Interviewer (5:56)

Well, it seems like Covid was also created a dividing line because a lot of very esteemed mainstream published researchers and doctors broke away from the establishment. It seems they didn't like what they saw. They did some critical thinking and they were kind of cast out for that. But they seem to be developing their own. I don't know what you would call micro community that's looking at things the way that you describe. What would you say was the impact of COVID on this?

Dr. Martin Makary (6:25)

Covid was the first time the medical establishment was rattled by different opinions, getting some airtime because in the past it was, well, we went on the Sunday morning talk shows and we told everyone what to do and we got the CDC and the White House to make a statement. And now it was like, oh my gosh, people are listening to other doctors on television or social media. And it was this sort of anger by this authoritarian central control of medicine. Francis Collins, the head of the nih, famously called the Washington Post and said, people are spreading misinformation and they need to be brought to justice. Well, it turns out the greatest perpetrator of misinformation during the COVID pandemic was the United States government ignoring natural immunity, pushing Covid boosters in young people, promoting cloth masks and toddlers. A tremendous amount of bad information where a lot of the public finally got fed up and said, you know, I'm hearing two different opinions and the one I'm hearing from the government does not sound scientifically sound.

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Interviewer (8:53)

How does the bird flu problem that we're starting to hear about factor into what you're talking about?

Dr. Martin Makary (9:00)

We have a herd mentality in medicine. Not the rank and file doctors, but the establishment, the small group of people that decide what everybody should be recommending. And they are right now intoxicated with the concept of MRNA technology. Now, MRNA technology has promise, could be beneficial, has had some success. But the idea that we can only address bird flu with this one MRNA technology approach is the current thinking of the United States government.

Interviewer (9:33)

When you say MRNA technology approach, to be clear, we're talking about a type of what we call vaccine that they used for Covid for the first time. Is that right?

Dr. Martin Makary (9:42)

That's right. A gene gets manipulated in a laboratory and it creates a certain code for a protein. It gets put into your body and then your body translates that gene into a protein for the spike protein or something to create immunity. And the concept is intriguing and it is a step forward in medicine. But the idea that we have to now treat everything with MRNA technology is an example of groupthink, it's herd mentality. There's a bird flu vaccine that I write about in the book Blind Spots that is a traditional vaccine. It's an inactivated virus and it is very effective in animals and is now past phase one human trials. It has essentially been shut down even though it's effective against bird flu, because people are intoxicated with MRNA technology to the point where they have signed a cozy contract with moderna to say go make an MRNA vaccine for bird flu. Forget about the traditional vaccine. That shows promise. That is dangerous groupthink and it's medical dogma. That MRNA is gonna rescue us from every problem in healthcare. And dogma takes on a life of its own sometimes.

Interviewer (10:59)

Well, this stuff doesn't happen in a vacuum. How does profit motive factor into the narratives that we hear and the choices that are made?

Dr. Martin Makary (11:06)

Well, the NIH and big pharma and the fda, honestly, I can't tell the difference. Sometimes when I hear who's talking have this incredible cozy relationship. Many of the vaccine scientists at NIH are now regulators of the vaccine industry at the fda they've switched over. And so it's not healthy when you have a health emergency in the United States and our public health leaders who are supposed to lead us take a back seat and say, well, let's see what pharma says. What should we be doing? Oh, they said that a vaccine booster for this new variant is highly effective. Well, why don't you do that research? The NIH has all these virus laboratories across the country. Why don't you do the research instead of blindly following what pharma says? Because I'll tell you something about big pharma. They're not always honest and they're not forthcoming. Take for example Paxlovid, the antiviral therapy for Covid. It was one of the biggest public health campaigns of the White House. Ashish Jha, telling everyone you must take it. Running announcements at your CVS pharmacy over the overhead system. It was a giant public health campaign. New England Journal of Medicine studies just came out showing they don't work for people under 65. And the study was done a year and nine months before it was published. Why didn't we get the results a year and nine months ago in the middle of that big government push? They withheld the results until that point because of likely a profit motive. And then when they get a vaccine booster that they think every kid in America, every six month year old in America should take five of these boosters, they announce the results before the trial is even public. So you're not dealing with honest people in big pharma. Many of the times you're seeing these announcements, if a trial doesn't go their way, they don't release it. If a trial happens to show a positive result, they shut down future studies that could then reverse those findings. Look, in modern medicine we develop blind spots just like in any other area of society. In politics and business and relationships, people don't see things that are apparent that they should be seeing. And in blind spots, it struck me that we've got two levels of medical recommendations. One from the rank and file good local doctor who uses good scientific principles and the other from a small group of elite medical establishment priesthoods. And these high up doctors are running unchecked right now. So people need to ask good questions. They need to learn about the truth about health. And so I wrote blind spots so people could learn the truth about so many of the major health recommendations in the United States that have been reversed or proven incorrect. But you don't hear a public announcement about it. You just see a fading out because of the embarrassment by the medical establishment for putting it out for so long.

Interviewer (14:32)

Anything else you'd like to add?

Dr. Martin Makary (14:43)

There's so much in healthcare where people are lost. They don't know what to believe, and it turns out that sometimes it's the arrogance or the hubris of the medical establishment that is failing them. They're not correcting their old wrong positions, and it turns out there's a lot of them. When it comes to food and what you should do about your health and how to live long, there's a lot of misinformation out there put out by the medical establishment. I don't want people to be cynical, but they should ask good questions. And I wrote Blind Spots to correct the record on how we got a peanut allergy epidemic. And what is the most amazing thing for postmenopausal women they can do to extend their life? Live healthier, feel better, reduce the brain fog and cognitive decline of that postmenopausal period. How to reduce the risk of heart attack? How to prevent cancer. Many times it's not what you hear. There's a flurry of new research now that is challenging deeply held assumptions in medicine. That research a lot of times doesn't get airtime. I wanted to give those researchers the airtime so people can learn the truth about so many areas of health.

Cheryl Akeson (16:06)

I hope you enjoyed today's podcast and that if you did, you will take time to leave us a great review and share this episode with your friends. Check out my other podcast, the Cheryl Akeson Podcast, and if you like topics like the one we talked about today, you're sure to love my new bestseller, follow the How Big Pharma Misleads, Obscures, and Prevails. This would make a great gift for somebody who's an independent thinker and wants to know more about why our health has been so compromised in America, even as we've spent record amounts on health care, medicine, doctors, insurance, pills, and so on. A lot of that has to do with the corrupt medical establishment. From medical school to the continuing medical education classes that our doctors are educated in, turns out they are hugely conflicted along with the medical associations. Follow the Science exposes with anecdotes, inside media stories and hard documents and citations, exposes how bad this has become and how this is impacting all of our health, and also has great advice on how you can take back control of your family's health. Do your own research, make up your own mind, think for.