Speaker 1: You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.
Speaker 2: It's May gray.
Speaker 3: It is May gray, and a little reminder of what
Speaker 3: it would be like if we lived up in the
Speaker 3: Pacific Northwest. When that sun comes out three hours a year,
Speaker 3: they rejoice. By the way, speaking of Andrew, it is
Speaker 3: I'm told your last day here. Yeah, at AM six.
Speaker 2: Forty, they rolled out the red carpet.
Speaker 4: iHeartRadio.
Speaker 3: How could you leave the nirvana of broadcast? It's an outrage.
Speaker 3: I know, I know what has happened. Where are you going?
Speaker 3: Can you say or would you prefer not to?
Speaker 2: You know, NDA's had to sign those no?
Speaker 4: Is that right? Yeah?
Speaker 2: I am exploring other opportunities. It's just I'm at a
Speaker 2: crossroad where it's time to just kind of step back
Speaker 2: and do it. This is now my fifth year of
Speaker 2: doing news here in La, ten years TV and radio
Speaker 2: in Southern California, and I just I want to explore
Speaker 2: some other opportunities in my career. It is radio, though,
Speaker 2: so I'm Southern California born and raised. I'm not going anywhere,
Speaker 2: so I'm sure I'm going to cross paths with KFI
Speaker 2: and iHeart again one day down the road.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I have no doubt. I mean, this is
Speaker 3: the way it goes. Maybe you'll come back. I remember
Speaker 3: when Joe Kwan left KFI, you know, Joe Kwan, Yeah,
Speaker 3: over and the Spectrum and stuff. We had a big
Speaker 3: kind of farewell and you know, the tears and the
Speaker 3: hugs and oh my gosh, it was exciting. She's going
Speaker 3: on to TV. She's gonna be reporter. I think it's
Speaker 3: Spectrum or k CAL. I forget exactly all the details.
Speaker 3: Maybe it was both. And then eight months later, I'm
Speaker 3: listening to KFI and there's Joe quant on the on
Speaker 3: the radio again, and it's because she, you know, dipped
Speaker 3: her toe back into the KFI water.
Speaker 4: And this is what happens.
Speaker 3: You know, the bat beam goes up as it did
Speaker 3: today for me, and you go, yeah, I'll come help out,
Speaker 3: and you know, in your case, do the news. My case, yeah,
Speaker 3: basically captain the ship as I am on short notice.
Speaker 4: It's a delight.
Speaker 3: And when it's in your blood as it is ours,
Speaker 3: I think it's probably true.
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, if anything, kay if I has
Speaker 2: been like a gift for me. I have grown and
Speaker 2: I have become a stronger person as far as you know,
Speaker 2: storytelling and journalism goes. I mean, I can't. I can't
Speaker 2: thank this place enough for everything that I've done here
Speaker 2: in the last five years. So I mean, you know,
Speaker 2: I'm nothing but fortunate and have gratitude for everything and
Speaker 2: everyone that I that I've met.
Speaker 3: Well, it's very cool that you're so gracious about this place.
Speaker 3: And it's just a weird coincidence that you and I
Speaker 3: would be on together on your last day.
Speaker 2: I know, I saw that, and I'm like, oh, I
Speaker 2: wonder if he requested that.
Speaker 4: It's all part of the exit package.
Speaker 3: All employees that leave iHeart will spend their last airshift
Speaker 3: with Mark Thompson.
Speaker 2: It's kind of it's kind of like a live in
Speaker 2: real time said interview.
Speaker 4: Thank you.
Speaker 3: We actually have a really cool configuration of people today
Speaker 3: because Robin, Matt, Nicky and you. Now Nicky is from
Speaker 3: Australia and New Zealand, I believe both, and she is
Speaker 3: riding shotgun with Matt, who's been at iHeart for a
Speaker 3: while and sort of knows all the producer ins and outs.
Speaker 3: But it's you know, when you see new blood and
Speaker 3: new people into this community of people who work at
Speaker 3: iHeartRadio and at KFI Radio.
Speaker 4: It's cool. It's a great dynamic.
Speaker 3: So we'll get to maybe know her a little bit
Speaker 3: later on, and of course we continue to focus on
Speaker 3: Andrew and his fine service to this company. So did
Speaker 3: you watch the Kentucky Derby. I don't mean to bring
Speaker 3: this in there. I'm about to say something very Unamerican,
Speaker 3: so I hope you'll are very un Kentucky derbysh But
Speaker 3: I don't know if anybody saw the Kentucky derbut watched
Speaker 3: Kentucky Deberty whatever it is. I'm not a huge Kentucky
Speaker 3: Derby fanel though, I thought one of the interesting things
Speaker 3: about the Kentucky Derby. You know, I worked with Conway
Speaker 3: on Tuesday nights, and he's the greatest, and he's you know,
Speaker 3: he's connected to horse racing in a way that is,
Speaker 3: it's like in his DNA. But what I thought was
Speaker 3: interesting is that the winner of the Kentucky Derby is
Speaker 3: a descendant of Secretariat, and most of the winners of
Speaker 3: the Kentucky Derby are descendants of Secretariat. Secretariat nineteen seventy
Speaker 3: three and fifty years later, the I guess what would
Speaker 3: you call that? The progeny, the you know, the lineage.
Speaker 3: It continues. But that's not the un American part the
Speaker 3: thing I'm going to say that it's on American. I'm sorry,
Speaker 3: but I did watch. The pageantry is a big part
Speaker 3: of the Kentucky Derby. The outfits and the women wear
Speaker 3: these hats and they're celebrated for wearing these hats. So
Speaker 3: all yesterday I'm watching and I'm seeing and again it's
Speaker 3: this long ramp up to the actual race, and you
Speaker 3: hear from all these handicappers and all these former winners
Speaker 3: and all these trainers, etc. But one of the huge
Speaker 3: things they focus on is the hat thing. That all
Speaker 3: of these women are wearing hats. And my Instagram feed
Speaker 3: is filled with all of these people who I know, performers, producers,
Speaker 3: people who are just fans of being on Instagram. They're
Speaker 3: all there at the Kentucky Derby and all the women
Speaker 3: are wearing these hats.
Speaker 2: You can ask you a silly question. I would never
Speaker 2: dare ask Conway, do you think it's kind of silly
Speaker 2: that it's like as big as a super Bowl for
Speaker 2: less than like a five minute race.
Speaker 3: No, I don't think that's silly. I think that the
Speaker 3: pageantry and the anticipation and the I guess just the
Speaker 3: overall ramp up to it is part of excitement, if
Speaker 3: you want to call it.
Speaker 2: It's not even like an all day thing, you know,
Speaker 2: like there's no like pre races or anything.
Speaker 3: It's no, it's not like the freaquess. But I'm really
Speaker 3: out of my depth talking about the you know, Conway
Speaker 3: should be here to talk about the horse racing part.
Speaker 4: I don't really know much about horse racings.
Speaker 2: Like halftime show, like there's none of that.
Speaker 3: No, But here's the way you have to look at it.
Speaker 3: I think they're looking at it maybe the wrong way.
Speaker 2: There's no playoffs, like, none of that.
Speaker 3: You're right about that, there's no disputing what you're saying.
Speaker 3: But you have to look at all the pageantry, the analysis,
Speaker 3: and the world that they build for you, the world
Speaker 3: of anticipation. You have to look at that as all
Speaker 3: the things that you just mentioned. You have to look
Speaker 3: at it as the playoffs. You have to look at
Speaker 3: it as the halftime show. It's all wrapped into the
Speaker 3: ramp up in the pregame show. I could say, boy,
Speaker 3: super Bowl, don't you think it's kind of silly? I mean,
Speaker 3: it only lasts two and a half three hours, and
Speaker 3: there is two weeks of stuff leading up to it.
Speaker 3: Don't you think you know what I mean, I can
Speaker 3: play that game with anything. I think, you know, Christmas,
Speaker 3: we lead up to it for two and a half
Speaker 3: months and then it's all over in, you know, one day.
Speaker 3: So it's not to me the length of time that
Speaker 3: the event takes. It's more sort of the significance that
Speaker 3: the event has wrapped itself in. And that's where you
Speaker 3: could say, you know, to me, it doesn't hit or
Speaker 3: it doesn't land or whatever. But what really doesn't hit
Speaker 3: and land in Kentucky Derby Land for me is the hats. Sorry,
Speaker 3: I think they look silly. I think they it's not
Speaker 3: a good look. Now, this is maybe modern person looking
Speaker 3: back at a wonderful tradition. And I'm not saying the
Speaker 3: tradition shouldn't still exist. I'm just saying it doesn't land.
Speaker 3: For I don't go, wow, look at all those glorious hats.
Speaker 3: I think, boy, these are really some of them lovely people,
Speaker 3: most of them all lovely people, and they have these
Speaker 3: hats that are pinned onto the side of their head
Speaker 3: and stuff. It's weird. It just doesn't work yet clearly
Speaker 3: that's all part of the pageantry. It's not going anywhere.
Speaker 3: So in a way, this is a confession. I feel
Speaker 3: guilty as an American for somehow rejecting this part of
Speaker 3: the pageantry that I guess is Americana. But it just
Speaker 3: show me one of these people with a hat, yellow, purple,
Speaker 3: they're all pinned to the side, big small. I love hats,
Speaker 3: but I don't love the derby hats.
Speaker 2: Like what if you're ending, like like, who were it better?
Speaker 2: What if you're matching somebody? Like does that ruin it
Speaker 2: for you?
Speaker 4: Yeah? Well that's I mean, that's a total faux pas.
Speaker 4: That's a fashion faux pas.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Anyway, Well we've all come down to earth. And who
Speaker 3: won again? Which horse Stow won?
Speaker 4: Was it? Anybody? They beat?
Speaker 2: Journalism?
Speaker 4: Journalism law? I think finished third? Right?
Speaker 3: And oh my god, isn't that crazy just happened yesterday. Sovereignty,
Speaker 3: Thank you very much, sovereignty. Sovereignty the big winner.
Speaker 2: Thank god. Matthew's here. Gosh, he's terrific not checking everything.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he's probably bumming out that I haven't gotten any
Speaker 3: of the Trump sat down with Kristen Welker from Meet
Speaker 3: the Press, Matthew's bumming that I haven't even mentioned it yet,
Speaker 3: but I just mentioned it and.
Speaker 4: We will get into it with audio.
Speaker 3: Next it's KFI AM six forty Mark Thompson here on
Speaker 3: Sunday afternoon. Glad you could hang out with us Andrew's
Speaker 3: last day and we will. We have two guests coming
Speaker 3: up actually bottom of the hour, a doctor who will
Speaker 3: talk about some of the things that happened, things that
Speaker 3: are happening in California to pick up the slack because
Speaker 3: the lack of funding at the federal level for our
Speaker 3: medical research. Will talk about that and more with him.
Speaker 3: And then my mentee stops by and she has a
Speaker 3: new podcast that is fascinating. I think you'll be into
Speaker 3: that too. So a lot to do.
Speaker 1: You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.
Speaker 3: Follow up to what we were talking about at the Derby.
Speaker 3: Apparently one of the things that was an issue, and
Speaker 3: this is sort of old school meeting new school, like
Speaker 3: the classic history of Southern attendees of the Kentucky Derby
Speaker 3: meeting the influence driven world of contemporary America. Apparently everybody's
Speaker 3: complaining from the old school about various influencers who showed
Speaker 3: up and didn't kind of play by the fashion rules
Speaker 3: of Kentucky Derby and the only reason this is really
Speaker 3: sun is turned into a bit of a standoff. And
Speaker 3: there is an influencer named Gabriella Mora who's on TikTok.
Speaker 3: She's pretty big, and apparently she was wearing inappropriate and
Speaker 3: revealing attire to this prestigious event of the Kentucky Derby.
Speaker 3: That is them of many who both attend and worship
Speaker 3: the Kentucky Derby and the traditions she apparently has. She
Speaker 3: has large breasts and they are much on display. I
Speaker 3: haven't seen pictures of it, but these are the complaints.
Speaker 3: She wore a dress that kind of showcase them, is
Speaker 3: what we're hearing, and that's what been the complaint she said.
Speaker 3: And others have defended her saying, hey, look do they
Speaker 3: have a dress code there? I mean, this is her
Speaker 3: first time going, she doesn't know. Others say, wow, it's
Speaker 3: a way to cheapify the Derby. The Kentucky Derby shouldn't
Speaker 3: be an influencer event. And she's saying, you're boob shaming.
Speaker 3: Nobody in their right mind is going to stand for that.
Speaker 3: You can criticize this all you want, She said, quote,
Speaker 3: I'm getting ready for Kentucky Derby day too, And I
Speaker 3: saw a couple of comments on my last video. I
Speaker 3: don't know if you're going to misunderstand what I'm saying
Speaker 3: in this video, but big boo girls are going to
Speaker 3: understand what I'm saying. And she's saying, there's no way
Speaker 3: to hide it, like honestly she said somebody else said,
Speaker 3: and more importantly, why would you want to hide them? Well,
Speaker 3: there are ways to dress tastefully, and there are ways
Speaker 3: to dress provocatively, and apparently at the Kentucky Derby they
Speaker 3: want you to lean toward tastefully. Look, it's old school South,
Speaker 3: but the influencer world is getting into everything, even at Coachella.
Speaker 3: Did you see what they were writing about Coachella. This
Speaker 3: is an outrage that has kicked up around Coachella because
Speaker 3: they say that influencers have room in that event. There
Speaker 3: is a sense of unattainable luxury that has swept over
Speaker 3: the festival's reputation, with well known creators Charlie Tomalio attending
Speaker 3: the event, posting a photo with a lace top that
Speaker 3: appeared to be from Chloe and is priced at sixteen
Speaker 3: hundred and ninety dollars, while Kylie Jenner roamed the crowd
Speaker 3: with her actor boyfriend Timothy Challome during Charlie XCX's performance.
Speaker 3: Kendall Jenner hosted a tent at the Coachella Festival promoting
Speaker 3: her eight P one eight tequila brand. She was at
Speaker 3: the festival in a butter dress next to her fellow
Speaker 3: celebrity bestie, as they say here, Hayley Bieber. So the
Speaker 3: overwhelming presence of these well known trendsetters and influencers has
Speaker 3: made the festival appear not to be about the music
Speaker 3: as much as it is about a fashion parade and
Speaker 3: about influencer market And the demand for Coachella this year
Speaker 3: was so great the first weekend general admission tickets for
Speaker 3: Coachella were going around six hundred and fifty bucks apiece.
Speaker 3: Second weekend kicked off at six hundred dollars apiece, and
Speaker 3: then you have to pay one hundred dollars for access
Speaker 3: to the shuttle. The IP prices started about fourteen hundred dollars,
Speaker 3: and the prices only included an entry, so you have
Speaker 3: to get to food, lodging, travel. So Coachella has become
Speaker 3: something else that has the complaint is gotten out of
Speaker 3: the reach of a lot of people who are just
Speaker 3: there for the music. Like the grassroots aspects of Coachella
Speaker 3: have been lost, so the Kentucky Derby people would say, yeah,
Speaker 3: and the grassroots parts of this storied Southern event have
Speaker 3: been spoiled by all of you influencers with your dresses
Speaker 3: that are all too exposing of the human form. And
Speaker 3: Anna Nicole Smith's daughter stepped out of the Kentucky Derby
Speaker 3: with her father, Larry Birkhead and with her controversy about
Speaker 3: she wore her mom's black halter gown. This is the daughter,
Speaker 3: the eighteen year old daughter of Anna Nicole Smith. She's
Speaker 3: all grown up.
Speaker 2: I thought that was a nice tribute wearing it. It's
Speaker 2: an appropriate looking dress.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and she says, quote, this is the closest I'll
Speaker 3: ever be getting to a hug from her.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, that's so sad. I want to cry.
Speaker 3: It is sort of sin. She turned to eighteen late
Speaker 3: last year, and what an interesting world she steps into,
Speaker 3: I mean, with the legacy of her mother, etc. But
Speaker 3: she was there at the Kentucky Derby as well. Donald
Speaker 3: Trump spoke to Kristin Welker about the economy. It was
Speaker 3: a pretty far reaching sit down interview, and it's good economy,
Speaker 3: bad economy with Donald Trump.
Speaker 4: Here's a little bit and I really mean this.
Speaker 5: I think the good parts of the Trump economy and
Speaker 5: the bad parts of the Biden economy because he's.
Speaker 4: Done a terrible job.
Speaker 5: He did a terrible job and everything.
Speaker 3: I actually love that take. If you feel the economy
Speaker 3: works in some places, that's my stuff. Yeah, the stuff
Speaker 3: that's not working for you, that's his stuff. There is
Speaker 3: nothing that Trump did better, which is why he was
Speaker 3: such a great campaigner, than trolling the competition, and indeed
Speaker 3: he did that. In the interview he talked about he
Speaker 3: took almost most questions to somehow dumping on Biden and
Speaker 3: the Democrats. Here was a piece of sort of that world.
Speaker 3: Looking at the Democratic Party and.
Speaker 5: You know what, I can't name I can't name one Democrat.
Speaker 5: I mean, I look at the Democrats. They're in total
Speaker 5: this array. They have a new person named Crockett. I
Speaker 5: watched her speak the other day. He's definitely a low
Speaker 5: IQ person and they said she's the future of the party.
Speaker 4: I said, you have to be kidding.
Speaker 5: I don't know what they're going to do. And I
Speaker 5: really believe in the two party system because it's good
Speaker 5: to be challenged. It's really good to have a two
Speaker 5: party you know, it's good being challenge is okay, it
Speaker 5: keeps you sharp. I don't know what they're going to do.
Speaker 5: They have nobody. Bernie's eighty seven years old or something.
Speaker 5: And you know, Biden is the worst thing that ever
Speaker 5: happened to old people.
Speaker 4: You know, I have to say this.
Speaker 3: He's never as comfortable as he is bagging on Biden.
Speaker 3: I mean that is just for him. All roads lead
Speaker 3: to smearing Biden.
Speaker 5: And you know, Biden is the worst thing that ever
Speaker 5: happened to old people because he was grossly incompetent. And
Speaker 5: I think maybe for artificial reasons, you know, at Operation something,
Speaker 5: so maybe that's an artificial But I know people that
Speaker 5: are unbelievably sharp and they're older than eighty seven. But
Speaker 5: I watched Bernie Sanders. He's a nuts job, but he's
Speaker 5: still sharp.
Speaker 4: He's sharp. He's the same guy who was.
Speaker 5: He hasn't gone down. But Biden is really he's the
Speaker 5: worst thing to happen to old people.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, look, I will say this.
Speaker 3: I know many an old person who is older than
Speaker 3: eighty seven or eighty five or whatever.
Speaker 4: My mom's ninety five. She's sharp.
Speaker 3: He's attending two university classes right now, and so it
Speaker 3: does happen. There are plenty of very sharp people. Again,
Speaker 3: taking this entire conversation as he was having toward dumping
Speaker 3: on Biden is something that he has sort of made
Speaker 3: a reflexive move of his. It is something of a
Speaker 3: distraction from the conversations around things that are contemporary policy,
Speaker 3: you know, deportations, tariffs, et cetera. Now he did get
Speaker 3: into some of that, but again he really ascribes the
Speaker 3: negatives in the economy and any of the nation's ills
Speaker 3: right now to Biden and his view is and that
Speaker 3: was sort of, you know, the additional piling on with
Speaker 3: how bad Biden was and how the Democrats are in trouble,
Speaker 3: and you know, Biden was just out of it. And
Speaker 3: there may be truth to the fact that Biden was
Speaker 3: out of it, and there may be truth to the
Speaker 3: fact that he inherited an economy, but there's definitely a
Speaker 3: lot that he has to account for because of the
Speaker 3: herky jerky nature of economic policy right now. The tariff policy,
Speaker 3: which is a bit unclear the adversarial footing that we're
Speaker 3: on with China and what is the future of that.
Speaker 3: He did remark on some of that, so we'll get
Speaker 3: to those clips from that interview a little bit later on. Next,
Speaker 3: we talk to a doctor about the fact that federal
Speaker 3: funding is leaving California when it comes to medical research.
Speaker 3: In fact, federal funding is leaving the United States when
Speaker 3: it comes to medical research. NIH CDC all being sapped
Speaker 3: of funding across the board. It's not just the vaccines
Speaker 3: with RFK junior, it's cancer research, it's Alzheimer's research, et cetera.
Speaker 3: So might the future of some of that research be
Speaker 3: California funding that research here in the Golden State.
Speaker 4: We'll talk to a doctor about that. Next.
Speaker 1: You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.
Speaker 3: Huge cuts at the federal level when it comes to
Speaker 3: medical research. The National Institutes of Health and Science cut dramatically.
Speaker 3: And it's a weird thing because we do a lot
Speaker 3: of that research, the federally funded research here in California.
Speaker 3: When we say when I say we, I don't mean myself,
Speaker 3: of course you'll be relieved to know, but very smart
Speaker 3: researchers exist with super Big Brain program here in California
Speaker 3: doing critical medical research to talk to us about the
Speaker 3: fact that we might be able to fund our own
Speaker 3: NIHE here in California, to essentially replace a lot of
Speaker 3: the federal funding that would have come to California. Is
Speaker 3: doctor Michael Daniel. Hello there, sir David. I say, Michael David,
Speaker 3: how are you, sir?
Speaker 4: Good?
Speaker 6: How's it going.
Speaker 3: I'm well, nice to have you on board. You've seen
Speaker 3: doctor Daniel on Fox eleven. He's a regular on my podcast,
Speaker 3: The Mark Thompson Show, and so cool to have you
Speaker 3: here to talk about this. So, first of all, we
Speaker 3: do a lot of medical research here in California, do
Speaker 3: we know, as.
Speaker 6: You mentioned, Yeah, yeah, and those are the major institutions there, UCSF, Berkeley,
Speaker 6: u CLA, you see, San Diego, Stanford, And if you
Speaker 6: look at the cuts from the Trump administration in DOGE,
Speaker 6: it was about a forty percent reduction to NIH, which
Speaker 6: is about eighteen billion dollars less, and a lot of
Speaker 6: that funding from NAH just then gets parsed out to
Speaker 6: the universities, as you mentioned, particularly in California. So right
Speaker 6: now they're looking at about one hundred research grants totally
Speaker 6: approximately three hundred and two, three undred and twelve million
Speaker 6: that have been canceled, and that's disrupting ongoing research studies,
Speaker 6: leading to a lot of hiring freezes and potential layoffs.
Speaker 6: And so what State Senator Scott Weener had come up
Speaker 6: with was, as you mentioned, a California NIH and he
Speaker 6: wants to call it the California Institute for Scientific Research.
Speaker 6: And basically, it would be a state level agency that
Speaker 6: provides these grants or re implements the grants to fund
Speaker 6: these research studies that have been disrupted. And you know,
Speaker 6: as you mentioned, a lot of the science and the
Speaker 6: research and the medical research comes out of California from
Speaker 6: our university. So this would, you know, sort of prevent
Speaker 6: that disruption. And I think it's a great initiative, and
Speaker 6: it's scheduled for a legislative hearing tomorrow actually, so we'll
Speaker 6: have to really pay close attention to what happens.
Speaker 3: And when we look at you know, it's funny we're
Speaker 3: we're talking to doctor Michael Daniel about the fact that
Speaker 3: maybe funding within the state of California could replace a
Speaker 3: lot of these research grants that were coming from the
Speaker 3: federal government. And one of the things that's interesting to
Speaker 3: me anyway, is that a lot of this research grant
Speaker 3: money comes back in a multiplier to the state. Like
Speaker 3: it's not just outlay for medical research. There's actually huge
Speaker 3: revenue generated from these original outlays of research money.
Speaker 6: Yeah, and you look at you know, nationwide, California accounts
Speaker 6: for I think forty seven percent of US biotech research
Speaker 6: R and P and generates fifty three percent of the
Speaker 6: nation's biotech revenue. So you know, it's not, as you mentioned,
Speaker 6: just a a fund and see you later. I mean,
Speaker 6: a lot of this will come back to us. And
Speaker 6: then you know it's not even just the funding coming back.
Speaker 6: You look at the dividends that get paid as far
Speaker 6: as public health.
Speaker 4: Oh s and the other.
Speaker 6: Yeah. The other interesting thing that's part of this bill
Speaker 6: is that Senator Wnor wants to authorize cal RX to
Speaker 6: develop partnerships and contracts to maintain our supply and distribution
Speaker 6: of vaccines, which you know, as you and I have
Speaker 6: discussed multiple times on your podcast, is you know those
Speaker 6: vaccines are a threat now too from you know RK
Speaker 6: Junior at HHS and everything. And so the bill is
Speaker 6: actually you know this bill tomorrow it's too pronged. It's
Speaker 6: to develop that California NIH and also to protect our
Speaker 6: state's vaccine supply.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's interesting. I'm so glad you mentioned I was
Speaker 3: talking about the return on investment essentially. You know, when
Speaker 3: there's five point one billion that is awarded to California
Speaker 3: universities just last year and thirteen point eight billion dollars
Speaker 3: worth of jobs and services and scientific discovery, are it
Speaker 3: come back?
Speaker 4: So that's huge ROI.
Speaker 3: But you're right to also point out the fact that
Speaker 3: it's not just money, it's real medical research. They're gonna
Speaker 3: be breakthroughs and Alzheimer's in cancer and you know, these
Speaker 3: are very important studies. And what's happened as they've yanked
Speaker 3: the funding these studies just stop right in mid study
Speaker 3: or is there some kind of de escalation of research
Speaker 3: or you know, slow uh wrapping up of research. And
Speaker 3: I hate to think that a lot of these programs
Speaker 3: are they have timelines that are two, three, even five years.
Speaker 6: Yes, you're you know, you hit the nail right on
Speaker 6: the head. And a lot of these projects are going
Speaker 6: to be these research studies are going to be in
Speaker 6: various stages and you know a lot of them the
Speaker 6: well done randomized control trials include a placebo arm of
Speaker 6: the study, and then the arm of the study that
Speaker 6: involves the new intervention, whether that's a new drug for cancer,
Speaker 6: a treatment for Alzheimer's, a new vaccine. And so you
Speaker 6: stop that mid study and you know you're going to
Speaker 6: lose so much data, You're going to lose so many
Speaker 6: potential new innovations that will eventually benefit a large number
Speaker 6: of us in the future. And I really think this
Speaker 6: would be a great way for the state, with you know,
Speaker 6: the fourth largest economy in the world, to send a
Speaker 6: message to Washington that you know, we're not going to
Speaker 6: stand for this roadblocking of science and public health and
Speaker 6: medicine that needs to continue.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's just everything from the safety of drugs
Speaker 3: you know that comes out of the FDA, and all
Speaker 3: of this is out of HHS and biomedicine, as you say,
Speaker 3: and with sort of critical research and aging population, there
Speaker 3: are a bunch of baby boomers are desperate for some
Speaker 3: kind of treatment for everything from cancer to Alzheimer's. It
Speaker 3: appears that you know, a lot of this research is
Speaker 3: so very critical, Doctor Daniel, Can you just over the break.
Speaker 3: I've just also a question about the emergence of bird
Speaker 3: flu et cetera. And so I want to talk to you.
Speaker 3: We'll just wrap up with doctor Daniel in a minute.
Speaker 3: You can find him on Fox eleven. He regularly makes
Speaker 3: appearances there and he also is a regular on my podcast,
Speaker 3: The Mark Thompson Show, which is on the YouTube and
Speaker 3: across the podcast universe, including iHeartRadio. So more with doctor
Speaker 3: Daniel as we continue.
Speaker 1: You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.
Speaker 3: Mark Thompson here, and we're talking to doctor Michael Daniel
Speaker 3: about We began the conversation with essentially a conversation about
Speaker 3: filling in the gaps that are being left by federal
Speaker 3: research money leaving the American medical system. Meaning all of
Speaker 3: the federal research that is funded here in California at UCLA,
Speaker 3: at US at major universities and beyond that is stopping
Speaker 3: a lot of it because of I'd say the lion's
Speaker 3: share of it, because of the plug being pulled from Washington.
Speaker 3: So might there be a possibility to self fund essentially
Speaker 3: and make up that gap, kind of start our own
Speaker 3: NIH here in California. And doctor Daniel was saying, yeah,
Speaker 3: that's very much possible, and so off of that, I
Speaker 3: wonder doctor if you could talk about those things that
Speaker 3: are being researched in so many ways in California. I
Speaker 3: know there's a lot of research being done even on
Speaker 3: the spread of bird flu. I mean, you know there's
Speaker 3: sort of contemporary disease control research monitoring going on.
Speaker 4: Can you speak to some of that.
Speaker 6: Yeah, as we talked multiple times on your podcast, I mean,
Speaker 6: bird flu is definitely one of those things that just
Speaker 6: keeps me awake at and I just feel, especially with
Speaker 6: the new administration trying to downplay you know, COVID, other
Speaker 6: infectious disease, reduce funding to infectious disease. They canceled a
Speaker 6: lot of workshops that were planned around bird flu. They
Speaker 6: canceled a simulation project to train multiple labs across the
Speaker 6: country for how to identify it. So, you know, I
Speaker 6: think right now we're really flying blind, and by that,
Speaker 6: I just don't think we have a good handle and
Speaker 6: probably don't really have an accurate assessment of how many
Speaker 6: cases there are. You know, we know that there's been
Speaker 6: a significant impact in dairy cows and poultry and wild birds,
Speaker 6: and you know, there's only been about seventy confirmed human
Speaker 6: cases of H five and one, which is the bird flu,
Speaker 6: and most of those were related to infected dairy cows
Speaker 6: and infected poultry, and for the most part, most of
Speaker 6: the cases have been mild. There was only one death
Speaker 6: of a worker in Louisiana. So, but you know, looking
Speaker 6: right now at the number is I just don't feel
Speaker 6: like what's available is to us publicly from CDC is
Speaker 6: an accurate number. And as I mentioned to you multiple times,
Speaker 6: with any kind of virus, I just worry that the
Speaker 6: more unrestrained replication that we allow, whether it's in the
Speaker 6: dairy cows, in the poultry, the virus will find a
Speaker 6: way to ultimately be able to spread from human to human,
Speaker 6: and once that happens, we're in big trouble.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I guess I'm listening to you and trying to
Speaker 3: be encouraged by some of what you've said.
Speaker 4: Maybe the low numbers encourage me.
Speaker 3: I mean, obviously I'm discouraged by the fact that there
Speaker 3: are no numbers that are really reliable based on what
Speaker 3: you're saying that they're essentially looking the other way on
Speaker 3: bird flu. But is there at the end of the
Speaker 3: bird flu mutation that might actually jump into a human
Speaker 3: population how severe is it? I mean, how big a
Speaker 3: is there a threat of a lot of fatalities or
Speaker 3: the threat of does it diminish you? And what are
Speaker 3: the effects of bird flu? I guess you would ask, Yeah.
Speaker 6: I mean right now, as I mentioned, if you're a
Speaker 6: poultry a farm worker and you get infected with bird flu,
Speaker 6: the symptoms are mild and there's only been one, you know,
Speaker 6: fatality for somebody with severe illness. But in that one
Speaker 6: patient in Louisiana, we learned a lot. This patient had
Speaker 6: severe disease and looking at the actual genome structure of
Speaker 6: the virus of the bird flu strain that this patient had,
Speaker 6: the virus was already exhibiting the ability to infect the
Speaker 6: upper airway of humans. And that kind of thing makes
Speaker 6: me nervous because that is how viruses spread very easily.
Speaker 6: It's from an upper airway infection. And you know, as
Speaker 6: we saw with COVID, the original strain was very good
Speaker 6: at getting into the lungs and causing severe disease, pneumonia,
Speaker 6: low oxygen rates, high ICU utilization. But fortunately through the
Speaker 6: course of the COVID pandemic, the virus lost that ability
Speaker 6: to get into the lungs. And preferred a more upper
Speaker 6: airway infect ability to and that's why we saw, you know,
Speaker 6: higher numbers of people getting infected, but less severe disease,
Speaker 6: less hospitalization, less death as we went through the pandemic. Fortunately,
Speaker 6: but I think with bird flu, we just we just
Speaker 6: don't know what's going to happen. And in previous cases
Speaker 6: of bird flu around the world, the fatality rate has
Speaker 6: been pretty high. It's been around forty fifty. So that's
Speaker 6: another Yeah, that's another thing that makes me nervous. And
Speaker 6: so we just need to, uh, we need to pay
Speaker 6: better attention. And you know, we can't really count in
Speaker 6: the federal government, and that's one of the reasons why,
Speaker 6: you know, at my er little company, Mary and Torrents,
Speaker 6: we created our own protocol for just screening for bird flu,
Speaker 6: you know, adults that come into the ear with flu
Speaker 6: like illness. We asked one simple question, and what kind
Speaker 6: of work do you do. Do you work on a
Speaker 6: poultry farm? Do you work with livestock? Because that would
Speaker 6: trigger for us additional testing. And so I think that's
Speaker 6: what hospitals and ers you know, need to do around
Speaker 6: the country. They need to do their own upfront surveillance
Speaker 6: and that's usually to be in the er.
Speaker 3: Our last minute with doctor Michael Daniel, who is an
Speaker 3: er doctor, I want to ask, what is the most
Speaker 3: common thing that you see every day in the er?
Speaker 3: What's the general common malady or accident or other thing
Speaker 3: that comes into the er when you're there under your watch.
Speaker 6: That's a great question, you know, in my own experience,
Speaker 6: and this is supported by research, the most common reason
Speaker 6: that people go to the er is abdominal pain. By
Speaker 6: far across the country, that's the one, and that can
Speaker 6: be a variety of things. I mean that could be appendicitis,
Speaker 6: could be a stone in your gallbladder, a kidney stone,
Speaker 6: but you know, oftentimes abdominal pain. People that are having
Speaker 6: heart attacks can present with atypical pain and it can
Speaker 6: sometimes be a dominal pain. So we usually cast a
Speaker 6: very wide net when we're working up those patients.
Speaker 3: How many times on what percentage of those abdominal pain
Speaker 3: patients who come to you in the er have something
Speaker 3: that's actually legitimately serious?
Speaker 6: Oh, very I see a very small number. The vast
Speaker 6: majority are sent home.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 6: No, The interesting thing is the vast majority are sent
Speaker 6: home without a diagnosis. Yeah, you know, and that's The
Speaker 6: thing that frustrates patients is they come to the er
Speaker 6: looking for answers. But as I always tell my patients,
Speaker 6: in the emergency room, we're trained to rule out the
Speaker 6: worst case scenario, sure, the worst possible thing that could
Speaker 6: be contributing to your Donald Paine, such that when we
Speaker 6: send you home, we're confident that you're going to be fine.
Speaker 3: My dad wouldn't take us to the emergency room as
Speaker 3: kids under any circumstances. I remember breaking my ankle once
Speaker 3: and my dad would not take me, and I knew
Speaker 3: the ankle was broken. It was crazy. It was just
Speaker 3: like it was a different even like he was like
Speaker 3: a fifties, sixties kind of dad, where you just like
Speaker 3: tough it out, you know what I mean. But finally,
Speaker 3: I remember we did have to go to the hospital
Speaker 3: and they had to give me a cast and everything
Speaker 3: on that in that particular instance. But I know that
Speaker 3: now I feel like people go to urgent care in
Speaker 3: the er a little more frequently than they might have
Speaker 3: in the past, you know, yeah.
Speaker 6: Just because of ease of access, especially to urgent care.
Speaker 4: Exactly easy of access.
Speaker 3: Michael Daniel, The Great Doctor can be found on Fox eleven.
Speaker 3: You can also be found on my podcast and Mark
Speaker 3: Thompson Show. But also you are a real er doctor,
Speaker 3: and I don't know if you know you may run
Speaker 3: into him in the where what is your er that you.
Speaker 4: Work out of?
Speaker 6: I work at Providence Little Company and Mary down in Torrance.
Speaker 3: Love it, Love it the best place to get sick
Speaker 3: if you can see doctor Michael Daniel. My god, I
Speaker 3: hope I get sick and Torrance if I need to.
Speaker 3: So appreciate your input. All kidding aside, Thank you for
Speaker 3: bringing some light to this emerging issue with the medical
Speaker 3: funding and research funding that may happen in California and
Speaker 3: talking to us about bird fluid. Thanks a lot, Doctor Daniel,
Speaker 3: pleasure all right, talk soon. He's terrific and really just
Speaker 3: a window on so very much. When we come back,
Speaker 3: I have more of the interview that Donald Trump did
Speaker 3: with Kristin Welker from Meet the Press. Talked about the border,
Speaker 3: deportations and the Constitution. We'll get to all of that
Speaker 3: in the next hour. And my mentee stops in. She
Speaker 3: has a new podcast. It's fascinating. It's very related to
Speaker 3: her world as a foster child. We'll hear more about
Speaker 3: that in the next hour as well
Speaker 1: KFI AM six forty on demand