Get started with the commerce platform made for entrepreneurs. Shopify is specially designed to help you start, run, And grow your business with easy customizable themes that let you build your brand. Marketing tools that get your products out there. Integrated shipping solutions that actually save you time. From startups. Shopify is made for entrepreneurs like you. Sign up for your $1 a month trial at shopify.com slash setup.
Legacy media is conscious that it's losing more and more credibility and trust. Dr. Yaseem Alhotra, who became famous for being accused of spreading misinformation on the COVID vaccine. The irony is actually what made me famous was the BBC. You went on Stephen Bartlett's show recently. That caused a particularly big hoo-ha. The timing was a bit strange. What do you think about that?
You are more likely to suffer serious harm from taking that vaccine than you were to be hospitalized with COVID. COVID jab. It increases swelling in the heart. It causes inflammation. Yeah. When you put it all together, Andrew, it's horrific. Absolutely horrific.
This should likely never have been injected into a single human being in the world in the first place. If that's not psychopathic, Andrew, what is? Even if they spoke out, they would be completely destroyed. And he said, most of my colleagues are getting their information on the safety and... benefits of the vaccine from the BBC. This can't come out before the election because it will probably collapse the government.
Dr. Asim Malhotra, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me, Andrew. It's a pleasure to have you. We're going to talk about a topic that I've not actually done on this show before. And I want to get into, just to start with, if we're going to get into vaccines, we want to get into big pharma in general. Big Pharma sounds like a conspiracy word as soon as you hear it. If you've not heard about it, but what does it actually mean and how much does it actually affect our lives?
I think it means really the best way to describe it is the power of the pharmaceutical industry and the culture and their business model and their practices really putting that all together. I think, epitomizes what big pharma is. Have you been shocked as a doctor to see how much influence there is? I don't know if I was... I don't think shock's the right word. I think increasingly aware over a period of time, probably over, I would say...
15 years or so to understand how their power has corrupted the practice of medicine. Why is this happening? Well, I think just to put things in context, first and foremost, for people, just, you know, I've spoken about this at length, but essentially... most drugs that people take for chronic disease let's talk about chronic disease because that's the major issue right now which is you know our deterioration in mental and physical social well-being over the last
10 to 15 years in the UK, in the United States, in many parts of the world. And that makes up at least 80% to 90% managing those conditions of healthcare costs. But most people taking pills to manage chronic conditions such as type 2 diabetes or high blood pressure or heart disease, for example, are not going to get any benefit at all. And they don't even know it.
So the fact that they don't even know that is one of the, I think, manifestations of how big pharma have really corrupted medical knowledge. But most doctors even don't fully appreciate that. When one looks at why that is, it's in large part because they control the information that doctors use to make decisions on drug prescription. so drug trials essentially are designed by big pharma
They analyze their own data. They then summarize those results and give them to the regulators, which get most of their money from Big Pharma. To the extent where... 86% of the funding, for example, of the MHRA, the Medical and Health Regulatory Agency in this country, comes from Big Pharma. And just to give you some context, the chairman of the British Medical Association, when I gave a talk at the BMA, one of the BMA annual conferences in 2020. Sorry, 2022.
He was gobsmacked. He didn't even believe that initially. Wow. Right. So the doctors don't know it. Yeah. And therefore, how do you expect the patients to know it? And what happens ultimately then is that the safety and benefits of medications are grossly exaggerated, purely for the purposes of making money. But to ask why is this, ultimately, Andrew, looking at all of this, it's a reflection of our economic system. you know, this corporate capitalist system, the neoliberal economic model.
where propagated by Chicago economist Milton Friedman in the 80s, which was then adopted by the likes of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, where there was a mindset that we should reduce the amount of regulations on industry. so that they could so-called innovate and they could thrive. But what that ultimately meant was no checks and balances and not probably a full appreciation of the fact that the...
industry themselves, when it comes to making money, are pathologically self-interested. And I said this even, I was a key witness in a court case ongoing in New Zealand. at the moment, a few days ago for airline pilots and staff. for Air New Zealand that didn't get the vaccine, we'll talk about that later, and lost their jobs because of it. And I made that diagnosis that the... the entity that is the corporation, not just Big Pharma. Big Pharma is one example.
And the way that it conducts its business fills the criteria for psychopathy. According to the preeminent expert in psychopathy, Robert Hare, who's a forensic psychologist. You know, callous, unconcerned for the safety of others, incapacity to experience guilt.
repeated lying and conning others for profit so the root cause of the problem and and therefore the solution has to be in reforming the corporation as it exists at the moment so that their um Their focus isn't just on a narrow, just for this, you know, stakeholders for the purpose of profit, which are their shareholders, but actually are for the public. and actually putting public interest in health first. And the key to getting there is just greater transparency.
So to get this right, that is, people are just taking pills and things right now for things like heart disease that are just not helping at all. I wouldn't say not helping at all. I would say there's a small benefit, but they're not being told that small benefit. So if you take, for example, statin drugs, which are one of the most prescribed drugs in the history of the world.
estimated to be prescribed between 200 million and 1 billion people globally. Many people watching this, I'm sure, will be taking a statin. But what they wouldn't have been told, if you haven't had a heart attack, which is most people prescribe statins, the absolute benefit of the drug... is, at best, this huge caveat here, So this is, again, industry-sponsored trials that have not been independently verified.
selected patients who didn't get side effects or less likely to get side effects, right? So you've got to remember, we're now narrowing down even then the benefit over a five-year period in preventing a heart attack or stroke. without prolonging life is 1 in 100 or 1%. So if a patient comes to me, and this is something I advocate for and I practice, it sounds very controversial, Andrew. It's called...
ethical, evidence-based medical practice. Every single one of my letters, which I write for patients who go to the GP, i always write i discuss this with the patient and i support the decision in keeping with the principles of ethical evidence-based medical practice not had a single bit of pushback i've been doing this for years from anyone so far where i tell patients this about the one percent benefit with the limitations, you know, and the caveats.
and then most of those patients decide that they don't want to take the pill and that's when you can say well you know what else can i do doc and you can bring in alternatives around lifestyle etc which again is another elephant in the room around the fact that most doctors know very little about nutrition and certainly don't even realize that you can manage and even reverse many of these conditions from simple lifestyle changes because we are not.
taught this, you know. So there's an over-reliance on this medication that has a 1% effect rather than actually trying to change lifestyle. So there's that. And then the other added, you know, sort of headline... fact if you like andrew is that it's estimated that the third most common cause of death globally now after heart disease and cancer is prescribed medications because of side effects what your doctor prescribes for you
So, it's a real mess. It's not a small peripheral issue. It is, in my view, at the very heart. of the healthcare crisis. I see. Yeah, a friend of mine, I asked him as a doctor, I asked about that because I heard you say that on Stephen Bartlett, and he said something about oxycodone, which I believe is no longer prescribed. Do you know about that?
Yeah, I mean, it was a, you know, a painkiller that... ultimately has you know resulted in a lot of deaths and harm because again they the the drug company Purdue Pharma they um And there's a great drama called Dope Sick, which people can watch. And I think there was another one that was similar that was also Netflix around this true story issue. But essentially, yeah, it caused significant harm, got people addicted.
No, this is actually just, this is, I think, even taking that out of the picture. Right. That's extraordinary. Yeah. So it could be things like, for example, over-medicating an older person on a blood pressure pill. that they then suffer a fall because they get dizzy because they're overmedicated. They break their hip. And 30% of people who break their hip if you're over 65... will die just because of that. Yeah, that happened to my grandma. right that's interesting and my my other grandma
did get sort of that kind of 1960. Do you ever see the movie Requiem for Dream? Yes. And she was one of those many, many women in the 60s who got hooked on I don't even know what. that was prescribed to her. And by the end of her life, she was taking enough tranquilizing kind of pills to kill an elephant.
That's quite a common thing, isn't it? Yeah. So these sedatives, for example, are another major cause of death. Is that what she would have been on? I remember thinking it was like speed or something. Right. Because that's what that woman, the mum in Requiem for a Dream, she was watching a game show and she was always hooked on this kind of, it looked like speed or something. Right, yeah.
I'm not sure. They all just get on this stuff. That's mad. I mean, look, you went on Stephen Bartlett's show recently. It's one of the bigger shows in the world. You've been cancelled many times over. for your views and for being outspoken, but that caused a particularly big hoo-ha. Did you go into it thinking, gosh, this is going to cause a fuss?
Not really. No, I didn't think so. Because I'd done Joe Rogan a year earlier. And that had quite a good reaction and good impact. But there wasn't any so-called negative press on it. I wonder if American's a bit different. Could be, it's possible. But you might have expected, yeah, possible. But they could have done the, I mean, Joe Rogan got his own backlash when he got Robert Malone, you know, who was one of the inventors of the mRNA technology on.
And they went for him and I think there was potential threats to his advertising, all that kind of stuff, losing money. So he got, and that was mentioned on the BBC. But with Stephen Bartlett, no. And what was interesting, Andrew, is that the reaction and the reporting of the so-called number of people that have been spreading harmful information, misinformation, you know, I was one of those people named.
I think it was about six months. When did it? It was, yeah, six months later, which is a bit odd. The timing was a bit strange as well. What do you think about that? I think they were seeing that there was... It's difficult to know exactly, Andrew, to be honest. My feeling is that legacy media is conscious that it's losing more and more credibility and trust.
And they're also aware that, you know, viewing figures and alternative media, I think Stephen Bartlett's show gets more interest than most BBC, you know, podcasts or shows or whatever else. So I think that they probably just see that as a threat. But, you know, the thing that I've got no issue with, I've been up against it for many, many years. You take on big vested interests, you're going to get attacked.
But I think what disappointed me most about the BBC reporting... on me being involved with so-called spreading misinformation. And this is even on my Wikipedia page, which clearly is being influenced or controlled by vested interests as well, is Dr. Maciasi Malhotra, who became famous for being accused of spreading misinformation on the COVID vaccine. The irony is actually... What made me famous or what made me most well-known was actually the BBC and The Guardian.
So they should have said, we are the ones that made Dr. Asimulhotra famous for raising awareness on obesity and, you know, on harms of excess sugar, etc, etc. You go back. You know, even the Guardian newspaper, which did a big hatchet job on me after I went on BBC News to talk about statins and end up talking about the COVID vaccines likely linked to excess death.
You know, there was a big hatchet job article on me the next day in The Guardian, which, by the way, I took as a backhanded compliment because when you get attacked like that, it means you're over the target, right? Yeah, especially from The Guardian. And I... Actually, I've written 19 op-eds for The Guardian. I've written three front-page commentaries for The Observer newspaper.
Going back to 2011 when I wrote my first article, main big sort of print article in the Observer newspaper, which was, I meant hearts and I see our hospital subjunct to my patients, where I'd met Jamie Oliver and he supported my campaign. So, you know, it's almost like they're trying to rewrite history, Andrew. I suppose they would say they agreed with all of that stuff, but now this new stuff.
That's I've no issue with them discussing and debating the new stuff. But what was incorrect was Dr. Seemal Hotra, who became famous. for spreading misinformation on the, or being accused of spreading misinformation on the COVID vaccine. No. BBC made me famous. The BBC made me famous.
I've even guest edited a BBC Radio 5 live program on too much medicine, too many pills. I presented a report for BBC News. I'm not doing small kind of coming on every so often. I've actually done unpaid work of prominence. for the BBC. They should have said, you know, the famous doctor who now we think is saying awful things. Yeah, exactly. Let's get on to the COVID vaccine then. So vaccines, okay, before the COVID vaccine, vaccines in general...
I get the flu vaccine. I'm quite young to get it, but I hate getting ill, so I get it. Is that a good idea? Wow, that's a great question. In general, from the data I've looked at on the flu vaccine, it's not particularly effective. I'll be very honest with you. I had one of the worst illnesses in my life. I think going back about 10 years ago, maybe more, after getting the flu vaccine. And intuitively, I felt it was a flu vaccine. When you look at the data, it's not particularly effective.
And if you're young and healthy, I cannot see any indication for having the flu vaccine. So personally, my overall view is it's not a particularly good vaccine. And vaccines for respiratory viruses are not generally very effective. So I personally would,
Suggest alternatives if you're worried about the flu. Take high-dose vitamin C during the winter. Make sure your vitamin D levels are optimised. These are things that have been missed for a very, very long time, but we now are getting a better understanding of how. one can optimize the immune system or normalize it in its best possible state through lifestyle and maybe supplements, as opposed to having to take... a vaccine that isn't particularly effective.
And of course, may come with side effects. Interesting. I think you've put me off that now. Well, listen, I'm going to be very honest with you. I've not touched the flu vaccine since 10 years, even though I've worked in hospitals and they've been asking me to get it. I was like, no, thanks. Okay, so flu vaccine out, not getting out anymore. Vitamin C and vitamin D, are people not getting enough of that in their diet?
Well, not really, no. A lot of people aren't even having a nutritious diet because the predominant diet of the Brits, at least more than 50% of calories comes from ultra-processed food, which are generally devoid of good nutrients.
What's interesting, though, is, and there is research on this because my second book, which I wrote, Interestingly, which was promoted and supported by Jeremy Vine, another very prominent BBC journalist, called the 21 Day Immunity Plan, which I wrote in 2020 because I became quite prominent highlighting the links between COVID and obesity. Matt Hancock asked me to advise him after I went very public, suggesting, and it was a front page, a featured article in The Telegraph.
which then got on BBC News and Good Morning Britain, et cetera, where I'd linked Boris Johnson's hospital admission to his weight after he got out. So that became a very big story there. But in that, I was doing a lot of research on immunity. And there is a body of evidence suggesting that a high dose of vitamin C certainly protects you, reduces risk of infection. And if you get a respiratory or you get the flu or a bad cold, you will recover more quickly.
So there is absolutely, yeah. And I've certainly found, and what I advise patients as well, or if you're traveling or feeling a bit run down, something coming on, just whack up the vitamin C to... 20 to 30 times the rda so the recommended daily you know limit uh not limit the recommended daily amount for vitamin c should be at least
you know, 100 milligrams, I recommend people take two to three grams or two to 3,000 milligrams when they're feeling a bit run down. And I do this myself. And you've felt better? Well, listen, since I've got my vitamin D and I've been taking vitamin C and zinc, And there may be other factors, of course.
But this is the first time in my entire life that I've gone throughout the whole winter without catching a cold. And I've been traveling through America. I've been on planes. I've been exposed to people. I'm someone that used to get lots of calls, you know, otherwise. So, no, I think there's definitely something in it and it needs more exploration. Of course, the other thing is one of the first principles of medicine is first do no harm.
And they're very, very safe. Vitamin D toxicity is quite rare. Be a little bit careful, but most people are probably not getting enough vitamin D. And you can't... You know, especially during the winter months, you're not going to get exposed to sunlight to get enough vitamin D. So it's definitely an area. And it's not just about, you know, if you've got severe vitamin D deficiency, Andrew, you're sixfold more likely to get heart disease.
It's linked autoimmune conditions. Bloody hell. You know, so it's linked to depression. There's so many benefits from vitamin D. and what's like the sun obviously and what else has got a vitamin d well you can get some of it from food oily fish for example egg yolks
but it often isn't enough. Food alone will not give you enough vitamin D. Have these multivitamin pills, maybe. Yeah, I mean, I'm not even necessarily you need to take multivitamin pills. I would just focus, the main ones I would say are vitamin C and vitamin D.
I think another issue, which maybe we'll talk about, which is the worsening of chronic stress in the population, I think there was some research from America suggesting that Our stress levels now are higher than they've ever been, certainly in the last 50 to 100 years. can actually be quite beneficial to help with stress as well. That's interesting. But in general, I would start to go back to the basics versus let's look at lifestyle first and then add these in. Okay.
Lifestyle, sleep eight hours a day, do some exercise, walk as much as you can. Yeah, sounds simple, but for a lot of people, very difficult to actually do. It is hard. It can be hard. We've got a puppy that keeps us awake. It's driving me mad, but it's fine. Okay, and the last question before getting onto the COVID things is polio, because Joe Rogan was famously or infamously talking about this the other day with a...
doctor, I think, who was suggesting that the polio vaccine didn't actually eradicate polio the way that we think it did. Where do you stand on that? Listen, I mean, I'm not an expert on every vaccine. I think the first bit of the conversation you start with, all vaccines are not the same. I think what needs to happen, especially with what's happened with the COVID vaccine, Andrew, is we need to just go back to square one.
All of the vaccines that are being utilised need to be re-evaluated, okay? Even with existing data that's there, from people who are independent of industry influence. so we can restore trust. One of the things I didn't even realise, so I had a big blind spot, and we're going to come on to it anyway, about vaccines until the code vaccine came on. And when I was looking at the adverse event reporting,
for even MMR, it's one in 4,000, which for me is very high. Now, it could be a mild effect, could be a fever or something like that. But you start from there and you start working your way back. I think we're going to get better clarity on what these vaccines are doing. You know, I think they definitely have a role in, with the exception maybe the COVID vaccine, which I know a lot about and I would consider myself an expert on. certainly more than the majority of doctors.
I think we need to ask ourselves, you know, first of all, okay, if it's preventing polio, for example, right? And it may well be very effective at that. May be very effective at that. Is there anything else it could be doing that could be harmful downstream? Could it be triggering autoimmune conditions? Could it be causing other issues?
That conversation needs to be had and needs to be understood, and then you can have proper informed consent. That's one aspect of it, Andrew. But by avoiding the topic, and if there is an issue, then we also can't improve those vaccines. So if we deny that there's a problem, and there is one, and ultimately that problem comes out, it isn't that we say that's the end of vaccinations for polio. It's like, well, hold on a minute. What is the issue? Who's it affecting? Can we identify those people?
help reduce the harm, that's also a part of innovation in the drug industry that needs to happen. Right. So for me, that's the approach we need to now moving forward. You know, people keep talking about, you know, this has been an ongoing issue and I got caught up very much in the crosshairs of this. But I think that one of the reasons why doctors have had a blind spot on vaccines... has been deliberately fuelled by the drug industry to avoid any conversation around potential harms.
Because a big cash car for big pharma. That's it. To the extent where, you know, almost doctors became indoctrinated saying, yeah, safe and effective, safe and effective. But also, even if they had some doubt, they knew that if they spoke out, they would be completely destroyed. You know, what happened to Andrew Wakefield, for example, right? So I think that level of fear... Also as avoided.
open, transparent discussions and critical thinking on vaccines in general. I suppose you're sort of weighing up the potential side effects, which might be one in 4,000 or might be one in whatever it is, against how serious the thing is. So polio, for example, I think that was like paralyzing people, wasn't it? Yeah.
So that was like, oh gosh. But you know what's weird is I saw this Brady Bunch clip in the 60s or whenever that was, and they talked about the measles. I know this is only a fictional TV series, but they talked about it a little bit like how we talk about chickenpox. And they were saying like, oh gosh, I hope I get it from you. Oh, then I can not go to school and all of that.
And then they sort of contrasted with today. And it was like a hospital drama. And it was like, somebody's got measles, we're gonna have to shut down the whole system. And, you know, so is there also, are we looking back at things that might not have been as dangerous as we think they are now? Is that the case with measles? I think so. I think so. I mean, yeah. I think we have to...
It's a necessity now anyway, especially because of what's happened with the COVID vaccine. But what's happened with the COVID vaccine, it's allowed people. to think a little bit more about are there other potential harms? You know, we've had this explosion in the last 20 or 30 years of all these autoimmune conditions, allergies, that kind of stuff.
which we understand was very, very low prevalence, if any prevalence, if you go back 50 years ago. So something has happened, something environmental has happened. It may be related to the vaccine, it may not. But we should at least ask that question and try and do the best research we can to answer it.
without just dismissing people and labing them, smearing them as this anti-vaxxer or whatever else, which, again, as far as I'm concerned, is part of a very... I think it's essentially big pharma-fueled propaganda, to be honest. A friend of mine who was on the podcast, and he's very anti-vax, and I don't want to say because I don't want to sort of call him out or whatever, because I like him a lot.
But he was saying, oh, this stupid vaccine. So what they should do in sort of maybe an anti-woke way was like, they should give you a bit of the virus and you sort of fight it off and get stronger. And I said, well, my understanding is that that's sort of what a vaccine is. So isn't that just what a vaccine is? So why is it so concerning? It is. I think the concerning... The issue is that other... ingredients within the vaccine.
are triggering problems. And those ingredients are put in there deliberately to... Oh. You see? But the question is, are those other ingredients also causing other problems? Right. That's essentially the issue. Was it initially done on a cow or something? Vax, sort of from Vaca, Latin for cow.
I feel like the first vaccines were done on a cow. May well be. I honestly don't know the answer. I've had a memory just now from being 15 in the history class, and I'm thinking, hang on, yeah, that's cow, isn't it? But I don't know. I think that's when it was first done. Okay, so... Right, COVID jab, particularly the mRNA one, and you're a specialist as well in heart disease, I think, and you've spoken about how it increases swelling in the heart.
It causes inflammation, yeah. And is that the extra ingredients then of?
the covid job well it's interesting no i think what it is is is that the part of the virus that's supposed to be damaging the spike protein if you call if you as it's known Rather than staying in the arm and generating an immune response for a few days, seems to be distributed there's evidence we know this it just gets distributed through every organ in the body potentially and can last for months and even Even years now, we know from recent research from Yale.
And that can either cause a toxic problem directly to that tissue, whether it's a heart, liver, kidneys, ovaries, testes, brain, or the immune system then attacks in the spike protein that is then... manifesting in those tissues and causing a problem there. So it's really, really troubling, Andrew. So that's a mechanism of how it causes harm, we think. At least one of the mechanisms it causes harm.
And then you've got to then back that up with all the other bits of data and information from the original trials that were, you know, from Pfizer and Moderna on the mRNA that... led to the approval, immense use authorization of these products. You then look at real world data. You look at what's happening with the reporting system. You look at autopsy data. There was one study published which suggested I think 74%.
of people that died within two weeks of the COVID vaccine through autopsies, it was confirmed that it was likely caused by the vaccine. 74% of those people that died within, this is within two weeks. You then try and look at signals of longer term issues that are manifesting. And then you need to understand that mechanism of harm first. So you've got, you know, one... When you put it all together, Andrew, it's horrific, actually.
Absolutely horrific in terms of the prevalence of harms, likely, and there's a range of uncertainty, right? In the short term... It's at least, and that means first two months, it's at least one in 800 in the short term, in the healthiest people. Right. In terms of serious harm rate, adverse event rate, which means hospitalisation, disability or life changing event, of course, including death. And over the longer term, that will obviously increase if there are longer term harms.
And one estimate in America, and of course this again is not what we call the highest quality level evidence, but you put it as part of a jigsaw when you put it all together. that suggestion in America from surveys of people who felt they were injured or knew someone that was injured and they thought it was the vaccine, right? Because ultimately, you know, medicine is an art it's not an exact science but part of that art is
listening to patients. We're taught in medical school that 80% of your diagnosis comes from the history of what the patient tells you. So we have to put a lot of importance on what the patient thinks and believes. It may be wrong, but it does have a lot of validity. from that research that was published in one of the most prestigious shows called BMC Medicine.
later retracted, I must add in, but not because of an error, because there was a lot of pressure because of the publicity around it, suggested that the death rate may be as high as one in a thousand from the COVID vaccine. Now, if you put that against the benefits, The benefits early on, again from data which is likely to exaggerate the benefits because it's not corrected for things like socioeconomic status.
We know that people who are unvaccinated in general tended to be people from poorer backgrounds because those people, the most marginalised people in society, have less trust in government authority. So when they were being told, you must take the vaccine, they were like... giving them two fingers basically no thank you right so that's not corrected for they they also have because they're from poorer backgrounds more like to have issues with you know lifestyle issues
Their risk of death in general and their risk of dying from COVID was probably at least two to fourfold. But if we don't account for that, and just look at it by age group, if you were over 75, over 80, from the Delta variant, you had to vaccinate 230 people. to prevent one person from dying. If we move forward to 2023, Omicron was now there. This is the British UK HSA, UK Health Security Agency. I think the only...
agency in the world that publishes data, real-world data, to try and give an estimate of the benefits of the COVID vaccine. If you're over 70, Andrew, From two doses of the mRNA vaccine, you had to vaccinate 2,500 people to prevent one person being hospitalized. Think about that as a serious harm versus a serious harm rate of at least one in 800. And then you go back to the original trial. So in evidence-based medicine, there is a hierarchy of quality of evidence and...
which gives you the likelihood of something being causal. You go back to the square one, the original trials that led to the approval, and they were independently analysed by very eminent scientists. with new information that came available from the data from Pfizer and Moderna. And they found from the very beginning, Andrew...
What led to, just think about this for a second, not just led to the rollout, but led to coercion and mandates, okay? You were more likely to suffer serious harm from taking that vaccine, so-called vaccine. I interpret that as this should likely never have been injected into a single human being in the world in the first place. That's really scary. And so what is the data that other doctors are looking at and saying, no, no, the vaccine was fine?
Very interesting and good question. I, at the end of 2020, One, when the vaccine mandates was a big story being pushed on healthcare workers. I don't know if you remember that. Sajid Javid came out in Parliament and said, we're going to mandate this for healthcare workers. I instantly knew this was coming from the drug industry because... By the summer of 2021, we knew it was stopping infection.
wasn't stopping transmission and there was already serious harms being reported when you go from there so then suddenly we're going to mandate it This is part of the tactics of how big corporations exert their power, and this is why they're described as psychopathic. We know historically, for example, when Big Tobacco knew that their cigarettes were harmful, they then started to market them as being healthy.
They can protect you from, they can help you with your asthma. They'll get doctors to go on TV and adverts. So think about, this is, it can only be described as psychopathic, Andrew. I don't know if there's any other way to describe it. If you as a company find your product is, you suddenly realise it's harming people, you then launch a PR campaign to tell you the complete opposite. If that's not psychopathic, Andrew, what is?
Yeah, it's so complicated listening to you. If I'm thinking about historically listening to things I don't know very much about, and this is certainly one of them, You're absolutely right, the cigarettes issue, and I've seen movies about that and documentaries about that, and you're right, the doctors were sort of, look how healthy it is to smoke.
So, you know, there's a concern, oh, God, am I just going to go along with what the government says? Because then I'm going to be the patsy who was smoking and didn't realise. And then on the other side, you're thinking, this is just my process in my head. Of course. Oh, but hang on. Am I also going to be with a tinfoil hat with the flat earth believing people? you know, because I'm now, oh, vaccines, shut up, when most doctors I know of
will say, oh, vaccines, yeah, good. Some issues, but good, you know? Well, to come back to answer your question, so why were doctors going along? What data were they looking at? I'm going to answer this, right? So with the vaccine, COVID vaccine. So end of 2021.
I'm now campaigning to help overturn the vaccine mandates for healthcare workers because I thought this was completely evil, actually. I think that's the right word to describe it. And I had a long conversation with the then chairman of the British Medical Association, Char Nagpur, on the phone.
Because he had access to Sajid Javid. Matt Hancock had been removed by that stage. I couldn't directly, you know, I had interaction, direct communication with Matt Hancock. I didn't have it with Sajid Javid. To explain to him why this is a very, very bad idea. So I spent about two hours on the phone with Chand explaining all the data up to that point. And he said to me, he said, Nobody I've spoken to has critically appraised the evidence as well as you have.
Most of my colleagues, talking about people in senior medical positions, are getting their information on the safety and benefits of the vaccine from the BBC. That's what he said to me. This isn't that unusual because Rochelle Walensky, the former chair of the CDC, also said her original optimism from the vaccine came from a CNN news report, which was, by the way, almost verbatim reproduction of Pfizer's press release.
Wow. But to come back to answer your question, who do you believe? I think one of the things that's emerged through all of this pandemic is that Actually, people have asked me this question before and I haven't really come up with a really solid answer because, yes, Andrew, you're right. We need to have trust in our institutions that are there.
we believe to be you know we we can't have expertise in every field right in every particular area but we need people that we believe to be trustworthy and expert right in a particular field to then trust their advice and follow it But I think we have to, what this pandemic has certainly taught me as well is you've got to listen to every perspective and then make your own mind up. Do you believe that CNN and the BBC were bought or incentivised to report a certain way about the vaccine?
Well, certainly, you wouldn't expect that of the BBC, okay? I don't think the BBC have a financial incentive. But what I understand from speaking to other people, Andrew, maybe you can also add your view in this, is that there was a lot of pressure from the government on the... And the government are just puppets of the corporations. So if you go to the roots of it, you have to follow the money. And these big corporations have so much financial power.
They can influence politicians. They've got to this level of power because they've lobbied and they've influenced politicians. I've also spoken to many politicians, Andrew. I won't name them, but very senior people. These are household names. Some of them come to me for medical advice. Some of them are my patients. And when I sat down with them and they just listened, just spent, you know, even at time, one of them was a former very senior government minister at one stage was.
you know, tipped to be the next Tory leader. And I spent an hour and a half with him and I spoke and he listened very carefully and he understood it. And he said, I completely get where you're coming from here, but this can't come out before the election because it will probably collapse the government. This is basically paraphrasing what he said to me. Shit. So... So for me, how do you explain all of that? To have empathy with all these people is this is just an example of what a tyranny is.
Jordan Peterson, who has been a great inspiration to me as well through difficult times with his advocacy. He says, tyranny emerges when people are afraid to say what they think. When you have something to say, silence is a lie. And when everybody lies all the time, the tyranny is complete. So this is a corporate Big Pharma tyranny we're under right now. There's also what's going through my head is be open-minded, but not so open-minded that.
your brain falls out or whatever the expression is you know there's always a pinch of salt kind of thing but i agree with you i'm just trying to give the devil's advocate no of course exactly so you've got to just look at take listen to all sides i mean that's a whole you know democracy is underpinned by freedom of speech, and in particular also protection of minorities. People who may be suffering and genuinely may be oppressed, and you have to give them a voice, because that's how...
a civilized society functions. That's how we move forward cohesively and constructively. All, a lot of it in the modern era emerged, Andrew, because of what happened during the Holocaust. So we can stop that happening again. We make sure that we will never be in a situation where the... institutions and the laws and the culture are so strong around ensuring freedom of speech and that everybody has equal rights.
So this would never happen again. That actually stemmed in many ways from the Holocaust. We shouldn't forget that. No, I think you're right. And I think what happened to people who did doubt the vaccine or who said it might have started in a lab, which it appears to have done, was mind-boggling when you look back now. We've actually now, we've probably got just to the point, haven't we, where we can look back with some objectivity and go, what the hell was going on there? Yeah.
I mean, does that even interest you, the lab theory? Was it in the lab? No, absolutely. Yeah, definitely. I mean, I think I've actually spent time in... In fact, I stayed one night as I was touring Australia with a... a vaccine developer, an endocrinologist called Nick Petrovsky. And he was the first doctor publicly in the press to say, who was able to analyse the virus and say, this is not... come from animals or whatever else. This has been engineered in a lab.
who was the first person. So I spent time with and tried to understand this gain-of-function research, exactly what was going on. So 100%, yeah, absolutely. But I think looking back, I think what people are realising now, and it's slowly emerging and things are moving in the right way. is that everybody, most people were put under such a state of fear around the COVID virus. And when you're in a state of fear, your critical thinking skills are most diminished.
You know, I think one of the ways maybe I was a little bit ahead of the game compared to most doctors, or at least once I was able to understand what was going on and speak out about it.
actually is part of the way I was brought up. But the school I went to, my secondary school, which I mentioned to you earlier, which I'm extremely proud of, I call it the best school in the world. I genuinely believe that. It's called Manchester Grammar School. And the motto of Manchester Grammar School is Sapere Aude. In Latin, it means dare to be wise. Take risks. Take risks, but specifically, do not let fear subdue your ability to reason.
So it's about critical thinking, but also understanding that there will be obstacles on the way when you speak out and you're, you know, a minority view, if you like. But what drives people? to so-called whistleblowers if you like to some degree is that they have An obsession with the truth. They're not afraid to speak out when they have clarity of thought and with that truth.
And they're willing to take hits. And they're not doing it for any personal gain. You know, I'm not here. I'm not going to get any emotional satisfaction, for example.
in 10 years from now, five years from now, or people even now who tell me, I see me all right. That doesn't bother me. What bothers people who are in this position where they speak out from a place of truth and a place of virtue is they actually just want a better... you know a better system they want to ensure that everybody is not being deceived by these
evil entities if you like that's where you get your satisfaction actual change not from people to come back and apologize to you and whatever else that's not of any of any meaning it's actually to create change that is meaningful for people You said, I think, I believe you've said that, that the initial vaccine might have actually been quite effective and that as time went on, COVID seemed to be getting weaker and we know it was no longer. Is that right?
Yeah, so I think there is an argument to be made, Andrew, that very early on at the beginning for the high-risk people, there is an argument to be made that the benefits outweigh the risks. But there is a caveat here, and that's important. In informed consent, you have to give benefits and harms to patients, okay? Even if you said to a patient, let's say for argument's sake, we're in a situation where we had more transparency of data.
And a 85-year-old patient came to me and said, Doc, I'm not sure about this vaccine. What do you think? Should I take it? I'll say, well, okay, given your age, there is a 1 in 230 chance. okay less than whatever a less than 0.5 chance that if you take this vaccine it will protect you um from dying from covid But at the moment, with what we know in the short term, and I can't tell you the long term effects right now, because this is an emergency use authorization.
product. In the short term, there's a 1 in 800 chance it may lead to a hospitalisation, life-changing event, a serious adverse event. I'll take the vaccine. Would you? Well, with the stats there. So if I told you there's a one in 230 chance it's going to benefit, which means there is a 99.5% chance, plus it's not going to do anything for you.
but it's going to put you at potential risk of short-term harms and we don't know the long-term harms. That's fine. That's a lower though, isn't it? Sure, that's lower. But okay, that's fine. So fair enough, you take it. That's the information that should have been conveyed.
But there's something else to add in here. When you're looking at these particular, you know, in vaccines in general, what are the thresholds historically that have led to complete withdrawal from the market of these vaccines? 1976, swine flu vaccine was pulled after it was found to cause Guillain-Barre syndrome. It's a neurological condition.
In one in 100,000 people, Andrew, that was a signal for enough to be pulling. That is too many people getting it, right? Is that quite a serious condition? Yeah, it can be quite serious. Rotavirus vaccine in 1999 was found to cause bowel obstruction in children at a rate of one in 10,000. We're talking about short-term harms without understanding long-term stuff of at least one in...
800 yeah so for me sort of me it should never let me put it this way If you look at things historically with, you know, potential harms from other vaccines if that information was very clear from the beginning and the information was we now know with hindsight it was available at the time if people had analyzed the data properly it would have got that signal straight away and said sorry
There's no effing way we're going to give this to a single human being. They wouldn't let us go out of the house until everyone started having it. It was driving me mad, getting penned up in there. I know. Was that an overreaction? Oh, massive.
Massive. Just seemed like everyone was dying. They kept reporting that everyone was dying. Yeah, well, they did. And again, this is the exaggeration of the fear, which then inhibits people's critical thinking against people going almost, you know, to a state of madness where...
And other people who may be more critically appraising the evidence and thinking, hold on a minute, my risk isn't that high. And I'm going to ignore this social distancing. I'm not going to wear a mask. Those people were perceived as being really, really bad people. In fact, there was a publication, I think it was one of the psychology journals, said that the way that vaccinated people perceived the unvaccinated was the same, almost like the way a neo-Nazi looked at an immigrant.
Yeah, I'm not surprised. And when I came out and spoke out about the COVID vaccine, I even spoke in Parliament. The Times did a hatchet job on Andrew Bridgen and myself, Andrew Bridgen being the MP that then took the presentation I gave in Parliament in one of the meetings to the actual chamber and then gave a speech, which I helped him with. And it was something along the lines of Andrew Bridgen, the MP, that was something like influenced by a grooming gang.
of anti-vaxxers. Right? I know, it's funny, isn't it? It's actually quite funny. I give it to my vaxxers when I go around the world. No, it gets people laugh, right? And there's a picture of me and Andrew. So imagine me, Asian man. Fucking hell. Asian man. I'm sorry about that. No, but it's comical though, right? Think about it. Asian man, sending Andrew Bridgen, grooming gang, anti-vaxxers.
So essentially, one could, you know, it's almost saying that this is on the lines of, you know, a so-called anti-vaxxer is basically as bad as being a paedophile. You could have sued. Yeah, I didn't want to... I've got better things to do. I know, well, it would teach a message, though, wouldn't it? Yeah, well, that happened, actually, something I avoided doing, but two of my colleagues didn't, is the Mail on Sunday, 2019.
did a hatchet job on myself and another doctor and nutrition scientist basically calling us statin deniers. And it was a front page featured article. And the editorial, and it's quite funny. I mean, it's serious, but it's funny because it's so ridiculous. The editorial title was A Place Belongs in Hell. for doctors who say statins don't work. Okay. And picture of me and Zoe Harkam and Malcolm Kendrick, this GP, is very well known. The statins are probably, I imagine, funded by big companies.
I'm just wondering if they might have been pushed. Well, guess which company has made the most money from Saturn Drugs. Is it Pfizer? It's Pfizer. That's really interesting. It's such a hard, because I've never done this topic before, and I do go into it. trepidatiously here or with trepidation I am thinking gosh I don't know but I have seen those movies I have seen the documentary about the smoking issue I'm glad you raised that issue
And we have seen that the companies were pushing for that. And it might be that they don't see themselves as evil because, you know, people sort of incentivize themselves only to look at. one part of the stats, don't they? So it could be the leaders of these, the leader of Pfizer might do it subconsciously and he just goes... Oh, I agree. And I actually had dinner with the CEO of AstraZeneca in 2018 or 19, I can't remember now, I debated him in the Cambridge Union.
And the motion put forward by AstraZeneca is we need more new drugs. But essentially what they're saying is we need more people taking more drugs. And he seemed like a nice guy. And if you, you know, again, I also got the entities here. The system makes, you know, encourages good people to do bad things.
And he seemed like a nice guy, and I'm sure he's probably great with his family and well-liked by his friends, and he may be very charitable. But the economic system... is pathologically self-interested to make money, not through transparency and merit, and you know skill but through fraud it's how good are you at being a fraudster basically that's the business model the business model of big industry is fraud and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that of course is
ultimately going to be detrimental to the economy. It's a failed economy, if you like, that we are in. So once people understand that, and most politicians don't even fully get that. then we can start changing the system. Because the way that they continue to exert their power is through lack of knowledge, lack of information, keeping this information suppressed.
I was watching The Apprentice, you know, that alum sugar thing. They all got to get a job or whatever. And they had to do this thing where they're selling something to the camera. They all said, like, it's a shopping channel they had to do. And at one point, it was a skin cream or something like that.
And it was amazing to see how quickly the woman who was tasked with selling the cream, she started saying, it solves your wrinkles better than anything else. It's the best one on the market. And she had to then be told, you're not supposed to, you have to retract that and say, sorry. And she was like, oh, okay, it's not.
And I thought, well, she doesn't mean bad. Her job is sell this thing. And I think people don't overthink it. And like you say, good people end up in this system, end up working for a company. If I'm 20 years old, I haven't thought too much about all this.
and they say to me hey you can have a job you're our main and you get promoted and you're the main salesperson you've been doing it for years you just wouldn't really look at the bad bits because you're not told about them yeah and you just keep saying yes it's the best that's my job i'm doing well i'll just think about that so That's humans, though. Do you think that when you think of someone as a Nazi who disagrees with you about statins or vaccines, that's the amygdala?
that threat you're so threatened that somebody might disagree with you yeah well I think this is the other reason I dare to be wise also is be willing to um change your own mind changing one's mind you know it can be a very emotionally traumatic experience right john kenneth galbraith the canadian american economist said faced with the choice between changing one's mind and proving there's no reason to do so. Almost everybody gets busy on the proof.
You know, if you look at medicine, for example, it constantly evolves. Again, as I said, it's an applied science, it's a social science, science of human beings. 50% of what you learn in medical school will turn out to be either outdated or dead wrong within five years of your graduation.
The trouble is nobody can tell you which halves you have to learn to learn on your own. So it's just a constant learning process, right? It's almost like there's no ultimate absolute truth. There are a few truths that last, but ultimately there's always going to be new information coming along. So we have to...
What we need in our culture is we need more humility amongst people so that they are, and also create an environment culturally where people aren't afraid to say, listen, I got this wrong. I've got new information here. And actually, this is a better way. So ultimately, you know, it's the ego. that stops people in many ways. It clouds our judgment and it stops us progressing. It stops us getting to a greater truth. But what I would say is a life lived in darkness has no meaning.
Well, absolutely right. I just, I'm trying to think, okay, so I obviously got this information from probably BBC or ChatGPT. So apparently 2021... COVID was the second biggest killer. And many of us know people, I know some people, not close friends, but people who died of COVID apparently.
Yeah, so let's put this in perspective as well, right? So you asked that question earlier, I didn't answer it. So even early on in the pandemic, the average age of death in Italy from COVID was 81 and they had at least there was 2.7 comorbidities so almost three chronic conditions
So from the beginning, we knew something specifically was devastating and certainly in the early stages for the very elderly. But when you were under 70, John Ioannidis, I call him Stephen Hawking of Medicine, they did a big study in California to look at what the true infection fatality rate was. And in essence, now looking back,
your risk of death was, you know, at worst about 1 in 2,500. So it was basically no worse than the flu. Is that what the flu is like then? Because I don't know anyone who died of the flu, but I did hear a few people. It's about 0.1%. but i think um so one in a thousand from the flu but yeah so and actually in the youngest age groups andrew and in children in teenagers and children the risk of death from covid was less than that of the flu
Yeah. That's crazy. But then why have I... I know it's anecdotal, but I don't know anyone who died of the flu, but I have heard of a couple of people dying with COVID. because it was so well publicized it's not like if we went if for example all of the media decided that every day they were going to report on every you know everyone dying from the flu whatever else you then get you don't yeah and then everyone's aware of it and
And also the other thing is there was a lot of miss, how should I put it? It's emerging more and more now. We knew at the time that a lot of people who were, you know, died. so-called were put as a COVID death died with COVID, not of COVID. So other things going on and they happen to have a positive test or pick up COVID and then suddenly they died, not because of COVID, because of the other issue. And suddenly they've, so the figures got massively exaggerated as well.
Are you concerned about the other side of this? I suppose the next big illness comes along, the next big disease comes along. and they managed to manufacture it. Well, I mean, the next one that's leaked from a lab. Well, it might be. It might be. And by the way, I think one of the reasons they didn't like that was because it was like racist against Chinese or something to suggest that.
it's just nonsense a billion people in China it's probably like we're talking about five people in the lab there who screwed up yeah yeah But that might be the way it happens, right? And other people messing about in the lab. Oh, I'm sure. Listen, if the lab leak theory seems to hold a lot of weight, probably it was an error. It wasn't someone that deliberately. That's what I think, I imagine.
I've heard that with this particular lab, there was a chronic underfunding issue as well. So therefore, all the checks and balances weren't perfect. And I suspect that probably created the environment where this could escape. something like that, or from an animal. Well, hopefully not, because I think all this gain of front-end research should be just stopped. And I think I understand at the moment that this is what they're planning to do if they're not already in process of it in America.
Okay. I don't know. I think Bill Gates was saying that that's the most likely way. I know everyone hates Bill Gates on YouTube, but that's the most likely way we die. We go extinct. Eventually a virus will get us. Do you think that's true? No idea. And when it does, or when something like that does happen, the concern is that people who were skeptical about this vaccine and the previous vaccines are going to go, no, no, I'm not taking that. And then it might be too late.
We have to restore trust, Andrew. So I think it's understandable why people don't have trust in our institutions at the moment. Because, you know, let's look at it from an example of, there's been a huge mistake, the COVID vaccine. Massive, right? Very clear. So first and foremost, if you look at it from a perspective of the research and the... best practice, if you like, as a doctor, if you commit a mistake, okay?
There are three components to reducing anger, restoring trust, etc. The first one is acknowledging the mistake, acknowledging there's a problem. The second one is apologising. And the third is, the most important, which is what patients really respond to, is to make sure that you are going to institute processes so this never happens again. And we've not had that moratorium yet.
Even with the so-called rare adverse events, which are not rare, they're very, very common. Certainly much more common than people believe them to be. there's not been anything that's come out have you heard chris witty come out saying listen i'm really really sorry that i pushed for
mandating this vaccine for healthcare workers, which, by the way, psychologically indirectly would have meant that other people who were not healthcare workers say it must be safe and effective. And then the COVID-19 inquiry comes out and says it was a political decision.
He was sceptical about it. Why is he still in this position? I'm sorry, but I don't understand how someone like Chris Whitty, and I've never met him, but I understand from other people that know him that he's a man of high integrity. How can you still actually be the chief medical officer without an apology for what happened? Why is he not apologizing? To the healthcare workers? What about to the NHS staff, people who lost their jobs, you know?
um or who basically all were forced you know ultimately the the vaccine mandate was was overturned so people didn't lose their jobs but some people left early because they couldn't hack it they didn't want to stay in other people's i've got you know one of my patients it's awful this lady who was a nurse
And she was coerced in taking the vaccine. She didn't want to take it. Didn't hold out because she thought, you know, this is now going to get passed as law and there's nothing she can do about it. It was April 2022, I think, ultimately, the last... chance they had to get the vaccine and i think a month earlier she took it horrifically vaccine injured now this woman Right, in a state of severe depression, almost suicidal. I mean, is my, you know, it's so, that kind of stuff.
It's difficult to not feel an element of anger. When you hear these stories, when you're actually having to deal and manage patients like that. I don't think apologizing helps. I've seen a few sort of studies that show if you apologize, it just sort of makes people hate you more. No, I think apology on its own doesn't help, but it does help as part of...
Listen, this is what happened. There's a mistake. You know, one of the issues as well, which upsets people, Andrew, who are vaccine injured, is they're not being believed as well. by the people right so it's about it's about dignity giving people their dignity back and saying listen i'm really sorry this happened to you
We made a massive mistake here. We were well-intentioned. This is what we believe to be the case. We now know this isn't true. And what we're going to do now in the future is make sure this never happens again. Well, masks are a waste of time. The evidence suggests that masks were essentially useless. The standard surgical masks that people were wearing, we look at all of the data.
And the Center of Evidence-Based Medicine in Oxford, Carl Hennigan, who's the director there, I mean, they've done some, you know, they've published on this. articles on this and yeah the masks were essentially useless just to explain why if I remember this correctly people correct me if I'm wrong but I remember reading that the smallest the size of the virus particle was 10,000 times smaller than the smallest hole in the mess.
Get through. I see. Yeah, well, that was the one I was just, I was having the vaccines, but I was just straight, I'm not wearing that on my face. It's ridiculous. I'd rather just not go near anyone. I mean, I didn't like wearing them. I mean, who did? I refused and then embarrassed my wife in social situations. On the plane, I'd be the only one. I'm just not doing it.
I fully empathise with you. Yeah, it's ridiculous. There are so many other losses that I suppose aren't even registered in medical literature about sort of social issues and just pleasant life, enjoyment, satisfaction, those things. Oh, completely. Yeah. I've got one more question for you, but first, where can people follow you and find your work? Yeah, sure. I'm on social media. I'm Dr. Seemalhotra on X, lifestyle medicine doctor on Instagram.
I'm also running this program which helps people improve their health quite quickly through dietary changes and empowers them and things like cholesterol and statins called metabolic reset. So they can look at metabolic reset.co. And yeah. Brilliant. And we'll put those links below. And tell me, who's a heretic you admire?
i think for me the greatest heretic that i admire um is a man that existed 2500 years ago who's work and whose teachings are probably more relevant today than they've ever been. And his Indian name was Siddhartha Gautam, also known as the Buddha. Right.
I was thinking, yeah, that's the bit of it. Yeah. And he was a heretic because at the time he basically went against, he was born a Hindu into wealthy families, you know, but he, you know, discovered this new philosophy or way of living which really i think rather than religion is the science of the mind he went really deep to understand what is the at the root of our suffering which
you know, can vary from extreme suffering, but actually the broadest definition, basic unsatisfactoriness of daily living. But what he did in that process was that he took on the established... doctrines of of hinduism which was a caste system which was quite hierarchical and to some degree oppressive and took on the brahmins who are the top of that um caste system and said you don't really need to believe in god to lead the moral life
So he clearly must have had a lot of backlash. If you look at some of the Buddhist teachings, he talks about the most, and this is hard to do, but it's work in progress, is something called loving kindness, where... You actually, and he writes about this in the teachings, is that the level of compassion, the highest level of compassion is to genuinely, not try to, but genuinely get to a state where you...
feel compassion and love towards those people who are abusing you, your enemies. It's like that Rudyard Kipling poem, If... It's a great poem. It sort of says, if you can, and I can't remember the words, but when everyone's against you and you can sort of show them love, yeah i love that but but i think you know what's interesting is he you know it's about also about humility and expanding knowledge and also an understanding that everybody on this earth ultimately wants
don't want to suffer and they want happiness. So we all have that in common. You know, how do you get there? And the compassionate mind, I think, is also a way to expand your knowledge because that means that you've got humility. That means you're willing to listen to somebody else.
that's a brilliant uh example of a heretic buddha it's the first one first time we've had buddha um dr asim malhotra people please go and find his links below he's been brilliant fascinating whether you agree or not it's worth looking into please hit the like and keep watching this channel