Cool Media. Welcome to it could happen here a show about things falling apart. This week, the thing falling apart is the US healthcare system science in general, but specifically the healthcare system. I'm Garrison Davis and today I'm joined by a very special returning guest, doctor Kappajode. Hello.
Hey, Yes, the thing falling apart is you, the listener. So it's very important that you listen up. You were going to do anyways, but in particular you should be paying attention here because this is important stuff.
So in mid May we got we got some news in the FDA, CDC Human Health and Services front, as there's been there's been a lot of news in the health front, but specifically, we're going to be talking about the new guidelines for COVID vaccines that the FDA is
trying to push through in the United States. So the new f Commissioner, Marty mccaray and the top vaccine regulator of an Aprocad have published a quote unquote study you pushed back on the use of the word study in the New England Journal of Medicine about the COVID vaccine
booster shots. Yeah, and are going to be changing the guidelines for how these are going to be administered and who has access to them, particularly those under the age of sixty five, might have a harder time getting the COVID booster that they have like the past few years, requiring certain pre existing conditions to qualify. And they have a whole bunch of arguments for this. They say they're trying to make this more in line with the vaccine
guidelines and other countries. They're proposing further studies on the necessity of COVID vaccines for those under sixty five and for someone like me who tries to keep up with COVID boosters and you know, doesn't like it getting infected with COVID. Some of this can see a little bit both confusing and worrying and considering, like the anti vaccine takeover of the FDA and like the Federal Health Services in general, it's a frightening move.
I guess yeah, I think you're right to feel concerned. It is something I am a little concerned about for a couple of reasons. One, I mean, I just don't flatly agree with limiting the use of the vaccines the people they're planning to limit it to. I mean this is coming from the medical freedom crowd. I feel like people should at least have the bodily autonomy to have the vaccine if they want it. That's a part of it. But I'm actually even more concerned about the bigger sense
of what this represents. You know, on the surface, making some changes is not totally unreasonable to our vaccine policy, and we generally reassess our COVID vaccine policy annually, so that's not too abnormal. But the thing is, we have this whole system set in place to do it in a efficient, smart way that is public, and there's a process to it. If I can give you a little bit of a sense of how it normally runs and what's going to happen now, I think it'll explain why I might have my concerns.
Yeah, that would be very useful to hear.
So normally there are some clinical trials, there's some studies that happen, some real world data, some points that can be looked at, and then.
The FDA uses this advisory committee.
Again, these advisory committees are not career politicians. They're scientists, their public health officials, their doctors, people volunteering their time. I don't think they get paid other than maybe food and their expenses, but other than that, they're not paid for just this job. And what this group. The first group is called the VRBPAC and they determine if it's a safe and effective vaccine. If it is determined that way, then the FDA grants a license and approval. From there.
There's another group, the ACIP, and that's an Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, and it's the same sort of thing. It's a group made up of scientists, healthcare professionals, public health professionals, and people will come together, they'll determine who should get it, and then the CDC director signs off
and then it gets out there to the world. Now, basically what we have is two political pointees, both of which have these massive axes to grind on the subject, have some severe chips on their shoulder about what's happened so far to them in this conversation and this dialogue. Who are going to bypass this whole scientific system, who aren't going to be looking at these questions like what
is our growing immunity? Is annual booster still warranted? And they're going to take this outside of that and basically make the decision, and I find that to be very concerning, even past like this basic premise of like, you know, does this mean that my friends or myself I won't be able to get the vaccine that I want to get. So I find it to be very concerning. And you alluded to that article in the New England Journal of Medicine. It did not alleviate my concerns.
One of the guys here, the guy who's heading up the vaccine regulations, has compared the US COVID response to Nazi Germany. He has boosted anti VAXX claims from Robert F. Kennedy Junior.
And he's blocked me on Twitter.
Come on, and truly his most heinous offense.
How could you block me? I'm lovable? No.
Me and this guy, Robert Evans were joking yesterday never heard of it, about about how some of your personal nemeses have have been put into positions of like government power, and how you're upset about that, and I remarked, oh, first time, because this has unfortunately been the trend of our work the past few years, These these weird online figures who we've developed personal agrievances against for being bad people. Suddenly now are like in the for echelons of power in the US government.
Hey, I like them, they just don't like me.
I don't know if that's true. But regardless, do you have any other notes on mccari andad like specifically?
Uh, you know what I'll say.
So A big thing about this article that they put in there, and what they talk about a lot, is trying to get more farm companies to do large studies, which you know, on the surface, totally reasonable. But the thing about it is not every problem can be solved with what's considered the quote unquote golden standard of studies, the double blind randomized control study.
Some studies just can't.
They want to see that these companies are doing these studies to say that it's good and safe and beneficial for younger people.
But there's a couple of problems with this.
Okay, One, I'm not entirely sure that's ethical, Like, if we have we have something that works, if we know this vaccine helps, and we do CDC studies have shown that these boosters helped for at least four.
To six months, possibly life saving medication.
Exactly is it ethical to deny somebody that, Like, would I want to be a part of that study. I wouldn't I wouldn't want to get potentially the placebo. So that's part of it. But even beyond that, to do these studies, it's lengthy. They are long studies. If you want to do it, and you want to do it right, it takes a while. So by the time they do this, by the time they do the study, even if I'm being very generous in how long it takes them, by the time we get the results, we'll be onto a
different mutation. We know that this thing mutates, we know it's going to change into a different virus, and we won't even know if that study that we just spent all the time doing works on it. So we have other options for studying these things. They're not double blind,
randomized controlled studies. But we have other studies at work, and there are plenty the epidemiologists out there, vaccineologists, people who know way more about this than me, and to be fair, know more about this than Prasad and Macary. They're the ones saying this is not a good idea. So I'm like saying, let's listen to them. Let's listen.
They know what they're talking about. They're smart people. I've met some of them.
They're great, and it doesn't make sense to me on an ethical or practical level to do it that way.
Do you know what doesn't make sense to me?
I know, I do, I do? I do? I can I say?
Kind I guess you can guess. I'm guessing that commercials don't make sense to you. But really, at this point in your career, they should make sense.
I should know by now, but still the concept is a little bizarre. Here they are Okay, we are back. I guess let's get into more how this will affect the average listener, like what these things could mean like both in I guess the short term and then like
the long term. If you're trying to plan out your you know, your health a journey, what kind of like risks you have if you're you know, compromise, what that means for you versus if you're magical, perfectly healthy you know, twenty five year olds yeah, uh, prancing around with with no issues France and as the kids do. Kids love to prance.
So in the short term, it's not clear in a month that advisory committee I mentioned the ACIP is going to meet or they're supposed to meet. I don't know if it's all going to happen, And they're supposed to determine who should get this so first, since first they could they could disagree. It would be the first time I've seen it. I've never seen the FDA and the ACIP not be in lockstep in this regard. And maybe it's happened, but I can't think of it in like,
I don't know. I don't know what will happen. That'll be a little bit of chaos, and it'll be interesting to see what happens to that point. But if it goes as the FDA now plans, it will limit who can potentially get these vaccines. If you're not over sixty five, if you don't have a what's considered a risk for serious disease like asthma, cancer, kidney disease, certain types of liver lung disease, diabetes. If you don't have any of these things, then it's not clear to me. Will the
pharmacist not give it to you? Will the pharmacist check if you tell them you have one of these things? Will insurance cover it? I don't know, and that's really concerning. I think the price is going to go up, and that does relate to the bigger concern, the long term problem in this, which is, I mean, Kennedy has said he's not taking away vaccines. Great, he doesn't actually need to take away vaccines. He just needs to do things like this so that nobody wants to pay for it.
Nobody wants to go through the process of studying it, nobody's going to make them. Insurance companies aren't going to pay for it. People aren't going to end up being able to afford it. They're going to be lesser and fewer of them, and they will go away naturally on their own because of this. That's really the long term concern that I have. This the short term concern, I mean,
I don't know. It's going to be interesting, you know, like there's certain things on this list that the CDC has, Like for example, physical inactivity is.
On this list. I mean, how who could argue with you on that?
Like, you know, if you tell the pharmacist you're having physical inactivity, will they I don't know will they check that?
How will they check that?
So I don't know what will happen in the short term and the long term definitely big concerns.
It seems like part of their strategy here is just putting as many roadblocks in between you and vaccines that could save your life as possible, to further whatever like conspiracy driven worldview that the people at the top have and just like the inhumane side effects that's going to have across the entire population.
Absolutely, I mean to also put this into context, COVID. We're in a better situation than we were years ago, that's certainly true. But at least from the CDC records alone, forty sive thousand Americans died from COVID related diseases last year. At least two thirds of that number were directly due to COVID. And amongst that, there are about two hundred
and thirty deaths from kids. That is a significant number, And at least you can say at least one hundred and thirty of those kids were directly related to COVID and not from some other problems. So this is significant stuff that we're still dealing with. And long COVID can
affect people. Long COVID can affect all groups. It can affect young and old, So it is concerning and it bothers me in particular, that the group doing this, as I said in the beginning, is the medical freedom group, And this is sort of the exact opposite of this.
I think this demonstrates how much medical freedom has actually just been a dog whistle for like this conspiracy theory driven belief this entire time. Like people clamoring for medical freedom don't have to believe in it. They're against trans healthcare, they're against vaccines in general. They want to put autistic kids into like behavioral like therapy programs to try to make them not not autistic. Like it's it's it's not
actually about medical freedom. It's about it's about advancing a very specific conservative and conspiratorial worldview that actually controls what other people are allowed to do with their bodies. This is like a massive, a massive part of their project. Yeah, and like I don't know how else you can like interpret moves like this, which are just going to jeopardize people and put them even in more danger.
Yeah, and it's going to get worse. We can see the effects already. Just today, Moderna withdrew their application for a COVID flu combo vaccine, a one shot vaccine that would have both and the studies on that so far were really good. Actually they showed they looked really promising, and they're just doing this because you know, okay, now do we have to have these double blind control studies for this? And they know it's going to be a
hostile environment. And now it's withdrawn and there's going to be more and more of that way. Way before your time or my time, there used to be more pharmaceutical companies making vaccines. There used to be a lot more than there are now. There's only a handful now, but there used to be a lot. And then there was like this CBS show about the protessis vaccine and it was called like Russian roulette, this could give you, like this could end your life. And there's like one like
made for TV like show about it. It wasn't a movie, but it was like a special they did and it raised such concerns that letters started pouring in to the network, and they then started pouring into Congress and there was a whole hearing and after that we had a significant drop off in regards to the companies that make these vaccines, and we have a few now, and I am worried that this could be another sort of inflection point in that in that history, in that arc of vaccines, and
we're going to get even fewer now.
I mean, it's been devastated watching the like advancement of the HIV vaccine, which seemed like it was nearing completion, gets tolled for a number of reasons, including like DEI policies getting pushed across these health departments because the HIV vaccine research uses you know, terms like gay and and trans and it mentions. Yeah, you know, all all all that kind of stuff, which is which people focused on
in the first few months. I'm super nervous about the COVID nasal vaccine getting basically shelved, and every every like new thing we see come under the FDA just makes
those fears heightened. Yeah, it's it's pretty rad not to be too depressing, but that is kind of the that is that is the mood of this show in some in some ways, like people people can still you know, wash hands, mask up at this point, people can still get the vaccine, but like the way that the way that we've been like treating like the widespread health of this country has already been pretty bad the past few years. Yeah, and this is like trying to intentionally make it worse. Yeah,
it does feel like that sometimes. Yeah, I am concerned about it all, but you're all right. We still have as of now. I mean, there's still some options going forward in terms of vaccines, and hopefully we'll continue to have them totally and we'll see how this plays out. I'm really curious the next month will.
Be very telling when we have that ACIP Advisory Committee again. If it's allowed to happen, and they allow people like Paul Offit, people who are real vaccinologists, people who know about vaccines, not just appointed political people, but people who actually study this know it. If they come on and they can provide enough pressure, if people can support them, then I do think that there is there is some hope that the pushback will will.
Help us alleviate some of this restriction. I hope.
Would the people on the like a ACIP panel be like political appointees, Do they have the same like risk of all these other people put in under RFK Junior where they're very clearly politically there versus like careerists who are actually actual experts in the field.
Well, unless they change it. The ACIP is not set up like that. The ACIP is just you know, these really great group of independent doctors and scientists, public health experts that are using real world data. They're looking at how the immunity shifts over time. They're looking at the virus and seeing if it's changing. Really volunteers that come from the world of science to do so. So as of now, they're not. That's not how the group works.
I don't know if that'll hold. I mean, I don't see any reason why they couldn't if they wanted to scrap the ACIP get rid of the people on it.
You know, people who.
Are vaccinologists who are of great significance to the community, like you know, Peter Hotez or your Paul Offits, these scientists who really study and look at these things and put in just people who are already in line. I mean, unless I'm missing something about it, I don't see why they couldn't do that. I hope they don't. I think there's enough scientific background in Prasad and McCary that they would recognize the importance of an independent council.
But yeah, I'm not sure.
Well, that's good to know. We don't need to be fully doom or pilled on that. But it's a good thing to watch out for. Do you know what I'm gonna be watching out for, Kava, I do.
I certainly do.
You're gonna be listening more than watching, but you're going to be listening for some really great ads.
OKT kave I guess I'd also like to touch on this actual piece in the in the New England Journal of Medicine. Yeah, they're quote unquote to evidence based approach to COVID nineteen vaccination, which is more of a blog post, right, it is not a study, It is a blog post. And specifically they talk about how the United States has a much more like severe vaccine strategy than other countries in Europe, and they try to use this to justify their own beliefs, saying that they're trying to bring things
in line with the vaccine policies in other countries. Is this real? Is this true? I don't live in Europe. I'm not super familiar with the European vaccine guidelines. I don't expect you to be an expert either.
No, it's really funny though that you mentioned it, because it's so funny what they decide to endorse about European policy will socialized medicine. Most of these European countries have socialized medicine. They will have nothing to do with that, and then they'll nitpick certain things. So there is some truth to the fact that we are doing things differently. And again I'm not opposed to looking at that and being like, Okay, what are other countries doing, does it work?
And could we do that? So there is a difference are currently until now in the US it was generally recommended for anyone over six months. People weren't being made to have this. By the way, again, medical freedom.
You know, no, I was pretty sure that Joe Biden will send a swat team to your house and shoot you unless you get the COVID vaccine. That's what I was told on the RFKQ and your podcast.
I mean, he is somehow, simultaneously a decrepit old man who's certainly confused, but somehow able to orchestrate an incredible from the depths, darkness, deep state espionage. So I guess it's possible, and that's how we do it. It's how Canada does it. The UK they do do to little friendly. They do it for people greater than sixty five. They do it for residents and care homes. They do it for people greater than six months and high risk, and people who are greater than twelve years of age but
are in a house where someone's a meal compromised. They do it for anyone who's over sixteen who helps care for someone who's vulnerable, and they do it for all social and healthcare workers. I mean they have a different system in place. They have, as I mentioned, socialized healthcare. In general, they're very good about their vaccines, so it's hard to tell. It's a little bit of apples and oranges. But it's funny what they decided to pick and not
pick about that. And it's also fundy why some groups are missing under our care, Like a lot of places will vaccinate anyone who's overweight. Here they don't consider being overweight a risk for COVID, So that it is funny how they're choosing their nitpicking certain things that are recommendations common recommendations in other countries and not using them here. So they do it a little differently in Europe.
That is true.
And again this is the kind of stuff that they're going to evaluate every year. The ACIP will evaluate the look at the emerging data to look at the other countries to look at what's being done and they'll discuss it.
So it is true, and.
It does seem reasonable on the surface when they say it like that, hey, we're just trying to get and they mentioned this in the New England Journal of Medicine article, we're just trying to get more in line with the rest of the world. And that's not really true. It's like they're just picking certain things that they want to agree with and ignoring all the other stuff about their healthcare system that we could benefit from.
One of the more wild aspects of this again Glorified blog post is talking about how the COVID vaccine booster program has actually undermined public trust in vaccinations, which is like, again, this is like we're all looking for the guy who did this moment wearing the hot dog constitu quote. Even healthcare workers remain hesitant, with less than one participating in twenty twenty three to twenty twenty four fall booster program.
There may even be a ripple effect. Public trust and vaccination in general has declined, resulting in reluctance to vaccinate that is affecting even vital immunization programs such as that for me Zills, mumps and rebella.
Oh so weird.
I wonder if it's the people that have been talking about how corrupt and terrible the FDA and CDC are for like the last five six years.
It's insane that they're that they're like able to like do this like it's yeah, I don't.
I mean, it is an ongoing inside joke amongst people in the medical community.
The hot dog meme guy.
That's a very common like attribute to these to these characters who talk about, you know, how how they're clearly sowing the seeds of mistrust and then capitalizing off of it.
I don't know if they even mean to or not.
And people ask me a lot, they're like, you know, why why are they why why do they do this? And I that's a tough one for me. That's your friend Robert Evans. I ask him that every time I'm on his podcast, as there's a point in the podcast where I earnestly I don't do this on purpose, where I just don't understand and I need to understand why it's being done. And in these cases it's hard, you know. Previously, if VNE Persod had a podcast that people really liked
called the Plenary podcast in the medical community. I never listened to it because I don't listen to medical podcasts.
Why would I.
And what it did basically was it would break down like studies and go over them in a very sort of skeptical way. And I think it's good as a doctor to be skeptical. I think that's a good attribute for us to have, and it was useful in many ways. But then I don't know if it's audience capture. I
don't know if it's true belief. I don't know what shifted, but it does seem that it was a steady growth into this contrarian perspective from the medical community that doesn't totally make sense to me, Like they all kind of feel like they're galile or samulwise, that they had this rare contrarian opinion that made them special and they were attacked for. But in my mind, it's not so much of that as it is you know, there is a scientific process that we have. Galileo followed a scientific process
and that's how he came to those conclusions. These people, I don't feel are following that and they are strict to their method. Idolatry to what they feel needs to be done, and I don't feel like they're listening to the experts in the field explained to them why that's not the case. That's how every hero probably feels in every situation. But they have somehow become the victims in
this story. And I am very curious to see now that they're in power, how that shifts and if they maintained this sort of victim mentality.
Well, how can you be a victim when we have beef tallow back at stake and shake everyone. We did it, beef tell we did it, Joe, We're bad.
We sure did. Maga coated coconut oil.
Now I'll be completely healthy again.
Yeah, yeah, that is so funny to me. I mean, like, we could talk about seed oils, we could talk about the quote unquote Hateful eight, we could talk about all that stuff. But it's it's pretty clear that oils are better than tallow for your health, and beef tallow there's very little, like there's a little proof to prove that it's good for you, and a lot of proof to
say that animal products are bad for your heart. Yeah, so it's absurd that that's an argument that we're still having this in twenty twenty.
Five now instead of frying in beef tablet oil instead, I had just drink a full eight ounces of grape seed oil every morning to wake up. It does wonders for me. It just gets the whole body up and run.
In lubricates the whole system.
That's right. I know you can't give medical advice, but do you have any advice to give listeners before we close? At least people who are like you, afraid of what these changes from rfk's FDA will mean for like them in their community.
Yeah, I think it's okay to be concerned about it, but I do think there is some time to go.
There's going to be a lot.
Of people from the medical community fighting to try and fight these restrictions on the vaccine. So we'll see how that goes. You will probably be able to find ways to do it. You should talk to your doctor about it, be as your doctor probably can see a risk factor that you don't. If you don't see one that automatically fits that list from the CDC, your doctor might be able to find one that that is. And I'm not
talking about fraud, I'm talking about like real things. Your doctor may be able to look through your chart, look through your history, talk to you and find a risk factor that you didn't think was a risk factor, like, for example, physical inactivity or you know, smoking. So there are things that we can look for, and as they shift those goalposts, which I'm sure they will, we'll also.
Be trying to find around that as well.
And you know, when the ACIP comes out, there's going to be a lot of pressure on them, and I think we can pressure our Congress and we can pressure our representatives to support them, at least nominally to discuss it, if nothing else, because I don't think this is getting talked about that much. So I think if we can bring it to the public attention, I think we can
shift the narrative on vaccines. I do believe that the narrative has shifted on COVID and vaccines in this terrible way, this revisionist way where everyone pretends it's not it wasn't a big deal and that we didn't lose millions of people. And I think if we can keep that in the public discourse, I think that alone will help.
I think that's important for us to do.
And that's what people you know on Reddit and people on the Internet and Facebook, and all that stuff can do is they can help keep this in the public eye and fight that incipient I don't know if that's the right word. Insidious is probably the right word. It's this really subtle sort of reconstructing of the narrative of what COVID was and how important these vaccines are. So
that's how people can help in the immediate future. And then you know, stay tuned, talk to your doctor about vaccines and when you can get them, and get them as soon as you can. I do think that's a good idea for both flu and for COVID boosters when available.
Cave lovely talking with you as always. Where can people hear you talk more on the internet?
I am on a podcast called The House of Pod and it is a humor adjacent, fun ish medical podcast.
I would say it's not adjacent to humor. I would say it is on target.
What we're next door to humor.
We next door to humor. We speak a little humor, not a ton. But you will like the show. If you like this, I think you're gonna recognize a lot of the same people. Gear, for example, has just recently been on an episode, and you know, you'll we'll get gear on again, I hope, and you'll you'll find people that you like. There are a lot of the same sorts of people. We take a skeptical look at medical grifters and the wellness community, so a lot of the
same stuff you love from these shows. In the extended Behind the Bastard universe, you'll also get into I think our podcast, the House of Pod and finding it anywhere, The House of Pod, the House of Pod.
The first time I met you online, I was invited onto this show, and you know, it was a pretty busy year twenty twenty. There was a lot going on for me with the you know, riots and such and the you know, whatever damage was done to my brain via all that tear gas, and for some reason, and I don't quite know why, I wonder if I was just conflating two messages, but I thought I agreed to go onto a medieval history podcast, not a medical podcast.
So as things just started, I was a little bit confused, And then I went back to reread the message of like, oh no, it definitely says medical, and I still don't quite know how I did that. Like I said, a lot going on that you.
Did great whatever it was. Whenever you thought you were doing you did it well.
But whenever I think of your podcast, I now also think about medieval history. So there you go.
Yeah, hey, okay, that's cool. I'll take it.
I'll think we did do an episode. I mean not every episode is strictly like medical stuff. Like I did an episode with these guys who wrote this book on Sparta and the battle with the Persians and how the story has been sort of turned into something grossly that's not partially because of three hundred and partially because of other reasons. Yeah, and so there is a little bit of that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it makes sense. Yeah, yeah, you liked that episode.
How often do you think about their Roman Empire?
I don't.
I think about how the Persians killed a lot of them over them thermophylly.
That brings me a little spark of joy.
Okay, good to know, just kidding listening, I don't.
I don't approve of people being murdered. I don't. I don't even if they're jerks.
Good to say this day at age.
Yeah, thank you.
So much, Kathe, thank you, thank you for having me.
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