WEBVTT - Anti-Vax America: The Complete Series 0:00:01.720 --> 0:00:03.080 Cool Media. 0:00:03.320 --> 0:00:05.760 Hey everybody, Robert Evans here and I wanted to let 0:00:05.800 --> 0:00:09.480 you know this is a compilation episode. So every episode 0:00:09.560 --> 0:00:12.719 of the week that just happened is here in one 0:00:12.800 --> 0:00:16.560 convenient and with somewhat less ads package for you to 0:00:16.600 --> 0:00:19.040 listen to in a long stretch if you want. If 0:00:19.079 --> 0:00:21.000 you've been listening to the episodes every day this week, 0:00:21.040 --> 0:00:22.759 there's going to be nothing new here for you, but 0:00:23.160 --> 0:00:24.520 you can make your own decisions. 0:00:27.360 --> 0:00:28.520 I'm Stephen Monchelli. 0:00:29.000 --> 0:00:31.880 I'm a journalist in Dallas and an occasional Cool Zone 0:00:31.920 --> 0:00:35.440 Media contributor. You may have seen in the news lately 0:00:35.520 --> 0:00:39.720 that there's a major measles outbreak centered in Texas. It 0:00:39.800 --> 0:00:42.560 started back in January of this year in the West 0:00:42.600 --> 0:00:45.400 Texas County of Gaines, and it has since spread to 0:00:45.479 --> 0:00:49.159 at least two other states. As of this recording, Texas 0:00:49.159 --> 0:00:52.680 has reported over seven hundred cases associated with the measles outbreak. 0:00:53.159 --> 0:00:57.920 New Mexico has reported over sixty, Oklahoma has reported over fifteen, 0:00:58.600 --> 0:01:02.080 and there are other states that have also reported measles 0:01:02.080 --> 0:01:04.880 cases that may or may not be linked to this outbreak. 0:01:05.920 --> 0:01:10.120 It's the first major measles outbreak in a decade, and 0:01:10.160 --> 0:01:14.520 it's already taken three lives, two unvaccinated children, the first 0:01:14.600 --> 0:01:18.080 of such deaths in more than twenty years, and one adult. 0:01:18.880 --> 0:01:20.720 All were unvaccinated. 0:01:21.600 --> 0:01:24.760 At the root of the outbreak are low vaccination rates, 0:01:25.480 --> 0:01:28.080 which took a sharp downturn after the twenty twenty COVID 0:01:28.160 --> 0:01:32.720 nineteen pandemic as dubious vaccine skepticism and opposition to vaccines, 0:01:32.760 --> 0:01:36.319 both mandatory and in general, became a. 0:01:36.200 --> 0:01:38.039 Partisan political issue. 0:01:38.120 --> 0:01:41.280 It is no coincidence that the low vaccination rate in 0:01:41.319 --> 0:01:45.520 Gaines County, where the outbreak first began, corresponds with deep 0:01:45.600 --> 0:01:50.280 red Republican politics. Measles is a sort of canary in 0:01:50.320 --> 0:01:53.080 the coal mine. It's one of the most highly communicable 0:01:53.120 --> 0:01:56.480 diseases and consequently is among the first to appear in 0:01:56.480 --> 0:02:00.720 communities with low vaccination rates. An outbreak in Wiffornio about 0:02:00.720 --> 0:02:03.600 a decade ago was eventually stemmed when the state legislature 0:02:03.640 --> 0:02:07.960 banned vaccine exemptions for school aged children. This action spurred 0:02:08.000 --> 0:02:10.519 response and gave a shot in the arm to a 0:02:10.600 --> 0:02:14.800 nascent coalition of vaccine skeptics and outright anti vaccination groups 0:02:15.160 --> 0:02:19.639 that had previously struggled to get political traction. By twenty twenty, 0:02:20.000 --> 0:02:22.480 such groups had gained meaningful amounts of influence in red 0:02:22.520 --> 0:02:26.640 states like Texas and Oklahoma. Then came COVID nineteen, and 0:02:26.720 --> 0:02:32.079 suddenly a disparate set of groups big pharma skeptics, wellness influencers, 0:02:32.240 --> 0:02:36.680 health freedom libertarians, and conservative religious groups, to name a few, 0:02:37.240 --> 0:02:40.720 coalesced in a formidable political force under the banner of 0:02:40.760 --> 0:02:44.640 the Republican Party, whose politicization of the COVID nineteen pandemics 0:02:44.680 --> 0:02:47.920 served as a sort of ideological cement to unite them. 0:02:48.360 --> 0:02:51.200 The logical conclusion of this development is represented in the 0:02:51.280 --> 0:02:56.080 avatar of RFK Junior, a long time vaccine misinformation peddler 0:02:56.120 --> 0:03:00.000 who now sits atop the highest federal government health bureaucracy, 0:03:00.520 --> 0:03:03.360 a perch from which he continues to spread debunked anti 0:03:03.440 --> 0:03:07.240 vaccination tropes like a proverbial fox. 0:03:06.919 --> 0:03:07.600 In the henhouse. 0:03:08.080 --> 0:03:11.160 RFK Junior has repeatedly downplayed the importance of vaccines in 0:03:11.160 --> 0:03:14.120 the battle against measles, and has refused to distance himself 0:03:14.200 --> 0:03:18.360 from long debunked anti vaccination arguments such as that vaccines 0:03:18.440 --> 0:03:21.760 cause autism. His influence and the influence of the vaccine 0:03:21.840 --> 0:03:24.200 skeptic movement, of which he is a central figure, can 0:03:24.280 --> 0:03:27.840 be seen in responses from local West Texans who have 0:03:27.919 --> 0:03:32.079 opted for junk palliatives like vitamin A or measles exposure 0:03:32.080 --> 0:03:36.760 parties over vaccination. The viral spread of anti vax ideology 0:03:36.800 --> 0:03:39.000 threatens to pitch us back one hundred years in time, 0:03:39.480 --> 0:03:43.080 when thousands of children and adults either died or disabled 0:03:43.120 --> 0:03:48.320 every year from diseases like measles, polio, and smallpox. Research 0:03:48.360 --> 0:03:51.480 into the side effects of vaccines has repeatedly shown that 0:03:51.480 --> 0:03:55.440 the risks associated with vaccination are far lower than the 0:03:55.520 --> 0:04:00.680 risks of an infection, particularly for vulnerable populations like young children, 0:04:00.880 --> 0:04:04.800 the elderly, and people with suppressed immune systems. Some people 0:04:04.960 --> 0:04:08.760 genuinely cannot get vaccines, such as certain new board babies, 0:04:08.800 --> 0:04:11.800 and thus are at higher risk should an outbreak of 0:04:11.880 --> 0:04:14.800 a deadly disease occur. When ninety five percent of a 0:04:14.840 --> 0:04:18.120 population is vaccinated in an area, diseases can be entirely 0:04:18.320 --> 0:04:22.560 removed from circulation, and that's indeed what happened to smallpox 0:04:22.600 --> 0:04:25.760 and for a time measles. But the downward trend in 0:04:25.839 --> 0:04:29.720 vaccination rates, supercharged by the marriage of right wing politics 0:04:29.960 --> 0:04:32.960 with anti vaccination beliefs of all stripes, means that our 0:04:33.000 --> 0:04:37.640 collective immunity is at risk. This week, I will be 0:04:37.680 --> 0:04:40.120 your host on It Could Happen Here, as I take 0:04:40.160 --> 0:04:44.400 you through a five episode mini series called Anti vax America, 0:04:45.640 --> 0:04:50.160 three interviews with public health officials, vaccine scientists, medical professionals, 0:04:50.160 --> 0:04:53.960 and historians. I will explore the ongoing measles outbreak and 0:04:54.000 --> 0:04:56.640 how it serves as a microcosm for where we are, 0:04:56.960 --> 0:04:59.360 how we got here, and where we could go if 0:04:59.360 --> 0:05:03.200 anti vaxx beliefs continue to become mainstream in the United States. 0:05:04.320 --> 0:05:06.200 In the first episode, I will cover the origin of 0:05:06.240 --> 0:05:10.480 the measles outbreak in Texas, its deadly consequences, the varying 0:05:10.520 --> 0:05:13.679 responses from public health officials at different levels of government, 0:05:14.279 --> 0:05:19.320 and the consequence of misinformation being spread at the national 0:05:19.320 --> 0:05:22.400 and local level. In the second episode, I will unearth 0:05:22.520 --> 0:05:25.880 the deep roots of anti vaccination belief in the United States, 0:05:26.320 --> 0:05:29.839 how it's changed over time, and why it's basically become 0:05:29.880 --> 0:05:33.400 synonymous with right wing politics in our current day. In 0:05:33.400 --> 0:05:35.800 the third episode, I will explore the overlap between anti 0:05:35.880 --> 0:05:40.120 vaxx beliefs and the belief in supernatural healing and miracles 0:05:40.160 --> 0:05:43.839 that is common among a particular movement of conservative Christianity 0:05:44.200 --> 0:05:48.400 that has tied itself closely to President Donald Trump. In 0:05:48.440 --> 0:05:51.039 the fourth episode, I will untangle the twisted history of 0:05:51.040 --> 0:05:55.240 eugenics and how it's influenced public health and vaccination attitudes, 0:05:55.760 --> 0:05:58.240 as well as the historical echo of eugenics that can 0:05:58.279 --> 0:06:02.720 be found in RFK Junior Make America Healthy Again agenda. 0:06:03.440 --> 0:06:06.760 And in the last episode, I'll consider what could happen 0:06:06.880 --> 0:06:10.520 in the United States What could happen here if vaccination 0:06:10.640 --> 0:06:14.560 rates continue to plummet and vaccine skeptics like RFK Junior 0:06:14.640 --> 0:06:18.560 continue to dictate public health policy. But before we get there, 0:06:19.200 --> 0:06:33.800 a quick ad break. Gaines County, the epicenter of the 0:06:33.800 --> 0:06:38.000 West Texas outbreak, is a largely rural place home to 0:06:38.120 --> 0:06:44.640 oil field workers, farmers, ranchers, and several Mennonite communities. Politically, 0:06:44.680 --> 0:06:48.800 it's very conservative. It sits on the Texas New Mexico border, 0:06:49.000 --> 0:06:51.440 about three hundred and sixty miles west of Dallas, where 0:06:51.440 --> 0:06:54.640 I live. The largest city in the region, Lubbock, is 0:06:54.760 --> 0:06:58.440 two counties over. Lubbock is home to two hundred and 0:06:58.520 --> 0:07:01.520 sixty thousand plus people and has the largest hospitals in 0:07:01.560 --> 0:07:02.040 the area. 0:07:02.800 --> 0:07:05.200 It was at one of those hospitals. 0:07:04.640 --> 0:07:08.080 That the first child died of measles in over two decades. 0:07:08.600 --> 0:07:11.040 As the number of cases in the region began to increase, 0:07:11.560 --> 0:07:14.280 Lubbock became a central hub for both treatment and the 0:07:14.280 --> 0:07:18.760 dissemination of public health information. Weeks before RFK Junior or 0:07:18.800 --> 0:07:22.240 Texas Governor Abbott spoke on the issue, local public health 0:07:22.280 --> 0:07:26.000 officials and medical institutions were on the front lines in Lubbock. 0:07:29.880 --> 0:07:32.200 So my name is Catherine Wells, and I am the 0:07:32.280 --> 0:07:36.760 director for Lubbock Public Health and Lubbock Public Health is 0:07:37.080 --> 0:07:41.760 the city and county health department in both the city 0:07:41.800 --> 0:07:45.200 and County of Lubbock, Texas. I've been in this role 0:07:45.280 --> 0:07:50.560 for about ten years now. We're about seventy five miles 0:07:50.640 --> 0:07:54.800 from Gaines County, which is where kind of the epicenter 0:07:54.880 --> 0:07:56.600 of this measles outbreak is. 0:07:57.360 --> 0:08:00.480 Let's maybe go back all the way to the day 0:08:00.760 --> 0:08:03.840 that you know it sort of began. The first case 0:08:04.000 --> 0:08:06.680 came out in January. So can you take us a 0:08:06.720 --> 0:08:09.880 little back to that day and what was going on 0:08:10.040 --> 0:08:12.360 in your world and you know, what were you doing, 0:08:12.400 --> 0:08:14.160 and how did you hear about this first case and 0:08:14.200 --> 0:08:15.320 what your reaction was. 0:08:15.760 --> 0:08:17.800 And we'll actually need to take a couple of days 0:08:18.320 --> 0:08:23.040 kind of before the announcement. I first found out about 0:08:23.240 --> 0:08:29.280 the possibility of measles that Friday, the twenty eighth. I 0:08:29.320 --> 0:08:33.000 have all my dates messed up, but it's that Friday, 0:08:33.080 --> 0:08:36.559 before the first case was announced, one of my staff 0:08:36.679 --> 0:08:40.600 came and told me that we had two children that 0:08:40.679 --> 0:08:43.640 had been admitted to our local hospital. So we have 0:08:43.760 --> 0:08:48.040 the children's hospital for this whole region. People come, you know, 0:08:48.120 --> 0:08:51.720 over two hundred miles to come to the children's hospital 0:08:51.920 --> 0:08:54.760 in Luppock. And she mentioned that there was two children. 0:08:55.360 --> 0:08:58.360 The physician thought it might be measles that they were 0:08:58.720 --> 0:09:02.640 going to send for test. So in public health, measles 0:09:02.679 --> 0:09:07.960 is so rare that even sending somebody for testing is 0:09:08.000 --> 0:09:11.800 required to be reported to public health. That physician thought 0:09:11.800 --> 0:09:14.960 it was measles. We kind of waited over the weekend, 0:09:15.280 --> 0:09:19.520 and then that Monday and Tuesday, I started hearing some 0:09:19.720 --> 0:09:23.320 rumors that there were multiple measles cases down on the 0:09:23.320 --> 0:09:26.720 ground in Gaines County, which was interesting. People were calling 0:09:26.760 --> 0:09:28.720 and saying, you know, I heard this rumor have you 0:09:28.800 --> 0:09:33.040 heard this? And I'm like nope. And then all of 0:09:33.080 --> 0:09:38.240 a sudden, those two cases or those two cases both 0:09:38.280 --> 0:09:42.000 tested positive and then when we went and started talking 0:09:42.040 --> 0:09:45.520 to the families and learning more, we realized that those 0:09:45.600 --> 0:09:49.360 rumors about measles circulating and Gaines County was true, and 0:09:49.800 --> 0:09:52.560 there were reports of you know, multiple individuals that had 0:09:52.600 --> 0:09:56.000 been sick and measles had probably been there or at 0:09:56.080 --> 0:09:57.880 least a little bit of time. And then when we 0:09:57.920 --> 0:10:00.800 got the confirmed cases, that really just put everything into 0:10:01.880 --> 0:10:05.400 really you know, moving very quickly trying to really figure 0:10:05.400 --> 0:10:07.840 out what was going on for measles. 0:10:08.440 --> 0:10:12.000 So at that time, it was it was flu season, 0:10:12.160 --> 0:10:15.240 and so were you all was your office preparing, you know, 0:10:15.440 --> 0:10:17.840 or working on anything else at that time when you 0:10:17.880 --> 0:10:21.120 had first heard about this first testing and you know, 0:10:21.160 --> 0:10:22.640 started hearing about these rumors. 0:10:23.280 --> 0:10:26.400 Yeah, I mean, we had increases in flu, we had 0:10:26.440 --> 0:10:30.920 increases in COVID. We actually had some birds that had 0:10:31.000 --> 0:10:34.280 died that had tested positive with the new Avian flu. 0:10:35.240 --> 0:10:38.960 You know, just that's a busy time of the year 0:10:39.000 --> 0:10:42.560 for public health with lots of different reports coming in, 0:10:42.600 --> 0:10:46.000 lots of multiple reports of pertussis, and it's not unusual 0:10:46.080 --> 0:10:48.600 that we have a physician wanting to test for measles 0:10:49.600 --> 0:10:51.760 ruling out. I mean, it happens a couple of times 0:10:51.800 --> 0:10:54.880 a year. But in my entire career, every time that happened, 0:10:54.920 --> 0:10:56.000 it had always been negative. 0:10:56.640 --> 0:10:57.520 So I was. 0:10:57.920 --> 0:10:59.959 Kind of thinking that it was one of those cases, 0:11:00.120 --> 0:11:04.000 especially that Friday afternoon, like, oh, this is just a doctor, 0:11:04.040 --> 0:11:06.800 you know, you know, just wanting to rule something out. 0:11:07.080 --> 0:11:10.000 You know, it's probably blue or something else going on 0:11:10.080 --> 0:11:10.840 with those children. 0:11:11.720 --> 0:11:15.000 And so when you had gotten that confirmation it was 0:11:15.200 --> 0:11:19.600 verified that those cases had indeed been measles. I mean, 0:11:19.600 --> 0:11:22.040 what was going through your mind at that time? 0:11:22.760 --> 0:11:25.560 I mean that was like, you know, people have always 0:11:25.640 --> 0:11:28.120 talked about we're kind of on the edge of seeing 0:11:28.120 --> 0:11:31.120 more measles outbreaks in the United States, and it was 0:11:31.160 --> 0:11:34.760 really kind of a no, no, a crap moment of Wow, 0:11:34.840 --> 0:11:38.880 this is in our backyard. Is our department you know, 0:11:39.000 --> 0:11:42.840 ready to take this on? And then also reaching out 0:11:43.000 --> 0:11:46.240 to Gaines County, which has a much smaller health department, 0:11:46.320 --> 0:11:49.080 and being like, what can we help you with? Do 0:11:49.120 --> 0:11:51.800 you guys know what you need next? You know, they 0:11:51.800 --> 0:11:54.520 don't have a communications person, so it was like my 0:11:54.640 --> 0:11:58.600 staff writing the press release for Gaines County to send 0:11:58.640 --> 0:12:02.480 out to make the notifications about the first measles cases. 0:12:02.880 --> 0:12:04.640 So it was just really what can we do to 0:12:04.679 --> 0:12:07.360 help them immediately and figure out what the next steps 0:12:07.360 --> 0:12:07.920 would be with that. 0:12:08.720 --> 0:12:12.320 So since January, cases have been on the rise, and 0:12:12.360 --> 0:12:16.800 so we're in a different place now than just two cases. 0:12:17.000 --> 0:12:18.160 Can you just tell us a little. 0:12:17.960 --> 0:12:21.320 Bit about where things are now in Lubbock and how 0:12:21.559 --> 0:12:24.360 medical authorities have responded to the outbreak. 0:12:25.440 --> 0:12:29.600 So initially, you know, all of the cases were in 0:12:29.920 --> 0:12:33.760 Gaines County. The only exposures we were seeing outside of 0:12:33.760 --> 0:12:37.560 Gaines County was when somebody was seeking medical care and 0:12:37.720 --> 0:12:40.360 was sitting in like say, a waiting room at a 0:12:40.360 --> 0:12:44.280 physician's office, and then they were exposing other individuals. But 0:12:44.440 --> 0:12:48.199 after a couple of weeks, we started seeing spread outside 0:12:48.200 --> 0:12:51.520 of Gaines County, So we were seeing more and more 0:12:51.559 --> 0:12:54.640 cases in those surrounding counties, and then we started getting 0:12:54.640 --> 0:12:58.680 cases in Lubbock, that's seventy five miles away. Over the 0:12:58.760 --> 0:13:02.880 last three weeks, really seen the cases in the Lubbock increase. 0:13:04.000 --> 0:13:06.480 You know, we originally just had a handful. Now we're 0:13:06.520 --> 0:13:09.079 up to forty one or forty two, and that number 0:13:09.080 --> 0:13:12.000 will be updated again tomorrow. So just seeing more and 0:13:12.120 --> 0:13:16.320 more spread of measles, and the concern is that public 0:13:16.360 --> 0:13:20.040 health can't necessarily trace those back to a specific case. 0:13:20.760 --> 0:13:23.680 So people that have got out to the store or 0:13:23.760 --> 0:13:27.800 gone to a public place have now contracted measles. 0:13:28.320 --> 0:13:30.400 So tell me a little bit more about you know, 0:13:30.760 --> 0:13:35.199 what efforts have taken place and what sort of initiatives 0:13:35.240 --> 0:13:39.600 have been put into place as measles have spread. You know, 0:13:39.600 --> 0:13:42.960 what does that look like from love at Public Health 0:13:43.040 --> 0:13:44.079 or any of your partners. 0:13:44.880 --> 0:13:49.319 Yeah, so ours is really the first one was getting 0:13:49.440 --> 0:13:53.000 testing set up. Originally when this started, all of our 0:13:53.040 --> 0:13:55.280 testing samples had to go to Austin, which is about 0:13:55.280 --> 0:13:58.080 a five and a half hour drive, So working with 0:13:58.160 --> 0:14:01.319 the state Health Department to get testing capability up here 0:14:01.320 --> 0:14:05.199 in Lubbock so we could quickly identify people. The next 0:14:05.200 --> 0:14:11.680 one is really about education, providing information to the physician's 0:14:11.760 --> 0:14:15.520 offices the hospitals about measles because we hadn't seen it 0:14:15.559 --> 0:14:18.520 in twenty one years here. So just think about how 0:14:18.520 --> 0:14:21.480 many physicians have been trained over the last twenty one 0:14:21.560 --> 0:14:25.120 years that never saw a measles case in their residency. 0:14:25.800 --> 0:14:30.480 So getting them to feel comfortable about what the signs 0:14:30.480 --> 0:14:33.360 and symptoms are and really making sure that we were 0:14:33.360 --> 0:14:36.040 notifying or that they were notifying Public Health and getting 0:14:36.120 --> 0:14:39.840 people tested and then doing that contact tracing, and then 0:14:39.880 --> 0:14:42.960 the other big ones vaccinations. You know, there's two ways 0:14:42.960 --> 0:14:45.960 to prevent measles. One is the vaccination that's going to 0:14:46.120 --> 0:14:48.800 protect you, and then the other one is avoiding being 0:14:48.840 --> 0:14:52.720 exposed to measles. So really getting more and more people 0:14:53.360 --> 0:14:57.320 vaccinated with pop up clinics and then running a measles 0:14:57.400 --> 0:14:59.480 vaccination clinic here at our health department. 0:15:00.000 --> 0:15:01.200 Can you tell me a little bit about what the 0:15:01.240 --> 0:15:06.680 response in particular too, You know, the vaccination clinics being 0:15:06.720 --> 0:15:08.440 set up has been. You know, I have a lot 0:15:08.440 --> 0:15:11.080 of people shown up for that. Has it drawn a 0:15:11.080 --> 0:15:13.080 lot of you know, new people that are trying to 0:15:13.120 --> 0:15:14.400 get their children vaccinated. 0:15:15.480 --> 0:15:18.920 It's a mix. I feel that our vaccination clinic here 0:15:18.920 --> 0:15:23.400 at our Health department's been pretty successful in that we're 0:15:23.440 --> 0:15:26.560 getting people every day coming in to get vaccinated, and 0:15:26.600 --> 0:15:32.080 we're seeing people that were hesitant prior, that had chosen 0:15:32.120 --> 0:15:35.520 not to vaccinate their children kind of with the idea, well, 0:15:35.520 --> 0:15:39.240 I've never seen measles or moms or rebella, so why 0:15:39.320 --> 0:15:42.360 give my child a vaccine if that doesn't exist. Now 0:15:42.360 --> 0:15:46.280 that measles are circulating in the community, they're changing, you know, 0:15:46.320 --> 0:15:49.440 that thought process and are coming forward to get vaccinated. 0:15:50.080 --> 0:15:52.400 Some of the rural clinics have been a lot harder 0:15:52.520 --> 0:15:54.480 to get people to come in. I mean they've stood 0:15:54.560 --> 0:15:57.520 up clinics and only a handful of people have come 0:15:57.520 --> 0:16:02.239 in to that clinic that day. So real mixed response. 0:16:02.920 --> 0:16:05.400 But I think is public health, it's important for us 0:16:05.840 --> 0:16:09.400 to be offering the MMR vaccine with as few barriers 0:16:09.440 --> 0:16:10.080 as possible. 0:16:10.800 --> 0:16:14.760 So you were in this position during the COVID pandemic 0:16:14.800 --> 0:16:17.640 and when that began and all throughout it, So can 0:16:17.680 --> 0:16:19.240 you tell me a little bit what it was like 0:16:19.760 --> 0:16:22.040 working in your role as a public health official at 0:16:22.040 --> 0:16:25.440 that time, and then also maybe whether things are any 0:16:25.480 --> 0:16:27.960 different today, has anything changed? 0:16:28.320 --> 0:16:33.360 I mean, I think our community did fairly well throughout COVID, 0:16:33.440 --> 0:16:38.280 given you know, everything that went on. I've always believed 0:16:38.320 --> 0:16:40.840 in just being honest and talking about what I do know, 0:16:40.920 --> 0:16:44.600 what I don't know, what the science is showing, and 0:16:44.800 --> 0:16:48.160 I think that helped our community get vaccinated and take 0:16:48.240 --> 0:16:51.880 some of the precautions during COVID. And I'm kind of 0:16:51.920 --> 0:16:55.040 taking that same you know thought process and that same 0:16:55.320 --> 0:16:58.760 you know leadership style as we're dealing with measles out 0:16:58.760 --> 0:17:05.040 here with measles. It's a challenge. I think people are 0:17:05.040 --> 0:17:08.879 paying attention to it because it's really impacting children, whereas 0:17:08.920 --> 0:17:12.360 we didn't see, you know, that same impact with COVID. 0:17:12.880 --> 0:17:15.680 It's frustrating because we know what the solution is. When 0:17:15.800 --> 0:17:19.800 COVID showed up. You know, nobody in public health and 0:17:19.880 --> 0:17:23.159 the medical community, you know, knew exactly what COVID is. 0:17:23.359 --> 0:17:25.800 With measles, we know what we're dealing with, and we 0:17:25.880 --> 0:17:28.840 also have a known solution, which is a vaccine. So 0:17:28.920 --> 0:17:32.679 it is frustrating that people are choosing not to vaccinate. Still, 0:17:33.200 --> 0:17:35.640 the other challenges is during COVID, all of our other 0:17:35.680 --> 0:17:39.320 work for public health got put on hold. Here with measles, 0:17:39.680 --> 0:17:42.480 our health Department's still expected to do all of our 0:17:42.520 --> 0:17:46.280 other jobs and respond to a measles outbreak, which is 0:17:46.440 --> 0:17:47.840 really stressful on staff. 0:17:48.400 --> 0:17:53.439 I can completely understand that in terms of some stressful things. 0:17:53.720 --> 0:17:57.000 I understand that just from doing some background research and 0:17:57.040 --> 0:18:00.359 reading up that your office or maybe even you your self, 0:18:00.560 --> 0:18:04.080 were subject to some threats or some sort of pretty 0:18:04.359 --> 0:18:08.399 extreme reactions during COVID. And is that the case? And 0:18:08.480 --> 0:18:09.440 is that still happening? 0:18:10.000 --> 0:18:12.800 Thankfully, it's not happening during COVID. We did have some 0:18:13.359 --> 0:18:16.720 very strong opinions and some threats, mostly around when the 0:18:16.800 --> 0:18:20.439 children's vaccine was released and why we were promoting that. 0:18:21.080 --> 0:18:25.880 We have not seen that with measles, which is very good. 0:18:25.920 --> 0:18:28.840 I don't want any of my staff to be threatened. 0:18:29.359 --> 0:18:32.440 I mean, you always got these random posters on people 0:18:32.440 --> 0:18:35.600 that post on social media, but they're not even individuals 0:18:35.640 --> 0:18:36.560 from our community. 0:18:37.160 --> 0:18:38.000 Got it, Okay? 0:18:38.040 --> 0:18:41.800 Well, I'm glad to hear that, genuinely, that that is 0:18:41.880 --> 0:18:44.800 a positive change. I suppose that is something that's a 0:18:44.840 --> 0:18:46.040 good difference. 0:18:46.200 --> 0:18:50.280 And also good support from our pediatricians and the medical 0:18:50.320 --> 0:18:53.400 community has been very good and outspoken about the importance 0:18:53.400 --> 0:18:55.240 of getting vaccinated, which has helped us. 0:18:56.680 --> 0:19:00.879 So where do you see things going from here? I mean, 0:19:00.920 --> 0:19:04.960 do you think we'll continue to see more cases? I 0:19:05.080 --> 0:19:07.959 know that they're on the rise, but do you think 0:19:08.040 --> 0:19:11.200 that will continue? Or do you have other concerns about 0:19:11.200 --> 0:19:15.439 potentially other outbreaks of diseases that had been kind of 0:19:15.440 --> 0:19:17.000 pushed out of circulation coming back. 0:19:17.640 --> 0:19:19.199 Yeah, all of the above. 0:19:19.800 --> 0:19:23.720 I think in Gaines County in particular, we don't have 0:19:23.800 --> 0:19:27.679 a good understanding of where we are in the epidemic, 0:19:27.840 --> 0:19:32.800 like how many vulnerable individuals in that community are still remaining, 0:19:32.880 --> 0:19:38.360 so we don't know how long that initial epicenter outbreaks 0:19:38.480 --> 0:19:43.640 going to last. We're also seeing, you know, as measles 0:19:43.680 --> 0:19:47.679 gets into a community, it is so infectious that it 0:19:47.800 --> 0:19:52.080 is going to find all of those little pockets of 0:19:52.200 --> 0:19:55.120 people that are unvaccinated. And that's what we're seeing here 0:19:55.119 --> 0:19:59.679 in Lubbott County is you know, measles taking hold and 0:19:59.720 --> 0:20:02.760 fine little pockets, and public health trying to go put 0:20:02.760 --> 0:20:05.919 out you know, little fires, trying to make sure that 0:20:05.960 --> 0:20:08.760 we've figured out who's been exposed and who's at risk. 0:20:09.600 --> 0:20:12.200 You described, you know, how this is an incredibly infectious 0:20:12.200 --> 0:20:16.199 disease and it is you know, finding all the pockets 0:20:15.920 --> 0:20:20.320 of people that are vulnerable or not vaccinated. And so 0:20:20.359 --> 0:20:22.000 I'm wondering if you can, you know, if there are 0:20:22.000 --> 0:20:26.560 any examples or specifics that you could share about how 0:20:27.160 --> 0:20:31.280 the outbreak is impacting communities or particular communities. Has it 0:20:31.320 --> 0:20:35.639 resulted in disruptions in school for children, Has it, you know, 0:20:35.920 --> 0:20:39.600 caused any other sort of notable breakdowns or sort of 0:20:39.640 --> 0:20:43.920 pauses in day to day regular activity in Lubbic. 0:20:44.520 --> 0:20:50.560 You know, those breakdowns have been more minor that a child, 0:20:50.600 --> 0:20:55.119 say that's unvaccinated's been exposed, and that's requiring that child 0:20:55.160 --> 0:20:58.800 to sit out from school. So there is that, you know, 0:20:59.040 --> 0:21:03.520 element that they're missing those important, you know, days of education. 0:21:04.359 --> 0:21:07.879 Our bigger impacts here have been around daycares. We had 0:21:07.920 --> 0:21:11.040 a large outbreak or large in the sense that we've 0:21:11.080 --> 0:21:14.760 had now eight children or eight individuals associated with one 0:21:14.840 --> 0:21:19.000 daycare all test positive with measles. So that's meant that 0:21:19.720 --> 0:21:23.080 you know, children have had to be sent home from daycare, 0:21:23.320 --> 0:21:28.800 which then impacts parents' ability to work and also impacts 0:21:28.840 --> 0:21:31.760 you know, you know, daycare along with you know, the 0:21:31.840 --> 0:21:34.480 number of students there children having to go home that 0:21:34.520 --> 0:21:38.719 have been exposed working a lot to get additional doses 0:21:38.760 --> 0:21:42.200 of vaccine into a daycare. So it both impacts the 0:21:42.200 --> 0:21:46.200 public health system, our healthcare system, because kids need health, 0:21:46.240 --> 0:21:49.720 but then it also impacts parents because if your child's 0:21:49.760 --> 0:21:53.440 not in daycare, a parent can't go to work. Those 0:21:53.480 --> 0:21:57.040 have been the bigger disruptions and then disruptions in our 0:21:57.560 --> 0:21:59.920 healthcare system that we're now having to do a lot 0:22:00.160 --> 0:22:02.240 of screen Like you call to make an appointment for 0:22:02.320 --> 0:22:04.720 the doctor, and it's kind of like COVID, have you 0:22:04.800 --> 0:22:08.159 been exposed to measles? Are you vaccinated? They're asking all 0:22:08.160 --> 0:22:11.920 those screening questions before people enter our healthcare facilities. 0:22:12.920 --> 0:22:16.879 In terms of sort of interactions with the state and 0:22:16.960 --> 0:22:19.080 their response to this, can you tell me a little 0:22:19.119 --> 0:22:22.280 bit more about how the State of Texas has responded 0:22:22.520 --> 0:22:24.080 and partnered with local. 0:22:23.800 --> 0:22:28.280 Authorities, so we have a good working relationship with the 0:22:28.320 --> 0:22:32.439 State of Texas. Texas has to do everything differently, so 0:22:32.480 --> 0:22:37.080 we kind of have this decentralized system where the state 0:22:37.160 --> 0:22:40.360 and locals both kind of have their own authority, very 0:22:40.359 --> 0:22:43.680 independent at the county level, but the state is offered 0:22:44.520 --> 0:22:48.920 support to us. They've helped me bring in temp nurses 0:22:48.960 --> 0:22:52.200 to be able to assist with vaccine clinics. They're paying 0:22:52.280 --> 0:22:56.879 for some additional staff answer phones, so we're getting that 0:22:57.000 --> 0:22:59.520 kind of support. And then I meet with the state 0:23:00.119 --> 0:23:03.480 regularly about what's going on in Lubbock, how Lubbock fits 0:23:03.480 --> 0:23:06.880 in the context of the rest of this outbreak, and 0:23:06.960 --> 0:23:09.439 you know, how we're going to work together to move forward. 0:23:10.080 --> 0:23:15.159 We always thought of measles as an airplane ride away, 0:23:15.400 --> 0:23:18.480 so we would see, you know, somebody travel to a 0:23:18.520 --> 0:23:22.439 foreign country, come back to the United States and maybe 0:23:22.480 --> 0:23:26.160 pass measles. To a couple of people in their household. 0:23:26.600 --> 0:23:31.760 This outbreak is not that we're seeing transmission within a community, 0:23:31.960 --> 0:23:34.399 and it's making measles more of a car ride away. 0:23:35.160 --> 0:23:40.360 And that's concerning because we have individuals that are susceptible 0:23:40.359 --> 0:23:44.440 to measles, either through too young to be vaccinated, not vaccinated, 0:23:44.600 --> 0:23:49.600 or some other immune compromised state. So just concerning that 0:23:49.960 --> 0:23:53.200 we're going to see more outbreaks spreading out into the 0:23:53.280 --> 0:23:56.280 United States, especially as we're moving into spring and summer, 0:23:56.320 --> 0:24:00.679 where people are traveling and driving through communities that we 0:24:00.720 --> 0:24:04.800 could just see kind of explode everywhere, which is my 0:24:04.840 --> 0:24:05.520 biggest fear. 0:24:06.040 --> 0:24:07.359 Yeah. Absolutely. 0:24:07.760 --> 0:24:11.960 I mean, given that vaccinations and to some degree public 0:24:11.960 --> 0:24:15.840 health in general has kind of become a politicized issue, 0:24:15.880 --> 0:24:18.480 I can only imagine that it can make it quite 0:24:18.480 --> 0:24:22.520 difficult for you to convey these messages to people and 0:24:22.560 --> 0:24:23.879 for them to understand them. 0:24:24.359 --> 0:24:26.280 Yeah, and I'm talking. I mean I've talked to many 0:24:26.320 --> 0:24:31.120 health department directors across the country, and you know, one 0:24:31.160 --> 0:24:33.600 of the values of local public health is that you know, 0:24:33.680 --> 0:24:36.680 all of us local health department directors and those staff 0:24:36.960 --> 0:24:40.440 were coming from these individuals, communities, and our goals to 0:24:40.520 --> 0:24:42.920 keep our community safe, and it really doesn't matter what's 0:24:42.960 --> 0:24:48.760 happening at the federal level. It's about your community, your connections, 0:24:49.200 --> 0:24:52.200 watching out for this diseases and then convincing your community 0:24:52.280 --> 0:24:55.320 to do the right thing. And luckily we have you know, 0:24:55.600 --> 0:24:58.560 twenty five hundred health departments across the US, and that 0:24:58.720 --> 0:25:01.560 is their goals, and hopefully people will continue to trust 0:25:01.960 --> 0:25:04.080 their local directors. 0:25:03.840 --> 0:25:06.320 That is a great point, and I'm wondering if is 0:25:06.600 --> 0:25:10.040 there anything else that you can speak to on how 0:25:10.720 --> 0:25:13.920 the distrust that is there can potentially be bridged, or 0:25:14.080 --> 0:25:16.960 you know, specific things that y'all have done to try 0:25:17.000 --> 0:25:20.080 to sort of rebuild that trust or establish that trust. 0:25:20.520 --> 0:25:23.120 I mean with us locally, it's making sure that we're 0:25:23.119 --> 0:25:26.120 talking to our local news and our local reporters and 0:25:27.080 --> 0:25:31.040 answering the phone call when a concerned parent calls, and 0:25:31.080 --> 0:25:36.440 going through the information we know, and utilizing our local 0:25:36.480 --> 0:25:39.359 physicians to tell them the story. Because I think if 0:25:39.400 --> 0:25:42.119 you can still see it at the local level, you know, 0:25:42.200 --> 0:25:45.520 people can really understand that this is a risk and 0:25:46.320 --> 0:25:49.359 really make that right choice to get the vaccine or 0:25:49.400 --> 0:25:50.920 if they've been exposed, to stay home. 0:25:51.480 --> 0:25:53.639 We'll hear more from Catherine in just a moment. 0:25:53.720 --> 0:26:06.880 But first, as we are obligated to do, here's some ads. 0:26:09.040 --> 0:26:11.960 So I do understand there's quite a bit of skepticism 0:26:12.520 --> 0:26:16.280 towards vaccination, and that's certainly going to be a subject 0:26:16.320 --> 0:26:20.040 that we're exploring in this podcast. And at least by 0:26:20.080 --> 0:26:23.680 the numbers, it shows that in places like West Texas 0:26:23.680 --> 0:26:27.920 and particularly more rural areas, even more than a place 0:26:27.960 --> 0:26:32.680 like Lubbock, that there's pretty low vaccination rates. Several counties 0:26:32.720 --> 0:26:34.920 are below the I guess what was it ninety five 0:26:34.960 --> 0:26:39.240 percent threshold that really helps bring diesls out of circulation. 0:26:40.000 --> 0:26:42.400 And so, you know, I'm kind of curious. You've been 0:26:42.440 --> 0:26:44.919 there for over a decade, do you have a sense 0:26:45.680 --> 0:26:50.119 sort of what the key drivers of vaccine hesitancy are 0:26:50.440 --> 0:26:53.040 and why so many West Texans choose not to get 0:26:53.040 --> 0:26:55.880 their children vaccinated. You already mentioned, you know, the fact 0:26:55.880 --> 0:26:58.520 that it hasn't been seen for so long, so sort 0:26:58.520 --> 0:27:00.679 of out of sight, out of mind, be But are 0:27:00.680 --> 0:27:03.520 there are there other drivers that come to mind for you? 0:27:04.080 --> 0:27:04.280 Yeah? 0:27:04.320 --> 0:27:06.439 I mean I don't think. You know, West Texas is 0:27:07.560 --> 0:27:12.239 unique from many other communities in the United States. You know, 0:27:12.320 --> 0:27:16.600 people are very much influenced by social media and some 0:27:16.640 --> 0:27:20.119 of our media outlets, and there's a lot of you know, 0:27:20.520 --> 0:27:28.160 scare tactics or misinformation around vaccines and you know, anything 0:27:28.200 --> 0:27:32.560 from autism that's been debunked so many times about vaccines 0:27:32.600 --> 0:27:38.000 causing autism, other misinformation about what's in vaccines and the 0:27:38.080 --> 0:27:43.280 risks of vaccines. I mean, every medical intervention, every medication 0:27:43.480 --> 0:27:46.879 has some type you know of risk. But vaccines have 0:27:47.000 --> 0:27:49.600 been long studied, and especially when you're looking at the 0:27:49.720 --> 0:27:52.080 MMR vaccine, we've been using this for fifty years and 0:27:52.119 --> 0:27:55.399 that's why we don't have measles cases or hadn't had 0:27:55.440 --> 0:27:58.480 measles cases. But people have really bought into a lot 0:27:58.520 --> 0:28:01.320 of that information out there, and it's really hard to 0:28:01.359 --> 0:28:05.080 combat that. I've gone and read the stories and I 0:28:05.119 --> 0:28:07.320 can see how people feel miss and pick up on this, 0:28:07.880 --> 0:28:10.359 but I just don't know from public health standpoint how 0:28:10.400 --> 0:28:11.960 we combat it right. 0:28:12.359 --> 0:28:12.560 Right. 0:28:12.800 --> 0:28:16.720 It's a very difficult problem, the challenge that has a 0:28:16.760 --> 0:28:19.680 long history and has a lot of different factors. 0:28:19.520 --> 0:28:23.080 And things are so complex. A it's not a one 0:28:23.080 --> 0:28:25.800 for one, it's just it's been a challenge. But I 0:28:25.840 --> 0:28:29.280 think out here I always felt like we hadn't been 0:28:30.040 --> 0:28:33.320 impacted as much from some of these anti vaccine movements. 0:28:34.240 --> 0:28:37.679 I think post COVID people you know, have a mistrust 0:28:37.680 --> 0:28:42.280 in government or wanting to listen to mandates or recommendations 0:28:42.360 --> 0:28:44.760 or whatever we call them. We're just seeing that more 0:28:44.760 --> 0:28:47.600 and more, and that hesitancy, you know, to come through 0:28:47.600 --> 0:28:51.480 and trust both government, trust the medical system, or all concerns, 0:28:51.520 --> 0:28:54.680 and that all contributes to these lower vaccination rates. 0:28:58.720 --> 0:29:02.800 In a media environment rife with misinformation about vaccines and 0:29:02.840 --> 0:29:06.800 public health, Catherine's perspective is refreshing and a bit heartening. 0:29:07.400 --> 0:29:10.360 Local public health officials like her have done great work 0:29:10.400 --> 0:29:13.600 to raise the alarm around viral outbreaks, but they're up 0:29:13.600 --> 0:29:15.959 against a problem that is much bigger than what they 0:29:16.000 --> 0:29:19.800 can address on their own, and that's the widespread belief 0:29:20.040 --> 0:29:24.360 in bogus theories, be they scientific or religious, that undercut 0:29:24.520 --> 0:29:30.680 the proven science around vaccines. Much of this misinformation comes 0:29:30.680 --> 0:29:34.760 from places far from West Texas, like the anti vaccination 0:29:34.840 --> 0:29:39.240 group Children's Health Defense, which RFK Junior previously led. It 0:29:39.320 --> 0:29:43.240 is widely recognized as a major source of online vaccine misinformation, 0:29:43.880 --> 0:29:48.520 including the debunked allegation that vaccines cause autism. After the 0:29:48.600 --> 0:29:51.760 death of a six year old child of measles. In March, 0:29:52.320 --> 0:29:55.320 Children's Health Defense released a video interview with the parents 0:29:55.880 --> 0:29:59.560 who said they still would not take the vaccine and 0:29:59.600 --> 0:30:00.920 wouldn't recommend it. 0:30:00.840 --> 0:30:01.840 To other parents. 0:30:02.200 --> 0:30:04.880 Here's a clip from that interview in which the Mennonite 0:30:04.920 --> 0:30:07.480 parents speak in their Lowland German dialect. 0:30:07.800 --> 0:30:10.480 So, when you see the fairmoon ring in the crest, 0:30:10.520 --> 0:30:12.960 which is what we once stops. We want to get 0:30:13.000 --> 0:30:15.480 the truth out. What do you say to the parents 0:30:15.480 --> 0:30:19.520 that are rushing out panicking to get that and my 0:30:19.600 --> 0:30:22.240 mouth had a six months daily because they think that 0:30:22.320 --> 0:30:24.640 that child is going to die of measles. 0:30:24.640 --> 0:30:27.160 Apartment to your daughter, and. 0:30:27.240 --> 0:30:30.520 A good sign is only would be so trust me, 0:30:30.720 --> 0:30:35.080 so bad like theresign doctors with the whole town, she says, 0:30:35.080 --> 0:30:38.160 they would still say don't do the shots. There's doctors 0:30:38.160 --> 0:30:40.719 that can help with measles. They're not as bad as 0:30:40.760 --> 0:30:41.920 they're making it out to be. 0:30:43.680 --> 0:30:49.480 And also the measles are good for the body for 0:30:49.600 --> 0:30:57.040 the people because the measles are then given the what 0:30:57.240 --> 0:31:00.880 is it what can yea. 0:31:02.480 --> 0:31:04.640 And cinema conduction? 0:31:04.840 --> 0:31:05.520 But infection? 0:31:05.680 --> 0:31:07.200 Yeah, did you get infection out? 0:31:07.240 --> 0:31:10.800 And he's would immune system. 0:31:10.840 --> 0:31:11.000 Yes. 0:31:11.600 --> 0:31:14.400 They're trying to say that the measles actually helped build 0:31:14.400 --> 0:31:16.720 the immune system in the long run. If they get 0:31:16.760 --> 0:31:17.640 the measles, now. 0:31:17.640 --> 0:31:17.720 No. 0:31:19.320 --> 0:31:22.360 Chief in the long run, In the long run, the 0:31:22.400 --> 0:31:29.600 clinic sal like okay, So in the long run, he said, 0:31:29.600 --> 0:31:33.840 they wouldn't get cancer as easily and like it fights 0:31:33.880 --> 0:31:36.880 off a lot of a lot of stuff, the immunity 0:31:36.920 --> 0:31:39.600 that they get from the back from the measles. 0:31:42.000 --> 0:31:44.320 But some of what public officials like Catherine have been 0:31:44.320 --> 0:31:48.760 trying to combat is coming from other medical professionals much 0:31:48.960 --> 0:31:53.400 closer to home, such as doctor Ben Edwards, who appeared 0:31:53.440 --> 0:31:57.160 in the Children's Health Defense video and has promoted anti 0:31:57.240 --> 0:32:01.320 vaccination misinformation on his own podcast, including the recommendation to 0:32:01.320 --> 0:32:04.160 take vitamin A to treat measles, an approach that has 0:32:04.200 --> 0:32:08.040 resulted in several cases of vitamin A toxicity among children 0:32:08.080 --> 0:32:11.720 diagnosed with measles in West Texas. During their interview with 0:32:11.920 --> 0:32:15.120 Children's Health Defense, the Mennonite parents of the first child 0:32:15.120 --> 0:32:18.520 to die of measles actually said they were working with 0:32:18.760 --> 0:32:23.560 doctor Ben Edwards for their treatment. One video that went 0:32:23.640 --> 0:32:28.400 viral online showed Edwards visibly infected with measles at the time, 0:32:29.080 --> 0:32:33.760 treating patients with measles and inhabiting spaces where individuals who 0:32:33.800 --> 0:32:37.760 were not infected with measles were present, and this elicited 0:32:37.960 --> 0:32:43.480 widespread condemnation from the medical community, quite unsurprisingly. Nevertheless, it 0:32:43.520 --> 0:32:47.400 demonstrates the sort of attitude of certain medical professionals in 0:32:47.440 --> 0:32:51.320 the area who have used their platforms and their credentials 0:32:51.560 --> 0:32:55.560 to sow doubt about the importance of the vaccine, making 0:32:55.560 --> 0:32:59.720 matters worse. RFKA Junior praised doctor Edwards as a quote 0:32:59.720 --> 0:33:03.800 extra extraordinary healer just one week after Edwards was seen 0:33:03.880 --> 0:33:07.800 in that video treating patients while himself infected with measles. 0:33:08.760 --> 0:33:12.040 While anti vaccination beliefs have certainly gone viral in the 0:33:12.080 --> 0:33:15.000 aftermath of the COVID pandemic, they are by no means 0:33:15.080 --> 0:33:19.280 new Practitioners like Edwards and advocacy groups like Children's Health 0:33:19.280 --> 0:33:22.480 Defense have been peddling their snake oil for decades. But 0:33:22.560 --> 0:33:25.600 the roots of anti vaccination belief around even deeper than that. 0:33:26.520 --> 0:33:29.680 In the next episode of Anti vaxx America, I'll do 0:33:29.720 --> 0:33:32.520 a deep dive into the history of anti vaccination beliefs 0:33:33.080 --> 0:33:36.840 to understand the origins of them, how they've changed over time, 0:33:37.440 --> 0:33:41.920 and why they've become embraced in mainstream right wing politics, 0:33:41.920 --> 0:33:45.880 which is a change from the sort of bipartisan and 0:33:46.040 --> 0:33:51.240 even sometimes progressive nature of some anti vaccination skepticism. But 0:33:51.400 --> 0:33:55.440 until then, thanks for listening. I'm Stephen Monchelli for Cool 0:33:55.520 --> 0:34:21.440 Zone Media and this is Anti vax America. Welcome back 0:34:21.520 --> 0:34:24.400 to it could happen here and to episode two of 0:34:24.440 --> 0:34:28.920 Anti vax America. I'm Stephen mon and Shelley. Last episode 0:34:28.920 --> 0:34:31.680 I explored the ongoing measles outbreak that started in West 0:34:31.719 --> 0:34:34.600 Texas and has since spread to several states across the nation. 0:34:35.200 --> 0:34:37.640 A big part of that story is the underlying anti 0:34:37.719 --> 0:34:40.720 vax beliefs that are fueling a decline in vaccination rates 0:34:41.120 --> 0:34:43.840 across the country, and how the leader of our federal 0:34:43.880 --> 0:34:47.120 health bureaucracy, a arth K Junior, has helped seed, spread 0:34:47.200 --> 0:34:51.239 and embed those beliefs into policy. But behind all that 0:34:51.480 --> 0:34:54.800 is a deeper history of anti vaccination beliefs in America. 0:34:55.640 --> 0:34:58.120 And while it is undoubtedly the case that the COVID 0:34:58.160 --> 0:35:01.520 nineteen pandemic brought anti vaccination beliefs to the forefront of 0:35:01.560 --> 0:35:06.600 American politics, opposition to vaccines is not new. It's about 0:35:06.640 --> 0:35:08.719 as old as the technology itself. 0:35:10.360 --> 0:35:13.279 It actually goes back to the founding colonies and even 0:35:13.320 --> 0:35:17.040 the early eighteen hundreds when you had people kind of 0:35:17.120 --> 0:35:22.839 peddling various what they called botanicals as substitutes for mainstream medicine. 0:35:23.080 --> 0:35:26.480 That's doctor Peter Hotez. He's a doctor in Houston with 0:35:26.600 --> 0:35:28.960 a long and impressive list of credentials. 0:35:29.560 --> 0:35:33.400 I'm a pediatrician scientist. I have an MD and PhD, 0:35:33.520 --> 0:35:37.799 and I'm a professor of pediatrics and molecular Virology at 0:35:37.840 --> 0:35:40.560 Baylor College of Medicine, where I'm also co director of 0:35:40.600 --> 0:35:44.200 the Texas Children's Hospital Center for Vaccine Development, and also 0:35:44.280 --> 0:35:46.760 dean of our National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor 0:35:46.800 --> 0:35:51.440 College and Medicine. And my interest is a lifelong interest 0:35:51.480 --> 0:35:56.120 in developing new vaccines, particularly vaccines that the big pharma 0:35:56.200 --> 0:35:59.200 companies have no interest in making because they're vaccines for 0:35:59.280 --> 0:36:04.040 diseases of poverty. We've made a low cost COVID vaccine 0:36:04.040 --> 0:36:07.719 that reached technology, reached one hundred million people in India and 0:36:07.760 --> 0:36:14.000 Indonesia during the pandemic, and now vaccines for parasitic diseases 0:36:14.080 --> 0:36:18.200 that occur only among the world's poor. And that's a 0:36:18.239 --> 0:36:19.520 lifelong passion of mine. 0:36:22.520 --> 0:36:26.879 The first vaccination was created in seventeen ninety six by 0:36:27.280 --> 0:36:30.640 Edward Jenner, who was able to build on prior methods 0:36:30.719 --> 0:36:34.120 of inoculation, and he was able to create a vaccine 0:36:34.160 --> 0:36:37.520 for smallpox, one of the deadliest viruses. 0:36:37.160 --> 0:36:38.080 In human history. 0:36:38.880 --> 0:36:42.600 Within a matter of decades, vaccination had become widespread in 0:36:42.600 --> 0:36:46.279 the Western world. The United Kingdom passed the Vaccination Act 0:36:46.560 --> 0:36:49.160 of eighteen forty to provide free vaccinations to the poor, 0:36:49.360 --> 0:36:51.680 and then passed another act in eighteen fifty three that 0:36:51.760 --> 0:36:55.560 made it compulsory for infants, and another in eighteen sixty 0:36:55.600 --> 0:36:59.560 seven that extended the compulsory vaccination requirement to fourteen and 0:36:59.640 --> 0:37:03.160 added penalties for non compliance that could be cumulative over time. 0:37:03.719 --> 0:37:07.319 Resistance to these laws began in eighteen fifty three with 0:37:07.360 --> 0:37:10.800 a few riots in towns across England, and this eventually 0:37:10.840 --> 0:37:15.800 formalized into the Anti Compulsory Vaccination League, which distributed literature 0:37:16.000 --> 0:37:19.840 likening vaccination to a monster and lobbied the British government 0:37:19.880 --> 0:37:23.840 to change the laws. Their efforts actually proved successful, and 0:37:23.880 --> 0:37:26.160 a new law was passed in eighteen ninety eight to 0:37:26.239 --> 0:37:30.239 remove cumulative penalties and create an exemption for what they 0:37:30.360 --> 0:37:34.480 termed conscientious objectors, which is the first time that term 0:37:34.520 --> 0:37:38.520 had ever been used in British law. Parallel anti vaccination 0:37:38.600 --> 0:37:41.920 movement made similar strides in the United States, and one 0:37:41.960 --> 0:37:44.759 of the leaders of the British anti vaccination movement even 0:37:44.840 --> 0:37:47.359 came to the United States to help co found one 0:37:47.400 --> 0:37:51.520 of the anti vaccination leagues in America. Several states also 0:37:51.560 --> 0:37:54.840 passed compulsory vaccination laws in the United States, spurring the 0:37:54.880 --> 0:37:58.440 American anti vaccination leagues to fight in the legal courts, 0:37:58.800 --> 0:38:01.400 in the court of public opinion, and the legislatures across 0:38:01.440 --> 0:38:09.600 the country, and they successfully repealed compulsory vaccination laws in California, Illinois, Indiana, Minnesota, Utah, 0:38:09.760 --> 0:38:15.040 West Virginia, and Wisconsin. But opposing compulsory vaccinations was only 0:38:15.160 --> 0:38:19.200 one part of the strategy of these early anti vaccine organizations. 0:38:19.680 --> 0:38:22.840 Another key plank, which may sound familiar to those of 0:38:22.880 --> 0:38:26.080 you who follow the news, was the promotion of alternative 0:38:26.200 --> 0:38:30.120 remedies such as homeopathy, which were quite popular at the 0:38:30.160 --> 0:38:34.240 time among certain sects of medicine. Now, these movements didn't 0:38:34.280 --> 0:38:36.759 neatly fall across political lines in. 0:38:36.719 --> 0:38:38.400 The way that they largely do today. 0:38:38.880 --> 0:38:43.239 Progressive and conservative anti vaccination activists were tied together by 0:38:43.719 --> 0:38:46.800 strongly held beliefs in things like quote unquote medical freedom, 0:38:47.200 --> 0:38:52.520 sometimes philosophical beliefs around freedom, their spiritual faiths, or in 0:38:52.560 --> 0:38:58.520 some instances, even anti Semitic conspiracy theories. Consider Eugene carl During, 0:38:58.960 --> 0:39:02.000 a philosopher and aomus, considered one of the founding fathers 0:39:02.040 --> 0:39:05.359 of German anti Semitism, who argued that Jewish doctors were 0:39:05.400 --> 0:39:08.000 behind a conspiracy to drum up business for themselves by 0:39:08.000 --> 0:39:12.279 promoting vaccination to healthy people. These are all tropes that 0:39:12.360 --> 0:39:15.000 live on to this day and that someone like doctor 0:39:15.040 --> 0:39:16.480 Hotez knows. 0:39:16.120 --> 0:39:17.799 All too well, and. 0:39:17.760 --> 0:39:20.799 Because of his advocacy of vaccines, he's often been a 0:39:20.800 --> 0:39:21.400 target of it. 0:39:21.880 --> 0:39:25.520 I'm a scientist, the vaccine scientists, the Jewish vaccine scientists. 0:39:25.560 --> 0:39:29.160 So they've got me doing this in secret with George 0:39:29.160 --> 0:39:31.640 Soros or one of the rothschilds that I'm doing it 0:39:31.680 --> 0:39:35.239 at the World Economic Forum in Davos. I haven't even 0:39:35.400 --> 0:39:36.520 invited the Davos. 0:39:37.120 --> 0:39:40.040 While some of the progressive strain of the historic anti 0:39:40.120 --> 0:39:44.719 vaccination movement has lived on in the stereotypical hippie naturalist 0:39:44.840 --> 0:39:47.880 lifestyle culture that is popular in parts of the Northwest, 0:39:48.360 --> 0:39:51.920 that strain is long in fringe and is kind of 0:39:51.960 --> 0:39:55.080 extinct at this point. It had its heyday after the 0:39:55.120 --> 0:39:59.279 sixties and seventies, when a lot of alternative therapies and 0:39:59.360 --> 0:40:02.960 medicines were being promoted and embraced in the West. Most 0:40:02.960 --> 0:40:06.160 of the anti vaxxors of that variety today have largely 0:40:06.160 --> 0:40:09.600 been drawn towards more right winging values and have been 0:40:09.640 --> 0:40:12.520 subsumed by the sort of politics that defines the larger 0:40:12.640 --> 0:40:16.560 Make America Healthy Again agenda. The way doctor Hotess sees it, 0:40:16.600 --> 0:40:20.640 there's a direct line between these old anti vaccine movements 0:40:20.920 --> 0:40:24.640 and the modern day Maha movement, which combines anti vaccine 0:40:24.680 --> 0:40:28.480 beliefs with alternative medicine and libertarian mindsets around health freedom 0:40:28.920 --> 0:40:31.080 into a sort of single bundle of sticks. 0:40:32.360 --> 0:40:36.200 There's an older thread that goes back to colonial times, 0:40:37.080 --> 0:40:41.680 and it has to do with libertarian concepts of what's 0:40:41.719 --> 0:40:44.680 sometimes called health freedom medical freedom. Hey, you can't tell 0:40:44.760 --> 0:40:47.239 us what to do about our kids, and now we 0:40:47.280 --> 0:40:49.920 see that today, right, you know, And this is coming 0:40:50.280 --> 0:40:53.360 partly out of the health and wellness and influencer industry, 0:40:54.000 --> 0:40:56.879 and that's why you get you know, ivermectin, which does 0:40:56.920 --> 0:41:01.239 absolutely nothing for covid or hydroxychloroquin nothing for covid or 0:41:01.840 --> 0:41:05.200 when you heard mister Kennedy talk about vitamin A or 0:41:05.320 --> 0:41:08.760 as a preventative, or budesini as steroid which does nothing, 0:41:08.920 --> 0:41:11.520 or clarithromycin and antibiotic does nothing. 0:41:11.560 --> 0:41:11.920 Whatever. 0:41:12.280 --> 0:41:14.400 You know, they can buy in bulk and then sell 0:41:14.920 --> 0:41:17.680 at a profit. That's you know, that's that's a lot 0:41:17.680 --> 0:41:22.120 of the wellness and influencer industry. And so what you 0:41:22.160 --> 0:41:26.879 have now is that converging thread around that and libertarian politics. 0:41:27.160 --> 0:41:29.360 And that's what you saw. I think, after you know, 0:41:29.400 --> 0:41:32.840 we were started to debunk the false links between vaccines 0:41:32.840 --> 0:41:35.799 and autism, they needed a new thing. And and this 0:41:35.880 --> 0:41:39.719 is when you saw here in Texas, this rise in 0:41:39.800 --> 0:41:44.400 parents requesting vaccine exemptions around the banner of health freedom, 0:41:44.480 --> 0:41:47.200 medical freedom. And here's where it became really tough to 0:41:47.239 --> 0:41:52.239 talk about because it got adopted by the Republican Tea 0:41:52.239 --> 0:41:55.800 Party in Texas. And so anti vaccine groups started getting 0:41:55.840 --> 0:42:00.160 pack money, political action committee money to lobby the or 0:42:00.239 --> 0:42:04.719 educate the state legislature about health freedom, medical freedom, and 0:42:04.800 --> 0:42:09.879 even provide money for candidates to run on anti vaccine platforms. 0:42:10.520 --> 0:42:14.160 But before we explore the contemporary anti vaccination movement further, 0:42:14.200 --> 0:42:17.480 we have to return to history, and before we do that, 0:42:17.920 --> 0:42:32.080 we're obligated to take a quick ad break. Anti vaccine 0:42:32.120 --> 0:42:34.839 movements appeared to be gaining steam in the late eighteen 0:42:34.880 --> 0:42:37.760 hundreds and early nineteen hundreds, but their progress largely halted 0:42:38.160 --> 0:42:41.880 when a nineteen oh five US Supreme Court ruling upheld 0:42:41.920 --> 0:42:45.320 the authority of states to pass and enforce compulsory vaccination laws. 0:42:45.880 --> 0:42:46.440 They continued. 0:42:46.440 --> 0:42:50.480 Spread of viruses like smallpox, the deadly Spanish flu pandemic, 0:42:50.719 --> 0:42:53.839 and the outbreak of World War II all spurred advancements 0:42:53.880 --> 0:42:59.520 in vaccination research and programs to ensure widespread vaccination, and 0:42:59.600 --> 0:43:02.120 as this science continued to advance, more and more states 0:43:02.120 --> 0:43:05.680 began to mandate vaccines for public school attendance, as did 0:43:05.680 --> 0:43:09.440 employers for their workers. By nineteen sixty three, twenty states 0:43:09.440 --> 0:43:12.040 require children to be vaccinated before going to school, and 0:43:12.040 --> 0:43:14.640 by nineteen eighty, every state in the nation had a 0:43:14.680 --> 0:43:17.799 similar law on the books, And as the decades went on, 0:43:17.880 --> 0:43:21.799 the incident's rates of several diseases dramatically plummeted. By nineteen eighty, 0:43:22.080 --> 0:43:25.879 smallpox had been eradicated, but along the way there were 0:43:25.960 --> 0:43:29.560 things done in the name of medical science that would 0:43:29.640 --> 0:43:32.560 undercut the great strides made during that period of time, 0:43:33.080 --> 0:43:35.960 things that ultimately showed the seeds for some of today's 0:43:36.120 --> 0:43:37.440 vaccination skepticism. 0:43:39.400 --> 0:43:45.319 I think it's important to understand that not all suspicion 0:43:46.200 --> 0:43:53.839 regarding medicine and doctors research, that not all of this 0:43:54.239 --> 0:43:56.319 resistance is totally irrational. 0:43:56.400 --> 0:43:58.040 It's based on experience. 0:43:58.680 --> 0:44:01.640 That's doctor Michael Phillips, who you may recognize from prior 0:44:01.680 --> 0:44:05.239 episodes if it could happen here. He's a historian of race, eugenics, 0:44:05.280 --> 0:44:07.000 and right wing politics in Texas. 0:44:07.800 --> 0:44:12.000 Going back to the time of slavery, enslaved men and 0:44:12.040 --> 0:44:18.680 women were often the unwilling, involuntary subjects of medical experiments. 0:44:19.000 --> 0:44:23.000 We have, for instance, a a man named Marion Simms, 0:44:23.560 --> 0:44:27.200 and they actually put a statue up of him in 0:44:27.280 --> 0:44:32.080 Central Park in New York that's been taken down since. 0:44:32.640 --> 0:44:35.920 Who was credited as the father of gynecology. 0:44:36.200 --> 0:44:37.680 There was a. 0:44:37.200 --> 0:44:42.600 Problem in that era before the discovery of germ theory, 0:44:43.040 --> 0:44:46.719 where whenever women would give birth and there would be 0:44:46.800 --> 0:44:51.279 vaginal tears, doctors would often sew up the wounds and 0:44:51.360 --> 0:44:54.120 then there'd be an infection and the woman would die 0:44:54.280 --> 0:44:58.520 or get seriously ill or infertile, and the infertility and 0:44:58.640 --> 0:45:03.200 death of slaves meant a loss of property. So enslavers 0:45:03.680 --> 0:45:08.080 we're very concerned about this issue. Marion Simms at some 0:45:08.320 --> 0:45:13.840 point discovers that if you use silver thread, silver sutures 0:45:14.360 --> 0:45:17.760 when you operate on women who have had these vaginal terrors, 0:45:18.680 --> 0:45:23.600 that the infection doesn't happen. Now, he wanted to prove this, 0:45:23.760 --> 0:45:26.799 He wanted to perfect his technique, so he did it 0:45:26.920 --> 0:45:28.240 on enslaved women. 0:45:29.120 --> 0:45:32.480 During the COVID nineteen pandemic, Black Americans lagged behind whites 0:45:32.480 --> 0:45:35.960 in terms of vaccination rates. According to a systemic literature 0:45:36.000 --> 0:45:39.560 review on the determinants of vaccine hesitancy among Black Americans, 0:45:40.160 --> 0:45:43.160 vaccine hasnency in Black communities is rooted in a troubling 0:45:43.239 --> 0:45:47.239 history of unethical medical experiments, and it persists to this 0:45:47.400 --> 0:45:50.200 day due to how this group of the population still 0:45:50.239 --> 0:45:54.560 experiences discrimination, racism, mistreatment, and overall health iniquity. 0:45:55.760 --> 0:46:01.040 The most famous case of the medical abuse of marginalized people, 0:46:01.120 --> 0:46:05.200 and it's really entered the folk culture to the point 0:46:05.239 --> 0:46:08.279 that when I was teaching American history classes at a 0:46:08.280 --> 0:46:12.160 community college, all the students had heard about this particular 0:46:12.480 --> 0:46:16.600 atrocity and it was called the Tuskegee experiment. What actually 0:46:16.640 --> 0:46:20.960 happened is that African American men who got sexually transmitted 0:46:21.000 --> 0:46:25.799 diseases would go to this medical clinic that had been established, 0:46:25.920 --> 0:46:29.120 and the doctors with this grant wanted to see what 0:46:29.400 --> 0:46:32.640 the trajectory of syphilis would be if it was untreated. 0:46:33.320 --> 0:46:37.080 So these were people who already had STDs and they 0:46:37.120 --> 0:46:40.440 were given a placebo. They were given basically a sugar 0:46:40.520 --> 0:46:46.120 pill rather than penicillin or any other ameliative care. And 0:46:47.000 --> 0:46:51.960 the doctor's mission in their minds was that's find out 0:46:52.280 --> 0:46:58.080 if syphilis progresses in the same way with African American 0:46:58.239 --> 0:47:01.200 men as it does with white men. And so they 0:47:01.239 --> 0:47:04.440 wanted to see because they knew that syphilis will untreated 0:47:04.719 --> 0:47:09.840 eventually attack the central nervous systimuli, seizures, blindness, any number 0:47:09.880 --> 0:47:13.640 of terrible side effects. So they would go to the doctor, 0:47:13.680 --> 0:47:18.719 they would get the placebo, and syphilis will go into remission, 0:47:19.680 --> 0:47:24.400 and so the patient wouldn't have the benefit of medical 0:47:24.440 --> 0:47:29.160 knowledge about how syphilis progresses, would think the pill made 0:47:29.160 --> 0:47:32.200 it better, and then they would ask them to return 0:47:32.840 --> 0:47:35.960 and the doctor would come and then he'd record the 0:47:36.120 --> 0:47:41.120 damage that was happening to the patient's body as the 0:47:41.160 --> 0:47:45.040 disease progressed. And this went on until the nineteen sixties, 0:47:45.120 --> 0:47:52.160 and they published results with no professional repercussions. 0:47:52.280 --> 0:47:52.560 You know. 0:47:52.640 --> 0:47:56.600 And one thing they proved is that syphilis attacks black 0:47:56.680 --> 0:47:58.880 people the same way it does white people. If you 0:47:58.960 --> 0:48:03.440 leave it untreated, the same symptoms developed. The nervous systems 0:48:03.440 --> 0:48:06.120 of black and white people are the same. But they 0:48:06.120 --> 0:48:11.560 publish these results in ACCLAIM Medical Journal, and the backlash 0:48:11.719 --> 0:48:12.560 was not immediate. 0:48:12.600 --> 0:48:15.000 Eventually, you know, it became a scandal. 0:48:15.280 --> 0:48:20.280 So that really did strike a chord in the Black 0:48:20.560 --> 0:48:26.880 community that I think to this day we've seen skepticism 0:48:26.920 --> 0:48:30.800 about white medicine. And again there's valid historical reasons. 0:48:31.800 --> 0:48:34.880 RFK Junior and the anti vaccination movement have seized on 0:48:34.960 --> 0:48:40.280 this particular historical atrocity, so doubt about vaccines among Black Americans. 0:48:40.280 --> 0:48:44.360 More generally, Children's Health Defense, the anti VAXX group previously 0:48:44.440 --> 0:48:48.080 led by RFK Junior, invoked the Tuskegee Syphilist study in 0:48:48.120 --> 0:48:52.359 an anti vaccine film called medical Racism the New Apartheid. 0:48:53.000 --> 0:48:55.359 But before we talk a bit more about Children's Health 0:48:55.400 --> 0:48:59.240 Defense and the more recent history of the anti vaccination movement, 0:48:59.440 --> 0:49:13.200 we've got it to another ad break. Black Americans aren't 0:49:13.239 --> 0:49:17.320 the only population group that organizations like Children's Health Defense 0:49:17.600 --> 0:49:21.960 have targeted in recent years. For decades, the anti vax 0:49:22.040 --> 0:49:24.680 movement has sought to recruit the parents of autistic children 0:49:24.719 --> 0:49:27.120 to their cause by way of the argument that vaccines 0:49:27.160 --> 0:49:31.600 directly cause autism. Incidentally, one such parent of an autistic 0:49:31.719 --> 0:49:36.759 child is doctor Hotes, whose twenty thirteen book Vaccines did 0:49:36.760 --> 0:49:41.560 Not Cause Rachel's Autism directly targets RFK Junior's long held 0:49:41.560 --> 0:49:44.319 belief about the link between autism and vaccines. 0:49:46.800 --> 0:49:51.839 It actually came about after a year of discussions with 0:49:51.960 --> 0:49:55.799 Robert F. Kennedy Junior explaining tim the evidence showing vaccines 0:49:56.520 --> 0:49:59.719 don't cause autism and finally decide to write it all 0:49:59.800 --> 0:50:02.600 up in a book. And it's about my daughter. So 0:50:02.800 --> 0:50:05.160 you know, I wear two hats as a vaccine scientist, 0:50:05.200 --> 0:50:08.040 but also wound up going up against anti vaccine groups 0:50:08.080 --> 0:50:12.239 because I do have a daughter with autism and intellectual 0:50:12.280 --> 0:50:17.120 disabilities and now she's an adult. And essentially there's two 0:50:17.239 --> 0:50:21.320 major threads in the book other than telling the story 0:50:21.360 --> 0:50:25.040 about Rachel and our family, and one is the overwhelming 0:50:25.080 --> 0:50:28.320 evidence showing there's no link between vaccines and autism, and 0:50:29.120 --> 0:50:31.960 even within that, there's a lot of subcategories because what 0:50:32.080 --> 0:50:37.200 happens is anti vaccine groups keeps switching up the concern 0:50:37.239 --> 0:50:40.319 about a specific vaccine, and when it gets debunked and 0:50:40.360 --> 0:50:42.839 they just switch it up to something else. I call 0:50:42.880 --> 0:50:45.800 it biomedical whack a mole or moving the goalposts of 0:50:45.840 --> 0:50:49.320 The original assertion came out of the late nineteen nineties 0:50:49.360 --> 0:50:51.600 of the false claims that it was the MMR vaccine 0:50:51.600 --> 0:50:55.200 the measles, mumps rubella vaccine, and that was actually published 0:50:55.600 --> 0:50:58.239 in a biomedical journal called The Lancet in the UK. 0:50:58.400 --> 0:51:01.400 The paper was retracted eventually because it was known to 0:51:01.440 --> 0:51:05.279 be false, and also the scientific community responded with large 0:51:05.280 --> 0:51:09.520 epidemiologic studies showing that kids who got the MMR vaccine 0:51:09.520 --> 0:51:12.240 were no more likely to acquire autism than kids who didn't, 0:51:13.160 --> 0:51:15.520 and similarly, kids on the autism spectrum were no more 0:51:15.600 --> 0:51:17.840 likely to have gotten MMR the kids not on the 0:51:17.880 --> 0:51:19.799 autism spectrum. That should have been the end of it, 0:51:19.880 --> 0:51:23.080 but then our friend Robert F. Kennedy Junior came on 0:51:23.120 --> 0:51:25.560 the scene in two thousand and five and wrote an 0:51:25.640 --> 0:51:29.760 article in Rolling Stone magazine claiming, okay, if it's not MMR, 0:51:29.800 --> 0:51:34.279 it must be the thimerosol preservative that's in vaccine, and 0:51:34.320 --> 0:51:38.400 that was also retracted and thoroughly debunked through large epidemiologic studies, 0:51:38.440 --> 0:51:41.640 even nonhuman primate studies. And it switched up again to 0:51:42.320 --> 0:51:45.319 spacing vaccines too close together. We have to green our 0:51:45.440 --> 0:51:49.960 vaccine ecosystem. And you saw celebrities like Jenny McCarthy, your husband, 0:51:50.040 --> 0:51:52.640 Jim Carrey walking around in green T shirts. It was 0:51:52.680 --> 0:51:56.799 all phony boloni and that was debunked, and then it 0:51:56.880 --> 0:51:59.560 was alum in vaccine. So it became this kind of 0:51:59.560 --> 0:52:03.080 exhaust exercise and each time we were able to successfully 0:52:03.239 --> 0:52:03.799 refute it. 0:52:06.800 --> 0:52:10.160 Founded in two thousand and seven, Children's Health Defense represented 0:52:10.160 --> 0:52:14.759 a formalization of late twentieth century anti vaccination resistance. Not 0:52:14.880 --> 0:52:17.680 unlike the anti vaccination leagues of the late nineteenth and 0:52:17.760 --> 0:52:22.440 early twentieth century, Children's Health Defense pedals dubious cures like 0:52:22.480 --> 0:52:27.239 homeopathy and promotes conspiratorial narratives like the Great Reset, which 0:52:27.280 --> 0:52:29.880 claims that billionaire Bill Gates and others have used the 0:52:29.920 --> 0:52:32.920 COVID nineteen pandemic as part of a plan to make 0:52:32.960 --> 0:52:37.120 America a Marxist. The idea that vaccines cause autism is 0:52:37.160 --> 0:52:40.640 a part of a larger claim that vaccines can cause 0:52:40.680 --> 0:52:44.200 injuries among those who receive them, and that our understanding 0:52:44.480 --> 0:52:48.520 of these injuries is far less than what the science shows. 0:52:49.400 --> 0:52:52.560 This notion gained traction in the nineteen seventies and nineteen eighties, 0:52:52.880 --> 0:52:57.799 when controversy erupted regarding the DPT vaccine for diphtheria, pertussis, 0:52:57.840 --> 0:53:03.719 and tetanus. A sensational film called DPT Vaccine Roulette drew 0:53:03.760 --> 0:53:06.960 an erroneous link between the vaccine and illnesses of some 0:53:07.120 --> 0:53:10.560 children who received it. Two parents of children who received 0:53:10.600 --> 0:53:14.640 the vaccine formed the National Vaccine Information Center, which exists 0:53:14.640 --> 0:53:16.800 to this day and was a major source of COVID 0:53:16.880 --> 0:53:21.279 nineteen misinformation. The controversy around the DPT vaccine led to 0:53:21.360 --> 0:53:25.640 lawsuits against vaccine manufacturers, leading many of those manufacturers to 0:53:25.640 --> 0:53:28.239 stop producing the vaccine by the end of nineteen eighty five. 0:53:28.800 --> 0:53:32.520 Because of this, Congress passed the National Childhood Vaccine Injury 0:53:32.560 --> 0:53:36.760 Act in nineteen eighty six, establishing a no fault system 0:53:36.840 --> 0:53:40.840 to alleviate pressure on vaccine manufacturers and provide an avenue 0:53:40.880 --> 0:53:45.200 for victims of a vaccine injury to be compensated. As 0:53:45.239 --> 0:53:49.000 doctor Hotez describes it, a lot of this is overblown. Yes, 0:53:49.360 --> 0:53:53.520 there are individuals who can have reactions two vaccines that 0:53:53.600 --> 0:53:58.359 can cause issues, but the studies around DPT and the 0:53:58.360 --> 0:54:01.839 notions that it caused these illnesses that these parents were 0:54:01.880 --> 0:54:05.759 concerned about, it actually showed that there was no connection. Nevertheless, 0:54:06.520 --> 0:54:09.000 it is a reality that some people may face some 0:54:09.000 --> 0:54:12.359 sort of complications, and we can't dismiss that. But when 0:54:12.400 --> 0:54:15.480 we stack it up against the side effects of disease 0:54:15.680 --> 0:54:19.239 and one of those being death, well it's a pretty 0:54:19.320 --> 0:54:20.480 easy comparison to make. 0:54:21.239 --> 0:54:24.439 Yeah, it's going to be so important to keep up, 0:54:25.200 --> 0:54:28.239 you know, the education about vaccines. And one of the 0:54:28.239 --> 0:54:33.279 things that I've done has been preparing these infographics, which 0:54:33.360 --> 0:54:35.400 I initially did with a guy named Bill Marsh at 0:54:35.440 --> 0:54:37.600 the New York Times. Is this brilliant guy who does 0:54:37.640 --> 0:54:40.560 all these cool graphics for the New York Times, and 0:54:41.400 --> 0:54:44.640 he had this really interesting idea that we published in 0:54:44.640 --> 0:54:47.680 The New York Times in twenty twenty where you create 0:54:47.719 --> 0:54:52.400 a box representing ten thousand kids and two boxes aligned 0:54:52.440 --> 0:54:55.120 side to side. One box is what happens if ten 0:54:55.160 --> 0:54:59.960 thousand kids get save, for instance, the MMR vaccine versus 0:55:00.160 --> 0:55:04.720 is the other box. Ten thousand kids getting measles and 0:55:04.880 --> 0:55:07.120 you know, the ones getting the MMR vaccine. You see 0:55:07.120 --> 0:55:10.560 these tiny little pin pricks of very rare side effects 0:55:10.640 --> 0:55:15.440 like allergic reaction or febril seizures, one in three thousand, 0:55:16.000 --> 0:55:18.040 that sort of thing. So maybe there's a tiny little 0:55:18.080 --> 0:55:22.160 pin prick representing you know, three year thirty kids as 0:55:22.160 --> 0:55:25.439 opposed to measles, which you know twenty percent of kids 0:55:25.480 --> 0:55:29.120 hospitalized and measles deaths, and these are large red and 0:55:29.200 --> 0:55:32.400 black boxes. I think those kinds of things are helpful 0:55:32.560 --> 0:55:34.560 because I think one of the problems is the anti 0:55:34.640 --> 0:55:39.239 vaccine guys. What they'll do is they will exaggerate the 0:55:39.400 --> 0:55:45.040 frequency of rare, rare side effects and in simultaneously downplay 0:55:45.640 --> 0:55:48.120 the severity of the illness. And we even heard that 0:55:48.160 --> 0:55:50.120 before the two deaths. You know, you heard all this 0:55:50.239 --> 0:55:54.680 rhetorical measles is just like a benign illness. And now 0:55:54.680 --> 0:55:57.960 we've got two deaths right here in Texas of nice 0:55:58.000 --> 0:56:00.960 school age kids that never had to lose their lives 0:56:01.840 --> 0:56:05.880 because the parents were taken in by the disinformation machine. 0:56:06.800 --> 0:56:09.800 The contemporary rise of anti vaccine rhetoric in the US 0:56:10.280 --> 0:56:12.799 can also be tied to the political climate of the 0:56:12.880 --> 0:56:17.160 early twenty first century. Figures like Congressman Ron Paul, for example, 0:56:17.160 --> 0:56:20.640 have capitalized on the growing sentiment that government should not 0:56:20.680 --> 0:56:25.160 interfere with individual medical decisions. With increasing distrust in government, 0:56:25.239 --> 0:56:29.760 particularly during the Bush administration, vaccine hesitancy began to align 0:56:29.840 --> 0:56:33.719 with broader libertarian and some conservative ideologies. The idea that 0:56:33.760 --> 0:56:36.680 the government should not mandate personal medical choices further gain 0:56:36.760 --> 0:56:39.680 traction with the election of President Barack Obama in two 0:56:39.680 --> 0:56:43.440 thousand and eight, adding fuel to the anti vaccination fire, 0:56:44.120 --> 0:56:46.440 and the anti vact movement began to dovetail with the 0:56:46.480 --> 0:56:50.280 booming alternative health and wellness industry that excused Western medicine 0:56:50.280 --> 0:56:54.200 in favor of natural medicines and holistic approaches, and often 0:56:54.200 --> 0:56:57.600 this includes some sort of spiritual element. This convergence is 0:56:57.640 --> 0:57:01.719 crystallized in modern figures like Vo Hare, also known as 0:57:01.800 --> 0:57:06.399 the food Babe, who is a conservative wellness influencer. She's 0:57:06.440 --> 0:57:10.480 aligned herself with RFK Junior's Maha agenda and promotes the 0:57:10.520 --> 0:57:13.920 standard goop like fair but with a right wing edge. 0:57:14.320 --> 0:57:17.600 The American food industry, for example, or Big Pharma for example, 0:57:17.600 --> 0:57:21.440 are poisoning us, but also you shouldn't get the flu vaccine. 0:57:22.040 --> 0:57:24.960 Despite the best efforts of scientists like doctor Hotes to 0:57:24.960 --> 0:57:28.880 debunk he claims that motivate the modern anti vaccination movement, 0:57:29.200 --> 0:57:32.360 it has only gathered steam in the last few decades. 0:57:33.320 --> 0:57:35.640 In recent years, a number of states have passed new 0:57:35.720 --> 0:57:40.240 laws allowing for personal exemptions from vaccines, and because of 0:57:40.320 --> 0:57:43.240 doctor Hotes's public involvement, he's had a front row seat 0:57:43.440 --> 0:57:46.160 as anti vaccination beliefs have become part and parcel of 0:57:46.200 --> 0:57:47.280 Republican politics. 0:57:48.040 --> 0:57:51.080 And it was a physician scientist. The last thing I 0:57:51.120 --> 0:57:53.520 want to talk about is politics, right. I mean, I 0:57:53.560 --> 0:57:56.880 feel that every American is a right to their political views. 0:57:56.400 --> 0:57:59.800 That's embedded in our history and our constitution. But how 0:57:59.800 --> 0:58:04.000 do you say, don't adopt this stuff because it's going 0:58:04.040 --> 0:58:07.840 to be so detrimental. But that's what happened with the 0:58:07.880 --> 0:58:11.920 formation of anti vaccine groups in the twenty tens. In Texas. 0:58:11.920 --> 0:58:15.400 You started to get these steep rise in parents requesting 0:58:15.840 --> 0:58:19.040 non medical exemptions that their kids could get out of 0:58:19.080 --> 0:58:23.360 being vaccinated for school. And it was particularly strong in 0:58:23.480 --> 0:58:27.520 the same places where people were refusing COVID vaccine years later, 0:58:27.760 --> 0:58:32.360 especially in conservative rural areas. Of West Texas, East Texas. 0:58:32.360 --> 0:58:35.440 The vaccination rates continue to be strong in our cities 0:58:35.440 --> 0:58:38.240 of the Texas Triangle, Dallas, where you are, in Houston 0:58:38.280 --> 0:58:42.640 where I am, and San Antonio and Austin. But you know, 0:58:42.720 --> 0:58:46.560 in the more conservative rural areas of West Texas East Texas, 0:58:46.640 --> 0:58:51.360 that's where you saw big declines in kids getting vaccines. 0:58:51.440 --> 0:58:55.480 And once you go below a certain threshold, roughly below 0:58:55.560 --> 0:58:59.040 ninety percent, and bam that you start to see break 0:58:59.040 --> 0:59:02.640 through childhood infections. And usually the first one you see 0:59:02.640 --> 0:59:04.440 is measles. You can ultimately get all of them, but 0:59:04.520 --> 0:59:06.760 measles is the first one you see because it's so 0:59:06.840 --> 0:59:07.960 highly transmissible. 0:59:08.640 --> 0:59:10.080 But Texas is not alone. 0:59:10.640 --> 0:59:14.160 Well, Immunization rates certainly have limited in Republican states faster 0:59:14.240 --> 0:59:17.600 than they have in Democratic states. Immunization rates have fallen 0:59:17.800 --> 0:59:20.920 in most states since the pandemic. But there was another 0:59:20.960 --> 0:59:24.480 event over half a decade before social distancing and vaccination 0:59:24.600 --> 0:59:28.040 cards became household concepts that also informed the Republican Party's 0:59:28.040 --> 0:59:32.960 embrace of anti vaccine politics. This was a particular viral 0:59:33.000 --> 0:59:37.080 outbreak of measles in California, one that ultimately spurred policy 0:59:37.160 --> 0:59:39.920 changes that reverberated across the country. 0:59:40.440 --> 0:59:44.320 It started happening in the twenty tens and really ramped 0:59:44.400 --> 0:59:47.840 up after there was a large measles epidemic in California 0:59:47.880 --> 0:59:51.440 of all places, on twenty fourteen, twenty fifteen, and the 0:59:51.480 --> 0:59:55.480 California legislatures shut down vaccine exemptions. They said, Okay, from 0:59:55.480 --> 0:59:57.000 now on, you want to send you kids to school, 0:59:57.040 --> 1:00:00.080 the kids have to be vaccinated. And I supported that. 1:00:00.080 --> 1:00:03.480 That solved the measles problem, but then it produced this 1:00:03.560 --> 1:00:08.320 health freedom backlash in states like Texas, also Oklahoma, and 1:00:08.440 --> 1:00:12.800 very much a red state phenomenon read being Republican, blue 1:00:12.840 --> 1:00:17.480 being a Democrat, and that's where you saw these this 1:00:17.680 --> 1:00:22.040 Rizon vaccine exemptions. You started getting anti vaccine groups forming. 1:00:22.080 --> 1:00:24.960 They were getting pack money, political Action committee money, and 1:00:25.680 --> 1:00:30.400 I saw that as really dangerous because now rather than 1:00:30.440 --> 1:00:34.400 being sort of small, underfunded groups, they now had the 1:00:34.440 --> 1:00:37.800 backing of a major political party and everything that goes 1:00:37.840 --> 1:00:42.400 along with it in terms of influence and PAC money, 1:00:42.440 --> 1:00:44.560 and this gives them a lot of bandwidth and a 1:00:44.560 --> 1:00:48.280 lot of political clout, and it's so self defeating, but 1:00:48.720 --> 1:00:51.280 there you are. And so now we're at the point 1:00:51.920 --> 1:00:56.919 in Texas where we have over one hundred thousand non 1:00:56.960 --> 1:01:00.720 medical exemption requests of various sorts. So that's a lot 1:01:00.760 --> 1:01:04.000 of kids. And this doesn't say anything about the homeschooled 1:01:04.080 --> 1:01:08.439 kids in Texas. I'm told that we may have as 1:01:08.480 --> 1:01:11.240 many as seven hundred thousand homeschooled kids, but you might 1:01:11.280 --> 1:01:13.440 want to document that. And I don't think we have 1:01:13.480 --> 1:01:15.840 any idea of the percentage of those kids that are 1:01:15.880 --> 1:01:18.240 not getting their vaccines because they're homeschools. 1:01:19.440 --> 1:01:24.040 Private schools in Texas have significantly lower vaccination rates on average, 1:01:24.440 --> 1:01:27.560 and the numbers among homeschoolers, while not precisely known, are 1:01:27.640 --> 1:01:31.480 likely just as bad, if not worse. Texas just passed 1:01:31.480 --> 1:01:35.000 the largest school privatization scheme in the nation, through which 1:01:35.200 --> 1:01:37.480 parents will be subsidized by the state to send their 1:01:37.560 --> 1:01:41.360 kids to private schools or to homeschool them, meaning vaccination 1:01:41.440 --> 1:01:44.200 rates among school aged children will likely continue to fall. 1:01:44.800 --> 1:01:47.880 The prevalence of homeschooling among left leaning, crunchy alternative types 1:01:47.920 --> 1:01:51.920 has also contributed to the shift towards right wing politics, 1:01:52.040 --> 1:01:55.840 as the homeschool movement has deliberately tried to recruit those 1:01:55.840 --> 1:01:59.480 families and pushed them towards right wing politics. The complete 1:01:59.480 --> 1:02:03.920 partisan politicization of vaccinations has made communicating the risks of 1:02:04.000 --> 1:02:07.960 low vaccination rates far more difficult for people like doctor Hotez. 1:02:08.560 --> 1:02:12.360 How do you thread that needle and say, look, everybody 1:02:12.720 --> 1:02:15.040 has a right to their political views. I'm not going 1:02:15.080 --> 1:02:17.440 there with you that you're right as an American citizen, 1:02:17.520 --> 1:02:21.200 but don't adopt the anti vaccine stuff because it's so 1:02:21.360 --> 1:02:24.840 dangerous for your health and the health of your loved ones, 1:02:24.880 --> 1:02:27.560 the health of your kids. But it's a tough needle 1:02:27.600 --> 1:02:29.920 to thread, and as a result, I, you know, will often, 1:02:30.440 --> 1:02:32.840 even though I try to bend over backwards explaining I 1:02:32.880 --> 1:02:37.720 don't care about your politics, for their convenient purposes, I'm 1:02:37.760 --> 1:02:42.000 treated as a political figure and portrayed as a cartoon 1:02:42.120 --> 1:02:45.760 villain or you know, a scientist and white coat plotting 1:02:45.840 --> 1:02:49.440 nefarious things. You know, they have this crazy concept out 1:02:49.480 --> 1:02:52.880 there they call plandemic. Now that it's not a pandemic, 1:02:52.920 --> 1:02:56.240 it's a plandemic that somehow I've been involved with, or 1:02:56.320 --> 1:03:00.160 that I'm profiting from vaccines and secretly working for or 1:03:00.160 --> 1:03:02.800 pharma companies even though it's the opposite right and make 1:03:02.880 --> 1:03:05.880 load cost vaccines that actually showed me could bypass the 1:03:05.920 --> 1:03:10.560 big pharma companies and and some of it gets outright absurd. 1:03:10.560 --> 1:03:13.720 I mean, there's this whole thread on the Internet that 1:03:13.920 --> 1:03:16.400 says that I'm not even a real person, that I'm 1:03:17.080 --> 1:03:22.160 I'm actually being played by Jack Black, and that he's 1:03:22.840 --> 1:03:26.680 paid for by the CIA, and and it's got these amazing, 1:03:26.840 --> 1:03:30.000 you know, forensic analysis of close ups of my teeth 1:03:30.040 --> 1:03:33.760 with Jack Black's teeth and all this profiles and things. 1:03:34.320 --> 1:03:37.640 I mean, the funny thing is the said thing is 1:03:37.680 --> 1:03:41.840 the crazier the conspiracy the faster it seems to travel. 1:03:44.480 --> 1:03:47.760 These sorts of conspiracy theories would be laughable if they 1:03:47.760 --> 1:03:51.800 did not have deadly consequences. And unfortunately, this sort of 1:03:51.840 --> 1:03:56.520 public health focused conspiracism is not new. In the late 1:03:56.600 --> 1:04:00.720 eighteen hundred, several Canadian doctors, such as Alexander Milton Ross, 1:04:01.080 --> 1:04:05.440 insisted that vaccines were the true danger, not smallpox. Others 1:04:05.560 --> 1:04:08.960 argued that British doctors were promoting vaccinations to poison the 1:04:08.960 --> 1:04:13.919 French Canadian community due to nationalistic conflicts. If you were 1:04:13.960 --> 1:04:16.640 not in a coma during the COVID nineteen pandemic, these 1:04:16.680 --> 1:04:20.080 ideas should sound familiar, and in nineteen twenty, at the 1:04:20.120 --> 1:04:23.040 tail end of the deadly Spanish flu pandemic that killed 1:04:23.040 --> 1:04:27.640 somewhere between seventeen and fifty million people worldwide. The Commissioner 1:04:27.720 --> 1:04:30.440 of Public Health in Seattle, doctor Hiram Reid, was dealing 1:04:30.440 --> 1:04:34.040 with the nasty outbreak of smallpox the year prior. The 1:04:34.120 --> 1:04:39.280 Washington state legislature, facing pressure from anti vaccination activists, allowed 1:04:39.280 --> 1:04:42.520 for students to avoid vaccination requirements if their parents objected, 1:04:42.800 --> 1:04:48.280 effectively ending mandatory vaccination. Hiram, frustrated with the ongoing resistance 1:04:48.400 --> 1:04:51.720 to his attempts to vaccinate the public in Seattle, vented 1:04:52.000 --> 1:04:56.320 in a nineteen twenty annual health report quote, the number 1:04:56.360 --> 1:04:59.880 of unvaccinated persons in this city is large, the city 1:05:00.080 --> 1:05:04.560 being a hotbed for anti vaccination, Christian Science and various 1:05:04.640 --> 1:05:09.000 anti medical cults, and it is difficult to enforce vaccination really, 1:05:09.080 --> 1:05:13.000 wrote for those who are unfamiliar. Christian Science is an 1:05:13.040 --> 1:05:16.680 offshoot of Christianity that was formed in eighteen seventy nine 1:05:16.840 --> 1:05:19.520 in New England and by nineteen thirty six was the 1:05:19.760 --> 1:05:24.000 fastest growing religion in the nation. Christian scientists typically avoid 1:05:24.000 --> 1:05:26.440 medical care and rely instead on their belief in the 1:05:26.440 --> 1:05:31.280 healing power of prayer. On the next episode of Anti 1:05:31.360 --> 1:05:36.439 Vaxxs America, I'll explore the intersection of conservative Christianity, its 1:05:36.480 --> 1:05:42.320 belief in spiritual healing miracles, anti vaccination beliefs, and vaccination hesitancy. 1:05:42.760 --> 1:05:46.160 We'll talk about how a very influential strain of conservative 1:05:46.200 --> 1:05:49.680 Christianity that is highly political and has tied itself with 1:05:49.760 --> 1:05:55.960 Donald Trump is also influencing people's attitudes about vaccination. Until then, 1:05:56.520 --> 1:05:59.600 I'm Stephen Mamicelli and this is Anti vaxx America for 1:05:59.640 --> 1:06:00.480 COOLS Media. 1:06:01.120 --> 1:06:01.920 Thanks for listening. 1:06:22.640 --> 1:06:26.080 I'm Stephen Manicelli. I'm a journalist in Dallas and an 1:06:26.080 --> 1:06:29.320 occasional contributor to Cool Zone Media. And this is episode 1:06:29.360 --> 1:06:32.840 three of Anti VAXs America, a special five parts series 1:06:33.120 --> 1:06:36.080 exploring anti vaccination beliefs in the United States through the 1:06:36.160 --> 1:06:39.000 lens of the West Texas measles outbreak that has since 1:06:39.000 --> 1:06:42.480 spread to several other states in the nation and claimed 1:06:42.520 --> 1:06:46.560 three lives. One of those lives was the daughter of 1:06:46.600 --> 1:06:49.720 a man named Peter, a member of a Mennonite community 1:06:50.000 --> 1:06:55.400 in West Texas. For Peter, the death of his child 1:06:55.640 --> 1:06:59.439 was basically God's will. He did an interview in which 1:06:59.480 --> 1:07:02.480 he discrib that if it's God's plan, you know, that 1:07:02.640 --> 1:07:06.520 is basically what he has to accept, but he also 1:07:06.880 --> 1:07:09.800 continued to oppose vaccines, and his wife said that they 1:07:09.800 --> 1:07:13.760 wouldn't recommend them to other parents. Now, Mennonites have been 1:07:13.800 --> 1:07:16.200 singled out in a lot of the coverage about this 1:07:16.400 --> 1:07:20.000 Measle's outbreak, given that the outbreak has centered in their 1:07:20.040 --> 1:07:23.800 community in West Texas, and there's been a lot of 1:07:23.840 --> 1:07:28.160 pushback with regard to the idea that Mennonites broadly speaking 1:07:28.240 --> 1:07:32.760 are opposed to vaccinations. There's nothing explicit in their theology 1:07:33.120 --> 1:07:38.200 or worldview that opposes vaccinations on principle. But these are 1:07:38.240 --> 1:07:43.760 individuals who hold strongly held beliefs regarding their religion, regarding 1:07:43.760 --> 1:07:47.320 their theology, and what they believe is right for them 1:07:47.360 --> 1:07:50.880 to do for their families and for their communities. It's 1:07:50.920 --> 1:07:54.520 not merely a few sectarian Mennonite communities in the United 1:07:54.520 --> 1:07:58.680 States that are hesitant to vaccinate their children in this way. 1:07:58.920 --> 1:08:01.800 It's actually a much bigger problem among what we could call, 1:08:02.280 --> 1:08:06.440 you know, some people might say mainstream evangelical Christians. Others 1:08:06.520 --> 1:08:11.520 might specifically refer to it as non denominational charismatic Christianity. 1:08:12.080 --> 1:08:14.640 But no matter which way you cut it, there is 1:08:15.080 --> 1:08:20.240 a clear and observable relationship between conservative Christianity and anti 1:08:20.360 --> 1:08:24.200 vaccination beliefs. Now, as a journalist in Texas, I've done 1:08:24.240 --> 1:08:28.280 my fair share of reporting on conservative Christianity, particularly the 1:08:28.520 --> 1:08:31.760 highly politicized strains of it that are popular in the 1:08:31.760 --> 1:08:34.599 Lone Star State and in North Texas where I live. 1:08:35.360 --> 1:08:37.519 I didn't grow up in one of these communities. I'm 1:08:37.560 --> 1:08:42.560 an outsider. So to help me unpack how conservative Christianity 1:08:42.560 --> 1:08:46.759 became so intertwined with this sort of anti vaccination movement, 1:08:47.000 --> 1:08:49.240 I brought in a special guest with whom you may 1:08:49.240 --> 1:08:49.839 be familiar. 1:08:51.920 --> 1:08:55.800 Hi, I'm Garrison Davis. I write about politics, extremism, and 1:08:56.000 --> 1:08:57.880 how much fun it is to be in the twenty 1:08:57.880 --> 1:08:59.960 first century for cool zone Media. 1:09:00.520 --> 1:09:02.519 So, you know, in terms of what I hope to 1:09:02.560 --> 1:09:04.720 hear from you, I mean, let's let's go back to 1:09:05.240 --> 1:09:08.400 your upbringing. Tell me a little bit about the community 1:09:08.439 --> 1:09:12.240 you grew up in and the sort of religious system 1:09:12.280 --> 1:09:13.599 that you were brought up in. 1:09:14.160 --> 1:09:14.400 Yeah. 1:09:14.439 --> 1:09:19.280 So, I grew up in a non denominational evangelical community 1:09:20.200 --> 1:09:23.719 that was largely at least on like the leadership side 1:09:23.840 --> 1:09:30.120 was transplanted from Texas to a well, not a small town, 1:09:30.240 --> 1:09:33.120 because it's actually the biggest town in the province, but 1:09:33.200 --> 1:09:39.360 a relatively medium sized city, I guess in Saskatchewan. Definitely 1:09:39.439 --> 1:09:44.440 an interesting mix of like Canadian customs matched with the 1:09:44.479 --> 1:09:48.599 whole Texas vibe, but definitely the type of like Bible belts, 1:09:49.080 --> 1:09:53.000 post fire and brimstone Christianity that came out of Texas 1:09:53.439 --> 1:09:55.479 was like the dominant form of Christianity, which was like 1:09:55.520 --> 1:09:59.800 preached from the pulpit and like influenced all other life 1:10:00.080 --> 1:10:05.160 voices beyond just your Sunday morning service or your Saturday 1:10:05.240 --> 1:10:08.040 night service, or your Wednesday night service or your Tuesday 1:10:08.080 --> 1:10:10.080 morning service, etc. 1:10:11.000 --> 1:10:15.400 So let's dig a little bit more into the character 1:10:15.600 --> 1:10:18.479 of it. So you know, in Texas, we've got you know, 1:10:18.760 --> 1:10:22.679 a wide variety of congregations and sub sets and non 1:10:22.680 --> 1:10:28.640 denominational Christianity is absolutely the fastest growing flavor of Christianity, 1:10:28.720 --> 1:10:30.759 not just in Texas but in the United States. 1:10:31.240 --> 1:10:32.719 There's some good research about this. 1:10:32.840 --> 1:10:36.400 And some people describe it as evangelical, some people describe 1:10:36.439 --> 1:10:40.559 it as charismatic. Sometimes both of those descriptions are accurate. 1:10:41.040 --> 1:10:43.799 There could be some differences between these types of churches. 1:10:43.920 --> 1:10:46.439 Some of them are focused a lot on like things 1:10:46.439 --> 1:10:50.639 like prosperity, gospel. Others hu maybe towards more Southern Baptist 1:10:50.960 --> 1:10:56.479 esque style of preaching and theology, and some really lean 1:10:56.560 --> 1:11:02.320 into maybe more like Pentecostal style belief in miracles and 1:11:02.360 --> 1:11:08.080 supernatural power of God to directly intervene in people's lives 1:11:08.120 --> 1:11:10.840 and things like that. So, you know, how would you 1:11:10.960 --> 1:11:14.200 characterize your church and the community that you were part of, Like, 1:11:14.320 --> 1:11:16.519 you know, was it was it common for people to 1:11:17.080 --> 1:11:21.559 talk about spiritual healing or sort of those miraculous interventions totally? 1:11:21.760 --> 1:11:23.960 Yeah, yeah, no, it was. It was kind of like 1:11:24.000 --> 1:11:28.400 a Christian chili. We certainly had some prosperity gospel elements. 1:11:28.439 --> 1:11:31.080 You had some like Southern Baptist elements certainly when it 1:11:31.120 --> 1:11:34.280 comes to like social views. But yeah, no, like the 1:11:34.439 --> 1:11:38.720 spirit healing aspect to huge, huge people will get like 1:11:38.760 --> 1:11:42.439 healed during services, people would like faint and pass out. 1:11:43.000 --> 1:11:44.960 They would like bring in preachers from the states who 1:11:44.960 --> 1:11:48.200 would go go on these big like tours where you're 1:11:48.280 --> 1:11:51.200 you know, both trying to like recruit people and then 1:11:51.240 --> 1:11:56.920 also like offer these like miraculous healing services during these 1:11:56.960 --> 1:12:00.280 like you know, five hour long sermons. So yeah, certainly 1:12:00.280 --> 1:12:04.760 a Pentecostal element was pretty dominant combined with like you know, 1:12:04.800 --> 1:12:07.719 focus on the family type stuff, some Southern Baptist stuff. 1:12:08.160 --> 1:12:10.640 That makes sense. I mean that tracks with what I 1:12:10.720 --> 1:12:13.400 expected and the sort of things that I see around here. 1:12:13.880 --> 1:12:15.599 Maybe you're familiar with Kenneth Copeland. 1:12:15.960 --> 1:12:19.880 Kenneth Copeland is how do I try this? So the 1:12:19.920 --> 1:12:23.439 main pastor of the church I was from is the 1:12:23.640 --> 1:12:29.360 uncle of a pastor in Oklahoma who used to run 1:12:29.439 --> 1:12:32.680 a church called Church on the Move, and he is 1:12:32.920 --> 1:12:36.000 very close personal friends with Kenneth Copeland. And I think 1:12:36.040 --> 1:12:39.200 I've seen Copeland a few times in person, like dinners 1:12:39.240 --> 1:12:43.439 and stuff. He was a pretty regular figure, I believe 1:12:43.560 --> 1:12:46.479 preached at the church a few times I was younger, 1:12:46.880 --> 1:12:49.800 but I know my dad's met him through works. My 1:12:49.880 --> 1:12:53.400 dad worked for the church. And yeah, so no, very 1:12:53.600 --> 1:12:55.400 very Kenneth Copeland vibes. 1:12:55.360 --> 1:12:58.080 Well, that makes sense because Kenneth Copeland, you know, he's 1:12:58.200 --> 1:13:01.840 not only the wealthiest pastor in the United States, but 1:13:01.880 --> 1:13:05.360 he's one of the most influential as well, and definitely 1:13:05.400 --> 1:13:08.320 in North Texas where his home base is. He's got 1:13:08.360 --> 1:13:12.240 a big church in you know, Terran County, and I've 1:13:12.280 --> 1:13:17.559 been to his annual convention, which is a special time, 1:13:18.320 --> 1:13:20.720 So you know, I totally understand the vibe that you're 1:13:20.720 --> 1:13:25.040 talking about. Then it also illustrates the vast reach of 1:13:25.240 --> 1:13:27.240 someone like Kenneth Copeland for it to be all the 1:13:27.280 --> 1:13:28.920 way up in Saskatchewan. 1:13:28.680 --> 1:13:33.000 And like the interconnectedness I mean, because like the pastor 1:13:33.040 --> 1:13:37.000 of my old church is American, born in Texas, is 1:13:37.040 --> 1:13:40.360 currently in America because he's in hiding from Canadian authorities 1:13:40.400 --> 1:13:43.839 related to a series of court cases and criminal complaints 1:13:43.840 --> 1:13:47.120 about abuse in this church. So he's currently he's currently 1:13:47.120 --> 1:13:51.120 fled and is in hiding somewhere in the US, hiding 1:13:51.160 --> 1:13:53.080 from his Majesty's Royal court. 1:13:53.320 --> 1:13:53.960 Incredible. 1:13:54.360 --> 1:13:56.520 Yes, he's also my step grandfather. 1:13:57.160 --> 1:13:59.439 I'll get back to my conversation with Gahre here shortly, 1:14:00.080 --> 1:14:00.880 but first. 1:14:01.080 --> 1:14:01.719 An ad break. 1:14:12.640 --> 1:14:14.679 So before we go any further, we need to talk 1:14:14.760 --> 1:14:20.320 a little bit more about Kenneth Copeland. So he's the 1:14:20.360 --> 1:14:23.400 wealthiest and one of the most influential pastors in the 1:14:23.479 --> 1:14:26.639 United States, perhaps the world, but he's also a highly 1:14:26.680 --> 1:14:32.479 political one. He's affiliated with the charismatic Christian movement, which 1:14:32.640 --> 1:14:35.519 is one of the fastest growing, if not the fastest 1:14:35.560 --> 1:14:39.120 growing Christian movements in the United States, and early on 1:14:39.280 --> 1:14:42.160 he lent his support to Donald Trump in Donald Trump's 1:14:42.160 --> 1:14:45.920 first campaign in twenty sixteen. Three years before that, in 1:14:46.080 --> 1:14:50.639 twenty thirteen, the church led by his daughter Terry, which 1:14:50.720 --> 1:14:54.080 is called Eagle Mountain International, was at the center of 1:14:54.120 --> 1:14:56.920 a measles outbreak. At the time, the church and its 1:14:57.000 --> 1:15:01.080 leaders were criticized for preaching against vaccinations, and even as 1:15:01.080 --> 1:15:03.080 they set up vaccine clinics at the back of the 1:15:03.160 --> 1:15:06.120 church when things got really bad, they continued to speak 1:15:06.160 --> 1:15:09.720 out against vaccinations in this way and implying to their 1:15:09.720 --> 1:15:12.959 flock that they need to place their faith not in medicine, 1:15:13.000 --> 1:15:16.200 but in prayer and in God. And when the COVID 1:15:16.280 --> 1:15:19.799 nineteen pandemic was first kicking off in America, Kenneth Copeland 1:15:19.800 --> 1:15:23.200 spoke of the disease as a sort of tool of Satan, 1:15:24.040 --> 1:15:26.440 but he actually called for vaccinations. 1:15:26.560 --> 1:15:31.719 Interestingly enough, I execute judgment on you, COVID nineteen. 1:15:32.720 --> 1:15:34.560 I execute judgment. 1:15:34.160 --> 1:15:38.719 On you, Satan, you destroyer, you killer, you get out, 1:15:39.000 --> 1:15:42.640 you point break coper, you get confiscations. 1:15:42.880 --> 1:15:44.800 I demand judgment on you. 1:15:45.200 --> 1:15:52.200 I didn't mod smen de man a vaccination of common media. 1:15:52.560 --> 1:15:57.200 Yes, But Copeland's belief in spiritual healing and his ties 1:15:57.240 --> 1:16:00.400 to the Trump administration seemingly led him to quickly turned 1:16:00.479 --> 1:16:03.519 to his old antics. He preached that COVID would be 1:16:03.600 --> 1:16:05.880 over soon because God would destroy it. 1:16:06.720 --> 1:16:09.519 OVID nineteen. 1:16:15.320 --> 1:16:20.680 I'm good. 1:16:20.800 --> 1:16:23.559 On you, on you, you. 1:16:23.439 --> 1:16:29.439 Are destroying forever and you will never be back. 1:16:32.479 --> 1:16:39.960 Thank you are God, let it happen. 1:16:42.840 --> 1:16:45.840 Over the course of many sermons, Copeland compared the virus 1:16:45.880 --> 1:16:48.559 to the flu. He suggested people who attended his services 1:16:48.600 --> 1:16:51.960 could be healed in person, and asserted that the president's 1:16:52.000 --> 1:16:55.280 opponents had quote opened the door for the pandemic with 1:16:55.320 --> 1:17:00.760 their quote displays of hate against him. Later that with 1:17:00.880 --> 1:17:05.000 the pandemic fully raging across America, Copeland still held his 1:17:05.080 --> 1:17:09.519 annual conference in Fort Worth, Texas. In August of twenty twenty, 1:17:09.560 --> 1:17:12.320 a television news report showed that no one at the 1:17:12.320 --> 1:17:16.040 conference was wearing a mask, and in September twenty twenty one, 1:17:16.080 --> 1:17:18.759 Copeland begged his viewers to help him fund the purchase 1:17:19.200 --> 1:17:21.000 of a new private jet that would allow him to 1:17:21.000 --> 1:17:23.759 avoid travel restrictions that were still in place around COVID 1:17:23.800 --> 1:17:28.200 nineteen and requiring vaccinations. He compared those vaccination requirements for 1:17:28.280 --> 1:17:32.080 flying to the satanic quote mark of the beasts. By 1:17:32.080 --> 1:17:34.320 the time that I attended Copeland's annual convention in twenty 1:17:34.320 --> 1:17:38.160 twenty three, he had embraced the likes of Mike Lindell, 1:17:38.760 --> 1:17:42.519 the election conspiracist who has promoted junkiers for COVID while 1:17:42.680 --> 1:17:47.320 sewing doubts without vaccines. So you know, I didn't grow 1:17:47.400 --> 1:17:48.960 up in one of these communities. I had been to 1:17:49.160 --> 1:17:52.880 some megachurch sermons and services in the past. I knew 1:17:52.880 --> 1:17:55.880 people who went to places like Gateway Church, which is 1:17:55.880 --> 1:17:59.559 a huge one here in North Texas, very politically involved 1:17:59.600 --> 1:18:04.240 in there. Founding pastor was just implicated in you know, child. 1:18:04.080 --> 1:18:06.480 Sex abuse, many such cases. 1:18:06.360 --> 1:18:10.439 Many such cases, And as an outsider, in my mind, 1:18:10.520 --> 1:18:15.200 I directly link sort of belief in spiritual healing with 1:18:16.360 --> 1:18:20.599 vaccine hesitancy. Yeah, because you know, there's there's this sense 1:18:20.640 --> 1:18:23.280 that will, if God can heal you, why would you 1:18:23.320 --> 1:18:27.320 need to rely on something like a vaccine. But also 1:18:27.400 --> 1:18:28.960 that you know, you need to place your faith in 1:18:29.000 --> 1:18:30.759 God more than man or the government. 1:18:31.120 --> 1:18:34.240 It is more that thing. It's that by electing to 1:18:34.320 --> 1:18:37.000 get a vaccine, that demonstrates that you do not have 1:18:37.280 --> 1:18:40.000 faith in God like it's it's it's it's more so 1:18:40.200 --> 1:18:43.479 like a larger theological issue beyond just like you know, 1:18:43.520 --> 1:18:45.479 we don't we don't trust the science like I trust 1:18:45.560 --> 1:18:48.080 God more than the science. It's that like even electing 1:18:48.160 --> 1:18:52.839 to do that demonstrates this deeper, like more core belief 1:18:53.320 --> 1:18:55.960 that you do not have the faith in God that 1:18:56.080 --> 1:18:58.680 is adequate in order to like take care of you, 1:18:58.680 --> 1:19:01.200 your body and whatever He may have planned for you. 1:19:01.840 --> 1:19:06.000 Perhaps that includes getting measles and you'll you'll work through 1:19:06.040 --> 1:19:09.120 that maybe or not, you know, as we're seeing now 1:19:09.400 --> 1:19:11.559 in Texas a lot. But yeah, like it's it's not 1:19:11.920 --> 1:19:17.240 just about like medical skepticism, science skepticism. It is this 1:19:17.520 --> 1:19:20.480 deeper aspect that that more relates to someone's like individual 1:19:20.520 --> 1:19:23.000 relationship and faith in God. 1:19:23.680 --> 1:19:25.760 So when you were growing up, I mean, did you 1:19:25.840 --> 1:19:29.960 pick up at all on this sort of skepticism with 1:19:30.000 --> 1:19:33.880 regard to not, you know, I guess modern science broadly, 1:19:34.040 --> 1:19:37.679 but also medical interventions totally? 1:19:37.880 --> 1:19:41.040 Totally? Yeah, No, I mean like literally this the school 1:19:41.120 --> 1:19:43.000 that I went to, which was which was a part 1:19:43.040 --> 1:19:44.720 of this church like I was. I was, I was 1:19:44.760 --> 1:19:48.960 taught from like an American creationist curriculum for like the 1:19:49.000 --> 1:19:54.320 first I guess like seven grades called ACE. There was 1:19:54.360 --> 1:19:58.120 big Ace conferences that like the teachers and my dad 1:19:58.160 --> 1:20:01.280 would travel to the States for every year. But yeah, 1:20:01.280 --> 1:20:02.960 like this stuff is literally like taught to all the 1:20:03.000 --> 1:20:04.680 kids because in order to go to this church, you 1:20:04.720 --> 1:20:07.439 have to also send your kids to the school. You 1:20:07.479 --> 1:20:09.519 are raised in this and like you have no choice 1:20:09.520 --> 1:20:11.880 in the matter, and that that just becomes like what 1:20:12.120 --> 1:20:15.200 is real? Like that just is reality? Like it's it's 1:20:15.200 --> 1:20:17.760 not it's not that there's like an alternative to that. 1:20:17.800 --> 1:20:19.920 It's like like a nine year old kid, like that 1:20:20.040 --> 1:20:22.040 just is what the world is. So like what you're 1:20:22.080 --> 1:20:26.519 reading those textbooks that just is truth. It's very isolated environments, 1:20:26.520 --> 1:20:28.400 like you're you you aren't really fully aware that there's 1:20:28.439 --> 1:20:30.760 like an alternative to that, and if there is, it's 1:20:30.840 --> 1:20:34.360 like what's the word? We didn't even use words like 1:20:34.360 --> 1:20:37.400 like like atheist. I think secular was was maybe the word. 1:20:37.439 --> 1:20:39.080 That was maybe the word that they use. Like you 1:20:39.320 --> 1:20:41.800 can't you can't like listen to like secular music or 1:20:41.840 --> 1:20:44.040 like be aware of like you know, likee like secular 1:20:44.080 --> 1:20:47.439 culture because that's satanic or it can lead you away 1:20:47.479 --> 1:20:49.640 from God or it's a distraction from God. You know 1:20:49.680 --> 1:20:52.320 that that sort of thing. But no, like yeah, it's 1:20:52.439 --> 1:20:55.439 this is built in and like, yeah, you know, very 1:20:55.479 --> 1:20:58.680 basic creationist stuff like answers in genesis being like the 1:20:58.720 --> 1:21:03.240 highest basting of science, which is like a fake science 1:21:03.280 --> 1:21:07.880 website touted by creationists and evangelicals. But this also extends 1:21:07.880 --> 1:21:10.360 to medical science as well. The same way you believe 1:21:10.360 --> 1:21:12.719 they are to six thousand years old, you maybe also 1:21:12.760 --> 1:21:16.000 don't believe in like cancer treatment, right. 1:21:16.240 --> 1:21:18.680 So to the extent that you can recall if you know, 1:21:19.080 --> 1:21:21.200 or you know, if you're willing to share, do you 1:21:21.280 --> 1:21:24.320 recall if you were vaccinated as a child? 1:21:24.680 --> 1:21:27.440 I was not. No, The first time I got vaccinated 1:21:27.560 --> 1:21:30.880 was as an older teenager when I gained medical autonomy 1:21:31.320 --> 1:21:33.240 and I was like, hey, I should probably get vaccinated. 1:21:33.320 --> 1:21:37.719 Huh okay, Because both like unplugging from these takes time. 1:21:37.800 --> 1:21:40.600 Like I think my family got away from this community 1:21:41.120 --> 1:21:44.920 when I was like eleven or twelve, but because I'm 1:21:44.920 --> 1:21:47.640 like the oldest of all my siblings, this was the 1:21:47.680 --> 1:21:50.720 most like baked into me more so than my other siblings. 1:21:51.120 --> 1:21:54.280 So like, even if you like get away from this physically, 1:21:54.640 --> 1:21:57.200 you still have to like mentally detalked. You have to 1:21:57.240 --> 1:21:58.840 realize that you were kind of in a cult, and 1:21:58.840 --> 1:22:01.280 then you have to like deep yourself, and that like 1:22:01.320 --> 1:22:04.679 takes years. So like I didn't like fully disconnect from 1:22:04.720 --> 1:22:08.040 this style of Christianity and like, you know, Christianity in 1:22:08.080 --> 1:22:10.400 general intil like a few years after. So by the 1:22:10.400 --> 1:22:12.439 time I was like a you know, middle to older 1:22:12.520 --> 1:22:15.880 teenager is when I started to like sort this type 1:22:15.880 --> 1:22:19.360 of stuff out, and uh eventually got caught up on 1:22:19.400 --> 1:22:23.599 those vaccines. Luckily I never got chicken pox, although people 1:22:23.640 --> 1:22:26.479 did throw chicken pox parties when I was a kid, 1:22:26.640 --> 1:22:29.880 which I can recall the concept of, especially if like 1:22:29.880 --> 1:22:33.040 a baby or a toddler or even like you know, 1:22:33.160 --> 1:22:34.840 like a like like like a ten year old has 1:22:34.920 --> 1:22:37.600 chicken pox. No one else's of course is vaccinated for 1:22:37.640 --> 1:22:40.439 this in this whole community. So if someone has chicken pox, 1:22:40.560 --> 1:22:43.559 you will not just isolate them, You will actually encourage 1:22:43.600 --> 1:22:46.240 other people to like hang out and play together with 1:22:46.320 --> 1:22:50.080 the express intent of getting sick yourself as a form 1:22:50.160 --> 1:22:55.120 of like natural immunization. And I think I was offered 1:22:55.120 --> 1:22:58.200 to go to one of these chicken pox parties quote unquote, 1:22:58.680 --> 1:23:01.679 I think as like a ten year old or something declined. 1:23:02.360 --> 1:23:04.719 Wow, I mean, good on you for at least having 1:23:04.760 --> 1:23:08.640 that wherewithal so and you know, Saskatchewan and Canada are 1:23:08.640 --> 1:23:12.600 different than the United States and Texas. And medical exemptions, 1:23:13.160 --> 1:23:17.200 exemptions of conscience or religious medical exemptions are a big thing. 1:23:17.240 --> 1:23:19.120 And there's actually a bill in the state House right 1:23:19.160 --> 1:23:23.240 now to expand that sort of thing with regard to vaccines. 1:23:23.320 --> 1:23:26.040 I mean, was that something that was going on up there? 1:23:26.160 --> 1:23:28.240 I mean, was just because were you in a private school, 1:23:28.280 --> 1:23:31.000 you were kind of outside of any sort of regime 1:23:31.040 --> 1:23:31.920 of accountability. 1:23:32.240 --> 1:23:33.720 Yeah, we were in the private school, and I know 1:23:33.760 --> 1:23:35.880 people who worked in the private school did like lobbying 1:23:36.040 --> 1:23:40.559 in the province to like keep their medical freedom, you know, 1:23:40.720 --> 1:23:45.000 intact to make sure the state does not interfere. Though 1:23:45.080 --> 1:23:48.519 I do remember when my family moved to the States, 1:23:48.920 --> 1:23:51.120 throughout the immigration process, we had to fill out a 1:23:51.120 --> 1:23:54.439 lot of those like religious exemption forms because you're supposed 1:23:54.439 --> 1:23:57.040 to get vaccinated and make sure you're not carrying like 1:23:57.080 --> 1:24:00.920 tuberculosis when you immigrate to a new country. But even 1:24:01.000 --> 1:24:03.800 even for those, there is like religious exemptions that if 1:24:03.840 --> 1:24:05.639 you have enough money you can pay. 1:24:05.439 --> 1:24:08.320 For When was this like roughly timeline when you know, 1:24:08.320 --> 1:24:09.960 when you were a child, when you're in private school? 1:24:10.080 --> 1:24:11.120 Is the broad range? 1:24:11.600 --> 1:24:13.800 This is, this is like the knots, right, this is 1:24:13.840 --> 1:24:16.519 the early two thousands. Yeah, I mean, like I'm in 1:24:16.560 --> 1:24:17.479 my early twenties now. 1:24:18.160 --> 1:24:20.800 Vaccine has intency has clearly been a part of certain 1:24:20.800 --> 1:24:23.360 conservative Christian congregations for some time. 1:24:24.400 --> 1:24:27.760 Something I remember happening kind of because of like what 1:24:27.800 --> 1:24:31.000 my parents were involved with at the time is you know, 1:24:31.120 --> 1:24:34.360 there's on one side, this whole like theological side of 1:24:34.760 --> 1:24:38.240 like not wanting to do vaccines or like unnecessary medical 1:24:38.240 --> 1:24:41.439 procedures because of your faith in God. But on the 1:24:41.479 --> 1:24:46.120 other hand, kind of around like twenty ten, and like 1:24:46.120 --> 1:24:48.599 you know, a few years before and after, we started 1:24:48.640 --> 1:24:51.840 to really see kind of that aspect along with like 1:24:52.439 --> 1:24:57.240 the hippie mom Facebook group aspect kind of collide, right, 1:24:57.240 --> 1:25:00.920 and like this healthy you know, like organic natural like 1:25:01.000 --> 1:25:03.439 hippie mom thing used to be more associated with like 1:25:03.479 --> 1:25:06.080 you know, people on the left, especially in the nineties, 1:25:06.360 --> 1:25:08.599 and you started to see these two kind of poles 1:25:08.760 --> 1:25:12.880 converge around twenty ten. Because this is like what happened 1:25:12.920 --> 1:25:15.680 with like my two parents at the time, where like 1:25:15.720 --> 1:25:17.760 my dad was more in the theological side than my 1:25:17.800 --> 1:25:19.840 mom was kind of more on like the the kind 1:25:19.840 --> 1:25:22.800 of like crunchy side of things, and these things like 1:25:22.920 --> 1:25:26.519 combined this new breed of evangelical Christianity that you see 1:25:26.640 --> 1:25:29.200 is like very popular right now with like the tradwife 1:25:29.240 --> 1:25:33.879 angle combined with like you know, crunchy like naturalistic organic 1:25:33.920 --> 1:25:36.280 stuff that used to be left wing and is now 1:25:36.400 --> 1:25:39.080 like very very right wing. You had a very very 1:25:39.120 --> 1:25:42.040 like conservative like family values coded which which did not 1:25:42.120 --> 1:25:44.680 really used to be the case as much, and that's 1:25:44.760 --> 1:25:49.320 kind of like strengthened the anti vacs hold on this 1:25:49.439 --> 1:25:51.400 like section of the population. 1:25:52.080 --> 1:25:54.680 So, I mean, this is incredible. You were part of 1:25:54.840 --> 1:25:58.960 a church that basically had connections to Texas by way 1:25:59.000 --> 1:26:01.640 of Kenneth Copeland, and you had mentioned, you know, kind 1:26:01.680 --> 1:26:05.240 of having a crunchy, more maybe left leaning mom. How 1:26:05.280 --> 1:26:08.479 apparent in retrospect was sort of the political nature of 1:26:08.560 --> 1:26:11.040 your church was it? Was it particularly political? You had 1:26:11.040 --> 1:26:14.680 mentioned lobbying, but you know, lobbying isn't necessarily partisan. 1:26:15.600 --> 1:26:18.679 They preached, like Glenn Beck from the pulpit, like very 1:26:18.920 --> 1:26:23.360 very conservative, openly conservative like that is like the Christian 1:26:23.640 --> 1:26:27.599 godly correct path. I guess like this is where it's 1:26:27.600 --> 1:26:29.160 tied in a bit more with some of like the 1:26:29.760 --> 1:26:31.800 some of like the Southern Baptist these type stuff right 1:26:31.800 --> 1:26:36.360 where you have like anti gay conversion therapy like camps 1:26:36.400 --> 1:26:39.280 that they can send people to like you No, like 1:26:39.320 --> 1:26:43.639 this is very very like Bill O'Reilly, very very Glen 1:26:43.680 --> 1:26:46.519 Beck like that was that was the moment, right, this 1:26:46.600 --> 1:26:49.320 is this is two thousand and eight. The Antichrist has 1:26:49.320 --> 1:26:52.879 just been elected president of the United States, possibly literally 1:26:53.280 --> 1:26:55.519 and even though they're up in Canada, this is still 1:26:55.560 --> 1:26:59.240 like concern number one on the like the transnational like 1:26:59.400 --> 1:27:04.519 Christian Christian world. So no, like extremely openly conservative to 1:27:04.560 --> 1:27:07.160 the point where it is it is being preached alongside 1:27:07.200 --> 1:27:10.160 the words of Jesus and Paul. 1:27:09.800 --> 1:27:12.000 You had a front row seat to sort of a 1:27:12.520 --> 1:27:18.320 shifting ground because you know, Southern Baptist Christian Christianity is 1:27:18.400 --> 1:27:21.519 kind of declining and it has I think has been 1:27:21.560 --> 1:27:27.120 supplanted by this quote unquote non denominational, totally set of networks. 1:27:27.320 --> 1:27:29.360 You know, there's a there's a term that some scholars 1:27:29.479 --> 1:27:33.519 use independent network Christianity where the leaders of the churches, 1:27:33.600 --> 1:27:36.480 they are non denominational, they're not a part of a hierarchy. 1:27:37.000 --> 1:27:40.640 They answer to no higher power other than God, you know, 1:27:40.720 --> 1:27:45.200 so their interpretation of God is basically the rule or 1:27:45.439 --> 1:27:46.520 or it is the authority. 1:27:47.120 --> 1:27:51.439 It's like a post Billy Graham era. Yeah, like networked churches, 1:27:51.479 --> 1:27:54.840 but are not part of like a coherent structure. They're 1:27:54.920 --> 1:27:59.400 kind of like terrorist cells. Essentially, they offer a very 1:27:59.439 --> 1:28:03.360 similarly to like a cell network of terrorists. I'm trying 1:28:03.360 --> 1:28:05.759 to remember what the with like the most wild faith 1:28:05.800 --> 1:28:08.760 healings I've seen are the thing I think people were 1:28:08.880 --> 1:28:11.600 faith healed the most for is probably back pain. A 1:28:11.680 --> 1:28:16.960 lot of back pain gets faith yield. Of course, there 1:28:17.040 --> 1:28:19.760 might be the odd person who's able to claim that, 1:28:19.800 --> 1:28:22.120 like you know, a faith healing cured their cancer, who 1:28:22.200 --> 1:28:25.439 then probably died three years later of cancer. But you 1:28:25.479 --> 1:28:28.320 also get faith held for a bunch of like smaller ailments, 1:28:28.439 --> 1:28:30.040 right and so. And someone will walk up to you, 1:28:30.080 --> 1:28:32.439 put hands on you. You might start convulsing like this 1:28:32.479 --> 1:28:35.840 like psychosomatic thing. Sometimes you'll pass out. A lot of 1:28:35.880 --> 1:28:40.000 people pass out. It becomes like this performative thing, like subconsciously. 1:28:40.439 --> 1:28:43.000 I remember there was there was people they were stationed 1:28:43.160 --> 1:28:45.559 where people would pass out with with little I think 1:28:45.560 --> 1:28:48.320 they're called modesty blankets, so that when they pass out, 1:28:48.680 --> 1:28:50.439 maybe your shirt will come up a little bit and 1:28:50.479 --> 1:28:52.280 someone will see a little bit of tummy you can 1:28:52.320 --> 1:28:54.960 walk over and put the blanket over as you're recovering 1:28:55.120 --> 1:28:58.879 from your from your healing session. All this is happening 1:28:58.960 --> 1:29:04.759 during like essentially like an acoustic concert. So it creates 1:29:04.760 --> 1:29:07.880 a very peculiar vibe of people kind of poorly play 1:29:08.000 --> 1:29:11.400 musical instruments as other people like walk through like an 1:29:11.400 --> 1:29:13.760 auditorium and just start like passing out, and you just 1:29:13.760 --> 1:29:17.240 get this pile of bodies, and as as a ten 1:29:17.320 --> 1:29:19.320 year old, do you think this is totally normal and fine? 1:29:19.360 --> 1:29:21.920 And then you later realize why you're into so much 1:29:21.960 --> 1:29:23.680 weird shit. Oops. 1:29:23.680 --> 1:29:25.720 Something I also covered in a previous episode in this 1:29:25.800 --> 1:29:28.160 series was a quote from the Seattle Public Health commissioner 1:29:28.240 --> 1:29:31.559 during a smallpox outbreak in the early nineteen hundreds. He 1:29:31.640 --> 1:29:35.479 called Seattle hotbed for anti vaccination and Christian science and 1:29:35.680 --> 1:29:38.840 various anti medical cults. So you know, we are kind 1:29:38.840 --> 1:29:42.599 of truly like reliving a period of history. 1:29:43.360 --> 1:29:45.960 I hate it when times of flat circle. This sucks. 1:29:50.560 --> 1:29:52.160 Why should I live in history? 1:29:52.240 --> 1:29:53.760 Huh? 1:29:54.479 --> 1:29:56.240 I don't want to know anything anymore. 1:29:57.160 --> 1:30:00.840 If this is a world where nothing is solved. If 1:30:00.880 --> 1:30:03.639 someone once told me time is a flat circle. 1:30:07.240 --> 1:30:10.560 Everything we've ever done or will do, we're gonna do 1:30:10.720 --> 1:30:12.559 over and over and over again. 1:30:12.960 --> 1:30:16.840 Lone Star Man fucking Lone Star Texas. The one thing 1:30:16.880 --> 1:30:21.719 I remembered through not being vaccinated as a kid, something 1:30:21.760 --> 1:30:25.240 I did develop, and this was like behaviorally ingrained is 1:30:25.960 --> 1:30:30.120 a paralyzing fear of rust because you don't have because 1:30:30.120 --> 1:30:32.559 you don't have the teton is shot. So even though 1:30:32.640 --> 1:30:35.320 we're told God, will you know, keep us safe and healthy, 1:30:35.560 --> 1:30:37.720 we are also taught you have to stay like ten 1:30:37.760 --> 1:30:40.479 feet away from like rust. If you see rust on anything, like, 1:30:40.760 --> 1:30:43.679 you have to be on high alert because even though 1:30:43.680 --> 1:30:46.080 God should protect you, he might not if you get 1:30:46.080 --> 1:30:49.920 a rusty nail, like poking your finger. So rust is 1:30:49.960 --> 1:30:52.720 still something I'm like really afraid of despite being vaccinated now, 1:30:52.760 --> 1:30:55.760 just because this was ingrained so young, which just kind 1:30:55.760 --> 1:30:59.960 of shows the kind of like a paradoxical thought press 1:31:00.320 --> 1:31:02.040 behind some of this sort of thing where it's okay 1:31:02.080 --> 1:31:04.000 if your kids aren't vaccinated, but you also have to 1:31:04.000 --> 1:31:06.960 teach them to like never get close to anything rusty 1:31:07.240 --> 1:31:09.120 because that could send them to the hospital. 1:31:10.200 --> 1:31:13.280 We'll return to my conversation with Gehre after a short 1:31:13.320 --> 1:31:13.880 ad break. 1:31:24.640 --> 1:31:26.880 So what was it like moving out of this science 1:31:26.920 --> 1:31:28.240 skeptic religious community. 1:31:28.880 --> 1:31:31.200 It's funny because when I moved away from this like 1:31:31.280 --> 1:31:35.200 conservative community in Canada, we moved to Portland, Oregon, which 1:31:35.200 --> 1:31:38.680 has its own anti vaccination problem, but from like the 1:31:38.760 --> 1:31:42.439 other side. So I was still around a whole bunch 1:31:42.479 --> 1:31:45.639 of people and kids who aren't vaccinated, who where there 1:31:45.680 --> 1:31:49.000 is frequent measles outbreaks. But it's it's it is more 1:31:49.040 --> 1:31:51.400 for that like crunchy hippie thing that then is kind 1:31:51.439 --> 1:31:55.440 of you know, converged with this evangelical side. But at 1:31:55.520 --> 1:31:57.960 that time it's interesting going from you know, one of 1:31:57.960 --> 1:32:01.200 these worlds to another. And in some ways the medical 1:32:01.240 --> 1:32:04.640 reality did not change that drastically. 1:32:04.400 --> 1:32:07.280 Right, But I'm wondering if you agree on this. My 1:32:07.400 --> 1:32:13.040 sense is that that form of anti vaccination belief, the 1:32:13.080 --> 1:32:17.800 sort of hippie crunchy stuff, it's dying. It's not only dying, yeah, 1:32:17.800 --> 1:32:20.840 it has not spread. It has not been turned into 1:32:20.960 --> 1:32:23.200 like a program that is far reaching. 1:32:23.520 --> 1:32:28.640 Those types of people have either evolved in their beliefs 1:32:28.840 --> 1:32:33.960 and have and have caught up with like consensus scientific understandings, 1:32:34.439 --> 1:32:38.479 or have married, you know, far right Christian husbands and 1:32:38.520 --> 1:32:42.400 have just gone full conservative like they have split in twine. 1:32:42.840 --> 1:32:44.720 You are much less likely to now find, you know, 1:32:45.040 --> 1:32:48.080 someone who would describe themselves as like liberal or like leftist, 1:32:48.160 --> 1:32:50.080 who would hold these beliefs if they're like, you know, 1:32:50.120 --> 1:32:53.400 like a forty year old mom with like you know, 1:32:53.840 --> 1:32:56.200 braids or beads in her hair like that. That's that 1:32:56.320 --> 1:33:01.880 is definitely less less likely to have that person beholding 1:33:01.960 --> 1:33:04.960 like anti vax beliefs now than it was twenty ten 1:33:05.040 --> 1:33:05.479 years ago. 1:33:05.760 --> 1:33:09.599 You just gave me the beautiful idea of making sure 1:33:09.640 --> 1:33:13.479 I include an audio clip of the anti vax rasta 1:33:13.640 --> 1:33:15.960 Christian guy whose videos have been going viral. 1:33:16.000 --> 1:33:17.360 Have you seen these at all? 1:33:17.640 --> 1:33:17.720 No? 1:33:18.080 --> 1:33:19.479 Oh, man, you're gonna love. 1:33:19.360 --> 1:33:32.240 This dilation objectively. 1:33:34.400 --> 1:33:35.240 Projectively and. 1:33:38.160 --> 1:33:42.360 Ojectively jectivity. 1:33:48.920 --> 1:33:49.599 Oh that's good. 1:33:50.200 --> 1:33:53.160 It really does encapsulate this sort of you know, the 1:33:53.240 --> 1:33:55.920 quote unquote conspirituality. 1:33:55.320 --> 1:33:57.880 Even the way like Russell Brand has moved the past 1:33:57.960 --> 1:34:01.120 ten years. Right, it's a pretty clear example of this 1:34:01.240 --> 1:34:04.560 thing we've been talking about. Yes, how he's now this 1:34:04.760 --> 1:34:08.160 weird Jesus guy who can't stop raping? 1:34:08.840 --> 1:34:09.679 Not good? 1:34:10.040 --> 1:34:15.000 Yeah, it is so fascinating that now, yeah, like Maha 1:34:15.720 --> 1:34:19.960 is appealing to that that sort of like orphaned set 1:34:20.240 --> 1:34:23.200 of people that you're describing who have less of a 1:34:23.280 --> 1:34:23.880 political home. 1:34:24.439 --> 1:34:24.679 Yeah. 1:34:25.720 --> 1:34:28.439 RFK Junior is similarly to Russell brand as like a 1:34:28.880 --> 1:34:30.439 prime example of someone who used to be more of 1:34:30.479 --> 1:34:34.360 like a you know, left wing environmental lawyer who is 1:34:34.520 --> 1:34:41.960 now Trump's anti autism take away red number forty anti 1:34:42.080 --> 1:34:44.800 vax dude. And you know, another thing about growing up 1:34:44.800 --> 1:34:47.920 in these communities is like beyond vaccine hesitancy or anti 1:34:48.040 --> 1:34:51.800 vax beliefs, is also this like anti psychological beliefs, like 1:34:51.880 --> 1:34:54.840 like like therapy or like or like psychoanalysis or like 1:34:54.960 --> 1:34:58.000 mental diagnosis are framed the same way, like you shouldn't 1:34:58.040 --> 1:35:00.679 need real therapy. You can talk to like a Christian 1:35:00.760 --> 1:35:03.080 counselor and you can pray and that should be all 1:35:03.120 --> 1:35:04.840 you really need. You don't need to go to like 1:35:04.960 --> 1:35:08.800 a therapist or a psychologist. Like that delayed my understanding 1:35:08.880 --> 1:35:12.400 of like being autistic by like maybe fifteen years, which 1:35:12.439 --> 1:35:16.840 you know didn't serve younger gear very well in trying 1:35:16.880 --> 1:35:20.000 to unpack like social interactions as a as like a 1:35:20.080 --> 1:35:23.760 teenager or even like a preteen, because like I, you know, 1:35:24.040 --> 1:35:26.560 wasn't even aware of like the concept of like what 1:35:26.720 --> 1:35:28.960 autism actually is until so much later. 1:35:29.240 --> 1:35:32.919 So you're saying that childhood vaccinations didn't cause your autism. 1:35:33.320 --> 1:35:35.120 No, because I was never vaccinated as a kid, and 1:35:35.240 --> 1:35:36.000 yet here I am. 1:35:37.840 --> 1:35:38.040 Yeah. 1:35:38.200 --> 1:35:41.080 I saw a nice little sign recently that it fooled 1:35:41.120 --> 1:35:42.840 me because I read it too quickly. But it said 1:35:42.960 --> 1:35:44.920 childhood vaccinations cause adulthood. 1:35:45.880 --> 1:35:47.040 That's right, they sure to. 1:35:50.600 --> 1:35:54.400 Gair's experience is not unique. There are countless children who 1:35:54.439 --> 1:35:57.880 are raised in religious communities that keew medical interventions in 1:35:58.000 --> 1:36:00.800 favor of their faith and in the power of God 1:36:00.880 --> 1:36:04.599 to heal them. These communities seek exemptions from vaccination requirements 1:36:04.680 --> 1:36:07.160 on either religious grounds or on the grounds of what 1:36:07.240 --> 1:36:11.280 they call medical freedom. Consider the children who attend Mercy 1:36:11.360 --> 1:36:15.840 Culture Preparatory, a private Christian school in Fort Worth. After 1:36:15.880 --> 1:36:18.560 the Musles outbreak became national news or a port in 1:36:18.560 --> 1:36:21.160 the Dallas Morning News highlighted that the school had the 1:36:21.240 --> 1:36:24.240 lowest vaccination rate out of any private school in the 1:36:24.280 --> 1:36:27.120 state of Texas. And unlike the Copelands, who at the 1:36:27.200 --> 1:36:30.920 very least have facilitated vaccinations among their flock even as 1:36:30.920 --> 1:36:34.680 they've given contradictory messages from the pulpit, the leader of 1:36:34.800 --> 1:36:38.320 Mercy Culture was unapologetically thrilled at the news. 1:36:38.640 --> 1:36:39.679 Hey, guys, quick video. 1:36:39.920 --> 1:36:43.160 I just walked into an empty prep board meeting and 1:36:43.320 --> 1:36:45.400 there was these balloons in a surprise gift. 1:36:45.479 --> 1:36:47.880 I'm like, what's this going out? And I just found out. 1:36:47.920 --> 1:36:49.479 I'm a little behind in the news. I'm a little 1:36:49.479 --> 1:36:51.880 slow getting old, but I just. 1:36:52.000 --> 1:36:55.200 Found out we are the number one school in Texas 1:36:55.960 --> 1:36:58.920 for least vaccinations. And I guess the news got a 1:36:58.960 --> 1:37:01.200 hold of it and they were trying to spin it 1:37:01.360 --> 1:37:04.080 like it was some awful thing. But I just want 1:37:04.120 --> 1:37:07.000 to congratulate all of the family members of MC Prep 1:37:07.360 --> 1:37:12.000 that embrace freedom of health and they're not allowing government 1:37:12.360 --> 1:37:15.720 or science projects to affect how you live and lead 1:37:15.800 --> 1:37:18.080 your life. I know the tire world was shut down 1:37:18.160 --> 1:37:20.360 with insanity and people were fired from their job for 1:37:20.479 --> 1:37:23.919 forced vaccinations, and freedom is something that we take seriously, 1:37:24.280 --> 1:37:27.280 religious freedom, freedom of our health. And so shout out 1:37:27.320 --> 1:37:31.000 to MC Prep for being the least vaccinated. 1:37:30.479 --> 1:37:32.240 School in Texas. 1:37:32.439 --> 1:37:34.720 We'll take it, or as Bercy culture say, we celebrate it, 1:37:34.800 --> 1:37:35.639 we'll put it on the board. 1:37:36.479 --> 1:37:40.000 State Representative Nate Shatzlin, who is also a pastor at 1:37:40.000 --> 1:37:42.360 the church and who has been a featured guest at 1:37:42.400 --> 1:37:45.760 Kenneth Copland's annual convention spread a similar message in his 1:37:45.840 --> 1:37:49.679 own video that celebrated the news of low vaccination rates 1:37:49.960 --> 1:37:50.920 in their private school. 1:37:51.080 --> 1:37:52.799 Hey, what's going on? This is state revenue? 1:37:52.880 --> 1:37:53.280 Shats on? 1:37:53.360 --> 1:37:56.200 I'm standing in front of our Texas state capital and 1:37:56.320 --> 1:38:00.400 I was alerted on x from a ex post from 1:38:00.520 --> 1:38:03.840 Bud Kennedy. Now you probably don't know who Bud Kennedy is, 1:38:04.080 --> 1:38:07.479 but he is a reporter for the Star Telegram in 1:38:07.560 --> 1:38:11.639 Fort Worth, Texas. Now Star Telegrams losing followers by the thousands. 1:38:11.680 --> 1:38:12.200 It's crazy. 1:38:12.320 --> 1:38:17.000 However, he attacks Christians give churches more than almost anyone 1:38:17.120 --> 1:38:22.040 else I know. And this post said that Russell Culture Preparatory, which. 1:38:21.960 --> 1:38:24.400 Is a private school in my district. 1:38:24.200 --> 1:38:27.120 Also happens to be where I send my kids to school. 1:38:27.600 --> 1:38:31.920 He said they are the least vaccinated school in the 1:38:32.120 --> 1:38:33.479 States of Texas. 1:38:33.560 --> 1:38:34.240 Now, I was. 1:38:34.240 --> 1:38:36.920 Incredibly concerned for a couple of different reasons. 1:38:37.040 --> 1:38:41.840 I was concerned that number one for just finding out. 1:38:41.680 --> 1:38:45.080 About this, because the second concern is why haven't we 1:38:45.280 --> 1:38:48.920 celebrated this sooner? Look, I am so excited to say 1:38:49.200 --> 1:38:52.640 that Mercy Culture Prep is celebrating medical freedom where we 1:38:52.880 --> 1:38:57.040 honor the wishes of moms and dads over any type 1:38:57.040 --> 1:39:01.160 of health official like Rachel Levine or so called public 1:39:01.240 --> 1:39:03.599 health expert like blood Unity. 1:39:06.080 --> 1:39:08.720 This brazen lack of concern about the risks of the 1:39:08.760 --> 1:39:12.120 spread of measles, which has already killed multiple children, is 1:39:12.320 --> 1:39:15.800 concerning for many reasons. One of them is that it 1:39:15.880 --> 1:39:18.920 implicitly asserts that it's better for people to be unvaccinated. 1:39:19.560 --> 1:39:23.000 Another is that it effectively disregards the risks that vulnerable 1:39:23.040 --> 1:39:26.880 people face when diseases like measles spread unchecked. And when 1:39:26.960 --> 1:39:30.800 infused with this hardened belief that God can miraculously heal 1:39:30.880 --> 1:39:34.080 them and also that God makes no mistakes, it can 1:39:34.200 --> 1:39:37.760 lead some people like Peter, the Mennonite father of the 1:39:37.800 --> 1:39:40.719 first child to die from measles in over two decades, 1:39:41.280 --> 1:39:44.680 to believe that getting measles can actually make their communities stronger. 1:39:45.640 --> 1:39:49.200 This is basically survival of the fittest style quasi eugenic 1:39:49.320 --> 1:39:53.080 thinking with the veneer of religion. In the next episode, 1:39:53.479 --> 1:39:57.400 we will explore why anti VAXX beliefs and the policies 1:39:57.800 --> 1:40:00.599 now being pushed by the leading vaccine denial or RFGA 1:40:00.720 --> 1:40:04.519 Junior are effectively eugenic in nature and now the twisted 1:40:04.600 --> 1:40:07.439 history of eugenics and racist public health abuses in the 1:40:07.560 --> 1:40:12.360 United States has unfortunately buttressed the viral anti vax ideology 1:40:12.640 --> 1:40:16.799 we are dealing with today. Thanks for listening to episode 1:40:16.840 --> 1:40:19.720 three of Anti vax America for It Could Happen Here. 1:40:20.320 --> 1:40:22.600 Until next time, I'm Steven Monicelli. 1:40:22.920 --> 1:40:23.639 Thanks for listening. 1:40:45.640 --> 1:40:50.040 I'm Stephen Monicelli, a journalist in Dallas and an occasional 1:40:50.080 --> 1:40:53.720 contributor to Cool Zone Media. And welcome to episode four 1:40:54.160 --> 1:40:57.679 of Anti vax America, a special five part mini series 1:40:57.800 --> 1:41:02.160 for It Could Happen Here exploring the measles outbreak as 1:41:02.160 --> 1:41:06.080 a microcosm for where we are now, how we got here, 1:41:06.200 --> 1:41:09.639 and where we could be going. Today's episode we'll focus 1:41:10.240 --> 1:41:14.640 on the twisted history of eugenics as it relates to 1:41:14.760 --> 1:41:20.320 vaccinations and how the current MAHA agenda, as pushed by 1:41:20.560 --> 1:41:25.519 RFK Junior, is a sort of echo of eugenic beliefs 1:41:25.600 --> 1:41:29.400 of the past. Vaccination hesitancy historically has been framed by 1:41:29.720 --> 1:41:33.160 opponents to vaccines as a matter of medical freedom, about 1:41:33.200 --> 1:41:35.160 the ability to decide what one wants to do with 1:41:35.240 --> 1:41:38.519 their own body. It's an argument that we've discussed can 1:41:38.560 --> 1:41:42.120 appeal to crunchy granola types and religious zellets. 1:41:42.160 --> 1:41:42.439 Alike. 1:41:42.840 --> 1:41:44.920 But there's also a darker side to this rhetoric that 1:41:45.040 --> 1:41:49.360 reveals an embrace of eugenic ideas among anti vax advocates 1:41:49.439 --> 1:41:54.080 who prefer quote unquote herd immunity approaches to outbreaks, which 1:41:54.120 --> 1:41:57.680 subordinate the interests of older people, those with disabilities, and 1:41:57.760 --> 1:42:00.880 members of minority communities to those who choose not to 1:42:00.920 --> 1:42:03.880 be vaccinated. On this episode of Anti vax America, we 1:42:03.920 --> 1:42:07.160 will dive into the overlapping histories of eugenic thinking and 1:42:07.200 --> 1:42:12.040 anti vaccination beliefs to untangle this mess. As we previously 1:42:12.120 --> 1:42:15.920 discussed in episode two, vaccinations took off in the eighteen hundred, 1:42:15.960 --> 1:42:18.840 shortly after the creation of the first smallpox vaccine in 1:42:18.920 --> 1:42:23.479 seventeen ninety six, and so did anti vaccination rhetoric and movements. 1:42:24.240 --> 1:42:26.880 In parallel, there were a lot of scientific developments going on. 1:42:27.080 --> 1:42:30.320 The eighteen hundreds were a heady time in Western science. 1:42:30.840 --> 1:42:34.200 There was Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection, which was 1:42:34.240 --> 1:42:36.800 presented in Darwin's eighteen fifty nine book on the Origin 1:42:36.880 --> 1:42:41.759 of Species. Five years later, sociologist Herbert Spencer mixed concepts 1:42:41.840 --> 1:42:46.080 from Thomas Malthus, the economists who proposed that population growth 1:42:46.120 --> 1:42:49.920 withul outpaced food production, with Darwin's theory to coin the 1:42:50.040 --> 1:42:54.520 term survival of the fittest and apply it to industrial capitalism, 1:42:54.880 --> 1:42:57.400 with the end conclusion that basically those who were on 1:42:57.520 --> 1:43:00.479 top were deserving of all of the privileges that they have, 1:43:00.760 --> 1:43:04.000 and that those at the bottom were also deserving of 1:43:04.080 --> 1:43:08.760 their position in society. In eighteen eighty three, Darwin's cousin 1:43:08.880 --> 1:43:13.080 Francis Galton, coined to term eugenics in his book Inquiries 1:43:13.160 --> 1:43:16.880 into Human Fertility. In its developments, the book proposed to give, 1:43:17.160 --> 1:43:21.519 to quote, more suitable races a better chance of prevailing 1:43:21.640 --> 1:43:25.280 speedily over the less suitable. To understand a bit more 1:43:25.280 --> 1:43:28.360 about Galton's thinking, I spoke with doctor Michael Phillips, who 1:43:28.439 --> 1:43:29.879 we heard from in a previous episode. 1:43:31.520 --> 1:43:37.599 Galton was in despair that all those improvements in delivery 1:43:37.600 --> 1:43:43.000 of healthcare, medical care itself, nutrition, all the humanitarian efforts 1:43:43.479 --> 1:43:48.920 to improve the workplace, eliminate child labor, improve factories so 1:43:49.080 --> 1:43:52.200 people don't get blown up, etc. What that was doing 1:43:52.439 --> 1:43:56.280 was it was allowing the unfit, you know, the people 1:43:56.360 --> 1:44:01.439 he saw as inferior, to survive past childhood, to survive 1:44:01.520 --> 1:44:06.000 into adulthood. They have longer healthier lives. And if they 1:44:06.160 --> 1:44:10.679 live a longer lifespan and they're healthier during that span, 1:44:11.320 --> 1:44:14.920 they're going to have more children. And he believed that 1:44:15.200 --> 1:44:21.799 because they are less gifted with intelligence, you know, because 1:44:22.000 --> 1:44:25.080 you know, he said history is driven by genius. And 1:44:25.160 --> 1:44:29.720 he actually did the first major study on intelligence where 1:44:29.800 --> 1:44:33.559 he traced the family histories of what he said were 1:44:33.600 --> 1:44:36.120 the gifted men. And he claimed all of this was 1:44:36.800 --> 1:44:40.720 biological inheritance, you know, everything was biology. And not only that, 1:44:41.000 --> 1:44:46.280 but all traits, all traits, were biological work ethic, honesty, 1:44:47.040 --> 1:44:52.400 fidelity to your partner, alcoholism, every single trait a human 1:44:52.479 --> 1:44:55.960 might have he tied to biology. And he said that 1:44:56.240 --> 1:44:59.520 the people with the worst traits that it's called dysgenic 1:45:00.040 --> 1:45:03.320 people who were dishenic, people had the worst traits, were 1:45:03.360 --> 1:45:07.080 now producing large families. And because they were less intelligent, 1:45:07.920 --> 1:45:12.200 they gave into their sexual urges more often. They didn't 1:45:12.320 --> 1:45:17.440 plan families based on their economic circumstances. They were impulsive, 1:45:18.760 --> 1:45:21.880 while we have eight children, let's have sex, and you 1:45:21.960 --> 1:45:23.560 know if we have a ninth child, well we have 1:45:23.640 --> 1:45:28.559 a ninth child. And that meant that those families were 1:45:28.640 --> 1:45:34.559 growing exponentially. But the fit who plan their families more carefully, 1:45:35.040 --> 1:45:39.240 and you know, the partners are busier. Job creators is 1:45:39.439 --> 1:45:43.000 innovators and science and education. The women want to have 1:45:43.120 --> 1:45:45.000 a life outside of the home. 1:45:45.439 --> 1:45:49.000 That they were less fertile, they were having fewer children. 1:45:49.560 --> 1:45:53.000 And of course what the result would be is you 1:45:53.160 --> 1:45:57.280 have the unfit out numbering the fit, and that leads 1:45:57.400 --> 1:45:59.920 to catastrophe society falls upon. 1:46:00.960 --> 1:46:03.880 These sorts of ideas are represented in the satirical two 1:46:03.920 --> 1:46:07.439 thousand and six film Idiocracy, which plays out a future 1:46:07.520 --> 1:46:11.559 in which stupid people outbreed smart people and society consequently devolves. 1:46:11.960 --> 1:46:16.439 As the twenty first century began, human evolution was at 1:46:16.479 --> 1:46:21.800 a turning point. Natural selection, the process by which the strongest, 1:46:22.080 --> 1:46:26.080 the smartest, the fastest reproduced in greater numbers than the rest, 1:46:26.479 --> 1:46:29.600 A process which had once favored the noblest traits of 1:46:29.800 --> 1:46:34.960 man now began to favor different traits. Most science fiction 1:46:35.120 --> 1:46:38.120 of the day predicted a future that was more civilized 1:46:38.400 --> 1:46:42.320 and more intelligent, but as time went on, things seemed 1:46:42.360 --> 1:46:45.840 to be heading in the opposite direction, a dumbing down. 1:46:46.840 --> 1:46:51.440 How did this happen? Evolution does not necessarily reward intelligence. 1:46:51.720 --> 1:46:54.639 With no natural predators to thin the herd, it began 1:46:54.760 --> 1:46:58.280 to simply reward those who reproduced the most and left 1:46:58.320 --> 1:47:01.160 the intelligent to become an dangered species. 1:47:02.479 --> 1:47:05.919 Having kids is such an important decision. 1:47:06.960 --> 1:47:08.240 We're just waiting for the right time. 1:47:08.640 --> 1:47:10.040 It's not something you want to rush into. 1:47:10.479 --> 1:47:11.519 Obviously, no way. 1:47:13.640 --> 1:47:15.520 Shit, I'm putting it again. 1:47:17.000 --> 1:47:19.559 To mean, damn kids, thought you was on the pills 1:47:19.600 --> 1:47:24.120 and shit, No, must have been Brittany. 1:47:25.920 --> 1:47:29.200 Well certainly meant in jest. The fundamental principle of idiocracy 1:47:29.280 --> 1:47:33.080 demonstrates the staying power of Galton's eugenic ideas, which became 1:47:33.240 --> 1:47:36.479 highly influential in the twentieth century. Within two decades of 1:47:36.520 --> 1:47:39.639 the release of his book coining the term eugenics, eugenic 1:47:39.760 --> 1:47:43.240 thinking was widespread among white Anglo Saxon leaders of the West. 1:47:44.120 --> 1:47:46.839 But before we hear more about that from doctor Michael Phillips, 1:47:47.479 --> 1:47:48.240 a quick ad. 1:47:48.160 --> 1:48:03.599 Break two biggest eugenicists in the early twentieth century. They 1:48:03.640 --> 1:48:07.080 were best selling authors Madison Grant, who was a friend 1:48:07.160 --> 1:48:13.839 of Theodore Roosevelt's, and Walthorpe Stoddard. Stoddard in particular warned 1:48:14.520 --> 1:48:19.519 that this was fueling radical politics, that the unfit essentially 1:48:20.160 --> 1:48:25.759 were demanding the riches created by the geniuses in the world, 1:48:26.320 --> 1:48:28.960 and they were expropriating the wealth they created, and they 1:48:29.000 --> 1:48:33.360 were they were just milking the fit for every advance, 1:48:33.760 --> 1:48:37.880 and that as that became more difficult, that would breed 1:48:38.360 --> 1:48:41.400 revolution and sodder. In particular thought there was a link 1:48:41.439 --> 1:48:46.400 to communist revolution. As advancements in sanitation and modern medicine 1:48:46.400 --> 1:48:50.600 continued in parallel with the spread of leftist thought, eugenicists 1:48:50.600 --> 1:48:54.280 were consumed with nightmares of a Malthusian crisis and were 1:48:54.320 --> 1:48:57.880 increasingly worried about their position in society. Something in their 1:48:58.000 --> 1:49:00.880 minds had to be done to stem the growing tide 1:49:01.000 --> 1:49:05.760 of unfit masses. Because natural selection in the minds of 1:49:05.800 --> 1:49:10.599 the genesis had basically been suspended the force sterilizations were 1:49:10.680 --> 1:49:17.680 the substitute for that. Eugenicists were in despair about vaccines, 1:49:18.560 --> 1:49:21.760 but there was an organized campaign to ban them on 1:49:21.920 --> 1:49:25.719 eugenics reasons, because I think they knew politically that would 1:49:25.720 --> 1:49:28.640 be unpopular, because there were enough people who realize they 1:49:28.680 --> 1:49:31.759 could see the benefits as vaccinations became more common. 1:49:33.200 --> 1:49:36.760 In other words, some early genesists were both supportive of 1:49:36.840 --> 1:49:41.080 things like for sterilization, but were also opposed to vaccinations 1:49:41.360 --> 1:49:44.000 because they believed that vaccinations would allow the weak and 1:49:44.160 --> 1:49:49.000 unfit to survive, prosper and multiply. But not all eugenicists 1:49:49.120 --> 1:49:54.440 were inherently opposed to vaccinations. The Nazi regime, which exterminated 1:49:54.520 --> 1:49:58.799 millions of Jews and other people deemed undesirable, also embraced 1:49:58.800 --> 1:50:03.080 widespread vaccination against diseases like typhus, even if they actually 1:50:03.280 --> 1:50:06.680 rolled back mandatory vaccination laws that had been put in 1:50:06.760 --> 1:50:10.519 place prior to the rise of the Nazis. Nevertheless, the 1:50:10.600 --> 1:50:14.920 relationship between eugenic thinking and anti vax beliefs goes deep, 1:50:15.439 --> 1:50:19.360 and it reveals it helpful heuristic for thinking about eugenics. So, 1:50:19.479 --> 1:50:22.320 on the one hand, there's a sort of active or 1:50:22.600 --> 1:50:26.599 hard eugenics, in which medical authorities or the state forcefully 1:50:26.680 --> 1:50:30.280 sterilize and exterminate people who are deemed unfit. And then 1:50:30.360 --> 1:50:32.840 on the other hand, there's a sort of passive or 1:50:33.200 --> 1:50:37.040 soft eugenics, in which potentially preventable deaths are written off 1:50:37.080 --> 1:50:40.320 as a product of a process in which the fittest 1:50:40.400 --> 1:50:44.040 survive and go on to improve the overall gene pool. Now, 1:50:44.120 --> 1:50:46.720 before we go any further, it is important to note 1:50:46.760 --> 1:50:50.920 that eugenics has been morally and scientifically discredited so thoroughly 1:50:51.080 --> 1:50:55.040 that it shouldn't even be necessary to mention it. But unfortunately, 1:50:55.479 --> 1:51:00.120 eugenicis thinking is in resurgence. President Donald Trump himself, I 1:51:00.200 --> 1:51:02.600 said there are a lot of bad genes in our 1:51:02.640 --> 1:51:05.479 country right now, and that immigrants are poisoning the blood 1:51:05.520 --> 1:51:06.080 of our country. 1:51:07.000 --> 1:51:11.880 That's been an ongoing thing with immigration debates ever since 1:51:12.040 --> 1:51:15.920 the late nineteenth century, this idea that certain groups of 1:51:16.000 --> 1:51:21.840 immigrants are disease carriers, and that has particularly been aimed 1:51:21.880 --> 1:51:23.960 at Mexican immigrants. 1:51:24.120 --> 1:51:25.760 That's been an ongoing thing. 1:51:26.240 --> 1:51:30.599 And during COVID, Greg Gabbott, who's the governor of Texas, 1:51:31.280 --> 1:51:35.320 was saying it was Mexican immigrants, undocumented immigrants, who were 1:51:35.320 --> 1:51:39.000 bringing COVID to Texas. At one point he made that accusation, 1:51:39.720 --> 1:51:43.120 and it's exactly like what they were saying. We had 1:51:43.720 --> 1:51:47.800 in Texas during this period this panic about immigration, late 1:51:47.880 --> 1:51:52.560 nineteenth early twenties century. Galveston, a medical doctor who was 1:51:53.000 --> 1:51:56.240 inspecting people coming into the Port of Galveston who were 1:51:56.320 --> 1:52:00.439 Jewish immigrants, and he was rejecting them because he saying 1:52:00.479 --> 1:52:05.960 they're carrying infectious eye diseases, tuberculosis, all of that, and 1:52:06.840 --> 1:52:09.760 Jewish civil Rights scripts had to intervene to stop that. 1:52:10.880 --> 1:52:15.200 Racism, anti Semitism, and eugenics historically have gone hand in hand, 1:52:15.280 --> 1:52:18.120 but it hasn't been since the early nineteen hundreds that 1:52:18.200 --> 1:52:22.400 people who hold such beliefs also hold so much power 1:52:22.479 --> 1:52:27.080 in the state. RFK Junior, a longtime anti vaccination activist 1:52:27.600 --> 1:52:29.840 and now head of the United States Department of Health 1:52:29.880 --> 1:52:32.400 and Human Services, said in twenty twenty three that COVID 1:52:32.600 --> 1:52:38.280 was quote ethnically targeted to spare Ashkenazi, Jews and Chinese people. Now, 1:52:38.600 --> 1:52:42.240 his make America Healthy Again agenda is absolutely dripping with 1:52:42.479 --> 1:52:47.160 soft eugenic thinking. And to unravel all that, I spoke 1:52:47.240 --> 1:52:50.680 with doctor David Gorski, a doctor who regularly writes in 1:52:50.760 --> 1:52:52.719 a blog called Science Based Medicine. 1:52:54.880 --> 1:52:58.759 My name is David Gorsky. I'm a professor of surgery 1:52:58.800 --> 1:53:02.320 and oncology at Mayne State University in Detroit. 1:53:02.840 --> 1:53:05.519 So, doctor Gorski, you're also a bit of a writer, 1:53:05.720 --> 1:53:09.320 and you keep a pretty regular blog in chi Opine 1:53:09.640 --> 1:53:12.840 on a number of things, and recently you've written a 1:53:12.920 --> 1:53:19.439 couple blog posts about the measles outbreak, the anti vaccination movement. 1:53:19.880 --> 1:53:25.240 RFK Juniors Make America Healthy again an agenda, and you 1:53:25.320 --> 1:53:30.760 know what folks over at the Conspiratuality podcast called soft eugenics, 1:53:31.360 --> 1:53:33.120 or perhaps what we could also think of as a 1:53:33.200 --> 1:53:38.080 sort of social Darwinist logic or sort of passive eugenics. 1:53:38.560 --> 1:53:40.320 You know, a couple of months ago, when I first 1:53:40.360 --> 1:53:45.040 came across the episode of Conspiratuality, which was called MAHA's 1:53:45.120 --> 1:53:48.240 soft Eugenics, like a kind of like a light bulb 1:53:48.320 --> 1:53:50.240 went off in my brain in that it sort of 1:53:50.640 --> 1:53:53.400 helped me crystallize things that I had been thinking of 1:53:53.560 --> 1:53:57.600 about the anti vaccine movement, but not so much the 1:53:57.800 --> 1:54:01.600 rest of Maha, which, you know, let's face it, a 1:54:01.720 --> 1:54:06.919 mishmash of you know, anti vaccine beliefs, you know, appeals 1:54:06.960 --> 1:54:11.320 to nature, anti pharma, a lot of quackery mixed in 1:54:11.479 --> 1:54:16.200 with some you know, semi reasonable stuff like you know, yeah, sure, diet, exercise, 1:54:16.280 --> 1:54:20.160 it's good for you. I think Measles really epitomizes what 1:54:20.479 --> 1:54:23.479 they called the quote unquote soft eugenics, which was basically, 1:54:24.120 --> 1:54:27.599 instead of you know, like actively trying to kill children 1:54:27.720 --> 1:54:29.840 or people that you know whose genes you don't want 1:54:29.920 --> 1:54:33.720 passed on, you're basically letting nature do it. And you 1:54:33.840 --> 1:54:36.839 hear this a lot when they talk about For example, 1:54:36.880 --> 1:54:41.200 one of the most common arguments you'll hear from anti 1:54:41.280 --> 1:54:44.960 vaxers about measles is that, you know, if someone gets 1:54:45.000 --> 1:54:48.440 really sick from measles or dies of measles, they must 1:54:48.480 --> 1:54:51.000 have had something wrong with them, They must not have 1:54:51.120 --> 1:54:55.160 been healthy. Like that, Measles is harmless if you are healthy. 1:54:55.840 --> 1:54:58.160 And of course, you know, there's a whole lot of 1:54:58.960 --> 1:55:01.320 appeal to virtu you as far as health goes. In 1:55:01.360 --> 1:55:04.640 other words, there's this this belief system that's kind of 1:55:04.680 --> 1:55:08.440 embedded in Maha, and it's been around for ages and 1:55:08.560 --> 1:55:12.440 ages in the alternative medicine crowd, that you know, you 1:55:12.840 --> 1:55:16.760 have basically total control over your health. In other words, 1:55:16.800 --> 1:55:18.960 if you do the right things, eat the right diet, 1:55:19.240 --> 1:55:21.200 you know, take the right supplements, you know, do the 1:55:22.040 --> 1:55:27.280 exercise appropriately, you know, you can keep yourself healthy. And 1:55:27.760 --> 1:55:31.800 it's even as good as vaccines or better to prevent 1:55:32.120 --> 1:55:35.280 vaccine preventable diseases, infectious diseases. Right. 1:55:35.440 --> 1:55:38.680 So, I think that's a great way to understand the 1:55:38.760 --> 1:55:42.600 differences here. You know, we're not talking about the hard 1:55:43.080 --> 1:55:47.720 active eugenics of the past, which was epitomized by the 1:55:48.200 --> 1:55:50.560 Nazi regime and their quote unquote final solution. 1:55:51.120 --> 1:55:53.720 And also, you know, you're in the good old us 1:55:53.800 --> 1:55:54.520 of AGA. 1:55:54.640 --> 1:55:57.640 Years ago, right you know, or even you know, in 1:55:58.280 --> 1:56:02.800 the lingering sterilization regimes that continued up until you know, 1:56:02.960 --> 1:56:06.720 the later twentieth century, which we're you know, sort of 1:56:06.760 --> 1:56:09.760 originally rooted in this idea that we should be calling 1:56:09.920 --> 1:56:14.400 people out of the reproductive pool who have these undesirable 1:56:14.480 --> 1:56:17.400 traits or are you know, considered to be unfit in 1:56:17.560 --> 1:56:18.000 some way. 1:56:18.400 --> 1:56:20.000 So that's not what we're talking about. 1:56:20.000 --> 1:56:23.200 We're talking about this more let nature take its course, 1:56:23.320 --> 1:56:26.280 survival of the fittest type mindset. I don't know if 1:56:26.280 --> 1:56:30.400 it's a resurgence or it's just continuing to gain in popularity. 1:56:30.880 --> 1:56:34.840 There's a recent conference, it's been one of two conferences 1:56:34.880 --> 1:56:37.680 that have happened in Austin, Texas where a lot of 1:56:37.760 --> 1:56:41.920 these quote unquote liberal eugenicists also met up with people 1:56:41.960 --> 1:56:44.440 who are in the pro natalist movement. And then there's 1:56:44.520 --> 1:56:47.360 this overlap with people who are kind of dabbling in 1:56:47.800 --> 1:56:52.280 race science or trying to resuscitate old ideas that are 1:56:52.320 --> 1:56:56.440 basically you know, eugenic in nature with regard to some people, 1:56:56.680 --> 1:56:59.480 you know, being smarter by genetic basis. 1:57:01.000 --> 1:57:02.960 I mean there's a lot of that around too, and 1:57:03.080 --> 1:57:07.280 that's not soft eugenics, that's like straight up eugenic. 1:57:07.080 --> 1:57:09.360 Right, And so there's a continuum, you could say, there's 1:57:09.440 --> 1:57:12.600 this spectrum, and you know, these things are not disconnected, 1:57:12.680 --> 1:57:16.840 but they also can be understood as somewhat discrete phenomenon 1:57:17.200 --> 1:57:20.400 or ideologies or belief systems. And so you did write 1:57:20.400 --> 1:57:24.560 a little bit about one specific document that you know, 1:57:24.800 --> 1:57:29.440 I hadn't been particularly familiar with, called the Great Barrington Declaration. 1:57:29.800 --> 1:57:30.880 Can you talk about that? 1:57:31.320 --> 1:57:33.720 Okay, So I can't believe it's like four and a 1:57:33.760 --> 1:57:37.000 half years ago now, but way back in early October 1:57:37.120 --> 1:57:43.000 of twenty twenty three, scientists were brought together by a 1:57:43.920 --> 1:57:47.440 far right wing, you know, activist named Jeffrey Tucker, who 1:57:47.520 --> 1:57:49.560 was associated with a right wing thing tank at the 1:57:49.600 --> 1:57:54.200 time called the American Institute for Economic Research. The idea 1:57:54.320 --> 1:57:58.080 behind the document was, you know, all of these measures 1:57:58.200 --> 1:58:02.520 to control COVID are like destroying the economy. So what 1:58:02.680 --> 1:58:07.280 we should really do, supposedly based on science but not really, 1:58:07.400 --> 1:58:11.280 as I'll get into, is to let the virus spread 1:58:11.720 --> 1:58:15.520 among quote unquote young and healthy, you know, those who 1:58:15.600 --> 1:58:19.200 are not at high risk, so not the elderly, not 1:58:19.400 --> 1:58:24.280 those with pre existing conditions that make them high risk 1:58:24.440 --> 1:58:29.640 for severe disease complications and death from COVID. Just let 1:58:29.720 --> 1:58:32.360 it spread to reach what they call, you know, quote 1:58:32.440 --> 1:58:36.760 unquote natural herd immunity heard immunity for those not familiar 1:58:36.840 --> 1:58:41.360 with it, is when a pathogen is so prevalent in 1:58:41.440 --> 1:58:45.640 the population and that so many people have developed what 1:58:45.800 --> 1:58:48.520 they call natural immunity, but the more appropriate term is 1:58:48.680 --> 1:58:52.200 post infection immunity. You know, immunity after having been infected 1:58:52.880 --> 1:58:55.800 to the point where you know a sufficient proportion of 1:58:55.880 --> 1:58:59.600 the population is immune and the virus doesn't spread much 1:58:59.720 --> 1:59:02.400 like if you have a sufficient proportion of the population 1:59:02.600 --> 1:59:05.920 vaccinated the virus, you know, you might get sporadic cases 1:59:06.000 --> 1:59:09.720 in small outbreaks, but it just can't spread further. If 1:59:09.760 --> 1:59:13.440 you don't know much about infectious diseases, including COVID, it 1:59:13.640 --> 1:59:16.480 sounds like not unreasonable given that there wasn't a vaccine 1:59:16.520 --> 1:59:18.920 back then. The other part of it is what they 1:59:19.000 --> 1:59:23.240 call quote unquote focus protection. So the idea is supposedly 1:59:23.360 --> 1:59:27.040 that you could protect those at high risk while letting 1:59:27.040 --> 1:59:32.160 the virus circulate, which are pretty incompatible because how are 1:59:32.240 --> 1:59:33.480 you going to you know, how are you going to 1:59:33.600 --> 1:59:36.880 keep these high risk people from coming into contact with 1:59:37.480 --> 1:59:41.120 people who could have the virus, unless you like quarantine 1:59:41.200 --> 1:59:43.640 them all or something like that, which again would be 1:59:43.680 --> 1:59:46.640 impractical because you know, it's what twenty percent of the 1:59:46.720 --> 1:59:51.040 population at least. The other problem with this idea is 1:59:51.160 --> 1:59:54.080 for there to be natural herd immunity. I hate that term, 1:59:54.160 --> 1:59:55.960 but I'll use it just because it's what they use. 1:59:56.760 --> 2:00:01.800 A couple of conditions are necessary. First, post infection immunity 2:00:01.920 --> 2:00:05.839 has to be life long or at least very long lasting. 2:00:06.920 --> 2:00:09.080 The second is, in other words, that the virus can't 2:00:09.120 --> 2:00:13.800 be mutating to avoid immunity, which we all know now 2:00:14.000 --> 2:00:17.360 and even new then that coronaviruses are very good at doing. 2:00:18.280 --> 2:00:21.640 So that it was expected that you know, new variants 2:00:21.640 --> 2:00:25.120 would come up and they could evade even post infection 2:00:25.240 --> 2:00:28.360 immunity in terms of like influenza. That's why the flu 2:00:28.440 --> 2:00:31.880 vaccine has to be updated, you know, every year, because 2:00:31.920 --> 2:00:36.880 the strains mutate, and the rise of the delta wave, 2:00:37.000 --> 2:00:40.440 the omicron wave, et cetera kind of showed that people 2:00:40.520 --> 2:00:44.600 getting infected again and again that you know, post infection 2:00:44.720 --> 2:00:48.560 immunity for COVID was not long lasting, so basically maybe 2:00:48.640 --> 2:00:52.360 Barrington Declaration was, you know, giving up more than anything 2:00:52.480 --> 2:00:56.080 else in order to let people make money again. And 2:00:56.920 --> 2:01:00.480 it never would have worked because even back then, we 2:01:00.720 --> 2:01:04.400 had every reason to expect that post infection immunity after 2:01:04.720 --> 2:01:07.920 COVID infection would not be long lasting, and that the 2:01:08.040 --> 2:01:12.040 virus would mutate and you know, come up with new 2:01:12.080 --> 2:01:19.000 strains that could bypass pre existing immunity from previous infections. However, 2:01:19.120 --> 2:01:23.400 this idea was very influential, and in fact, the Great 2:01:23.440 --> 2:01:27.160 Barrington Declaration was kind of late in the game because 2:01:27.520 --> 2:01:30.640 the idea of just letting the virus spread to achieve 2:01:30.960 --> 2:01:34.200 natural herd immunity was being pushed as early as March 2:01:34.280 --> 2:01:38.640 and April in twenty twenty. And one of the writers 2:01:38.680 --> 2:01:42.760 are the scientists who wrote the Great Barrington Declaration is 2:01:42.880 --> 2:01:47.680 now our director of the NIH, doctor J. Bodichario. The 2:01:47.760 --> 2:01:51.360 other was doctor Senatragupta in England. And then there was 2:01:51.520 --> 2:01:54.760 of course Martin Cauldorf, who I now hear is involved 2:01:54.800 --> 2:01:59.280 in the autism you know vaccine study that RFK Junior 2:01:59.600 --> 2:02:05.160 is supposedly organizing. So basically, you know, these these the 2:02:05.240 --> 2:02:11.000 idea behind the Great Barrington Declaration, far from being censored 2:02:11.080 --> 2:02:15.320 and canceled, et cetera, actually found purchase at the highest 2:02:15.400 --> 2:02:18.280 levels of government in the US and the UK, the 2:02:18.680 --> 2:02:23.600 Boris Johnson government and Donald Trump administration both. You know, 2:02:23.840 --> 2:02:28.560 listen to these scientists and I mean Great Barrington Declaration 2:02:29.280 --> 2:02:32.280 writers you know, actually got to meet with Trump at 2:02:32.320 --> 2:02:36.720 one point, I believe in July, and it was unfortunately 2:02:36.880 --> 2:02:42.720 very influential and discouraged stronger public health measures. I did 2:02:42.840 --> 2:02:46.520 call this idea eugenicist at the time, although maybe you 2:02:46.600 --> 2:02:49.760 can argue if it's soft eugenics or social Darwinist. I mean, 2:02:50.480 --> 2:02:53.680 maybe more social Darwinists, given that, oh well, it's kind 2:02:53.720 --> 2:02:55.720 of like screw the old people who will die of this, 2:02:56.480 --> 2:02:58.920 you know, seem to be part of the attitude behind it. 2:02:59.160 --> 2:03:02.200 You know, we throw up this focused protection kind of 2:03:02.240 --> 2:03:05.400 as an afterthought, you know, where the main idea is 2:03:05.560 --> 2:03:08.240 just to you know, let the virus spread and most 2:03:08.280 --> 2:03:12.080 people will be okay. And this is the same sort 2:03:12.120 --> 2:03:14.600 of idea that we that I heard again and again 2:03:15.320 --> 2:03:18.080 years and years before with the measles, you know, and 2:03:18.200 --> 2:03:20.880 in fact, if you go back to twenty fifteen, which 2:03:21.120 --> 2:03:24.640 was you know, after the Disneyland measles outbreak, and during 2:03:24.640 --> 2:03:27.360 the holidays of twenty fourteen that you know took part. 2:03:27.400 --> 2:03:30.320 In the early part of twenty fifteen, you would see 2:03:30.360 --> 2:03:34.680 a lot of anti vaccine activists going on and on 2:03:34.800 --> 2:03:37.640 about how if you just keep yourself healthy, measles is 2:03:37.760 --> 2:03:42.240 not a danger, that natural immunity to measles is far 2:03:42.440 --> 2:03:47.960 greater than vaccine induced immunity. What they always fail to 2:03:48.240 --> 2:03:52.919 mention is that the price of getting post infection immunity 2:03:53.160 --> 2:03:57.200 can be besides just being sick. Could it involve the 2:03:57.320 --> 2:04:00.600 risk of you know, complications, neurologic damage, or even. 2:04:00.520 --> 2:04:03.880 Death right And so in a way, there's a sort 2:04:03.920 --> 2:04:08.240 of moralization around health in that, you know, it's something 2:04:08.280 --> 2:04:12.680 that individuals have to be personally responsible for, and as 2:04:12.720 --> 2:04:16.720 you said, if they succumbed to an illness like measles, 2:04:16.760 --> 2:04:19.280 it is sort of an indication that maybe they were 2:04:19.400 --> 2:04:24.520 unfit in some way or unhealthy, And his dovetails with 2:04:24.920 --> 2:04:29.120 something you also wrote about RFK Junior's recent speech in 2:04:29.200 --> 2:04:32.440 which he talked about autism and described it as a 2:04:33.080 --> 2:04:37.400 tsunami and likened it to an epidemic. He claimed that 2:04:37.880 --> 2:04:41.960 the increasing statistical prevalence of autism is due to environmental 2:04:42.520 --> 2:04:46.280 risk factors and is something that is sort of induced 2:04:46.800 --> 2:04:52.800 by human behavior, as opposed to that statistical prevalence being 2:04:52.840 --> 2:04:56.040 a result of improvements and diagnostic tools that more accurately 2:04:56.080 --> 2:04:58.960 measure a phenomenon. And he also portrayed autistic people as 2:04:59.000 --> 2:05:03.720 a sort of burden on society in you know, or 2:05:03.800 --> 2:05:06.560 people who will never be able to do things like 2:05:06.680 --> 2:05:09.120 fall in love or get a job, despite the fact 2:05:09.120 --> 2:05:13.320 that there are countless examples of people with autism or 2:05:13.720 --> 2:05:16.480 under the umbrella of what we call autism, doing exactly 2:05:16.520 --> 2:05:21.040 those things. And there's this undercurrent of rhetoric that you 2:05:21.760 --> 2:05:23.920 sort of describe it as an echo of something. I 2:05:24.040 --> 2:05:27.400 hadn't heard this term before, but I'm familiar with the 2:05:28.080 --> 2:05:30.800 idea of it, or rather the way in which it 2:05:30.920 --> 2:05:35.720 was deployed, the idea of quote unquote useless eaters. And so, 2:05:35.840 --> 2:05:37.440 can you just walk us through sort of what your 2:05:37.480 --> 2:05:42.160 reaction to RFK Junior's speech was in you know, how 2:05:42.240 --> 2:05:43.160 you made that connection. 2:05:44.640 --> 2:05:47.720 Well, look at what the very first thing he said 2:05:47.800 --> 2:05:52.720 about people with severe autism. Okay, what did he say? 2:05:53.440 --> 2:05:57.920 He said, they'll never pay taxes, they'll never have a job. 2:05:58.840 --> 2:06:00.680 And then oh, they'll never go on a date, they'll 2:06:00.720 --> 2:06:03.640 never play baseball. You know, it's what are the first 2:06:03.720 --> 2:06:06.960 two things he mentions paying taxes and having a job. 2:06:07.640 --> 2:06:11.120 This is straight up useless eaters rhetoric and useless eaters 2:06:11.200 --> 2:06:13.840 was basically a term that the Nazis used, you know, 2:06:14.080 --> 2:06:19.320 for people with you know, severe you know, neurologic conditions 2:06:19.440 --> 2:06:22.040 or diseases that made it such that they would require 2:06:22.120 --> 2:06:26.720 lifetime care and would never contribute to society. So that 2:06:26.960 --> 2:06:29.280 was the echo. I think that echo was pretty clear 2:06:29.640 --> 2:06:33.720 describing them that way. Now, the other interesting thing about 2:06:34.560 --> 2:06:40.120 the eugenics angle, there's a very strong denial of what 2:06:40.280 --> 2:06:42.440 we know thus far about autism, which is that it's 2:06:42.560 --> 2:06:47.360 like roughly eighty percent genetic. You know, you can argue 2:06:47.400 --> 2:06:50.680 over the exact figures, but it's predominantly genetic. I think 2:06:50.720 --> 2:06:54.560 there's little doubt about that. So parents who have an 2:06:54.560 --> 2:06:59.440 autistic child, they often blame themselves or they think, way, 2:06:59.520 --> 2:07:03.520 if it's genetic, that means it must be me and 2:07:03.800 --> 2:07:06.880 or my partner, you know, which if you're thinking in 2:07:07.000 --> 2:07:10.960 terms of the whole health is virtue thing, you know, 2:07:11.000 --> 2:07:14.360 if there is something about you that is not changeable, 2:07:14.640 --> 2:07:18.480 mainly your genetics, and that you know, no amount of 2:07:19.240 --> 2:07:22.839 exercise or you know, living right is going to change. 2:07:23.520 --> 2:07:28.240 It's easy to fall into denial of that and seek 2:07:28.360 --> 2:07:33.760 to blame something else. So there's that, And you know, 2:07:34.040 --> 2:07:36.000 one of the things I'm kind of afraid of is 2:07:36.040 --> 2:07:39.680 that if it becomes undeniable, you know, if they keep 2:07:39.920 --> 2:07:42.760 doing all this stuff and failing to find, you know, 2:07:43.160 --> 2:07:48.120 any real evidence that an external exposure is causing autism, 2:07:48.280 --> 2:07:52.000 and they're forced to reckon with autism being primarily but 2:07:52.120 --> 2:07:55.920 not exclusively, but primarily genetic, where does that lead you 2:07:56.080 --> 2:08:00.320 in terms of what do you do about autism? And 2:08:01.040 --> 2:08:04.240 my mind has gone in some fairly dark directions thinking 2:08:04.320 --> 2:08:05.680 about that, right. 2:08:06.000 --> 2:08:12.000 Right, And there's little discussion of what autistic people think 2:08:12.440 --> 2:08:13.320 or want. 2:08:13.840 --> 2:08:16.360 No, it doesn't matter to them at all. Really, In fact, 2:08:16.360 --> 2:08:21.160 they're almost entirely dismissive of what autistic people themselves think exactly. 2:08:21.200 --> 2:08:25.760 And there's also a total disregard for the value of 2:08:25.880 --> 2:08:32.040 difference and the contributions that people who are autistic have 2:08:32.240 --> 2:08:36.680 made to society that perhaps they might even correlate with 2:08:37.000 --> 2:08:41.000 the fact that they're autistic. So there's this total erasure 2:08:41.240 --> 2:08:44.280 of not only what an entire group of people actually 2:08:44.280 --> 2:08:48.120 want for themselves as advocates for themselves, but also their value, 2:08:48.480 --> 2:08:50.600 you know, not just as a group of people, but 2:08:50.760 --> 2:08:52.000 as individuals as well. 2:08:52.560 --> 2:08:55.920 To add to that, let's go back to around two 2:08:55.920 --> 2:08:59.200 thousand and seven, two thousand and eight, when Jenny McCarthy 2:08:59.320 --> 2:09:03.000 was the face of the anti vaccine movement. So like 2:09:03.160 --> 2:09:07.160 one of the things she said after, you know, supposedly 2:09:07.240 --> 2:09:10.520 after her son Evan got vaccinated, was that quote unquote, 2:09:11.120 --> 2:09:15.000 the light went out of his eyes. And then you 2:09:15.160 --> 2:09:19.240 hear this a lot when parents realize their children are 2:09:19.320 --> 2:09:21.879 showing the signs of you know, the early signs of autism. 2:09:22.840 --> 2:09:27.160 Is it like they there's language about how their child 2:09:27.400 --> 2:09:30.480 was stolen from them? In other words, is if this 2:09:30.640 --> 2:09:35.040 autistic child is not their child, rather their idealized version 2:09:35.080 --> 2:09:37.800 of what their child should be is their real child 2:09:38.440 --> 2:09:42.200 or their quote unquote normal child. This is some really 2:09:42.280 --> 2:09:44.880 ancient stuff in that, you know, I don't know if 2:09:44.920 --> 2:09:48.280 you there's the whole idea of the changeling myth, in 2:09:48.360 --> 2:09:51.640 which you know, the idea being, you know, children with 2:09:52.200 --> 2:09:55.680 mental illness, you know, have been taken over or their changelings, 2:09:55.720 --> 2:09:59.200 they are no longer what they were before it's almost 2:09:59.240 --> 2:10:01.200 as if they are no long longer human. I mean, 2:10:01.280 --> 2:10:04.360 the dehumanization that you hear from the anti vaccine movement 2:10:04.360 --> 2:10:08.640 about autism has long been horrific, and it's just that 2:10:09.520 --> 2:10:13.360 up until now, most people have not heard that rhetoric, 2:10:14.040 --> 2:10:18.520 and now they're hearing it from a high government official, 2:10:19.120 --> 2:10:21.640 and it is becoming federal health policy. 2:10:22.200 --> 2:10:26.760 Yeah, that is certainly a new development. Is something we've. 2:10:26.640 --> 2:10:31.080 Discussed on previous episodes is the deeper history of anti 2:10:31.200 --> 2:10:36.760 vaccination belief or hesitancy that goes deep in American history. 2:10:36.840 --> 2:10:40.120 You know, for almost as long as vaccines have ever existed, 2:10:40.600 --> 2:10:45.840 it has rarely ever been enshrined in law and policy. 2:10:45.440 --> 2:10:47.720 In the way that it is now being done. 2:10:48.640 --> 2:10:51.960 And so we've talked about one of these people, high 2:10:52.040 --> 2:10:56.800 level government officials, RFK Junior, whose statements have drawn your 2:10:56.840 --> 2:10:58.400 attention and elicited your concern. 2:10:58.960 --> 2:10:59.960 But he's not the only one. 2:11:00.120 --> 2:11:04.760 So you also write about oprah adjacent television personality, doctor 2:11:05.120 --> 2:11:05.680 men at Oz. 2:11:06.480 --> 2:11:10.240 Yeah, well, doctor Oz actually sort of surprised me a 2:11:10.280 --> 2:11:14.200 little bit, but then in retrospect not really. So I'm 2:11:14.280 --> 2:11:18.480 surprised there wasn't more commentary about this. But when he 2:11:18.640 --> 2:11:23.360 gave his brief little acceptance speech after having been confirmed 2:11:23.600 --> 2:11:28.000 as the Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, 2:11:28.520 --> 2:11:33.919 which is the part of HHS that administers you know, Medicare, Medicaid, 2:11:33.960 --> 2:11:39.600 Affordable Care Act. It's like really important, you know, huge programs. 2:11:40.240 --> 2:11:43.680 When he said, basically, it is your patriotic duty to 2:11:43.880 --> 2:11:46.200 take care of yourself, you know it, to be healthy. 2:11:46.280 --> 2:11:48.160 And then he goes, oh, and it feels better as well. 2:11:48.240 --> 2:11:51.000 But he said, it's your patriotic duty to take care 2:11:51.040 --> 2:11:53.920 of yourself and be healthy because then you you know, 2:11:54.080 --> 2:11:57.120 draw less. I'm paraphrasing because I don't remember exactly what 2:11:57.240 --> 2:12:00.920 he said, but because you pull less from the pool, 2:12:01.320 --> 2:12:05.680 you know, which interestingly echoes exactly almost exactly, other than 2:12:05.680 --> 2:12:09.200 the patriotic duty part what RFK Junior said. When Bernie 2:12:09.320 --> 2:12:14.160 Sanders asked if healthcare was a human right, as you recall, 2:12:14.880 --> 2:12:18.800 RFKA Junior did his best not to answer, you know, 2:12:18.920 --> 2:12:21.280 he dodged and weaved around the question, and then he 2:12:21.360 --> 2:12:25.080 brought up the example of a someone who smokes cigarettes 2:12:25.240 --> 2:12:29.040 for decades and then develops lung cancer and is now 2:12:29.160 --> 2:12:31.600 drawing from the pool. He was like, very you know, 2:12:31.880 --> 2:12:35.920 emphasized drawing from the pool as if that person does 2:12:36.040 --> 2:12:40.560 not deserve healthcare basically because an addiction gave you cancer. 2:12:40.720 --> 2:12:43.120 Because you know, what he neglects to mention is just 2:12:43.200 --> 2:12:46.880 how addictives, you know, tobacco and nicotine are. And as 2:12:46.880 --> 2:12:50.600 a former addict himself, you know, I found that striking. 2:12:50.760 --> 2:12:52.920 But coming back to the whole patriotic duty thing, you know, 2:12:52.960 --> 2:12:57.000 the whole idea is, again, health is virtue. You control 2:12:57.160 --> 2:13:02.240 your health, and if you don't do the right things 2:13:02.360 --> 2:13:06.200 and become ill, that you're somehow less worthy of healthcare. 2:13:06.840 --> 2:13:07.000 Right. 2:13:07.200 --> 2:13:11.880 And there's an interesting thread there in that some eugenesis thinkers, 2:13:12.000 --> 2:13:17.000 at least American ones, were somewhat concerned about, you know, 2:13:17.080 --> 2:13:20.560 the idea that vaccinations could prevent the weak or the 2:13:20.720 --> 2:13:23.160 unfit from being called naturally. 2:13:23.680 --> 2:13:27.160 Oh yes, definitely. Yeah, So there is some. 2:13:27.560 --> 2:13:32.320 Linkage here, even if these are somewhat discrete ideas. And 2:13:32.520 --> 2:13:36.440 you know, you also quoted something from a doctor Oz 2:13:36.480 --> 2:13:39.680 speech back in twenty thirteen. You pulled a video that 2:13:39.800 --> 2:13:44.360 had been resurfaced in recent years, and Oz said people 2:13:44.440 --> 2:13:48.240 don't have a right to health if they're uninsured. And 2:13:48.480 --> 2:13:50.800 so it's not like what he's saying is kind of 2:13:51.120 --> 2:13:54.160 new for him. He's been saying things like this for 2:13:54.320 --> 2:13:57.320 a while. And the idea that, you know, there's this 2:13:57.600 --> 2:14:00.640 national body that we all have a duty to sort 2:14:00.680 --> 2:14:04.320 of be healthy cells of is something that there's a 2:14:04.440 --> 2:14:07.520 long history of that sort of thinking and policy. 2:14:07.920 --> 2:14:12.040 Yeah, yes, the whole I mean, I couldn't help but 2:14:12.200 --> 2:14:13.520 think of Nazis and. 2:14:13.560 --> 2:14:14.080 The whole. 2:14:16.000 --> 2:14:16.640 Crick aside. 2:14:16.720 --> 2:14:19.560 For those who don't know, the Nazi idea of the 2:14:19.800 --> 2:14:23.440 vulcan has a few elements to it. Not only does 2:14:23.480 --> 2:14:26.480 it relate to racial and cultural homogeneity, but it also 2:14:26.600 --> 2:14:29.120 conceives of the nation as a sort of body composed 2:14:29.120 --> 2:14:33.240 of cells, one that must be cleansed of unfit or unhealthy. 2:14:32.880 --> 2:14:34.560 Cells in order to become perfect. 2:14:34.960 --> 2:14:37.920 In other words, a dutiful number of the Vulcan would 2:14:38.040 --> 2:14:41.800 prioritize their health as a sort of patriotic or nationalistic duty, 2:14:42.240 --> 2:14:45.839 and would participate in eugenic programs to eliminate the unfit. 2:14:47.520 --> 2:14:50.880 You know, I'm not saying this is straight up Nazi 2:14:51.040 --> 2:14:53.280 or anything like that. It's just that these sorts of 2:14:53.480 --> 2:14:59.280 themes have echoed through you know, not just eugenicist movements, 2:14:59.560 --> 2:15:04.280 but nationalist and authoritarian movement. 2:15:04.680 --> 2:15:07.480 And there's this concerning development. 2:15:07.760 --> 2:15:11.560 RFK Junior has proposed basically creating like a national database 2:15:11.640 --> 2:15:14.320 or registry of people with autism and if it's not 2:15:14.480 --> 2:15:18.720 just autism, maybe other disorders like ADHD. And if you 2:15:18.840 --> 2:15:23.760 read reports that interview people with autism or similar disorders, 2:15:24.080 --> 2:15:26.920 they are very concerned by this for the reasons that 2:15:27.000 --> 2:15:30.440 you just described. So the creation of this database could 2:15:30.440 --> 2:15:34.200 be framed as a way to improve our ability to 2:15:34.360 --> 2:15:38.600 understand this hypothetical linkage that they are so doggedly stuck 2:15:38.680 --> 2:15:42.760 on between autism and vaccines. But I think those who 2:15:42.920 --> 2:15:47.240 know their history could easily imagine such a tool being 2:15:47.360 --> 2:15:51.840 used for other more nefarious purposes, because similar policies were 2:15:51.880 --> 2:15:55.680 passed in Germany in the nineteen thirties to sort of, 2:15:55.840 --> 2:15:59.280 you know, identify these people and categorize them and then 2:15:59.360 --> 2:16:03.040 eventually do what they did with them. So, you know, 2:16:03.120 --> 2:16:05.560 for all those sorts of reasons, and you know also 2:16:05.720 --> 2:16:07.960 the fact that we're living at a time in which 2:16:07.960 --> 2:16:11.160 American citizens and legal residents are being sent to a 2:16:11.360 --> 2:16:14.960 foreign prison colony as is certainly you know something that 2:16:15.000 --> 2:16:17.520 I think people are picking up on and maybe making 2:16:17.560 --> 2:16:18.240 connections with. 2:16:19.240 --> 2:16:22.360 As you mentioned a lot of autistic people don't want 2:16:22.400 --> 2:16:25.280 to be on this database, and as a result, I've 2:16:25.360 --> 2:16:29.400 read reports in the news of parents are asking that 2:16:29.520 --> 2:16:33.600 their child not be given a diagnosis of autism so 2:16:33.720 --> 2:16:36.879 that they don't end up in the database, which could 2:16:37.160 --> 2:16:42.280 artificially cause, you know, the prevalence of autism to level 2:16:42.360 --> 2:16:46.840 off and start to decline, at which point RFK declares victory. 2:16:47.560 --> 2:16:49.840 We'll hear a bit more from doctor Gorski after a 2:16:49.959 --> 2:17:04.440 quick ad break. There's a recent proposal out of rfk's 2:17:04.840 --> 2:17:10.360 HHS that intends to provide placebo vaccines during testing for 2:17:10.560 --> 2:17:12.400 all quote unquote new vaccines. 2:17:13.080 --> 2:17:17.280 So the idea is, the vaccines in the childhood schedule 2:17:17.440 --> 2:17:22.160 have quote unquote never been tested against placebo control. Although 2:17:22.320 --> 2:17:25.040 ironically it's funny I did. I read an article the 2:17:25.080 --> 2:17:27.600 other day where they did admit that the COVID vaccine 2:17:27.640 --> 2:17:30.760 for children was indeed tested against a placebo control. I'm 2:17:30.840 --> 2:17:33.920 kind of surprised they conceded that, but I guess sometimes 2:17:33.959 --> 2:17:38.240 they have to concede reality. But here's the idea. So 2:17:38.879 --> 2:17:41.240 it's true that some of the vaccines have not been 2:17:41.879 --> 2:17:46.440 tested against the strict saline placebo control that they want, 2:17:47.440 --> 2:17:49.720 but there are a number of reasons for that. The 2:17:49.840 --> 2:17:54.800 primary reason is ethics. So let's go back. So, if 2:17:54.840 --> 2:17:58.920 you have a new vaccine that is for a disease 2:17:59.000 --> 2:18:02.680 that has never had an approved vaccine before, yes, it's 2:18:02.760 --> 2:18:05.760 tested against a placebo control. This has been the case 2:18:05.840 --> 2:18:08.520 for a very long time. However, if you have a 2:18:08.680 --> 2:18:13.240 new vaccine for a disease that already has a vaccine 2:18:13.280 --> 2:18:15.960 that's been approved as safe and effective and is the 2:18:16.040 --> 2:18:20.760 standard of care, it is completely unethical to do a 2:18:20.920 --> 2:18:23.880 randomized study where you know one third to half of 2:18:23.959 --> 2:18:27.879 the participants will be randomized to a group that does 2:18:28.040 --> 2:18:31.160 not get the standard of care treatment as in, you know, 2:18:31.280 --> 2:18:34.560 the vaccine or the standard of care preventative. In that case, 2:18:34.760 --> 2:18:37.720 the only ethical way to test the new vaccine against 2:18:38.320 --> 2:18:40.960 the disease for which there's already a vaccine is to 2:18:41.160 --> 2:18:45.840 test it against an existing vaccine and then make sure 2:18:45.920 --> 2:18:51.160 that it is at least not inferior or preferably better. So, 2:18:52.160 --> 2:18:54.880 if you trace back the lineage of all the vaccines 2:18:55.000 --> 2:18:58.000 on the childhood vaccine schedule, if you go back to 2:18:58.120 --> 2:19:02.120 the first vaccine against the disease that was approved, it 2:19:02.360 --> 2:19:05.720 was tested against you know, placebo when it was a 2:19:05.800 --> 2:19:08.720 new vaccine against a disease that didn't have a vaccine. 2:19:09.320 --> 2:19:11.920 I'm wondering if you agree with this, but it does 2:19:12.000 --> 2:19:15.400 sound like this proposal if it were to be implemented 2:19:15.480 --> 2:19:20.880 in a way that involves vaccines for existing diseases that 2:19:21.040 --> 2:19:24.080 have already been treated with vaccines, If there were placebos 2:19:24.560 --> 2:19:27.240 introduced into this testing, and you know, like you said, 2:19:27.600 --> 2:19:31.560 there's a random percentage of people that were given a placebo. 2:19:31.720 --> 2:19:35.120 I mean to me, it recalls like a soft version 2:19:35.200 --> 2:19:36.760 of a Tuskegee experiment. 2:19:37.040 --> 2:19:40.520 Yeah. I've been meaning to make that that analogy, but 2:19:40.600 --> 2:19:41.360 you beat me to it. 2:19:44.080 --> 2:19:46.199 As we discussed in a prior episode in this series, 2:19:46.280 --> 2:19:49.880 the Tuskegee Syphlist Study was a horrifically unethical, racist and 2:19:49.959 --> 2:19:53.440 eugenic experiment that helped seed a long standing distrust of 2:19:53.520 --> 2:19:57.040 vaccines and medical authorities, particularly among minority communities in the 2:19:57.160 --> 2:20:01.080 United States, and it straddled the intersection of hard and 2:20:01.160 --> 2:20:05.160 soft eugenics. While it was not a forced sterilization program, 2:20:05.959 --> 2:20:08.560 the intent of the experiment was to test the eugenic 2:20:08.680 --> 2:20:13.560 hypothesis that racial groups were differently susceptible to infectious diseases, 2:20:14.200 --> 2:20:16.560 and that's because they basically believed that black people had 2:20:16.600 --> 2:20:19.080 different nervous systems than white people and that they were 2:20:19.320 --> 2:20:22.480 not the same. And they also allowed black men who 2:20:22.520 --> 2:20:25.080 could have otherwise been treated for syphilis, which there were 2:20:25.160 --> 2:20:28.040 treatments for it at the time, to instead suffer and 2:20:28.160 --> 2:20:32.680 die after being given placebo treatments without their knowledge. Children's 2:20:32.680 --> 2:20:36.480 health defense while under the leadership of RFK, Junior invoked 2:20:36.520 --> 2:20:39.680 the Tuskegee syphilist experiment in a recent anti vaccine film 2:20:39.920 --> 2:20:44.360 that they specifically promoted to Black Americans to encourage vaccine skepticism, 2:20:44.800 --> 2:20:47.360 and now the former leader of that organization is proposing 2:20:47.360 --> 2:20:50.280 an approach to vaccines that is eerily reminiscent of the 2:20:50.400 --> 2:20:56.920 sordid Tuskegee experiment. In the post COVID world, vaccination rates 2:20:56.920 --> 2:20:59.879 are on the decline, and anti vaccination beliefs are spreading 2:21:00.040 --> 2:21:03.360 in tandem with eugenesis thinking. The rhetoric of the leaders 2:21:03.720 --> 2:21:08.000 of our top health bureaucracies recall chilling episodes in recent history, 2:21:08.360 --> 2:21:11.760 ones that we would rather not repeat. But because we 2:21:11.840 --> 2:21:14.600 have history as a guide, it is not impossible for 2:21:14.680 --> 2:21:17.240 us to imagine what could happen if things continue to 2:21:17.320 --> 2:21:20.480 trend in the direction we are already headed, so on 2:21:20.520 --> 2:21:23.240 the next episode of Anti vax America, I'll explore some 2:21:23.360 --> 2:21:25.960 of the worst case scenarios that could unfold if the 2:21:26.040 --> 2:21:30.640 proponents of the Maha agenda get their way. I'm Stephen Monchelli. 2:21:31.000 --> 2:21:31.720 Until next time. 2:21:53.480 --> 2:21:57.240 Welcome to the final episode of Anti vax America, a 2:21:57.320 --> 2:22:00.560 special mini series from it could happen here. I'm your host, 2:22:00.920 --> 2:22:04.720 Stephen Monachelli, a journalist in Dallas and sometimes contributor to 2:22:04.760 --> 2:22:10.720 Cool Zone Media. Over the past episodes, we've explored the 2:22:10.760 --> 2:22:13.960 origins of the current measles outbreak, the historical roots of 2:22:14.000 --> 2:22:18.480 the anti vaccination movement, the overlap between vaccine hesitancy and 2:22:19.040 --> 2:22:24.000 conservative Christianity that upholds a strong belief in spiritual healing, 2:22:24.640 --> 2:22:29.200 and the eugenic implications of contemporary anti vaxx ideology and 2:22:29.400 --> 2:22:33.280 the MAHA movement. In this episode, we'll explore the future. 2:22:33.800 --> 2:22:37.160 Could the United States see a massive return of viral outbreaks, 2:22:37.600 --> 2:22:40.720 How would a nationwide collapse and vaccination rates impact our 2:22:40.760 --> 2:22:43.640 public health? And what are we to make of the 2:22:43.800 --> 2:22:47.480 rise of alt medicine and whether that could continue to 2:22:47.560 --> 2:22:51.680 spread if people like RFK Junior elevate these hucksters into 2:22:52.120 --> 2:22:57.680 national figures. These are not just academic questions. If vaccination 2:22:57.840 --> 2:23:00.520 rates continue to decline, we could see the return of 2:23:00.640 --> 2:23:03.920 diseases like polio, which had been eradicated in the United 2:23:03.959 --> 2:23:08.199 States for decades. In recent years, there have been cases 2:23:08.280 --> 2:23:12.760 of polio found in waste water and one confirmed case 2:23:13.280 --> 2:23:16.360 of a man with polio in an unvaccinated. 2:23:15.680 --> 2:23:16.680 Community in New York. 2:23:17.760 --> 2:23:20.960 An expert warned that these isolated incidents could spread into 2:23:21.040 --> 2:23:25.640 larger outbreaks, and these concerns are well founded, particularly given 2:23:25.680 --> 2:23:28.720 that RFK Junior has said as recently as twenty twenty 2:23:28.800 --> 2:23:33.280 three that early batches of polio vaccines caused cancer, something 2:23:33.360 --> 2:23:38.760 that has never been demonstrated in the research. Vaccination is 2:23:38.840 --> 2:23:41.120 the most effective tool we have to prevent the spread 2:23:41.560 --> 2:23:46.600 of communicable, deadly diseases. Without widespread vaccination, we face the 2:23:46.760 --> 2:23:50.480 very real possibility of devastating public health crises, and the 2:23:50.520 --> 2:23:54.520 resurgence of diseases like measles in polio and smallpox and 2:23:54.680 --> 2:23:59.959 more would put our most vulnerable populations at risk, especially 2:24:00.240 --> 2:24:05.640 the elderly, the immunal compromised, and others who cannot be vaccinated. 2:24:06.600 --> 2:24:09.200 We don't have a crystal ball that will allow us 2:24:09.240 --> 2:24:12.160 to see into the future, but as the anti vaccination 2:24:12.280 --> 2:24:14.840 movement grows, it is clear that the risk of large 2:24:14.840 --> 2:24:18.600 scale outbreaks is increasing, and if we don't correct the 2:24:18.680 --> 2:24:21.800 course soon, we could see a public health disaster unlike 2:24:21.879 --> 2:24:25.120 any we've seen in recent history, perhaps even worse than COVID, 2:24:25.360 --> 2:24:28.360 which took more than one point one million American lives. 2:24:29.560 --> 2:24:32.640 In this episode, we will explore what could happen here 2:24:32.840 --> 2:24:36.400 in the United States if the anti vaccination movement continues 2:24:36.440 --> 2:24:39.720 to get their way. As I conducted interviews with medical 2:24:39.760 --> 2:24:43.320 doctors and public health experts featured in this series, I 2:24:43.400 --> 2:24:46.040 asked them all the same question, where do you see 2:24:46.080 --> 2:24:50.240 this going? Each had their own answer, and all of 2:24:50.320 --> 2:24:54.879 their answers pointed in the same direction. Here's Catherine Wells, 2:24:55.360 --> 2:24:58.160 the head of public health in Lubbock, the largest county 2:24:58.200 --> 2:25:00.520 in West Texas where the measles out break began. 2:25:03.200 --> 2:25:05.640 I do worry that, you know, we are going to 2:25:05.720 --> 2:25:10.280 see other vaccine preventable diseases. You know, measles is the 2:25:10.440 --> 2:25:14.600 most highly infectious. But for all of those people that 2:25:14.680 --> 2:25:17.320 are becoming infected with measles, you know they'll be immune, 2:25:17.400 --> 2:25:20.439 but that doesn't mean they're immune from mumps and rubella. 2:25:20.600 --> 2:25:25.120 And other vaccine preventable diseases that could easily enter a 2:25:25.680 --> 2:25:29.520 community with lower vaccination rates, and those can come next. 2:25:30.720 --> 2:25:32.759 So I mean that is concerning. 2:25:33.120 --> 2:25:35.600 Measles is sort of like a canary in the coal 2:25:35.680 --> 2:25:39.040 mine when it comes to vaccination rates. It's the first 2:25:39.240 --> 2:25:44.200 sign of a collapsing system. Here's doctor Peter Hotez, the 2:25:44.280 --> 2:25:45.920 vaccine scientists in Houston. 2:25:46.520 --> 2:25:49.120 You know, with the formation of anti vaccine groups in 2:25:49.160 --> 2:25:52.200 the twenty tens in Texas, you started to get these 2:25:52.280 --> 2:25:57.520 steep rides and parents requesting non medical exemptions that their 2:25:57.600 --> 2:26:00.520 kids could get out of being vaccinated for school. And 2:26:00.560 --> 2:26:04.360 it was particularly strong in the same places where people 2:26:04.440 --> 2:26:09.160 were refusing COVID vaccine. Years later, especially in conservative rural 2:26:09.240 --> 2:26:13.560 areas of West Texas East Texas, the vaccination rates continue 2:26:13.560 --> 2:26:15.879 to be strong in our cities of the Texas Triangle, 2:26:16.040 --> 2:26:18.280 Dallas where you are, in Houston where I am, and 2:26:19.600 --> 2:26:23.440 San Antonio and Austin. But you know, in the more 2:26:23.520 --> 2:26:26.959 conservative rural areas of West Texas East Texas, that's where 2:26:27.000 --> 2:26:31.840 you saw big declines in kids getting vaccines. And once 2:26:31.920 --> 2:26:36.280 you go below a certain threshold, roughly below ninety percent, 2:26:36.840 --> 2:26:40.560 and bam, that you start to see break through childhood infections, 2:26:40.640 --> 2:26:43.040 and usually the first one you see is measles. You 2:26:43.080 --> 2:26:44.960 can ultimately get all of them, but measles is the 2:26:45.000 --> 2:26:48.800 first one you see because it's so highly transmissible. It's 2:26:48.840 --> 2:26:51.640 the most transmissible virus we know about. So measles is 2:26:51.760 --> 2:26:54.040 kind of the whatever you want to call it, the 2:26:54.240 --> 2:26:59.879 early biomarker of a problem with your vaccination system. And unfortunately, 2:27:00.240 --> 2:27:05.040 it's just tearing through West Texas in the Panhandle, and 2:27:05.160 --> 2:27:09.520 now it's in four states, all more or less in 2:27:09.600 --> 2:27:12.440 the Great Plains area of the country. Right it's the 2:27:12.560 --> 2:27:16.040 Panhandle in West Texas at the southern end of the 2:27:16.120 --> 2:27:19.640 Plain's been into joining areas in Mexico, then going up 2:27:19.680 --> 2:27:23.400 into Oklahoma and now Kansas. And in my worry is 2:27:23.520 --> 2:27:27.920 that this is a very large probably much larger than 2:27:28.080 --> 2:27:30.720 is actually being reported. I mean, I don't see this 2:27:30.879 --> 2:27:34.640 thing wearing down anytime soon. And I'm worried about really 2:27:34.840 --> 2:27:38.600 prolonged measles epidemic to the point where we could even 2:27:39.320 --> 2:27:43.160 lose measles elimination status in the US if it goes 2:27:43.200 --> 2:27:45.959 on a full year. Between twenty twenty three and twenty 2:27:46.040 --> 2:27:50.840 twenty four, we've had a fourfold rise in measles epidemics outbreaks. 2:27:50.920 --> 2:27:55.119 We've had a sixfold rise in whooping cough for Tessa's cases. 2:27:55.920 --> 2:27:58.200 We've had polio up here in the wastewater in New 2:27:58.280 --> 2:28:04.000 York State, already trending in the wrong direction even before 2:28:04.280 --> 2:28:07.640 this current administration because of all the anti vaccine sentiment 2:28:07.720 --> 2:28:10.400 rhetoric out there. Now you throw on top of it 2:28:11.040 --> 2:28:15.480 efforts to actively dismantle our vaccine ecosystem, and I can 2:28:15.560 --> 2:28:18.960 only imagine what's going to happen. I really worry about 2:28:19.000 --> 2:28:22.560 the widespread return of all these childhood illnesses, just like 2:28:22.640 --> 2:28:24.959 we're seeing now with measles. I mean, we're looking at 2:28:25.000 --> 2:28:28.360 the potential of sustained transmission going on for months and 2:28:28.440 --> 2:28:30.720 months to the point where we could lose our measles 2:28:30.800 --> 2:28:34.119 elimination status, and then it goes on from there. Because 2:28:34.160 --> 2:28:36.720 measles is the most highly transmissible I worry about the 2:28:36.800 --> 2:28:40.600 same with whooping cough ptossis. I worry about even potentially 2:28:40.680 --> 2:28:44.640 polio returning, and not only in the US, because you know, 2:28:45.120 --> 2:28:47.080 as we both know, the US is very good at 2:28:47.120 --> 2:28:51.000 exporting its culture. We export our music, we export our movies. 2:28:51.080 --> 2:28:53.480 I worry about exporting this stuff, and I worry about 2:28:53.480 --> 2:28:56.879 the impact on Latin American countries, on low and middle 2:28:56.879 --> 2:29:00.840 income countries in Asia and Africa, and in Europe as well. 2:29:01.000 --> 2:29:04.840 So a complete unraveling of our vaccine ecosystem and global 2:29:04.920 --> 2:29:07.680 goals and that really gives me a lot of pause 2:29:07.720 --> 2:29:08.240 for concern. 2:29:08.959 --> 2:29:11.520 And on that note, a quick ad break. 2:29:22.360 --> 2:29:24.840 It's probably safe to assume that the majority, if not 2:29:24.959 --> 2:29:27.800 the entirety, of the audience of this show grew up 2:29:27.800 --> 2:29:31.760 in a time when vaccinations were widely embraced and considered beneficial. 2:29:32.400 --> 2:29:34.480 That also means that most of us have never lived 2:29:34.560 --> 2:29:38.320 during a time when children and adults were regularly disabled 2:29:38.400 --> 2:29:43.640 or killed by diseases like smallpox or polio. In the 2:29:43.720 --> 2:29:47.720 twentieth century, three hundred million people were killed by smallpox 2:29:48.360 --> 2:29:51.800 in the nineteen forties and nineteen fifties. Polio killed nearly 2:29:52.000 --> 2:29:56.040 half a million people world wide annually and paralyzed hundreds 2:29:56.040 --> 2:29:59.879 of thousands, but both of those diseases were effectively eradicated 2:30:00.080 --> 2:30:03.160 decades ago. The last person living in an iron lung, 2:30:03.879 --> 2:30:06.480 the medical device that keeps people who were paralyzed from 2:30:06.560 --> 2:30:09.840 polio alive, died in March of twenty twenty four, and 2:30:09.959 --> 2:30:13.040 even measles which is considered a relatively less dangerous illness, 2:30:13.200 --> 2:30:17.760 was routinely deadly before vaccination was widespread. There was a 2:30:17.840 --> 2:30:20.920 time when thousands of Americans died from the disease every year. 2:30:21.720 --> 2:30:24.359 All that was due to the creation of vaccine policy 2:30:24.400 --> 2:30:28.280 and infrastructure over time. But now RFK Junior and the 2:30:28.400 --> 2:30:31.440 MAHA movement threatened to tear all that down and send 2:30:31.560 --> 2:30:35.800 us back in time. Here's doctor David Gorsky. 2:30:38.240 --> 2:30:40.160 I'll start with vaccines, and then I'll try to move 2:30:40.240 --> 2:30:44.800 more to MAHA. So the vaccines. What I think we're 2:30:44.879 --> 2:30:52.880 seeing is the systematic, intentional dismantling of federal vaccine infrastructure 2:30:53.080 --> 2:30:59.160 and policy, this whole call for placebo controlled trials. If 2:30:59.240 --> 2:31:03.920 they define new vaccines as any new vaccine, it will 2:31:04.000 --> 2:31:08.120 mean that there will be no new vaccines approve until 2:31:08.200 --> 2:31:12.199 it's changed, which would at the earliest be after Trump 2:31:12.360 --> 2:31:15.640 is out of office. If they define it as just 2:31:15.800 --> 2:31:19.560 new vaccines for diseases that don't have vaccines, it might 2:31:19.640 --> 2:31:24.720 be less of an issue either way, though, contrary to 2:31:24.800 --> 2:31:27.320 what they claim they want to do, which is, you know, 2:31:27.440 --> 2:31:31.400 increase public confidence in vaccines, it will almost certainly have 2:31:31.560 --> 2:31:35.000 the opposite effect. I recently wrote I think, yeah, it was. 2:31:35.080 --> 2:31:38.560 Last week's post, I wrote about a study that modeled 2:31:39.040 --> 2:31:42.920 what would happen with certain percentage declines in vaccine uptake 2:31:43.000 --> 2:31:46.199 for four different vaccines, including the measles vaccine, of course, 2:31:47.120 --> 2:31:51.680 and it estimated, you know, some pretty catastrophic numbers if, 2:31:51.800 --> 2:31:55.800 for instance, vaccine uptake declined even ten percent or fifty 2:31:55.879 --> 2:31:59.279 percent over the next twenty five years, you know, millions 2:31:59.360 --> 2:32:02.800 of cases, thousands of deaths, you know, in other words, 2:32:02.920 --> 2:32:06.720 going back to basically the way it was before the 2:32:06.800 --> 2:32:10.480 measles vaccine was licensed in the early nineteen sixties. You know, 2:32:10.680 --> 2:32:13.600 you sure you can complain that, you know, the model 2:32:14.000 --> 2:32:16.720 was somewhat simplistic, but if anything, I think it was 2:32:16.800 --> 2:32:19.960 probably conservative because they used a lot of conservative assumptions. 2:32:20.760 --> 2:32:25.000 We could well be heading for that sort of future, 2:32:25.600 --> 2:32:29.160 although it takes a while for things to change, even 2:32:29.280 --> 2:32:34.360 with this sort of radical action that RFK Junior is taking, 2:32:34.720 --> 2:32:37.960 and likely we would not see the worst effects really 2:32:38.600 --> 2:32:43.120 take off until after Trump's out of office, assuming he 2:32:43.280 --> 2:32:46.440 leaves office in twenty twenty nine, so you know, it'll 2:32:46.480 --> 2:32:49.680 be left to his successors to deal with the mess. 2:32:50.560 --> 2:32:52.640 And it's always easier to destroy than it is to 2:32:52.720 --> 2:32:57.600 rebuild out. Obviously. Now the interesting counterpoint to you know, 2:32:57.800 --> 2:33:02.000 maha saying, oh, we must increase the gold standard science 2:33:02.040 --> 2:33:04.960 applied to vaccines and make the standards for approval and 2:33:05.120 --> 2:33:10.400 licensure you know, much more stringent. The exact opposite is 2:33:10.520 --> 2:33:14.720 what they're talking about. For things like stem cell therapies, 2:33:14.840 --> 2:33:17.039 you know, they're on the vast majority of which are 2:33:17.120 --> 2:33:21.640 unproven and often very expensive. A lot of other you know, 2:33:21.840 --> 2:33:25.920 wellness treatments and that sort of a thing. So we 2:33:26.080 --> 2:33:31.120 could be seeing a lot less novel pharmaceuticals and vaccines 2:33:31.280 --> 2:33:37.160 being approved because the anti pharma you know, suspicion will 2:33:37.200 --> 2:33:41.080 be such that the bar for approval will be higher, 2:33:41.360 --> 2:33:44.520 arguably too high. I realized that in the past I 2:33:44.640 --> 2:33:48.040 once argued that that maybe our bar for approving some 2:33:48.640 --> 2:33:52.040 drugs was too low, but that was more based on 2:33:52.800 --> 2:33:56.119 the various accelerated approval programs that had come into being 2:33:56.560 --> 2:33:59.600 in the years before that, where I thought that perhaps 2:33:59.640 --> 2:34:03.480 the follow allow up after the initial accelerated approval was 2:34:03.600 --> 2:34:07.320 not adequate. At the same time, it could become more 2:34:07.360 --> 2:34:09.600 and more like the Wild West when it comes to 2:34:09.680 --> 2:34:13.880 everything else. We could very well have the equivalent of 2:34:14.400 --> 2:34:17.560 you know, the traveling snake oil salesmen going across you know, 2:34:17.760 --> 2:34:21.320 the planes in their cart, you know, selling There are 2:34:21.400 --> 2:34:25.200 various lineaments. I'm not exactly sure what that would look like. 2:34:25.320 --> 2:34:28.680 I do know that, for instance, it's already pretty much 2:34:28.840 --> 2:34:31.200 like that for a lot of quote unquote stem cell 2:34:31.320 --> 2:34:35.080 therapies that have never really been demonstrated to be effective 2:34:36.040 --> 2:34:39.120 and safe, and you know, the same randomized clinical controlled 2:34:39.200 --> 2:34:43.520 trials that they demand, you know, for vaccines. One thing 2:34:43.560 --> 2:34:46.400 I have little doubt of is that public health is 2:34:46.480 --> 2:34:50.560 going to be degraded significantly over the next four years. 2:34:51.000 --> 2:34:54.959 And how we recover from that, I don't know. I'm 2:34:55.000 --> 2:34:57.920 struggling with the of what can be done to resist 2:34:57.959 --> 2:35:01.640 it or slow it down that you know, the entire 2:35:01.959 --> 2:35:05.520 Republican Party doesn't seem to want to put any sort 2:35:05.520 --> 2:35:07.120 of checks on this administration. 2:35:08.040 --> 2:35:08.520 Mm hmmm. 2:35:08.800 --> 2:35:11.959 And you know, if we were to have some other 2:35:12.120 --> 2:35:17.240 sort of major pandemic, either a new virus that breaks 2:35:17.320 --> 2:35:22.840 through or a return of some disease that was once 2:35:22.920 --> 2:35:29.520 out of circulation, there's no real guarantee that deaths or 2:35:29.600 --> 2:35:35.279 widespread illness or disability as a result of those possible 2:35:35.360 --> 2:35:39.760 events will even spur a reaction in a way that 2:35:39.920 --> 2:35:43.440 would set us on a path back towards confidence in 2:35:43.520 --> 2:35:47.400 public health and vaccination. You know, the outcome of COVID was, 2:35:48.000 --> 2:35:50.080 you know, it's it's quite clear that COVID was sort 2:35:50.080 --> 2:35:54.160 of an accelerant for a lot of the anti vaccination 2:35:54.720 --> 2:35:57.960 beliefs that had long been incubating. And you know, our 2:35:58.000 --> 2:36:03.800 public discourse and broad distrust of public health entities in general. 2:36:04.440 --> 2:36:07.080 And you know, like you said, you know, Trump's successor 2:36:07.120 --> 2:36:10.000 will be left to clean up whatever mess is made. 2:36:10.080 --> 2:36:14.879 And it's possible that Trump's successor could be someone like JD. Van's, Yes, 2:36:15.000 --> 2:36:21.800 it could, or someone who shares this affinity for you know, 2:36:21.920 --> 2:36:27.000 quasi eugenic statements or beliefs, or this general disregard for 2:36:28.000 --> 2:36:31.320 the consequences of a sort of social Diarwinist approach to 2:36:31.400 --> 2:36:34.320 public health. And so, you know, we don't want to 2:36:34.400 --> 2:36:40.000 overstate the risks and be doomsayers. But on the other hand, 2:36:40.040 --> 2:36:43.840 there's this real potential for the return of you know, 2:36:44.200 --> 2:36:48.520 God forbid something like polio or a breakthrough Avian flu. 2:36:48.879 --> 2:36:51.400 You just reminded me polio was one of the diseases 2:36:51.560 --> 2:36:55.720 modeled in that study, and the results was coming back 2:36:55.879 --> 2:36:59.560 and hundreds or even thousands of cases of paralytic polio. 2:36:59.760 --> 2:37:02.840 Right, and we live now in a time in which 2:37:03.600 --> 2:37:06.160 it's always been the majority of people who have never 2:37:06.280 --> 2:37:08.959 had someone in their family who was in an iron lung. 2:37:09.760 --> 2:37:12.640 But we live in a time now where like the 2:37:12.840 --> 2:37:16.640 historical memory of that is somewhat lost, because it's not 2:37:16.760 --> 2:37:20.840 even in the popular consciousness. It's not something that is featured, 2:37:21.440 --> 2:37:24.400 you know in media. You know, used to read books 2:37:25.240 --> 2:37:28.320 or watch films or even in television. You know, there 2:37:28.320 --> 2:37:31.560 would be examples of something like that, someone who had 2:37:31.600 --> 2:37:34.920 been impacted by polio and whether they were left disabled, 2:37:35.440 --> 2:37:38.280 you know, and had less use of their limbs, or 2:37:38.480 --> 2:37:40.400 you know, if they ended up in an iron lung. 2:37:40.560 --> 2:37:42.600 You know, that was something at least people were aware 2:37:42.720 --> 2:37:45.640 of the risk. And it's it's kind of parallel to 2:37:45.720 --> 2:37:48.840 something another public health official I spoke with talked about 2:37:48.879 --> 2:37:51.920 how there's you know, been like two decades of doctors 2:37:52.520 --> 2:37:55.240 who went through their residencies never even seeing a case 2:37:55.240 --> 2:37:59.280 of measles, and so now we're having to sort of 2:37:59.400 --> 2:38:03.000 re educate not just our doctors, but really the whole population. 2:38:03.680 --> 2:38:06.720 And that's a massive undertaking. We'll hear a bit more 2:38:06.760 --> 2:38:09.199 from Doctor Gorsky right after the sad Break. 2:38:19.640 --> 2:38:19.840 You know. 2:38:19.959 --> 2:38:22.080 One of the things that anti vaxers like to do 2:38:22.480 --> 2:38:25.120 is to try to claim that, oh, back before the vaccine, 2:38:25.160 --> 2:38:27.720 people didn't think measles was a big deal. And they 2:38:27.760 --> 2:38:31.119 will point to that famous episode of The Brady Bunch 2:38:31.280 --> 2:38:33.160 that I don't know if you ever heard of, where 2:38:33.280 --> 2:38:35.800 all the kids got the measles, and it was played 2:38:35.879 --> 2:38:38.720 mainly for laughs, you know, like they're all happy about 2:38:38.760 --> 2:38:40.800 being home from school and they're not very sick. They 2:38:40.920 --> 2:38:43.080 just have little thoughts painted all over them because I 2:38:43.080 --> 2:38:45.119 guess that's how they showed them having the measles. 2:38:45.480 --> 2:38:48.240 Boy, this is a life, isn't it. Yeah, if you 2:38:48.360 --> 2:38:51.320 have to get sick, she can't beat the measles, that's right. 2:38:51.680 --> 2:38:54.879 No medicine insider out like shots on me don't even 2:38:55.080 --> 2:38:55.959 mention shots. 2:38:56.400 --> 2:38:59.679 Yeah, measls. 2:39:01.440 --> 2:39:01.880 Metals. 2:39:02.520 --> 2:39:04.560 Well, all the kids have now had the measo so 2:39:04.680 --> 2:39:07.920 far than years ago. Looks like the Brady's are finished 2:39:07.959 --> 2:39:08.480 with amazing. 2:39:09.080 --> 2:39:12.320 There was also an episode of The Flintstones that, believe 2:39:12.360 --> 2:39:14.400 it or not, they've played the measles for laughs, And 2:39:14.440 --> 2:39:16.680 there was an episode of The Donna Reid Show from 2:39:16.720 --> 2:39:19.280 the fifties, they would point like those and go, oh, 2:39:19.400 --> 2:39:22.680 they didn't consider measles a big deal. Well, if you 2:39:22.920 --> 2:39:26.560 read the actual medical and public health literature, you know 2:39:26.920 --> 2:39:29.959 they did. And you know, there were hundreds of thousands 2:39:29.959 --> 2:39:33.320 of confirmed cases a year, maybe millions of cases a year, 2:39:33.959 --> 2:39:37.440 and at least averaging about four or five hundred deaths 2:39:37.720 --> 2:39:40.520 a year, which doesn't sound like a lot, but in 2:39:40.760 --> 2:39:44.160 anything having to do with children, that's a lot of 2:39:44.320 --> 2:39:47.400 death because we don't expect children to die. Children should 2:39:47.440 --> 2:39:50.959 not die. They usually you know, it's not like elderly 2:39:51.120 --> 2:39:55.080 people where you know, it's expected that that's when you know, 2:39:55.240 --> 2:39:57.520 the body starts giving out and people are reaching the 2:39:57.640 --> 2:40:00.080 end of their lives. Children's death rates should be Oh 2:40:00.240 --> 2:40:03.360 that's why. That's why we look at you know, childhood cancer, 2:40:03.720 --> 2:40:07.080 and there was such an effort made, you know, over 2:40:07.200 --> 2:40:11.280 from like the fifties on to try to decrease the 2:40:11.400 --> 2:40:14.160 rate of death from childhood cancer. And you know the 2:40:14.240 --> 2:40:19.520 results have been pretty spectacular. About eighty five percent of 2:40:19.800 --> 2:40:24.279 children with you know, cancer live, which you know before 2:40:24.400 --> 2:40:28.360 it was you know, a pretty small number. And the 2:40:28.400 --> 2:40:32.160 funny thing is the number of childhood cancers is very 2:40:32.280 --> 2:40:35.360 small compared to a lot of other things that cause death. 2:40:35.800 --> 2:40:40.680 We viewed it as sufficiently important to try to do 2:40:40.879 --> 2:40:44.680 something about it. At least we did the question of 2:40:44.800 --> 2:40:48.560 whether we will continue to because you know, anti chemotherapy 2:40:48.680 --> 2:40:52.720 and various cancer nonsense tends to go right along with 2:40:52.840 --> 2:40:54.440 MAHA and the other thing. 2:40:54.520 --> 2:40:54.640 You know. 2:40:54.720 --> 2:40:57.760 For instance, when RFK Junior made his one of his 2:40:57.959 --> 2:41:01.240 statements that was was it in early March I believe, 2:41:01.400 --> 2:41:04.520 or it was in March sometime about you know, where 2:41:04.600 --> 2:41:07.120 everyone was like, oh, he said, the MMR works and 2:41:07.280 --> 2:41:10.320 is the best way to stop the spread of measles. Yes, 2:41:11.120 --> 2:41:15.600 but you know, instead of the traditional messaging that you 2:41:15.640 --> 2:41:17.480 would come out of the CDC, which would be, you know, 2:41:17.760 --> 2:41:20.160 get vaccinated. You know, MMR is the best way to 2:41:20.560 --> 2:41:23.520 put a stop to this. Please please, parents, get your 2:41:23.560 --> 2:41:27.440 kids vaccinated. Instead, what he sort of said is, yes, 2:41:27.600 --> 2:41:30.760 the vaccine, you know, vaccination is good, you know, the 2:41:30.959 --> 2:41:34.119 best way to stop the outbreak. But then he buries 2:41:34.240 --> 2:41:36.920 it instead of baffling with bullshit, it's more like burying 2:41:37.000 --> 2:41:39.440 it in bullshit. He talks about, you know, vitamin A 2:41:39.720 --> 2:41:43.840 supposedly to treat measles. He talks about how children die 2:41:43.920 --> 2:41:48.280 with measles, rather than of measles, which should sound very 2:41:48.320 --> 2:41:51.120 familiar because they pulled the same rhetoric out for COVID, 2:41:51.720 --> 2:41:54.560 and the idea being that only the children who were 2:41:54.680 --> 2:41:58.120 already sick were harmed by measles, and that you know, 2:41:58.440 --> 2:42:03.240 your middle class, healthy children are not in any danger. 2:42:03.800 --> 2:42:05.840 You know. One way to look at the anti vaccine movement, 2:42:05.920 --> 2:42:11.879 besides the eugenesis undertones, sometimes not even undertones, one way 2:42:11.920 --> 2:42:14.680 to look at it is as a purity cult. You 2:42:14.760 --> 2:42:17.119 may remember the whole pure blood thing from a few 2:42:17.200 --> 2:42:20.440 years ago, like those that were not vaccinated refusing to 2:42:20.920 --> 2:42:23.480 mingle with those who are. Who are you know whose 2:42:23.600 --> 2:42:26.920 blood has somehow been contaminated by the vaccine. It's the 2:42:26.959 --> 2:42:30.279 same as all. And think of how much of alternative 2:42:30.360 --> 2:42:35.160 medicine involves quote unquote detoxification. I like to call it 2:42:35.280 --> 2:42:38.520 ritual purification because it's like more of a religious concept 2:42:38.640 --> 2:42:42.160 than it is actually a medical concept. And look at 2:42:42.200 --> 2:42:45.000 how treatment of quote unquote vaccine injury involves something like 2:42:45.120 --> 2:42:49.280 elation therapy to pull the evil heavy metals that are 2:42:49.320 --> 2:42:53.840 supposedly causing autism out of you. So the idea that 2:42:53.959 --> 2:42:56.160 you have control of your health if you only make 2:42:56.240 --> 2:43:00.440 your terrain in your body hostile to microbes through your 2:43:01.040 --> 2:43:05.520 superior lifestyle. The one example of this that I like 2:43:05.600 --> 2:43:08.000 to point out, and the best retort to it that 2:43:08.080 --> 2:43:11.000 I like to point out, comes from about two thousand 2:43:11.000 --> 2:43:13.560 and nine. If I recall, right, it was Bill Maher 2:43:13.959 --> 2:43:19.119 on his HBO show and Bob Costas was the guest, 2:43:19.600 --> 2:43:21.800 and he was going on about how, you know, this 2:43:21.959 --> 2:43:23.440 was around the time of the EAH one N one 2:43:23.920 --> 2:43:27.320 flu pandemic, and he was going you knowing, he was 2:43:27.400 --> 2:43:29.800 going on about how he didn't need the flu vaccine 2:43:29.879 --> 2:43:33.080 because you know, his terrain was so hostile to the flu, 2:43:33.320 --> 2:43:37.480 because you know, of his superior lifestyle. Caused me to 2:43:37.640 --> 2:43:40.720 roll my eyes. But and that if he were on 2:43:40.840 --> 2:43:44.240 an airplane with people coughing with the flu, he would 2:43:44.280 --> 2:43:47.360 not get the flu. What did Pastas say to him? 2:43:48.120 --> 2:43:51.760 I love I love this retort? He said, Oh, come on, superman. 2:43:55.000 --> 2:43:57.760 Bob Costas could have easily used a different word in 2:43:57.879 --> 2:44:01.760 his retort given the eugen tendencies of the modern anti 2:44:01.879 --> 2:44:04.840 vaccination movement, and the word I have in mind is 2:44:05.480 --> 2:44:06.039 uber mensch. 2:44:07.879 --> 2:44:08.560 But I digress. 2:44:09.400 --> 2:44:11.760 If the uber mensch of the anti VAXX movement, like 2:44:11.920 --> 2:44:14.160 RFK get what they want. We will live in a 2:44:14.200 --> 2:44:18.280 world where preventable communicable diseases run rampant, the deaths of 2:44:18.440 --> 2:44:21.640 children are justified as either a part of God's plan 2:44:22.480 --> 2:44:26.680 or a survival of the fittest. Herd immunity strategy where 2:44:26.760 --> 2:44:30.200 snake oil and beef tallow salesmen are heralded above doctors 2:44:30.240 --> 2:44:33.880 and scientists, and where only the strongest will survive at 2:44:33.920 --> 2:44:37.240 the expense of the week. Diseases long thought defeated could 2:44:37.280 --> 2:44:40.120 return in Our ability to address new viruses will be 2:44:40.280 --> 2:44:44.360 diminished if RFK Junior successfully dismantles what remains of our 2:44:44.400 --> 2:44:47.720 public health bureaucracy, and he's doing it as a steady clip. 2:44:48.800 --> 2:44:51.280 In other words, the future may end up looking a 2:44:51.360 --> 2:44:54.720 lot like the past, more than it already does. 2:44:55.080 --> 2:44:56.240 And that's terrifying. 2:44:56.840 --> 2:45:01.360 The last time deadly pandemics, religious fervor, and resistance to 2:45:01.400 --> 2:45:06.640 medical science and eugenic policies all coincided historically with global 2:45:06.920 --> 2:45:10.520 trade breakdowns, things did not work out so well for 2:45:10.600 --> 2:45:14.920 anyone involved. And unfortunately, if I've taken one thing away 2:45:15.040 --> 2:45:19.000 from my exploration of anti VAXs America, it's that things 2:45:19.080 --> 2:45:21.840 will likely have to get worse before they get better. 2:45:22.680 --> 2:45:25.279 It's really hard to get people unstuck from their beliefs. 2:45:25.920 --> 2:45:29.280 Despite more than one million Americans dying of COVID, the 2:45:29.360 --> 2:45:33.760 reaction to pandemic restrictions, combined with the anti vaccination movements 2:45:33.879 --> 2:45:39.640 convincing misinformation around vaccines, radicalized many people against vaccines and 2:45:39.760 --> 2:45:46.840 public health measures in general. Before I recorded this final statement, 2:45:47.400 --> 2:45:50.480 the Texas State House voted to advance a bill that 2:45:50.640 --> 2:45:54.080 will expand the ability for parents to seek exemptions for 2:45:54.360 --> 2:45:58.200 trial vaccination requirements for school. And this is happening as 2:45:58.320 --> 2:46:02.400 a measles outbreak is ongoing, and things aren't looking good, 2:46:02.480 --> 2:46:04.800 But there is at least one sliver of hope that 2:46:04.879 --> 2:46:09.920 I've found. As my conversation with Gear illustrates, it's possible 2:46:10.000 --> 2:46:14.080 for people who grow up in communities where vaccinations are 2:46:14.160 --> 2:46:17.040 avoided or where there is no belief in them to 2:46:17.160 --> 2:46:20.720 get out of those communities and to get themselves vaccinated. 2:46:21.440 --> 2:46:24.840 And as my conversation with Catherine Wells illustrated, it is 2:46:24.920 --> 2:46:28.000 also possible for people who have been hesitant to get 2:46:28.040 --> 2:46:31.040 their children vaccinated for something like measles to be spurred 2:46:31.080 --> 2:46:35.600 into action given reporting around an outbreak. But the question 2:46:35.720 --> 2:46:39.480 that ultimately remains is whether enough people will have their 2:46:39.520 --> 2:46:42.840 minds changed and embrace what the science tells us we 2:46:42.879 --> 2:46:48.160 should do. Given doctor Gorskey's astute observation that the anti 2:46:48.280 --> 2:46:52.440 vaccine movement is someone like a purity cult and Gear's 2:46:52.520 --> 2:46:56.800 comment that escaping their anti VACS upbringing was sort of 2:46:56.879 --> 2:46:59.760 like escaping a cult, unfortunately, I think we will have 2:46:59.800 --> 2:47:04.040 to temper our expectations for how quickly we can extricate 2:47:04.560 --> 2:47:08.120 our nation from this deep dark place that. 2:47:08.200 --> 2:47:13.520 I call anti vax America. I'm Stephen Monicelli. Thanks for listening. 2:47:15.720 --> 2:47:18.879 Hey, We'll be back Monday with more episodes every week 2:47:18.959 --> 2:47:20.840 from now until the heat death of the universe. 2:47:21.600 --> 2:47:24.080 It Could Happen Here is a production of cool Zone Media. 2:47:24.280 --> 2:47:27.320 For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website 2:47:27.440 --> 2:47:29.160 coolzonmedia dot com, or. 2:47:29.240 --> 2:47:32.320 Check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or 2:47:32.360 --> 2:47:33.920 wherever you listen to podcasts. 2:47:34.400 --> 2:47:36.280 You can now find sources for It Could Happen here, 2:47:36.360 --> 2:47:39.279 listed directly in episode descriptions. Thanks for listening.