WEBVTT - Anti-Vax America: Soft Eugenics 0:00:01.680 --> 0:00:04.960 Cool Zone Media. 0:00:05.600 --> 0:00:10.000 I'm Stephen Monicelli, a journalist in Dallas and an occasional 0:00:10.039 --> 0:00:13.760 contributor to Cool Zone Media, and welcome to episode four 0:00:14.120 --> 0:00:17.680 of Anti vax America, a special five part mini series 0:00:17.720 --> 0:00:22.120 for It Could Happen Here exploring the measles outbreak as 0:00:22.120 --> 0:00:26.079 a microcosm for where we are now, how we got here, 0:00:26.160 --> 0:00:29.639 and where we could be going. Today's episode we'll focus 0:00:30.160 --> 0:00:34.600 on the twisted history of eugenics as it relates to 0:00:34.720 --> 0:00:40.279 vaccinations and how the current MAHA agenda, as pushed by 0:00:40.520 --> 0:00:45.519 RFK Junior, is a sort of echo of eugenic beliefs 0:00:45.560 --> 0:00:49.400 of the past. Vaccination hesitancy historically has been framed by 0:00:49.640 --> 0:00:53.120 opponents to vaccines as a matter of medical freedom, about 0:00:53.159 --> 0:00:55.160 the ability to decide what one wants to do with 0:00:55.200 --> 0:00:58.480 their own body. It's an argument that we've discussed can 0:00:58.520 --> 0:01:02.840 appeal to crunchy granola types and religious zelots alike. But 0:01:02.880 --> 0:01:05.360 there's also a darker side to this rhetoric that reveals 0:01:05.360 --> 0:01:09.600 an embrace of eugenic ideas among anti vax advocates who 0:01:09.640 --> 0:01:14.720 prefer quote unquote herd immunity approaches to outbreaks which subordinate 0:01:14.760 --> 0:01:17.960 the interests of older people, those with disabilities, and members 0:01:18.000 --> 0:01:21.560 of minority communities to those who choose not to be vaccinated. 0:01:22.080 --> 0:01:24.360 On this episode of Anti vax America, we will dive 0:01:24.440 --> 0:01:28.000 into the overlapping histories of eugenic thinking and anti vaccination 0:01:28.080 --> 0:01:32.679 beliefs to untangle this mess. As we previously discussed in 0:01:32.720 --> 0:01:36.240 episode two, vaccinations took off in the eighteen hundred, shortly 0:01:36.240 --> 0:01:39.280 after the creation of the first smallpox vaccine in seventeen 0:01:39.319 --> 0:01:43.480 ninety six, and so did anti vaccination rhetoric and movements. 0:01:44.200 --> 0:01:46.920 In parallel, there were a lot of scientific developments going on. 0:01:47.000 --> 0:01:50.280 The eighteen hundreds were a heady time in Western science. 0:01:50.760 --> 0:01:54.160 There was Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection, which was 0:01:54.200 --> 0:01:56.440 presented in Darwin's eighteen to fifty nine book on the 0:01:56.480 --> 0:02:00.680 Origin of Species. Five years later, sociologists heard Robert Spencer 0:02:00.880 --> 0:02:05.080 mixed concepts from Thomas Malthus, the economist who proposed that 0:02:05.200 --> 0:02:09.400 population growth would outpaces food production, with Darwin's theory to 0:02:09.480 --> 0:02:12.840 coin the term survival of the fittest and apply it 0:02:12.919 --> 0:02:16.959 to industrial capitalism, with the end conclusion that basically those 0:02:16.960 --> 0:02:20.000 who were on top were deserving of all the privileges 0:02:20.040 --> 0:02:22.760 that they have, and that those at the bottom were 0:02:23.000 --> 0:02:27.720 also deserving of their position in society. In eighteen eighty three, 0:02:27.919 --> 0:02:31.960 Darwin's cousin Francis Galton, coined the term eugenics in his 0:02:32.000 --> 0:02:35.960 book Inquiries into Human Fertility. In its developments, the book 0:02:35.960 --> 0:02:40.520 proposed to give to quote, more suitable races a better 0:02:40.639 --> 0:02:44.800 chance of prevailing speedily over the less suitable. To understand 0:02:44.840 --> 0:02:47.040 a bit more about Galton's thinking, I spoke with doctor 0:02:47.080 --> 0:02:50.600 Michael Phillips, who we heard from in a previous episode. 0:02:51.440 --> 0:02:57.560 Galton was in despair that all those improvements in delivery 0:02:57.560 --> 0:03:03.000 of healthcare, medical care itself nutrician, all the humanitarian efforts 0:03:03.440 --> 0:03:08.880 to improve the workplace, eliminate child labor, improve factories so 0:03:09.000 --> 0:03:11.880 people don't get blown up, et cetera. What that was 0:03:11.919 --> 0:03:15.920 doing was it was allowing the unfit, you know, the 0:03:15.960 --> 0:03:20.960 people he saw as inferior, to survive past childhood, to 0:03:21.080 --> 0:03:25.799 survive into adulthood, to have longer, healthier lives. And if 0:03:25.800 --> 0:03:30.680 they live a longer lifespan and they're healthier during that span, 0:03:31.240 --> 0:03:34.920 they're going to have more children. And he believed that 0:03:35.160 --> 0:03:41.760 because they are less gifted with intelligence, you know, because 0:03:41.960 --> 0:03:45.080 you know, he said, history is driven by genius. And 0:03:45.120 --> 0:03:49.720 he actually did the first major study on intelligence where 0:03:49.720 --> 0:03:53.520 he traced the family histories of what he said were 0:03:53.520 --> 0:03:56.120 the gifted men. And he claimed all of this was 0:03:56.760 --> 0:04:00.800 biological inheritance. You know, everything was biology. And not only that, 0:04:00.920 --> 0:04:06.240 but all traits, all traits were biological. Work, ethic, honesty, 0:04:07.000 --> 0:04:12.360 fidelity to your partner, alcoholism, Every single trait a human 0:04:12.440 --> 0:04:16.080 might have he tied to biology. And he said that 0:04:16.160 --> 0:04:20.160 the people with the worst traits it's called disgenic. People 0:04:20.200 --> 0:04:23.279 who were disgenic, people who had the worst traits were 0:04:23.320 --> 0:04:27.039 now producing large families. And because they were less intelligent, 0:04:27.880 --> 0:04:32.159 they gave into their sexual urges more often. They didn't 0:04:32.279 --> 0:04:37.400 plan families based on their economic circumstances. They were impulsive, 0:04:38.720 --> 0:04:41.839 Well we have eight children, let's have sex. And you 0:04:41.880 --> 0:04:43.560 know if we have a ninth child, well we have 0:04:43.600 --> 0:04:48.520 a ninth child. And that meant that those families were 0:04:48.600 --> 0:04:54.599 growing exponentially. But the fit who plan their families more carefully, 0:04:55.000 --> 0:04:59.320 and you know, the partners are busier job creators, as 0:04:59.360 --> 0:05:03.000 innovators in science and education. The women want to have 0:05:03.080 --> 0:05:07.000 a life outside of the hum that they were less fertile, 0:05:07.560 --> 0:05:10.719 they were having fewer children, and of course what the 0:05:10.760 --> 0:05:15.040 result would be is you have the unfit out numbering 0:05:15.120 --> 0:05:20.120 the fit, and that leads to catastrophe society falls apart. 0:05:20.880 --> 0:05:23.840 These sorts of ideas are represented in the satirical two 0:05:23.880 --> 0:05:27.440 thousand and six film Idiocracy, which plays out a future 0:05:27.440 --> 0:05:31.520 in which stupid people outbreed smart people and society consequently devolves. 0:05:31.920 --> 0:05:36.400 As the twenty first century began, human evolution was at 0:05:36.440 --> 0:05:41.800 a turning point. Natural selection the process by which the strongest, 0:05:42.040 --> 0:05:46.080 the smartest, the fastest reproduced in greater numbers than the rest, 0:05:46.440 --> 0:05:50.080 A process which at once favored the noblest traits of man, 0:05:50.360 --> 0:05:55.120 now began to favor different traits. Most science fiction of 0:05:55.160 --> 0:05:58.440 the day predicted a future that was more civilized and 0:05:58.560 --> 0:06:02.359 more intelligent, but as time went on, things seemed to 0:06:02.400 --> 0:06:06.960 be heading in the opposite direction, a dumbing down. How 0:06:07.000 --> 0:06:11.760 did this happen? Evolution does not necessarily reward intelligence. With 0:06:11.880 --> 0:06:15.240 no natural predators toin the herd, it began to simply 0:06:15.320 --> 0:06:19.040 reward those who reproduced the most and left the intelligent 0:06:19.240 --> 0:06:21.120 to become an endangered species. 0:06:22.440 --> 0:06:27.320 Having kids is such an important decision, We're just. 0:06:27.279 --> 0:06:28.279 Waiting for the right time. 0:06:28.600 --> 0:06:30.000 It's not something you want to rush into. 0:06:30.400 --> 0:06:31.479 Obviously, no way. 0:06:33.600 --> 0:06:35.040 Shit, I'm putting it again. 0:06:36.720 --> 0:06:39.560 Actually, damn kids, thought you was on the pills and 0:06:39.680 --> 0:06:43.000 shitll no. 0:06:41.720 --> 0:06:44.000 I must have been thinking really. 0:06:45.880 --> 0:06:49.200 Well, certainly meant in jest. The fundamental principle of idiocracy 0:06:49.240 --> 0:06:53.040 demonstrates the staying power of Galton's eugenic ideas, which became 0:06:53.160 --> 0:06:56.440 highly influential in the twentieth century. Within two decades of 0:06:56.480 --> 0:06:59.640 the release of his book, coining the term eugenics, eugenic 0:06:59.640 --> 0:07:03.200 thinking was widespread among white Anglo Saxon leaders of the West. 0:07:04.080 --> 0:07:06.800 But before we hear more about that from doctor Michael Phillips, 0:07:07.440 --> 0:07:08.400 a quick ad break. 0:07:19.680 --> 0:07:23.560 The two biggest hugenicists in the early twentieth century. They 0:07:23.560 --> 0:07:27.040 were best selling authors Madison Grant, who was a friend 0:07:27.080 --> 0:07:33.840 of Theodore Roosevelt's, and Walthorpe Stoddard. Stoddard in particular warned 0:07:34.480 --> 0:07:39.520 that this was fueling radical politics, that the unfit essentially 0:07:40.080 --> 0:07:45.760 were demanding the riches created by the geniuses in the world, 0:07:46.240 --> 0:07:48.920 and they were expropriating the wealth they created, and they 0:07:48.960 --> 0:07:53.320 were just they were just milking the fit for every advance, 0:07:53.720 --> 0:07:58.800 and that as that became more difficult, that would breed revolution. 0:07:59.120 --> 0:08:03.080 And in particular thought there was a link to communist revolution. 0:08:04.000 --> 0:08:07.400 As advancements in sanitation and modern medicine continued in parallel 0:08:07.440 --> 0:08:11.160 with the spread of leftist thought, eugenicists were consumed with 0:08:11.320 --> 0:08:15.360 nightmares of a Malthusian crisis and were increasingly worried about 0:08:15.360 --> 0:08:18.800 their position in society. Something in their minds had to 0:08:18.800 --> 0:08:22.360 be done to stem the growing tide of unfit masses. 0:08:22.720 --> 0:08:26.680 Because natural selection in the minds of the genesis had 0:08:26.720 --> 0:08:31.800 basically been suspended. The four sterilizations were the substitute for that. 0:08:32.600 --> 0:08:39.360 Eugenicists were in despair about vaccines that they there was 0:08:39.360 --> 0:08:43.280 an organized campaign to ban them on eugenics reasons, because 0:08:43.320 --> 0:08:46.440 I think they knew politically that would be unpopular, because 0:08:46.440 --> 0:08:49.160 there were enough people who realize they could see the 0:08:49.200 --> 0:08:51.720 benefits as vaccinations became more common. 0:08:53.160 --> 0:08:56.760 In other words, some early genesists were both supportive of 0:08:56.800 --> 0:09:00.160 things like for sterilization, but were also a poe those 0:09:00.200 --> 0:09:03.560 to vaccinations because they believe that vaccinations would allow the 0:09:03.600 --> 0:09:07.600 weak and unfit to survive, prosper and multiply. But not 0:09:07.800 --> 0:09:13.520 all eugenicists were inherently opposed to vaccinations. The Nazi regime, 0:09:13.600 --> 0:09:17.160 which exterminated millions of Jews, and other people deemed undesirable 0:09:17.840 --> 0:09:22.160 also embraced widespread vaccination against diseases like typhus, even if 0:09:22.200 --> 0:09:26.360 they actually rolled back mandatory vaccination laws that had been 0:09:26.360 --> 0:09:30.079 put in place prior to the rise of the Nazis. Nevertheless, 0:09:30.440 --> 0:09:34.920 the relationship between eugenic thinking and anti VAXX beliefs goes deep, 0:09:35.400 --> 0:09:39.360 and it reveals a helpful heuristic for thinking about eugenics. So, 0:09:39.440 --> 0:09:42.440 on the one hand, there's a sort of active or 0:09:42.559 --> 0:09:46.600 hard eugenics, in which medical authorities or the state forcefully 0:09:46.640 --> 0:09:50.240 sterilize and exterminate people who are deemed unfit. And then 0:09:50.280 --> 0:09:52.880 on the other hand, there's a sort of passive or 0:09:53.120 --> 0:09:57.000 soft eugenics, in which potentially preventable deaths are written off 0:09:57.000 --> 0:10:00.240 as a product of a process in which the to 0:10:00.360 --> 0:10:04.000 survive and go on to improve the overall gene pool. Now, 0:10:04.040 --> 0:10:06.720 before we go any further, it is important to note 0:10:06.720 --> 0:10:10.920 that eugenics has been morally and scientifically discredited so thoroughly 0:10:11.000 --> 0:10:15.040 that it shouldn't even be necessary to mention it. But unfortunately, 0:10:15.440 --> 0:10:20.120 eugenesis thinking is in resurgence. President Donald Trump himself has 0:10:20.160 --> 0:10:22.560 said there are a lot of bad genes in our 0:10:22.600 --> 0:10:25.440 country right now, and that immigrants are poisoning the blood 0:10:25.440 --> 0:10:26.079 of our country. 0:10:26.920 --> 0:10:31.880 That's been an ongoing thing with immigration debates ever since 0:10:32.000 --> 0:10:35.920 the late nineteenth century, this idea that certain groups of 0:10:35.960 --> 0:10:41.800 immigrants are disease carriers, and that has particularly been aimed 0:10:41.840 --> 0:10:48.200 at Mexican immigrants. That's been a ongoing thing. And during COVID, 0:10:48.720 --> 0:10:52.120 Greg Abbott, he's the governor of Texas, was saying it 0:10:52.200 --> 0:10:57.040 was Mexican immigrants, undocumented immigrants, who were bringing COVID to Texas. 0:10:57.120 --> 0:11:00.959 At one point he made that accusation, and it's exactly 0:11:01.160 --> 0:11:04.960 like what they were saying. We had in Texas during 0:11:05.280 --> 0:11:08.400 this period of this panic bat immigration. Late nineteenth early 0:11:08.480 --> 0:11:14.320 choice centric Galveston. A medical doctor who was inspecting people 0:11:14.480 --> 0:11:17.200 coming into the Port of Galveston who were Jewish immigrants, 0:11:17.400 --> 0:11:20.720 and he was rejecting them because he was saying they're 0:11:20.760 --> 0:11:27.160 carrying infectious eye diseases, tuberculosis, all of that, and Jewish 0:11:27.160 --> 0:11:29.760 civil rights scripts had to intervene to stop that. 0:11:30.840 --> 0:11:35.199 Racism, anti semitism, and eugenics historically have gone hand in hand, 0:11:35.240 --> 0:11:38.080 but it hasn't been since the early nineteen hundreds that 0:11:38.120 --> 0:11:42.360 people who hold such beliefs also hold so much power 0:11:42.400 --> 0:11:47.080 in the state. RFK Junior, a longtime anti vaccination activist 0:11:47.520 --> 0:11:49.800 and now head of the United States Department of Health 0:11:49.800 --> 0:11:52.360 and Human Services, said in twenty twenty three that COVID 0:11:52.520 --> 0:11:58.320 was quote ethnically targeted to spare Ashkenazi, Jews and Chinese people. Now, 0:11:58.559 --> 0:12:02.200 his make America Healthy Again agenda is absolutely dripping with 0:12:02.440 --> 0:12:07.120 soft eugenic thinking. And to unravel all that, I spoke 0:12:07.200 --> 0:12:10.640 with doctor David Gorski, a doctor who regularly writes in 0:12:10.720 --> 0:12:13.840 a blog called Science Based Medicine. 0:12:14.800 --> 0:12:18.760 My name is David Gorsky. I'm a professor of surgery 0:12:18.760 --> 0:12:22.360 and oncology at Wayne State University in Detroit. 0:12:22.800 --> 0:12:25.480 So, doctor Gorski, you're also a bit of a writer, 0:12:25.640 --> 0:12:29.400 and you keep a pretty regular blog in RICHI o'pine 0:12:29.559 --> 0:12:32.840 on a number of things, and recently you've written a 0:12:32.840 --> 0:12:38.199 couple of blog posts about the measles outbreak, the anti 0:12:38.320 --> 0:12:43.840 vaccination movement. RFK Juniors make America Healthy Again an agenda. 0:12:44.720 --> 0:12:48.600 And you know what folks over at the Conspiratuality podcast 0:12:48.920 --> 0:12:52.760 called soft eugenics, or perhaps what we could also think 0:12:52.800 --> 0:12:56.800 of as a sort of social Darwinist logic or sort 0:12:56.800 --> 0:12:58.280 of passive eugenics. 0:12:58.520 --> 0:13:00.480 You know, a couple months ago when I first came 0:13:00.520 --> 0:13:06.760 across the episode of conspiratuality, which was called MAHA's soft eugenics, 0:13:06.800 --> 0:13:08.760 like kind of like a light bulb went off in 0:13:08.800 --> 0:13:11.880 my brain in that it sort of helped me crystallize 0:13:11.960 --> 0:13:14.559 things that I had been thinking of about the anti 0:13:14.640 --> 0:13:19.400 vaccine movement, but not so much the rest of Maha, which, 0:13:19.520 --> 0:13:22.640 you know, let's face it, a mishmash of you know, 0:13:22.720 --> 0:13:29.240 anti vaccine beliefs, you know, appeals to nature, anti pharma, 0:13:29.400 --> 0:13:32.320 a lot of quackery mixed in with some you know, 0:13:32.760 --> 0:13:36.160 semi reasonable stuff like you know, yeah, sure, diet, exercise, 0:13:36.200 --> 0:13:40.079 it's good for you. I think measles really epitomizes what 0:13:40.400 --> 0:13:43.520 they called the quote unquote soft eugenics, which was basically, 0:13:44.080 --> 0:13:47.520 instead of you know, like actively trying to kill children 0:13:47.640 --> 0:13:49.600 or people that you you know, whose genes you don't 0:13:49.600 --> 0:13:53.280 want passed on, you're basically letting nature do it. And 0:13:53.640 --> 0:13:56.800 you hear this a lot when they talk about for example, 0:13:56.840 --> 0:14:01.160 one of the most common arguments you'll hear from anti 0:14:01.240 --> 0:14:04.920 vaxers about measles is that, you know, if someone gets 0:14:04.960 --> 0:14:08.360 really sick for measles or dies of measles, they must 0:14:08.440 --> 0:14:10.960 have had something wrong with them, They must not have 0:14:11.080 --> 0:14:15.160 been healthy like that. Measles is harmless if you are healthy. 0:14:15.800 --> 0:14:18.160 And of course, you know, there's a whole lot of 0:14:18.920 --> 0:14:21.720 appeal to virtue as far as health goes. In other words, 0:14:21.720 --> 0:14:25.880 there's this this belief system that's kind of embedded in Maha, 0:14:25.880 --> 0:14:29.360 and it's been around for ages and ages and the 0:14:29.400 --> 0:14:34.160 alternative medicine crowd that you know, you have basically total 0:14:34.200 --> 0:14:37.240 control over your health. In other words, if you do 0:14:37.280 --> 0:14:39.680 the right things, eat the right diet, you know, take 0:14:39.720 --> 0:14:43.880 the right supplements, you know, do the exercise appropriately, you know, 0:14:44.040 --> 0:14:48.760 you can keep yourself healthy. And it's even as good 0:14:48.800 --> 0:14:55.280 as vaccines or better to prevent vaccine preventable diseases, infectious diseases. Right. 0:14:55.400 --> 0:14:58.680 So, I think that's a great way to understand the 0:14:58.720 --> 0:15:02.760 differences here. You know, we're not talking about the hard 0:15:03.000 --> 0:15:08.040 active eugenics of the past, which was epitomized by the 0:15:08.160 --> 0:15:10.560 Nazi regime and their quote unquote final solution. 0:15:11.080 --> 0:15:13.720 And also, you know, you're in the good old us 0:15:13.720 --> 0:15:16.360 of Aga years ago, right. 0:15:16.200 --> 0:15:20.040 You know, or even you know, in the lingering sterilization 0:15:20.240 --> 0:15:24.920 regimes that continued up until you know, the later twentieth century, 0:15:25.320 --> 0:15:27.680 which we're you know, sort of originally rooted in this 0:15:27.800 --> 0:15:31.360 idea that we should be calling people out of the 0:15:31.360 --> 0:15:35.720 reproductive pool who have these undesirable traits or are you know, 0:15:35.760 --> 0:15:38.960 considered to be unfit in some way, so that that's 0:15:38.960 --> 0:15:41.120 not what we're talking about. We're talking about this more 0:15:41.680 --> 0:15:45.640 let nature take its course, survival of the fittest type mindset. 0:15:45.800 --> 0:15:47.800 I don't know if it's a resurgence or it's just 0:15:47.880 --> 0:15:53.360 continuing to gain in popularity. There's a recent conference, it's 0:15:53.400 --> 0:15:55.880 been one of two conferences that have happened in Austin, 0:15:55.960 --> 0:15:59.960 Texas where a lot of these quote unquote liberal eugenics 0:16:00.440 --> 0:16:02.520 also met up with people who are in the pro 0:16:02.680 --> 0:16:06.280 natalist movement. And then there's this overlap with people who 0:16:06.320 --> 0:16:09.720 are kind of dabbling in race science or trying to 0:16:09.840 --> 0:16:14.320 resuscitate old ideas that are basically you know, eugenic in 0:16:14.440 --> 0:16:17.480 nature with regard to some people, you know, being smarter 0:16:17.680 --> 0:16:20.320 by genetic basis. 0:16:20.960 --> 0:16:23.000 I mean there's a lot of that around too, and 0:16:23.040 --> 0:16:27.320 that's not soft eugenics, that's like straight up eugenic. 0:16:27.000 --> 0:16:29.360 Right, And so there's a continuum, you could say, there's 0:16:29.400 --> 0:16:32.600 this spectrum and you know, these things are not disconnected, 0:16:32.640 --> 0:16:36.800 but they also can be understood as somewhat discrete phenomenon 0:16:37.160 --> 0:16:40.320 or ideologies or belief systems. And so you did write 0:16:40.360 --> 0:16:44.520 a little bit about one specific document that you know, 0:16:44.720 --> 0:16:49.400 I hadn't been particularly familiar with, called the Great Barrington Declaration. 0:16:49.760 --> 0:16:50.920 Can you talk about that? 0:16:51.280 --> 0:16:53.640 Okay? So I can't believe it's like four and a 0:16:53.720 --> 0:16:57.040 half years ago now, but way back in early October 0:16:57.080 --> 0:17:03.840 of twenty twenty three, scientists were brought together by a 0:17:03.880 --> 0:17:07.440 far right wing, you know, activist named Jeffrey Tucker, who 0:17:07.480 --> 0:17:09.560 was associated with a right wing thing tank at the 0:17:09.560 --> 0:17:14.200 time called the American Institute for Economic Research. The idea 0:17:14.280 --> 0:17:18.080 behind the document was, you know, all of these measures 0:17:18.119 --> 0:17:21.280 to control COVID are like, you know, destroying the economy. 0:17:21.600 --> 0:17:26.200 So what we should really do, supposedly based on science 0:17:26.359 --> 0:17:30.120 but not really as I'll get into, is to let 0:17:30.160 --> 0:17:34.520 the virus spread among quote unquote young and healthy, you know, 0:17:34.760 --> 0:17:38.480 those who are not at high risk, so not the elderly, 0:17:39.119 --> 0:17:43.920 not those with pre existing conditions that make them high 0:17:43.960 --> 0:17:49.240 risk for severe disease complications and death from COVID. Just 0:17:49.480 --> 0:17:52.000 let it spread to reach what they call you know, 0:17:52.080 --> 0:17:56.240 quote unquote natural herd immunity heard immunity for those not 0:17:56.320 --> 0:18:01.240 familiar with it, is when a pathod is so prevalent 0:18:01.280 --> 0:18:05.240 in the population and that so many people have developed 0:18:05.560 --> 0:18:08.360 what they call natural immunity, but the more appropriate term 0:18:08.440 --> 0:18:11.680 is post infection immunity. You know, immunity after having been 0:18:11.680 --> 0:18:15.560 infected to the point where you know a sufficient proportion 0:18:15.680 --> 0:18:19.320 of the population is immune and the virus doesn't spread 0:18:19.400 --> 0:18:21.800 much like if you have a sufficient proportion of the 0:18:21.840 --> 0:18:25.480 population vaccinated the virus, you know, you might get sporadic 0:18:25.520 --> 0:18:28.639 cases in small outbreaks, but it just can't spread further. 0:18:29.560 --> 0:18:33.120 If you don't know much about infectious diseases, including COVID, 0:18:33.359 --> 0:18:35.879 it sounds like not unreasonable given that there wasn't a 0:18:35.960 --> 0:18:38.680 vaccine back then. The other part of it is what 0:18:38.760 --> 0:18:42.359 they call it, quote unquote focus protection. So the idea 0:18:42.480 --> 0:18:45.960 was supposedly that you could protect those at high risk 0:18:46.400 --> 0:18:51.760 while letting the virus circulate, which are pretty incompatible, because 0:18:51.800 --> 0:18:53.159 how are you going to you know, how are you 0:18:53.240 --> 0:18:56.160 going to keep these high risk people from coming into 0:18:56.240 --> 0:18:59.800 contact with people who could have the virus, unless you 0:19:00.119 --> 0:19:03.320 like quarantine them all or something like that, which again 0:19:03.359 --> 0:19:06.439 would be impractical because you know, it's what twenty percent 0:19:06.480 --> 0:19:10.320 of the population at least. The other problem with this 0:19:10.440 --> 0:19:13.359 idea is for there to be natural herd immunity. I 0:19:13.400 --> 0:19:15.320 hate that term, but I'll use it just because it's 0:19:15.320 --> 0:19:19.720 what they use. A couple of conditions are necessary. First, 0:19:20.480 --> 0:19:24.399 post infection immunity has to be lifelong or at least 0:19:24.720 --> 0:19:28.159 very long lasting. The second is, in other words, that 0:19:28.160 --> 0:19:32.720 the virus can't be mutating to avoid immunity, which we 0:19:32.960 --> 0:19:36.399 all know now and even new then that coronaviruses are 0:19:36.520 --> 0:19:40.000 very good at doing. So that it was expected that 0:19:40.400 --> 0:19:43.560 you know, new variants would come up and they could 0:19:43.600 --> 0:19:47.719 evade even post infection immunity in terms of like influenza. 0:19:47.760 --> 0:19:50.679 That's why the flu vaccine has to be updated, you know, 0:19:50.800 --> 0:19:55.879 every year, because the strains mutate, and the rise of 0:19:56.080 --> 0:19:59.280 the delta wave, the omicron wave, et cetera kind of 0:19:59.320 --> 0:20:03.159 showed that people getting infected again and again that you know, 0:20:03.840 --> 0:20:07.080 post infection immunity for COVID was not long lasting. So 0:20:07.160 --> 0:20:11.400 basically the Great Barrington Declaration was, you know, giving up 0:20:11.520 --> 0:20:14.600 more than anything else in order to let people make 0:20:14.640 --> 0:20:19.760 money again. And it never would have worked because even 0:20:19.800 --> 0:20:23.199 back then we had every reason to expect that post infection, 0:20:23.280 --> 0:20:27.639 immunity after COVID infection would not be long lasting, and 0:20:27.680 --> 0:20:31.639 that the virus would mutate and you know, come up 0:20:31.640 --> 0:20:36.680 with new strains that could bypass pre existing immunity from 0:20:36.720 --> 0:20:42.879 previous infections. However, this idea was very influential, and in fact, 0:20:42.920 --> 0:20:46.240 the Great Barrington Declaration was kind of late in the 0:20:46.280 --> 0:20:49.760 game because the idea of just letting the virus spread 0:20:50.040 --> 0:20:53.600 to achieve natural herd immunity was being pushed as early 0:20:53.640 --> 0:20:57.400 as March and April in twenty twenty. And one of 0:20:57.440 --> 0:21:01.800 the writers or the scientists who wrote the Great Barrington 0:21:01.920 --> 0:21:06.680 Declaration is now our director of the NIH doctor J. Bodichario. 0:21:07.600 --> 0:21:11.200 The other was doctor Senatragupta in England. And then there 0:21:11.280 --> 0:21:14.159 was of course Martin Caldor, who I now hear is 0:21:14.240 --> 0:21:18.639 involved in the autism you know, vaccine study that RFK 0:21:18.880 --> 0:21:24.760 Junior is supposedly organizing. So basically, you know, these these 0:21:24.800 --> 0:21:28.720 are the idea behind the Great Barrington Declaration, far from 0:21:28.760 --> 0:21:34.840 being censored and canceled, et cetera, actually found purchase at 0:21:34.880 --> 0:21:37.520 the highest levels of government in the US and the UK, 0:21:38.200 --> 0:21:43.600 the Boris Johnson government and Donald Trump administration both you know, 0:21:43.800 --> 0:21:48.560 listen to these scientists, and I mean great Barrington Declaration 0:21:49.200 --> 0:21:52.239 writers you know, actually got to meet with Trump at 0:21:52.280 --> 0:21:56.719 one point, I believe in July, and it was unfortunately 0:21:56.800 --> 0:22:01.800 very influential, and it was discouraged stronger public health measures. 0:22:02.320 --> 0:22:05.639 I did call this idea eugenesis at the time, although 0:22:05.640 --> 0:22:09.320 maybe you can argue if it's soft eugenics or social Darwinist. 0:22:09.480 --> 0:22:12.960 I mean, maybe more social Darwinists, given that, oh well, 0:22:13.200 --> 0:22:15.240 it's kind of like screw the old people who will 0:22:15.240 --> 0:22:17.800 die of this, you know, seem to be part of 0:22:17.840 --> 0:22:20.200 the attitude behind it. You know, we throw up this 0:22:20.840 --> 0:22:24.560 focused protection kind of as an afterthought, you know, where 0:22:24.600 --> 0:22:26.320 the main idea is just to you know, let the 0:22:26.400 --> 0:22:30.560 virus spread and most people will be okay. And this 0:22:30.720 --> 0:22:33.399 is the same sort of idea that we that I 0:22:33.480 --> 0:22:37.359 heard again and again years and years before with the measles, 0:22:37.640 --> 0:22:39.080 you know. And in fact, if you go back to 0:22:39.119 --> 0:22:43.480 twenty fifteen, which was you know, after the Disneyland measles 0:22:43.480 --> 0:22:46.439 outbreak and during the holidays of twenty fourteen that you know, 0:22:46.880 --> 0:22:49.760 took part in the early part of twenty fifteen, you 0:22:49.800 --> 0:22:54.359 would see a lot of anti vaccine activists going on 0:22:54.440 --> 0:22:56.840 and on about how if you just keep yourself healthy. 0:22:56.960 --> 0:23:01.840 Measles is not a danger. That natural immunity to measles 0:23:01.960 --> 0:23:07.040 is far greater than vaccine induced immunity. What they always 0:23:07.240 --> 0:23:11.840 fail to mention is that a price of getting post 0:23:11.880 --> 0:23:16.639 infection immunity can be besides just being sick. Could it 0:23:16.680 --> 0:23:20.679 involve the risk of you know, complications, neurologic damage, or even. 0:23:20.480 --> 0:23:23.840 Death right And so in a way, there's a sort 0:23:23.880 --> 0:23:28.200 of moralization around health in that you know, it's something 0:23:28.240 --> 0:23:32.640 that individuals have to be personally responsible for, and as 0:23:32.680 --> 0:23:36.680 you said, if they succumbed to an illness like measles, 0:23:36.720 --> 0:23:39.240 it is sort of an indication that maybe they were 0:23:39.359 --> 0:23:44.560 unfit in some way or unhealthy, And his dovetails with 0:23:44.840 --> 0:23:49.119 something you also wrote about RFK Junior's recent speech in 0:23:49.160 --> 0:23:52.439 which he talked about autism and described it as a 0:23:53.040 --> 0:23:57.560 tsunami and likened it to an epidemic. He claimed that 0:23:57.800 --> 0:24:02.040 the increasing statistical prevalence of autos is due to environmental 0:24:02.480 --> 0:24:06.280 risk factors and is something that is sort of induced 0:24:06.720 --> 0:24:12.760 by human behavior, as opposed to that statistical prevalence being 0:24:12.760 --> 0:24:16.000 a result of improvements and diagnostic tools that more accurately 0:24:16.000 --> 0:24:18.919 measure a phenomenon, and he also portrayed autistic people as 0:24:18.920 --> 0:24:24.040 a sort of burden on society, you know, or people 0:24:24.040 --> 0:24:26.840 who will never be able to do things like fall 0:24:26.880 --> 0:24:29.159 in love or get a job, despite the fact that 0:24:29.160 --> 0:24:33.880 there are countless examples of people with autism or under 0:24:33.880 --> 0:24:37.000 the umbrella of what we call autism, doing exactly those things. 0:24:37.000 --> 0:24:42.000 And there's this undercurrent of rhetoric that you sort of 0:24:42.000 --> 0:24:44.520 describe it as an echo of something. I hadn't heard 0:24:44.520 --> 0:24:48.720 this term before, but I'm familiar with the idea of it, 0:24:48.880 --> 0:24:52.440 or rather the way in which it was deployed, the 0:24:52.520 --> 0:24:56.080 idea of quote unquote useless eaters. And so, can you 0:24:56.200 --> 0:24:58.040 just walk us through sort of what your reaction to 0:24:58.200 --> 0:25:02.520 RFK Junior's speech was in you know how you made 0:25:02.560 --> 0:25:03.120 that connection. 0:25:04.600 --> 0:25:07.680 Well, look at what the very first thing he said 0:25:07.720 --> 0:25:12.760 about people with severe autism. Okay, what did he say? 0:25:13.359 --> 0:25:17.960 He said, they'll never pay taxes, they'll never have a job, 0:25:18.760 --> 0:25:20.640 and then oh, they'll never go on a date, they'll 0:25:20.640 --> 0:25:24.160 never play baseball. It's what are the first two things 0:25:24.160 --> 0:25:27.919 he mentions paying taxes and having a job. This is 0:25:28.040 --> 0:25:31.640 straight up useless eaters rhetoric, and useless eaters was basically 0:25:31.720 --> 0:25:34.719 a term that the Nazis used, you know, for people 0:25:34.800 --> 0:25:40.080 with you know, severe you know, neurologic conditions or diseases 0:25:40.119 --> 0:25:42.880 that made it such that they would require lifetime care 0:25:42.960 --> 0:25:47.439 and would never contribute to society. So that was the echo. 0:25:47.640 --> 0:25:51.040 I think that echo was pretty clear describing them that way. Now, 0:25:51.200 --> 0:25:56.719 the other interesting thing about the eugenics angle, there's a 0:25:57.040 --> 0:26:01.800 very strong denial of what we know thus far about autism, 0:26:01.800 --> 0:26:04.879 which is that it's like roughly eighty percent genetic. You know, 0:26:06.480 --> 0:26:09.840 you can argue over the exact figures, but it's predominantly genetic. 0:26:10.359 --> 0:26:14.080 I think there's little doubt about that. So parents who 0:26:14.200 --> 0:26:19.440 have an autistic child, they often blame themselves or they think, wait, 0:26:19.480 --> 0:26:23.480 if it's genetic, that means it must be me and 0:26:23.720 --> 0:26:26.840 or my partner, you know, which if you're thinking in 0:26:26.960 --> 0:26:30.919