Speaker 1: Good morning, everyone. I'm Susan Dimas, the executive editor here
Speaker 1: at Lincoln Square.
Speaker 2: And I'm Sam Osterhout, the executive producer here at Lincoln Square.
Speaker 1: And welcome to the weekly assignment where Sam and I
Speaker 1: talk with you about what's coming up this week on
Speaker 1: Lincoln Square, the latest headlines, and what we can all
Speaker 1: do to fight back against authoritarianism. Today, we have Dr.
Speaker 1: Rob Davidson joining us again.
Speaker 2: Dr.
Speaker 1: Rob is Executive Director of the Committee to Protect Healthcare.
Speaker 1: He's an ER physician in West Michigan, and he is
Speaker 1: the co-host of the Paging America podcast, and you can
Speaker 1: find him on Substack. Dr. Davidson, thank you so much
Speaker 1: for being here.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's great to be here with both of you.
Speaker 3: I've talked to each of you individually, but I feel
Speaker 3: privileged to be on with both of you.
Speaker 2: Thanks.
Speaker 1: Oh, thank you. Well, I think we should probably start
Speaker 1: with this latest measles outbreak because we are a little
Speaker 1: bit south of 3,000 measles cases, which is the highest
Speaker 1: we've seen in this country since 1991. We've already blown
Speaker 1: past the number of cases we had last year. And
Speaker 1: this year, we have at least one measles death in Pennsylvania,
Speaker 1: another that could be related. And I know you are
Speaker 1: in the ER almost every day. You're kind of the
Speaker 1: first line of defense. What are you seeing out there
Speaker 1: in terms of where we're at with measles and other
Speaker 1: infectious diseases?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I don't currently work in states where there are
Speaker 4: massive outbreaks happening, you know, thankfully. I'm not in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania,
Speaker 4: where that kind of the focus has been the last
Speaker 4: week or so. But like, we're always vigilant. And I
Speaker 4: think the key is like, you know, you're always vigilant
Speaker 4: for even, even weird things. Uh, we're always taught if
Speaker 4: you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras, you know, measles
Speaker 4: used to be a zebra, right? Those things that you're
Speaker 4: not thinking it's very likely. Um, it's definitely, uh, when
Speaker 4: you see a kid with a rash and a fever,
Speaker 4: I mean, most of them aren't measles, you know, but
Speaker 4: you're definitely given a second look, you're looking inside their
Speaker 4: cheek for other certain findings.
Speaker 3: You're, you're even like going.
Speaker 4: Back to your desktop station and kind of doing a
Speaker 4: little search because I'd be honest, I haven't seen measles, right? Thankfully,
Speaker 4: I practice in an era in which measles basically has
Speaker 4: been gone. And so it's sort of an emerging thing
Speaker 4: for those of us who are kind of later career physicians,
Speaker 4: sort of, we have to re-engage with these diseases. We
Speaker 4: thought we had if not eradicated, at least made essentially
Speaker 4: zero by mass vaccination programs, and they're coming back.
Speaker 1: But we've seen vaccination rates fall across the country. There
Speaker 1: are some states where there are no counties that actually
Speaker 1: are at herd immunity, at 95% immunity. And our Department
Speaker 1: of Health and Human Services is run by RFK Jr.,
Speaker 1: who is probably the most famous anti- vaccine activists out there.
Speaker 1: So can you talk with us about the impact of
Speaker 1: this anti-vax movement and the impact it's having on people's health,
Speaker 1: especially children?
Speaker 4: Yeah, and I think that's the real shame because kids
Speaker 4: have no say in it, right?
Speaker 3: They were born.
Speaker 4: They were born into a world in which there's massive
Speaker 4: streams of disinformation about so much, but certainly about vaccines
Speaker 4: and And sometimes their parents have kind of bought into that.
Speaker 4: When I see a family bring their kid in and
Speaker 4: they currently say, no, we don't vaccinate. I've never, and
Speaker 4: even more so, I try so hard not to feel judgment.
Speaker 4: Certainly never would express that. Because I think these parents,
Speaker 4: I know as I see them with their kid, they
Speaker 4: love their kid as much as I love my kid's.
Speaker 4: and they think they're doing the right thing for their kids,
Speaker 4: and they've been steered astray. So really, our ire should
Speaker 4: be focused on the kind of influencers peddling disinformation and
Speaker 4: profiting off of it.
Speaker 3: RFK Jr.
Speaker 4: you know, at the Children's Health Defense, you know, he
Speaker 4: profited off of lawsuits against the vaccine makers of Gardasil
Speaker 4: that actually prevents cervical cancer, like a vaccine that presents cancer,
Speaker 4: and the guy made money off of suing them. I mean,
Speaker 4: and so it's really troubling because those are the people
Speaker 4: we should be, you know, upset with and somehow going
Speaker 4: after Somehow, right? And implicating them, genuinely implicating them in
Speaker 4: these preventable illnesses and sometimes preventable deaths.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and we have a clip of RFK Jr. talking
Speaker 2: about it. Let's roll that clip and we'll discuss.
Speaker 3: We'll say this.
Speaker 5: In 10 years, there have been three measles deaths in America.
Speaker 5: There are now about 1.2 million deaths every year from
Speaker 5: food-induced illness. The media and certain demagogue politicians are constantly
Speaker 5: trying to scare us about infectious disease.
Speaker 3: And we take the.
Speaker 5: Attention away from the chronic disease that is being caused
Speaker 5: by powerful entities, by big food companies, by big pharmaceutical companies,
Speaker 5: And what I'm trying to do as HHS Secretary, one,
Speaker 5: deal with the infectious disease outbreaks, which we're doing, but
Speaker 5: also redirect attention and resources to the thing that's really
Speaker 5: killing Americans, which are foodborne diseases.
Speaker 2: So, I mean, there's so much to unpack there. First
Speaker 2: is that, like, obviously.
Speaker 2: Because we need to focus on food, we can't focus
Speaker 2: on infectious diseases, which is a silly thing to say,
Speaker 2: but also that the measure of the impact of measles
Speaker 2: is only on the number of people it kills. Right, right.
Speaker 2: Which is not, do you want to, does anybody really
Speaker 2: want to get measles?
Speaker 3: Right, right.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, he made it sound, from five years
Speaker 4: ago in Lancaster County, he made it sound like it
Speaker 4: was a walk in the park. He got to sit
Speaker 4: home and watch TV. Here's what he's also saying there is,
Speaker 4: There have only been that many deaths, right? Not that
Speaker 4: many cases. This year is one of those years, like
Speaker 4: we've just blown past last year and the most in
Speaker 4: 35 years, as you said.
Speaker 3: Why do we think that is?
Speaker 4: It's because of the vaccine for measles. Let's go to
Speaker 4: the 10 years before the MMR vaccine, right? Let's look
Speaker 4: at how many deaths or how many illnesses, how many
Speaker 4: severe illnesses We had cases of encephalitis, pneumonia, people in
Speaker 4: the ICU. I don't have that data at my fingertips.
Speaker 4: He could certainly find it, but he's almost proving the point. Yeah,
Speaker 4: in the last 10 years, not that many deaths. That's
Speaker 4: a good thing, right? That's a really good thing. Thank
Speaker 4: you to vaccines.
Speaker 3: Thank you, MMR.
Speaker 4: The problem is the numbers are waning and he has
Speaker 4: got this huge mouthpiece. He's had a big platform.
Speaker 3: He's used it.
Speaker 4: Like you said, he's probably the most famous vaccine denier
Speaker 4: or anti-vax influencer out there. but now he's got the
Speaker 4: ultimate megaphone, right? He's got HHS, he's got all the
Speaker 4: levers of the government and they can alter the CDC website,
Speaker 4: which has happened multiple times related to these cases out
Speaker 4: of Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
Speaker 3: So yeah, I think all of that.
Speaker 4: The other piece is like, okay, so if foodborne illness
Speaker 4: is a big deal, yes, we should be doing both, right?
Speaker 4: You're running a big department, you should be able to
Speaker 4: handle both of those things. What department of the government
Speaker 4: is tasked to prevent people from dying of foodborne illness?
Speaker 4: Also the one that he runs seems like maybe something
Speaker 4: wrong there, you know?
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: I mean, we, we have seen just a rash of,
Speaker 1: of recalls during the summer. Oh, sorry.
Speaker 3: Too on the nose there. Yeah.
Speaker 1: But I mean, it's, it's every, everything from lettuce to
Speaker 1: blueberries to jalapenos, guacamole, salsa, donuts, tofu.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And that's just off the top of my head. There
Speaker 1: have been many more. Doctor, can you talk with us
Speaker 1: about the fact that under HHS, we've had fewer inspections
Speaker 1: of companies. We've had a lot of staff that has
Speaker 1: been purged from Doge that were responsible for some of
Speaker 1: these agencies that maybe people thought were boring, but were
Speaker 1: actually doing life-saving work. And in addition to people being
Speaker 1: sick and thousands of people, we have had some deaths
Speaker 1: due to these recalls. Can you talk with us about
Speaker 1: what the situation is there and what it would look
Speaker 1: like to have a functional HHS during these times?
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I mean, you look at the departments under HHS, particularly
Speaker 4: the FDA, USDA, that might be under agriculture, but You know,
Speaker 4: they are tasked with like the whole of government is
Speaker 4: tasked with so many things in our daily lives.
Speaker 3: One of them we should.
Speaker 4: Expect is that our food supplies are safe, you know,
Speaker 4: that we don't have to think about it. And I
Speaker 4: go back and forth because public health and the government
Speaker 4: related to public health should be out there communicating regularly
Speaker 4: with us. about what they're doing and about, you know,
Speaker 4: kind of how they're keeping us safe. But a lot
Speaker 4: of what they do should go sort of unnoticed. You
Speaker 4: shouldn't have to, like, think twice before you take a
Speaker 4: bite of a burrito with lettuce on it. And now,
Speaker 4: I mean, let's, I don't, I hate making predictions, but now,
Speaker 4: I don't know if you saw the interview with Trump,
Speaker 4: with Glenn Beck on.
Speaker 3: The Blaze about cattle, about processing of beef.
Speaker 4: And like, we need to relax, you know, that so
Speaker 4: they can process it, you know, at the ranch or,
Speaker 4: you know, smaller processors. And Trump then announced the next day,
Speaker 4: you know, I don't know how legit this announcement is.
Speaker 4: It came via his true social, but like he wants
Speaker 4: to deregulate that. Now, fewer inspections, let him just process it. Cyclosporiasis, yes,
Speaker 4: there were a couple of deaths in my state of Michigan.
Speaker 4: Mostly a nuisance, a really nasty nuisance you don't want,
Speaker 4: you know, the explosive diarrhea.
Speaker 3: Like contaminated beef, E.
Speaker 2: Coli, 01578.
Speaker 4: 0157H7, like that causes kidney failure. Like young people, like we,
Speaker 4: I remember back in the day, this may be gosh, eighties, nineties,
Speaker 4: the Jack in the box out in the West coast,
Speaker 4: you know, big problem with hamburgers. I mean, We see
Speaker 4: cases sporadically.
Speaker 3: We see little mini outbreaks.
Speaker 4: If we start having now the deregulation and lack of
Speaker 4: inspections of our beef supply, Trump also somehow made some
Speaker 4: deal for cheap beef.
Speaker 3: I don't know about you.
Speaker 4: I don't want the word cheap to be in front
Speaker 4: of the food that I'm getting as like a positive thing.
Speaker 4: We don't have to cost less, yes, but to have
Speaker 4: the government find us sources of these foods that they
Speaker 4: call cheap, seems, seems like, like the recipe for disaster.
Speaker 2: Um, I, you know, I, I wonder about RFK Jr.
Speaker 2: and his, you know, Trump has no sort of center, right?
Speaker 2: He doesn't have a belief system other than Trump, other
Speaker 2: than himself. But RFK Jr. uh, is one of these
Speaker 2: guys who, you know, exudes belief system, right? Uh, he, it's,
Speaker 2: it's a, um, a blind faith in his own sort
Speaker 2: of wisdom.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: What is the center of that? Is it just that
Speaker 2: he believes the human body was meant to heal itself
Speaker 2: or that.
Speaker 2: Where does this shit come from?
Speaker 3: I mean, maybe the brain worm. I don't know.
Speaker 4: But, you know, it seems like he's come to this
Speaker 4: job and certainly came to prominence with a deep distrust, A,
Speaker 4: of vaccines, but B, of, and this was accelerated during COVID,
Speaker 4: of sort of the deep, quote, deep state, right? The
Speaker 4: apparatus put in place to keep us safe. And he
Speaker 4: sort of has a conception of ulterior motives of those
Speaker 4: of us simply trying to protect folks, simply trying to
Speaker 4: keep people safe. You know, he's peddled the disinformation about
Speaker 4: COVID back during the pandemic at the peak of it.
Speaker 3: And continues to do so with vaccines now.
Speaker 4: He even refers back to COVID, like, oh, they're talking
Speaker 4: about it like they did during COVID.
Speaker 3: Whenever I talked about what was happening.
Speaker 4: Related to COVID, it was like what we were literally
Speaker 4: seeing in the hospital, people who were blue with an
Speaker 4: oxygen of 50% being pulled out of their cars and
Speaker 4: put into a gurney and trying to save their life.
Speaker 4: And just trying to give people a little bit of
Speaker 4: a look behind the curtain, like, this is what's actually
Speaker 4: going on. Here's why you should try not to get
Speaker 4: this thing. And, and so he comes to it with that.
Speaker 4: And if you have that preconceived notion, you can find
Speaker 4: so much information.
Speaker 3: Out there to corroborate that, right.
Speaker 4: To, to, to like, you get this, this bias going
Speaker 4: in and there's all sorts of people putting out fake
Speaker 4: studies and, and, and what they're calling research, you know, the,
Speaker 4: If you look at like drugs like ivermectin, where people
Speaker 4: will say, well, I treated thousands of people with ivermectin
Speaker 4: and none of them died of COVID. A, we don't
Speaker 4: know if that's true. B, I mean, if I treat
Speaker 4: thousands of people who are otherwise healthy with a glass
Speaker 4: of water who had COVID, the vast majority of those
Speaker 4: people aren't going to die.
Speaker 3: Maybe none of them will die. And I don't think
Speaker 3: it had anything to do with the glass of water.
Speaker 3: But RFK Jr. latches onto that and then repeats it
Speaker 3: and does it at the highest level. And there you go.
Speaker 3: Conspiracy theory, you know, exploded. It's yeah, it's tough.
Speaker 2: I mean, even, look, back then, friends of mine who
Speaker 2: knew better would say things like, there was a panel
Speaker 2: on ivermectin, and a doctor talked about it in front
Speaker 2: of Congress, and that video is nowhere to be found.
Speaker 2: And of course, I go to C-SPAN, and it's just
Speaker 2: right there. You just have to search for it. But
Speaker 2: because it was bullshit, nobody played it anymore. And so
Speaker 2: it's just these causations, correlations, that don't make sense to
Speaker 2: some people. And it's, it's, uh, uh, very dangerous.
Speaker 4: We used to, so I remember in training, we always
Speaker 4: tried to, and I still do try to practice evidence-based medicine, right?
Speaker 4: Whatever the best evidence shows at the time and evidence changes,
Speaker 4: data changes, and we have to adjust. But that there
Speaker 4: was a thing that people would call eminence-based medicine. Like
Speaker 4: if someone, an eminent physician would say something was true,
Speaker 4: people would latch onto that. And that kind of was
Speaker 4: how medicine was practiced for a very long time because
Speaker 4: we didn't have anything else, you know, like so-and-so said,
Speaker 4: this was the truth. And it's like, okay, we're going
Speaker 4: to go down that path. Well, I feel like in
Speaker 4: RFK Jr. 's world and sort of this world of
Speaker 4: anti-vax and distrust of organized medicine, there's a lot of that, right?
Speaker 4: They get a name that they trust that they think,
Speaker 4: you know, speaking the truth and like whatever they say
Speaker 4: and whatever little data points they'll put out there, they
Speaker 4: latch onto it. And, and RFK Jr. I think is
Speaker 4: somewhat of a victim to that. I mean, he wants to, right.
Speaker 4: He is, he is primed and he's ready to go.
Speaker 4: So like the guy's not innocent and all this, but
Speaker 4: he doesn't know any better. You can tell when he
Speaker 4: talks the kind of the fake science mumbo jumbo that
Speaker 4: he uses, he clearly doesn't understand what he's talking about,
Speaker 4: but he says it with some degree of authority and
Speaker 4: challenges reporters. Like, why don't you know this? And, and
Speaker 4: that's the clip. That's what people see.
Speaker 1: What, RFK Jr. seems to be very skilled at doing
Speaker 1: is exploiting people's fears and distrust and their uncertainty. And
Speaker 1: he first started to do that with parents who were
Speaker 1: concerned about their children's autism diagnosis and they were searching
Speaker 1: for answers. And he came at it with a very
Speaker 1: easily wrapped up answer. It's the vaccines. They turned your
Speaker 1: child autistic and this is something for you to blame
Speaker 1: and this is an explanation for you during a very
Speaker 1: challenging time. And I mean, we've seen that even the
Speaker 1: president of the United States seems to be a wholehearted
Speaker 1: adherent to that viewpoint and is signing executive orders from
Speaker 1: the Oval Office to that degree. But then during COVID,
Speaker 1: when there was so much we didn't know and we
Speaker 1: were learning on the fly. And of course, there were
Speaker 1: things that that physicians got wrong because we didn't have
Speaker 1: all the information. But out of that uncertainty and the
Speaker 1: distrust that a lot of people had comes in bad
Speaker 1: actors like RFK Jr. And they're there to fill in
Speaker 1: the gaps and to tell you there's some villain out
Speaker 1: there and don't believe authority. Just believe me. And now
Speaker 1: he is in the most powerful position for a health
Speaker 1: authority in this country. And I'm watching that video, doctor.
Speaker 1: And I have to say, like, this is not the
Speaker 1: person I would put out there as like a paragon
Speaker 1: of health. He's older, his voice is weak. If this
Speaker 1: is what eating non-processed food looks like and not getting
Speaker 1: vaccinated looks like, I would like an alternative because this
Speaker 1: is not like the guy that I'm looking at for
Speaker 1: health advice. Can you talk with us about this propaganda
Speaker 1: that he's so good at You know, contrasting with this
Speaker 1: image that he puts out there where, you know, I
Speaker 1: think anybody would kind of have this concern about following
Speaker 1: this guy's regimen, even if he can do shirtless pushups.
Speaker 3: Yeah, in blue jeans, in a hot tub. Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, his diet of sauerkraut. I mean, I
Speaker 4: think we learned that from Rubio recently, right? He carries
Speaker 4: around a cooler full of sauerkraut. Like, man, I don't
Speaker 4: want to be on a plane next.
Speaker 3: To that guy.
Speaker 1: I know, his breath must be terrible.
Speaker 4: I think of The Office when Oscar had salad sandwiches
Speaker 4: in that, if you guys are fans.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so.
Speaker 3: it's tough.
Speaker 4: I mean, I think Tim Wells tried the line, like
Speaker 4: these guys are just weird. And it, it obviously it
Speaker 4: didn't work in some ways, but it is, it is weird.
Speaker 3: I don't understand.
Speaker 4: I can't explain why that like folks would choose. I mean,
Speaker 4: he was clearly chosen for this spot. He was promised
Speaker 4: something when he peddled around his endorsement after he ended his,
Speaker 4: you know, as he was planning to end his presidential campaign,
Speaker 4: I've written about this, um, back in the summer of 2024,
Speaker 4: reporting is that he peddled it to both sides. Like, hey,
Speaker 4: who wants my endorsement? And their reporting is that the
Speaker 4: Kamala Harris campaign said, yeah.
Speaker 3: We don't want it. We don't want to talk to you.
Speaker 4: And, you know, the Trump campaign took him on, obviously,
Speaker 4: and it would seem that. He promised him a cabinet spot.
Speaker 4: And really, it was about coalition management. You know, bringing
Speaker 4: the group of MAHA voters that were adherents to RFK Jr.
Speaker 3: And all that he represented, into MAGA.
Speaker 4: Now you see now a year and a half, a
Speaker 4: couple of years on that, that divorce happening between MAHA
Speaker 4: and MAGA because of glyphosate, right? Because they're, they're, they
Speaker 4: backtracked on, on pesticides and they're really not doing anything
Speaker 4: to protect the food supply.
Speaker 3: In fact, things are getting worse.
Speaker 4: And they're still peddling vaccine denialism and skepticism and disinformation
Speaker 4: and But if you look at the polling on Maha adherence,
Speaker 4: vaccines are not their top issue.
Speaker 3: They're near the bottom.
Speaker 4: I mean, they're not, you know, food and pesticides and
Speaker 4: affordable health care.
Speaker 3: Like these are what a lot of these folks are
Speaker 3: thinking about. We've talked about a lot on our podcast,
Speaker 3: like Democrats have to pay attention because there's a lot
Speaker 3: that the Democratic Party and a lot of leaders in
Speaker 3: the Democratic Party stand for, you know, like, you know,
Speaker 3: protecting our food supply, like affordable health care.
Speaker 4: That folks in the Maha movement absolutely are with us on.
Speaker 4: And if there's a small percentage where the vaccine issue
Speaker 4: is their key issue, yeah, we're not gonna be together
Speaker 4: on that. And we'll try to keep putting out the
Speaker 4: right information and hopefully folks will make good choices to
Speaker 4: protect their kids and themselves. But yeah, I think really
Speaker 4: he came to the, administration.
Speaker 3: Purely for political reasons.
Speaker 4: Like, how do we get that group of people to
Speaker 4: come in and vote and put them over the edge? And,
Speaker 4: you know, a lot of measures would say it worked. That's,
Speaker 4: you know, pretty slim margins in seven states that got
Speaker 4: Trump elected. And Maha probably was a significant part of that. Yeah.
Speaker 2: It looks like he's going to, RFK is going to
Speaker 2: run for president or think about running for president as well.
Speaker 2: But I think that there's something here because we talk
Speaker 2: about his myths and disinfo a lot and the way
Speaker 2: he spreads false facts and confusion and sows doubt and
Speaker 2: all of these kinds of things. But there's another thing
Speaker 2: that's important to remember and that's he's just inept. He's
Speaker 2: really bad at his job. And you can see that
Speaker 2: he's a bad administrator. All he is is a soundbite.
Speaker 2: And the soundbites are bad, right? They're confusing and all
Speaker 2: of the things. And so we have, like we were
Speaker 2: talking about the tofu that we can't eat anymore and
Speaker 2: the lettuce and the donuts for some reason, which is
Speaker 2: weird to me. But do you think there will be.
Speaker 3: The results of.
Speaker 2: His ineptitude are showing every day. Is this breaking through?
Speaker 4: It's tough, because he's such a big mouthpiece, right? It's
Speaker 4: kind of what he wants to talk about is what's
Speaker 4: talked about. The three of us will see the reporting
Speaker 4: of him just not really caring about what goes on,
Speaker 4: kind of getting bored with the actual administration of the department. And,
Speaker 4: you know, kind of how all these foodborne illnesses are
Speaker 4: coming about and how he's talking about them being such
Speaker 4: a big deal. And yet still, while he's at the helm,
Speaker 4: they are happening. Like, we'll see that because we're looking
Speaker 4: for that and we're kind of looking with a keen eye.
Speaker 4: It's really hard to say how much of that breaks
Speaker 4: through to the folks out there we have to get to,
Speaker 4: you know, to the folks. I mean, I would say
Speaker 4: it's going to be a big job, right? If we
Speaker 4: can steer this thing in the right direction and if after,
Speaker 4: you know, 26 and 28, The politics can determine sort
Speaker 4: of a better group of people making decisions at the top.
Speaker 4: Then I think getting to all those folks who still
Speaker 4: listen to RFK Jr., who still, unfortunately, listen to folks
Speaker 4: like Joe Rogan. I just saw a resurface clip about
Speaker 4: him saying, oh, tetanus isn't that big a deal. I
Speaker 4: take personal offense to that because that is the one
Speaker 4: vaccine in the ER that we do give.
Speaker 3: We give tetanus boosters, right? We don't give MMR. We
Speaker 3: don't give COVID vaccines. We give tetanus boosters. And like,
Speaker 3: I haven't seen tetanus, the disease. Thank God.
Speaker 4: But to say it's not a big deal, but like
Speaker 4: these massive platforms spreading this craziness from people who clearly
Speaker 4: don't know anything about real disease, that's such a huge
Speaker 4: job that we're going to have to all take on. And,
Speaker 4: you know, part of it's going to be the government,
Speaker 4: part of it's going to be us, you folks, you know,
Speaker 4: people out there who are just interested in a healthier
Speaker 4: America that are going to have to drown out the
Speaker 4: noise coming from folks like RFK.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I've even seen that there's a backlash to wearing sunscreen now. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Increasingly, people think that sunscreen is worse than sun.
Speaker 4: It's so weird because I do think a lot of
Speaker 4: the COVID disinformation amplified this in a very kind of
Speaker 4: fast track. People are looking for sort of more convenient
Speaker 4: ways of saying they're being healthy and And like, so
Speaker 4: if it's more convenient to eat more saturated fats and
Speaker 4: someone tells you in the food pyramid, yep, that's okay.
Speaker 3: We want that. We want that in there. Or like, yeah,
Speaker 3: you don't have to slather that.
Speaker 4: I don't like wearing sunscreen or, you know, spraying it
Speaker 4: on or wiping it on. It's kind of sometimes greasy
Speaker 4: and it's, yeah, you know, I'm a runner. I put
Speaker 4: it on most of the time. When I don't, I
Speaker 4: pay for it. And so if someone tells you, no,
Speaker 4: that's actually bad for you. The sun is better for you.
Speaker 4: It's like, oh, okay, cool. That's a lot easier. I
Speaker 4: don't have to worry about it. You know, someone tells
Speaker 4: you during COVID, no, you don't have to distance. You
Speaker 4: don't have to wear a mask. You don't have to
Speaker 4: get that shot.
Speaker 3: You can do whatever you want.
Speaker 4: And if you happen to get sick, you can take
Speaker 4: this really cheap drug that, you know, we tell you works,
Speaker 4: you know, that actually doesn't, ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine, whatever.
Speaker 3: But it's just more convenient, you know.
Speaker 4: Same thing with the cruelty of RFK coming to prominence,
Speaker 4: telling parents of kids with autism that, you know, the
Speaker 4: vaccines caused it. Because the more complicated answer is we
Speaker 4: don't know exactly what. probably a combination of something genetic,
Speaker 4: something in utero, something environmental, who knows, right? Like, and,
Speaker 4: and there are thoughts, there are ideas and people are
Speaker 4: still researching.
Speaker 3: We don't have an answer.
Speaker 4: Then someone comes along and says, it's this, A, you
Speaker 4: should feel bad because you did this to your kid. B,
Speaker 4: you don't have to do it to your other kids
Speaker 4: and other people don't have to do to their kids.
Speaker 3: So help, you know, come along and join the team.
Speaker 3: That's it.
Speaker 5: Boom.
Speaker 3: Easy fix. Don't get that. Don't get that shot. You
Speaker 3: won't get autism. It's really sad. It's really cruel. But
Speaker 3: it also kind of is a path of less resistance
Speaker 3: for people to try to imagine that they are doing
Speaker 3: the right thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: What a horrible message. I've always thought it is that
Speaker 1: you're basically telling parents that it's worse for their children
Speaker 1: to get autism than to die of measles. I mean,
Speaker 1: there are so many thriving people who are on the
Speaker 1: spectrum and contribute so much. And to demonize the condition
Speaker 1: that their children have and to say it would be
Speaker 1: worse for them to have that than to actually die
Speaker 1: of diseases like mumps and measles. Talk about getting everything
Speaker 1: just back ass words. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: And even like even the government even gave a nod
Speaker 4: to some of the disinformation related to mercury, thimerosal. They
Speaker 4: kind of took thimerosal out of vaccines, even though the
Speaker 4: kind of mercury that is thimerosal isn't any health risk whatsoever.
Speaker 4: The mercury that comes from coal-fired power plants that gets
Speaker 4: into the water system gets.
Speaker 3: Primarily into fish.
Speaker 4: You know, that huge, huge crisis, this administration, right, is
Speaker 4: famously like, oh, they want to get back to coal, right?
Speaker 4: Want to keep churning out, right? And so, you know,
Speaker 4: even when you, I feel like, you know, say, okay,
Speaker 4: we're going to, we'll give an inch. We'll do this
Speaker 4: thing because you keep talking about it and we got
Speaker 4: to have you stop talking about it. A, they still
Speaker 4: talk about it. B, it had no impact on like
Speaker 4: autism or any other illnesses.
Speaker 3: And it wasn't an right? It wasn't enough. Okay. We'll
Speaker 3: move on to the next thing.
Speaker 4: It's this shot. It's that shot. It's too many shots.
Speaker 4: It's the combined nature of the shots. Now Trump has
Speaker 4: said about four weeks ago, right? We're going to split
Speaker 4: them up, even though it's not, it's not available that way.
Speaker 4: We're going to, we're going to issue an executive order,
Speaker 4: have a press conference to.
Speaker 3: Split these up. Like, it's like, whatever you do, what
Speaker 3: happens when you split them up, right? It makes it
Speaker 3: harder to get.
Speaker 4: It makes it, you know, makes more visits to the doctor,
Speaker 4: more shots for the kids.
Speaker 3: Just what we want to do is give our kids
Speaker 3: more shots. Like, I don't know. It's almost like why appease, right?
Speaker 3: Because there's no end.
Speaker 4: There'll just be something else that someone will say that
Speaker 4: you're doing to them.
Speaker 2: For sure. And I feel like the appeasement also lends
Speaker 2: the disinformation cause. It's like, well, if it wasn't bad,
Speaker 2: then why did you take it out? And I think
Speaker 2: that all of these regulations fall squarely on the poor, right?
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Folks with less access and poor and rural, of course.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And a great fix for our health care system would
Speaker 2: be to fix poverty. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Right.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: 90 percent. We always learned it's probably more than that.
Speaker 4: About 90 percent of people's health actually has nothing to
Speaker 4: do with what happens in a.
Speaker 3: Hospital or doctor's office or pharmacy. It has everything to
Speaker 3: do with.
Speaker 4: What's happening in their physical world, whether it be the
Speaker 4: air or the water, having green spaces, exercise, the diet,
Speaker 4: all of those things. So yeah, and they've clearly shown
Speaker 4: that the lack of any interest in making those aspects
Speaker 4: of people's lives better, and in fact, with In addition,
Speaker 4: we talk, I talk about the Medicaid cuts and the
Speaker 4: big ugly bill, you know, the snap cuts, right.
Speaker 3: Taking away food from kids, you know.
Speaker 4: Like absolutely has an impact on people's health. And it's,
Speaker 4: you know, in the name of tax cuts for billionaires,
Speaker 4: really not a concern for these guys.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I wanted to talk with you, Dr. Rob, because back
Speaker 1: in 2018, healthcare was perhaps the biggest issue in the election.
Speaker 1: And that was the year that you were running for Congress.
Speaker 1: It seems like it has been a real secondary issue
Speaker 1: this election. And I'm very curious why, because ACA premiums
Speaker 1: are up 21.7% by design based on cuts that Congress
Speaker 1: has passed. Next year, we're expecting that the impact of
Speaker 1: that big, beautiful bill will hit even harder where up
Speaker 1: to 10 million people could lose Medicaid coverage. premiums for
Speaker 1: health care, whether you're on the ACA or not, are
Speaker 1: expected to skyrocket as well. Why is it that this
Speaker 1: has not been as big of an issue? Because this
Speaker 1: is one of the things that really is impacting people's
Speaker 1: pocketbooks right now.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, I will tell you at the Committee
Speaker 4: for Direct Health Care in particular, we're making it a
Speaker 4: big issue, you know, in states with targeted Senate races,
Speaker 4: in targeted congressional districts.
Speaker 3: We are making it a big issue.
Speaker 4: I mean, we just had a multi-state press call and
Speaker 4: in Kansas, because Kansas is on the map and there's
Speaker 4: a doctor senator there, Roger Marshall, who apparently said, I
Speaker 4: was just on a call this morning recounting the press
Speaker 4: hits that came from a press call, including a physician,
Speaker 4: from Kansas, where Dr.
Speaker 3: Senator Marshall said, oh, there were no cuts to Medicaid, right?
Speaker 4: We have no idea what he was talking about. He
Speaker 4: just said it, right? I guess if you say it,
Speaker 4: then people will just hear it that way. And so, yeah,
Speaker 4: I mean, I think it is an issue and it
Speaker 4: will continue to be. I think the other piece that
Speaker 4: the healthcare issue gets buried in is just the cost, right?
Speaker 3: Everything costs too much. And a huge part of people's
Speaker 3: budgets is health insurance.
Speaker 4: And particularly with the ACA premium subsidies going away, that's
Speaker 4: not something people had to wait for. The Medicaid cuts
Speaker 4: largely are going to be coming, like you said, after
Speaker 4: the midterms over the next several years are going to
Speaker 4: come into full effect. But 3 million people lost health
Speaker 4: insurance related specifically to the ACA premiums. and hospitals showed,
Speaker 4: you know, increases in uninsured people showing up at the hospitals. So, yeah,
Speaker 4: I mean, I guess it's hard to say at any moment.
Speaker 4: I don't think we, on our podcast, we talked to
Speaker 4: Will Lawrence, who's a congressional candidate for the Dems in
Speaker 4: Michigan 7, right, running against Tom Barrett, trying to take
Speaker 4: back that seat. And, you know, he said he never
Speaker 4: thought data centers were going to be a part of
Speaker 4: his campaign. It's the biggest part of his campaign, and
Speaker 4: who knows why he's I mean, I think data centers
Speaker 4: are a big concern for people and it's taken on
Speaker 4: this huge piece of what people are talking about in
Speaker 4: these races. But yeah, we're still talking about health care
Speaker 4: and I think people still really care about it. And
Speaker 4: I think it's going to be for a significant number
Speaker 4: of people, a reason why they are going to hold
Speaker 4: the Republicans who voted for all these cuts accountable.
Speaker 1: Well, Dr. Rob, I hope that you'll be back with
Speaker 1: us because we do want to keep reporting on health
Speaker 1: care in the run-up to the midterms and, of course,
Speaker 1: be holding RFK Jr. accountable for whatever else comes our way.
Speaker 1: Can you tell us the best way that people can
Speaker 1: find your work?
Speaker 4: Yeah, certainly at the Committee to Protect Health Care, committeetoprotect.org,
Speaker 4: but then definitely check out Paging America.
Speaker 3: Go to YouTube, subscribe on YouTube. Happy to see you there.
Speaker 4: Here on Substack as well, we'd love to have you
Speaker 4: follow along. We're just trying to bring this information on
Speaker 4: a weekly basis and more than weekly basis many times
Speaker 4: so that people can kind of have the best understanding possible,
Speaker 4: particularly of how healthcare and politics intersect and how the
Speaker 4: votes the folks take in D.C. and in the state
Speaker 4: capitals really do impact people's lives.
Speaker 2: Before you go, I just want to give you one
Speaker 2: idea from the chat. Patrick suggests that we just put
Speaker 2: vaccines in the chemtrails.
Speaker 3: And what?
Speaker 2: In the chemtrails. Oh, jeez.
Speaker 3: There we go. Yes, yes, yes.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: And somehow the tinfoil hats will attract the vaccines to you.
Speaker 1: There you go.
Speaker 3: All right.
Speaker 1: Thanks.
Speaker 2: Thanks, Dr.
Speaker 3: Rob. See you guys.
Speaker 1: Thank you.
Speaker 2: Patrick comes in with comments.
Speaker 1: Hey, whatever it takes, right?
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well, before we get to what's on this week... as
Speaker 1: Sam and I have been chatting online about the fact
Speaker 1: that one of our favorite actors, Tim Curry passed away
Speaker 1: last week, and we both have special affection for him
Speaker 1: from the, the movie clue, which we have both forced
Speaker 1: our children to watch many a time. Sam and I
Speaker 1: are roughly the same age. We're, we're basically the same person,
Speaker 1: but we, you know, obviously we've both seen Rocky horror and,
Speaker 1: and many other things he's been in, but it, that
Speaker 1: movie I felt like was so underrated and he was
Speaker 1: so good in it. And we, we, we, you know,
Speaker 1: there's so many memorable moments from that movie. So I
Speaker 1: just want to take a moment to acknowledge Tim Curry,
Speaker 1: because we've, we've heard from a lot of you as
Speaker 1: well about his passing and Dolly Parton as well.
Speaker 2: And think about this. I was, on, you know, looking
Speaker 2: at Tim Curry stuff over the weekend. And he recapped,
Speaker 2: like he basically ran through the entire movie at the
Speaker 2: end of the movie of Clue for the other actors.
Speaker 2: And he did it three times in quick succession. It
Speaker 2: was that, it was just incredible. It is my favorite movie.
Speaker 2: And actually my, I was a couple of weeks ago,
Speaker 2: it was like, Hazel, my kid, what's your favorite movie?
Speaker 2: And she was like, well, probably Clue. I was like, oh,
Speaker 2: I did it. I did. That was the only my
Speaker 2: only achievement as a father. And if that was the
Speaker 2: only achievement, I would be happy.
Speaker 1: I watched that movie actually for the first time with
Speaker 1: my daughter and with my husband. And they started to
Speaker 1: get very annoyed with me because I was reciting half
Speaker 1: the lines of the movie. And I totally understand how
Speaker 1: annoying that is, but like that's how indelible the impact was.
Speaker 1: And there were so many great actors. I mean, Martin
Speaker 1: Mull was in it and Leslie Ann Warren. Madeline Kahn
Speaker 1: was phenomenal. And we've lost so many of these actors, actually.
Speaker 1: But Tim Curry was the glue of the movie. And
Speaker 1: when I first watched it, I don't know, I think
Speaker 1: it came out when I was in fourth grade. That
Speaker 1: seems right to me. Like, I did not know the
Speaker 1: Red Scare satire. I did not pick up on that.
Speaker 1: But when I watched it again in college, I was like,
Speaker 1: this is an excellent commentary, actually.
Speaker 2: It is. And the funniest thing, and I had to
Speaker 2: explain it to the girls, I was like, it's funny
Speaker 2: because they're so scared of socialists, but it's not really
Speaker 2: scary anymore. Does that make sense? And now it's come
Speaker 2: back full circle, right? That everyone, there's a hysteria about
Speaker 2: socialists and it's a system. I was like, it's just
Speaker 2: a system of governance that is either good or bad
Speaker 2: or somewhere in between.
Speaker 1: There could be a really funny mashup, I'm sure, with
Speaker 1: Donald Trump's diatribes about communism and then with communism was
Speaker 1: just a red herring.
Speaker 2: A red herring.
Speaker 3: The best line of.
Speaker 1: The movie said repeatedly anyway.
Speaker 2: Um, so, uh, and by the way, I used it
Speaker 2: as a framework for my, uh, for a piece that is,
Speaker 2: I think it's out today, right? Um, and if you
Speaker 2: can imagine, I tied it into a talk on climate change,
Speaker 2: which is a weird, it's a weird sort of framework.
Speaker 2: Maybe it didn't work. Maybe it, no, it works. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And, and it's, it, I know that so many times
Speaker 1: you would do those tie-ins with winners and losers. And
Speaker 1: so I always enjoy how you're able to bring things
Speaker 1: full circle. But yeah, that is up right now on
Speaker 1: Lincoln Square. And part three will be next week.
Speaker 5: Yes. Great.
Speaker 1: Well, coming up this week, actually to the day, Ellie Leonard,
Speaker 1: who writes the Panicked Writer substack and covers the Epstein
Speaker 1: files in depth as an independent journalist, she will be
Speaker 1: on with Frank Fugluzzi. That should be a really great episode.
Speaker 1: I know I've always enjoyed talking with Ellie.
Speaker 2: She's incredible.
Speaker 5: And.
Speaker 2: just so painstaking in her investigations. And it always shows
Speaker 2: in those discussions. I'm really excited for this one.
Speaker 3: Yes.
Speaker 1: And then later on this week on Wednesday, Frank will
Speaker 1: have Sophia Boza Holman-Kinzinger on as well to talk about
Speaker 1: issues in Ukraine and beyond.
Speaker 2: Yeah, another. And if you aren't where she is the
Speaker 2: wife of Adam Kinzinger. And I think that's going to
Speaker 2: be another really, really great one. She's quite a personality.
Speaker 2: What a crazy couple, by the way. Like, power couple.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah. University of Michigan law professor and author Barb McQuaid
Speaker 1: will be on Six Questions with Stephen Beschloss on Wednesday.
Speaker 1: Barb has written several books, and she is just always
Speaker 1: such a fascinating person to talk with about legal issues
Speaker 1: with national security.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and if you're not already following Six Questions on
Speaker 2: Apple or Spotify as a podcast, go give it a follow.
Speaker 2: It really helps out the podcast. the pod to see
Speaker 2: people tracking it. And once you, once you hit follow
Speaker 2: or subscribe, then the algorithm picks it up and keeps going.
Speaker 2: So it's such a, a great conversation even just does, uh,
Speaker 2: his questions are always a little surprising. He really gets, it's,
Speaker 2: it's a, it does this balance between topical and personal, uh,
Speaker 2: in a way that, uh, not many people do.
Speaker 5: Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: His show with Katie thing last week was great.
Speaker 2: Really good.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And obviously you've seen Katie thing on many shows and
Speaker 1: she's phenomenal, but you got something different. If you tuned
Speaker 1: in to Steven's questions, because they're not just your, your.
Speaker 2: Typical podcast questions.
Speaker 3: Exactly. Yeah.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Uh, and also on first draft this week, I will
Speaker 1: have on Mark Jacob who writes the stop the presses
Speaker 1: sub stack. Uh, he's a media critic, a former Chicago journalist.
Speaker 1: And I think we might have a few things to talk.
Speaker 2: About a little bit.
Speaker 3: Maybe you think, yeah, you prep it for that one.
Speaker 1: Tune on the news. That's about it. Yeah, no, but
Speaker 1: Mark's newsletter is like essential reading every week. He's always very,
Speaker 1: very thoughtful in his critiques on the media. And I
Speaker 1: always enjoy talking with him.
Speaker 2: Yeah. One additional thing that is going to happen, I think,
Speaker 2: on the Hopium sub stack, Simon will have Stuart Stephen's.
Speaker 3: Oh, great.
Speaker 2: I think on Wednesday. So we'll look out for that.
Speaker 1: Great.
Speaker 2: Yes.
Speaker 1: Stuart is back home after another aid trip to Ukraine.
Speaker 1: So it will be great to check in with him.
Speaker 1: We checked in with him like right when he was
Speaker 1: going into Ukraine before Independence Day. And so getting to
Speaker 1: hear from him about the situation on the ground will
Speaker 1: be great.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, before we wrap up today, our weekly assignment
Speaker 1: for everyone is you may have seen legislation that has
Speaker 1: been introduced by Michigan Senator Alyssa Slotkin to ban troops
Speaker 1: from our ballot boxes. And in normal times, this would
Speaker 1: not be necessary, but we are not living in normal times.
Speaker 1: And we've all seen the threats from Donald Trump in
Speaker 1: terms of mail-in voting. He has refused to commit that
Speaker 1: he will not send ICE or military to our elections
Speaker 1: in November. And I don't know if you caught the story, Sam,
Speaker 1: but even in blood red Wyoming, during their primary this month,
Speaker 1: the Republican governor was very disturbed by the federal election
Speaker 1: monitors that were sent there because there are still Republicans
Speaker 1: who do believe in this little thing called federalism and
Speaker 1: that elections should be run by the state. So if
Speaker 1: they're willing to pull this in Wyoming, who knows what
Speaker 1: they have planned for November. And this would be a
Speaker 1: very important piece of legislation for us all to stand
Speaker 1: up and support, uh, as, as a way for us
Speaker 1: to stand up for our elections in November.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: It's look guys, it's, it's right around the corner. I mean,
Speaker 2: it's coming up so soon. Uh, labor day is this weekend.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 2: After that it's election time. Um, so it's, this is
Speaker 2: going to be a really remarkable, uh, few weeks in
Speaker 2: American history, I think. And like you said, the Wyoming
Speaker 2: stuff is, uh, it's a test line, right? Right. Um,
Speaker 2: let's do it in a couple of red States just
Speaker 2: so we're not, so we can show that it's just
Speaker 2: a thing we're doing. Right. Um, can't let it happen.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 1: Well, Sam really appreciate talking with you and Dr. Rob today.
Speaker 1: And for all of you, thank you for tuning in.
Speaker 1: If you don't already subscribe, I'd ask you to. You
Speaker 1: can do so for free. And please keep your comments coming.
Speaker 1: We love to see them during the show and after.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Thanks, everybody. Really appreciate you.