Speaker 1: You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.
Speaker 2: I AM six forty on demand anytime the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 2: Chief Medical Officer for Dignity Saint Mary Medical Center, Long
Speaker 2: Beach joins US Now Medical News with doctor Keeney. So
Speaker 2: you are avoiding the United States right now, and I
Speaker 2: think that makes perfect sense, especially because we've decided to
Speaker 2: give measles a try.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, so measles outbreak is still going on. I mean,
Speaker 3: I know we've talked about it before, but I think
Speaker 3: it's just this ongoing event at this point and probably
Speaker 3: will be for the next year, to be honest, because
Speaker 3: our vaccination rates, especially in Texas, have dropped so low
Speaker 3: that we can expect, you know, outbreaks at this point.
Speaker 2: Why why are we all of a sudden vaccine skeptical.
Speaker 2: I have a little bit of understanding when it comes
Speaker 2: to COVID because it was new. It's the mRNA vaccine,
Speaker 2: a different delivery, and I understand that there's some skepticism
Speaker 2: to new things, and I know that we'd like to
Speaker 2: challenge authority all that kind of stuff. But when it
Speaker 2: comes to the MMR, the measles up for bella vaccine
Speaker 2: for Pete's sake, that's been around forever. Why are we
Speaker 2: are we hesitant about something that is shown It's fine.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean it's it's a combination of things. There
Speaker 3: are people who are vaccine hesitant because overall because of vaccines,
Speaker 3: You're right, that's I think that might be the minority
Speaker 3: at this point. So a lot of people that are
Speaker 3: just government hesitant, and they don't want to be told
Speaker 3: what to do, and they don't want to obey the government,
Speaker 3: and so even if the government's right, they're going to say,
Speaker 3: you can't tell me what to do. So, I mean
Speaker 3: that's there's a big group of people I run into,
Speaker 3: at least at this point that are more like I want.
Speaker 3: I'm for individual rights, individuality, individual choice, and I choose
Speaker 3: not to get my kids vaccinated. And when you look
Speaker 3: at these cases, the people that are getting measles aren't
Speaker 3: the ones making the choice. It's their parents. They're making
Speaker 3: the choice. And seventy eight percent of the cases or
Speaker 3: kids who didn't get to choose.
Speaker 2: Yeah, doesn't it seem strange to you that that we
Speaker 2: would choose self arm in order to take a stand
Speaker 2: for individual choice. For instance, I believe in individual choice, too.
Speaker 2: In many cases, there is at no point do I
Speaker 2: say I'm going to tear out my fingernails just because
Speaker 2: the government doesn't want me to. Why do we say,
Speaker 2: let's make sure our kids get these diseases that have
Speaker 2: been otherwise eradicated for individual choice? Isn't this? I mean,
Speaker 2: this feels like it's a real cognitive dissonance going on
Speaker 2: within one's own mind. There has to be a psychological
Speaker 2: component to this.
Speaker 3: There is, and I think, you know, overall, just people
Speaker 3: are trying to deal with it. I know, and honestly,
Speaker 3: as you talk to each individual person as you do
Speaker 3: when you're a doctor, they you know, they really are
Speaker 3: trying to do the best. They're trying to make the
Speaker 3: best of their understanding of the world, and they're coming
Speaker 3: to this conclusion you're wishing there was a way. You know,
Speaker 3: how do I not sound like I'm sold out to
Speaker 3: pharmaceutical companies because I don't get a dime if you
Speaker 3: get vaccinated or not. You know, how do I sound
Speaker 3: like you know that I can be a legitimate source
Speaker 3: when you know, because I know when I started this
Speaker 3: in med school, there was we had Jenny McCarthy, who
Speaker 3: you know, went from being a we'll call her a
Speaker 3: reality star show to you know, on the view, to
Speaker 3: all of a sudden an authority on you know, vaccines
Speaker 3: and autism, and I realized, Wow, I don't have that level,
Speaker 3: you know, sitting at a patient's bedside, I don't have
Speaker 3: that level of influence. I really can't combat that. So,
Speaker 3: I mean, there's just people who choose they're they're easily
Speaker 3: kind of taken in by you know, almost call them
Speaker 3: medical myths, and they kind of if it aligns with
Speaker 3: their with their own thinking already, and we tend to
Speaker 3: believe things that align with our own thinking. And I
Speaker 3: think that's what's happening. Is you suspect the government, you
Speaker 3: find out that there's something about vaccines that they're not
Speaker 3: telling you, and then it aligns with your thinking. You say,
Speaker 3: no way, I'm not doing it.
Speaker 2: Where is the Where did this go wrong? I love
Speaker 2: what you said, Doctor Jim Kinney, the chief medical officer
Speaker 2: for Dignity Saint Mary Medical Center in Long Beach, as
Speaker 2: our medical News at, doctor Kinney continues, I love what
Speaker 2: you said about as you talk to individuals, you learned
Speaker 2: that they really are trying to do the best for
Speaker 2: themselves at some point. Their parents must not have taught
Speaker 2: them that the best thing they can do for themselves
Speaker 2: is listen to doctors. So is this a condition of
Speaker 2: Centerfolds having more influence than the doctor that we suddenly
Speaker 2: the girl who's in the magazine under my mattress, I
Speaker 2: believe her more than I believe the guy wearing the
Speaker 2: lab coat. And ten years of schooling and twenty years
Speaker 2: of experience, at some point we decided that the credibility
Speaker 2: of those doctors was not in our best interest. So
Speaker 2: how do we reconcile. I'm going to do what's best
Speaker 2: for myself, but I'm also going to ignore.
Speaker 3: The experts right now, You're absolutely right, but the you know,
Speaker 3: and I'm going to take I'm going to take responsibility
Speaker 3: for that. You know, doctors have kind of made their beds. Right.
Speaker 3: It used to be people that you could sit and
Speaker 3: talk to and have a relationship with and you really
Speaker 3: trusted and understood. And now it's these fifteen minutes appointment
Speaker 3: where you maybe get five minutes max of FaceTime, And
Speaker 3: how do you build a relationship? How do you build
Speaker 3: trust in that much time? You know, the American health
Speaker 3: systems somewhat broken, and doctors are not establishing that relationship
Speaker 3: or trust. And now that's that's really unfair to put
Speaker 3: across every doctor because I mean, my doctor sits there
Speaker 3: and talks to me, and I know he does that
Speaker 3: not just with me, but with his other patients. So
Speaker 3: there's people out there that actually do that. But overall,
Speaker 3: as a specialty, we are you know, we have not
Speaker 3: engendered the trust that we really need to. And you know,
Speaker 3: and now that we drop so in the past, if
Speaker 3: if you only had little pockets, right, and you have
Speaker 3: what we everybody knows now is herd immunity, right, it's
Speaker 3: that if if you don't find it in the herd,
Speaker 3: then the people that are that are sensitive to it
Speaker 3: won't be impacted. And that's what we've been seeing for years. Well,
Speaker 3: now we've dropped below that herd immunity and now those
Speaker 3: small pockets are no longer protected. They are going to
Speaker 3: be and really this if you have you know, this
Speaker 3: is what I'm concerned about, is people are worried about
Speaker 3: measles and they're coming to be concerned that they're going
Speaker 3: to get it. If you've been vaccinated, if you were
Speaker 3: born before nineteen fifty seven, you had measles you know
Speaker 3: you are You're fine. You know you're not probably not
Speaker 3: going to get If you really want to know, you
Speaker 3: can get a measles tighter that will prove whether you're
Speaker 3: immune or not. This is really going to be a
Speaker 3: disease of the unvaccinated. So if you're unvaccinated, you have
Speaker 3: concerns and if you're not. If you are vaccinated, you're
Speaker 3: going to be fine, all right.
Speaker 2: Doctor Jim Kiney, our chief medical officer, will continue more
Speaker 2: medical news with doctor Keeney, including something he said here
Speaker 2: just a moment ago about the health system and spending
Speaker 2: more time with patients. I want to know whose fault
Speaker 2: that is that we're not doing it. I love that
Speaker 2: he took accountability, but we'll find out. Is it all
Speaker 2: on him? Doctor Jim? I don't think you are the
Speaker 2: problem that And why is it that working mornings is hazardous? Hazardous?
Speaker 2: That is nice? Okay? If I AM six forty were
Speaker 2: live everywhere on the iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: App, you're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.
Speaker 2: Chris Meryl KFI AM six forty more stimulating talk and
Speaker 2: on demand anytime in the iHeartRadio App. Joining me is
Speaker 2: doctor Jim Kenny, chief medical officer for Dignity Saint Mary
Speaker 2: Medical Health Medical Center in Long Beach. It's Medical News
Speaker 2: with doctor Keeney and Doctor Keeney. You were talking in
Speaker 2: our last segment here about the health system and that
Speaker 2: it's really changed. You used to be able to sit
Speaker 2: down and have a conversation with doctors, and now doctors
Speaker 2: you've got fifteen minutes appointment fifteen minute appointments. You get
Speaker 2: about five minutes FaceTime with the doctors. Is this because
Speaker 2: we have a shortage of providers or is this a
Speaker 2: is this a health insurance thing? Is this about quotas
Speaker 2: and tracking results? What's what's the cause the root cause
Speaker 2: of that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's it's a great question. But the problem is
Speaker 3: there's no sound bite answer to this one. It is.
Speaker 3: It's a it's a breakdown across the board, right that
Speaker 3: we do have a significant shortage of physicians. So I
Speaker 3: mean you refer to somebody even in my area where
Speaker 3: you know we have plenty, we have a lot of physicians,
Speaker 3: but we're still a shortage of neurosurgeons and often neurology
Speaker 3: where it may take three months to get into CE one.
Speaker 3: You know, there's there's shortages of all types of specialties.
Speaker 3: So you know, there's definitely the shortage issue, and so
Speaker 3: doctors are trying to get in as many patients as
Speaker 3: they can. You're in a generation where doctors sell, you know,
Speaker 3: it's one of the few areas where balleories have gone
Speaker 3: down as medicine. That's why you see kind of this
Speaker 3: brain drain of you know, it used to be the
Speaker 3: smart kids went to medical school. Now it seems like
Speaker 3: the smart kids going to finance or computer science or AI. Right,
Speaker 3: So the incomes have gone down rather than going up
Speaker 3: over the years, and I think Dodgors have tried to
Speaker 3: mitigate that by working harder and seeing more patients. It
Speaker 3: plays into it in a lot of ways. I can
Speaker 3: maybe equalize out my income. I can also serve the
Speaker 3: population who's saying, look, we don't have enough doctors and
Speaker 3: I need to see more people. So, you know, and
Speaker 3: then we have all the managed care is you know,
Speaker 3: in term for an HMO for example, is managed care
Speaker 3: and you get a per member, per month fee. Right.
Speaker 3: So the geary is if I keep all my patients healthy,
Speaker 3: then they get to just keep that money. They don't
Speaker 3: have to spend a lot of money in medical fees,
Speaker 3: and so you're kind of at risk. But so what
Speaker 3: people do is they take on quite a few patients
Speaker 3: because you know, if you're going to get ten dollars
Speaker 3: per member per month and you need to make you know,
Speaker 3: you know, twenty thousand dollars a month, then you're going
Speaker 3: to take on two thousand patients and at the end
Speaker 3: of the month, you know, you may have had to
Speaker 3: see a good portion of those, maybe ten percent of those,
Speaker 3: or maybe they don't have to see any of them.
Speaker 3: But really people are getting you know, we have more
Speaker 3: interventions in healthcare now, there's more things to check, there's
Speaker 3: more things we can treat, and so it's really the
Speaker 3: visits are going up, and the population is aging. You
Speaker 3: know that people over sixty five see the doctor five
Speaker 3: times as much as someone under sixty five, so suddenly
Speaker 3: we need more visits as well. Just so many factors
Speaker 3: that we've pent a lost control. Doctors are now kind
Speaker 3: of hourly employees for the most part, and it's hard
Speaker 3: to really, you know, control your workflow in a lot
Speaker 3: of settings. Some settings you can, and they're choosing to
Speaker 3: work the extra hours of other settings. It's just hard
Speaker 3: to control it.
Speaker 2: I could I literally talk to this topic for two
Speaker 2: or three hours, but nobody would want to listen to it. So, uh,
Speaker 2: doctor Kinnie, let me move on real quick. I want
Speaker 2: to get to this. Working mornings sucks. I've done it before.
Speaker 2: They asked what I do it for, Bill, I said no.
Speaker 2: They said we will give you doctor pay for it.
Speaker 2: I said, that's great, I'll do it. Then they told
Speaker 2: me doctor pay was ten dollars, which I thought was crap. Right,
Speaker 2: I didn't realize until talking to you that I am
Speaker 2: getting doctor pay. So what's the I've got a sleep
Speaker 2: tracker on my on my Apple Watch, and it tells
Speaker 2: me I'm not getting enough sleep, especially this week, right
Speaker 2: right is there? I mean I thought I find that
Speaker 2: very useful because I'm somebody that subscribes to the whole
Speaker 2: I got to get eight hours and I try to
Speaker 2: go to bed with the with the the sun down
Speaker 2: and get up when the sun comes up and not
Speaker 2: set an alarm clock. Am I doing stuff wrong?
Speaker 3: Yeah? I mean so a lot packed in there. Right.
Speaker 3: Sleep trackers, they are asked to me sleep based on
Speaker 3: things like your pulse and your pulse oxygen level and movement.
Speaker 3: That's not what sleep labs do, and they never have.
Speaker 3: Sleep labs are approximating sleep by catching electrodes to your
Speaker 3: head and looking at actual brain waves. So your sleep
Speaker 3: tracker is telling you you're in rem sleep, but it
Speaker 3: actually has no idea because it's not packing your brain waves.
Speaker 3: And even when we talk about rem sleep and deep sleep,
Speaker 3: what estimating with the brain waves is the neurochemical process
Speaker 3: in the brain that we can't measure. So your three
Speaker 3: spaces moved from measuring the correct thing when you're just
Speaker 3: using a tracker. So there is ah, there's a condition
Speaker 3: now where people get so anxious over the fact that
Speaker 3: their sleep tracker is telling them they're not getting enough
Speaker 3: sleep that they actually have anxiety over it. They go
Speaker 3: to a sleep study and they realize, no, you're actually
Speaker 3: getting all the sleep you need, and they're just they
Speaker 3: don't accept it because they really are bought into these trackers.
Speaker 3: So they're interesting. They're good because what you can do
Speaker 3: is modify certain things, right like you know, eat a
Speaker 3: late meal and go to bed and see what that
Speaker 3: does to your sleep tracker. That that kind of change,
Speaker 3: you can tell you, well, I am getting better sleep
Speaker 3: or less, you know, not as good sleep. You can try,
Speaker 3: you know, drink having a nightcap before you go to bed.
Speaker 3: People think it helps them sleep, it actually hurts their
Speaker 3: sleep for the most part. Same thing with like marijuana gummies.
Speaker 3: People swear by those to sleep, but they disrupt your
Speaker 3: rem sleep and your deep sleep cycles. So you know,
Speaker 3: that's kind of what's going on with those sleep trackers.
Speaker 3: They're they're fun, but they also they have their downside
Speaker 3: as well, and there's even people then going to the
Speaker 3: doctor and getting mends that they don't need to help
Speaker 3: them with a sleep problem that they don't have. So
Speaker 3: you know, I think there is some danger there. But
Speaker 3: if you have a sleep problem and you want to
Speaker 3: see a sleep specialist, they can do a sleep study
Speaker 3: and a sleep lab connected to the electra and then
Speaker 3: you'll really know the right answer.
Speaker 2: Which is why I offset my nightcap with the gummy
Speaker 2: because I figured that I just mix them and everything
Speaker 2: works out. Doctor Jim Keiney, chief medical Officer for Dignity
Speaker 2: Saint Mary Medical Center, Long Beach. It's Meta News with
Speaker 2: doctor Kenney. Thank you so much for Carbon Daniel for us.
Speaker 2: Thanks bell appreciate it. Take a check on News KFI
Speaker 2: AM six forty. Chris Merril Live everywhere in the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 2: You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand Chris
Speaker 2: Merril KFI AM six forty more stimulating talk and on
Speaker 2: demand anytime in the iHeartRadio app. If you are on
Speaker 2: the socials, there's a chance, while you may not navigate
Speaker 2: the socials as well as your your teenager or young adult,
Speaker 2: you are better at not falling for shenanigans, which is
Speaker 2: what we're seeing. We're seeing a bunch of the kids
Speaker 2: these days that somehow are more savvy online than any
Speaker 2: prior generation and also equally dumber than any prior generation.
Speaker 2: This I pulled audio here, this from NBC in Washington
Speaker 2: that was talking about the phishing scams that the kids
Speaker 2: these days are falling for.
Speaker 4: The numbers are alarming, more than one hundred and one
Speaker 4: million dollars lost in online scams in twenty twenty one
Speaker 4: by people under twenty years old. The study was done
Speaker 4: by Social Catfish, a company dedicated to preventing online scams
Speaker 4: through reverse search technology.
Speaker 3: Essially are a people's search company.
Speaker 5: We help people verify people online and so you know,
Speaker 5: our focus is online safety.
Speaker 4: The uptick might be because fifty four percent of the
Speaker 4: households called don't monitor their kids' activities online.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, nobody likes spying on their kids. It is
Speaker 2: harder to be a parent now than it ever has
Speaker 2: in the past. It's harder to be a kid than
Speaker 2: it's ever been in the past. It's harder to be
Speaker 2: a parent. You hear stories from us fogies that we'll
Speaker 2: talk about how our parents would say, go outside and
Speaker 2: don't come back until it's dark, or don't come back
Speaker 2: until the street lights come on. And there were times
Speaker 2: that we would I recall playing basketball with friends, and
Speaker 2: I'm not talking about street games with anybody that was
Speaker 2: good at basketball, but it was just a group of
Speaker 2: guys somewhere between the ages of twelve and sixteen, and
Speaker 2: we'd be out there playing basketball until we literally couldn't
Speaker 2: see the basket any longer, and then everybody walked home
Speaker 2: and we'll see again tomorrow. That's what we did, right.
Speaker 2: Parents didn't have to spy on us now. Occasionally to
Speaker 2: have one of the kids, parents would drive by and
Speaker 2: just wave and go, hey, I'm just headed home. Just
Speaker 2: wanted to say hi. And you know, now, looking back
Speaker 2: at it as a parent, I can look back and go, Okay,
Speaker 2: they were just checking to make sure the kid was
Speaker 2: there and then everything's safe. Cool, it's great. But now
Speaker 2: you have to put keyloggers on your kid's computer. You
Speaker 2: have to put spywear on your own kid's computer to
Speaker 2: make sure that they're not falling victim. And the kids
Speaker 2: don't like it because they say, you're watching everything I'm doing.
Speaker 2: Of course, teenagers do that because they want their independence. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm watching what you're doing, because there's always some pervo
Speaker 2: out there asking for you to send nude pictures. Truth
Speaker 2: old days, there were still perbos, but you could identify
Speaker 2: them because they had really noisy vans with no windows. Nowadays,
Speaker 2: you can't see them.
Speaker 5: When they're randomly contacted by somebody, whether it be through
Speaker 5: social media, through email, or their phones. They don't have
Speaker 5: their spider sense up like you or I where we
Speaker 5: grew up in like that, don't talk to strangers.
Speaker 4: Generation leaving over confident tech savvy teens to be exposed
Speaker 4: to four common scams.
Speaker 2: Ooo, what would they be?
Speaker 4: The first is sex stortion. The FBI published this warning
Speaker 4: on sextortion plots against teenage boys. Often scammers will pose
Speaker 4: as a female, send new photos and asked for the
Speaker 4: same in.
Speaker 2: Return was thank Goodness TV out of the sound effects
Speaker 2: it's received.
Speaker 4: The victim is told if he does not send money,
Speaker 4: a photo will be sent to all of his friends
Speaker 4: and family and posted online.
Speaker 5: It's sad because last year there was a story of
Speaker 5: a Florida teen that actually committed suicidally. Oh and what
Speaker 5: he realizes with most sex soortion cases, though they're empty threats.
Speaker 4: Before chatting with a stranger online, perform a reverse image
Speaker 4: search to confirm the person is who they say they are,
Speaker 4: and if you received a threat, contact local law enforcement
Speaker 4: to report it.
Speaker 2: Now here's where the team is going to be better
Speaker 2: than you are at doing the reverse image search. Swear
Speaker 2: to god, it would take me ten minutes to figure
Speaker 2: out how to do that. I could figure it out,
Speaker 2: but I don't have the reverse image search website handy
Speaker 2: on my computer. It would take me a hot minute.
Speaker 4: Another scam is student loan forgiveness. Most of the time,
Speaker 4: the victim will get emails or texts asking for personal
Speaker 4: information like their social Security number and payment information. To
Speaker 4: avoid this, the Department of Education's official financial site studenta
Speaker 4: dot gov should be the only site you give personal
Speaker 4: information to.
Speaker 2: Although that site may go down here very shortly because of.
Speaker 4: Cuts, and there is no application fee to apply up. Next, Yeah,
Speaker 4: talent scout scam users on Instagram and tics.
Speaker 2: All right, we got it, talent scouts blah blah blah.
Speaker 4: What else to avoid? Just never click on any links,
Speaker 4: even if the link was sent from a friend.
Speaker 2: There you go. Don't click on links. You don't have
Speaker 2: any talent. Nobody wants to see you naked. And what
Speaker 2: was the other one? It was the other one we
Speaker 2: just said. So why do people fall for it? Because
Speaker 2: when you're a teenager, you're dumb. When you're a young adult,
Speaker 2: you're dumb. You've got more hormones than brains, and you've
Speaker 2: got what the kids call fomo. Now for many of you,
Speaker 2: you know what fomo means. But every time I say
Speaker 2: the phrase fomo, my wife has to ask what does
Speaker 2: that mean? And I just say, you just wouldn't understand.
Speaker 2: You're getting up there, and that's when I get to
Speaker 2: go sleep on the couch. But fomo is fear of
Speaker 2: missing out. So we have so many young people that
Speaker 2: have a fear of missing out that they're willing to
Speaker 2: send nuties of themselves to randos. They're willing to click
Speaker 2: on links that say we'll pay off your student loan
Speaker 2: town because I mean, what if there's a chance that
Speaker 2: it's real, And they'll click on all kinds of different
Speaker 2: links because I don't want to miss out on something. Oh,
Speaker 2: this talent agent spotted my Instagram and says I'm hot
Speaker 2: and could be a model. I better click on the
Speaker 2: link and give them my photos and send them money
Speaker 2: to represent me, because I mean, what if they are real? Well,
Speaker 2: jincidentally is not new. This happened when I was in college.
Speaker 2: The Internet was still very young as far as it's ubiquity.
Speaker 2: And when I was in college, we used to get
Speaker 2: those chain letter emails. Forward this to six people, you know,
Speaker 2: because Bill Gates is giving every one a thousand dollars
Speaker 2: that's on this chain. We got those constantly, constantly, and
Speaker 2: we always forwarded them because I mean, we're ninety nine
Speaker 2: point nine percent sure this is garbage, but just in case,
Speaker 2: maybe Bill Gates is trying to figure out who he
Speaker 2: can give money to. Okay, and we forward it same
Speaker 2: thing fear of missing out. Fomo, there it is, k
Speaker 2: if I am six forty, We're live everywhere on the
Speaker 2: iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 1: You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.
Speaker 2: Kay if I am six forty more stimulating talk Chris Merrill.
Speaker 2: If you are looking for good news about the economy,
Speaker 2: it is this. A fetanyl use may be dropping. We
Speaker 2: know this because the Border Patrol is now finding more
Speaker 2: poultry related products than they are fetanyl. Egg interceptions are
Speaker 2: up thirty six percent nationwide in the year starting in
Speaker 2: October compared to the previous year. A hotspot for egg
Speaker 2: smuggling is Texas. Cazars and Texas have gone up fifty
Speaker 2: four percent, according to the Customs of Border Protection in
Speaker 2: San Diego, They've more than doubled. According to the CBP,
Speaker 2: it's the price difference. So a lot, they say a
Speaker 2: price is like a third of what it is in
Speaker 2: the US if you are over the borders. So agents
Speaker 2: have foiled. Ninety would be egg smugglers trying to ferry
Speaker 2: the breakfast staples across the border in El Paso. And
Speaker 2: they say it's all because you can get eggs a
Speaker 2: lot cheaper in Mexico. So forget fentanyl. The new cartel
Speaker 2: chickens and they're coming. Egg prices are dropping. They're still
Speaker 2: way up, but they are slowly coming down. We like
Speaker 2: to hear that wholesale egg prices drifting lower. Bird flu
Speaker 2: issues may be easing. Even as President Trump claiming victory,
Speaker 2: his administration is acknowledging that the upcoming Easter holiday could
Speaker 2: cause prices to jump again. This from Axios the highly
Speaker 2: pathogenic avian influenza leading to tens of millions of chickens
Speaker 2: being culled, which means and that to trigger shortages and
Speaker 2: price spikes. I still have yet to see any reports
Speaker 2: on what they do with the with the chickens after
Speaker 2: they call them. Is there just like a mass chicken
Speaker 2: grave somewhere that we're unaware of because you can't use
Speaker 2: the chickens for things like nuggets, right, They've got bird flu,
Speaker 2: so you can't do that. So there's just I guess
Speaker 2: mass chicken graves out there somewhere. Many stores limiting how
Speaker 2: many eggs shoppers can buy. Some restaurants have added temporary
Speaker 2: egg search charges as well. They say egg prices should
Speaker 2: potentially start coming down. They dropped by a dollar twenty
Speaker 2: a dozen wholesale cord to the US Department of Agriculture,
Speaker 2: down to six eighty five a dozen Department, noting that
Speaker 2: flew out breaks slowed over the last couple of weeks.
Speaker 2: They've been localized have been able to try to get
Speaker 2: ahead of those. Price of Midwest Larget large eggs was
Speaker 2: five twenty three a dozen. It's down thirty nine percent
Speaker 2: from its peak a couple of weeks earlier. The price
Speaker 2: that consumers are actually paying is still up. However, from
Speaker 2: January to February, wholesale prices are dropping, retail prices are rising.
Speaker 2: So if we were to ask you, our egg price
Speaker 2: is getting cheaper as far as you know, no, And
Speaker 2: if you read the article, or if you're a whole saler,
Speaker 2: you might say, yeah, they're starting to come down. But
Speaker 2: if it's you buying things at the store, you head
Speaker 2: on into Ralphs and you look for eggs, they're not
Speaker 2: going to be any cheaper, which is leading some people
Speaker 2: to believe that there may be something larger at play. Indeed,
Speaker 2: is there a conspiracy of foot from Fox Business. It
Speaker 2: sounds like the Department of Justice is looking into that
Speaker 2: very claim.
Speaker 6: You know, farmers have been dealing with this bird flu
Speaker 6: since twenty twenty two, but recently prices have gotten out
Speaker 6: of control.
Speaker 2: Take a look back.
Speaker 6: In December, a dozen eggs, it's going to cost you
Speaker 6: around four dollars. Now it's closer to seven dollars. And
Speaker 6: in February, a dozen eggs cost around eight dollars.
Speaker 2: That's wholesale.
Speaker 6: This is why the Justice Department is opening an investigation.
Speaker 6: They're looking into if major producers are violating antitrust laws
Speaker 6: by sharing information about supply and pricing, conspiring to keep
Speaker 6: prices higher. But the American Egg Board says, this is
Speaker 6: a story of supply and demand. Farmers have been battling
Speaker 6: bird flu and losing.
Speaker 2: Okay, all right, good. We have not ever seen anything
Speaker 2: like this play out before. We've never had an American
Speaker 2: company take advantage of a news story or a prevailing sentiment.
Speaker 2: We've never had any oil companies, for instance, that have
Speaker 2: continued to tell us that this is a simple supplying
Speaker 2: demand issue while they rake in record profits. We've never
Speaker 2: seen that happen in any other aspect, especially during the
Speaker 2: pandemic and then the subsequent supply chain shortage that happened afterward.
Speaker 2: Companies don't use news in order to boost their bottom line,
Speaker 2: to hose you in order to line their own pockets.
Speaker 2: It doesn't happen. So when you hear this nonsense that
Speaker 2: says that these major egg producers are somehow gouging you,
Speaker 2: that's just a total lie. Believe their story. Instead that
Speaker 2: says it's a simple supply and demand issue. For instance,
Speaker 2: as I pointed out, wholesale prices are down a dollar
Speaker 2: twenty even though you're paying more. The difference, of course
Speaker 2: goes into the pockets of the egg producers. But that's
Speaker 2: pure coincidence and in no way, shape or form indicative
Speaker 2: of some sort of an underlying conspiracy that they're working
Speaker 2: against you in order to make a ton of money
Speaker 2: and profit off the news, all at your expense. That
Speaker 2: doesn't happen. It's simply supply and demand. And while demand
Speaker 2: remains the same and supply is up, and you would
Speaker 2: think prices would come down, and they're not. That's it's
Speaker 2: just a lot of market factors that you wouldn't understand.
Speaker 2: It's very it's very complicated. You wouldn't understand. It's just
Speaker 2: let me simplify supply and demand and all the other
Speaker 2: stuff with record profits and that that's just you wouldn't
Speaker 2: understand it. It's too complicated.
Speaker 7: Since January of twenty twenty five the start of this year,
Speaker 7: we've lost more than thirty million birds and counting. Last
Speaker 7: week was actually the first week we went afoot week
Speaker 7: without a new farm having an outbreak of the Avian flu.
Speaker 7: So those this impact has been devastating on our industry.
Speaker 7: It's been devastating on our farmers. And like I said,
Speaker 7: our farmers are in the fight of their lives.
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, especially the largest commercial farms. The small farmers
Speaker 2: are losing money. They're in the fight of their lives.
Speaker 2: The very large farms that are raking in record profit
Speaker 2: that must be an even bigger fight. That's just massive,
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 6: But the other people that are losing are the businesses
Speaker 6: and the consumers. We're here at rocos where every egg
Speaker 6: dish is now a dollar fifty more expensive because of
Speaker 6: the cost of eggs.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I just saw an ad out for I don't know,
Speaker 2: Dunnies or billage In or somebody. They've got some six
Speaker 2: or seven dollars deal and that included the big omelet too,
Speaker 2: and I thought, how are they doing that. They're not
Speaker 2: making any money on that. In fact, I was seeing
Speaker 2: that waffle house is always the butt of a lot
Speaker 2: of jokes, not a lot of waffle houses nearby. See
Speaker 2: waffle house is getting hit hard. However, if you are
Speaker 2: loving breakfast I Hop, I Hop is getting hammered by
Speaker 2: the egg prices. I Hop prices have increased by eighty
Speaker 2: two percent over the last five years. Texas Roadhouse up
Speaker 2: forty six percent, TGI Friday's up forty five percent. And
Speaker 2: this is all in large part because of the rising
Speaker 2: food costs, but especially when it comes to places like
Speaker 2: I Hop, it's eggs, comes out eggs. It's all eggs.
Speaker 2: It's anay issue. Who else is pulling back? Forget it?
Speaker 2: If you're like me, you stopped eating eggs a while
Speaker 2: ago because you said, I'm not going to pay those
Speaker 2: ridiculous prices for eggs. You'll just wait for the bird
Speaker 2: flu to be done, and in the meantime you'll find
Speaker 2: something else to eat for breakfast. Take a check on
Speaker 2: news KFI AM six forty Chris Merril live everywhere in
Speaker 2: the iHeartRadio KFI AM six on demand