← Assembly Required with Stacey Abrams
Assembly Required with Stacey Abrams
The Rise of Bad Medicine and Anti-Vaxxers: Combatting Trump’s Health Agenda
00:51:39
Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Kennedy's so-called assault on medical science is putting Americans at grave risk. Measles has resurfaced, HHS is losing tens of thousands of staff, and medical research at the National Institutes of Health is being cut. Stacey is joined by infectious disease researcher and science communicator Laurel Bristow, along with associate professor and infectious disease expert Ghady Haidar, to break down the immediate and long-term impacts of the Trump administration’s dismantling of health infrastructure and skepticism of critical vaccines. They also share how we can protect ourselves and our communities from medical misinformation and disinformation. Learn & Do More: Don't spread misinformation: Be mindful of what you share on social media. It’s tempting to post a meme or video mocking conspiracy theories, but don’t be a spreader. Share the truth. Find content that debunks misinformation without amplifying it. Be a viral truth-teller. ...
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- [00:00]
Stacey Abrams
This episode of Assembly Required with Stacey Abrams is brought to you by Alloy Women's Health Aging can be a challenging process. Problems sleeping, hot flashes and brain fog can hit women hard. Menopause is inevitable, but its symptoms are also treatable. In fact, almost half of women went three plus years before seeking relief. That's because 43% of women reported their doctors just never mentioned MHT menopause hormone therapy as an option for treatment. Another 40% didn't know where to go for a solution. Alloy can help you to live your best, healthiest life through menopause and beyond, offering tremendous access to experts and safe, science backed treatments for your symptoms delivered to your front door. Everything is done online from the comfort of your home or anywhere. No waiting for an appointment or in line at the pharmacy. Alloy is fast, accessible and ready to work with you. Here's how to get started. Complete your intake. Alloy solutions are available by prescription, so you'll need to complete a short medical questionnaire and patient verification. Next, design your treatment plan with a physician. You'll work with a menopause trained physician to finalize a personalized treatment plan tailored to your specific needs. Then get your three month supply. Once approved, Alloy ships your prescriptions directly to your door with automatic refills. Join the 95% of women who tried Alloy and saw relief in the first two weeks. Head to myalloi.com assembly and tell them all about your symptoms and you'll get a fully customized treatment plan and you'll get $20 off your first order. Today, head to my a l l o y.com assembly and enter code assembly to get $20 off your first order. Welcome to Assembly Required. I'm your host, Stacey Abrams. We are going to start with what we are calling our recommended reading on this episode. It's On Tyranny by Timothy Snyder. What I'm gonna do is take a few moments each week to talk about and highlight certain facets of this book, but I encourage you all to go and grab it. It is fantastic. What I appreciate about Tim's writing is how accessible, how actionable, and how honest his prescriptions are. He begins the narrative in On Tyranny with an edict that we have watched too many American companies and leaders of this country fail to abide by this month. And that is number one, do not obey in advance. Now most of us, when we watch movies about tyranny, when we think about the history that we've learned, we mostly imagine that if we had been in that situation, we would have been part of the resistance that we would have to be under extraordinary threat to give up our freedoms. But as Tim writes and as we are watching in real time, most of the power that tyrants hold is freely given by the oppressed. When Trump issues a fake law about DEI rather than ignore it or challenge it, too many companies are rushing to comply. Too many organizations are saying, okay, sure, despite knowing that he has no legal authority to demand their obedience, Tim writes, quote, perhaps rulers did not initially know that citizens were willing to compromise this value or that principle, unquote. Problem is, when we comply, despite not being forced to, we are setting the terms of engagement. We're saying, do your worst. We'll work with you. In fact, we're saying, do your worst and we'll tell you if we'll take more. And he gives us these chilling examples of how this played out in Germany. And unfortunately, we are recognizing forerunners in today's headlines. And so as we think about our responsibility to fight tyranny, those of you who say, what can I do? I'm going to tell you, one of the first things that you can do is to force the issue. We are obliged to make them make us do something. We need to know the rules and to question everything. And yes, it is easier to comply. It is more convenient to comply. And some of us have real risks. We have real vulnerabilities. And the risk of disobedience is not only scary, it has consequences. But the loss of freedom has consequences. And the loss of freedom tends to be more permanent than any real and legitimate inconvenience that you may face. The problem is, once a tyrant, once a bully, once a bad person knows what he can get away with. His only mission is to take more. In a few weeks, we will discuss lesson 10 of On Tyranny, which is believe in truth. And as a preview, though, today we're going to talk about why accurate information is so vital and why misinformation can be deadly, especially at this moment. We've watched the Trump administration take liberties with the truth, but nothing has been as dangerous to the immediacy of our public health than the appointment of Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. If you watched his confirmation hearing or have read any reports on him, it is clear that this is a man who has a loose relationship with facts, much like his boss and his colleagues in the Defense Department and in our intelligence agencies. Since joining forces, Kennedy and the Trump administration have been spreading medical misinformation in a quest to transform conspiracy theories into healthcare policy. It's built on fringe conspiracies that are reminiscent of Trump's musings that bleach could cure Covid. And yet Kennedy is a veritable factory on his own of medical nonsense. According to our nation's secretary of Health and Human Services, cod liver oil has curative properties that are scientifically unsound. He argues that contracting the measles might be a good thing. And both of these assertions are provably inaccurate. He has posited rubbish about raw milk, and he is perpetuating dangerous myths about seed oil. He is slashing the number of people who are designed by their training to protect us. And he is suborning some of the most dangerous lies, including his most popular one about vaccines, many of which have been repeatedly and aggressively debunked. But he makes up new ones all the time. The problem is that the man appointed to protect us may be the architect of some of the most pernicious harm or we have seen come from a place of health. And we're already starting to see the real world impacts of his basic unfitness for the job. For example, infectious diseases that were once controlled are now killing people in the US we're only three months into the year and the number of measles cases has already surpassed the total for all of 2024. According to the Centers for Disease Control, there have been more than 400 confirmed measles cases, including one that resulted in the death of a child, the first death in the US in 10 years. And on top of that, the Trump Kennedy duopoly is taking a slash and burn approach to science itself. They are trying to cut billions from the National Institutes of Health or the nih. They are gutting the Department of Health and Human Services. That's money that supports research for hiv, for tuberculosis, for Alzheimer's, for Covid, for addiction services, and the list goes on. And those dollars are not simply coming out of Washington. They're coming out of the public health department that takes care of you and your family. So how do we fight back? Well, this week I am joined by two folks who can help us answer that question. We are going to be joined today by infectious disease researcher and science communicator Laurel Bristow and associate professor and infectious disease expert and researcher Gadi Haidar. They can help us understand the immediate threat of what is happening and the long term impact of what is to come. But they can also help us understand how to protect ourselves, our communities, and to stand up for science. Thank you both so much for being here, Gadi and Laurel, I'm so grateful to have you on the show.
- [09:38]
Laurel Bristow
Thank you for having me.
- [09:39]
Gadi Haidar
Thank you for having us.
- [09:41]
Stacey Abrams
So I want to start by talking about the big picture as it relates to the assault by the administration on healthcare. And I know it's going to be a challenge for listeners to keep up with the onslaught of changes and the slashing, because we know that in just the last few days, they've announced 10,000 staff cuts at the Department of Health and Human Services, including slashing personnel from the CDC and dismantling entire sub agencies. There have been billions in cuts to state health services. And we know there's been an end to vaccine funds for poor nations across the globe that prevent millions of deaths and also help prevent those diseases from migrating to the US and we've already seen an immediate impact. For example, in Lubbock, Texas, public health officials have been ordered to stop work in response to their growing measles epidemic that has already claimed the life of a child. So with that backdrop, Gadi and Laurel, I would love to ask you in turn, what are the most troubling impacts that you are seeing, both as it relates to research and to patient care? And I want you to talk either from your own work or from what you're hearing from your colleagues on the ground. And, Gadi, I'm gonna start with you.
- [11:05]
Gadi Haidar
Yeah. I mean, all I can tell you is we have a sense of horror, this anticipatory horror at the disinformation that we are seeing spread about vaccines, which has been a long standing issue. But it's now that you have the head of HHS having this platform and amplifying these, frankly, mistruths about what vaccines do about autism, which I want to clarify to everyone, that is a lie. There is no truth there. It was fabricated in 1998, and yet we're still suffering from the repercussions of that lie. And unfortunately, you're seeing that in the spike in cases. And we have had a spike in cases within the US of measles since the year 2000. And 2000 was actually the only year when measles was eliminated within the U.S. and since then, it's spiked. And now it seems like because of this amplified platform, it's just going around. And unfortunately, the misinformation has an additional flavor, which is that the doctors and the healthcare workers that care for you don't know the truth and have been lying to you. And we're hearing this not just in the press, but from the patients as well. And there's also the Stuff that people may have read about, about, you know, how you can use vitamin A or cod liver oil and things like that to treat measles. And the vitamin A thing is a very of niche, nuanced thing that really should be a recommendation from a physician in cases of children with very severe measles, where it can help reduce deaths. But frankly, the only way to prevent death from measles is to prevent measles. And the only way to prevent measles is through a vaccine. It is completely unacceptable in the United States to hear this rhetoric of, oh, don't take the vaccine, because if you get measles, you can get vitamin A. The problem is people are believing this and it's been very difficult to counter. And that's just one example of the things that's actually happening. There's a lot of things that are on the horizon, you know, threats to Medicare and to Medicaid and threats to HIV care and HIV prevention, both domestically and across the world, which, as you said, Stacey, infections that are going to be allowed to spread out of control across the world are going to impact everything and everyone, including here within the U.S. so there's a lot of damage. I think that's already being done now, and we're kind of bracing ourselves to see the extent of the long term damage that is going to happen because of all this misinformation.
- [13:36]
Stacey Abrams
So, Laurel, what else you got?
- [13:39]
Laurel Bristow
Yeah, I mean, in addition to all of that, which is such a huge concern for everyone, I'm personally just very concerned about the dismantling of our systems to train public health workforces like the NIH is the number one public funder of biomedical medical research in the world. So not only are these budget cuts and staff reductions going to impact our ability to perform research and to be on the cutting edge of research and developments, it's also cutting programs that train the next generation of scientists. You know, I was just listening to another podcast that was talking about kind of the history of manufacturing in the United States and how those jobs went away. And now you can't manufacture anything in the US Even if you want to, because we don't have people with the skill sets to do every part of the process. And I'm really concerned that that might be what happens with scientific research now, that we will just. If we lose these jobs, if we lose the training, if we lose the mentorship, then people aren't going to want to go into these fields because there's no way for them to survive, and then we just lose the skills that it takes to do research altogether.
- [14:41]
Stacey Abrams
And Laurel, I'm going to stick with you for a second because one of the narratives we're hearing play out in the Dodge slashing of America is that there's fraud, waste and abuse, and particularly when it comes to the provision of healthcare services and an infectious disease. Can you talk about how you respond when you think about 2020 and the rise of COVID and how this kind of mindset would have affected the outcome?
- [15:12]
Laurel Bristow
Yeah, I think that's a really interesting question because so much of this, like you said, is framed as, well, we're cutting frau and we're cutting waste. But, you know, when Covid hit, we were able to immediately allocate hundreds of millions of dollars, if not billions of dollars to vaccine development and research and prevention and stuff. And so it's like, we have money. This is not, you know, it's suddenly. It's a good excuse to say that it's for fraud, but the reality is that, you know, I don't think that there is the amount of fraud that they're trying to say that there is to justify these cuts. And I think if we were talking about having these conversations in 2020 when Covid first hit, we would be having conversations about, you know, is it worth it? Do we have, like, is it worth it to invest in these measures to. To research this kind of stuff? Frankly, we have another pandemic on the horizon. You know, it's not necessarily going to happen tomorrow, but bird flu is a very real risk. And if we are dismantling our systems now, before that even happens, it's going to be so, so detrimental when we need them, if we need them to try to build that stuff back up. And just speaking as someone who has worked in clinical research before, who has worked on government funded studies, the amount of oversight that happens with our budget is to the point of being annoying or a hindrance. Like, it's just they're not just giving us money and letting us do whatever we want with it. There's so much budget review and negotiation and justification and documentation that everyone has to go to. So the fraud claim, you know, are there places that are experiencing fraud? Probably. Is it to the point that cutting all of this stuff is cutting just fraud? Absolutely not.
- [16:53]
Stacey Abrams
So, Gadi, you seem to be in vehement agreement.
- [16:57]
Gadi Haidar
Yeah, I mean, I'm in vehement agreement about both the comments about the pipeline of physician scientists and researchers and about the dismantling of public health. And I'll tell you on the ground and The HHS has actually published all the grants that it's terminated. And so many junior and senior researchers have just lost their grants. And these are things that you spend years thinking of a scientific question, and it goes through such rigorous review. And frankly, most things that are funded by, that are submitted to NIH are rejected. And I'm someone who gets NIH funding. And I can tell you this isn't some kind of faux science organization. This is legit science. And now when you see dozens upon dozens of people immediately, without notice, being told you're losing your grants for no reason other than this is no longer part of the priority of the executive branch, it's very harmful, not just for the immediate science, but for the economy, for all the staff who work in these labs, and for the next generation. I mean, how do we expect young physicians and young researchers to want to do this if they're being told that the pillar that for decades has supported scientific research in America and has made America a leader in this no longer believes in these things?
- [18:17]
Stacey Abrams
Well, we are in the midst of this retconning of history, and I wanna stick with you for a second. On the issue of COVID for example, there has become a subculture that says that Covid wasn't that bad, that it was overblown, and that because we're still here, it wasn't problematic. And we're seeing the same thing happen when it comes to the measles. We're only three months into the year, and the number of measles cases in the US has already surpassed the total number of infections for all of 2024. And in both cases. And then you add into it, Laurel, the bird flu issue that you just raised. And I want to kind of take a big picture look and then come in a little bit. People may not understand just how bad these diseases are, how contagious they are, and why it matters so much that we have infectious disease experts like yourselves, researchers and communicators like yourself. So can you begin first by just talking about how bad this measles outbreak is? And in the answer, if you can talk a little bit, I'm gonna start with you, Gadi, and then come to you. Laurel would just love for us to level set with our listeners. I mean, people listening to the show likely understand, but they need to be armed with information to give to their family and neighbors, because in retrospect, people are starting to tell themselves things weren't as bad as they were. So let's talk about why it matters that we have so Many measles cases, Gadi. And then, Laura, I'm going to have you talk about why Covid was as bad as or worse than we remember and then bring it all together to talk about the potential with bird flu. So Gotti, go first.
- [20:04]
Gadi Haidar
Yeah. I will say I think it's a testament to the amnesia that I think can affect society. And it's because none of us, most of the country has not experienced measles. For many of us it's been a distant thing or something that maybe our grandparents had, you know, back in the pre, in the pre vaccine era. But it is probably the most contagious infectious disease ever. Probably if you're exposed to someone, there's a 9 out of 10 chance, if you're not vaccinated that you're going to get it and it's going to detrimentally impact the health of some key groups. And those groups are infants, women who are pregnant and their unborn fetus. And you can think of the implications of that in states where abortion is not legal, the immunocompromised and that's the patient population that I take care of. So people who have had transplants, people who have had chemotherapy for cancer and things like that, and people who are really old and these individuals will get infections of the brain, infections of the lung and will die because of measles. And so it's. This used to happen a long time ago, but vaccination has virtually eradicated this. But you need people to get vaccinated. I mean, the MMR vaccine is about 97% effective at preventing measles and mumps and rubella. And so if most of the population gets vaccinated, that's when you get the herd immunity and that's when you really don't have to think about it. And it's just baffling to me that the highest healthcare position in the US is treating this condition as benign. And so it's very disheartening to see these things occur.
- [21:55]
Laurel Bristow
I also just want to add to the point of measles, when we talk about measles, the rate of fatality, we say one to three deaths per thousand cases. The fact that we've already had two deaths indicates that this is probably a lot more widespread than we actually realize. And that really reminds me of COVID Right. Because there are probably people who got measles and it was so mild that, you know, they didn't really notice or they didn't report it or something. But those people can spread to other people. Right. And so we saw this with COVID a lot that, like, people, the asymptomatic spread or the pre symptomatic spread of COVID was a huge driver of cases because people thought that they felt fine. But, you know, I worked in the hospital during all of the heaviest days of COVID and it was, you know, days in the weekends in the ICU where we lost 12 patients running out of body bags, running out of room in the morgue, like needing refrigeration trucks outside of the hospital, needing triage areas outside the hospital because we were just so overwhelmed. People spending hours in the ER waiting for a room. It was really horrifying. And I do think people, you know, have a hard time believing or remembering stuff unless it's directly in front of their face. So my fear with bird flu, should something like that become, you know, gain pandemic potential in humans, which thankfully it has not yet. But, you know, we don't want to wait until that happens, is that we will not even be able to implement lessons learned from COVID because people will just remember the bad that personally happened to them. And if that bad doesn't include losing someone that you love or being so sick you're in the hospital, it'll include things like social distancing, you know, like closing schools and how hard that was on kids and stuff. And so I feel like people will be really resistant to do anything because maybe their experience and their negative experiences stem from the way it inconvenienced their life. And then you might get more people whose negative experience with the next pandemic is, you know, from the loss of their loved ones or their family members or the loss of their own life. And we just really don't want that. We want to be able to improve upon the lessons that we have learned. And it's really hard to do that when you're dismantling the systems that help us, you know, disseminate this information.
- [24:08]
Stacey Abrams
Assembly Required with Stacey Abrams is brought to you by bookshop.org Reading keeps us grounded, it keeps us informed, and it helps us better understand and navigate the world around us. Whether you're looking for instructions or escape, bookshop.org has you covered this week. I'm encouraging listeners to pick up on Tyranny by Timothy Snyder as we launch our Assembly Required Recommended Read when you purchase from bookshop.org you're supporting more than 2,000 local independent bookstores across the country, ensuring they'll continue to foster a love of reading and be a source of joy and learning in their communities for Years to come. And there's great news for you ebook readers out there. Bookshop.org has launched an ebook app. You can now support local independent bookstores even when you read digitally. Use Code stacy to get 10% off of your next order@bookshop.org that's code stacy. S t a c e y@bookshop.org taxact.
- [25:12]
Gadi Haidar
Knows filing your taxes can be complicated. And that's why we have live experts.
- [25:16]
Stacey Abrams
To help you with any questions. They can hold your hand through the.
- [25:19]
Gadi Haidar
Process, beginning to end, metaphorically, of course.
- [25:22]
Laurel Bristow
I mean, they can't actually hold your hand in person.
- [25:26]
Stacey Abrams
I suppose you could hold your computer.
- [25:27]
Gadi Haidar
Mouse while you chat with the expert about capital gains or whatever, which is sort of like holding hands. Sorry. Point is, our tax experts can make filing easier. Tax Act. Let's get them over with.
- [25:44]
Stacey Abrams
Well, we know that vaccine skepticism in the US is growing. That as you both very ably pointed out, that Covid skepticism has cemented itself with too many in our population. And at the top of the food chain, at the top of our medical narrative, is an anti vaxxer who does not understand science. And he is leading HHS to actually make it harder for people to survive. And as you both know, despite clear scientific consensus, including both of you as cd, you know, as infectious disease experts, debunking the claim, under Kennedy, the CDC is moving forward with a large scale study led by a discredited vaccine skeptic to reexamine the supposed link between vaccines and autism. And Gadi, I know you dismissed that, but the reason I wanna frame it that way is I'd love for both of us. I'm gonna start with you, Laurel, to spend a little bit of time talking about why it is so dangerous to have Secretary Kennedy leading this massive, important department at such a dangerous time in our healthcare system.
- [26:55]
Laurel Bristow
Yeah, I mean, I think the communications that have come out have shown over and over again that, you know, he not only lacks a fundamental understanding of maybe infectious disease or these certain issues that are coming to us, but that he's also not consulting people that do have this understanding. Because obviously someone in a position of power can't possibly know everything about everything. So you rely on sources to help you. And so I think that that has been really hard to see and to hear the information that's going out. You know, Gaddy already mentioned that we're seeing kids who have liver damage because of vitamin A toxicity because they have heard that cod liver oil, you know, will treat the measles or prevent the measles. Or whatever misinformation that they're getting. So I think that that's incredibly hard. I think it's also dangerous because when you have people in positions of power who are the kind of people that are, you know, just. Just asking questions, guys, I'm just asking questions. You know, in theory, a study to find, you know, if vaccines are safe sounds great, but it implies that we don't already have the answer to that question, which we absolutely do. And so now we're spending time and money and effort investigating something that is an answered question, that makes people think it's not an answered question, and also is what limited resources we have with all of these cuts away from doing stuff that could be more beneficial, like seeing, you know, what the actual causes of autism are, what we can do to support autistic people so that they can live independent lives, how we can actually, you know, what. What adverse events are vaccines actually causing? What rate are they causing them at? And how do we address those? Because they are real. I mean, they're rare, but they're real. And I think that any way that we can improve the interventions that we give to people are worth looking at. But this is not something that is an open. This is something that we know.
- [28:43]
Gadi Haidar
Gotti, as a physician, you know, the first thing you learn is do no harm, right? And so when you hear the head of HHS saying these things that are untrue and that, you know, are directly leading to harm, it's very difficult for people like us to understand where such an individual is coming from. I mean, you always want to be curious, and especially, for example, if you see patients who may not agree with getting vaccinated or who may have fallen into some of the conspiracy theories about COVID you always want to be curious and kind of understand where they're coming from. But I don't understand that mentality of either intentional misleading of the public or kind of cherry picking things that you think are true and then disseminating that to the public. And unfortunately, because it's coming from the hhs, which I think historically has been kind of the pinnacle of healthcare across the world, many people are believing it. So for the autism issue, so this was a fabrication that started in 1998, was a physician, Wakefield, Andrew Wakefield, who published a paper in 1998 that indicated that there's a link between autisms and the measles vaccine. This had been backed by some anti vax lobbies, and a few years later, they redacted it. Not because of some kind of ideology from Physicians, but because it was made up. It was fake data. But we're still dealing with the repercussions of that 27 years later. Which is why when I read that the CDC is. Is under this new administration going to fund research that is going to investigate the link, it stuns me, because this is not going to accomplish anything. And so there is no link, because it all started with a lie. And two, whatever you find, I am not sure that you're going to convince anyone who vehemently believes that the measles vaccine causes autism otherwise. And that really concerns me.
- [30:44]
Stacey Abrams
Laurel, you've made a very compelling video on bird flu and food safety. And again, going to how links are being made and how misinformation spreads. Can you talk a little bit more about bird flu and what people need to understand in this moment, like, should they be steering clear of certain foods? What is it that they need to know and what is it that they're hearing they need to forget?
- [31:11]
Laurel Bristow
Yeah. So I think the most important thing to remember with bird flu is that, you know, we are very grateful that right now it does not seem to have acquired any mutations that make it more transmissible to or between humans. But with every case of bird flu that exists in a wild bird or in domestic poultry or in dairy cattle, we are allowing for opportunities for mutation that it could gain something that could hurt us. So I think, you know, it's not the idea. I mean, the only food you should really steer clear of is raw milk. It's just the. When we talk about risk versus benefit, the supposed benefits of raw milk are nowhere close to the risk that it poses to people. You know, prior to pasteurization, I think something like half of all deaths were associated due to tuberculosis from, like, bovine tuberculosis, you know, which is passed through milk. It's a thing that we don't want to go back to. But the thing that I really think is important for people to think about is that we don't want to give the virus opportunities to mutate. And, you know, it has been suggested. Again, this is like Covid, where we said there were people who were suggesting that we just let it go through the population to get to herd immunity. That was not a good idea for Covid. It's not a good idea for bird flu. You know, our industrial farming system means that these chickens don't have a lot of genetic variations. So the likelihood that you are going to get a large group of birds that are immune to bird flu, and then we can breed them and have, you know, Burn it out of the population is, is pretty much non existent. What will happen though is that you'll have massive amounts of dead birds that are dying. Not only horrible deaths, but also when these birds die, they get diarrhea and the, their excrement is full of bird flu. And then you have farm workers who have to move, you know, they have to clean these farms. You have it, you know, potentially getting outside of the farm, being picked up by wild birds and spread to other farms. So it's just the kind of thing where containment really is the only answer for how we deal with situations like this. And that's really not what's being proposed right now, which is very concerning.
- [33:10]
Stacey Abrams
And taking from that, Gadi, I want to talk about the issue of the gutting of local public health. Because part of what we know is that a lot of the communities that are hosting the poultry farms, hosting these agricultural spaces are deeply reliant on state based public health because often these are under resourced communities that aren't going to necessarily just go to the doctor because something's going wrong. And when you're thinking about communal diseases, they need the support. So can you talk a bit about what the administration's actions when it comes to gutting support for research and preparedness and treatment at the local level, what it says about our ability to address the spread of infectious disease?
- [33:58]
Gadi Haidar
Yeah, and I think so my hands on experience with this and I think all of us was the early days of COVID when testing was an ordeal. And if you don't test, you don't know who has it. And that allows things to spread and that also increases the burden on hospitals and makes people who are susceptible to dying and the complications from COVID more likely to get it. Because if you can't track it down, then you really cannot put a handle on this. And so these are my concerns about the complete evisceration of the state funds to look at public health. Meaning that if we start having increases in flu, in rsv, even in Covid, in bird flu, in what have you, you're not going to be able to catch this as early as you should in order to prevent the problem from escalating. And another example is hiv. You know, without appropriate HIV prevention with a pill called PrEP, and without, you know, widespread access to HIV treatment and you hear these things about how federally funded and even state funded HIV prevention and treatment programs are going to be shrunk, all this is going to accomplish is it's going to prevent us from testing, it's going to prevent us from treating, and it's going to prevent us from preventing, and then you're just going to see a spike. And I don't think anyone alive in the United States today has any concept of what it means to live in a society without the public health infrastructure that we have all grown accustomed to and have taken for granted. No one has any idea what it means like to live in a world before vaccines or before all the public health stuff that the CDC and other agencies have set up. And we really do not want to be going back to that well thinking.
- [35:50]
Stacey Abrams
About just the future. We're currently facing an especially harsh flu season. According to the CDC, 86 children and 19,000 adults have died so far. And yet despite this, earlier this month, the Food and Drug Administration's vaccine Advisory Committee where strains for the next season's flu shot were to be selected. That meeting was canceled. Why are these meetings so important? Why does it matter that this vaccine Advisory committee meeting got canceled?
- [36:22]
Laurel Bristow
We have actually selected our flu strains for next year. They are the same strains that the WHO group that we normally participate in but are no longer participating in chose. So we are actually on track for regular flu season. I think it is, is extremely concerning, though, that this FDA meeting that we would normally happen to select these, you know, these are meetings that have traditionally have public comment that are available that are, you know, open door and transparent and to remove that. And RFK Jr. Has said that he would like to remove public comment options from all of the meetings is deeply concerning because we do deserve to know what's going on. It is important to get feedback from people who are not on the committee, from the public. And so that, that is really worrying to me. I think the thing that's, you know, of course, a lot can change between now and flu season in terms of the FDA's view towards vaccines or any of that stuff. But my personal biggest concern right now, because everything is interconnected, is bird flu. The flu vaccine is made in chicken eggs. And if we continue to have our egg numbers decimated by bird flu, that's going to impact our ability to produce these vaccines.
- [37:30]
Stacey Abrams
Well, and Laurel, I want to stick with you on this because we know that the United States pulled out of the who, and so can you talk about the other potential consequences of the US Withdrawal from the who, especially in terms of the bird flu?
- [37:46]
Laurel Bristow
Yeah, I mean, it's, it's hugely disappointing and it's only going to serve to hurt us if there are, you know, there's a ton of strains of bird flu out there that have always been circulating. If there are outbreaks in another country, it's just going to take that much longer for us to hear about it. You know, we've already had the experience of an emergence of an Ebola case in East Africa that, you know, I heard from people I know who work at the Department of Defense that people in our embassies hadn't heard that there was Ebola until they read it in the news because we are just not part of these global conversations anymore. It's also we have scientists who, you know, at this time, we still have some of the best scientists in the world, and they are not being able to help contribute to these discussions about vaccine plans or pandemic preparedness or outbreak response on a global level. And as we know from COVID viruses, they don't care about borders. Like, you think that you can just shut America down and keep everything out, and you can't. And so to, to remove this option for collaboration that is so critical and has been so critical and important for so long is really, really distressing. I mean, so much of our understanding about COVID mutations and waves comes from work that South African doctors and scientists have been doing. So I think it's just very disappointing. And I think there's no reason, there's no reason for it. It will ultimately hurt us.
- [39:09]
Stacey Abrams
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- [41:21]
Gadi Haidar
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- [41:54]
Stacey Abrams
So I want to shift to my favorite part of conversations like this, and that is, you know, we've covered a lot of the harmful information, the misinformation, the poor scientific process, and just the sheer stupidity of some of the decisions being made. Let's just be straightforward about it. That Secretary Kennedy and the Trump administration have engaged in spreading disinformation, misinformation, but also gutting our ability to know the truth. But we have to survive anyway. So I wanna address this misinformation and ask you two, these extraordinary health professionals. I would love for you to give our audience your favorite trusted resources for not just staying up to date on taking care of your health. But how should they be thinking about this moment and how can they steel themselves for what is to come? And Gadi, you seem to be thinking about it very deeply, so I'm going to go to you first.
- [42:57]
Gadi Haidar
Yeah, I mean I would have said that the first resource is your physician, because in my experience I have found that most people are reasonable, but you kind of have to sit and do a one on one with a person and talk to them. As far as specific resources that people can go to, I have always said go to the CDC website and go to the FDA websites. Having looked at them recently, they still are legit. I am concerned, however, about if things will change. And that is something. Actually, I'm curious to see what Laurel thinks of what the best way to educate people are. Because aside from the one on one with healthcare providers, in the absence of these trusted resources that I know for a fact, or at least for the past few years, I could send people to. That's something that I think we as physicians and healthcare workers really struggle with.
- [43:53]
Stacey Abrams
Okay, Laurel, fix it for us.
- [43:55]
Laurel Bristow
Yeah, easy peasy. It is. It's so hard right now, but I think, you know, if you're interested in international health news, the WHO does have a newsletter that you can subscribe to for reporting. Stat News is one of my favorite organizations. I think they do incredible, like science reporting that is very nuanced and not like panic inducing the way some other big news organizations do to try to get clicked. So I think that's worth paying for a subscription to Stat. I highly recommend that you know, things like Scientific American. These are all things that you can, you know, if you're a reader, if you'd like to read. Aside from that, I agree. It's. It's hard to be at the point where I really don't feel super comfortable recommending the cdc. I mean, right now the stuff is good, but I just, with the people who are coming on board and the people who are leaving especially, I have concerns about recommending their information. Also with what appears to be Children's Health Defense making a clone site that, you know, was up only briefly but full of misinformation, I think that that's really hard. So it's. People are going to have to put in a little bit more work. We're out of a time period where I can just like give a default recommendation. But I personally do so much of my education on social media. And I think, you know, it's hard because you do have to approach every science communication profile with a little bit of skepticism to see if it's somebody who, you know, feels trustworthy or if their information is correct. But I think once you find one person that you feel really comfortable with that you think, you know, their information looks good and it looks correct, you're looking out for any critiques that are being made about them. Science communication is a team sport and people will have other people to recommend. And so, you know, I don't know if it's a question of me recommending that you get your information from social media science communication, but I think it's more. That's just what people are turning to now. And so it's really important that you invest some time in making sure the people that you're following are actually good, good people to follow.
- [45:58]
Stacey Abrams
So since we're going to give them a shortcut, Laurel, tell people where they can follow you to stay up to date on the facts on public health and infectious diseases.
- [46:05]
Laurel Bristow
My Instagram is where I do the majority of my work and my handle is Laurel2Bristow. So make it easy to try to find me.
- [46:14]
Stacey Abrams
L A U R E L B R I S T O W Correct. There we go. Okay, last question for both of you. What can our audience do? And I think Adi, you raised an incredibly important point. What can our audience do to help healthcare professionals who are under siege in this current moment?
- [46:33]
Gadi Haidar
I think the best way is for anyone with some kind of scalp skepticism about what we are trying to tell them to just remember that we're not going to steer you wrong, that your doctors, your healthcare workers, nurses, PAs, NPS, all that we want to help you and we want to save your lives. And so the things that you hear from us about the safety of vaccines, about what to eat and what not to eat and autism and all that, that is the truth. We have no agenda. And I think most people are probably aware of this. And this is what I came back to, that when you get to the one on one, I think you can convince someone, but I think that that's really important. None of us make any money off these vaccines. None of us make any money off treatments or prevention of COVID versus Some people are making a ton of money from vitamin A. We are not withholding information about vitamin A from anyone. We understand where it should be directed and we are trying, trying to protect you from needing it. So I think if people just understand this, that no matter where you practice, no matter your gender or skin color, and I say this because I know that my colleagues who are female and that my colleagues who are of darker skin than I am are much more likely to not be believed often when they talk to their patients. And people need to remember we all have the patient's best, best interest at heart. And I think if that kind of dynamic is resumed between the physician or healthcare provider and the patient, that is really gonna go a long way. Because unless you have some kind of way to amplify your voice, ultimately we're talking about the day to day interpersonal interactions with patients. And people like me are more than happy to get on a call with a patient or answer emails from patients and unpack a lot of these. I don't know if that answers the question, but from what I've seen, that's a thing that the public can help us with.
- [48:43]
Stacey Abrams
Gadi Laurel, thank you for trying to save our lives. And thank you for joining us here today on Assembly Required.
- [48:49]
Laurel Bristow
Thank you so much for having us.
- [48:51]
Gadi Haidar
Thank you.
- [48:58]
Stacey Abrams
As always on Assembly Required, we like to give our listeners actionable tools for facing the challenges of today. So here's this week's toolkit in which we always encourage you to be curious, solve problems, and do good. First and foremost, do not spread misinformation. Be thoughtful about how you post on social media. It's tempting to share a meme or a video mocking these outrageous conspiracy theories, but remember, do not be a spreader. Share the truth. Find a video or an article that doesn't repeat the bad information but effectively rebuts it. Become a viral truth teller. Number two I need you to use your resources Vaccines are the number one protection in this uncertain health climate. There are many resources where you can get free and low cost vaccines even without health insurance. The HHS provides a list of state and local health departments that are great resources for finding these free and affordable vaccines in your state. And we're talking about childhood vaccines to flu vaccines. So visit HHS.gov immunizations to find your state on the list. For example, if you're in the Los Angeles area, the LA county public health website has a list of clinics offering low cost or no cost vaccines for children 18 and under. So visit publichealth.lacounty.gov and number three, keep up to date when it comes to your health. Always consult medical professionals. Healthcare professionals get advice from doctors. Get information about the latest medical advancements or horrors from scientists. Read articles authored by medical researchers. I know it is tempting, but not everyone on platforms like TikTok, Instagram and Twitter are reliable sources for health guidance. So look out for those with real credentials and your best health in mind. A reminder, we can be found wherever you get your podcast, including on YouTube. If you want to tell us what you've learned and solved, send us an email at assemblyrequired and crooked.com or leave us a voicemail and you and your questions and comments might be Featured on the pod. Our number is 213-293-9509 and if you've learned something in this episode or previous episodes that you found exciting, interesting or revelatory, share it with your friends. Tell folks who need to know about what's going on and what they can do about it to check out Assembly Required. So that wraps up this episode of Assembly Required with Stacey Abrams, and I'll meet you here next week. Assembly Required with Stacey Abrams is a crooked media production. Our lead show producer is Ilona Minkowski and our associate producer is Paulina Velasco. Kiril Palaviev is our video producer. This episode was recorded and mixed by Charlotte Landis. Our theme song is by Vasilius Fotopoulos. Thank you to Matt de Groat, Kyle Seglin, Tyler Boozer, and Samantha Slosberg for production support. Our executive producers are Katie Long, Madeline Herringer, and me, Stacey Abrams. Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East. Great brands, great prices everyone's got a reason to rack because they have framed.
- [52:47]
Laurel Bristow
Jeans Nike, yes, just so many good.
- [52:50]
Stacey Abrams
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