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Geopolitics and the world at large certainly a focal point for US makes sense with the You and General Assembly underway here in New York City. We did have some comments from President Donald Trump out on his social media platform saying, I think Ukraine, with the support of the European Union, is in a position to fight and win
all of Ukraine back in its original form. This is coming after President Trump and Ukrainian President Voldemir Zelensky met on the sidelines of the You and General Assembly earlier Tuesday. Earlier today, let's see what Michelle jem Risco has to say. She's Bloomberg White House, a national security editor. She's out there in our DC News bureau. Michelle, when it comes to the relationship with the US in Ukraine, it goes back and forth here.
What's the read on this?
Yeah, well, certainly goes back and forth, and as we all know, the president does like to be unpredictable. He likes to kind of maintain leverage and you know, upskating what his thinking might be and what his actions might be.
And so while this is pretty jolting and a one to eighty turnabout really in terms of his comments around who is best position to win this war is kind of a part and parcel of what we see from from Trump and his sort of transactional diplomacy and his unpredictable diplomacy at that.
So, yeah, my jaw dropped when I saw this. Carol can attest it because you know, for months we've been hearing about the idea that, yes, this war could end. This is coming from the president. This war could end if Ukraine seeds some territory and we took that to be to be land here. So this would seem like a direct one point eighty How does this happen? Or let me rephrase the question, Michelle, can this happen without us support?
Well, that's certainly a high bar. I mean, I think we need to also look at this through the lens of what Trump is trying to achieve here. I mean, obviously he's been expressing disappointment as recently as this morning and as you and General Assembly a speech about Putin's behavior, the Russian prison's behavior as opposed to what his Trump's expectations were coming into office, as he admits he thought this would be one of the easier conflicts to resolve
based on his relationship with Putin. That has not turned out to be the case, and it's frustrating the US president to the point of him kind of turning his strategy on its head and now speaking as if Ukraine has the upper hand in the war. So certainly some strategy in that respect. But to your point, yeah, it would be very tough, I think, to have this achieved without the support of the direct support of the US. But that is what Trump is willing to offer at
this point. He's saying the US was willing to continue to support NATO to give the European allies the resources that they need to pass on to Ukraine, but it is loathed to get involved. And of course in successive administrations, the US has been loads to get involved with boots on the ground to help out as.
Well, and the President did say, you believe NATO nations should shoot down Russian aircraft that violated their airspace, said the US would continue to supply, as you said, the alliance with weapons. This was happening as he met with the Ukrainian President Zelenski following recent incursions that have certainly alarmed allies when it comes to drones. He said, yes, I do, the President said when asked directly by a reporter if NATO allies should take down Russian aircraft during
his meeting on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly. Again, the read on this that seems pretty pretty straightforward.
Essentially, Well, it's that's been an interesting developing story all day. Yeah, all just in the past few hours. I mean, essentially, Trump is giving his blessing for others to do what he is not willing to have the US get involved in.
But at the same time, it's still kind of contradicts or or at least is at odds with the tone and tenor of what his Secretary of State Mark Rubio said earlier in the day when he was asked about the Polish leader's tusk, his comments on being willing to shoot down a Russian aircraft and Rubio kind of dismissed that and had a kind of a vague line around, you know, diminishing that sort of prospect. But Trump now saying, yeah, go for it. Basically, if they're invading your airspace, NATO allies,
you know, take them down. So he's certainly kind of, as we say, kind of ratcheting up his leverage against Putin in frustration over and not talking to each other. Yeah, yeah, it certainly feels that way.
What love that the US actually has when it comes to put has been trial well certainly.
I mean there's a lot on the economic front. You know, in successive administrations you always ask, you know, what more can be sanctioned? But you know, as the Treasury Department always says, and the US presidents have successively said, you know,
there's there's always more that we can do. And certainly in Trump's portfolio, which has been very openly exposed in terms of what he wants to do on policy, to ratchet up against Russia, he could move a little bit further to pressure other countries, including uh India and China and perhaps Hungry as came up earlier today, to cease their Russian energy purchases. He's already putting more pressure on European partners to do so, and saying, you know, you
can't be hypocritical about this. If if you want me to apply these renewed penalties, you have to do it yourself as well. So he's offering Trump is offered different options for ratcheting up that pressure on putin Economically.
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All right, we should keep in mind that we really saw a lot of unity at the most recent FED meeting.
Some dissenters the meeting beforehand.
Meantime, if you're at the UN this morning, there were no calls for unity. Instead, President Trump sailed the United Nations and other countries in a grievance laden's speech that accused the world body of offering nothing but empty words, labeled climate change a con job, and warned open borders.
Risks destroying nations.
You also criticized the organization that housed his morning address.
I ended seven wars dealt with the leaders of each and every one of these countries and never even received a phone call from the United Nations offering to help in finalizing the deal. What is the purpose of the United Nations? The UN is such tremendous potential. I've always said it. It has such tremendous, tremendous potential. But it's not even coming close to living up to that potential for the most part, at least for now. All they seem to do is write a really strongly worded letter
and then never follow that letter up. It's empty words, and empty words don't solve war.
That, of course, was President President Trump. Excuse me, addressing the UN General Assembly this morning? Do you want to mention a headline crossing President Trump to meet with the head of France, mister Macron, and also the head of Uzbekistan while in New York City? So these headlines are going to continue to come with more in the President's spech.
You want to go write to it.
Josh wing Grove is in the House, not in DC. He's Bloomberg, new senior White House correspondent.
Josh. You cover the president all his twists and turns. This was an interesting speech.
It was it's great to be here, great to happen person is a rare treat for us here. Look, the Trump Show hits the road every once in a while, and you know, the aperture opens and welcome, Welcome to the second term. You know, he hit a lot of themes that he'd hit previously in this, although probably more
strongly than in the past. Basically, he sort of assailed the UN over as you mentioned, climate and immigration is two big topics, going so far as to basically completely dismiss the notion of climate change as a hoax, but also on immigration, saying that it's the single biggest political issue of our era. So trying to draw the draw line in the sound. But Trump being Trump, he talked about the teleprompter not working. This was sort of a
bit of his in the campaign. Let's just say it's open to interpretation whether that was actually the case or not. The uens that the teleprompter was working fine, of course was yeah, But then was griping about the escalator.
That was fine, that.
Was not I can confirm the escalator was not working, and then later was working. It seemed to get under his skin and that's when he went off about the renovation that he wished he'd done and told them, you know, you could be walking on marble, you're walking on tarazzo flooring, you know that, right, So you know it's it was a journey a weave, as President Trump likes to say. But I think it just underscores not only is long standing disdain for the UN. Remember, the US is delinquent
right now and it's fun to support the UN. Trump is given no indication that he plans to change that, but also the kind of new grievances are adding on. In particular, he thinks he you know, he's obviously kind of gently somewhat campaigning for a Nobel prize. He talks about ending seven wars and he's wondering where the UN has been. He sort of wanted credit for it, said they didn't get a phone call. But Trump being Trump, you know, he got off stage, sat down with Gutara's
and then was all smiles and nice. So picker Lands, I suppose.
Yeah, even mentioning other leaders who he had said things about, but then at run into personally, essentially saying, you know, I ran into this person. I can't believe to be talking about this, and it's kind of for you who covers Trump covers the president. It's not surprising because that's the way he is. But for world leaders who are sitting there, who are not necessarily accustomed to following every comment that he makes, especially at the UN, this was unconventional.
I think that that's I think that's right to say. Yeah, I mean, if you're being sort of re onboarded into a Trump spech after maybe six years it had been since his last one, for sure, this is going to take you by storm. I do think that there are things to watch that we'll make news today, for sure, beyond the speech, including the bilateral with President of Zelensky, which should be wrapping up just as we speak, right or just has wrapped up. Trump has really shifted on
Zelensky a lot. He said today that it's remarkably brave what the Ukrainians are doing. That is a big shift in tone from January, and so that one we're watching you sort of tacitly endorse the notion of NATO nations shooting down Russian planes?
Does that have to do with the recent violations of airspace that we've seen.
I think I personally would read that more as a Trump sort of handwavy type of comment. I would not read that as like an emphatic shift in US policy. He sort of danced around the drone an issue. He danced around it again in a separate answer today, but he did say flatly yes, he thinks that NATO should have the right to shoot down Russian planes, not drones, if they incur on NATO airspace. So we'll see. As you know, this is speaking of long time agrievmances. It
wasn't just the UN. NATO, of course, he has had sort of a bumpy ride with but he's been more pro NATO as of late, in particular touting the increased defense spending pledges from Europe and Canada and other you know, allies generally. So I think I think you know that one. We got a lot of eyes on this Macrone meeting could be interesting. He made a little bit of news last night wandering the streets of New York upset about the president's MOTORCN. What we can all relate to that.
Everybody knows a city bike is the way to go during the UN General Assembly. So if only he had a helmet, maybe would have seen the French leader on the city.
But we can we can know lovely, Yes, yeah, we get, but that'll be going. Trump is hosting a reception tonight. We don't actually know who's going, so we don't know if this is sort of a friend's only thing, like you know, Mela and the other whatevers, or if it's a broader thing. So we'll see. We don't know right now whether they'll let the press in. But I'll be there waiting, open, praying.
Hey, I'll be here outside, waiting on your city bank.
In your city bike.
I mean, against everything else that's going, we're still doing stories about the H one B visas. I mean, there's just so much josh when you look at the president. I don't know how you guys do it, because there's so much coming at you top of the White House agenda right now, because sometimes I feel like, watch here, guys, but don't look at here, which is maybe something impactful. I don't know how are you sussing out kind of what matters right now when it comes to the White House.
I mean Trump always likes to flood the zone. That's been a consistent theme throughout his presidencies. I think on the H one B thing, this is a big change and it's a little unclear to me whether they're shifting it on the fly. Remember they have their big announcement Friday. Everyone's brain's exploded on Saturday. They started to, let's say detail. Critics might say, walk back some of the things. For instance, Secretary of Latini said things on Friday that have not
ultimately been the policy. And today the new development is sort of getting rid of the lottery system. We knew that was happening. Trumpet signaled before the whole one hundred thousand dollars fee thing that that was happening. But this is a you know, huge change, and so they you know, whether it's impact on the tech sector, on healthcare, all this is really up in the air right now. And it's you know, part and parcel obviously with a complete
overhaul of the American immigration system as he sees it. So, you know, people that have each one these now are breathing a sigh of relief because there was a moment there where they were like, oh, shoot, we got to get back on us soil, you know, in hours. But it doesn't look like that's the case. So for now, that's the shiny thing we're looking at it.
So while you're here in town. Come back, yes, Josh wing Grove. He is Bloomberg News Senior White House correspondent, Josh. Thank you as oways.
Stay with us. More from Bloomberg Business Week Daily coming up after this.
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Federal agents dismantled a network of devices in the New York area that was used to threaten senior US government officials and bore signs of foreign involvement. This according to the US Secret Service, agents discovered more than three hundred simcard servers and one hundred thousand simcards in several locations within a thirty five mile radius of New York City.
That's according to a statement on Tuesday. The Secret Service moved quickly, given that any attack could have severely disrupted New York at a time when world leaders are gathering in the city for a meeting of the UN General Assembly. I want to bring in Jennifer Ubank. She's the founder of and a Man, a strategic advisor. She works with companies on cyber resilience, geopolitical risk, and more. She's also a former Deputy director of the CIA for Digital Innovation.
She joins us from Virginia. Jennifer, good to have you back with us this afternoon. I want to talk about what the Secret Service discovered here. What does an attack like this mean, or a potential attack like this mean? What would be the goal of something like this? What's your view?
Wow, thanks for the invitation today, and man, there's never a dull day in national security or cyber is there? And today's obviously no exception. So what I'd say is this is quite literally unprecedented activity in its scale, and I would say audacity right just that you cited all the figures in its eye watering. What would have gone into planning such an activity? And so great question to
start with is why what is that for? And I think officials who have been working on this have very smartly been cautious about attribution so quickly because they're still investigating. But I think you can look at it as maybe three or three different bins. So there first there's disruption this network. This technology could have taken out cellular communications, emergency communications, and enabled you encrypted communications amongst various actors.
So disruption would have been one possible explanation. Another is threats. I mean, it seems like a lot of technology for that, but there are some anecdotal reports of threats against US officials being made from some of these devices and through these means. And then the third one, you know, could be some sort of criminal enterprise or clandestine network operating on a large scale. And certainly the timing around the one general assembly, the location of the equipment, all of
that suggests something more. And be very eager to see what officials start to say as they come up with more details.
You know, Jennifer, when something like this happens, how do they know that it's signs of foreign involvement versus domestic involvement.
Yeah, that's a really great question, and there's there's been a speculation in there, because, as I mentioned, officials are being quite close lipped at this point because they're deep into investigating to get the details. But there have been anecdotal reports of some sign ups of connection between actors using this stuff and at least somebody in a foreign official position. You know, I think it's really important not to go too far down that avenue of speculation. But
they'll be looking. Investigators will be looking for these kinds of connections because of course the digital footprint is out there to be investigated. So they'll be combing through that using probably technical tools, using AI, using link analysis, using all sorts of things to see if they can put together a picture of who might be communicating with whom through this system that would help them understand who might be behind it.
Matt McCool, the Special Agent in charge of the Secret Services New York Field Office, said the seizure was the largest operation of its kind the agency had undertaken.
I mean size and scope.
I mean, I'm assuming that there's stuff going on all the time between nations and so on, but give us an idea. I mean, how big this operation seemed to be.
Yeah, it's almost unimaginable, right, just the volume, the scope, and you cited the metrics up front. So three hundred SIM servers, one hundred thousand SIM cards, all kind of spread across a region. That is unprecedented. It really is. And I think the word I used at the beginning was it's audacious as well. It truly is, and so having come out of the world of intelligence for decades, I have never seen an activity like this. So I'm going to be tracking this one very closely. Really want
to understand a kind of how it was done. Obviously why it was done with the potential impact could have been. But bravo to all of the law enforcement and national security officials who work together to thwart this, because who knows which path it could have taken. Was it to be disruption, which would have been you know, real pain and hu the word. We couldn't have facilitated threats? Could it have launched some other criminal activity? We don't know.
Yeah, I think the question is to what end, Like, what would be the purpose of, you know, messing with a communication system such as that. One question that I have is about the communication of this, of this terror plot or alleged terror plot that was thwarted, and why the Secret Service communicated this, why they showed us pictures and if that's rare to do in a situation such as this.
It's interesting because I'm not sure we ever have had a situation like this, so that we know, yeah, yeah, Well, yes, okay.
Because they did the great reveal there.
We go, There we go. This is the first that was ever revealed. But I'm going to suggest that this is this is unique in its nature in terms of the scale and the scope.
But is it unique to communicate? Is it unique to communicate a win such as this? Does a lot of stuff happen behind the scenes that we don't know out each and every day That keeps us safe?
Absolutely, And I'm and I have to believe this was not as if you know, discovered that moment and then they came out and have press release. There is a lot of work that went to getting to this point, I have to believe. And so one of the one of the good things that has been emphasized in government, certainly on the national security side and law enforcement side, has been transparency. And so maybe we're seeing a reflection of that. And it's always difficult because you don't have
all the details. You know, people want more detail, but if you don't release information, then you know, people are frustrated about that. Can I can I make one point about this though? I think it's really important because if it's super interesting, I'm going to be really focused on this for for some time until it all is unraveled. But it really does showcase that telecommunications is a frontline
national security issue right now. And so we've we've talked previously about intrusions like Salt Typhoon, that was the massive uh prc ansored intrusions into our telecommunications networks across the country. We are just seeing telecommunications in various ways just right in the crosshairs of very capable state cyber actors and criminal networks. Now we don't know which one this is or if it's both, We don't have any idea just yet, but both are very very focused on telecommunications and that
has economic impacts. It has security impacts on the ground. If we talked about nine to eleven, a nine to one line, excuse me, nine to one one being disrupted or other communications has business impacts across every sector. So it's something that we really need to watch in this coming year.
Fifteen seconds. Do we need global cooperation to stay on top of it or we just need to have a domestic focus on it real quickly.
Absolutely, it is global. It is a global issue. We need to have partnerships all around the world. We need to emphasize public private partnerships in the US industry. Companies are going to see things that government does, but government's going to have strategic insights and re sources that individual companies.
Yeah.
Jennifer You, Bank Marnerships founder Vandermann Strategic Advisors, joining us from Virginia.
Stay with us. More from Bloomberg Business Week Daily coming up after this.
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Watching shares a ken view. The parent company of Tail and All really been bouncing around quite a bit in the last couple of days, up to two point three percent, recouping some of Monday's drop. This is President Trump's call for pregnant women to avoid Tail and All drue sharp criticism from researchers to say the advice ignores decades of evidence and could endanger mothers and babies. For more, We're
joined by Jessica Nicks, Bloomberg News health reporter. Jessica You and the team out with a story this afternoon about mounting confusion for patients. You all spoke to Bussians about this, What did you find? How did they respond?
Yeah, most physicians today are just generally confused about the guidance that's coming out. How are they going to interpret this? But a few of them are saying, you know, we're going to keep continuing on as normal, keep talking to our patients about what works for them, what doesn't work for them.
You know one thing that's interesting here, and we're going to be speaking to doctor Todd Ivy, a fellow in the American College of Obstetricians. In just a minute, the organization is out with a statement that says it's irresponsible and still what they've heard from President Trump and still
recommends tylanold during pregnancy. How atypical is it for a professional group such as the Academy of the American College of Obstetricians to recommend something that's counter to something that a government body such as the HHS would suggest.
If you asked me that question a year ago, I would say very abnormal. This year, this is like the second or third time a American medical organization has gone against the advice of HHS. Notably, we've seen a COG do different advice than HHS on vaccines, specifically for pregnant women and taking COVID vaccines.
Sorry, well, I want to put that question to doctor Todd Ivy. He's fellow in the American College of Obstetricians, which is the professional membership organization of obgyns, and associate professor at Baylor College of Medicine, former president of the Houston obgyn Society. So doctor Ivy weigh in on this. If it's recommended that maybe pregnant patients don't use tile and all, I don't know a recommendation from the government, how do you read it?
Would you not recommend it to a patient?
No, actually, I would absolutely recommend it When we look back at the data, and this has been looked at. Remember we have over twenty years of research around this. There has never been proven causation for cedominifit to any
neurodevelopmental disorder during pregnancy. However, we know that the uses of ceedominefit in pregnancy for chronic pain, paint, persistent headaches, and particularly fever reduction are incredibly important and not dealing with those issues can lead to additional complications your in pregnancy.
One thing I want to ask you doctor Ivy, And I've seen this certainly in the obgyn area that your medical malpractice insurance is off the charts, And I'd had obgyn who talked about a million dollars a year and gave up the ob part of it because it was so expensive. What I'm curious about, though, is if you have a government saying maybe you shouldn't do this, does this potentially put you guys in a legal situation or legal quandary where you could be more of a target if something bad happens.
Well, that would be a concern for any of this. However, I think it's important to really you know what I'm saying.
If the government's coming out saying maybe you shouldn't do this, and you guys say, Nope, this makes sense. You've seen the research, the study, and then something goes astray. Is there a kind of you know, a new twist in all of this now and how you might approach something. Are you still going to say, Nope, it makes sense, I'm going to do it.
Well, you would have to prove causation, okay, and I don't think that's able to be proven, and looking at the highest quality data, the best study designs it's never been shown to be linked, and so I don't think that would stand. Certainly, that would be a concern because we always want to do the right thing. That's really important to us, you know, but I think it would be difficult to prove.
Well, speaking doctor ivy of the causation doesn't always equal association in some of these studies. Talk to us about some of the studies that the Trump administration pointed to yesterday as the reason to come out with these new recommendations.
Well, you know, there's there's been questions around this for a long time, and what we've seen. Even the Society for Maternal Fetal Medicine and the FDA itself in twenty seventeen and twenty fifteen did reviews and did not find any causation. However, there was a consistent statement that was released in the journal Nature that suggested that maybe there could be some type of link. Well, ten new studies have been released since that time that have clearly refuted this.
The best study I think is the one released in the Journal of the American Medical Association in twenty twenty four, which looked at over two point five million children two point five million, and they actually took into account some of the confounding variables that the poorly designed studies did not, and so they actually took siblings and matched them for a control group, meaning one sibling would get the tailanol in utero and one sibling would not proved there was
no relationship that was proven.
I just want to mention ken View coming out over the weekend with a statement on this. They said, quote, this is the parent company of Talanal quote. We believe independent sound science clearly shows that taking a seat of minifin does not cause autism. We strongly disagree with any suggestion otherwise and are deeply concerned about the health risks and confusion this poses for expecting mothers and for parents.
Doctor Ivy, the president said yesterday he suggested that pregnant women should tough They should they should only use talent all control of fever if they can't tough it out from a medical perspective. And those are his words, quote tough it out from a medical perspective, in a medical communication perspective. And I know that medical students study medical communication. How do you look at messaging such as that coming from the leader of the country.
Well, I think that's very unfortunate statement. I think pregnancy can be very difficult for some women, and I think telling them to quote toughened it out is really a poor approach. Now, I think before any medicine is taken in during pregnancy, whether it's an over the counter medicine or prescription medicine, a conversation with your healthcare provider is in order. And if they see fit, then I think you need to take the recommended dose for the shortest
amount of time. And again, you know, no more than is recommended.
You know, you bring up autism, anybody brings up autism, and it's it's a very difficult situation.
It's a spectrum.
I know individuals who have kids who are now adults, who are artistic, and it's it's a difficult thing. And I think we're still trying to figure out what is the cause? What are you know, the causality, What are the connections genetic or otherwise, I mean, what is How do you think about autism? You know, and I'm sure you've seen it, unfortunately in some of the flks who have had kids. I mean, how are we It's still there's a lot unknown, correct, And I understand everybody's looking
to try and make sense of it. But I'm just curious, what's the smart medical thought around autism.
I think you hit the nail on the head. There is a spectrum, there is a lot that is unknown. There's a lot more that we need to find out about it. You know, we know that it is a disorder of the way people receive, process and communicate and interact with their environment. There will probably be the cause will probably be multifactorial, and I think we it's going
to be an interplay of how things come together. But I think it's very unfortunate in families where a child has autism and to indicate that the mother or the parents did something wrong that costs this the guilt with that would be tremendous. In my opinion, is completely completely unnecessary.
One thing that also came out of the administration yesterday is they're now recommending this new drug called leucovin as a potential treatment for autism. Can you tell us a little bit about the science behind that. Why they're pointing to this drug that's typically used for chemotherapy treatment and pain management.
It is, it's lukavorin, and it actually is a form a more naturally occurring form of fullic acid. You know, folic acid has been important in pregnancy for years now. We know that it's related to neural tube defects, you know, or the lack of it is related to neural tube defects. So we've always recommended fullic acid during pregnancy. And in reality, what makes a prenatal vitamin prenatal than just a regular
vitamin is the amount of follic gas set. Now. I think many more studies need to be done on this. The main use of luca orn is exactly what you say, and people who take chemotherapeutic drugs, whether it's for cancer or whether it's for arthritis, and it can offset some of the side effects of that, but I think it's it's as the drug of treatment. I think much more needs to be studied.
Well, what do we know of scientifically, and this is to Carol's and Jessica's question too, what do we know scientifically about the causes of autism?
Well, we know that they're like I said, it's multi factoral. We know that there are many genetic causes. In some of my own patients, when we've done genetic analysis, we found different gene mutations and deletions that we know are associated with autism. There are likely some environmental factors that come into play as well. But our concern about some of these studies that they based some of these decisions
on that they were poorly designed. They actually depended on a recall of patients about how much they took, and there's always a bias when you tried to do recall. They had limited information on dosages and duration of exposure, so you really cannot draw scientific conclusions from such poorly designed studies.
I just want two things.
Luca Vorn though full of acid, I remember taking it in a big way, So it's not really something new.
It's not new. It's not new at all. We have learned so much about neural tube defects, which is a defect in the development of the neural tissue in the fetus, and we know that folic acid is incredibly important in the proper development of that.
So I want to follow because we do know.
In the great reporting by our team of Brett Pulley, Jessca Nixon, Madison Muller talking about these doctors at OBGYN practices in Atlanta, fielding a lot of questions. I'm assuming you are feeling in questions as well about all of this. I am curious, do you feel or do doctors have a voice in Washington and are getting time with the AHHS, Robert F. Kennedy, the secretary, or even with the White House.
I think we've had somewhat of a difficult time doing that. You know, it seems to be recently that some of the scientific evidence is being ignored. I think that's very dangerous for patients. When patients come in and ask us about these things, you know, we share decision making is what we call it, where we talk to the patient about the risks of not taking a certain treatment, a
certain vaccination, a certain medication. We talk about the risks and we talk about the benefits of each and patients, in consultation with their healthcare providers, need to make those decisions.
Well, speaking of some of this confusion that we're seeing coming out about tail and al and autism too, a lot of pregnant women are now also looking at what do we do about a COVID shot? So how can patients look at all this confusing messaging coming out of the administration that's in conflict with what medical doctors are saying and how can they navigate this world right now?
Well, I think looking to your healthcare provider is the best place to go. I think we're relying on scientists, physicians and healthcare providers to provide the best medical evidence. Then the highest quality medical evidence. You know, we always say that we practice evidence based medicine in that we do that, and as science changes, we change our recommendations. But science hasn't changed on this. I just think someone's statement on this has changed. And so we still recommend
the COVID vaccinations. I had one myself. We still recommend flu shots duringnancy, we still recommend the t edapp, and we're now recommending RSB RSV rather than the respiratory sensitial virus vaccination during pregnancy.
One last question, do we have to be worried that there's not going to be enough vaccines because there's kind of interesting messaging and messaging that maybe not everybody needs the vaccine?
Well, I hope not. That's always a concern. Supply is always a concern. We're finding patients coming in and requesting the COVID vaccinations and we're having to send them out to pharmacies, and some pharmacies have them and some are not. Some patients are having to look for them in order to receive them. You know, I've always been a believer,
you know. I am am sixty three years old, and I had the measles, I had the mumps, I had the chicken pox when I was a child, and I remember those and I remember my sister looking at my face and saying, what are those pumps on your face? You know, And that's how we know I was diagnosed. You know, I received the polio vaccine when I was a child, and so I feel like I've lived a
great life with the benefit of vaccinations. And I think unfortunately, our memories are often short, and sometimes the younger generation doesn't realize the benefits of what they've they've they've had.
You know.
I also remember the days of being an OBGM provider when the pandemic first started, and seeing, you know, on our local TV station, seeing the freezer trucks outside hospitals in El Paso where they were placing the bodies of people that deceased from COVID, you know, you know, hearing the stories of nurses that left Houston and went to New York to work, you know, in some of these
COVID units. I had several patients that did that, and it's gut wrenching, and I really hope people will stop, take a deep breath and really listen to the high quality, evidence based research that's out there and pay attention to what your healthcare providers are telling.
Well, doctor Ivy, we really appreciate you taking the time in joining us this afternoon. That's doctor Todd Ivy, Fellow in the American College of Obstetricians and Associate professor at Baylor College of Medicine. Also former president of the Houston Obgyn Society. Also with us Jessica Nix, our Bloomberg News Healthcare Team. Check out her story along with the rest of the healthcare team. You can do that on the Bloomberg Terminal and at Bloomberg dot com.
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