From Sky news this is connections.

I'm Evan Dawson.

Our connection this hour was made last week when President Donald Trump said that babies in the United States are now receiving 80 vaccines in doses strong enough for horses.

What he was saying was wrong.

And according to many experts in the field, dangerously wrong.

His comments came just days after HHS Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr.

Testified before the US Senate and made a series of inaccurate comments about vaccines, Covid, hydroxychloroquine and more.

And this kind of misinformation is having an effect.

The overall rate of U.S.

vaccination is declining.

NBC news recently published an investigation that sought to examine vaccination rates in every American county.

Here's what they found.

Since 2019, 77% of American counties and jurisdictions have reported notable declines in childhood vaccination rates.

For some counties, like Monroe County.

It's a decline of just a few percentage points.

But for others, like Yates County, it's a 20 point drop.

For some American counties, it's down 30 or 40 points.

Vaccine exemptions for schoolchildren are rising.

Nationwide, as many as 53% of counties and jurisdictions saw exemption rates more than double from the first year collecting collecting data to the most recent.

And among the states collecting data for MMR, measles, mumps, rubella vaccines, 67% of counties and jurisdictions now have immunization rates below 95%.

That's the level of herd immunity that experts say is needed to protect against an outbreak.

And we know there have been outbreaks.

So what should we know about this?

This hour is meant to be informational.

This is not a political conversation.

It was never meant to be a political conversation.

What we want to do is bring in the experts to talk about where we are, and answer any questions you have in good faith.

I promise you, as the host of this program, if you've got questions, you will not be belittled.

You can ask anything you want.

We can talk vaccines.

We can talk schedule, and we can talk, you know, sort of the decline in vaccination rates.

Herd immunity.

There's all kinds of things we can talk about.

Doors open to you if you want to call the program.

844295 talk.

844295825526369.

For call from Rochester.

2639994.

Email the program connections@kci.org.

If you're watching on the Sky news YouTube channel.

Hello!

You can join the chat there and let me welcome our guests in studio.

Doctor Jeffrey Weinberg is a professor of pediatrics and a pediatric infectious disease specialist.

With you are medicine.

Welcome back to the program, doctor.

Thanks for being here.

Thanks for having me again.

Welcome back to Doctor and Falsey, a professor of medicine at the University of Rochester and infectious disease specialist.

With.

You are medicine.

Welcome back to you.

Very nice to be here.

And Doctor Steven Schultz is with us, a pediatrician with Rochester Regional Health.

Doctor Schultz, it's great to have you on the program.

Thanks for being with us.

Thanks for having me.

So again, not a political conversation, but the reason that I do want to listen to a little bit of sound from the last few weeks is because the kind of sound that you're going to hear is having an effect.

NBC news is an investigation certainly found that with a lot of data, but we've known that anecdotally for much of the last decade.

I want to listen to what President Trump said about vaccines last week.

And, you know, children get these massive vaccines like you give to a horse, like you give to a horse.

And I've said for a long time, whether this is our secret screening out over five years, get five shots swollen.

So you have to see what they give.

They give.

I mean, for a little baby to be injected with that much fluid, even beyond the actual ingredients that sometimes 80 different vaccines said.

It's crazy.

It's you know, that's a common sense, too.

It's like you're it's like you're shooting up a horse.

You have a little body, a little baby, and you're pumping this big thing.

That's a horrible thing.

It's a horrible thing is how he ends it with Doctor Weinberg.

Make sure that Mike is nice and close to you so we can hear again.

It's not a political reaction.

It's your professional reaction.

What do you make of what you of that statement?

There?

I'm actually flabbergasted by this, by his references.

I don't know where he gets the count of 80.

I don't know where we're getting the common comparisons with horse vaccines.

And I don't know where he's saying that.

He's been saying this for years because this is the first time I've heard something.

I mean, I've heard him cast doubt on vaccines.

He is certainly susceptible to people who Benazir like RFK, but I have never heard him say, kids, babies get 80 vaccine doses and, that the doses are strong enough for the horse.

And and neither is true.

I mean, I'm not a veterinarian, but the doses are.

I don't believe they're higher than the horse does.

So we have, you know, testing way before a vaccine hits the market.

They're rigorously tested in clinical trials both here and around the world.

They're vetted by the FDA, which up until this political climate was a believable organization.

And then they're reexamined by the CDC, which, again, that the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices looks at the data again and decides which of the FDA licensed products, exactly how they should be used.

So traditionally, FDA looks at safety and efficacy.

That is how effective a vaccine is.

And CDC decides, are they really worth it for the population?

And even before that, the companies have looked at whether they're worth it or not.

None of the drug companies, as far as I have ever seen, want to sell ineffective products.

We see the data indicating that a large majority of American counties now have lower rates of vaccination than ten years ago.

Do you think statements like the president's are contributing to that?

Doctor Weinberg?

Yes, I believe so.

I think people are searching for for guidance.

And when guidance and all all people in positions of authority are listened to, sort of automatically, it's a nice part of citizenship that we always thought that when we heard a president or a senator or a congressperson saying something, that they knew what they were talking about.

And I think in today's age, we'd have to no matter which part of the political spectrum on there's question about whether people in charge know what they're talking about.

I think simultaneously the rise and this this may be difficult for me to to expound on, but the and I don't want to sound like an old curmudgeon, but I think the rise of social media has allowed everybody to have a voice and everybody having a voice is absolutely precious in a free society, but that voice has to have some accuracy behind it.

And the rise of social media has contributed to everybody seeming like an expert and then getting amplified 10,000 times.

And I think that's been a little bit of it, I think.

And a third factor, if I can just say one more thing, is that this is something that the scientific community has, not that we've predicted, but that we've known from from the behavior in other countries.

And that is when a if you go back several generations, our grandparents knew how dangerous polio was.

They lived in fear of polio every summer, for example, when FDR was growing up, they knew how dangerous measles was.

Everybody knew people who had lost children to measles.

They knew how dangerous epidemics were.

And the very success of our vaccine campaigns and our immunization to try and dampen down those diseases and prevent those diseases has led to the new generation of parents not understanding how serious and how possible these diseases are, because they haven't had they haven't been close to it because they haven't been close to it.

And then so if there there's this concept of the life cycle of a vaccine that the disease is out there, a vaccine is created, it's well taken up, the disease goes away, and then a new generation comes up, doesn't know the disease, worries about possible side effects of the vaccine, stops vaccinating epidemics, come back.

And then every only then everybody will come to their senses and re immunize again.

And I'm afraid we're sort of that was an old theoretical concept.

And I'm afraid we're recreating that in life right now with the cost of children of lives.

Yes, at the cost of people who are going to get the disease, which is the children.

And the other part of that statement of the president's, which was inaccurate, is delaying vaccinations for five years or more, slowing down the recommended schedule is the wrong thing you want to do, because many of these diseases are the most serious and the most life threatening in early childhood.

That's why we give vaccines in early childhood.

If we waited till everybody was ten years old, then many of the people who are going to die would already be dead.

The children.

Oh, so let me turn to Doctor Phil's.

I'll also say, and what the president said, doctor falls the I'm trying to understand doctor follows what the president's idea is here.

And maybe he's saying, well, it's not a vaccine for a horse, but it's a huge dose and it looks like the amount of, he said, the amount of fluid that you would give to a horse, I don't know, I know he's not a doctor.

But from your perspective, what goes through your mind?

What goes through my mind is to question, why anybody would say such things that are wildly inaccurate.

And, you know, we'll never know what he intends, what his motivation is.

But the end result is it creates, fear and uncertainty in parents.

And I think everybody can agree that the parents all want to do the best for their child.

They want to have a healthy, happy child with a long life ahead of them.

But now they get so many conflicting.

Whether it's social media, as Doctor Weinberg raised or on the TV or whatever, they don't actually know what to trust anymore.

And the traditional sources, the CDC, the FDA, NIH, the scientists, and even their own doctors seem not to be able to reassure them.

I think it's, it's very safe territory to be critical of anti social media.

If you both if you want to keep doing that, that's just fine.

I'm, I'm happy to be a curmudgeon about anti social media.

And I do think that it in it doesn't it doesn't create a desire in me to ban speech.

And I don't think Doctor Weinberg you know when he said people have to be accurate, he's not saying that we should be banning speech.

He's saying that there is a cost to amplifying voices that demand to be taken seriously, even if they don't possess expertise.

And we shouldn't all be.

And I don't expect everybody to be an expert.

My problem is, when I go to get my car repaired, I want somebody who's repaired cars before.

And how about how about getting on an airplane?

How about getting on an airplane?

Yeah, I want a pilot who's flown a plane before, but that's elitist.

Okay, now I'm getting snarky and it's not good to get snarky.

This is not helpful.

I got I'm going down a bad.

That's why I say talk to your doctors.

Because doctors, you know, talk to your pediatricians, talk to your family practitioners.

Well, and unfortunately, some of our traditional sources, you know, I would when people would ask me questions and they say, well, I've done my own research.

And I said, well, you know, you can't always trust what you read on the internet because you can't tell the sources.

But you should go to reliable, websites such as the CDC.

And, there's been a lot of casting of doubts on the competence and the motivations of our traditional agencies, which we relied on to make the best recommendations.

We don't have the time and energy to, you know, look up every study, and that's their job.

That's what they do.

They do it for us.

Doctor Schultz, you want to weigh in here?

So what are your initial thoughts on when you hear the kind of comments that we played?

Well, it is concerning that, these sorts of comments, instill doubt and fear into our patients and, you know, it's it seems in an unnecessary way that that's happening, and without a clear reason.

You know, immunizations are incredibly effective and they're incredibly safe.

And, you know, I can't get that, across any more.

You know, it's tough, as Doctor Weinberg mentioned, that a lot of these things we don't necessarily see anymore.

And so, you know, I've, been in practice for over 15 years now.

And, you know, when I was, training and Doctor Weinberg was actually, one of my mentors, you know, because of these vaccines, we didn't have to do, the same kind of lumbar puncture workups that we had to do on so many infants.

For those that trained maybe just ten years before me.

And so they've been incredibly effective.

They've been incredibly safe.

And, you know, my hope is that, as has been mentioned, is that the folks will listen to their primary care providers and have those conversations with them.

Yeah.

And can you just offer one more note on the schedule here?

I have an email from Andrew asking, I mean, I think he says I think the president's comments should be condemned.

However, when he talks about spreading out the schedule, I think that doesn't sound all that unreasonable.

Not nearly as unreasonable as what he said about horse vaccines.

So.

Okay, so, Doctor Schultz, do you want to elaborate?

Doctor Weinberg was making the point that there is a reason for the schedule.

But for people who hear the president's remarks about spread it out over five years, what would you want them to know?

Doctor Schultz?

So, these vaccines were schedule, were studied in the schedule that they have.

So, when we, look at the, the studies, the research that were done, they were given at two months, at four months, at six months, and antibody levels were measured.

And, you know, all these different things, that go into research, were monitored and assessed, based on the schedule.

And that's how we know that they work because, that's how we did the research.

And that's how, they've been rolled out, just like that.

When Burke mentioned there are, certainly risks for, younger children, infants, to have more serious complications, from, nearly all of, of the diseases that we immunize against, which is why immunizing, according to the schedule is important.

And there's always a risk if you choose to delay immunizations, if you choose to alter that schedule that you are exposing your child unnecessarily to those immunizations, without any, you know, reason for doing so to those diseases.

Yeah.

So, yeah.

So let me work in a few other comments here.

First of all, here's an email from Lee who says today's show is a great reason to plug the memoir, Small Steps the Year I Got Polio by Peg Karat or Kerry.

I don't know the author, but Lee says the book is written by a childhood polio survivor aimed at older elementary and middle grade students, and details the author's experience of going through the painful treatment process when she contracted polio at age 12.

The book serves as an excellent teaching tool for young people to understand what the virus did to people at the time, before the polio vaccine was invented.

Thankfully, there are multiple copies of this book in the Monroe County Library system, and I encourage everyone to check it out.

That's from Ali.

The book is called Small Steps The Year I Got Polio, if you want to check that out, and similar email from Charlie, he says, Evan, I'm old enough to remember the polio scare of the 1950s and 60s and my mom telling me about my cousin who got polio and had to wear braces on his legs.

Doctor Salk and his colleagues worked tirelessly and selflessly to rid the world of the scourge.

It's unconscious, containable to think someone without a medical degree is spouting off medical advice.

I will leave it at that, since we don't want to get too political that is from Charlie.

So yeah, I think polio is one.

But there are people living today who, you know, understand, understood what that was like.

But I think the more you get down the timeline and the further you get away from it, it's the story of any threat, any existential threat that is recedes further in the rear view.

It's easy to convince yourself that it was never a threat to begin with, or it couldn't ever be a threat again here.

But maybe similar to that point, let's talk about what we have seen this year.

We mentioned measles.

So Dallas says I used to hear a lot about the measles outbreak down south.

I think he's mentioning Texas.

He says now I don't how was that resolved?

I heard Canada and Europe were having larger outbreaks.

Now I don't.

So Dallas is sort of implying that was a lot of hype, but the measles thing wasn't that big of a deal.

Doctor Weinberg, you want to jump in?

Yes.

Thank you for that question.

Part of the reason you don't hear about it is, is our attention in, in public media is fairly, short sometimes.

And we have other things that are worrying us, wars around the world, etc.. Actually, the Canadian measles outbreak is still going on.

The Texas measles outbreak has stopped for now, because of vaccination, of of people around the area to prevent further spread of epidemics do recede if there are not enough people who are, who are not immune to that disease to get the disease.

So what do I mean by that?

So with measles, if there's 100 kids who are susceptible to measles and their exposed, 95 or more of them are going to get measles.

If you get enough kids in that circle who are now immunized, the virus has nowhere else to go and it will recede.

So the Texas epidemic has indeed receded.

But there's still activity in New York in most states.

Actually, there's been more measles cases this year than has been since, I believe it's 2000.

Okay.

Doctor Fauci, you know, and one thing I'll also bring up is that a lot of these diseases and particular measles is prevalent throughout the world.

And now that the US is not actively helping other countries with their vaccination programs, we may have more imported cases of measles, polio, you know, they don't respect borders.

The viruses.

Okay.

Yeah, I think that's good context there.

The importation of polio into New York City was from travelers a few years ago.

And it is not to blame travelers or to blame immigrants or migrants.

It's just as exactly as Doctor Fauci said, viruses don't know anything about borders.

And so until we can insulate ourselves better with higher vaccination rates, right?

Yes.

Yeah.

So, Matt writes to say, Evan, I guess I vastly underestimate the social influence that Trump and RFK have.

I do believe he is not the sole influence in this movement.

We see it very heavily in hip hop culture with rappers like Nicki Minaj or others being very anti-vax.

We see it with influencers who push anti-vaccine as a method to make money from that population.

So it's coming from all influential angles.

I think the movement is too large to be stopped at this point.

That's what Matt says.

So first of all, Matt, you're making a very good and important point.

And there's different reasons for the stance from different people.

Donald Trump might not have the same motivations as someone in the hip hop community, or someone in the influencer online community.

But certainly those pressures are real.

The, the idea that it's too big to be stopped, though it is, flies in the face of the fact that we still have, you know, we're not at a 30% immunization in the country where even though we see 77% of American counties declining with pediatric vaccination rates, according to NBC news, this investigation, doctor Fauci, we're still, you know, in a situation where most people get their kids vaccinated, most people get themselves vaccinated.

I don't think it's too big to stop it.

I think the movement against it, I don't think it's too big.

It's not a tidal wave, I don't think.

What do you think?

Well, I think you're right.

I think most of the country, in particular Rochester, is, generally very, favorable to vaccination.

But I, you know, I think your, your caller, brings up an important point about these different groups.

And you mentioned as well, when I speak to people individually who are vaccine hesitant, there's a lot of different reasons why people don't want to get a vaccine.

You can't the anti-vax movement, has many components and many motivations.

And particularly during Covid, we had to reach out to community partners because some of the minority populations, you know, they don't they have a reason, perhaps not to trust the government, vaccinations and medical research.

And so, you have to understand what it is the person is fearful about.

Start with the conversation of why are you fearful?

And I don't think as long as we continue to correct misinformation and try to explain risk benefit, I don't think it's going to just overwhelm us.

Well, let me get another question from a listener who was asking.

Just submit this question anonymously.

This listener says, thank you for having this conversation.

I trust vaccines and follow all recommended immunization advice for my children.

What I'm wondering about is the flu and Covid vaccines, which our pediatrician has conveyed as optional and seemed almost careful not to nudge one way or the other.

In previous years, when we have opted to vaccinate our kids, they contracted both flu and Covid, and I do realize this is not uncommon.

It does not change the efficacy and the importance of immunizations.

Immunizing children.

As a parent, I'm curious, what is the current expert advice on these two vaccines for kids without any risk factors?

Given the possible shortage and the issues of availability of people for people with advanced needs, is it safe to sit this year out for our kids getting vaccinated against flu and Covid?

Doctor Schultz, do you want to start there?

Yeah.

So we know that the different vaccines, certain ones have better effectiveness than others.

And for instance, we were just discussing the measles.

If you have two doses of the measles vaccine, you are 97%, protected, from getting, measles, which is great.

Flu and Covid, we know, are quite that good.

The efficacy is, is lower, but that doesn't mean that it's still not important.

We know that, they still significantly reduce hospitalization, deaths.

And in particular, if you, I found that my family's the kiddos who get the flu and Covid vaccine when they get that illness, it doesn't tend to be as severe as if, they had not had the vaccine previous.

We have actually seen an increase in pediatric deaths from, influenza, over the past, 3 or 4 years here.

And in particular, there's, something called influenza associated, encephalopathy that has, popped up.

This isn't super common, but, of the 13 folks that have gotten it in New York State, nine have been, Unimmunized two, actually ten and one was ineligible to get the vaccine.

So, there is certainly still, you know, importance in getting, the flu and the Covid vaccines and protecting against, more serious outcomes.

And as well, against things like long Covid, as in that case, we also know that certain, populations are more susceptible to these illnesses.

So, you know, for instance, Covid, less than six months of age, if you get Covid, your, chances of being hospitalized are similar to, this 65 plus population.

And the six month to, 23 month, age category, your, risk of getting, hospitalized from Covid is similar to the 55 to 64 year old population.

So, well, most people, it's a, very, it's more of a mild course.

We know that there are some populations that are more susceptible.

And why, these vaccines are all the more important.

Okay, doctor Weinberg, for this listening.

Who wants to know?

Safe to sit out this year for our kids with flu and Covid vaccines?

I think that's always a difficult question.

I mean, my answer is going to be no.

It's but again, it's it's the vaccines are much safer than the disease.

So I'll say that first, all the vaccines on the market are far safer than if you take your chances with the illness.

A listener could point out.

Yes, but that you said, if so, who gets ill and who doesn't get ill is not in our purview.

But if you do get ill, as Doctor Schultz said, if you're a child, you're much more likely to be hospitalized or get sicker.

So I would say if you're trying to provide the maximum safety to your child, I would always, every year I would give them influenza vaccine and, and now Covid vaccine, and especially in those under 23 months of age, especially in those with any of the risk factors.

But I think it's safe and and beneficial to all children under 18 years of age.

So I thank the caller for for asking that.

And I'm sorry that their pediatrician has been so or family practitioner, whoever it was, has been so evenhanded in in discussing its options.

That's what the CDC is trying to tell us now that it's optional.

If you go to the American Academy of Pediatrics website, where where the American Academy of Pediatrics has, has, has always had an immunization schedule, you'll notice that they have stuck with, the previous suggestions or suggestions that I just had, which are that these two vaccines are, are, are more often than not effective and are always safe and beneficial to children and should continue to be given one more question from a listener before the break that I'll ask Doctor Falsey to weigh in.

And this comes from a viewer on YouTube who says, I'm a nurse.

I always got my flu shot.

I updated tetanus before a long remote camping trip.

I declined the Covid vaccine when it was an option, and then I lost my job when it was required.

And now here we are and people don't even know where their little proof cards are.

So the implication being the here we are alone.

I read that as you know, you reap what you sow.

People don't trust the establishment anymore and remember those proof cards?

You know, people don't even know what those are.

I mean, I'm curious to know, Doctor Falsey, if you feel like there's been a need for reflection in your profession about lost trust or where are you?

Where you sort of put whose doorstep you put that up?

Well, I think it's an excellent point to raise, and I think looking backwards is always easier than dealing with a crisis at the time.

And where we are, I would say, is we now know that the RNA vaccines do not provide, 100% protection against infection and that they're not durable because immunity wanes and there's different variants.

They are extremely good, however, for keeping you out of the hospital and having severe disease.

If even if you haven't gotten a booster, that they were tremendously effective.

And where we were when the, you know, and this is a country of individualists, they don't like to be told what to do.

But I think people have forgotten it was flatten the curve.

I mean, the hospitals were bursting at the seams.

We were seriously worried we would run out of ventilators.

And if you had a stroke or a heart attack, you couldn't get it in the hospital.

So the idea of mandating people getting vaccinated at that moment in time, they were 95% effective early on to prevent that severe disease that ended you up in the hospital.

What do we do now?

I think I'm not, even though I'm a very big proponent of vaccines, I can see a young, healthy person in their 20s saying, you know, I always get a bad reaction to the RNA vaccine at zero risk factors.

The hospitals are now functioning well.

That the decision to say, you know, I don't want to get a Covid vaccine this year is not unreasonable.

You know, when we talk about the kids, the mortality and the hospitalization rates, it's a U-shaped curve.

So those little kiddos less than two and the older people 65 and over.

But, you know, in the middle there, if you're young and healthy, I could live with someone's personal decision.

But, you know, back at the time that there were mandates, there were reasons that that was done.

Yeah, I understand the point.

And, you know, maybe tied to the question on public trust, Mark emails to say, Evan, whatever happened to the died suddenly movement?

I mean, I'm not up to speed lately.

I will say, for listeners who don't know what that is, there was this meme, this this, I guess I'll call it a meme or this idea going around after the vaccine, the Covid vaccines came out that anybody who died suddenly, it had to be because of the vaccine.

They tried to put the vaccine as the blame for Damar Hamlin, the Buffalo Bills player who nearly died on the field in Cincinnati.

Of course, it ended up having nothing to do with the vaccine.

And Hamlin, of course, is still playing.

But it was cases like that in which there was cardiac arrest or something, you know, an accident and people saying, well, that person shouldn't have died.

And there was this effort to say the Covid vaccines are going to create a wave of young deaths that never would have occurred, and the data just doesn't support it.

I want to say I don't say that lightly.

I don't say that.

Like if you are actually wondering, it's easy to wonder.

We all have questions for the lay public.

If we're not experts, it's it's okay to wonder, but the data is very clear on that.

In fact, a lot fewer people are dead thanks to the Covid vaccines, not more.

And there's not a wave of young people age 18 or 20 8 or 38 who all of a sudden drop dead and no one knew why.

It just didn't happen that way.

So, Mark, I don't know if that's still a thing that people are looking at or worried about, but there's just not data on that.

After we take our only break, I've got more phone calls lined up.

I've got e-mails.

We're gonna get through as much as we can, and we're really glad to have the expertise of doctors Jeffrey Weinberg and Ann Falsey and Stephen Schultz with us talking about vaccines and what we all ought to know coming up.

Coming up in our second hour, there's a lot of hype regarding Lily Norwood.

Lily Norwood is not a person.

It's an AI actress, so to speak.

A synthetic actress created by a Dutch lab that is marketing Lily Norwood as the next Natalie Portman or Scarlett Johansson.

Is that what you want?

Do you want AI actresses and actors on the screen, or should we demand that that work be done by humans?

We'll talk about it next hour.

Support for your public radio station comes from our members and from Mary Carey Ola Center, proud supporter of connections with Evan Dawson, believing an informed and engaged community is a connected one.

Mary Carey, ola.org.

This is connections.

I'm Evan Dawson.

Let me, let me continue to work through the questions, comments, etc.. And this is Pat in Geneva listening on Finger Lakes Public Radio.

Hey, Pat, go ahead.

Hi, Pat.

You.

Oh.

I'm sorry.

Yeah.

Go ahead.

82 years ago, my mother was in an iron lung.

She was in her 20s, and she was 28 years old.

Died of polio, leaving two little children.

Pat, my cousins don't realize they're in their 70s.

They don't realize what polio had done at that time.

And how grateful we all should be that there are vaccines.

So it's not just the little ones that can.

Something can happen to if it's a mother leaving little children, it's that good either.

I'm sorry for your loss, Pat.

And, even the phrase iron lung for a lot of young adults is not something that they even really understand.

Doctor Foster, you had heard of a visceral reaction to that story of what would you want listeners to understand there?

Yeah, it reiterates what we've been saying, that the vaccines have been so successful, people don't understand.

These were really terrible, terrible diseases.

You know, I am old enough that at family picnics, we would always have somebody with, leg braces or, you know, that had had polio.

So it was real to us.

And, you know, our mothers were like, no, you can't go swimming in August because that's when polio is around.

So it was a real thing.

And you know, I do understand how if you've never seen it or experienced it, that it's just so remote, you don't have the same, as you say, visceral reaction to it.

Part of the problem is biological and that these pathogens or germs are still out there for the most part.

So there's some diseases we can eradicate, like smallpox.

We have taken out of the world by use of vaccines, but some germs are just going to be there like tetanus.

You it's in the soil.

You can't get rid of tetanus ever.

So we need to continue to be immunized against tetanus, even though none of us have really seen a case of tetanus recently.

It's out there.

So I like to think of vaccines as sort of training our immunity or updating our, you know, rebooting our personal immune computer, if you will, or being the next textbook or something like that.

It's it's because these disasters are awaiting.

Well, I don't like to say disaster, but infections are awaiting.

And again, they they neither they neither, care about international borders.

No.

Nor do they care about who they're going to attack next.

Let me direct the next question, to let's see here.

Boy, there's a bunch.

Let's just keep going.

I get as many phone calls and then if you posted a question on YouTube or email, we'll try to get them all in here.

This is Pat next in Rochester.

Hey, Pat.

Go ahead.

Yes, I get my flu and Covid vaccines and my children get their vaccines.

But I think we should give credit to those skeptics who got mercury out of vaccines.

If you think about it, we were giving mercury to tiny babies, and I'm hopeful that we will eventually get all the aluminum out of our vaccines.

Also.

But I think that we also need to focus that, exposure to the chemicals present in all of us, known to reduce the reactions that we should experience to vaccines.

Yeah.

Let me just jump in, Pat.

So, let me start by saying this before I turn it over to the experts.

When we hear when we in the lay public hear words like mercury, even something like the word arsenic, which I'm not saying I don't even know.

I'm saying like there are trace amounts, there's non-zero amounts, there's thresholds of concern that I don't understand about literally anything.

And it's easy for me to see what are the ingredients in this vaccine and then go, well, I don't mercury.

I know I'm murky when I have no idea how much is in there.

How does it act with the other, items that are in that vaccine?

What is its purpose?

Is it at a level or threshold of harm?

So I hear your concern, and I just want to salute the fact that you're trying to be up on top of stuff that's really important.

I don't necessarily share the idea that I, as a layperson, could look at a list and a vaccine and say, well, there's mercury in it, so it's bad.

There's aluminum, so it's bad.

Doctor falls is is it a goal to get mercury or aluminum or anything else out of vaccines?

How would you respond to that call from Pat in Rochester?

So I think it's always important to look at the components of a vaccine and determine if its use is warranted.

Mercury, term thimerosal used to be in multi-dose vaccines because it is a preservative.

So it kept bacteria from growing.

Almost all vaccines are now mercury free, although they never showed that it, actually lead to any harmful effects.

And it's, and I'm not a chemist.

It's a different type of mercury than some of the other ones.

I can't speak for Mercury.

Yeah, I think so.

The only thing left that has any mercury is Multi-Dose flu vaccine.

And, the ACIp just voted to not go forward with that.

And unfortunately, you know, as you were pointing out, there's there's levels to which it's almost negligible.

But what it means is you can't have, vaccine clinics and potentially low income settings or in nursing homes or it's going to drive the cost up.

And so do would I like every component out of it if it's not necessary?

Well, in a multi-dose vial, it's providing, protection against bacteria growing.

Most things are now single use regarding aluminum.

It's it's called alum in the vaccine world.

It is what we refer to as an adjuvant, something that boosts your immunity more than just the vaccine itself.

And every vaccine that is in use, it's studied sort of with and without adjuvants.

There's new adjuvants coming along.

So, you know, I don't I don't have a safety concern with these things, but they're continually updated and and studied.

Let me ask Doctor Schultz and doctor, I'm Doctor Schultz.

Do people say to you, any aluminum in this?

And is that safe for my kids?

I don't get that a lot.

But, I have the occasional parent that does ask about ingredients.

And, you know, one of the things I would also add to that are probably mentioned is that many of the vaccines that we have now, come together with, multiple different things that you're protecting against in one shot.

And, you know, that's one of the wonderful advents of, medical technology and science is that, now instead of giving numerous separate, injections, we can do one injection, that, covers multiple things at once.

For instance, you know, the period tetanus, pertussis, polio, Haemophilus endpoint a b, which is a terrible bacteria, polio, hepatitis B, there's, one single, shot that is a single dose that, covers all of those things and reduces the number of immunizations and also any potential adjunct, by, by doing that combination vaccine.

Yeah, I think that's right.

And I'll, I'll just add to what doctor files or Doctor Schultz have said there.

There's the first comment is the caller's absolutely right.

We all want to get the safest vaccines we can.

We believe we have them right now.

It's none of us really missed taking out ethyl mercury, from the vaccines, the thimerosal.

Although, as Doctor Fauci pointed out, it was there for a reason.

Now we have to use single shots, lots of more medical waste, single doses.

But if that's what people want, that's fine.

And FEMA Mercury is totally different than inorganic mercury.

It's totally different than methylmercury.

So much of the information that was out there about mercury toxicity was inappropriately taken because it was a different chemical form.

I don't want to get into biochemistry here, but I could go on forever about that.

But the second, the second, but yes, that we we all are exposed to mercury, to arsenic, to aluminum from the pots we cook in, from the water we drink from living on Earth, which the Earth's crust is mostly metal.

And the inner core of the of the Earth.

So we're all exposed to these things.

And the question always has to be asked how much exposure is bad and, and or worse.

And so the, the studies that have been done in children are vaccinated or not vaccinated don't show any, any difference in their metal contents.

If you measure it in their blood, their hair, their skin, then in children who haven't been vaccinated, the other thing that people do ask me about sometimes, and that might relate to President Trump's misconception of the multiple, components of vaccines, is actually today's vaccines are safer than those that we got, or that our grandparents got.

Her parents got, because we have for many of the vaccines, they're much more clean and chemically purified than the old vaccine.

And the biggest, the biggest example of this is the whooping cough or pertussis vaccine.

The whole cell pertussis vaccine was a soup of pertussis germs that were inactivated and given, and they were very effective at preventing pertussis or whooping cough.

But they gave older parents will remember they gave a lot of reactions, a lot of fever, a lot of sore legs, a lot of crying.

And the newer pertussis vaccines are much more, purified.

And so we're giving, if you count up what's in the vaccines biochemically, we're actually getting more protection for less components injected into the children, which is the goal, to be as safe as we can, but to get the same protection.

So we've actually come a very far away with that.

And I don't think it gets publicized as much as it could have.

But we're going to try to move faster because I still have a lot I want to work in, including one more clip I want to listen to, from YouTube.

A listener, a viewer says, last month I decided to get a Covid booster, and my parents and sister told me not to because they claimed lots of young people were dropping dead.

This caused a huge family argument.

I'm sorry you had to deal with that argument.

And I'm sure you love your family, and I'm sure they care very much.

They're not correct about that, though.

There are not young people dropping dead from Covid vaccines.

Good luck to you.

Now, speaking of Covid vaccines, Lee did follow up to say that, from New York State, per a New York state executive order, now extended another month.

Pharmacies can, can provide vaccines for anyone over six months.

Many local CVS pharmacies have the pediatric doses.

Call and ask, so you should be able to find them, from what I understand.

Hear that sound about right to you and Fozzy doctor?

It does okay, but I'm going to defer to my pediatric care umbrella there.

Yeah, no, I wasn't aware of any shortages per se.

What I was aware of is across the country, there are questions about whether you need to go to your doctor to get an order or not.

And in the state of New York, no you don't.

You can go just like we did last year.

You can go to the did the pharmacy answer a few quick questions and get your flu or Covid vaccines.

All right.

Real quick, Doctor Weinberg, Beth wants to know, do you recommend Covid and flu vaccines for someone recovering from a Lyme disease?

Yes, there's no evidence that they're suffering from Lyme disease means that you should avoid those vaccines right now.

That is correct.

I always like people to be in general good health when they're getting vaccines, but recovering from Lyme disease should be, if they're feeling better, they're not having constant fevers or anything, which yeah, they've been treated.

That should be fine.

I one more clip I want to listen to.

It's a good way to kind of start to close the program because it's from another doctor.

But it's a doctor is a US senator.

The HHS secretary, Robert F Kennedy junior, testified before the US Senate, and he had this exchange with the Republican who voted for his confirmation that Republican Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana.

He's a gastroenterologist who's been critical of RFK regarding vaccines.

I want to listen to this back and forth between Senator Cassidy and Secretary Kennedy.

You also said that you are also a lead attorney for the Children's Health Defense.

You engage in multiple lawsuits attempting to restrict access to the Covid vaccine.

Again, it surprises me that you think so highly of Operation Warp Speed when as an attorney, you attempted to restrict access for me.

Yeah, I'm happy to.

I'm happy to explain why.

I have I had three minutes and 30s left.

All right.

It also surprises me because you've canceled or hosted, but apparently under your direction, $500 million in contracts using the RNA vaccine platform that was critical to Operation Warp Speed.

Again, an accomplishment that I think President Trump should get a Nobel Prize.

You canceled 500 million in contracts.

Now, I grew up in a middle class family, so $500 million seems to cancel.

It seems like an incredible waste of money, but it also seems like the commentary upon what the president was attempting, what the president did in Operation Warp Speed, which is a create a platform by which to create vaccines.

So this just seems inconsistent that you would agree with me.

The president deserves tremendous amount of credit for this.

Is this a question, Senator Cassidy, or is this the speech you don't want me to.

I want to answer that question.

Please, please, it's a question b b type, please.

First of all, the the reason that Operation Warp Speed, which is, is it did something nobody had ever been done.

I don't think any President Bush or President Trump could do it.

It got the vaccine to mark that was perfectly matched to the virus at that time, when it was badly needed, because there was no natural immunity and or people getting very badly injured by Covid.

And then but he was also it was also brought in therapeutics like hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin and also and protocols for treatments and all.

And there were no mandates.

And then the other question so pleased about that is when I began litigating against Biden's mandates now.

So let me go on, because you covered the mad contracts.

I have limited time, Mr.

Secretary.

I'm sorry you've called for, and rightly so, that we should restrict participation in agencies.

For those with conflict of interest, I would like to, submit for the record a, evaluation of the conflict of interest of those who are on the ACIp and the Vaccines and Related Biologic Products Advisory Board.

It was not 97% as alleged, rather was 6.9%, and it was 1.2%, I think, for the other panel.

Without objection.

Now I am concerned, though, because many of those whom you have nominated for the ACA board.

Excuse me, excuse me, I'm in their shoes, I can I have my time back?

Just.

Yeah.

What I am concerned about is that many of those whom you've nominated for seven have received revenue as serving as expert witnesses for plaintiffs attorneys suing, suing vaccine makers.

Now, one of my colleagues, in another setting allege that you see more interested in settlements in science.

If we put people who are paid witnesses for vaccine, people suing vaccines, that actually seems like a conflict of interest real quickly.

Do you agree with that?

No, I don't I encourage you to listen and watch the whole exchange.

Doctor Bill Cassidy, a senator, a Republican senator from Louisiana deeply critical of HHS Secretary RFK Jr.

But it's a good place to rep, because before the program began, I think, I think it's fair to say the doctors in studio were saying that sometimes you feel a sense of mistrust from the public because the work that you do entails, you know, working with products created by Big pharma, that's a whole other conversation on people's distrust of big pharma.

And I understand opioids, and a lot goes into it.

However, Doctor Weinberg, let's close with this.

And our last 40s or so do you.

Do you see where Doctor Cassidy is going?

There with the dissonance in the arguments from the HHS secretary, do you think the senator from Louisiana was was on the right trail there?

It's absolutely dissonant that I know the people.

I know many of the people.

I'm sure doctor files, he knows them, too, who are fired from ACIp.

And it is true there is less than a 5% conflict of interest that they always recuse themselves from votes.

They were heavily vetted.

I've been on ACIp work groups, and I know how heavily the vetting is, and the people that that Mr.

Kennedy has appointed are almost all, for the most part, conflicted by payment.

They're they're making money representing plaintiffs.

They've made money.

Yeah.

Going after vaccine.

Yeah.

Even though Kennedy has said his big concern is conflict of interest.

Yeah, that's what it seems.

Okay, I want to say we covered a lot of ground here, but we're going to continue to have these conversations.

And I want to thank Doctor Jeffrey Weinberg and Doctor and Falsey and Doctor Steven Schultz for taking the time to be with us to share their expertise.

Thank you for coming in.

I know your time is very, very valuable.

We appreciate it.

Come back again sometime, maybe on a happier occasion.

Thank you, Doctor Schultz.

Yeah.

Go ahead.

One last thing I'd like to leave with.

I have a 13 year old son who's been fully vaccinated.

According to the schedule, including every possible flu and Covid vaccine he's ever been eligible for.

So I just like to leave with everybody, all our listeners that I practice what I preach and I believe, all our local primary care providers do as well.

Thank you.

Doctors.

All right.

More coming up.

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