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Speaker 1: Now here's a highlight from Coast to Coast AM on

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Speaker 1: iHeart Radio and welcome back to Coast to Coast George

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Speaker 1: nor with you our final segment with Alex barn sin

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Speaker 1: as we talk about the coronavirus. Alex, we were talking

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Speaker 1: about death statistics and you were getting into New York.

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Speaker 1: Let's let's get back into that. Sure, so, just very quickly, So,

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Speaker 1: the city has reported seventy five hundred confirmed death That

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Speaker 1: means there was a lab test showing the presence of

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Speaker 1: coronavirus and someone who died, and another four thousand quote

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Speaker 1: quote probable desk where they essentially the person had a

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Speaker 1: cough or had you know, a fever or some other

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Speaker 1: symptom that could have been coronavirus related and died. The

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Speaker 1: problem is that the city has also said that since

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Speaker 1: this began, you know, which was which was essentially mid March,

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Speaker 1: I think March eleventh was the first coronavirus death, there

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Speaker 1: have been about three thousand deaths, more than you would

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Speaker 1: have expected in New York City. Right in New York City,

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Speaker 1: every day people die, right exactly, you know, and so

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Speaker 1: so and you know, the city has a large population,

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Speaker 1: and it has a lot of elderly people. So, um,

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Speaker 1: depending on the season of the year, there could be two,

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Speaker 1: you know, two hundred deaths a day. There's going to

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Speaker 1: be fewer in the summer than be a few more

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Speaker 1: in the winter. There might be you know, seasonally, some

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Speaker 1: some winters are worse than others. There might be two

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Speaker 1: hundred and fifty deaths a day. You know, it just

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Speaker 1: it just varies right that day to day, year to year.

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Speaker 1: In any case, the city health commissioner said that the

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Speaker 1: city had seen three thousand additional deaths, but there have

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Speaker 1: been eleven thousand, five hundred deaths attributed to coronavirus. So

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Speaker 1: so it's it's pretty hard to look at that and

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Speaker 1: not realize that, Um, you know, some of these people

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Speaker 1: must have died with rather than of the coronavirus, and

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Speaker 1: others they were you know, they were extremely elderly, and

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Speaker 1: they had underlying conditions, and uh, you know, they became

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Speaker 1: infected because the infection spread very rapidly in the city

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Speaker 1: in the last month, and they die and then you know,

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Speaker 1: and they would have died anyway, and and then there's

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Speaker 1: going to be another group of people who are who

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Speaker 1: are quite sick, who the coronavirus probably pushed over the edge. Right. So,

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Speaker 1: so I have, you know, the classic example, I have,

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Speaker 1: you know, congestive heart failure. I have end stage renal disease.

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Speaker 1: I have you know, I'm on dialysis. I'm very sick,

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Speaker 1: and uh you know, and I'm gonna die. I'm gonna

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Speaker 1: die this year at some point, but who knows when.

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Speaker 1: And then I get the coronavirus, and it does lead

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Speaker 1: me to die, you know, more quickly than you would

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Speaker 1: have otherwise. So so so most of the people who

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Speaker 1: are dying, uh, you know, of coronavirus are quite you

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Speaker 1: know again, they're quite old, and they're quite sick, and

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Speaker 1: I think there's a legitimate argument around whether those death

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Speaker 1: should be classified as coronavirus death or as death from

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Speaker 1: the underlying condition. And people have this argument about the

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Speaker 1: flu too. There was actually a very good article, um

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Speaker 1: from Canada from the CBC in twenty twelve about flu

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Speaker 1: death estimates, raising this very point. So this is not

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Speaker 1: a new debate, you know, this debate of you know,

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Speaker 1: when people are quite sick and you know, a virus

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Speaker 1: pushes them over the edge, what the correct classification is.

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Speaker 1: It's it's very clear that for coronavirus. We're gonna we're

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Speaker 1: gonna classify as many deaths as possible as coronavirus deaths

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Speaker 1: as coronavirus related. And that's fine like that, as long

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Speaker 1: as it's disclosed, that's a that's an okay way to

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Speaker 1: do it. But people should be aware of what's going on,

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Speaker 1: and they should be aware that the all cause mortality

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Speaker 1: numbers in New York don't quite line up with the

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Speaker 1: top line coronavirus numbers. And what about the hysteria Alex.

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Speaker 1: I was in a supermarket a couple of days ago,

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Speaker 1: and I don't wear the mask. I just don't, and

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Speaker 1: a lot of people do, and if they want to,

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Speaker 1: that's their prerogative. There's a lady coming down to the

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Speaker 1: aisle with her cart wearing a mask, and I'm walking

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Speaker 1: down the aisle with a little basket without a mask.

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Speaker 1: You would think the grim Reaper was approaching her. She

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Speaker 1: turned around and like ran with their card to get

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Speaker 1: away from me because I didn't have a mask on.

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Speaker 1: So people are terrified of this and they have no

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Speaker 1: idea what the risks actually this is again, this is

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Speaker 1: the stuff that I that I want to focus on.

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Speaker 1: There's no idea what the risks actually ordered them, and

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Speaker 1: they have no idea what the transmission vectors actually are. Okay,

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Speaker 1: it is it is incredibly clear. Now we have data

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Speaker 1: from Germany and China, and you know, we have months

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Speaker 1: of of epidemiology on this most most in Italy. Most

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Speaker 1: transmission of this virus occurs in really three ways. One

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Speaker 1: in the home. Okay, it's this is not measles, It's

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Speaker 1: not you know, it's not like if I sneeze from

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Speaker 1: across the room, you're going to get this. There has

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Speaker 1: to be some generally prolonged contact, right, you know, not

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Speaker 1: not days, but but there's got to be some prolonged contact.

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Speaker 1: So so the first way is in the home. And

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Speaker 1: by the way, this is an argument that that that

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Speaker 1: sort of goes against lockdowns because if if, if, if

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Speaker 1: a lot of transmission is happening in the home, that's right,

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Speaker 1: and you may actually make things worse resan better in

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Speaker 1: the short run. Okay. The second primary mode of transmission

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Speaker 1: appears to be public transportation, which is another reason why

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Speaker 1: New York City has gotten hit so badly. If you're

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Speaker 1: on a subway and you're on the subway for an

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Speaker 1: hour with somebody who has this, you know, there's a

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Speaker 1: good chance that it's going to jump around to other

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Speaker 1: people in that subway car. Okay. And the third primary

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Speaker 1: way is what's called nosakom, which is essentially in hospitals

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Speaker 1: and in nursing homes if you're a medical setting. And

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Speaker 1: again that makes sense because because you know these are

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Speaker 1: the doctors. Essentially, the doctors and the nurses and the

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Speaker 1: staff can be a vector of transmission, or nursing homes

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Speaker 1: that may not be that unfortunately that clean, that can

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Speaker 1: be a vector of transmission. So those are the three

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Speaker 1: main ways. The Chinese. There's a Chinese paper that came

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Speaker 1: out about a week ago where a bunch of Chinese

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Speaker 1: researchers looked at no joke Sounds of cases seven thousand

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Speaker 1: infections and they found that two two of the seven

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Speaker 1: thousand had occurred through outdoor transmission. And when they looked

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Speaker 1: at they looked at yeah, I know, it's incredible. They

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Speaker 1: looked at three hundred clusters totaling about twelve hundred people.

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Speaker 1: None of those clusters were outdoor, Most of them are

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Speaker 1: in the home. Most of the rest were in public transportation.

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Speaker 1: And even if you looked at stores and offices and restaurants,

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Speaker 1: it was relatively well, this spreads in the home, and

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Speaker 1: it spreads on public transportation. And so what we've done,

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Speaker 1: I mean, you can all do a little bit about

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Speaker 1: restaurants and bars and stores. But what we've done, by

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Speaker 1: denying people the chance to be outside and denying people

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Speaker 1: the chance of children the chance to play, is just insane.

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Speaker 1: It's insane, and it's doubly insane because kids are not

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Speaker 1: at risk. It really it really upsets me. And I

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Speaker 1: wonder how many of us have the flu virus in

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Speaker 1: us but our immune system is kept it where it

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Speaker 1: doesn't even fester. Is that conceivable? I you know, see

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Speaker 1: that's a gonna thing. I don't know, okay, And and

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Speaker 1: so that's the kind of stuff I try not to

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Speaker 1: guess that because what I'm more interested in is is

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Speaker 1: the coronavirus? Right? And you know, look again, it's quite

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Speaker 1: clear the flu. You know, tens of millions of Americans

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Speaker 1: get it every year. In Italy, by the way, you know,

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Speaker 1: which has been quite badly hit by the coronavirus. Italy

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Speaker 1: actually tends to get very badly hit by the flu

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Speaker 1: on an annual basis, And in twenty sixteen, twenty seventeen.

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Speaker 1: The best estimates are that twenty five thousand people at

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Speaker 1: a minimum died of influenza. And if you look at

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Speaker 1: what they call influenza like illnesses in Italy, forty five

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Speaker 1: thousand died, which would be equivalent of about a quarter

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Speaker 1: million people in the US and and is about where

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Speaker 1: the coronavirus numbers are likely to come in for Italy.

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Speaker 1: So and that's a bad number, okay, but we didn't

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Speaker 1: blow up the world economy when that happens. I want

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Speaker 1: to spend some time talking about your book, telling your

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Speaker 1: children in the last ten minutes we've got remaining here, Alex.

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Speaker 1: But before we get into that, what would be your

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Speaker 1: best wish with this coronavirus situation in this country right

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Speaker 1: now that people would understand who's really at risk, and

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Speaker 1: that they would stop hiding their children away, and ideally

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Speaker 1: that we open the schools pretty soon, because well, one

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Speaker 1: of the other terrible things about this is, you know,

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Speaker 1: this puts a lot of stress on families right there,

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Speaker 1: Oh my god, rus and just just physically the fact

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Speaker 1: that people are on top of each other all the

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Speaker 1: time and children are being hurt in some cases, you know,

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Speaker 1: they and I don't want to exaggerate it, but there

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Speaker 1: is some evidence that child abuse is rising, and even that,

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Speaker 1: you know, fatal child abuse is rising. Suicides, you're going

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Speaker 1: ups has been talking about this, suicide, domestic violence, of

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Speaker 1: child abuse. It's all going the wrong way. So the

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Speaker 1: number one thing I would say to people is understand

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Speaker 1: your risk, and if you have children, your child's risk.

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Speaker 1: Please understand that. And let your kids get some air

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Speaker 1: and play with their friends. If you don't want them

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Speaker 1: to play inside with their friends, Okay, I mean it's

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Speaker 1: kind of crazy, but okay, let people have play dates outside.

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Speaker 1: You're just hurting your children. What about the eighteen year

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Speaker 1: olds who are going to graduate from high school and

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Speaker 1: they may not get that diploma because schools have been

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Speaker 1: closed and they were going to go to college in September?

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Speaker 1: What happened? Listen, If this is still going on in September,

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Speaker 1: there will be riots in the streets. Okay, all question.

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Speaker 1: Look what happened in Michigan just yesterday? You know that's right,

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Speaker 1: That's right. It's been a matter of weeks, and especially

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Speaker 1: if people start to understand what the numbers really are,

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Speaker 1: all right, I tell your children the truth about barijuana,

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Speaker 1: mental illness and violence. How did this come about? So

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Speaker 1: so you know, if this is actually in any ways,

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Speaker 1: it's very interesting because so tell your children. My wife

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Speaker 1: is a psychiatrist. She's a forensic psychiatrist, so she deals

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Speaker 1: with the criminine mentally Yale, Oh my god. And over

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Speaker 1: a period of years she was telling me, you know,

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Speaker 1: this person was high as a kite when they had

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Speaker 1: you committed this terrible crime. And you know this person,

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Speaker 1: you know, descended into schizophrenia or severe bipolar disorder after

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Speaker 1: years of smoking cannabis. And I honestly didn't believe her because,

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Speaker 1: like most you know, people who went to Yale and

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Speaker 1: worse the New York Times, I quote unquote knew that

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Speaker 1: marijuana was safe, even though I didn't really you know,

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Speaker 1: use it. And as you know, and the handful of

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Speaker 1: times in my life when I had you said, I

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Speaker 1: didn't particularly like it, but whatever, it didn't care. So

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Speaker 1: so she eventually convinced me to start looking at what

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Speaker 1: the medical data actually said. The data published in really

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Speaker 1: good peer review journals like The Lancet or the British

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Speaker 1: Medical Journal or the Journal of the American Medical Association,

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Speaker 1: and the data is unequivocal. Cannabis is a real risk

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Speaker 1: factor for severe mental illness, especially schizophrenia, and it unquestionably

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Speaker 1: caused this short term psychotic episodes. Uh, you know frequently

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Speaker 1: so so so and listen, you know this, this is

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Speaker 1: frequent enough that users will joke about it. Right. You

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Speaker 1: you really high and you wind up in your closet

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Speaker 1: for for the night because you're afraid your friends, you know,

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Speaker 1: are gonna are gonna steal all your money or whatever

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Speaker 1: it is. You you've had a minor psychotic episode. You know,

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Speaker 1: it's not it's not, that's not the kind that binds

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Speaker 1: you in the emergency room. But a step beyond that

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Speaker 1: will land you and you could do something to yourself

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Speaker 1: that's right, or to somebody else. So so, so here's

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Speaker 1: the thing. So I wrote this book. It came out

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Speaker 1: last jan Or it's You Tell Your Children and and

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Speaker 1: I was a reporter for The Times for ten years.

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Speaker 1: And the book is in terms of its analysis of

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Speaker 1: the data, it's it's airtight. Okay. I've I've presented it

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Speaker 1: to you know, psychiatry groups in you know, on multiple continents. Um,

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Speaker 1: it's all peer reviewed research. You know, there's a little

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Speaker 1: bit of original research in there, and and I'm happy

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Speaker 1: if people want to say, look, this risk made me real,

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Speaker 1: but we should still legalize cannabis. You know, alcohol, legal

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Speaker 1: alcohol kills lots of people cannabis, So what if there's

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Speaker 1: some risk, it should be legal and nobody should be

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Speaker 1: arrested for it. Okay, that's a totally that's a totally

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Speaker 1: plausible argument. But that's not how the book was received. Okay,

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Speaker 1: the book was attacked by pro cannabis advocates and who said, basically,

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Speaker 1: you know, the science is wrong, and Barrenson is cherry picking,

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Speaker 1: and you know I'm misreading the data and none of

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Speaker 1: that stuff was true. And in places like The Times,

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Speaker 1: at the Washington Post and a lot of cable outlets

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Speaker 1: essentially refused to cover the book. And so when this

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Speaker 1: happened with the coronavirus in the last month, this is

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Speaker 1: something I'm very used to now I understand how media

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Speaker 1: group think was because these people just refuse to engage

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Speaker 1: in a meaningful way with a book that a lot

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Speaker 1: of psychiatrists have endorsed and no is correct. And you know,

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Speaker 1: we most likely would have done a show with you

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Speaker 1: just on your book, by the way, just so you know,

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Speaker 1: you know, and maybe listen, we could do that lots

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Speaker 1: of time, but you've got to, you know, if you've

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Speaker 1: got to spare hour, right, But because it's a really

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Speaker 1: you know, people should know about this. But the States

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Speaker 1: and coronavirus are a hundred times it's high right, we're

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Speaker 1: literally putting our economy into depression on the basis of

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Speaker 1: unfortunately a lot of media hysteria that that as more

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Speaker 1: data rolls in, is not being updated and the media

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Speaker 1: is so busy yelling at itself that it won't engage

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Speaker 1: with what the science really says. And that is very

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Speaker 1: bad news, it really is. Well, you've done a remarkable

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Speaker 1: job there. How do people get that? Book? Tell Your

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Speaker 1: Children Children is available on Amazon and you know, it's

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Speaker 1: funny people seem to want to buy the hardcover. The

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Speaker 1: paperback actually has served an afterward that I where I

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Speaker 1: go into some of the you know, the media response

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Speaker 1: to book, which which you know, for people who are

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Speaker 1: interested in that topic, is directly relevant. Alex's website is

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Speaker 1: linked up at Coast to Coast am dot com. Alex,

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Speaker 1: why do you think the media back to coronavirus for

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Speaker 1: a moment? Why do you think the media seems to

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Speaker 1: be creating this hysteria. I mean, I've I've never seen

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Speaker 1: them hype something like they've hyped this, you know. Again,

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Speaker 1: I think I think people in New York were quite

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Speaker 1: scared for a while. Um, and that was real. And

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Speaker 1: I do think unfortunately that everything is seen through the

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Speaker 1: prism of Trump, uh, you know. And by the way

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Speaker 1: that that definitely hurt. Tell your children too, that you know,

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Speaker 1: somehow Trump was viewed as as an anti cannabis even

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Speaker 1: though there's not much evidence that he cares either way

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Speaker 1: about cannabis. And so so when the when when the

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Speaker 1: fact that the that that Trump is the president and

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Speaker 1: the response in February was in adequate led people to,

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Speaker 1: you know, to fight with him, literally to fight with him.

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Speaker 1: People like Jim Acosta at the at the uh you know,

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Speaker 1: Atman or Maggie Haberman at the Times. People people will

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Speaker 1: just will just attack him and he and he is

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Speaker 1: smart in that he knows that's actually good for his brand,

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Speaker 1: I think, and so he baits them and it becomes

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Speaker 1: about him rather than about the reality of the data.

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Speaker 1: How is your former newspaper, The New York Times handling

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Speaker 1: this coronavirus story? In your opinion, they're handling quite badly. Um,

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Speaker 1: you know, they look they there's been a lot of

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Speaker 1: problems in New York. They could have written and they

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Speaker 1: have written a lot of stories about those problems and

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Speaker 1: still said, what's happening in New York is not entirely

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Speaker 1: representative of what we're seeing the rest of the country.

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Speaker 1: In the rest of the country, hospitals are not chilling

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Speaker 1: up with coronavirus patients in the rest of the country.

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Speaker 1: In fact, hospitals are furlowing workers and a couple of

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Speaker 1: hospitals have And that's an astonishing fact. Right We're in

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Speaker 1: the middle of what it is supposed to be the

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Speaker 1: worst pandemics since the Spanish flue, and we have hospitals

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Speaker 1: closing and nurses being laid off, and doctors closing their

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Speaker 1: practices because they don't have patience right now, And so

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Speaker 1: the Times should have presented a much more accurate overall

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Speaker 1: picture and could have done that. We'll still talking about

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Speaker 1: the problems of the virus things. Yeah, and that's happening

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Speaker 1: all around the country. But when we start going back

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Speaker 1: to work, do you think that's going to change and

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Speaker 1: flip around again? I think I hope that over time,

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Speaker 1: you know, people who aren't too completely terrified to leave

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Speaker 1: their houses will see you know what, I don't actually

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Speaker 1: know anybody who died from this except maybe you know,

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Speaker 1: my eight year old, you know, grandmother's friend or something

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Speaker 1: like that. And I know people who got it and

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Speaker 1: recovered from it. And I hope people will see Okay,

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Speaker 1: you know, yes, this was bad for some people, but overall,

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Speaker 1: it didn't wreck society, and we really have to get

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Speaker 1: back to work. And again, more than anything else, I

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Speaker 1: hope people see my kids are fine, and yeah, and

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Speaker 1: I think they better get used to it coming back

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Speaker 1: every season. I don't think this is going to go away. No,

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Speaker 1: that's that's that's that's true. Maybe this or maybe you

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Speaker 1: know some cousin of it, right, but we don't shut

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Speaker 1: society down for the flu, and we can't shut society

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Speaker 1: down for this, not based on what the death numbers are.

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Speaker 1: If this we're killing you know, five or ten or

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Speaker 1: you know, God forbid twenty percent of people, I mean

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Speaker 1: we you know, then it would then we'd really have

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Speaker 1: to Basically, we work our society for a virus that

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Speaker 1: seems to at worst kill maybe one in three hundred

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Speaker 1: people who get it, and nearly all those people are

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Speaker 1: you know, are extremely old and sick, or maybe you know,

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Speaker 1: maybe it's one and two hundred, but but it's it's

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Speaker 1: not it's not a number that should destroy our society,

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Speaker 1: especially considering who's really being hurt by this. We're going

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Speaker 1: to have to live with it. It's not it's not

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Speaker 1: gonna be fun, you know, but but we live with things.

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Speaker 1: We live. We live with HIV, we live with tuberculosis,

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Speaker 1: you know. We we we live with forty thousand automobile

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Speaker 1: deaths a year. We can't shut society exactly. Listen to

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Speaker 1: more Coast to Coast AM every weeknight at one a m.

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Speaker 1: Eastern and go to Coast to Coast am dot com

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Speaker 1: for more