Air Date: 5–23-2026

Full Show Notes

Welcome to this episode of the award-winning Best of the Left podcast.

Today we examine the real-world cost of dismantling America's public health infrastructure, the dangerous pseudoscience driving RFK Jr.'s health agenda, and the contradictions fracturing the MAHA movement from within.

For those looking for a quick overview, the sources providing our Top Takes in about 50 minutes today include

The Rachel Maddow Show

All In with Chris Hayes

Scientific American

Today, Explained

Democracy Now!

The PBS NewsHour

and Brittany Page

Then, in the additional, Deeper Dives half of the show, there'll be more in 4 sections;

Section A, The Damage Done

Section B, Ideology and the Misinformation Machine

Section C, Inside the MAHA Coalition

And Section D, How a Country Becomes "Underbabied"

And now, on to the

18 patients from that hantavirus-stricken cruise ship have been brought back to the United States now. What do you think the odds are that the Trump administration will contend with that risk in ways that are sane and organized and even vaguely scientific? This is the Trump administration that fired thousands of scientists from the CDC, scientists in particular who work on infectious diseases and all sorts of global health concerns.

Also, they fired the people who work specifically on the issue of viruses spreading on cruise ships. Yeah, what do we need those folks for? Get rid of them. It would usually be the CDC that would be the lead agency in the whole world on a crisis like this, but under Donald Trump, there's not even a CDC director right now.

Right now, they've got the CDC being run as a part-time job by the guy who is also part-time running the NIH. That is the guy who was most famous for his role in a declaration that said, "Let's try to maximize the number of Americans who get infected with COVID-19," because sure, COVID will go on to kill more than a million Americans in that pandemic, but do we really think that's bad?

Surely, we could have upped those numbers a little higher. That's who Trump has running the CDC, again, as a part-time job. Under Trump, the FDA is being run by a guy who, it was widely reported on Friday, is being fired from his job at the FDA. There's an incredulous headline tonight at politico.com saying basically, "Why is this guy still showing up at work?

Makary keeps working." Yeah. Isn't he fired? Didn't we all hear on Friday that he was getting fired? We don't know. We'll see. We do know that under his leadership, the FDA just approved fruit-flavored vapes because who among us does not wanna make America healthy again by starting a maximum number of middle school boys and girls on grape-flavored e-cigarette mega dose of nicotine bombs?

Maha. Under Donald Trump, the US government's health agencies are also leaning in on tanning beds for kids. Seriously, for kids, so your kid can have healthy-looking skin like HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Start them early enough and they'll look like this in no time. Pass the vape. But don't worry, Trump has just nominated yet another person for surgeon general.

This'll be his third surgeon general nominee. Neither of the first two have panned out. the last one he nominated, turns out, didn't have a medical license. the one before that, said she was a graduate of the medical school of the University of Arkansas, but it turns out she was not at all a graduate of the University of Arkansas Medical School.

This latest one he's nominated, is a Fox News personality who sells tinctures on Instagram, and what she says are, quote, "Powerful physician-formulated aphrodisiacs." So clearly we're in good hands, or at least we're in hands of some kind. I... Don't make me think about it.

Two weeks ago, we brought you the news the CDC was delaying publication of a study showing the benefits of the COVID-19 vaccine. Well, now they've outright canceled it. An HHS spokesperson said the report that was scheduled to be published five weeks ago is being withheld due to, quote, "concerns regarding the methodological approach."

That's despite the fact that the exact same methodology was used in a report about the flu vaccine published six weeks ago, and also in December for a report about the COVID vaccine's effectiveness for kids. The report had already cleared the CDC's scientific review process, but Kennedy's HHS still hit the brakes, something CDC officials say is highly unusual to do at that point.

It looks to all the world like HHS is doing exactly what we think they're doing, right? In the most egregious way possible. Censoring science because that science shows what we have all known, that vaccines work to reduce hospitalization and death. But Kennedy and his MAGA acolytes are committed to suppressing that science because they are in the clutches of an insane and crankish conspiracy theory that every day endangers Americans' health.

Dr. Demetre Daskalakis served as the head of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases at the CDC until he and two other senior colleagues resigned from CDC last fall to protest Kennie's pol- Kennedy's policies, and Dr. Daskalakis joins me now. Let me try to steel man this at least to start, which is there a non-sketchy reason or a non-nefarious reason for a report like this to be delayed and then withheld?

Simply put, no. This methodology is a methodology that, is recognized as the best way to measure vaccine effectiveness. As you just said, CDC has published through the MMWR, the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, vaccine effectiveness using the exact same methodology for flu and for COVID. So this is suppression of data.

Why do you think they're doing it? I think that there is a vendetta against mRNA vaccines and a- against COVID vaccines. If you think about some of the, testimony that we heard, this week, we heard that, from the secretary that mRNA vaccines don't work to prevent, respiratory infections, or their bad outcomes, and that's, blatantly untrue.

The mRNA vaccines, which is a, a new method of creating a vaccine that was developed, It really came to kind of fruition with COVID, but is now being r- researched in a bunch of other ways. There's big headlines this week about an mRNA vaccine on pancreatic cancer, making some really remarkable progress in what has been one of the most dire and incurable forms of cancer.

At the same time that... My understanding is that this HHS has essentially launched a war on mRNA research.

Yeah, they, they absolutely have, and if you actually look at what they did, they defunded mRNA research specifically in pandemic, influenza and other pandemic viruses, and instead invested in a flu influenza vaccine platform that, at best, has phase one study results, so very preliminary.

So, there is serving a base. There is a base of people, that, do n- that really have a vendetta against mRNA vaccine, and I think this is an attempt to appease that base. What- mRNA vaccines work, period. Yeah, what do you... I don't think I quite under- Do you understand the vendetta

I don't think I un- I do. Yeah, I, I, I feel like I was in the middle of that maelstrom when I was still at CDC and- Yes ... working with some of the ACIP members, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices members, who historically have said that the mRNA vaccines are responsible for all sorts of adverse events, and that they don't actually, impact anything, like the, the sort of rates of COVID hospitalization, et cetera.

So I think that there's a lot of reasons. Without mentioning names, there's one member of the ACIP who claims that he invented mRNA vaccines, and that is a, in, an untruth. So it's all sorts of crazy. And I think at the end of the day, you can't speak something into existence.

So just because Secretary Kennedy says mRNA vaccines doesn't work, don't work, that doesn't actually mean that they don't, especially when they're suppressing data that demonstrate that in fact they do. So- Right, and the fun- the- Ne- nefarious is the right

word. the fundamental issue here, is that of, there, there's always this tension between sort of the career folks, and the politicals, and an agenda of a president, and then you want, technical experts, right?

Never is that clearer than in, at CDC. And I thought, I want to just play today that, the secretary just won't commit to not overriding scientific advice, right? it, this is him being asked time and time again, and he won't commit to it. Take a listen

Will the new director, whoever she is, have the right to make decisions independently of those dir- of those political appointees and/or replace them, or otherwise reassign them so they cannot continue to actively undermine trust in immunizations?

Your characterization of the political appointees is wrong, and, the CDC director has that power.

Now, so she will have, if she wishes to, if she wishes to make a decision independently of them, she shall be allowed to make that decision independently. That's correct?

Yes. The, a begrudging yes to the new CDC director, who seems like a, we've talked about her, a well-credentialed individual.

But it doesn't seem in your experience or there's any much trust that they're, we're not gonna see more political manipulation.

Absolutely not. I think that is just, so much propaganda coming from the secretary trying to justify the fact that he has stacked the entire agency and HHS filled with people who are not just vaccine skeptics, but who are absolute anti-vaccine advocates.

Stuart Burns, is someone who is, in the office of the director, and as far as I can detect, the only reason that he is there is to really dismantle the vaccine work at CDC. So, the bottom line is, there are people that are assigned by the secretary as senior advisors and other staff that exist simply to destabilize trust in- Yeah

vaccines and the vaccine program. So, you can have a new CDC director, but, it doesn't matter how, you know- Yes, it does ... well-studied she is if at the end of the day she's not allowed to do her job.

There's been a lot of attention about Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., what he says and what he does, but you wrote a really fascinating article about what he believes. Why did you decide to do that? I

had been following RFK Jr.'s career before he became health secretary, so I was very familiar with the rhetoric that he uses in terms of his anti-vaccine advocacy.

Hearing his thoughts about vaccination and infectious diseases, and then drawing on his more environmental legal background, hearing his thoughts on, natural living and, pollution and toxins in the environment, things like that. And I think if you, drill down and get a broader perspective of where he's coming from in his long advocacy against vaccines, you see a more complete picture, and I think it really comes down to his rejection of germ theory.

So germ theory is this pretty basic idea that, germs are in the environment, bacteria, viruses, fungi, and they can cause diseases. And we take precautions to prevent them from causing diseases, including vaccines, but also antibiotics and sanitation. My understanding of his idea is that he understands that germs are real which is an important caveat to include because there are people who don't accept that germs are real.

He's been in the news for saying that he is not afraid of germs because he and he mentions that he, snorted cocaine off of a toilet seat.

And I said, "I'm not scared of a germ. I used to snort cocaine off of toilet seats."

He just feels that another theory supersedes germ theory. So germs exist, but we don't get sick because of them.

We get sick because there's some weakness in us. We have not been eating well. We don't live a healthy lifestyle. We have some genetic disposition that we can't control. Whatever it is, maintaining a healthy lifestyle should be f- the focus of disease prevention, whether it's an infectious disease or a chronic one.

It feels like he's tapping into something we all know intuitively, right? That if we don't treat ourselves well, we can pick up something that our immune system might have fought off. But he's taking that kind of nugget of truth and extending it to, if you're healthy enough, you won't get measles, and that's an incredible circular logic, but it's also a dangerous one because how do you learn that you're not healthy is by potentially getting a

life-threatening illness.

Right. A lot of the things that he says, they're dangerous because there's little kernels of truths that people can glom onto, and they think, "That makes sense to me, so I'm going to believe everything else he's saying." He discusses germs as if they're all opportunistic, and there are opportunistic pathogens, right?

There's germs that you just don't see unless you know that someone has, severe health condition. They're immunocompromised. But there is this, certainly these classes of pathogens that cause disease to live, and they don't care how well you eat. They don't care if you can do shirtless pull-ups in an airport or whatever.

So a lot of RFK Jr.'s theories feed more into another theory, not germ theory, but one called terrain theory, which is this idea that diseases are due to an imbalance in your internal terrain, the things that are supposed to go on in your body, your microbiome. There's a disturbance. A toxemia is what they like to call it.

That is the root of all disease. So it really places the blame of all illnesses on an individual, and, if you're born with, some condition that weakens your immune system for some reason, it just puts the blame on those individuals, which is just horrible. And then also when you enact policy based on this ideas, you're getting towards s- this idea that, there are people who are weak or sickly, and if we're going to have a healthy population, we don't need to vaccinate everybody.

And if you're not vaccinated and you can't handle the disease, then it's bad for you. I guess the logical extension of these ideas is really horrifying. It also seems like he's

tapping into this fixed identity of health as opposed to the idea that even health kind of exists within a spectrum,

you know?

Yeah, absolutely. Infectious disease transmission is complicated, right? Newborns don't have fully developed immune systems, and, then they're hit with a world full of new germs. And then of course, older people, they go through immunosenescence, so their immune responses decline with age, and that's why we see things like shingles, reactivation of the virus that causes chickenpox.

And so we get vaccinated for that. So there's a spectrum of health, and it's absolutely true that there's no amount of healthy living to ward off all diseases. And so I think one of the things that Kennedy does that is really deceptive is that he creates that sort of false dichotomy. It's, "We need to stop emphasizing drugs and vaccines and modern medicine generally.

We just need to focus on, getting rid of food dyes and making sure people aren't eating ultra-processed food." those are good things too, but it's not going to make vaccines or drugs less critical to keeping everybody as healthy as they can be.

You've stated that if you follow the path laid out by Kennedy's ideology, that it is very easy to end up in a place where your, the ideas that you're weighing are eugenics.

And I was wondering if you could speak a little bit more about, what eugenics is and how his ideas kind of relate to that.

Eugenics is the idea that you want to create a population of people that have superior genetics, superior health, fitness, which means anyone who doesn't fit that doesn't fit into that ideal population.

If you were to bring this concept up to Kennedy, I don't think he would say in any way that he would support it. But the things that he says, the ideas that he puts forward, and the policies he's generating really do f- lead to it, lead to trying to create a population that is superior, healthy, has the best, genetics.

One of the sort of background explanations he has when he gives speeches, he talks about, "When I was a kid, everyone was healthy and everyone ate, good food, and there wasn't so much cardiovascular disease." The idea that he lived in some magical time when people didn't get sick is wrong, but, it creates this vision of the past that we want to have in the future.

So I think he basically sets policies that allow for people to not get vaccinated, and with the idea that if they live a healthy lifestyle, they won't need that vaccine. And that means that people who, aren't living a healthy lifestyle and do get severely ill, they will have consequences. They will have maybe lasting effects of that infection, or they won't make it, and apparently that's an okay outcome.

But I think, a lot of the conversation is dominated by individual health, like choices for yourself, and that's not how infectious diseases work. It's a communal effort to not just protect ourselves individually, but to protect everyone around us, and that may include vulnerable people, and a person is vulnerable because of an immune condition or a genetic condition or they're pregnant.

So it just puts all of those vulnerabilities in one bucket and says that these aren't important, basically. I

had an anecdote, which is whenever he talks about, growing up and everyone being incredibly healthy, I have a buddy who's in his early 80s, and he grew up in Iowa, and one of the first things I remember him telling me was he remembers as a child that sometimes kids would just die.

And I was like, "That was not my childhood experience."

Yeah. I think that it comes up a lot in anti-vaccine groups. They'll shrug off the measles or polio by saying, "Oh, it's not very frequent." So that's what we've gotten- To a point with the progress we've made with vaccines, because in the past that absolutely wasn't the case.

We don't see children dying of measles or getting paralyzed by polio because we have these successful vaccines that have protected m- millions of children. if we saw that every day then, they would be doing what our grandparents did, which was line up for the vaccine as soon as they could.

President Trump issued the executive order on February 18th, promoting the national defense by ensuring an adequate supply of elemental phosphorus and glyphosate-based herbicides In short, we need to be making more glyphosate in the US. Glyphosate is a pesticide, and making it here is a national security issue, per Trump, because we need it for our food supply.

Glyphosate is particularly hated by those in the MAHA movement. Glyphosate can cross the blood-testes barrier and end up in semen. Oh. Weed killer could be in your baby gravy right now.

Oatmeal is heavily sprayed with glyphosate these days, and it's also being found in our rain and our drinking water.

Lisa Held, reporter at Civil Eats. The MAHA response came fast and furious, and it was mostly trained on RFK Jr., in part because he's their man in Washington, and in part because he's got a long history with pesticides, yeah?

Yeah. He was an environmental lawyer for a long time and, even worked for the NRDC, for instance, a really big environmental organization in this country.

he was part of a team of lawyers who brought the first big case against Monsanto, the company that makes glyphosate.

They knew it was getting into our water, into our air, into our food, onto our landscapes where our children play, a- and yet they were telling people that it was safe as table salt at a time when they knew that it could cause cancer.

That was on behalf of an individual who said that using, glyphosate had caused his non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. and they won. It was the first case, that they won.

A California jury ordered Monsanto to pay $289 million in damages to Dewayne Lee Johnson. He- Finding the company failed to warn Johnson and other consumers of the cancer risk.

Americans should be encouraged by the verdict because it, it's a, it's an emblem that corporations are still subject to our democracy and to our system of justice in this country.

And then, he also had an organization that he ran for a long time called Children's Health Defense, and they do a lot of work on policy and advocacy on reducing pesticide use and pesticide exposures.

All right, so in the past, RFK has been critical of pesticides like glyphosate. Now we see him changing his position.

I support President Trump's executive order to bring agricultural chemical production back to the United States and to end our near total reliance on adversarial nations. His executive order protects two pillars of our national strength, our defense readiness and our food supply.

Possibly the most interesting thing about RFK is his coalition, his MAHA coalition. How does the MAHA coalition react when they see him responding to President Trump on glyphosate?

When this executive order was first released, there was a group within the MAHA coalition that they were very angry.

There's a few kind of prominent MAHA supporters like Kelly Ryerson and Vani Hari who have been speaking out about the executive order and really saying that it goes against the principles of MAHA.

We shouldn't have to beg, hope, or pray for food and water that isn't poisoned. This country clearly has the money, so deliver it now.

It costs the government zero dollars to tell the truth about glyphosate. Tell the people the truth about glyphosate, just like artificial dyes, and watch the market fix itself.

They're angry, but they're also Over time, s- it seems that they are trusting, Secretary Kennedy's response, where he's saying, "Look, we're still working on this, but we need to do...

this executive order in the meantime is necessary."

The Pentagon and others said this is an extreme national security vulnerability, that China controls the US food system. And we can't afford to let that happen, but we all know we've got to transition off of glyphosate.

And I think, the interesting thing with the MAHA Coalition at this moment in time is this executive order is coming at a moment when glyphosate is already a really big issue for them.

So- Hmm ... there's a, a Supreme Court case that's gonna, be heard on April 27th that, would give companies like Bayer immunity from future lawsuits, related to cancer and other health risks, and they care a lot about that. And so they're already, angry that the Trump administration is siding with Bayer in that Supreme Court case.

there's a- another, liability shield that is in a draft of the farm bill right now, which they're also fighting. So I think it's kind of part of this bigger picture, where, pesticide use and pesticide exposure is emerging as the most kind of contentious issue when it comes to the MAHA Coalition and their relationship to the Trump administration.

Within the MAHA Coalition, there is a group of women called the, that are sometimes called the MAHA Moms. Right. These are people who care a lot about what is going into our bodies. They care a lot about health, and often they will say they care because they are concerned about their children.

my understanding is that the MAHA Moms in particular were upset about this executive order, and they saw Kennedy's response as a betrayal. Could you talk about this subgroup of women and how you saw them responding?

Yeah. I did tune in to a meeting of, one of the groups that, makes up this MAHA Moms coalition- Ah

called Moms Across America, about a week ago. And what I heard was that they're definitely upset, and they care a lot about this, and they're not happy about the executive order. They're not happy about really anything that's happening when it comes to, pesticide policy within the Trump administration right now.

Hmm. But they're not- Kind of abandoning the administration in a wholehearted way because they still really trust Secretary Kennedy. And, there's this kind of thinking around, we can't ditch the administration over this because over here at HHS, Kennedy is doing things that we really care about and we really believe in, and we think that what we see as this progress over here is valuable that we're gonna stand by him.

And, there's this kind of understanding within those groups, like among the MAHA moms, that Kennedy has to fight for these things within the administration itself. But they aren't abandoning the administration altogether, and I think that's really because this whole coalition came together around Kennedy, and they just really care about him and trust him.

I wonder about the MAHA moms and their level of organization and their level of political influence. Do they hold a lot of power in the MAHA movement, and do conservatives look at them and say, "Okay, this group might be small, but it is mighty, and we need to not lose them"?

Definitely. I think they- have real power in this moment, and I think the best example of that is, how the EPA has been responding to their criticism. So over the last few months, before this executive order, in response to all different decisions the EPA made to approve new pesticides or reapprove pesticides that they were concerned about, like dicamba, the EPA has actually invited members of this movement, MAHA moms, into the agency to talk to them.

They have, even when putting out press releases that seem to go directly against the MAHA agenda, they have tried to message that it is r- aligned with MAHA in some way. They're trying really hard to, appease and speak to and court the MAHA moms. and the fact that, the agency really feels that's necessary seems to signal that, that they see them as having real power.

If you can start off by talking about, Ebola and the significance of the announcement by the World Health Organization.

For sure. Well, I've been saying that we learned too much too quickly to be anything but remarkably concerned.

As you noted in the intro, this was first declared on Friday, and already by Saturday, the World Health Organization had declared this a public health emergency of international concern. Never has, something been done so quickly, and that's because the number of cases that were reported when this was first declared would make it already the fourth-largest Ebola outbreak in history.

This has likely been circulating for much longer than is being reported, maybe one, two, three months, and I wouldn't be surprised if the actual case numbers are dramatically higher than what we've seen so far. I think in the coming days and weeks we're gonna learn a lot more, what cases actually look like, where they're at, but as has been pointed out, this is an incredibly difficult region to work in.

I've worked in Eastern Congo a bunch of times. I've responded to Ebola. This is gonna be a really difficult outbreak to manage and respond to even under ideal circumstances, and Eastern Congo particularly, given the violence and conflict, is anything but ideal.

Can you describe what happened to you and your particular concern about public health professionals dealing with this, and what you think needs to be done?

Ebola is a disease of compassion in that the folks that are most likely to be infected are people that take care, provide close care for people who are sick, for patients who have diarrhea and for vomiting. think about family members, think about mothers taking care of their children, as well as healthcare workers taking care of patients.

If you have the right protections, gloves and masks, and everything that you need to stay safe, the likelihood of transma- transmission is actually quite low, but most folks taking care of family members as well as most healthcare professionals in this part of Congo don't have access to the same things we may have access to here, including gloves, good personal protective equipment, and sometimes even running water.

That makes the risk really high, particularly for healthcare professionals in a place where there's already not enough of those healthcare workers, and where over the last year we've seen dramatic cuts in the supplies and support going to many of these clinics and health facilities in Eastern Congo

I wanted to turn to Nicholas Enrich, a former civil servant who worked at USAID, the Agency for International Development, through four administrations, serving as, director of policy, programs, and planning in the Bureau of Global Health until January of last year.

On March 2nd, 2025, he was placed on administrative leave for exposing the Trump administration's illegitimate and dangerous dismantling of the agency. He's written a book called Into the Wood Chipper: Whistleblower's Account of How the Trump Administration Shredded USAID. This is Nicholas Enrich speaking to Democracy Now in April.

There was an outbreak of Ebola happening in Uganda at the time that USAID was being dismantled, and while I knew we couldn't start a rebu- robust, outbreak response that we usually have because of everything that was being dismantled, there were a few key activities that I really felt that we needed to do, and they would not even let us screen passengers at airports that were traveling on international flights onwards to the United States to make sure that they had Ebola, th- sorry, that they did not have symptoms of Ebola.

So that was a real risk to US national security, and it was just laughed off and ignored, by the political appointees and DOGE.

So Dr. Craig Spencer, if you can talk about this, do you think these cuts have exacerbated this crisis, and about the significance of it being in cities and conflict areas?

Absolutely. Look, Nicholas is fully correct. If you recall, it was just over a year ago that Elon Musk gleefully declared that they were throwing USAID into the wood chipper, and you may recall that Elon Musk also sheepishly said at his first cabinet meeting that he mistakenly, canceled Ebola prevention, but turned it back on.

For many folks, the story ended there, but what actually happened was there was an Ebola outbreak, and DOGE and Elon Musk cut all the support that we normally would have been giving to respond to that Ebola outbreak. The result was that exactly USAID, who in the past would have been supporting things like airport screening in Uganda, was not providing that logistical or financial support.

USAID and other partners would have been providing support to make sure testing was adequate, to make sure a vaccine rollout could have taken place. But we didn't have USAID on the ground. Similarly, CDC has long had relationships in this part of the continent, in Congo and in Uganda, and a lot of those relationships have broken down and withered over the past year because we just haven't been paying.

Similarly, the US has pulled out of the World Health Organization over the last year, which means that in normal circumstances, our CDC folks are not able to even talk to World Health Organization people, something that is absolutely Unbelievable and an incredible, mistake for something that we should be able to do and be prepared for at all points.

And the result is what we've seen over the past couple weeks with hantavirus, we've seen with the dramatic increase in number of measles cases in the US, and now Ebola in DR Congo and across the border in Kampala. This is not all just a coincidence. This is a consequence of us cutting back our support, not only here at home, but also abroad.

If you could talk about your piece in Stat, The Hantavirus is a Wake-Up Call. Will the Trump Administration Answer It?

Yeah, so a year ago I wrote a piece for The Atlantic, saying that we were gonna regret this. We were gonna regret the cuts to CDC, we were gonna regret the abdication of leadership on the global stage, pulling out of the WHO, and dismantling USAID. And I think that right now we're seeing the end result of all of that, and we're starting to see the worst case scenario.

in normal times, we would have had people on the ground, organizations on the ground that the US helps support. There are a lot of NGOs that have worked in Eastern Congo for a long time that do things like provide infection prevention and control training, that make sure clinics have personal protective equipment.

We're seeing what happens when those things unfortunately aren't in place. Similarly, we saw over the past couple weeks with the hantavirus response, the US was not at the forefront. It was not helping lead response, but was f- found itself pretty flat-footed. I was saying that, normally we would be two steps ahead, but we found ourselves two weeks behind.

Similar here with the Ebola outbreak, the CDC reported yesterday on a press call that it learned about the outbreak the same time the rest of the world did, which is horrible given the fact that we used to have very close, collaborative, and trusted relationships in the DR Congo and in Uganda. But again, over the past year, a lot of that work, a lot of that trust, and a lot of that collaboration has broken down.

Siddiqui Kamara's mornings are often filled with fist bumps and high fives.

So what's the plan for today?

He's the president of Bright Center, a day program for special needs adults in Manassas, Virginia.

So this is our main sanctuary. This is where, we do a lot of our activities.

Five days a week, the center provides education and a host of activities for participants, like exercise class, arts and crafts, and meditation.

In 2014, Kamara started the center with his wife, Naomi, who was born with sickle cell anemia. At the time, she told him she'd always dreamed of creating a center like this.

So when she came to me with that idea, at first I was like, "Why do you wanna do that?" but then, when, after her explaining that to me, it's her passion.

She wants to help. She wants to give back to the community. She wants to make a difference.

Kamara says by 2021 he was working three jobs to help that vision become a reality, and Bright Center moved to a larger building so they could help more special needs adults. But then his wife's condition took a turn for the worse.

June 3rd was like the worst day of my life, the worst phone call of my life. I, even to this day, I can picture it.

His wife's doctor had called to tell him that she had died unexpectedly while in the hospital, leaving Kamara with two young children.

I wasn't even able to function for at least a month and a half, 'cause I didn't even know what to do because it's she was everything , And I'm I can't do it without her. You got 10 plus eight minus five. What is that?

But today, more than four years later- Oh, I was giving you- ... Kamara says he is still committed to keeping his late wife's dream alive for people like Imani Bush, who has an intellectual disability.

What kinds of things do you do when you're here?

What kinds of things? Well, I like to color I like to do meditation. I like to sleep during meditation. I like to watch movies and I like to just hang out with all my friends.

In 2020, Bright Center was serving nearly 30 special needs adults. But once the pandemic hit and forced Kamara to close for about four months-

Good job, Francisco

he says it's been a steady decline in enrollment. Today, just 14 individuals regularly attend. All of them pay with Virginia Medicaid waivers, which allow for care outside of institutions. And while the bulk of the cuts to Medicaid aren't expected to kick in until next year, states which administer the federal funds are bracing to lose more than $900 billion over the next decade.

This is the single biggest rollback in federal support for healthcare that we've ever seen, and people with disabilities are much more likely to rely on programs like Medicaid than people without disabilities. Even though the bill did not directly cut their services, it's highly unlikely that there won't be some effects.

Alice Burns studies Medicaid and the uninsured for KFF, an independent health research group. She says Virginia is expected to lose nearly 20% of its federal Medicaid funding by 2034, and that day programs like Bright Center could be especially vulnerable. With this

level of a funding cut, states are gonna have to make some tough choices about how to deal with the loss of federal funds, and we know that home and community care for people with disabilities is a significant source of Medicaid funding, and almost all the services are optional for states to cover.

There's no cuts to Medicaid. There are simply restrictions of the growth of Medicaid over the next decade. The

Trump administration has repeatedly said there would be no cuts to Medicaid, and that it's committed to rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse in the program. The Department of Health and Human Services also provided the News Hour with this statement, which reads in part, "The One Big Beautiful Bill removes," quote, "illegal immigrants from eligibility, implements work requirements for able-bodied adults, and safeguards Medicaid for the vulnerable populations it was created to serve: pregnant women, children, low-income seniors, people with disabilities, and struggling families."

But Lori Sill is worried about what those changes will mean for her 28-year-old son, Nicholas.

Quite frankly, Nicholas, he's a wonderful kid. He really is. But he needs some support in just about everything he does.

As a young boy, Nicholas was diagnosed with cerebral palsy, and then autism. He's been coming to Bright Center since 2019.

He's

here with people his own age.

He's here with people that he is involved with. He's got staff that cares for him, and he loves the staff here. So it's, it's a place that I know that he's comfortable coming to, and that I'm comfortable bringing him to every day. So, it means a lot to me. Can you scoot over a

little bit more?

Sill says Bright Center is the only nearby day program that accepts the Virginia Medicaid waiver she relies on to pay for these services. And without the center, she'd be forced, she says, to shoulder even more of her son's round-the-clock care. He is never left alone. He,

likes to go into the kitchen and he'll press buttons.

He'll go to the stove. I don't, in general, have babysitters. I don't have any family in the area, so I really don't have any other care for him but me right now. It's

a common story for parents at Bright Center, says Siddiqui Kamara.

once they graduated from high school, it's like the state just washes their hands.

it's like you're on your own now. So that's where we come in.

Virginia's Medicaid program currently reimburses Bright Center $69 per student per day. But Kamara says that's barely enough to keep going. And while he's already relying on donations and his own savings to stay open, it's what could come next that worries him most.

We're at a moment now where the federal government is- Yes ... making some changes. Right. How is that affecting what your outlook is?

It will affect a lot of the families, and it would affect us as a facility because then we may end up losing the small student that we have now.

For parents like Lori Sill,, she's already feeling the impact of budget cuts.

She says last fall, the state reduced the number of hours she'll be reimbursed as her son's primary caregiver going forward. I'm sure there is

some waste, fraud, and abuse. I'm sure there is throughout the system, but every case is not waste, fraud, and abuse. Some individuals really need the care and, quite frankly, that's my son that, that really does need the care.

RFK Jr. is a eugenicist and is the most dangerous member of Donald Trump's cabinet, and every time he steps before Congress to provide his testimony, he proves it. Just like he did again yesterday when he said this It

has nothing to do with me. It has to do that we have a global epidemic. And if you're asking why people stopped vaccinating, it's because the government lied to them during COVID.

That's when the vaccinations rates dropped, because of me. And if you're worried about polio and tuberculosis, you should look at the immigration policies of this country, 'cause the place where it's occurring are the place where the immigrants are going, 'cause they're not vaccinated, and they got tuberculosis.

the, a

lot of... We'll get to the full moment there in a moment, but first, when RFK is asked about the rising measles cases and his role in ensuring measles outbreaks continue by leaning into vaccine conspiracy theories about the government lying to you or, vaccines being dangerous, and then he makes a turn and starts blaming immigration for disease, you need to see that for what it is: eugenics.

And when he starts telling us about the administration's plans to lower healthcare prices by cleaning up the risk pool and kicking people off Medicaid, AKA lower income people with greater health problems, that is also eugenics

And then cleaning up the risk pool, cleaning up people who don't belong on Medicaid, or Medicare, or in the exchanges.

w- when you do that, you improve the risk pool, so that's gonna lower prices. And all of those things, and many others, are being done by this administration.

You hear that, everybody? The Trump administration is going to save money on healthcare by kicking people who are too costly to care for off of their insurance, making healthcare inaccessible.

Why would he care, though, when he believes the strongest will survive, the survival of the fittest, when he believes whether someone lives or dies in the face of a measles infection is due to their diet and exercise routine? Literally. RFK says, "Don't blame me for disease and low vaccination rates, even though I'm opposed to vaccine mandates and constantly fear-monger about vaccines.

Look at the immigrants and the immigration policies of this country." You know what? I think RFK would've liked this quote that I found about Jewish people from 1930. "For hundreds of years, Germany was good enough to receive these elements, although they possessed nothing except infectious political and physical disease."

And we all know who said that, right? Oh, but you can't say his name because- When you say Hitler, people tell you you're being hyperbolic, too far-reaching. or do they even still say that anymore? After telling people that it was wrong to use the word fascism, those types, do they still say that?

Do they still warn about making comparisons or observations that are objectively true because they're uncomfortable? As we see, headline after headline and news alert after news alert about measles cases, the only solution here is vaccination, increasing vaccination rates. And yet, we have a Secretary of Health and Human Services who wants to see more kids die by leaning into and promoting from the most prominent microphone that the government lied to you about vaccines.

sometimes I just sit here and think about where we are, and I'm stunned into silence. But we have to keep pushing because while he is screaming conspiracy, he is now part of the same government that is suppressing scientific information, like a new study, which the CDC is apparently not going to publish because it showed that the COVID vaccine reduced hospitalizations and visits to the emergency rooms among healthy adults by about half.

And we can't have the people read this study now that we have a government run by conspiracy theorists who believe your health is unimportant. So let's revisit that initial clip here with RFK reacting to a question from Representative Debbie Dingell, where RFK wants to focus on measles, but then pivots because that quickly gets uncomfortable, and delivers a word salad of conspiracy instead.

And then I want to tell you about a child named Renee.

What was the question?

Do you believe that the US should remain a global leader in health research? Yes or no.

Can I answer some of the misstatements you made about measles?

You, uh,

I did ... my time is short. Just to clarify. But it's a

documented fact, the US said it was eliminated in 2000.

Well,

we eliminated it, Europe eliminated it, Canada... And now guess what? Canada has been, lost its elimination status. England has lost its elimination status. All across Europe, they've lost their elimination status. It has nothing to do with me. It has to do that we have a global epidemic. And if you're asking why people stopped vaccinating, it's because the government lied to them during COVID.

That's when the vaccinations rates dropped, not because of me. And if you're worried about polio and tuberculosis, you should look at the immigration policies of this country, 'cause the place where it's occurring are the place where the immigrants are going, 'cause they're not vaccinated. And they got to tuberculosis A lot

of people have stopped getting vaccines, and I can't go...

I, I can't agree with you on that, but

It is true that the measles was considered eliminated in the United States in the year 2000, and that we are now preparing to lose our elimination status, and we are losing that elimination status because people are not getting vaccinated, because people like RFK Jr.

continue to promote dangerous vaccine conspiracy theories that threaten all of our lives. We need to maintain a vaccination rate of 95% to ensure containment, to prevent spread, to maintain herd immunity. And according to KFF, we're now in a situation where only 10 states have vaccination levels at or above 95%.

That is as of 2024 to 2025. And as we all know, because we live here, every day we get the news alerts about new cases in our area, or we see headlines about the exploding crisis, and part of this is just how contagious measles is. It can stay in the air for two hours after an infected person leaves the room.

It's horrifying, particularly in an era when people's number one hobby is coughing directly into the air at airports, but also when RFK is the Secretary of Health and Human Services. But I wanna talk about Renee. I read about Renee in The New York Times, and I sobbed, literally sobbed reading this story.

What I say about this story will not do it justice, so y- you must read it yourself, and I will put a gift link in the description so that you can read it and share it. But to summarize briefly, Renee was five months old when she was too young to be vaccinated for measles, and she ended up sick with measles.

Her mom doesn't know where she got measles, but there was an outbreak in England where they lived at the time. And as we've already discussed, it's highly contagious. It can live in the air for up to two hours after an infected person leaves the room. So Renee survived then, and the family was hopeful that would be the end of it.

But later in her childhood, she started exhibiting signs that something was wrong. And just nine days before her 11th birthday, she died of a rare complication as a result of that measles infection when she was five months old, before she could be vaccinated, when she was relying on other people to be vaccinated to protect her.

Her mother, Rebecca Archer, told Renee's story so beautifully that, again, you must read it. But I wanna quote a few passages from it here, because Rebecca wants to use Renee's memory to protect children from this fate, and I think it's really important that we help her do this In the United States, where schoolchildren are required to be vaccinated against measles, the national vaccination rate is 92%.

Many states also allow for exemptions to vaccine requirements, and as a result, US vaccination rates are uneven. Last year, the United States saw its highest rate of measles cases in more than three decades, and the country may soon lose its measles elimination status as well. Despite this, Health Secretary Robert F.

Kennedy Jr. said he doesn't think the government should be mandating vaccines, and that they should be a matter of personal choice. Parents must realize that refusing vaccinations doesn't just put your own child at risk, it puts other children at risk. I don't know where Renee picked up measles. It's one of the most contagious viruses that exists, and it could've been from anywhere.

That's why herd immunity is so important. If there hadn't been an outbreak when Renee was a baby, I don't think she would have contracted it. She was eligible for the vaccine just seven months later, and I gave it to her, but it was too late. For a long time after Renee died, I couldn't really believe she wasn't coming back.

It's only been in these past several months that it's really started to sink in. I have days that I don't want to see anyone, but I try to stay strong for everyone else, including my children, who are now eight, five, and two. The youngest, who was born less than two weeks before Renee's death, has glasses just like her older sister, and many of her mannerisms.

It's hard to tell Renee's story, but I can hear her saying, "Go on, Mom." It's the only thing I can do.

We've just heard clips starting with

The Rachel Maddow Show detailing how Trump's health agencies are in freefall, with no CDC director, an FDA chief reportedly already fired, and a Surgeon General nominee who is a Fox News personality selling Instagram tinctures.

All In with Chris Hayes spoke with a former CDC official who called HHS's cancellation of a COVID vaccine effectiveness study outright suppression driven by a vendetta against mRNA vaccines.

Scientific American traced RFK Jr.'s anti-vaccine stance to his rejection of germ theory, explaining how his "terrain theory" beliefs lead logically toward eugenics by blaming illness on individual weakness.

Today, Explained walked through the growing tension between the MAHA Moms and the Trump administration over glyphosate, showing they're upset enough to push back, but too invested in RFK Jr. to walk away

Democracy Now! featured Dr. Craig Spencer connecting the World Health Organization’s rapid emergency declaration over the Congo Ebola outbreak to a year of USAID cuts, CDC relationship breakdowns, and U.S. withdrawal from the WHO.

The PBS NewsHour profiled Bright Center, a Virginia Medicaid-funded day program for adults with disabilities, showing how proposed Medicaid cuts of $900 billion could force facilities like it to close.

And Brittany Page broke down RFK Jr.'s congressional testimony as a eugenics roadmap, from blaming unvaccinated immigrants for polio and tuberculosis to cutting "costly" people from Medicaid to lower healthcare prices.

And those were just the top takes, there's lots more in the deeper dives sections,

But first, speaking of unintended consequences of immoral policies, I’m just repeating the sad news about our new show, SOLVED! that we had to put on indefinite hiatus due to sudden economic instability and ad dollars drying up. Right now, I am getting back to basics and focusing on building Best of the Left to be the best it can be with the greatest reach it can. So, that’s where my focus is going to be and I’ll be keeping you posted on our progress as it develops.

To our members supporting the show, you really are more and more of what’s getting us through right now so thanks to everyone who is a member or has made one-time donations. If you support us right now, our top priority is stabilizing the finances of the show to ensure that everyone is getting paid for the work they’re doing. Secondly, we have to invest in some growth strategies because our podcast doesn't benefit from the same algorithmic recommendation engine features that most other shows do. That's just part of the nature of our format so we need to get creative and also be willing to spend some cold hard cash to introduce ourselves to potential new listeners.

So, if you haven’t signed up yet but are thinking about it, each episode of Best of the Left takes about 25 hours of human labor so it’s not particularly cheap to produce and essentially every dollar we can spare right now beyond basic costs will be going toward finding new listeners which would be good for us and for them, not to mention the world in general.

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or you can simply email me to [email protected]

As for today's topic,

Two children have died of measles in Texas this year. They were the first US measles deaths in nearly a decade. I’m sure you've already heard about them because those deaths are the most direct cost we have already paid for the way this administration is approaching public health.

There are basically two principles that produce good public health outcomes, and the current administration is moving in the opposite direction on both.

The first principle is that public health works when it follows the science. Vaccinations work because we ran the studies and proved they work. Disease surveillance works because we built the infrastructure to track outbreaks before they become epidemics. Recommendations work because we trust independent committees of experts to weigh the evidence and tell us what they found. None of that is ideological. It's how the modern world stopped having polio epidemics and smallpox outbreaks. It works because it's based on evidence.

What the current administration is doing is dismantling the institutional capacity to do science. RFK Jr. gutted the CDC's vaccine advisory committee in June 2025 and replaced them, at least in part, with vaccine deniers. The new committee has pulled six vaccines off the standard childhood recommendation list. HHS's own announcement from March 2025 said the entire department is having roughly a quarter of the workforce cut. The October 2025 layoffs at the CDC wiped out the entire director's office of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases and cut the team that publishes the CDC's flagship epidemiology journal. Bloomberg reported in November 2025 that all in, about a third of the CDC's civil service workforce is now gone.

This is the deliberate destruction of the country's capacity to know what's happening and respond to it. It's the same as when NOAA got hit with cuts deep enough that former National Weather Service directors warned in an open letter of, quote, 'needless loss of life' going into hurricane season. The administration is systematically taking apart the instruments that tell us when something is coming on every front.

The second principle is that public health works best when systems are integrated and universal. When everyone is in the same system, when prevention and primary care and specialty care and long-term care all talk to each other, when nobody falls through the cracks because they lost a job or moved between insurance plans, you get better health outcomes for less money. This isn't theoretical, US life expectancy in 2024 was about 79 years, 4 years shorter than the average across peer countries like Germany, France, the UK, Sweden, and Norway where people are expected to live to about 83 years. They live several years longer than we do and we spend about twice as much as they do; nearly $15,000 per person for us vs. around 7 1/2 thousand for the Europeans. In short, the countries with integrated universal systems are getting better health outcomes for half the money.

What's happening here is the opposite of integration. We had a fragmented healthcare system to begin with. Now the administration is fracturing it further, into one track that follows the science and another, the MAHA track, that doesn't. Two parallel realities about whether vaccines work, whether outbreaks need a coordinated response, whether children should be protected from preventable diseases. Diseases don't actually care which track you're on. So the MAHA track is going to produce more sick people and more outbreaks, and the rest of us will absorb the consequences too.

But that’s the macro picture. Public health failure doesn’t hit everyone equally, it hits hardest where protection is thinnest. That's rural America, which has shorter life expectancies, fewer hospitals, and more dependence on federal programs like Medicaid. It's also Black, Latino, and Indigenous communities with long-standing disparities in care, immigrant communities that often avoid the system because of legal fear, and the working poor in general.

When it comes to any kind of policy or infrastructure, demolition is fast and building is slow, and that is the basic structural problem of American politics right now: the right is organized to tear stuff down, the left and center-left are trying to build, and the asymmetry favors the side that's organized for destruction.

So the response to this destruction of our health system has to be two things at once. In the short term, the defense is happening at the state level. Massachusetts and the West Coast states have already formed vaccine accords to issue their own guidance separate from the CDC. State public health departments are picking up federal work. Local health workers, doctors, pharmacists, and school nurses are absorbing the strain. That work needs funding and political support, including against state legislatures that want to gut their own vaccine requirements.

In the medium term, the political window will eventually shift. And when it does, we cannot afford to slowly rebuild what we had, because what we had was already underperforming Germany and France and the Nordic states. The rebuilding target should be what those countries built decades ago: integrated, universal, cradle-to-grave health systems. We need an organized political demand, drafted and ready to go now, for a massive science-based rebuilding project with the urgency and ambition to match the need. So push your representatives now to protect what's still standing, and start asking every Democratic politician and progressive organization if they support the universal health care it is so painfully obvious that we need.

Two kids in Texas should have made it to adulthood. They didn't, because their parents trusted a movement that told them measles wasn't serious, a movement now running the federal health apparatus. What we do in the next few years will determine how much damage will be done, how quickly we can rebuild when we get the chance, and how many more people end up dying needlessly as a result of this administration and the anti-science movement they’re beholden to.

Note that we've begun putting my commentaries on YouTube so if you find them insightful, check out our channel and share them! Link in the show notes.

And now, we'll continue to dive deeper on 4 topics today. First up; Section A, The Damage Done

Followed by Section B, Ideology and the Misinformation Machine

Section C, Inside the MAHA Coalition

And Section D, How a Country Becomes

Dr. Havers, if you can start off, by talking about hepatitis. Talk about what's at stake and what exactly RFK Jr. has done.

Sure. so for the last 30 years, the US has recommended that every newborn be vaccinated against hepatitis at birth, and this is because you can, infants can acquire hepatitis if their mother is infected with hepatitis B at birth or by caregivers in, during their infancy or childhood.

If you're infected with hepatitis B, a- as a child or an infant, you have a 90 per- more than a 90% chance of developing a lifelong incurable infection that can lead to liver failure, cirrhosis or liver cancer, and potentially death. And i- since the early '90s, every infant has been recommended to receive this at birth.

And this is targeted at mothers who are, f- infants that were born to mothers who are infected. But in the United States, when they only recommended that infants who were born to mothers who were known to have infection, were vaccinated, we, there were many infants that were missed. Also, infants can be infected by caregivers later on.

So what they voted last week was to remove that recommendation, a recommendation that's been responsible for essentially eliminating hepatitis B in children in the United States. And this was the first major policy change that this advisory committee on immunization practices has the first major change is likely to have major public health implications for US children since RFK Jr.

fired the entire committee in June and replaced it with a number of people who have anti-vaccine, stances.

And Dr. Havers, these are all the CDC's... doesn't mandate vaccination. It only rec- uh, has recommendations. Can you talk about the misinformation that's often spread by vaccine skeptics who claim there's a federal vacci- a federal vaccine mandate for children?

Yeah, so these are all just recommendations, and it's supposed to be an evidence-based, science-based recommendation. And historically, there was a, a very sort of rigid, strict framework where it was... the evidence was very carefully reviewed, risks and benefits were weighed, and then a recommendation was made.

But for all of these vaccines, parents will have conversations with their provider. They can talk about the risks and the benefits, and informed consent is given. This is not... There's no sense in which any of the recommendations coming from this advisory body or from the CDC are mandates. and so this change is just basically casting doubt on what was a, on a, on the universal hepatitis B vaccine recommendation, casting doubts on its safety, on how well it works and how important it is.

And I think that what we're gonna see is parents are gonna be confused. we're gonna see probably fewer babies being vaccinated at birth, and we're gonna see potentially tragic outcomes, which we may not know about for, a decade or two because often babies are, who have hepatitis B are asymptomatic for years until they show up with advanced liver failure when they're, teenagers or in their 20s or later in life.

So I think that this has potential for real tragic implications. But again, this administration keeps talking about vaccine mandates and informed consent, but parents always have a choice about whether or not to vaccinate their child. And we know that parents wanna do the right thing, but this administration is causing a lot of confusion, and is using basically the CDC to spread misinformation now about vaccines.

could you talk also about the, the measles outbreak? the CDC is acknowledging, as many as 1,800 cases of measles across the United States just this year, a, uh, an illness that's supposed to have been eliminated.

Yeah, no, measles has been raging in the United States for the last 12 months.

We have multiple outbreaks going on in, in several states. And the... we've had more cases this year than, in, in a very long time. If... Measles was officially eliminated in the United States in the early 2000s, but if this vacc- if this, these outbreaks are not under control by the end of January, the United States will officially lose its measles elimination status per the WHO.

And this is a huge embarrassment. It's, it's an embarrassment for this administration that they're unable to control, A disease that we've had an effective vaccine for, for decades that was essentially eliminated. But this is a direct result of the decades of misinformation that RFK Jr.

and the anti-vaccine movement have been spreading about the safety and efficacy of vaccines. In addition, I think CDC and other public health agencies, have been hamstrung by this administration. I think the resources haven't been mobilized to address the measles outbreaks, coming out with very strong messaging about vaccine, vaccines being the most effective way of preventing measles from spreading, and the importance of vaccines.

I think, basically this administration has failed to respond appropriately to this measles outbreak, a- all of these measles outbreaks, and have failed to get them under control.

And can you respond to this latest news today that the FDA is weighing a black box warning on COVID vaccines, which is reserved for, vaccines that...

or any drug that causes death? What exactly does this mean? you have studies showing that the COVID vaccine saved, what, something like 20 million deaths around the world. Has this alarmed you today?

it's very alarming. I think this administration, particularly RFK Jr., has come out very hard against, COVID vaccines since the st- since they were first rolled out during the pandemic.

They have saved millions of lives, but this administration is solely focused on possible safety concerns. They, I think they, they also have said that they have linked COVID vaccines to pediatric deaths and we do know that in serious adverse events can occur with vaccines. it, one in a million vaccines.

I don't know what the actual rates are, but, serious adverse events can occur with vaccines. But this administration has not shown any data about how they have l- what information they use to show that, COVID-19 vaccines have been linked to any deaths. They haven't been transparent about it.

They haven't given any information about how they came to the conclusion that COVID vaccines do cause deaths. And with, with this lack of transparency and only focusing on the risks of vaccines and not talking about the fact that, tens of millions of children received these vaccines safely, millions of deaths were prevented- Hun- you know, as well as, millions of hospitalizations and serious adverse events were prevented.

There was a report that did just come out from CDC yesterday showing that vaccines, the COVID-19 vaccines were 76% effective in preventing, urgent care and emergency department visits in young children, and that was a great report to see. but it sh- you know, that was data showing that these vaccines are effective in preventing severe illness which still occurs from COVID.

Dr- I'm very concerned that this is coming out right as we're going into respiratory virus season because I think, tens of thousands of Americans die from diseases like COVID and influenza every year. And undermining, further undermining confence- confidence in these vaccines, I think could lead to an increase in vaccine-preventable deaths this year.

Dr. Fiona Havers, talk about your decision in June to quit, to leave the CDC, and then the continuous reports we're hearing about the chaos within, the overall agency under RFK Jr.

Yeah. So I was, I had worked at CDC for 13 years, always on vaccine-preventable diseases. I had been scheduled to prevent, to present COVID hospitalization data to this, advisory committee, but when he fired the advisory committee, I knew that he was basically doing a hostile takeover of the CDC vaccine policy process by firing this committee that makes a, the vaccine policy recommendations for the United States.

And I basically couldn't as a physician, as a scientist, present to this committee and legitimize them because they are not a legitimate committee. They are not using evidence, and they're not using science. And I think that essentially RFK Jr. is using his position as HHS secretary to now is, using CDC as a megaphone to promote his anti-vaccine views.

and I didn't feel like I could be part of that. And I think, CDC, I, I, my colleagues that are still there doing the work that they can, and getting good information out when they can and pushing back when they can, I think I admire them. but I think that the agency has essentially, the leadership has been essentially removed or pushed out.

Thousands of r- of experts have either quit or been fired. and RFK Jr. has basically taken over CDC and is using it to advance anti-science views, and public health across America has been weakened in all respects, not just when we're talking about infectious diseases or vaccine-preventable diseases.

talk about the whole issue of the fruit flavored vaping, his concern about kids getting addicted, and who was putting pressure on him to approve this?

Well, the, the reporting has suggested that there was pressure from the White House, and perhaps elsewhere within, the Department of Health and Human Services for the approval of these vapes.

And, Dr. Makary's stance, seems to be well reasoned. whether this was in fact the straw that broke the camel's back or not, it's hard to say, because there were many other issues where he seemed to have been able to offend people on all sides of the political spectrum. On the one hand, wanted more evidence about vaccines and their safety and effectiveness.

On the other hand, wanted to green light drugs with less evidence about their safety and effectiveness. He was just all over the place.

And Dr. Kesselheim, the whole controversy created under the Trump administration over mifepristone, the abortion pill. abortion medication is now the major way, people are able to have abortions in this country.

and abortions are up since Roe v. Wade was overturned, but talk about his position.

Well, I think that, part of, uh, I think that part of the problem as Dr. Steinbrook pointed out, was this controversy about the, about mifepristone, which is a, a drug that has been around for many decades, and has been used, very safely.

there were some, preexisting, restrictions on it from the FDA that had been, uh, lifted in concordance with the evidence, a few years ago. and the question was whether, what the circumstances were of those being, of those restrictions being lifted, and whether or not they would be reimposed.

And, I think this is a- another situation where, Dr. Makary, did not show a lot of firm leadership, from his position in putting science first, and making sure that the FDA, operated clearly and made clear statements about, the, appropriate use and safety of that drug, where he could have.

and, I think that is, one of the circumstances that led to this situation where because he did not lead by putting the science first and, by going through clear, transparent channels about what was going to happen, it, it ended up that, that nobody was happy with what he did.

So Dr., Steinbrook, you now have, the US now has no confirmed FDA commissioner, no confirmed CDC director, that's the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, no Senate approved surgeon general Can you talk about the significance of this and overall how you would characterize, Robert Kennedy's tenure?

Well, we shouldn't be in this, situation, 18 months into the- or just about 18 months into the, second Trump administration. if we start with the CDC, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has effectively been his own CDC director from the get-go. There have been people back and forth and various, acting, directors, but he's basically been calling the shots as best we can see from the outside, and that's led to, very bad public health consequences, in terms of, vaccines and recommendations for vaccines and the whole staff and effectiveness of the agency.

We've seen some of these issues come up with the recent, cruise ship, issue with hantavirus and the whole, CDC, office which was, looking into, cruise ships and safety and things of that sort having been, um, disbanded, earlier. the surgeon general- Well, no, go into that

for a minute.

I just would like to stop there since this is right now, such, an important story, what's happened with the cruise ship with hantavirus and the people who've been brought to places like Nebraska, who are in isolation. Explain the role of, the FDA, HHS, basically the, Robert Kennedy's running of, of the health sector and the government.

Well, without going into all the details of the hantavirus outbreak, it's an example of why we need a strong public health agency which collaborates internationally. the CDC would be tr- traditionally working with the World Health Organization to understand what was going on with the disease outbreak even though this was not primarily a US-based, outbreak, to offer advice on control of the, outbreak and to provide effective treatment for people who needed treatment.

And the massive staff cuts, the loss of expertise, the lack of people in charge who are standing up for public health from Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on down is imperative when things happen that we need to be prepared to respond, and that's why we need effective agencies which have science-based leadership.

that's really the, the issue here. it's the overall effect of organizations which were strong and robust, and when you pick them apart for particular theories and, the idiosyncrasies of the, uh, Health and Human Services Secretary, you destroy things which take years if not decades to, rebuild

This is former now FDA commissioner, Marty Makary, during an interview on CNBC in February discussing efforts to change, how most prescription drugs are available, making them over the counter for consumers

In my opinion, everything should be over the counter, not re- requiring a prescription, unless it's unsafe, unless you need laboratory tests to monitor how it's being, received by your body, or if it could be used for some nefarious purpose, or it's addictive.

If it doesn't meet those criteria, why shouldn't a drug be over the counter? So we should be asking, "Why not?" instead of, "Oh, you wanna move over the counter, you gotta go through our long, tedious process."

So that's Dr., Marty Makary, the former FDA commissioner. Dr. Aaron Kesselheim, your response to what he's proposing.

Well, a- as with some of the stuff that he did as commissioner, there is a grain of truth, in what he said. There, there are certain drugs that, we have, decades of experience with safe use of them, and for which making them over the counter would help, broaden their, availability to patients and, might help reduce their price, and, or, subject them to some competition that might help reduce their price.

So there is a grain of truth to that. But, I think that the way he says it, is, is very broadly stated, in a way that doesn't appear to be, you, designed to be, put in, in, in, in the context of what the evidence is. Certainly, if there is good evidence, around drugs, that they can be used safely with fair, with fair labeling that, that people can understand, it is reasonable to consider how those drugs should be made over the counter, and the FDA has a process for that.

and maybe that process needs to be reviewed and examined to ensure that it is operating efficiently and maximally effectively. but, I think to, say, in a public way that, basically all drugs by default should be over the counter, oh, by the way, except for all these exceptions, i- is a challenging way to put it because, it does give the impression, that the role of the FDA is not a significant one in ensuring that these drugs, are safely vetted and can be used appropriately.

So I don't know. I think that in general this is a good example of- Him having a, a germ of a good idea, that by the way, didn't go anywhere because he then moved on to some other, crusade that he was talking about. but that was ultimately done in by, his lack of attention to science-based, leadership and to the, established legal and regulatory processes that the FDA has.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Who leads the Department of Health and Human Services, has mostly been off the front pages.

But make no mistake, his department has done serious long-term damage to American health and safety, and things could get a lot worse. Just since he's been in office, Kennedy has overseen the country's largest measles outbreak since before we eliminated the virus in the year 2000. For all effective pur, purposes, it was gone from the United States.

Last year, three people, including two school-aged children, died from it. This year, measles cases are rising faster. The epicenter is now in Utah, where there have been nearly 600 confirmed cases of measles, surpassed only by South Carolina and Texas, where just last year, dozens of kids wound up in the hospital with both measles and signs of liver damage.

Liver damage because they took cod liver oil that RFK Jr. recommended as a cure for measles instead of a proven vaccine. There is no cure for measles. There is only the vaccine, which is 97% effective, but RFK Jr. doesn't like vaccines, and so that shows up in everything the HHS touches. Today, The Washington Post reports that the CDC is burying a public health report that was supposed to have been published two weeks ago, a report that showed the ongoing success of the COVID vaccine.

According to whistleblower scientists, the report says, quote, "The COVID-19 vaccine cut the likelihood of emergency department visits and hospitalizations for healthy adults last winter by about half." Apparently, the CDC director had concerns about the methodology which has been used to evaluate the flu vaccine for 20 years.

Abdul El-Sayed is a physician and an epidemiologist. He served as the director of the Detroit Health Department. He's now running to represent the state of, the, he's running to represent the state of Michigan in the United States Senate, and he joins me now. Great to see you. Always good to be here.

we're gonna talk about your run momentarily, but it's opportune that you're here because I think we have to keep coming back to this health question. There are people who think that there are damaging people in the cabinet, and it is costing American lives, on immigration, on this war in Iran, but it's quite possible that the greatest amount of damage is being done at the HHS because of this anti-vaccine nonsense.

Th- there's no doubt about it. if the war in Iran is like the acute illness of the Trump administration, RFK Jr. is the chronic disease. Yeah. And the consequences are gonna last Many lifetimes. It's really hard to reverse mis and disinformation when you put it out there. Yeah. When you start telling people that the things that they take, or more importantly, give to their kids- Yeah

to help them, actually do damage. Yeah. At some point, the consequences last for a very long time, and it's hard to put the genie back in the bottle. And it didn't just start when he became HHS secretary, it started years and years before when he decided to declare, I don't know, a jihad against vaccines- Yeah

for God knows what reason. And now-

Well, there's some speculations about the reasons, and one of them is that he, he launches lawsuits and, and makes some money out of it.

That part. and here's the thing, is this is the key point. Him and the grifters around him have made huge amounts of money- Right

lying to the American public. Because, of course, if they tell you that the thing that actually works doesn't work, they're trying to sell you the thing they tell you does work. Right. And guess what? At the end of the day when they've cut all the objective science out- Yeah ... they leave you going back to them anyway.

So let's

talk about cutting the objective science out. the CDC, and one can argue that it's got its flaws and needs to, and e- everything can be d- done better, it was the gold standard. the funding that goes to universities for the NIH, that is the gold standard, right? It is much better than setting up a big building and saying the government will research all these medications.

We have some of the best ways to identify and cure illnesses in the entire world, and they've been slowly dismantled.

Yeah. I want us to understand that we've taken for granted our leadership- Yes ... on science and healthcare for a very long time. That didn't just happen. It's because we invested in rigorous science.

We followed questions where the answers went, and then we invested in those solutions. And over time, when you start cutting that away, the long-term consequences become pretty great. think about this. There are people who are gonna die- Of diseases we might have been able- Yes ... to find the cure for, but for the fact that because of DOGE and- Yeah

RFK Jr., that we defunded the incredible scientific work.

And that might be a disease that I get diagnosed with in 20 or 25 years that w- it can go one of two ways. The doctor can say, "Hey, there's this great new medication. Take it and we cure you," or, "Sorry, you've got six months to live." Because, 'cause I don't know.

Somebody's working on something today, or may have had their funding cut today for something I don't know will result in a cure 20 years from now.

And that's the thing is, when DOGE happened, they started just cutting where they thought, "Oh, this doesn't make any sense." Right. Think about GLP-1 drugs.

Yes. these are pretty close to a miracle drug. Yes. And it happened because of obscure research on something that had nothing to do with- The saliva

of the Gila monster ... obesity. Exactly. And people would say, "Why would we be studying such

a thing?" Why do we care about the saliva of a Gila monster?

Well, it turns out- Yeah ... that when you characterize the world around you, people can connect dots, and it turns into things that can be miracles.

Right. And, and really a miracle, because it will reduce people's weight, it'll reduce people's risk of diabetes and heart dis- Diabetes, heart disease ... heart disease.

Cancer, all of it. Yeah. So, so let's go back to measles for a second. Declared eradicated in this sta- in this country in the year 2000. No cure for measles. If a little child, if, if 10 people are in a room and they're exposed to somebody who has measles, likely all of them will get measles.

If they're unvaccinated, yes.

Yes. And this is the thing about it, is that measles is like, it's like the genie that escapes from the bottle. You can't put it back in. You're talking about outbreaks now that are immensely difficult to trace. And the hard part about this, and I want folks to understand, is that not everybody can be vaccinated against measles.

You are not eligible for a vaccine until you're one year old. Right. Now, think about what happens if your baby- So you're a little baby, you get

on a plane- Yes ... you're not vaccinated, and somebody there, ha- has measles.

That... Exactly. That choice- Yeah ... is now putting all of our infants- Yeah ... at risk. It turns out that we live in a society with each other.

Yes. And the things that we do affect each other. So when somebody makes a choice not to be vaccinated because of mis- and disinformation from the HHS secretary, the consequences can ripple into a baby who gets sick and potentially dies as a function, not because their parents made a bad decision, but because that child does not have an immune system that can even undergo vaccination.

So as a public health official and an e- epidemiologist, talk to me about, th- you talk- you were talking about mis- and disinformation. Back before we had political misin- disinformation, the first mis- and disinformation on the internet was about health. Yeah. It was nonsense about rubbing potatoes on your child's feet to keep them from getting diseases.

That spreads faster than

anything. It does, because here's the hard part about vaccine. You're asking somebody who is healthy to willingly put something in their body, and that is an intervention that, that's not an easy thing to do. Right. It's not a natural thing to think about. It's not a natural thing to think about.

Yeah. And so anyone who tells you that thing might do you harm- Yeah ... especially considering the fact that right now you are taking a bet that you might not be exposed to the disease in the first place, makes it really easy to target. And here's the hard part about it. Pharma has something- To do with this.

Because at the end of the day, they make good medications. They just make them too expensive to be able to afford.

Mm-hmm.

But when you feel like they're trying to pick your pocket, it's not a far leap from that to, well, maybe the things they actually make are bad, right? That leap is one that unfortunately our healthcare system's so focused on the money that gets made, has created an opportunity for, because you've created a push factor for people.

Yeah. And I want us to understand what the impact of that looks like over time. And so you've got folks who are mis and disinformation mongers, folks like RFK Jr. who say, "Well, you can't trust anything pharmas- Yeah ... ph- big pharma does. And by the way, we've got the solution for you." Right. And so you've got grifters who are feeding off of the greed of the industry to create a perfect storm in which- Yeah

people are making decisions that are putting a lot of folks at risk.

Secretary Kennedy, do you know what rabies is? Rabies? Yeah. Do you know what it is? I know what it is. Okay. Yeah. So rabies, people contract rabies, as we know, through bites from infected animals like skunks, foxes, like raccoons. Yeah. And it can devastate a family. It can, yeah. When a pet is infected, it is very serious.

it's 100% fatal in humans- Yes ... if left untreated, and generally it's a horrific experience. Staff at the CDC Rabies Division in Atlanta, Georgia, have historically been able to field emergency calls 24/7 from providers about complex rabies cases using CDC expertise to determine appropriate care.

Secretary Kennedy, since you and President Trump took office, do you know how many people are left to staff this 24/7, line? I do not know, Senator. Okay. So the answer is one. So I, I want you to know that. That there's one person, left to staff a 24/7 line, to respond to rabies, a disease which left untreated is fatal.

You know how many rabies cases there are every year in the United States? So, so I'm asking the questions. The CDC's infectious disease work has been so decimated under your leadership that there's only one person left to staff the line and respond to families about this very deadly and terrifying infectious disease.

everybody's talking about, this hantavirus now, and apparently, uh, there's a mutation, the Andes variant, that can be transmitted person-to-person, whereas previously, the last big story on this was

when Gene Hackman's wife got hantavirus, and he was severely in dementia, and they died together as a result of this, a couple years ago. But, now there's concern that there might be more mutations. Does this virus mutate as quickly or as frequently as COVID or the flu? Do we, should we be concerned about this?

So i- it's slightly mutated from the previous vi- strain that they found in Argentina 'cause this is, the cruise ship passenger picked it up. He was a bird watcher, picked it up in, at a landfill. Landfills are where birds love to hang out because there's lots of rats for food. it's a little bit mutated, but we don't know exactly how much, what's the significance.

Because a little bit doesn't sound like big deal, but a little bit, depending on where it is, could change the shape of the virus that allows it to enter our receptors more efficiently. So we don't know about, enough about that. We only know that it's a little bit different, but it's still mostly the same.

the key thing is that I think I'm annoyed that some people are saying, "Oh, there's no human-to-human transmission." There is. Th- this is well established. The Andes strain of the hantavirus is definitely proven to be human-to-human. There was, like, studies in, birthday parties published in the New England Journal of Medicine that people who were, like, not even directly sitting together- They were at this birthday party, and they gave it to each other.

Hmm. So it's airborne, and those who are saying it's not airborne, no, we, we're pretty sure it's airborne because we've seen studies are... about this. And there's entire articles written, just came out today. They're criticizing the WHO's re- or initial reaction. So it's airborne, and there's human to human.

The other thing is some people say, "Well, if you don't have symptoms, you can't transmit it." No, that's not true because previously we... the hantavirus, this exact strain, has been proven that people were already testing positive even two or three, four days before they showed symptoms. Hmm. So we know that you can be positive and transmit even before you have symptoms.

So there's pre-symptomatic asymptomatic transmission here. Whoa. And, the, the good thing is that we have not seen any non-ship cases. and there are some suspected cases among close contacts, so like family members, someone who's close by to that initial case, but that's not a community transmission.

A community transmission is somewhere where you can't even trace it. It's like God knows where you got it. Someone gave it to someone, who gave it to someone, and you lose the chain, and it's in the community. There's no community transmission yet. All the confirmed cases are still ship passenger cases.

The couple s- suspected cases are not ship, but still close contacts of the initial people. Right. So but the bad thing is that the incubation time is, 42 days. it's, it's... it is so long. And because it is so long, it's over, it's basically, six weeks potentially. Hmm. w- the new cases, we won't be in the clear until 40 days- Yeah

from the last case. Yeah, in

a way that reminds me of the AIDS, vir- the thing back in the '80s, because there was such a long latency period that it was so hard to get a handle on it. Right. Not to mention, the Reagan administration refusing to even mention it. Of course

is this... I- Yesterday Bob Kennedy, I refuse to call him what everybody else calls him. I worked for his father, or, tried to campaign for his father, shall we say. but yesterday Bob Kennedy, basically shrugged this off, said, "Yeah, it's no big deal. We got it under control." and yet much of the public health infrastructure of the United States has been dismantled by this administration apparently- Yeah

to pay for tax cuts for billionaires. Oh, yeah. And we've pulled ourselves out of the World Trade... or the World Health Organization. does this, put us at risk? what happens if this virus or some other virus... And I also wanted to ask you what the current state of COVID and flu transmission is right now in the United States.

But, does this put us at risk?

It's a huge risk. You know, we've slashed 20,000 workers and scientists from HHS. Wow. 20,000. And in the CDC as an agency alone, we have decimated and eliminated 30% of all staff. And the epidemic intelligence ser- service has also been decimated as well. those are the disease detective corps they send out.

Mm. So we're in a world of hurt. And, we, we don't really have a good outbreak investigator. We don't have good pandemic response office, staff. uh, we... And limited by that, last year we eliminated the entire CDC staff that focused on cruise ship safety. that's a little bit too on the nose, right?

Yeah. Yeah, that's crazy. we have zero staff in the, CDC cruise ship, safety office. and, it's... So whenever the next one r- really, it gets hit, hits us, we're gonna be in a world of hurt. Now, luckily this virus is not as transmissible as... Some people say it's a R0 of two, which is much lower than COVID's, you know- Mm

four, three and a half, four. But still w- maybe we're just lucking in on that end, and that it's maybe a transmission slower than normal. At least so far. But still, it's still not good. Yeah. And for COVID, COVID influ- so COVID is still with us. Flu, of course, is perennial. By the way, I don't think we're...

This might be the first year that we do not have a COVID booster. Other countries will have COVID boosters, but will we in the United States? Do you think Bobby, Bobby, Junior is gonna, FDA and CDC approve, new COVID boosters? I don't think it's happening. Yeah. I'm 90% certain the United States will not have COVID boosters approved.

Yeah. Amazing. and- We, we- ... so I'm really worried ... we have about a minute and a half before we hit a hard break here. what's the status of bird flu? We were very concerned about that, and then the Trump administration came in, and I believe that they shut down all of the, monitoring that was going on.

What, did they?

Yeah, the bird flu is, was mostly in cows. Mm-hmm. And we just have to assume that it's still in the cows, but, but we haven't had, a significant outbreak beyond just... 'Cause egg prices have recovered, as you, as we've all noticed. But, it's one of those things where it's, we know it's there.

It's just boiling in the background. Yeah. And one bad mutation, and it'll take us all out. Yeah. And I, now I'm praying that bird... Bird flu is my nightmare. Yeah, mine too.

that's what took us out back in the, in the, 19-teens, right?

yeah. that pandemic was a, originally a bird flu.

So- Yeah ... I'm really hoping that, l- maybe this hantavirus is a good wake-up call- Because- Yeah ... Trump administration has to deal with it again, and maybe it's "Oh, maybe we shouldn't have di- dis- dismantled everything. Maybe we could put a few things back where it was before DOGE."

Let me tell you a story of two Dutch tourists, okay? Okay. I'm sure they- Great, great start. they got all their gear. They have, they, they packed light for their trip. They have those vests with lots of pockets in them, like on a fisherman's vest, but they don't fish. They're birdwatchers.

These Dutch tourists are birdwatchers. They went down to Argentina on a birdwatching expedition, as you do. Then they got on a cruise, and then they became sick, and it seems like maybe some of the bird poo-poo had something to do with it. Now, the rats would like a word, because this could also be the... it could be rats, because what they got, which was the hantavirus, generally and usually comes from rats.

But they got on this cruise liner, the MV Hondius, and, that MV Hondius, had, many cases. I don't exactly know how many. I feel like it was, like, a few dozen. three people have died, since, two definitely from hantavirus. The third was just... died from the idea of having to do another global pandemic.

was just like, "Ugh, I can't do it." all the passengers, guys, just in the last 24, are off the ship. So all those who were like, "Let's sink the ship, no more people"- Send us to Tel Aviv. No, no, no. They've... Yeah. Send it to Tel Aviv. they're all off, and they are back to their respective countries, Spain, Philippines, Australia, Canada, and this is fine.

Apparently, this is good. the Americans are now in Nebraska, and it's unclear how long they're going to be there. the US Department of Health and Human Services, again, run by... Is it Dr. Oz, I believe? Said that all 17 US citizens on Sunday's flight would undergo a clinical assessment at the medical facility in Nebraska.

A British national living in the US was also repatriated alongside them. Seven other US passengers had returned home and are being monitored in their home states. Before the American case was confirmed, however, the a- WHO, which by the way, we are not a party to anymore, the WHO head, Tedros Adham- Hanam...

I'm not gonna pronounce his last name. Ghebreyesus. Okay, did it. That was good. Yeah. Look that up. He warned, or they warned that the decision by the US not to follow the organization's guidelines over the hantavirus outbreak, quote, "May have risks." Ooh. The WHO has recommended 42 days of isolation for those leaving the MV Hondius, and it's unclear how many days of isolation these people in Nebraska are going to get.

They're gonna apparently assess them as they come. here's RFK Jr. on the outbreak.

We have this under control, and we're not worried about

it. Great. Great. We have this- Not great. Now, this is spoken by a man who- Eats roadkill

Probably starts- Yeah ... outbreaks of deadly disease. I thought you were gonna play the teen sperm count clip.

Young m- yeah, guys don't have enough sperm. That, that, that is, I was on Epstein's plane and we were talking about sperm. Dude,

so he's not worried about it, but again, he has had all of the, rat-borne, poo-borne illnesses- Mm ... possible. This- For dinner ... this, yes, for, that's just for dinner. he doesn't believe in germ theory, and just so we all remember, the person kinda overseeing this is Jay Bhattacharya, right?

And he's the head of the CDC. He authored, during COVID, what was called the Great Barrington Declaration, which effectively was, like, a whole paper on how we should just reopen and it doesn't matter, and a little bit of the, contagion theory, or I'm forgetting what it was, where it was like, "Get everyone sick.

It doesn't matter." Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. He's at the head of this, and it's unverified, but there are reports that the CDC gutted the, and fired all of their, p- specific cruise liner sanitation- Yeah ... workers. and the, Snopes was, like, trying to figure out whether that could be verified and it, it seems like it was, like, last year.

Unclear. and but anyway, so that's going on.

"Underbabied" Next, Section B, Ideology and the Misinformation Machine

Mr. Kennedy has said that he wants to fire all the members of the United States Preventive Services Task Force, and that group is responsible for providing recommendations for things like which cancer screenings we should get and when we should start getting them.

And their recommendations are what causes health insurance companies to be required to pay for those screenings. So if he disbands a committee like that, there is a likelihood that our health insurance companies will no longer cover things like cancer screenings. The very obvious danger that we are in, and that several senators brought up today in his hearing with the Senate Finance Committee, is that vaccines are being undermined daily by Mr.

Kennedy, and he protests this and claims that he's not an anti-vaxxer, yet he takes actions like replacing every member of the Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices, with people who are anti-vaccine or hold other very dangerous pseudoscientific opinions on this topic. And so it's going to be a very serious issue with regard to the vaccination coverage in this country, and it's truly almost impossible for me to believe that this is happening in the United States.

it feels

like a Dr. Seuss world we're living in- ... in which the White House statement said that, CDC head Susan Monarez was not aligned with the president's agenda of making America healthy again. This is weird. This is just weird.

Yes. And Dr. Monarez, just one month ago, was praised as a very knowledgeable ethical leader at CDC, which I agree with.

So her dismissal is, again, a fun house mirror. If you listen to Mr. Kennedy, he claimed today in the hearing that Dr. Monarez was asked if she was a trustworthy person, and she responded, "No." I find that absolutely impossible to believe. I do not believe that's what happened. I believe what she says, which is that she was fired because she would not agree with orders, so to speak, from Mr.

Kennedy to approve things that were coming out that she did not see the data for, that were going to be released by a group of people who themselves are not trustworthy.

Well, public health and public information, as you're indicating, are very much connected. The man, for example, who shot bullets at the CDC's windows that killed a police officer was, we were told, motivated by beliefs he got from somewhere about COVID vaccines.

So it matters very much what ideas we allow into the ether, and that's where media comes in. That's

right, and it's both, legacy or traditional media and social media. It is my opinion that misinformation, not just scientific, but all kinds, are the greatest existential threat to the United States right now, and we are seeing this play out, and I'll use social media as the first example.

Mm-hmm.

Social media companies make money through engagement, and therefore, they have no motivation whatsoever to stem the tide of misinformation on their platforms. We know, for example, that false information tends to spread on social media orders of magnitude faster than factual information does, and that's dangerous because it promotes controversy and engagement, which makes social media companies money.

Now, with the legacy media, my biggest concern is false equivalence. So for example- When stories are run about vaccines, they may have a doctor on who says, "Vaccines are good. They're safe and effective," but then they'll also interview somebody who says, "Oh, no, vaccines are no good."

Right.

And the problem with that is it creates a false image that those two viewpoints are equivalent, when in reality, if you wanted to show the equivalent of these two opinions, you would have 100,000 scientists or healthcare professionals who are talking about the benefit and safety of vaccines versus one person who says that they are dangerous or harmful in some way.

And so this false equivalence adds to this misinformation and distrust of science.

Well, and I appreciate that, and Defend Public Health's Bruce Mirken wrote a great piece back in June, which I saw on 48 Hills, about the sanewashing, as we call it, of RFK Jr., and it was great because it talked about the, precisely what you're saying.

reporters should note that he says things that are wackadoodle, but then also they do this thing where they say, "Well, he's a skeptic on vaccines," and that ticks a box for a lot of folks, as though RFK Jr. had principled concerns. he's a skeptic, and, and aren't we all skeptics?

I just wanna ask you about the role of journalism here. you've started to indicate it, but what could they do less or more of, do you think?

So I really do think it's critical to present factual information and call things what they are. Mr. Kennedy is not a skeptic. He is an anti-vaccination enthusiast.

He spreads propaganda. He actually actively spreads disinformation to the people of the United States of America. If he were skeptical, he would actually consider the- Just massive amount of scientific data to which he has access, which has shown time and time again that vaccines are safe and effective.

Right.

So the words that we choose are really important, and I just think, there are media outlets who are doing better and better at this. But I just wanna repeat that this is an existential crisis for the United States, and we have got to be clear about the danger that Mr. Kennedy poses. This isn't a minor scientific disagreement.

This is the complete undermining of the entire scientific infrastructure of the United States and our vaccine program.

Well, there are efforts finally, including your own. There are efforts to start with, not end with, getting RFK Jr. out of there, but there's much more that we need to do.

Absolutely.

And again, I- I'm certainly far from alone. People who believe that Mr. Kennedy needs to be removed from office or resign, there are tens of thousands, probably hundreds of thousands now who agree with this. And I guess one bright spot from the hearing today is that there are now three Republican senators who spoke on the record about their concerns about Mr.

Kennedy's actions. So I really hope that this keeps up. I hope that physicians and other healthcare practitioners, nurses, will come forward and really talk to their elected officials about their concerns because, again, this is not a trivial worry.

And let me just ask you finally, if there's reporters listening, is there anything that you would ask them to, stop doing or start doing in terms of journalism?

A- and not just RFK Jr., but public health in general. Are there questions you would like them to start asking or stop asking? What are your thoughts on media?

Well, I'm not a journalist, and I have a lot of respect for how difficult this job is. I would just say that to avoid any sort of desire to look for false equivalence or present a, quote-unquote, "the other side of the story" when there are situations where there is no other side of the story.

So to make sure that you're talking with experts in regard to the field that you have under discussion. And honestly, I would just really prefer to see people who are pseudoscientific quacks get a lot less ink and a lot less airtime because they do not reflect the beliefs and the understanding of science among the majority of scientists and healthcare practitioners in

this country.

you spoke about the groups of people who are the most vulnerable. Yeah. Who are these people that we should definitely say, hey, you need to get that measles, mumps, rubella vaccine way back when? Who are those people?

So generally speaking, it's young children and infants. I'm sure we all know because of our own experience that you receive a schedule of vaccinations at specific times in your growth and development.

And so young children who, are on their first round or haven't gotten everything that, an adult would be fully vaccinated against, they're vulnerable. Elderly populations, particularly those who, may have not have been vaccinated for certain things themselves. But certainly just because of, natural sort of physiological challenges that you, that develop as you age, they're certainly a vulnerable population.

Immunocompromised people with immune deficiency, cancer, or other conditions that leave them open, more vulnerable to infection. Because for whatever reason, all of those signals, all of the messaging in their bodies doesn't make it to headquarters. And if it doesn't make it, then, the other thing that, your immune headquarters is responsible for is deciding which assassins to send out, how we're going to mount a response to different threats, just like any spy organization would.

But when you become compromised, that's difficult to do. So they're certainly vulnerable. And I guess I would also say because of the policy shifts of this administration that has deliberately dismantled vital public health protections A lot of the people who are also impacted are poor people at this point, people who've had their Medicaid cut, people who, are gonna be impacted by, all of the inane and erroneous, measures that RFK, is putting in place that disrupts the way that we, regulate vaccine schedules in this country.

And so by doing that means, potentially schools are gonna, not be able to maintain the same level of protection for students or eventually, we have, when you change those, all those recommendations, that also means that changes what, health insurers are obligated to cover.

So all of this anti-vax propaganda is purposeful, it's deliberate, and it's meant to disenfranchise millions of people from access to vaccine protection. And what we need to ask ourselves in these dark times is why?

And that is out- absolutely the question I have. you mentioned the HHS Secretary, Robert F.

Kennedy Jr. I don't know if you saw the quote from Dr. Kirk Milhoan, who is the pediatric cardiologist and acting chair of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices. And he's quoted as saying, and I quote, "What we're gonna have is a real world experience of when unvaccinated people get measles.

What is the new incidence of hospitalization and what's the incidence of death?" And that was his rationale as to why we shouldn't necessarily have to blanket vaccinate everyone, that we need to see in real time what can measles do today as compared to 30 years ago. How does this concern you?

Well, first of all, it's a very, Nazi-coded way of looking at public health, because eugenics is tucked into that. the, the point of that thinking, the arc of that thinking is we don't need to protect everyone. Let's let natural selection take care of that, which I think is hugely rich and ironic considering they have restricted breeding in our species for the last half millennia.

But, that's part of that, ideology, there's always an inherent element of sort of population culling and starting with the undesirables. And honestly, it's not just in the public health sphere. If you look at the way that they've, disrupted regulatory agencies like the EPA and the USDA, the CDC, how we've withdrawn from WHO, all of these things have implications- That make us less safe as a populace, and that is what we look to our government to do.

But with this particular in, administration, firstly, they started, and are continuing to erode institutional trust between the propaganda, between the measures that they're taking. When you think about measles itself, this, the spread of measles that we're seeing in the US is solely attributable to RFK himself.

But what's crazy about it is that not only is his propaganda i- impacted policy, which has made more people susceptible to measles, but his misinformation propaganda has also made it so that there's been a 39% increase in vitamin A toxicity because he's been promoting it as an unscientific alternative to measles vaccination.

Mm-hmm. That's insane- Yes ... to me. I don't know what's happening right now. Right. But in, in terms of, like, all of those culminating effects, you have that impact on vulnerable populations. You have a resurgence of disease, and I'm sure measles isn't gonna be the only one. If you wanna get funny about it, COVID is resurging, but nobody seems to care anymore.

Yeah. Along with other diseases have been am- eradicated. We've seen the plague. We've seen polio. All of these things that people should not have to even think about anymore are coming back. And a lot of the background moves that he and DOGE made in terms of workforce collapse and tr- for the HHS in terms of research stagnation, particularly targeting mRNA vaccine development, which is critical for the bird flus we're getting ready to anticipate, for HIV, treatment developments, and just, even for cancer treatments.

We use RNA, virus technology for all kinds of things, and so they're just really latching onto this and using this as a mantle to, I don't know, ask yourself what the, what their end goal is because right now it just seems like a lot of people are getting sick and perishing.

Right. on a closing note, you brought up a key point of, like, why are we having so much vitamin A toxicity?

And I think it's because those persons, those anti-vaxxers, the RFK Juniors of the world, they have the loudest platform and so parents don't know what to trust. So if- Yeah, true ... you had a moment to speak to the parents that are listening to this show, what are the important vaccinations that you recommend the parents get for their children before they enter into elementary school, and if they haven't had it so far, to get it today?

I

am so glad you asked. Certainly the... Even though, he is doing all these things and there's all these new, Sort of recommendations that are being put forth. A lot of the, physician bodies like the AMA and others are still recommending that we go by everything previous to this administration- in terms of, vaccine schedules. So what we've all had to get into school, measles, mumps, rubella, now, chicken pox, diphtheria, tetanus, all of those things that are on the school list. And then, now that we're smacked up in the middle of flu season as it were, obviously there's always the annual flu vaccine, RSV, the updated COVID vaccine, which I would say people should definitely get because there are new variants circulating from before.

And then, just for, as a note for older Americans as well, the pneumococcal vaccine, shingles of course if you're 50 or older. And certainly getting that RSV is something that I think would be important for those populations as well.

That's in- incredible advice. And for those who need a little extra incentive on the shingles vaccine, it's actually been shown to be helpful for those with Alzheimer's disease in slowing down a process of them losing their memory.

So let that be- Oh. ... what drives you into, to get your vaccination.

Now, Section C, Inside the MAHA Coalition

Glyphosate is horrible. It's super toxic, as is atrazine, as is dicamba, as is, 2,4-D. there's so many toxic pesticides, fungicides, herbicides that are being used that need, we need to stop using, okay? But the problem is, in the last 30 years, we've built this entire industrial agricultural system that is dependent on glyphosate.

So if they banned glyphosate today, what would happen is the massive amounts of farmers would go out of business because they are dependent on glyphosate to grow crops. What Trump is doing, and there, there may be more to the story than this, but on the surface what he's doing i- and the reason that Kennedy defend is defending him, is because we're getting a bunch of glyphosate from China, and if China figures out

If we really got in a major trade war with China and they blocked exports of glyphosate to the US, then our, our farmers would be devastated, and we'd have a major food supply shock, and there would be no meat, dairy, and eggs. and also, grains and other things. So that's the main driver behind it.

It- no one's acknowledging that glyphosate's good. It's not. It's terrible But we can't just get rid of it. It has to be phased out. We don't have enough organic farms to feed the population

Even before RFK Jr. made his fairly delayed statement, which I know, Derek, you're gonna get into, MAHA, or even just, let's say the wellness space at large, seemed to split themselves into two.

There were those like Alex and Vonnie who led with passion- passionate disbelief, disappointment, and disagreement, and then there were those who appeared to give the administration some slack. Chris Wark of Chris Beat Cancer, who you just heard, was the first I saw to make this spin and post it. It quickly took off, well over a half a million views now, and was stitched in a lot of videos.

Chris isn't even really a part of the MAHA movement really. His alternative-ish cancer programs focus on plant-based food, so he doesn't really vibe with the steak and dairy first food pyramid, but he does vibe with the anti-vax moves.

He's also a geopolitical expert, as you just heard in that clip.

Yeah, he has over a half a million followers, so he can kinda be an expert in whatever he wants to be.

Courtney Swan, again, commented on the video, "There is a better way. We should be fighting for the better way and moving towards it, not defending the worse way and letting it continue on. Everyone needs to watch @kisstheground and @commongroundfilm. Farming that makes enough healthy food to feed us and heals the Earth/works with Mother Nature is possible."

So this kind of illustrates the split that we're seeing.

I would really love to see Courtney actually have to work with Mother Nature. take away your indoor climate control, take away your phone, take away your housing. Go out in the woods for a month. actually do it. that's what I would love to see these fucking influencers just actually be with Mother Nature and tell me about all the problems we have with society.

We should also note, though, that with Chris, that's a nearly seven-minute video that you shared with me and I clipped it from. He also digs into his vegetarian ideology, which got him some real heat in the comments as well.

Yeah, getting heat in the comments from inside the house seems to be the theme in MAHA-

this week and last. In a now what seems to be deleted or archived Instagram post, a Dr. Jessica Peatross, gave a similar response in a carousel post, so I couldn't clip it because it was text. She got so much heat in the comments, she had to come to her stories to address it. She reiterated that she doesn't even like glyphosate.

In fact, she doesn't even like Trump, but that if glyphosate was banned from the food supply, it would crumble. Store shelves would be empty, and farmers would start killing themselves. She then says that if there was a, wasn't a plan in the next month to transition away from glyphosate, she's gonna start to wonder if this was all for Big Agriculture.

But what does she recommend in the meantime? Well, grow your own food, and if you can't, make friends with a local farmer, organic farmer. Easy-peasy.

I wanna point out that the kill yourself thing possibly comes from India where there has been real problems with suicides with farmers specifically, and some of that has been tied back to Monsanto because of certain patents that they have.

So when we hear things like that, there actually is precedent that we should be fair about. But I'll get more into this, but the idea that the food supply would crumble, they pin it all on Roundup specifically. Roundup is the most used herbicide in America. As I said, I'm gonna get to this. But there are other ones, and they just...

Now they're just trying to play catch up by making it seem like they literally heard Kennedy say this talking point that the food supply would crumble, and they're just repeating without actually thinking through the nuances and challenges of organic farming and why you can't scale organic farming to the level of agriculture that we need in this country.

So there are some true things that are sprinkled into statements like this, but they miss so much context, it's actually unbelievable they even talk.

Totally. And this was even all before RFK Jr. made his... What I wonder if it was a planned statement or not, and they realized they kinda had to make that statement.

but this was all before that. And even, Troy Casey of the Certified Health Nut, he posted, he commented on Chris's video, "This is what RFK Jr. texted me." And so there must have been, like, some sort of understanding within it that's what the statement would have been. But, there were other MAHA influencers who took this approach.

I think I saw Mark Hyman, Will Cole. They posted something similar, whether it was before or after. but they ended up on defense. there was more of them. You get the point. I won't go into it. But putting the influencer reactions aside, where the fuck is RFK Jr. in all of this? Well, here's his first Instagram post after the announcement was made.

Ladies and gentlemen, now introducing your

USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins and HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Listen, I didn't have on my 2026 bingo card a picture with the Mike Tyson claw tattoo on my face, but how amazing is this? Heavyweight champion of

the world, Mike Tyson, 44 knockouts. Mike, why don't you come up?

Wow, okay. Where I come from in Brownsville, Brooklyn- It's the most violent, poverty-stricken neighborhood in the city of New York. We didn't have much money, but we had food stamps, and food stamps can buy you the candy, the sugar, and all that, sodas, and that's just all we knew. I just wanted to be a part of this 'cause that was such a part of my life.

Probably most notably about that post is it's not about glyphosate. And as someone who has worked in social media for over a decade now, pulling scheduled posts during a shit storm is a top priority. That or they pushed it through thinking no one would notice. except folks did notice. Here are just a few of the comments on that post.

"Please stop the glyphosate." "Real food doesn't get sprayed with glyphosate." "Glyphosate????" There were

six question marks there, Mallory.

Sorry, I didn't get all of them. Come on, six question marks. I'm getting lazy. Sorry. "Eat real food drenched in glyphosate? Make it make sense." And finally, "We need to talk about glyphosate."

I could go on and on. That's basically the entire comment section. And at this point, it must be so clear to the Central Maha team that they cannot simply ignore this. They are going to have to say something. So enter RFK Jr.'s delayed response, and Calley Means just pumping his tires.

There's gonna be ups and downs, and there is zero question that this week was a down.

I'm not gonna gaslight or sugarcoat it. This glyphosate thing was extremely disappointing. Bobby's disappointed. And there's no message from me, the White House, or Bobby that you should not be letting your anger out. But I'll tell you, Bobby got on the phone. He's in charge of the NIH. He called Jay Bhattacharya.

He's gonna call him every day. We are going to research a bridge off these toxic chemicals that our farmers are unfortunately dependent on. We are going to s- put a stake... Bobby's been calling the top venture capitalists in the world. We are going to get a bridge off these chemicals. And Bobby, there's going to be ups and downs There's no question about that.

But I think none of us could imagine two years ago where we are today. We are fighting every day, and we have to keep this movement going because it's changing the world.

I didn't catch this the first time when you sent this to me and I clipped it when he said, "We're gonna call the top venture capitalists in the world."

The fucking venture capitalists own all the farms in America. They're responsible for the herbicide. that, that is ... He ... it's just boggling because they can't get their story straight. Calley comes from the libertarian fucking VC world, so of course that's his instinct, but he doesn't put the pieces together.

it's also hilarious just hearing him in this mode, because as with his boss, Kennedy, he came into DC promising swift change, and so far this year I've seen multiple videos of Calley saying, "Who knew change was so hard? Just come on, give us some time, guys." Actual politicians who do this for a living, they know how hard legislation is.

But when you install a bunch of activists, and Calley cut his teeth at the Heritage Foundation as an intern, they don't have any governing experience, and then you give them power, and they're going to have an even harder time understanding the molasses of bureaucracy that you have to move through. And when their base realizes that they've been had just to get their votes, we're watching them stumble over their words and trying to course-correct, and it's always a sight to behold, as he just proved.

And by talking louder about something, it doesn't make it more understandable or you any more correct.

Is the United States government under Secretary Kennedy effectively denying people vaccines in ways that weren't happening before?

Mm-hmm. So they would say no. but behind the scenes, we do know that the- The, the, health department under Secretary Kennedy has remade vaccine policy significantly.

They have, unilaterally decided to recommend fewer pediatric vaccines. They have, dismissed a committee of federal vaccine advisors and then refilled it with some handpicked folks, from Secretary Kennedy himself, many of whom are vaccine skeptics, and they have v- voted to recommend reducing certain vaccines, that are recommended to the public, including the hepatitis B birth dose.

so in a way, what Senator Cassidy was talking about was when these commit- when these panels, when the federal government recommends a vaccine, insurance is required to cover it. When they do not recommend a vaccine, insurance necessar- is not necessarily required to cover it, nor do federal, healthcare programs like Medicaid.

That said, there's additional caveat here that the decisions that HHS has made on vaccine policy, like changing the vaccine schedule, are being litigated in court, and there's actually a stay on those changes that was issued by a federal judge earlier this year. I will say that HHS asked last week that stay be lifted while they work on an appeal, so certainly that is still an ongoing, conversation.

But, certainly the changes that they made impact the ability for people to access those vaccines.

And to be clear, Senator Cassidy made that comment in September of last year that the federal government under Trump and Kennedy is effectively denying people vaccines, but, played that for context.

I know that still stands as his opinion today. your article that I cited the headline on, from in the intro, From Promoting Vaccines to Defending Glyphosate, Kennedy Has Veered from MAHA Messaging. The glyphosate story is very interesting, and I think a lot of people have never heard of it. So what is that?

Mm-hmm. Yeah, glyphosate is a pesticide, that is really loathed by a lot of the Make America Healthy Again, folks. It, they consider it, a dangerous, herbicide. But recently, the White House issued an executive order to boost the production of the, of this, herbicide. That did not sit well with a lot of Make America Healthy Again folks.

There's actually, I believe, a rally today, pushing back on that decision. But Kennedy has defended it, and al- so has hi- so have his advisors. Calley Means, a senior advisor, he was recently at a political, Politico event. and he said that they met f- with, for hours with critics of the herbicide and decided that, to move forward.

Kennedy is certainly trying to straddle a very difficult line here between the White House and his followers. they, he certainly can't make both happy. and if the White House wants to move forward with promoting this pesticide, then that is certainly something that he would, throw his support behind.

But it is causing division in his movement, in this Make America Healthy Again movement that feels as though he has betrayed them. ,

I don't want to minimize the real potential benefits of AI in medicine. We've done segments on that. I don't know if you've reported on that.

You would probably characterize it as having, some very good public health potential. You'll tell me. But saying AI might replace the FDA with the human judgment, of course, that comes with that, did that alarm anyone? Did you report on that?

I specifically did not report on it. I would definitely point you to my colleague, Lizzy Lawrence, who is just our fantastic FDA reporter.

but I will say overall, we know from our conversations with folks within HHS that there are a lot of questions of AI's use in healthcare. I think we, we know that a lot of people feel as though AI can be helpful in streamlining decisions, making things easier, but are also adamant that a human needs to be behind many of these decisions.

when we're talking about things like drugs, medical devices, it's not something you, wanna take lightly. so I think there's probably some trepidation about what that could potentially look like, and I don't necessarily think that's something we're gonna see happen in the next few years. that said, things do mo- have been moving pretty quickly with AI, more than I have anticipated.

so it's certainly something to watch.

I read that he also expressed concern about China outpacing the US on biotechnology. Did you happen to see him say anything like that?

that is something that I have not, reported on as much. it's a little outside of my beat. but again, something that we're watching.

It comes back to the White House agenda of domestic production, bringing things, USA made. and when, z- and certainly the White House has concerns, and you see this with the most favored nation policy, which is a drug policy to reduce drug prices in the US. And it's not just China. I think the White House is very concerned, with the fact that in other countries they do have faster production, they do have lower prices, and they're trying to bring that to the US.

And the reason I bring it up is that yet, at the same time, he defended cuts to the National Institutes of Health, the NIH, which conducts or funds a lot of medical research in this country. Here's an exchange between him and Democratic Congresswoman Madeleine Dean of Pennsylvania.

You state in your testimony that AHA, I'm not sure of that acronym, but AHA, will focus on high-impact priority areas, including mental health.

Did you recommend cutting 1.3 billion from the Cen- Center for Mental Health? $1.3 billion cut in your budget.

I think that's the proposal.

okay, you're comfortable with that. Your testimony cites a White House MAHA report finding a shortage of behavioral health providers. Do you agree with that finding?

Did you recommend cutting 68 million from behavioral health workforce development? 68 million cut- I think that's the proposal. That's terrific

and I think I slightly misstated what that exchange was about. Not NIH medical research per se, though that's being cut also, but an office of mental health in particular.

But what were they acknowledging there exactly at the same time that the US is concerned about other countries eating our lunch on research?

Yeah. there are two things there. Excuse me. stat earlier this year, we actually surveyed a thou- a thousand researchers who had been supported by NIH funding.

and we found that a quarter of those respondents had been forced to lay off, lab members. two out of five of planned research, opportunities had been canceled, and many had seen students decide not to move forward with healthcare research. So that is definitely a concern. and what you were hearing there, had to do actually with a separate agency.

So as HHS is looking into cutting NIH again, as they proposed last year, they're also trying to create a special agency focused specifically on chronic disease. This is called, the Administration for a Healthy America, AHA or A-H-A. and that is a concern for Senate appropriators who feel as though that it, it's not necessary to achieving the goals that HHS has already set out in reducing chronic disease when we already have the NIH.

We already have a agency that supports substance use disorder treatment and research, and we already have an agency that addresses community health centers. So it's a question of the- these shifting priorities. the HHS, the White House wants to move things around at HHS, and Senate, the Senate is not so sure that is the best use of their time and their money when we have to focus on boosting biomedical research.

Glyphosate is not entirely safe, but it is also not clearly a major human carcinogen at real world dietary exposure levels, at least that we know of. And I am supportive of ongoing research on metabolic effects, microbome d- microbiome disruption, perinatal outcomes, and endocrine disruption, which are all things that the activists claim that it's affecting.

We should have that data, and if they reveal real issues, I would hope regulations change to reflect that.

and the baby

gravy. Shit. Yeah. Fuck. How did I not put the baby gravy in there? I know. I'll-- I got you. Honest researchers should also want that sort of data, and I believe many do. Now, one thing I feel very certain of is that wellness influencers blaming numerous forms of cancer and gut problems on glyphosate is hyperbolic and unfounded.

Just like Trump pinning numerous problems on Soma- Somali immigrants as he recently did at the State of the Union, influencers love to find single issues that supposedly create numerous problems, and then as we're about to get into, they can sell you a bunch of shit.

All right? Trump signed an executive order that pretty much demands that we're using glyphosate, and he's saying that it's a matter of national security, which sets up these companies and these contractors up perfectly to waive liability for the sickness and the disease that this is going to cause on the people.

And speaking of national security and keeping the system alive, what does the system exist for? The system exists to keep the workforce going. And so if we feed the workforce weaponized food that's going to destroy their gut intelligence The bacteria in the gut that's responsible for their thoughts, their emotions, their connection to self, their ability to ask questions like, "Why are we doing this as a country?

Let's disconnect the workforce From that, so they quit asking questions because there's a lot of people asking questions right now. And so yes, this is a matter of national security. The question is, are you going to be aware of this, and are you going to say no to glyphosate and get your gut intelligence back and really follow what your gut and your heart is telling you to do?

This is why I've been working with the solution to get glyphosate out of the body for seven or eight years because the gut is pivotal in a person being fully aligned and the greatest expression of self. So let others know to eat glyphosate-free foods and comment the word toxin below, and I'll send you some information on the solution that we have to remove glyphosate and get it out of your body.

Say no to glyphosate. What a

journey That whole post was. Derek, when we were texting back and forth the day this executive order announcement was made, I said to you, "I think we'll start to see some detox sales come out of this." And the thing is, that wasn't even a superhuman prediction. No,

you're a prophet.

You're a prophet. You saw it.

No, I am the guru. I have come to know these influencers, these wellness influencers, and their playbook pretty well, and there's just no way that they'll pass up an opportunity to shill a supplement. So while some major maha influencers were trying to figure out what to make of this, other influencers were jumping on the sales opening.

The influencer who you just heard from goes by Rah Of Earth off- on Instagram. He has over 160,000 followers, and his Instagram bio reads, "Empowering all to expand concept of self with practical and actionable tips." And I just have to say, his hair is incredible. It appears very long and luscious, and I'll give him that before I absolutely tear his sales funnel a new one.

It's all the tallow that he puts into there, but- Don't.

I get drugstore shampoo and conditioner, and I get comments all the time. So I Don't make me use tallow.

Listeners might recall Rah Of Earth, as compared to all the other Rahs, from our human garage episode because he's pretty embedded with Gary Linneman over there.

His feed is all over the fucking map.

I still can't look at it without thinking human garbage. Yep. that's just what it reads to me now. When you comment toxin on that post, just as he instructs, you get a DM which reads in part, "Hello, thanks for commenting toxin. We developed the only proven solution to remove glyphosate from the human body, and it does so by 74% within six weeks.

Most of us use this program to do so." He then links to a page on his website titled Ultimate Lifestyle Transformation. And if your MLM spidey senses are tingling, that's because Raw of Earth is a distributor for Purium, a superfood supplement multi-level marketing company, and he's claiming that their product can detox your body of a specific pesticide.

In fact, his direct message goes on to link to a particular product he describes as the glyphosate remover. It is, of course, another Purium product called Biome Medic. And then I was actually really incredibly surprised to see on the product page under product benefits, according to Purium, that it may help detoxify glyphosate.

Mallory It may not help- Oh ... detoxify glyphosate.

Oh, cancel my order.

It's amazing, though, actually. the product page you just wrote in quotes may help detoxify glyphosate, but when Raw Earth DMed you- Mm-hmm ... he called it a proven solution. The de- the glyphosate remover, yeah. So of course, I had to look into this, and it's such a perfect example of extrapolating from weak evidence.

Purium is basing this claim on a six-week preclinical trial that reported a 74% reduction in urine glyphosate levels. The study was, surprise, sponsored by Purium Inc. It listed the CEO as the contact, and it was conducted in a private medical practice. There was no official study published, just a press release in which the investigators acknowledge it was only conducted on a small number of middle-aged men for a short duration with no dietary control.

So basically, from a clinical perspective, it's completely useless, but, proven solution.

Oh, trust me, bro strikes again.

And it's not just the study. Glyphosate is water-soluble, primarily cleared by the kidneys and excreted in uri- urine. It does not bioaccumulate in the gut. The idea that a supplement could flush it is not supported by any possible mechanism with established evidence, but this is what influencers always do.

They do it with vaccines, too. They pretend that they just... these things stay in your body when we know that it actually leaves, but they just fearmonger around that. And then finally, you have their claim that this is the first product to receive certification under the Detox Project's Gold Standard Glyphosate Detox Program.

Yes, that's detox twice in their title. It's very official sounding. Is it for a detox? Then you find out it's just an advocacy site focused on sustainable agriculture, and the certification is registered to a company in Bulgaria, which functions as a for-profit certification and licensing operation.

I knew it was gonna be dumb.

Well, that's Raw. But continuing on, because he was not the only one. Another influencer named Misty, who has over 250,000 Instagram followers and describes herself as a detox coach and healer, posted a stitch to Chris's video where the caption reads in part, "Ready to detox glyphosate from your body?

Comment detox, and I'll send you my daily gentle detox that removes glyphosate and replaces with minerals. Feel good now." If you comment detox and you're sent... Again, the automated DM. They're all automated DMs. It links to a product called Rise and Vibe from the company Frequence, which, you guessed it, another MLM There was also several influencers similarly using glyphosate as a prompt before linking to their Touchstone Essentials detox.

Affiliates for this company are like all over the map and have claimed that this detox can do a lot. When the COVID fog conspiracy was taking off in January 2025, we almost forgot that happened because it feels like a lifetime ago. affiliates for this company claimed that the fogs was actually-- the fog was actually parasites.

Somebody on Facebook got their microscope out, and it was parasites. But this zeolite detox could cleanse you. More than just a handful of mothers who are affiliates for this company have claimed that this product is responsible for their non-verbal children speaking. Another influencer who, Derek, we've covered a bit recently, she's claimed that this product healed her Raynaud's syndrome.

Raynaud's? so yeah, I'm sure it's a glyphosate detox too. Well, just

as they have to pin numerous problems on particular, chemicals like glyphosate, they also have to pretend their products are good for everything so that they can keep their sales funnel alive.

It is an interesting concept of this one problem or symptom that you're having a- you're having is contributed to one thing, but the thing that I'm selling can help with everything.

So, it wasn't just influencers getting in on the glyphosate sales funnel opportunity, though. Rho Casa Organics, who sells natural products you can trust, according to their Instagram bio, used a fear-inducing video about glyphosate to promote their fruit and veg-veggie wash product. This same company leveraged the Tylenol headlines in September to promote various Tylenol alternatives that they also sell.

these companies and influencers prove time and time again that they don't actually care about your health, they care about your money.

And Finally, Section D, How a Country Becomes "Underbabied"

you no doubt remember that Dr. Oz is no longer pimping quack miracle cures and magic elixirs on The Dr.

Oz Show and taking what some may call kickbacks and others may call payola from the makers of those magic cures. no, no. Instead, he is now the head of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. Confirmed by the Senate 53 to 45 on a party line vote, he now oversees Medicare, Medicaid, the Children's Health Insurance Program, and the Affordable Care Act exchanges within the Department of Health and Human Services.

So, ladies and gentlemen Here's the head of CMS

Okay, go ahead. So l- let me speak a little bit about the reality that one in three Americans are under-babied. What does under-babied mean? That means that you either don't have any children or you have less children than you would normally want to have.

So today we're going to talk about birth rates, marriage, economic uncertainty, corruption, the social safety net, and probably a bunch of other things like thanks Oprah for Mehmet Oz.

Yeah. So this is gonna be a 12-hour podcast, Blue

Gal. No, it's not. Just lean into it. we're definitely abbreviating it, but-

Well, I gotta say, researching this podcast and putting it together as an outline almost defeated me, because it kept sprawling further and further outward.

So to make it manageable, what we're probably gonna do is break this into two or three different parts. Really dig into the year 2008 next time, because that's the year that this long, cold civil war Republicans have been waging against the rest of us really broke out into the open for everyone to see.

What happened in 2008, Driftglass?

Everything, Blue Gal. Everything happened. Every goddamn thing. That's right. Mm-hmm. That's right.

But first, 1947, when the United States was going through a significant baby boom. Maybe you read about it. The birth rate that year rose to 25.8 live births per th- 1,000 people.

This represented a huge increase as troops returned from World War II, with nearly 3.7 million babies born that year. The peak birth year for the baby boomer generation in the United States was 1957. 4.3 million babies were born that year.

That's a lot of babies.

Yeah.

And for the next 70 years and counting, that demographic bulge has been one of the primary drivers, maybe even the primary driver, of culture in the United States, our economy, our domestic policy, and our foreign policy.

The babies that clogged hospital hallways in the 1940s and 1950s because there weren't enough beds to accommodate all the pregnant mothers are now the senior citizens who are wondering why they can't see their primary care physician until November, or who they're supposed to go to now that their doctor has retired altogether, or all their nurses are retiring.

Yes. Well, they're all- And what are we gonna do? They're all- I wanna talk to my

doctor today.

Or they're all from some foreign country that I don't- Yeah ... understand, and I'm suspicious. And I want a white

male doctor. Oh, brother. Right. Dr. Welby. Story of my life. Yeah. I want Dr. Welby, damn it. I want Dr. Welby.

Yep. Yep, exactly. This is just the story of my work day every Monday. That's why he's having me tell you this story, this part- Yes ... of the story. I get calls, "Can I speak to Dr. Smith?"

Yeah

No, you can't, ever. Anyway, compare those numbers with the US birth rate just a decade earlier, those boomer numbers.

During the Great Depression, the US birth rate plunged, reaching a then record low of 18.4 births per 1,000 people in 1936. The total fertility rate dropped to approximately 2.1 children per woman, per all women during this time. And why do you suppose that happened? Well, it's common sense, isn't it? Duh.

Instability, economic uncertainty, the future looked bleak, and too bleak to start a family or have more children when you can barely feed yourself.

Exactly. Exactly.

So how about the birth rate in 1967, the year that Lost In Space episode was shot?

We promise that might be the last reference to Lost In Space, but we can't promise- Maybe

100%. 100%.

It's hard not to talk about Lost In Space, people.

Yeah. that is a great question. according to the website Macrotrends, in 1967, the birth rate per 1,000 was 17.1, which surprisingly was still lower than the birth rate during the depths of the Great Depression. However, this is important, it didn't feel like a crash, since 1967 was still adjacent to the baby boom of the late '40s and '50s, and was happening during a time of unprecedented, in, in the history of the world, unprecedented economic prosperity in this country.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. The next birth rate collapse that really did register culturally as a collapse happened during the 1970s, when you and I were alive, Blue Gal. Mm-hmm. And when you think about it for two minutes, the reason for that is also pretty clear. Runaway inflation was starting to make the future look unstable again, economically perilous again.

Add to that the early 1970s oil shock when almost overnight there were long lines at gas stations, and in some cases there was rationing. Suddenly it looked like hard times were coming back. So in 1970, the birth rate was 18.4 per 1,000. By 1975, '76, it had dropped to 14.6, just in time for America's bicentennial.

And just going back in history a little bit, I think I've mentioned this before, there was a TV show called The Story of English that was narrated and hosted by Robert MacNeil of the MacNeil/Lehrer Report- Really? ... if you're old enough to remember that. I do.

MacNeil/Lehrer,

yeah. And there was one segment that stayed with me for the rest of my life.

He was talking about development of language at a time of immigration and emigration from Great Britain.

Right.

And he showed this couple, and th- it was dr- a dramatization, but this couple that's living in a house that's made of stone and has a grass roof And they're a young couple, and he, and R- Robert MacNeil is narrating, and he says, "Like men throughout history, John," our typical 13th, 14th century peasant, "delayed getting married until he had a house."

Exactly.

And I thought, oh my God, that's forever. That's one of those forever facts. Until you have a stable roof over your head, if you're any kind of planner about your life, you wait until you can afford a roof over your head before you get married and start a family, right?

I would just a- add one thing to that.

Mm-hmm. I believe it's Robin MacNeil, not Robert MacNeil.

It was Robert. I think he g- went by Robin, but on the TV show he was Robert.

Got it. And- Anyway ... and secondly, just because I'm a Western nerd- Yeah ... I like well-written Westerns that are at least period accurate.

Mm-hmm.

Getting a house- Yeah

preparing a house for your bride to- Mm-hmm ... so you could get married and start a family was the subtext or text in a whole bunch of episodes of classic Westerns, of Western movies. Gunsmoke,

of all those. Absolutely.

All those, yep. Abso- You could not have a family without a house, without- Yeah ... a house, a piece of property, and a way to make a living.

That was just- And a farm

of some kind, yeah.

Absolutely. That's what- Yeah ... that's what those people were out there looking for. That's why the settlers came in. They were looking for land so they could put down roots and raise a family.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. It is no surprise that the divorce rate in the '70s also roughly follows the prosperity, insecurity, birth rate curve.

There was a actually a big post-war spike in the divorce rate that runs counter to the birth rate downturn, but had much less to do with economics in 1946 and more to do with the fracturing of thousands of quickie war marriages.

Mm-hmm.

That strain of long separations during World War II and the intense challenges of re- integrating veterans into civilian life.

If you've ever watched The Best Years of Our Lives- The Best Years of Our... Yeah, I was gonna say. I was gonna say ... you've seen the quickie war marriage- Yeah ... fall apart.

And the reintegration of veterans into- Yeah,

and how hard it was for some of them- Yeah ... to reintegrate. Yeah. Yep, yep. But the biggest spike in divorces during the 1970s happened for many of the same reasons as the declining birth rate, not to mention the rise of no-fault divorce, but- Yeah, well-

that made it easier, but it was economic.

and that is true because, as with any big demographic changes, there's always other contingent reasons for it to happen. There's women in the workforce, there's women's liberation, there's the pill, there's a whole bunch of other reasons.

But the reality of household economics is always there.

Trump hosted an event on maternal healthcare, which is a high priority for the White House. Because what is a woman's birth canal if not a Strait of Hormuz that our government- ... must take control of. Now, the focus of the event was America's lower birth rates. So of course, Trump invited RFK Jr.,

health secretary and guy whose iPhone screen is always greasy. So let me ask, RFK Jr., why are birth rates down? and please remember, when you answer, don't make this weird.

for men in 1970, men had twice the sperm count as our teenagers do today. Oh.

I'm sorry. did he just do a back-in-my-day for sperm?

Back when I was a teen, we had twice the jism. Our spunk knew how to drive a stick, they don't make man butter like that anymore. Now, he didn't explain how he knows that, but- ... knowing RFK, I'm sure he personally went down to the sperm bank and sampled them like gelato flavors, Oh. Mm.

Can I get it with sprinkles? Please? Okay. But it's interesting that he mentioned teenage sperm in particular, because when you look at the lower birth rates, that's mostly driven by fewer teen births, by which I mean teenagers giving birth and not moms giving birth to teenagers. Aw, congratulations, it's a Mr.

Beast fan. I'm just confused why the government is apparently trying to reboot Sixteen and Pregnant, but- ... but Dr. Oz, maybe you have a good reason. And again, you know what? I'll remind you. Just please don't make it weird.

Go ahead. So l- let me speak a little bit about the reality that one in three Americans are under-babied.

Oh.

I said, "Don't make it weird." Under-babied? What does that even mean? Are we shocked no one wants to have babies anymore? nothing makes the ladies wanna raw dog it like hearing RFK Jr. talking about what the jizz was like at Woodstock.

in the 1980s, with the rise of Reaganite politics, all that began to change. If you were feeling the pinch, if you need scapegoats, Reagan had them prepped and ready for you, one that solidified the hold Republicans already had on the racist South thanks to Nixon's Southern strategy. This is from Washington Monthly, October 29th, 2024, quote, "The tyranny of the welfare queen."

And for decades, the conversation about social services in America has centered on a false and harmful stereotype about who deserves help. The so-called welfare queen is among the most potent, persistent, and pernicious stereotypes ever deployed in modern politics. Popularized by Ronald Reagan, then weaponized by other conservatives, the welfare queen represents Americans' ugliest assumptions about who receives public assistance.

The woman first smeared by this dubious title was Linda Taylor of Chicago, who was indicted for welfare fraud in 1974. Reagan hyperbolically claimed during his 1976 presidential run that she collected $150,000 in government assistance a year, including welfare benefits and food stamps. The true total was about 40,000-

That sounds a lot like Donald- Over

multiple years

I was gonna say, that sounds a lot like Donald Trump.

Yeah Just making terrifying- Making shit up ... shit up about minorities- Yep ... to scare the crap out of the idiots and the racists.

Right. The Chicago Tribune reported that she drove a Cadillac and vacationed in Hawaii, while a photo in The New York Times showed Taylor emerging from a court date elegantly coiffed and draped in a fur-trimmed coat.

But as criminal as she may have been, Taylor was no more typical of Americans on welfare than Bernie Madoff was typical of investment bankers. Nevertheless, the archetype of the welfare queen was powerful enough to elevate welfare reform to a national crisis, and to help propel Reagan to the White House four years later.

"The welfare queen was symbolically terrifying," the historian Rick Perlstein told the Chicago Tribune in 2019. "There were a thousand Linda Taylors waiting to bankrupt your city." In fact, as the political scientist An- Anne M. Whitesell argues in a new book, Living Off the Government?, much of US social policy in the post-Reagan era is a direct reaction to the welfare queen's perceived moral defects.

"The public identity of the welfare queen, the poor, single, African American women, woman whose poverty was caused by her own laziness and promiscuity, is still the driving force in creating welfare policy," she writes. "The results," she argued, "are public policies that calcify racial and gender stereotypes of people in poverty, while failing to provide the help they actually need," unquote.

And the key here is that sentence containing perceived moral defects. That's the key, 'cause this is the conservative, libertarian, and Randite mindset of wealth being a proxy for morality and superiority, and poverty is your own goddamn fault 'cause you're a moral failure. That's why you're poor.

And here is Ron Swanson from Parks and Rec helpfully boiling that entire worldview down to one single sentence.

Capitalism, God's way of determining who is smart and who is poor.

And if you were around in the 1980s and 1990s, we're sure you heard things like, "Your kids are not my problem," more than once, as children increasingly stopped being viewed as a shared social investment and started being viewed transactionally.

In earlier eras, especially post-war America, there had been a strong civic assumption that children benefited society collectively. All the things we mentioned, public schools, vaccines, nutrition programs, playgrounds, libraries, et cetera, were often defended on the grounds that investing in children, white children, by the way-

Yeah, let's be clear

benefited the country as a whole. Yeah.

But beginning in the Reagan era, the neoliberal right-wing turn increasingly reframed citizenship itself as individual market competition. So instead of children are the public good, we should invest in kids, it's important for all of us, the cultural message became, children are a private lifestyle choice.

And once you redefine children as consumer choices, then helping poor families starts getting rhetorically recast as subsidizing irresponsibility, rewarding bad behavior, and especially stealing from productive, hardworking citizens, Blue Gal.

That mentality intensified during fights over AFDC, SNAP benefits, Medicaid, free school lunches, public housing, children's health insurance, and the Affordable Care Act.

And to their shame, even some Democrats adopted the language of dependency, personal responsibility, and ending welfare as we know it because Republicans had successfully made compassion into a dirty word. An important thing historians and sociologists often note is that this rhetoric was deeply selective.

Yeah. Meaning it's racist.

Yeah.

the same people who were saying, "If you can't afford kids, don't have them," often opposed comprehensive sex education, and contraception access, and abortion rights, and childcare subsidies, higher wages, universal healthcare, and housing assistance. So the rhetoric wasn't really about preventing suffering.

It was about assigning moral blame.

And race mattered enormously.

Yeah.

Even when unstated, and especially when unstated. Media imagery in the 1980s and 1990s disproportionately portrayed welfare recipients as urban Black women, despite the fact that welfare recipients were demographically more diverse than the stereotype suggested, and were majority white, by the way.

still are.

Scholars have written extensively about how welfare queen rhetoric functioned as a coded racial narrative during the post-Civil Rights era.

And one of the enduring effects of that era is that Americans today are still incredibly, unusually hostile compared to peer democracies towards the idea that society collectively owes material support to families with children.

You can still hear echoes of the old rhetoric whenever debates arise over school lunches, and childcare, and student debt healthcare, housing, paid leave, or child tax credits, especially- And

I would argue sh- school shootings

Oh, yeah. Yeah. This is not- Trying to prevent

school shootings is not my job

Not my problem That's,

that, that's the right-wing argument,

yeah That's, that Second Amendment and your right to own a bazooka trumps everything else- Every child's

life Yeah Every child's life

And when- Yep

Barack Obama sheds a tear over, they laugh about it

Over Sandy Hook, yep

Yeah, they laugh about it and mock him, This is how depraved these people are, especially in arguments that frame any public investment as, "Why should I pay for somebody else's choices?" And at least since Reagan, Republicans have made it their mission to take a sledgehammer to every form of public investment that could c- create a hospitable environment for young people who would consider marriage and starting a family.

That's going to be it for today.

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