the microphone. How about now? That sounds good.
Okay, well, yeah, I hear tell me,
I'm gonna go up and down. I can't hear him. Okay.
Go ahead. Okay, so I'm not touching it anymore. I'm just, it's alright, let's
try that maybe the touching was the issue. Okay. And
I'm standing on one foot, which I think helps. Perfect. Okay, so So, and so, you know, there is a system in place of vaccine safety DataLink that, that you know, as a link, computerized medical record system involving, you know, millions of people in the US so you very quickly will know, in real time who's gotten the vaccine and who hasn't. And that picked up myocarditis, you know, this inflammation of the heart muscle pretty quickly. And you know, you saw that it was mostly a second dose phenomenon you saw that was primarily a phenomenon of the six to 29 year old male, you felt that for the most part, it was short lived and self resolving. That was good, although you can assume that there was going to be a spectrum of illness. So that was that was that I think, all in all, you'd have to argue the mRNA vaccines were remarkably safe. I mean, they weren't risk free, but remarkably safe, as distinct from say, the vectored virus vaccine, or the adenovirus vector virus vaccine of j&j, which had the so called thrombosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome, again, very rare, I mean, the myocarditis was around 150 1000, overall, could have been as high as one in 6600, for the six to 29 year 16 to 29 year old, but the Vegard virus vaccine, you know, that that thrombosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome caused clotting, including clotting of the brain, including fatal clouding of the brain. And that ultimately drove that vaccine off the market by May of last year. So that was a much worse side effect problem than than anything having to do with the mRNA vaccines. But again, I mean, I'm not trying to sound glib about this there. It's invariably true that medical advances are associated with some human price, I wrote a book called You Bet Your Life, which basically goes through every major medical advanced to say that there was a human rights price paid for that event, you would love to be able to think we're so sophisticated now about science, that that doesn't happen anymore. But it does happen, it will continue to happen, because you're never there. But but at least as long as we have systems in place to detect it, and we're very clear about you know, what the problem is and how frequent it is. I think that that's as good as you can do.
Yeah, absolutely. So I appreciate all that information. Now, what about the problem of misinformation? Now, obviously, what we do, we've been doing these spaces since January of last year, we've done over, you know, over 100 spaces, and every single week we we meet Tuesday and Thursday, and we're dealing with something new that's going viral on the internet you know, whether it's you know, craziness about millions of vaccine deaths completely made up nonsense about turbo cancer vaccines, a bio weapon. I mean, we even had Alex Berenson on here debunking all of those things like a week ago, you can believe it. And, you know, it becomes like a whack a mole, as you know, even before COVID This is what what would happen with the misinformation. But this just took it to another level, because we had it politicized. And we had millions of people participating. And now we have x Twitter, which has become monetized where the more viral you go, like if I, I send a chart out that says, well look at Sweden, they had high vaccine rates, and the cancer rates went down for young people that gets like maybe 1000 likes, but if I say that the vaccines are causing cancer, I'm gonna get a million likes. And so there's this motivation to spread misinformation for money and a lot of people taking advantage of it. And of course, there's a lot of vulnerable people. And because it's so politicized, there's people that are just, you know, dedicated to believing that the vaccines cause harm What in your opinion can be done? I know there's no way to stop it, but in the fight against it. What are your thoughts? Yeah,
I mean, it's sort of like trying to stop Hurricane Katrina with a plastic cup. You know, you have, there's a group called the Center for countering digital hate, which goes which went through that produced a monograph that looked at the 12 individuals or groups that were putting out the most misinformation meaning incorrect information or disinformation, meaning knowingly incorrect information, and just showed who funded them. And you know, but a lot of the funding comes from the alternative medicine industry, the dietary supplement industry, even people like Alex Jones, you know, get money from that industry. Tucker Carlson gets money from that industry. So you're right. I mean, they're in the misinformation, business and businesses good. The good information business like our Vaccine Education Center at Children's Hospital, Philadelphia, are the groups that work, you know, at like voices for vaccines, or vaccinate your family. I mean, they're far less well funded than the groups that that are putting out misinformation, there's much more of a desire for misinformation than there is for good information, good information a little boring. Whereas misinformation is really fun, right? Here's all these things you didn't know what what the prop what the reason was. And now you have a reason that you look at the autism story. It's a perfect example, right when Andrew Wakefield published his paper in the Lancet in 1998, claiming that the combination measles, mumps, rubella vaccine causes autism, that took off. I mean, here, you had this this disorder, autism, for which there wasn't a clear cause, there certainly wasn't a clear cure. And people said, Okay, here's how I can control this, just don't give my child, the MMR vaccine. And, you know, he was a, an active spokesperson for that he's well spoken, he's attractive, he's got that British accent, which, you know, we love here in the United States, we're willing to give ourselves back to the Queen at this point. And so that took, you know, just took off. And, you know, and so, you know, you had 18 studies that were done in in seven different countries on three different continents involving hundreds of 1000s of children who either did or didn't get that vaccine to show that you were no more likely to get autism if you got the vaccine, or if you didn't, but you know, the falsehood flies and truth comes limping after right. That's the dress and swift line. And that's certainly true there. It's a much more boring story to say, you know, vaccines don't cause autism, because what does if it's not vaccines,
right, absolutely. So now we have a problem of distrust of public health, distrust of vaccines, that's, you know, seeping into our population, especially in America, and it's become politicized, you know, in the national election even. And now we're starting to see sort of consequences of that which could be leading to outbreaks of preventable diseases like measles, like Polio, etc. I mean, we see outbreaks in Canada, sadly and unvaccinated child just died, I believe of measles in Canada recently in the last week or two. And so what do you think we can do with this distrust to sort of earn back some trust? I know it's not easy. There's no perfect answer. I don't know the what the exact answer is. But in your opinion, what do you think we can do?
I think the only thing that is going to change the tide here is that more and more children will suffer and die. And with that, I think people will eventually wake up to the fact that this is a very dangerous game we're playing that this misinformation and disinformation kills. And I think that I mean, I was am old enough to have lived through the 1991 Philadelphia measles epidemic when we had centered on two fundamentalist churches. First Century gospel and faith tabernacle. And there were 1400 cases of measles in our city in a three month period, and nine deaths, 1400 cases and nine deaths. I mean, it was awful people were scared to come into the city, we vaccinated down to six months of age, schools canceled canceled trips to come into the city. And eventually we got you know, just series of laws, you know, city wide laws to eventually we had compulsory vaccination for those to church groups, compulsory vaccination, not mandatory vaccination, where you pay some sort of societal price if you choose not to vaccinate like you don't get to go to the school you want to or don't get go to go to work, compulsory vaccination, those children in those two schools were vaccinated against their parents will by law. Now what was interesting is we had a religious exemption to vaccination in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, what they were doing was perfectly legal. And so, so the the Reverend of one of the churches, you know, sought out the American Civil Liberties Union to represent them to do something that was perfectly legal, and the ACLU refused. And the ACLU you know, they're willing to represent unpopular cause it's like Neo Nazis marching down the streets of Skokie, Illinois, but they they refused a ticket saying while we recognize this religious exemption to vaccination, we don't recognize your right to murder your children. And so the parents ultimately complied. I just, I refill a man who was my hero in many ways. I mean, he was in many ways the father of modern vaccines. He did the primary research or development when nine of the 14 vaccine so he was diagnosed with disseminated cancer in 2004, given six months to live and live six months, died in April 2005. And so this was early 2000s. Right around the track that time Wakefield's MMR causes autism paper was having an effect. And so I was I interviewed him for this this book I wrote called vaccinated but I asked him in his office when we these measles cases were now starting to increase. Is there anything we can do to educate people so that we won't once again stuff For this occasionally fatal infection, and he spent a long time answering this question because he spent his entire life trying to make vaccines so that children wouldn't have to suffer these diseases. And after looking outside at the very wintry day, he looked back at me, like almost with tears in his eyes and said, No, I think once again, we're going to have to suffer these disease as a way to get people's attention. Because I think it's not in the case of measles. It's not just that we don't see measles, we don't remember musicals. I mean, I'm a child of the 50s, I had measles because I was born well before the vaccine came out, which was 1963. But um, you know, measles would cause 48,000 hospitalizations and 500 deaths a year. It's the most contagious of the vaccine preventable diseases, which is why it's the canary in the coal mine and that's why you're seeing it. And with this erosion and vaccine mandates, school vaccine mandates, I just think you're gonna see more and more cases now. Now it's it's May so this is a winner disease. So although I think the case will start to subside now, I predict that they're going to be back next week, winter, even worse than it was this winter.
Yeah, that's really sad. And people also forget about morbidity of measles, not just about 1000 dying, but it's about you know, getting encephalitis, getting pneumonia, deafness, sspe deaths, which can happen years later, immune, immune amnesia, all kinds of different complications can happen. And in the last us outbreaks in the EU, you mentioned in 9189 92, we had 127 deaths, 57,000 cases of measles that added the the second booster right or the for MMR at that point. People forget because they don't see it. They look around they say there's nothing Why vaccinated? There's no measles around well, you just answered your own question. Yeah, no, I
think that's right. I think we we just don't remember if that disease, so we will. I mean, it'll come back. I mean, we just had two recent cases in Philadelphia, just in the last week. And, you know, I suppose we I saw a case of measles in, you know, because one of the index cases, we came into our hospital for seven months. And you know, it's interesting was we were sitting around and you know, at the table with infectious disease specialists, most of those young infectious disease specialists had never seen a case of measles, which is amazing to me. But I have a low battery problem here. My wife is not coming to fix this. Hopefully, we have
another another another technical issue. Nothing we haven't dealt with before. I'm gonna I'm going to almost finished with my questions. I want to have a couple of your questions. But speaking of misinformation, and speaking of potential people who are advocating for more preventable diseases, I want to move to the election and one of the candidates, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Not necessarily a candidate who's viable to actually win, but certainly to be, you know, to make, you know, to get votes to get maybe 10% of votes, or whatever he's trying to do is he's definitely gonna be out there and he's definitely making waves. And this is someone who claims he's not anti vaccine and a lot of people I believe, just think he's someone that's come in COVID, that he's been against lockdowns, he's been against mandates. He's against the CO vaccine, they don't know his history. And I mean, how, what do you think of I mean, I know you've had your history with him, but like, what he says he's not anti vaccine. How can he possibly do that when literally spent the last few decades being the number one anti vaccine leader advocate in the United States of America?
I think he's just not telling us the truth. I know hope you're sitting down. He doesn't always tell the truth. He's He's this is what he is. He's a quintessential anti vaccine activists. He's got the bone of Friday's for it. I mean, he, you know that that outbreak of measles that occurred in Samoa, you know, in late 2019 He had everything to do with that. I mean, you probably you know, the story, you know, the smell a
story. Oh, absolutely. I was I was dealing with it every day on x. Yeah. So I mean, he he's
83 children died unnecessarily because in many ways because of him because of his notion that MMR vaccine was was killing two had killed two children. Well, that wasn't true at all. It was a deal you went that you know that was had that was it. They didn't use the right do you want it was a muscle relaxer that both kids stopped breathing because of that muscle relaxing day you and had nothing to do with the vaccine. But yet he was a big advocate. When he went to Samoa, he promoted the notion of MMR vaccine was killing children as a dramatic drop in immunization rates. And there were 5600 cases and 83 deaths because of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. He was at least indirectly responsible for the deaths of children smoke that gets you to be a major anti vaccine activists you when you're I mean, when when Donald Trump said he was a fake anti vaccine activists. That's not true. He's a real anti vaccine activist.
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, he literally was under oath in Congress and said that he's not anti vaccine. He's never told anyone not to get vaccinated. I actually found a clip of him on a podcast podcast for like a year earlier where he literally said he advocate for people to go up to women mothers at parks and tell them not to vaccinate their kids to save those children. So it's true. We don't a lot of people don't recognize the amount of dishonesty that he's been, you know, he's had for years.
Yeah, I mean, he's on he spoke recently at at Lancaster County, which is you know, near Philly, and, again, do you know her or can we just lose her? Can you know? Yeah. And then again, he just he has his stump speech, which is all it's all the usual conspiracy theory. You know what the what the government doesn't tell you he is the one who's going to be speaking truth to power, which would be great. But if you're gonna speak truth to power, you should tell the truth.
Absolute Absolutely. Okay, great. If we can just keep you on for a little longer. I know that debunk and Dr. Larson had a couple of had a question and maybe Zach and Dr. John as well. Go ahead debunk. You can hear me. Sorry, I'm
just finishing up on my daughter. I was talking last
night. Hello, I'm an internist from Canada's. I record my big question. The big thing that's been bothering me the most is how many credentialed people have been spreading false and misleading information during the COVID pandemic. And really like, what is the approach to these people? Because I find it's hard. A lot of people will go for the credentials and follow them. Is it good to just directly confront them with other credential people? Do we need to get more people mobilized to address these people? Or is it better just to ignore it and kind of push it off to the side?
Right? No, I mean, I think is the famous Pogo said, I've met the enemy and they're so the You're right. I mean, you look at somebody like Peter McCullough, who's a, who's a cardiologist who's out there talking about how you know the SARS cov to vaccine is toxic, or you have Robert Malone who's you know, as an MD, he did important work on mRNA as a as a way to induce cells to make protein either giving it as an injection, those two papers in the in the proceedings of National Academy of Sciences were seminal papers, they were, they were at the heart of what led to mRNA vaccines, and there he is testifying in front of Congress about how, you know, mRNA vaccines are causing cancer, and we're autoimmune disease or a variety of other diseases or that you now the government can tell whether or not you've, you know, you've you know, you've gotten the vaccine because it can mark you now. And so, you know, or who Kimberly, this is, you know, it's an obstetrician in Florida who gets out there and says the same thing. Marty Makary says, you know, that the lab leak theory is is a no brainer. i This is the thing that upsets me the most I mean, two thirds of the American public believes that this was a lab leak when when all the data are clearly on the side of an animal to humans spill over fat, which was true of SARS. One it's true emerged, and it's true this virus, but you're right, how do you do it? I mean, it I think it's hard, because if you, certainly people who are credentialed are standing up and standing up for the science. But you know, people are, you're asking people to distinguish who's who's more credentialed, who's better credentialed, or who's just lying, because, you know, they get the light gets to shine on them. I don't I don't know the answer. I don't know. It is hard to watch, though.
Thank you, I agree, is it's the thing that gets me the most just, and trying to fight back is really difficult, I find.
Yeah, so you do the best you can, um, you just get out there and try and do the best you can getting good information. The other thing is, is, you know, when you do that, when you when you stand up in this, and this was sort of the surprise to me, when I started doing this, you know, more than 20 years ago, you know, I grew up in the in the crucible sort of scientific presentation. So you know, you were presented like double stranded RNA virus meetings, that was a safe place. Okay. But then when the minute that you like I wrote autism, false prophets are deadly choices, you know, sort of taking on the anti vaccine movement. It's not science anymore. It's politics. And politics is mean and personal, and ugly. And you do you have the stamina really to stand up for, you know, for the hate mail that you get the occasional unit, I've been physically threatened at CDC meetings. It's, it's really, my children have been threatened. It's pretty bad out there. But you have to do it. And so I think it's a disincentive for a lot of scientists really to stand up because it's not what you're used to. And it's not what you're good at politics.
Great, thanks. Thanks so much to Bob, are you ready?
Yes, I'm ready. Sorry. Pay. Paul. Thanks for being here. Sure. So I just had a question that I think some people in the audience might benefit hearing get answered by you. So a lot of times, people will say that COVID poses zero risk to children, meaning people 18 and under. And I've heard this a lot lately, people seem to be using it as a crutch more and more often. And I think people are repeating it after people like influencers like Jordan Pearson and Vinay Prasad, Brett Weinstein, Joe, Joe Rogan, those kinds of people have been saying it, but it's been kind of present throughout the pandemic, but you know, you're, you're a pediatrician. So, what have you seen in terms of children and COVID? And I guess, more importantly, what do the data say about what we should have been doing to protect children and 2021 2022 and Also what should we be doing today to protect them from children? Most of your outcomes? Sorry.
No, you're right. First of all, thank you, Dan, you are one of my heroes, as you know, I mean, talk about people who are great at distilling science for the public. I think Dan Wilson is like, right up there with great people that do this, but and so so when I can tell you when the virus rolled into this country, you know, in, you know, in, in 2020, early 2020, our hospital was overwhelmed with this virus, right. We're at a children's house, we were overwhelmed. We had three floors of children with COVID. You know, we were, you know, children died in our hospital of COVID. We had Intensive Care Unit was packed with COVID, we stopped doing elective surgeries because we had trouble taking care of even not only children with COVID, but the other children, we were overwhelmed with that virus. So can this virus our children? Absolutely. Now, it's 2024, you have a much, much higher degree of population immunity, obviously, pretty much everybody has been either vaccinated or naturally infected or both. But you know, if you were six months of age or older, and you've never been vaccinated, know that this virus is circulating, as I said earlier, it's a short incubation period, mucosal infection. So your your the virus is still gonna circulate. I mean, it'll circulate every year. I mean, you know, I was fortunate enough to be part of a team at Children's that developed the rotavirus vaccine, probably 95% of children in this country have gotten a rotavirus vaccine. And we've virtually eliminated hospitalization of the rotavirus, this virus it doesn't although all viruses mutate this is this is a virus that doesn't evolve to create variants. So it's a stable virus in that sense. It's double stranded RNA, not single stranded RNA. So it's a stable virus. But does the virus still circulate in the community? Absolutely. Even though you have 95%, of immunity among children, and you have a virus that really doesn't create variants, yet still it circulate. So soon, this virus is going to be circulating for the rest of our lives. So you know, there, there are four strains of human Coronavirus that circulate right now, to all of them, you know, we're animal to human spillover events, one entered the human population, the late 1700s than the other in the late 1800s. Let's assume this virus is going to be with us for a while. So if you're over six months, and if you've never been vaccinated, you can assume this virus is going to be circulating, it'll probably send her into settled down into a winter disease, but it's not yet. I mean, it's still going to be year round. So, so children are going to be risks. I mean, I work at Children's Hospital, Philadelphia, we still see children with and coming into the house with COVID. So the notion that there is zero risk is just simply wrong. It belies that it's certainly lesser risk than it was early on. And it certainly they were always less risk. I mean, if you look at at the greater than 65 year old, you were 1000 times more likely to be hospitalized if you were greater than 65 than if you were less than 18. So that's true, but that that relative risk doesn't mean that you're the absolute risk zero. Obviously children can still get this virus just like I get influenza virus or respiratory syncytial virus repair influenza virus, this virus is no different.
Great, thanks for that. Zach, did you have a question for Dr. Offit?
Yes, I do. Hi, Dr. Offit. I believe that you, you, you claimed that you were in a polio word. Did you have polio at
one? No, I didn't. I was born with clubbed feet. And initially I was casted but when I was five, my father decided that my foot should be operated on which was probably not a great decision. He was that that he would necessarily know about that. He was in the menswear business. He wasn't an orthopedist. But he was able to get a friend of his son to operate on my foot. And it was a botched operation. So that landed me at Corinthians. Hospital for Crippled Children that's back in the days when you could use words like crippled and feeble minded to describe children's hospitals. And so I was in a polio Ward because I had had a failed operation on my right foot. So I was there for six weeks, but I didn't have polio. No.
Okay. Yeah, I heard a story. You're telling the saying that you were in a polio, polio ward? Sorry. So yeah, I just I just had a question. If you couldn't put it in perspective, how it was living back then because me and you know, me, and truth are, we're in a space like a month ago. And, you know, we were talking to someone and they said, you know, why do we need the polio vaccine or measles vaccine? You know, those diseases aren't even around anymore? And, and obviously, we know the reason but if I can just ask what would have been the best perspective, you can give people that don't see it anymore? to maybe try to convince them why that is?
Well, for the last few years, we've now seen more than 300 cases of measles in the United States. So So Measles is back. And I think that's just gonna get worse. Polio is actually an interesting example. So in 2022, there was a 27 year old man in Rockland County, New York who got polio, he never left the country. He was paralyzed by polio. The strain he was paralyzed with was the so called reverting strain. So in other words, the oral polio vaccine that we gave in this country from the early 60s until around 2000, early 1960s until around 2000, could itself revert back to so called neuro virulent or paralytic type, those strains are around I mean, if you test the water, not only in Rockland County, but surrounding counties or any other city in this country, you're going to find Is reverting strains hanging around and know that when you're infected with one of these reverting strains, only one of 2000 people will be paralyzed. So he was the tip of a much bigger iceberg. I really wish the CDC would go city to city in this country look at wastewater samples and see whether those reverting strains were there because one, we use OPV in this country, you know, up until 2002. Many other countries are still using OPV. And international travel is common. You can be sure that viruses around drop immunization rates far enough. And that's what happened in Rockland County. Revenues ation rates in that particular zip code. Were only around 30%, you saw a case of polio, don't fool around with that disease. Because I think until we go in this world to moving to only the inactivated polio vaccine and stop using the oral polio vaccine, you're gonna see polio as a risk even in this country.
Great, thanks for that, Zack. Dr. John, did you have a question?
Yeah, I was gonna comment. So I went to Kenya, three months in my residency and you know, I saw like all the encephalitis and pneumonia, from from measles back then, like the cases that you saw, you know, in the last like, 1015 years, did you see any, like major cases of like, it's Eflite s or pneumonia or and when you were trading?
Um, I saw Yes, sure. I mean, I was in Baltimore, I trained in Baltimore, like, way back in the 70s. And we there was a huge outbreak of measles at that time. And similarly in Philadelphia 19. Winter between 90 and 91, there was there was major outbreak where we did see some cases of encephalitis but the one disease associated with measles, it's the most frightening and I've seen now three of these cases, is something called subacute sclerosing pan encephalitis, which is a chronic measles infection of the brain that usually manifests itself about five to seven years after the measles infection. And what happens is it's just it's a slow deterioration initially of handwriting, personality that you use lose sensory skills, motor skills, and the death is inevitable. There's nothing you can do about that chronic measles infection of the brain caused by an initial measles, initial measles virus infection SSP is a frightening disease. I wish people would the media would would would show what that disease looks like, because that's the dangerous game. We're playing measles.
Yeah, I've never, I've never seen I know, I've seen the acute. You know, I've never seen that. That sounds terrifying. And then I think one thing it might help with the audience, too, one thing I see commonly on on Twitter is people you know, you know, starting you know, stuff about shedding and whatnot and they always bring up MMR and live virus. You know, like Jews comment for the audience, like what the risk of like any I know, there really isn't, but could you comment to the audience like the risk of shedding for me, you know, MMR especially, where
PSoC these, these are attenuated viruses so um, so you can shed but with any attenuated virus, measles, mumps, rubella, rotavirus, varicella, vaccines, but the only one really that shed in enough quantity, that that you can't really give that vaccine in the home of someone whose immune compromised was the oral polio vaccine. That was really the only one.
Great, the one the one question I wanted to ask you. And then we have a couple more, and we'll let you go. I know it's late. We didn't really talk specifically about mandates. I know there's a lot of takes on mandates, and people get really emotional. And we've stopped talking about it on our spaces, because we just like to stick to the data and science and it's become very politicized. In my opinion, I think overall, they have definitely caused a lot more distrust in public health. And what are your thoughts? Now looking back and I know you've you've discussed mandates you discussed prior infection previously, what are your What are your thoughts overall thinking about it right now.
It's, it's a hard one, here's what I would say, maybe 2021, you are 12 times more likely to be hospitalized and die if you hadn't been vaccinated than if you were vaccinated. In 2022, that dropped to about six times more likely, but look at it from the standpoint of the hospital. I mean, our hospital was overwhelmed by that virus. And once the vaccine was available, and people they chose not to get the vaccine, but they did choose to come into the hospital when they got sick. So here, you're overwhelmed with this, this virus and people are making the choice not to get a vaccine, but still to come in and get medical care when you're having trouble taking care of all those patients as well as the other patient who don't have COVID as well as all your surgical patients etc. So I just found that an enormously selfish thing to do, I did I it was really hard for me you watch till children come in, for example, like a 17 year old comes in and I can think of one specific case remember in 2021 through late 2021. You've you've already got a vaccine that's recommended for everybody over 12 At that point, and you have a 17 year old come in, you know with pneumonia, he's having trouble breathing, it's on facemask oxygen, and then you're bringing him up into the intensive care unit. The parents are crying you know you're putting on a ventilator and oscillator early on when we were trying to figure out how to handle this and the parents are crying and the siblings are crying youth thinking this was all preventable. It's really hard. So, in theory, you shouldn't have to mandate vaccines. I mean, I vaccinated myself and my wife and my children. I think I was fairly well informed about this virus being on the FDA vaccine Advisory Committee. You didn't have to convince me to be vaccinated or to vaccinate my children. But, you know, the the, what do you do? What do you do when because it's not if people talk about bodily autonomy or personal freedoms, this isn't a disease vaccine. This isn't a decision you're making for yourself. You're also making it for people who are next to you. I remember when Richard Pan eliminated the the the religious exemption and who's the Sacramento State Senator. So So in 2014 2015, there was a big measles outbreak, and that started in California spread to about 25 other states. So pan, Richard Pan decided to eliminate the religious exemption in a state that didn't have a philosophical exemption. And he eventually was able to do that. But But what swung the tide there, and I only wish they had a video of this, there was a little five year old boy named Rhett crowded, who had acute lymphoblastic leukemia, he would go to these meetings where the anti vaccine people were there. And he would stand up on a stool and he would say, I have leukemia, I can't be vaccinated. I depend on those around me to protect me. Don't I count? He was the voice of society. And so So what do you do? And but I think you're right, I think what ended up happening is we leaned into this libertarian left hook. I think in some ways, the mandates were a little heavy handed at times, especially later on, and now you're seeing the result of that you're seeing state after state start to roll back, not just COVID mandates, but sort of any school vaccine mandates, and you're seeing measles, and I think we'll see more measles. So what did we pay a much bigger price? Because of what we did? I don't know. I mean, I guess we'll see how this plays out.
Right. And we even had Berenson on here, who talked about how the vaccine did prevent COVID for six months, not counting boosters. So obviously people who talk about mandates there needs to be some kind of nuanced because in 2021, there was significant reduction in transmission, but that obviously, you ceased once Omicron came and reduced considerably, and that's when it became a different type of conversation in my opinion. Let's move on. Jennifer, I know you had a question for Dr. Offit. Hi,
I thank you so much for the work you do. I'm an autistic person with two of my four children are autistic. The messaging that comes in from the anti Vax movement I consider the cornerstone of it is ableism. They, you know, they they depend on fear mongering about people like me, people like my son's that, you know, would you rather have your child die of a preventable vaccine preventable disease then be like us. And it's, you know, it's extremely painful. I wanted to answer one person that asked Mr. offit a question. Children are vulnerable when they're disabled. I'm also a disability rights activist. And I know people who had children with cystic fibrosis and other chronic conditions that were in grave danger, and they had to keep their kids home for school even when schools reopened. But what I wanted to ask you after all that talking, I also read somewhere that you have an autistic child, and did that's
what No, no, that's not true. I don't. Oh,
okay, nevermind. Maybe
you're thinking of Dr. Hotez, Dr. Hotez? Peter. Oh,
okay, because I was okay. Nevermind, I was gonna ask you if that had anything to do with that, you know, the advocacy that you do, but obviously it
doesn't. There was no book what I guess what what lured me in at some level was a woman named Alison singer, who heads a group in New York called the autism Science Foundation. And she, like you, I mean, just a vigorous advocate for, for services for children with autism for trying to do basic science research to understand the cause or causes of autism. And I then she was never really, at least eventually, she didn't buy into the notion that vaccines had anything to do with it. And I just was very sympathetic to her. Her her what she was trying to do. And so I became, I guess, a founding advisory board member of that group. And that's what
Yeah, I mean, what people don't understand is that people with autism, or ADHD, like we get bombarded with negative messaging about how damaged we are, how injured we are, how we really just absolutely should not exist. We're tragic. We're pathetic. We're scum. I'd rather my kid die of measles than be like you and I can deal with it. I'm in my 50s but Raising children in a world like that, who, that's the only world they've ever known is here that hearing that constant negative messaging from autism. So I do appreciate the work you've done, I guess I guess my, my question was, was evaporated by the fact that you don't have a child. But
no, but I think you make up you make such a good point. I remember there was a CDC meeting once and the anti vaccine activists were protesting in front of the meeting. And autism was generally the theme. And there was a mother who had on her chart, you know, the notion at the time was that ethyl mercury, this thimerosal preservative in vaccines as causing autism, and so she had on her child who presumably had autism had a t shirt that said, damaged by Mercury. So here's your mother, that puts a t shirt on her child that says damaged. Really,
that's a lot from them, though. You'll see them I saw an interview with Lynn, Redwood redwood and her autistic child and she's very involved in the RFK campaign. And she asked him in an interview, what would you do for the world if you were president united states and he was like we would we would end autism everywhere. And I thought this poor kid is autistic. What are you doing to that? Trial? It to me, it's child abuse, you know, it's, you're telling them their damage. They're horrible. They're tragic there. And it's it's just really hard for me to watch it. So I really appreciate the work that you do to debunk the disinformation, it I mean, I'm getting emotional now. But it means a lot to me to have children in the world who are wonderful and aren't tragic. And I'd much rather have them alive as they are that dead from something like measles, or something else, but they didn't get it. They were born autistic, but anyway, but for the work, kind of.
Alright, we're gonna quickly go to Tori. Hi.
Can I just say one thing? So it's, yeah, it's 935. I've had I'm using it's not mine. It's my name. She probably wants to go to sleep at some point. But no
problem. How about we get we'll get two more and then we'll say goodbye. Let's do that. Go ahead. Tori, the mat and then we'll say goodnight to Dr. Offit. And we'll we'll continue the conversation. Go ahead, Tori. Okay.
I'll try to make that as quick as possible. Apologies because I'm stuck in a restaurant under a tornado warning in Madison, Wisconsin. So hopefully,
they say stay safe.
Dr. Offit. It's nice to hear you again. We did a YouTube series or a special together back in August with Dr. Dan, and Drea reason. Dr. Johnson, so nice to speak to you again. Thank you for coming. I have a couple quick, two quick questions for you. One is I think we have pretty decent evidence that infectious disease overall may worsen as a result of climate change. For example, the lengthening of mosquito season or life cycles, etc. How concerned are you about the collision of this phenomenon with the rising anti vaccine sentiment? For example, there's a chance that we could start to see Dengue in the Gulf, where you know, Texas, Louisiana, parts of Mississippi are very resistant to vaccines that have become politicized. Is this something that is on your radar? And are you concerned about it?
I think it's already started to happen. I mean, you're starting to see Daggy in Louisiana, Texas, Florida. Excuse me, because of climate change. And also deforestation has made it so we're much closer to our bad population. So yeah, I do worry about that.
Yeah, thank you. I'm more worried now that I heard you confirm it. My second question is, I guess more of an emotional question. So I recently fairly recently learned that someone whose lab I worked through in graduate school back in the late 90s is the center of the elaborate conspiracy. So I rotated through Dr. Barrett's labs in 97, at UNC, and it was just a short rotation. I didn't do my graduate research in his laboratory, and he's probably maybe you would remember me maybe not. But what I'm curious about as with, you know, people, you seem to have like a really thick skin when it comes to just kind of shaking off these people who are demonizing. You know, humanitarians like yourself and Dr. Hotez and Dr. Berra. How can people like us who are scientists who are or you know, even not scientists who have benefited from your work and are appreciative of it? How can we support our our leaders, you know, like yourself and Dr. Hotez Dr. Becker, I mean, I, you know, you guys get death threats and harassment. And, you know, what can we do as former students or just people who appreciate the work that you do? What can we do to let you all know how much we do appreciate it to serve offset some of this nonsensical hate that you receive? And with that, thank you. Sure,
thank you. I think you already do that. I mean, I get a lot of positive reinforcement for what I do. I mean, many ways, I feel more than I deserved, because there are many of us that do it, I think, I'm sure I think the minute you stand up in this arena, you're gonna take the hits. But that's just, you know, like, you know, welcome to the National Football League. If you don't want to get hit, don't play. And so the minute you cross that line, and enter into this arena, you have to know that's what's going to happen. And I'm really surprised by how much positive reinforcement I get. So, I mean, what keeps me going is I pediatrician by training. I, when I was in that polio Ward, even though I didn't have polio, but I certainly saw children with polio, I saw them in iron lungs, I saw them as vulnerable and helpless and alone. And I think the scars of our childhood and very become the passions of our adulthood. And when I hear anti vaccine activists say what they say, I see them putting children in harm's way. Nobody more so in many ways than RFK Jr, with what he did in Samoa. So I really, really don't like those people. And so that's what keeps me going. I'd like to have a higher, higher moral ground here, that I really, really don't like these people that aren't getting on their nerves is fine with me.
Yeah, you're over the target. Thank you, Tori. So much. And by the way, they probably don't like you too much, either. I'm gonna say well, okay, we're gonna end with Matt, and then we'll say goodbye to Doctor off and continue the conversation. So stick around everyone. Matt, welcome back to the space. Hey, thank you. Can you hear me? Okay? Absolutely.
Hey, Jack Crawford. Thanks for staying on. Take one more question. My name is Matt Brignole. I'm a naturopath in Tacoma and I spent 2021 2022 Working with my local health jurisdiction, do invest in messaging. And you had mentioned earlier that, that these conversations are always political. They're never scientific. And it makes me wonder why we don't. When we see that ground to the anti vaccine activists, why do we not speak? Why do we not answer political concerns with with political answers?
How do you mean how do you mean political answer?
Why do we not talk to people about the concerns about authoritarian authoritarianism or libertarianism or slippery slope? About mandates? Why do we Why do we always answer the scientific concerns? But never the political? No, it's
a great question. I suspect it's because we're what we're comfortable with. I mean, as as a scientist, I'm comfortable addressing the science. And I get into politics a little bit. I mean, I've certainly written about RFK, Jr. But but when I write about him, I write about what he gets scientifically wrong. So I think it's just because at least speaking for myself, I'm not very good at it. I'm much more common with the science, because that's how I'm trained. But I think there are those who aren't sure, much better at it than I did. It's a great question, because it is a political issue. I mean, whenever in the history of man, are you much more likely to have died from SARS cov to or from a virus? Because you're a Republican than than a Democrat? I mean, it's it's amazing. You know, you're the we pick these different tribes. And if you're in that tribe, you're at greater risk. Yeah.
All right. Well, thank you for that, Matt. And I want to thank Paul Offit for Dr. offit for being with us tonight, spending time I know is a little rough on the technical issues. I'm glad we got them that fixed all the responses that people have been telling me that really appreciate everything you've been you've been saying tonight. And like I said, You've been a hero for a long time from me and so many other people the voice of reason during this pandemic for a lot of people, including myself, and I want to just thank you, we appreciate everything you do. And everyone should go and check out your new book.
Thank you very much. I appreciate it.
All right, great, Doc, Doctor Offit and have a great night and talk to you soon. Appreciate it. All right. Thank you. Thank you so much. And we're gonna we're gonna bring new people in now and you know, that was a little rough at the beginning in the first 30 minute
