Dr. Joel Warsh (3:52)

Thanks for having me on. It's good to do it in person. I think last time was probably online. Yeah, mostly everything was online.

Courtney Swan (3:56)

Yeah, yeah. Last time we chatted, we did zoom. And I'm really making it an effort now to just do everything in person because I think it's so much better.

Dr. Joel Warsh (4:04)

Way better. A lot more travel, but better.

Courtney Swan (4:06)

I know, I'm a little exhausted by the travel. We were actually talking about that before we started recording. Like, you and I are both just traveling nonstop for podcasts right now. And it's amazing and it's super fun and really exciting, but it is like, it's exhausting too.

Dr. Joel Warsh (4:17)

It is.

Courtney Swan (4:19)

Well, Joel, okay, so you have a book coming out soon and I want to talk about. It's called Between a Shot and a hard place if you want to tell everybody a little bit about why you wrote it.

Dr. Joel Warsh (4:31)

So I'm a pediatrician and I practice integrative medicine in my office. And I have been really frustrated with the regular system and medications for everything, really short visits. And as I've gone through my practice, I realize that there are so many people that are interested in integrative medicine. But the one topic that people want to talk to me about all the time is vaccines. That's the thing I get most questions about in the office, the thing that I get most questions about online. And we could never talk about it. And until recently, I didn't speak about it at all. And I think over the last year or two, things have really changed and people are much more interested in discussing everything. Certainly the social media landscape has changed to where vaccines are not censored like they used to be. And I think it's really important. I think we need to have conversations. And during the pandemic, I got really frustrated. I got really frustrated with the censorship. I got really frustrated with what I felt was propaganda around things like safe and effective as opposed to having real discussions about risks versus benefits. And I decided that I wanted to write out what I knew and learn as much as I can about vaccines to give people information. I don't feel like there really are any books out there that are unbiased. Everything has a clear narrative and a clear side. It's like pro vaccine versus anti vaccine. And I really wanted something that looked at both sides and I wanted to really bring out what I discuss in the office. And for me, my philosophy in general is inform and don't force anybody to do anything and just provide information so people can make the best decisions for them. I don't force anything. In my office, we have people that do all of the regular vaccines in the regular schedule. Some people do a slow schedule, some people don't do it. And I think parents want that kind of information, and they don't want to be told what to do. They want to be provided the landscape so they can figure out what makes sense for them.

Courtney Swan (6:33)

Yeah, and. And it's. It's really cool. It's interesting because you and I were talking about this before we started recording, and I just want to reiterate that that really is your stance. And the only reason I'm saying that is that I see sometimes online where people go, oh, yeah, that's just like what doctors say. But they're. They're really pushing a narrative, like, one way or the other. And you Genuinely are just allowing parents to figure out what they want to do. And I actually even asked you, I said, okay, because of, you know, the information that you're putting out there, the stuff that put in your book, the things, the conversations that you have in your practice, do the majority of your parents end up not vaccinating? And what did you say?

Dr. Joel Warsh (7:09)

I would say that's not true. I mean, I think the majority do vaccinate. The majority go on a slower schedule at my practice, but they mostly do it. And I think that is not unreasonable if you're wanting to do something, but you just don't want to do all them at the same time. The problem with the vaccine literature is there are so many holes in the research and we want to be making risk benefit decisions. We want to decide how much is this going to help us versus what are our risks. And we have a pretty good idea about the diseases, we have a pretty good idea about our risks from the diseases, we have a pretty good idea of how well the vaccines work, but we don't really have a great idea of the risks from the vaccines and the side effects and the long term complications. And so I think that makes it really difficult because we're missing a very important piece of information. But as a parent, you don't have a crystal ball. You have to make a decision based on what you know. And I feel like we have to get that information and to get it, we have to have conversations. And vaccines are in the shadows right now. The conversation's in the shadows. The word has been censored. We can't talk about it. Can't talk about vaccine reactions. But during COVID so many people had reactions themselves and they realized that, okay, well, if I had a reaction to the COVID vaccine, what happens with my kids? Oh, I've heard about autism. How is that related to vaccines? We're told it's not related, but then I have a friend that thinks that it is. We have a lot of conversations like that. And to get to the truth and what's best for our kids, we have to have conversations and we have to be open to examining the information that we have and asking tough questions and trying to move forward. Not necessarily to stop people from vaccinating, but we want to do it in the safest possible way. We don't want to harm kids. If a vaccine is causing an issue, don't we want to know that? That way we can figure out why. What ingredient in there? Maybe we can take out that ingredient, maybe we can make it safer. We've done that before, but it doesn't seem like we're doing it anymore because the vaccine manufacturers don't have liability. And who's pushing back to look at these things?

Courtney Swan (9:13)

This is the problem that I have about this entire conversation is exactly what you just said. This has become a no, no conversation. We all watched what happened to Jenny McCarthy and I think it was the 90s or the early 2000s somewhere on there where she just said, I, I think this happened with my son. And I mean, she got annihilated. And then ever since then, it was like everybody, it was like society just went, okay, we're just like not going to talk about that and we're not going to touch it. And then we saw during COVID again, same thing. I was like, you couldn't even have a conversation. Like, I remember I had a really good friend who had a severe vaccine injury and her cardiologist told her that it was from the COVID vaccine. She got pericarditis, which is inflammation around the sac of the heart. And her cardiologist had a sit down conversation with her and said, you cannot get any more of these because it actually might kill you. And this was from her cardiologist. And then I would go online and I would try to share this story and my stories were getting deleted. I was getting censored. I was so censored for like three years on Instagram just because I was trying to share my friend's story. That was it. And so this is the problem that I have about this is that why do we have these certain off like it's like these certain subjects where it's just like, oh, no, no, no, you can't even talk about it. You can't even ask any questions. Because God forbid you ask a question and you se sort of doubt whatsoever, then that is just like so dangerous. Like I, I, oh, I would love to know your thoughts about when we were watching RFK during his, what do they call it? When they were trying to confirm him.

Dr. Joel Warsh (10:41)

Yeah.

Courtney Swan (10:42)

And every, I mean, they were all just standing up. They're like, Bernie Sanders and you know, Elizabeth Warren were all like, the science is settled. We know for sure that it doesn't cause autism. I mean, it was honestly truly wild to watch because like you just said, why are we not just for the health of the kids and sitting down and going, okay, maybe we've gotten a couple things wrong. We're not saying that every single thing is wrong. And every single thing in all of his vaccines are harming kids. But maybe we are giving too many. You look at the amount that I got in 1984 versus if I have a kid tomorrow and they go on the schedule and it's up to like 78 doses now and I got like five. Why are we not going? Maybe that is like a problem and we should all be able to look at it as a society and let scientists and everybody figure it out.

Dr. Joel Warsh (11:27)

Yeah, I mean, it's a big question. There's a lot there. I think going back to vaccines are so ingrained in medicine and it's almost like they're a God or they're some like heavenly being that they're like perfect and they never have a problem. And it's such a weird discourse around vaccines where anybody that talks about it, you're promoting hesitancy and you're stopping people from getting vaccines and you're going to kill kids if you talk about this. And so we just want to promote only the most positive, perfect things. And we know that happened during the pandemic because Mark Zuckerberg said it specifically after he said that they were censoring. We're pushing him to censor true information because it promoted hesitancy. And people are starting to see that they saw during the pandemic safe and effective. Instead of saying what is accurate, which is based on the research that we've seen, the benefits seem to outweigh the short term risks. We don't know anything about long term risks, but it seems like it decreases mortality and severe disease. Disease. So we're recommending it based on that. We don't know anything about long term risks, but we can't because it hasn't been long term. So that's what we recommend. Like that is honesty. We didn't get that. Yeah, we got just do it. And that seems to be the way that medicine has moved over the last 20 or 30 years at just repeating these kinds of phrases over and over again without really backing it up or without continuing to get evidence. It's just, I don't know, it just keeps big push on us. And again you say like something like autism, the research is settled. You look at the research on autism, it's definitely not settled. It doesn't make any sense. When I was going through the research, and I'm an integrative doctor, when I went through medicine and training, I was told the science was settled. That's what I knew. I didn't look into it myself because why would you? And until I even did the research for the book I didn't realize what the research actually shows. And, and when you go through it, you're shocked. You're like, what am I missing? I was so surprised that we didn't have information. I thought we'd have huge studies. I assumed when I was going to write that chapter it was going to be most of the great studies that show why vaccines don't cause autism. And then maybe there is some other research to show that maybe they're related or maybe we missed something and things are biased. So I show both sides. But there actually isn't really anything on vaccines and autism. The only information that we do actually have is on MMR and on thimerosal, which is the mercury component of vaccines, which isn't even in vaccines anymore other than the multi dose flu. So to say that we know that vaccines don't cause autism doesn't make any sense. You can't say that vaccines do cause autism because you would need research for that. But we haven't done studies on vaccinated versus unvaccinated kids. Even the MMR studies, generally they're getting their other vaccines. So they're getting their normal vaccines plus MMR or no mmr. And we get a whole bunch of vaccines. Before you get MMR, you get MMR at 1, but you get the DTAP, you get RSV, you get rotavirus, you get pneumococcus, you get hemophilis, you get Hepatitis B, you get all these vaccines in the first year and there aren't studies on that. So how can you say that vaccines don't cause autism based on that? You can't say anything. You could just say we don't have anything to show that vaccines cause autism. That's why they say it. It's circular thinking.

Courtney Swan (14:47)

Yes.

Dr. Joel Warsh (14:47)

We don't have evidence that it does, so therefore it doesn't. Which isn't the way that science is done. You have to actually do the research. And I have a master's in epidemiology, so I have done health research in the past. I've done literature reviews. I have a pretty good understanding of how to do it. And for that chapter especially, I mean, everything is evidence based. But for that chapter especially because of, of what I'm saying, I wrote out everything. I wrote every single step, every single study. I went through it, I showed all of what I found. And it's. Unless I'm missing something, which I don't think I am, because I read all sorts of books. I read Paul Offit's book and Peter Hotez's book. They don't have anything else, anything different. They're basing that vaccines don't cause autism on the fact that these studies say that, but they, they don't show that question. They don't talk about vaccines, they talk about MMR only.

Courtney Swan (15:37)

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Dr. Joel Warsh (17:59)

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Courtney Swan (18:00)

That's Manukora M A N U K O R A dot com Real Foodology to save 31% plus $25 worth of free gifts. That's so interesting. And the MMR one is actually, if I remember correctly, the one that. That a lot of parents are saying that they see a significant change in their children neurologically after they get it right. Is that the one?

Dr. Joel Warsh (18:22)

So parents definitely say that the concern around MMR most likely started around Andrew Wakefield's study, and that was in the late 1990s, early 2000s, where he related possibly that the MMR might have something to do with autism. And things kind of spiraled from there. And so I think that's why we see some research around mmr, because they were trying to debunk what he had said at that time. But that is the majority of the research that we have. And that doesn't mean that vaccines don't cause autism, because other vaccines could cause autism or they could be at least related or associated with it. I don't know. I'm not saying that they are. I'm just saying it's a ridiculous thing to say that based on the information that we have and when RFK and other people say these things, they know that, too. They have to know it. They've looked at the research for years. I would have been one of those doctors saying, no, you're crazy. What are you talking about? Vaccines don't cause autism. We know this. It's settled.

Courtney Swan (19:15)

Yeah.

Dr. Joel Warsh (19:16)

And that's why they're saying that, because they are expressing, we need more information. We need more data. And I've seen depositions where they talk to doctors and they say, well, does hepatitis B vaccine cause autism? No, it doesn't. Does polio vaccine cause autism? No, it doesn't. Do you have any evidence for that? I don't have any evidence for that. They say it in deposition.

Courtney Swan (19:37)

See, this is exactly. This is what's so crazy to me. And then there's all this resistance when we have people like RFK Jr saying, I just want to do the Tests to know definitively if it does or doesn't. Because that's what all of us are saying. All of us are sitting here going, we just don't actually know. Can we please find out? We would love to find out. We would love to have the actual studies because then we can end this debate. Like, this is what's so crazy to me is that science is always changing. And this is how you move forward with science. You have a theory, you have a hypothesis, and then you test it. I mean, this is like grade one science that we learned as kids, right?

Dr. Joel Warsh (20:13)

Exactly. And it's not science just to say it's settled. That's ridiculous. Especially when you have autism rates going up like they are, they're skyrocketing and you have parent after parent after parent saying the exact same thing. These are parents that are not anti vaccine. This is a parent who took their kid to get a vaccine and then they swear that their kid was normal, quote, unquote one day and then had a bad reaction the next day and then had what they call autism after that. That's important information. It doesn't mean it's right. Just because you get a vaccine this morning and have a heart attack this afternoon doesn't mean it's because of the vacc. But if hundreds or thousands of people get a vaccine this morning and all have a heart attack this afternoon, you really should look into that as a possible cause. And you know, these aren't anti vax parents. These are parents that went to get vaccines. They think that that's important and valuable information. And there are more and more parents saying the exact same thing. We should listen to that. Maybe there is a certain genetics or a certain makeup or certain situation or a certain ingredient that's contributing to autism or chronic disease or other things. We should look into that. And if we do the proper studies and we don't find it, and you can be sure that if we do a huge clinical trial on vaccinated versus unvaccinated kids and they don't find it increases your risk of autism. That's going to be front page news of the New York Times. But that's the information that parents want to feel comfortable to do it. Right now, medicine doesn't want to talk about it and they are creating vaccine hesitancy. That is what's happening. We have these, the lowest confidence in medicine that we've ever had. It used to be above 70%. This is in like 2000 in most of the studies. Now it's under 40% in a lot of studies, people just don't trust doctors anymore. People are not getting vaccines. They are. We have the highest rates of exemptions. We have the highest rates of kids that are unvaccinated. We have the highest rates of kids that are not fully vaccinated. And that is because people don't trust medicine and they don't trust doctors anymore because they don't want to have these conversations. If you want people to trust it it, then you have to listen to what their concerns are, look at where the holes in the research are, try to get that research, and if you don't find a problem, great, then that's the research that they want to feel comfortable. You don't silence it and say, we don't need it. Everything's perfect. We don't have the best vaccines that we were ever going to have in the history of humanity. We want to have better vaccines and safer vaccines and healthier kids. There's nothing wrong with that. We should assume that we can make things better. But who is making vaccine companies make vaccines better when they don't have any liability? They have no reason to study it. They have no reason to improve them. They have no reason to make them safer. We have to make them do that.

Courtney Swan (22:55)

Yeah, well, let's talk about that, because I talked about this on another podcast. But for those that haven't listened to the one with Bob Sears, there was a Vaccine Liability act that was put into place in 1986. Right?

Dr. Joel Warsh (23:07)

Correct.

Courtney Swan (23:08)

Which essentially what that means is that if your child is harmed by a vaccine, the pharmaceutical companies are actually not held liable and you can't sue them.

Dr. Joel Warsh (23:16)

Correct. So it's very, very limited. Basically, you can't sue the pharmaceutical companies for any sort of injury that comes from their products. In the early 80s, there were more and more lawsuits, mostly around the original DTP vaccine. Diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis concerns, mostly around neurological issues, encephalitis. And multiple companies left the market. There were so many lawsuits that they were concerned they were all going to go bankrupt. And so the decision at that time was, we still want vaccines. We don't want all these companies to go out of business. So we're going to give them liability protection to stabilize the market. And so they did that. That's what they did in 1986, and makes some sense, I guess. But the problem is, in a capitalist market, the main thing that stops you from creating crappy products and the main thing that makes you make them better is lawsuits, is making sure that they're Safe. And if you're getting sued, then you say, okay, I better make them better so I don't get sued. But with vaccines, we don't have that. So there's no incentive. Incentive for them to make them better. Their incentive is find a product that we need or that we want or that somebody wants, get it out as quickly as you can, get it on the childhood schedule, and then you make billions and billions of dollars. Now, not everything about vaccines is bad, right? I mean, we could use more vaccines to protect against diseases. That's a good thing. But the question is at what cost? And when a company doesn't have any liability, they have no reason to make sure something is safe. They just have every reason to get that product onto the market. And they certainly have no reason, once it's on the market, to reevaluate it to see if they can make it safer, to reformulate it, to look at the ingredients, to talk about it, to study it. We have to do that. We have to change the rules, and we have to give them maybe some limited liability. I don't know. We don't want them to all go out of business either. Maybe some people do. Probably some people listening to this do. But.

Courtney Swan (25:09)

We need pharmaceuticals too, you know?

Dr. Joel Warsh (25:11)

Right.

Courtney Swan (25:11)

We need pharmaceuticals.

Dr. Joel Warsh (25:12)

And it's not. I mean, they don't just make vaccines, these companies. But even with vaccines, most people get vaccinated, right? Very few people don't get vaccinated. It's like 99% of kids get vaccines. So it's a pretty big percentage. So the vast majority of people do have some belief in this program, but they're just. I think the belief is wavering right now. I think they're very concerned because they feel like profits are being put above health, and they're not seeing a discussion around making them better, making them safer. How are these related to problems? How can we improve those. Those issues? It's really just more and more and more, and that's what we're seeing. The. The vaccine schedule has exploded, and we have a lot of vaccines. And that scares parents. When you have to go in on a given day and give your kid four or five vaccines. That's scary for a parent. Doesn't mean that you shouldn't, but it's scary. And if we can't talk about it, then people just don't do it.

Courtney Swan (26:08)

Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's. And it's understandably scary because with every pharmaceutical intervention, there will be side effects for some people. It just is plain and simple. And this is Another thing that I would love to see tested and you would kind of briefly mentioned this, this earlier, is like certain genetic mutations. Everyone on this planet is born with some sort of genetic mutation. It just is like how we're made up. Like I have the MTHFR gene, for example, which is a very common one. Well, maybe if your methylated pathways are not working correctly, maybe there's something there where if you get too many vaccines and you get the aluminum or. And obviously these are all just theories, but my point is that we need to understand that because what would cause one person to have an effect and then someone else not have an effect and be totally fine and have no side effects from it? And that's something that we need to know because maybe there's a way that we can support the detoxification pathways or whatever it is, or they avoid that one.

Dr. Joel Warsh (27:05)

Right. How is that controversial? Right?

Courtney Swan (27:08)

Exactly.

Dr. Joel Warsh (27:10)

You can put aside what we don't know for a second, but we certainly know that there are reactions to vaccines that's not controversial or pseudoscience or woo woo. I mean there are vaccine reactions that people have. They have anaphylaxis, they get Guillain Barre syndrome, they get seizures. There are things that can happen, not super commonly, but they happen. Right? So we know that. Wouldn't we want to try to decrease those risks if we can? People ask me all the time like what should I do for detoxification? How do I know if I'm going to have a risk? Where is the big study looking at all of the genetics, what kind of supplements we could give or herbs or other things to decrease risk or increase detoxification? Why don't we know that we're giving kids more and more vaccines but we're not able to discuss how we can do that in the safest possible way. Wouldn't parents be more comfortable if you were like, hey, if you take vitamin D and vitamin C and you do this panel and it shows that you have a low risk for a reaction, then go ahead and do the regular schedule. But if you have this and this marker, then maybe this is the kid that should go on a slower schedule. Doesn't mean they don't do it, but maybe they're just higher risk.

Courtney Swan (28:12)

That's not the problem, is that there's not an incentive for that because then what would end up happening is that then we would have certain kids by the schedule that like wouldn't be required to get everything and then that's less money for the pharmaceutical companies.

Dr. Joel Warsh (28:26)

Like let's just like, and it becomes complicated. Yeah. And then you inherently mentioned that there are potentially some risks. And again, we don't want any sort of hesitancy, so we don't want to even mention that there could potentially be risks. But people are getting savvy to that, and that's not good enough. Especially as you add in more and more vaccines. The known risks, severe risks, are not that great. But if you add more and more vaccines, it compounds. And if you get one vaccine with a really low risk, okay, pretty low risk. But if you do 30 or 40 shots over a couple of years, then even though it's a low risk, these things add up. And how do these things affect each other? How does that compounding amounts of the metals and other things that you're putting into your body, how does that affect you? Especially for someone who maybe doesn't detoxify? Well, maybe for the regular average kid, they can get things out and it doesn't build up, but maybe some do. And maybe that's why we're seeing increases in reactions from some kids, because you do more and you're just compounding. You're compounding the issue. These are not crazy questions to ask. I don't know the answers. But the point is nobody is talking about it and nobody's looking at it. And parents are worried about these things. And we could do research on this. We could look into this, and we could have much better answers in a decade. This isn't something we're going to know tomorrow, but we could have a much better vaccine program in 10 or 20 years if we actually asked these questions. And maybe we would remove some of the vaccines, maybe we would change up some of the vaccines. I don't know what it would be, but we would have overall healthier kids. And no doctor wants to give a kid a vaccine that increases the risk of asthma. Right. Like, you don't want to do that. You're doing it because you want to protect kids. So if we could get the information, then for sure, doctors would be like, well, yes, let's take that ingredient out that's creating autoimmune conditions. Like, why wouldn't we want to do that? You're trying to protect kids. Right. But I think we don't have the data and we have the vaccines on a pedestal right now.

Courtney Swan (30:18)

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Dr. Joel Warsh (32:51)

Like, yeah, I mean, but we can get conspiratorial with it and. But that's the only logical thing that makes sense to me. I mean, the only logical reason why we wouldn't have this research and we wouldn't be able to ask questions because somebody is pushing to keep that information away from being researched. I don't think that doctors would say the science was settled if they knew what the science was. Just nobody talks about it. And I don't know if it's totally conspiracy versus just not knowing. I think we're told something and we kind of go with it. And then you just assume that the person before you knows what they're talking about. But you go through residency, you go through training, and you're not taught. Why don't you trust pharma? You're not taught vaccine safety. You're taught, here are the vaccines, here are the diseases, here's why we vaccinate, here's the horrible things you might see. You see some of the diseases in the intensive care unit, and you're like, okay, these diseases are bad. We don't want those diseases. So here's a schedule. Let's do it. That's what you know as a doctor. What parents see is autism, autoimmune disease, chronic conditions. They don't really see these severe diseases like doctors do. So you have very different frames of reference. And doctors are worried about stopping kids from getting measles and dying. They don't want to see a kid in the ICU die of haemophilus influenza. They don't want to see you get a really bad pneumonia from pneumococcus and. And be in the intensive care unit or dialect. That's what doctors have seen. They haven't seen it a ton anymore, but they've still seen it, and parents haven't. So there's a different understanding of importance. And I think there's a big disconnect there. And we need a bridge between parents and doctors, because doctors are worried about one thing, parents are worried about something else. And most parents have never seen measles, so they're not really worried about it. But they have talked to someone who had a kid who had a reaction to a measles vaccine. And so they wonder, do I really need to get that vaccine? Why do I need to get that vaccine? How serious is this disease? And those are reasonable questions where you kind of need both sides of the information to be able to make a decision. Because measles can be really dangerous. We've seen that over the last year.

Courtney Swan (34:49)

Yeah.

Dr. Joel Warsh (34:50)

So it's not an all or none. It's not so simple. I mean, if everybody just stops getting the measles vaccine, measles is going to come roaring back.

Courtney Swan (34:56)

Do you think it will? I was going to ask you that. Do you think it will, or do you think we're at a place where. Because from. From what I've read, and obviously I'm coming from a very naive place, like, I don't know much about it, just from what I've read that we know much better now how to treat it. So. But what's happening in at least some of those cases? One of them was confirmed by the parents that it was actually medical negligence. And it. The kid actually died from rsv, I believe it was not measles.

Dr. Joel Warsh (35:22)

They died from mycoplasma.

Courtney Swan (35:24)

Oh, okay. It was mycoplasma. Yeah. I knew it wasn't specifically from measles. And so. So to me, there's an opportunity for a larger conversation that needs to be happening right now, which is, why are we not also teaching doctors and hospitals how to actually treat the infection in a way that's going to have a good outcome instead of just shaming the parents and be like, you should have gotten vaccinated. And then also, too, I heard, and I think this might have been a rumor, but there was one of them also, where they got vaccinated while they were already in the middle of the disease. And when that happens, your body goes haywire, and it's usually not a good outcome.

Dr. Joel Warsh (35:56)

So for the second one, that was, I think, a rumor at first, and it wasn't actually true from what I read after, at least from what the parents said, I think that was like, the original part of it, but then they decided not. But you shouldn't vaccinate in the middle of being sick. Yeah, I mean, that's. That's pretty standard. People do it sometimes, but that's standard medicine with. With the. With measles. So the. That kid died theoretically of secondary complications to measles. So they didn't die from measles, but they died from pneumonia from being sick, which is a very common cause of death from all these things.

Courtney Swan (36:27)

Yeah. So, like, immune system was down, and then other things are able to take over.

Dr. Joel Warsh (36:30)

Right. Which is very common with measles because one of the main things that it does is it affects your immune system. So it's a kind of a nuanced conversation because that kid From, I mean, I don't know. I wasn't there. I've only seen what I've heard. It seems like that kid probably shouldn't have died. That kid probably should have been treated appropriately and they made a medical mistake, but they got that pneumonia, probably because they had measles. And if they had the measles vaccine, they probably wouldn't have gotten measles and they probably wouldn't have died. They might have died for something else, but it's still related to measles in a way. It's not like they didn't die from measles. They kind of died from measles, if that makes sense. But measles in general is not that deadly. Right? And I think that's where we have to have open, honest conversations. Most people do just fine. Most people, it's a cold. When we used to have no vaccines before, millions of people got measles and only a few hundred died. Now today, tens of thousands of people die from the flu. So in perspective, it's not necessarily super scary disease, but measles is super contagious. If you don't have the vaccine and you're around people that have measles, you're going to get measles. Basically, everybody does. So if people are not vaccinated and measles is going to come back for the vast majority of people, they'll be just fine. But because it's super contagious, a lot of people will get it and some people will get really sick. So you have to weigh personally if you're gonna get the vaccine. Do I fear nature or do I fear the vaccine? And which one do I fear more? Because the measles vaccine works very well. I mean, that we know. I mean, as a vaccine goes, you get one, you're 93% protection, two, 97% protection. So most people that get the vaccine never get measles. But are you comfortable with the small but real risk of getting a bad pneumonia, of getting really sick, of dying? I mean, it's not a huge risk, but it's there and it's real and the vaccine can prevent that. So, yeah, that's why it's nuanced. It's not so cut and dry. And especially with measles, I think that that's almost one of the most difficult ones. Because it's so contagious and because it's still around, it's a real decision to make for a lot of parents because it's. It can be scary. You can get really sick and People can die. And we saw that this year. And that child, well, two kids now have died from measles. With measles. From a complication of measles. Whatever you want to call it. They got measles and they died from something else. Maybe you can call it whatever you want. And I think people get too hung up over the nuances and the fighting. And it's like, no, no, it wasn't from measles. Well, kind of was, right? Kind of was. But either way, a kid died and it could have potentially been prevented. But on the flip side, the question is how many people that get the measles shot have a complication? And if you're preventing 300 deaths, but you're causing 500, or you're preventing 300 deaths, but YOU'RE causing millions of kids to get allergies or autism or whatever. Well, what is the plus minus? That's what we have to figure out. I don't think it's about the disease, and I don't think it's about the benefits. I think we know that already. The question is, at what cost? At what cost? What are the long term risks? Is it affecting other things? That to me, is the question and the piece of the puzzle that's really missing.

Courtney Swan (39:35)

Yeah.

Dr. Joel Warsh (39:35)

Because for me to make an educated decision for myself or a patient, you have to have that information. We don't have it. I don't think. I don't think we have it.

Courtney Swan (39:43)

Well, and this is exactly what I would want to know when I have kids. Like, this is literally what I'm going over in my brain right now going, okay, wow. Like, really having to outweigh the risks of that. Because two, like, what I would love to see the science actually figure out is, okay, is it the. They called adjuvants, right. Which are essentially like the carriers of the virus. Right.

Dr. Joel Warsh (40:03)

The adjuvants are like, help stimulate the immune system.

Courtney Swan (40:05)

Oh, okay. So I'm like, is it the adjuvants, Is it the actual virus itself that's causing issues? Or is it the things like mercury, formaldehyde, the other things that we're finding in shots? I would love to know that. Because then let's say we find out that it's actually just, oh, kids are getting an insane dose of mercury and then it's causing, you know, neuroinflammation, and then we're seeing all these neurological issues and all this other stuff. Well, what if there's a world in. Either we take the mercury out or we find a way where we have kids on a protocol afterwards, like, okay, they just got a big dose of mercury now, like detox immediately. How can we get them, you know, get the mercury out of their bodies? But like, we don't know any of this and we don't know actually know if it is. We do know mercury is causing issues just in general, that it does cause issues in people. We know that for fact. Fact, we do know that formaldehyde is probably not a good thing to be injecting. But again, is it also the combination of the form of formaldehyde with the virus? Like these are things like, as a soon to be parent, well, I'm not pregnant yet, but like hope to be in the next couple of years. No surprises here yet, guys. But like, this is what I would like to know because I want to weigh this out because obviously, I mean there's our precious little babies. Like I want to be able to make the. I want to be able to make informed consent decision and know exactly what my kid is at risk for, whether or not I'm going to do this, right?

Dr. Joel Warsh (41:21)

And the counter argument that the medical system would make is it's very small amounts and we say it's safe, right? And that's what they say. And that's what they said with mercury. They said that with aluminum, they say it was formaldehyde. And maybe it is, maybe that's true. But also, all these other things that we've seen over the last hundred years that we were told are safe gets lower and lower until the point where it's not safe anymore. Like lead. Lead was totally safe. It could be in paint not that long ago. And then it's not safe anymore. Mercury, well, it's totally fine. Let's just put it in vaccines without studying it. How could that go wrong? And then we realized mercury is maybe not the best for you. And well, then now we have enough food. And then they all of a sudden just, just were like, wait a minute, we have more mercury in vaccines than we're allowing in food, Is that okay? And it's a different form of mercury, but they hadn't even studied to see if it was safe to eject. Not really. And they realized it's a huge amount, but more than we're allowing in food. So they started to do research and they never totally found it to be a problem, but they just decided to take it out anyways. And then we have the same discussion around aluminum, where there's aluminum vaccines. We have more vaccines. We have more vaccines with aluminum. They say that it's safe at those levels. And maybe it is, but you can't say that aluminum at any dose is safe. We have safety standards for water and for the air that we breathe. And as we give it more and more in injections, is that a problem if there is a higher amount in a vaccine? Is that an issue if you don't detoxify? Well, is that an issue? I don't know. Maybe. But it's not unreasonable for a parent to ask about that and to not get shamed because they're worried that maybe aluminum in there, it could cause a problem in their kids. I don't think that's unreasonable.

Courtney Swan (43:01)

Yeah, it's not. And we should have these types of answers for parents because, you know, you had mentioned earlier that there's never been a higher amount of, of hesitancy around vaccines and around doctors. And it's because the medical system is not being honest with parents. Like, they're basically just, I mean, they're gaslighting them. They are, they're gaslighting them. They're going, no, no, no, no, it's totally fine, it's all settled. Like, you don't need to worry at all. There's no, I mean, I've heard that there's literally doctors that say, I had a doctor actually tell me when I was in college that there was absolutely no side effects to birth control and I didn't need to worry about it at all as I'm literally experiencing the side effects. So it's just there's so much gaslighting that happens and it's because they say, well, we know better than the patient and we don't want to create hesitancy. And it's this, I'm sorry, but it's quite frankly, and it pisses me off as a patient because when people are experiencing side effects or like they see that their kid was totally fine. I just watched a video of a woman 2 days ago on camera telling the camera, I have this beautiful baby boy who has autism. And she was like, you know, he was talking and he was walking and he was doing all this stuff and then he hit two. And then all of a sudden now he's non verbal and he's autistic. And I wanted to bash my freaking head in because I just thought like, okay, what happens around two? They get a whole round of shots. So why are we not asking at least like, what did he get injected? And again, I'm not saying that I think definitively that's exactly what caused it. He could also have been exposed to BPAs and glyphosate.

Dr. Joel Warsh (44:37)

Shouldn't you know that if a kid was developing completely normally and then the next day or the next week there were severe symptoms? And I think autism is many things and there are different causes. And some people are born with it and others, other kids, you know, might have some sort of insult or some sort of exposure. But how could it be a problem to ask that question? You're not saying it was a vaccine. You're saying, okay, what happened? What did you do? What happened? If we asked that question for every single kid with autism and we actually studied it really well, we would probably figure it out or at least we would know the 10 biggest risk factors, the things to watch for, the things that are, are most related to it. And instead we just say, oh, it's just genetics. Oh, we're just better at diagnosing it.

Courtney Swan (45:21)

Which, oh, this is just, you know.

Dr. Joel Warsh (45:23)

At what point are we gonna stop saying that? Does it have to be one in two kids before we start saying that? It's just better diagnosis. Like you can look around, it's way more than it ever used to be. Yes, we're better at diagnosing it. Yes, we are more aware of it. Certainly some percentage of it is that. There's no question about it. But we didn't go from 1 in 250 to 1 in 31 now, now and 1 in 12 and a half boys in California. You think it was 1 in 12 kids 50 years ago. There's no way that was the way that it was. And if in five years it's one in three kids, are we going to be like, I guess we're just better diagnosing it now?

Courtney Swan (45:57)

I'm sorry, I, I understand. If it's low grade autism and there's a lot of people that, I guess I don't know what you would call it like medically but like passing as like non autistic if they're on low levels.

Dr. Joel Warsh (46:08)

But, and that's true, there were a lot of people that, that went under diagnosis, but we're not talking about that. The severe kids, the kids where it's now two thirds are severe or borderline intellectual disability. You have kids that are stimming that can't function with their daily to do the things they need to do daily, that are hurting themselves, that don't have speech, that don't have communication. That's what we're talking about. That is becoming more and more severe. More percentage of autism is becoming very severe and those people do want help and they do want support and they do want to prevent that if they can. That is not to say that you shouldn't love everybody, that autistic brains can have super special skills. There are many kids that have the diagnosis of autism that have extraordinary skills. That's not what we're talking about. And that's why I think it kind of needs to be split into two things. Because I think it's probably more than one thing, but at least it needs to be split into like high functioning or difficult, difficult issues. Because I think that we want to split those two things up and support those families that really do want it, because a lot of parents do want it. But then all these other families say, no, no, no, no, it's crazy. You're shaming people. You're calling it disease. You work with kids that have severe autism. You will not tell me that that's not something. That a kid was normal one day and talking like that and then next day they couldn't support themselves and go to the bathroom and do those things and words.

Courtney Swan (47:34)

Why are we not recognizing that for a parent and also for that child, that's a really hard life. If they are non verbal, they're stemming, they're bashing their head in the wall. I mean, I watched or sorry, not watched, I read a post from a mom of a very severe autistic child and the mom literally like essentially wrote in this paragraph that she was like giving up on life because it was so hard on her.

Dr. Joel Warsh (47:59)

It's very hard. In some families, it's their whole life, you know, they're going to get services, they're working on physical therapy and occupational therapy and speech therapy and extremely tough. And if there is some percentage of those cases that we can prevent or help or support, why would we not want to do it? Even if it is just better diagnosis, if it's getting more severe and people are having more symptoms, shouldn't we work on that? Shouldn't we figure out why 1 in 12 children are having these issues and 2/3 of those are severe and a majority of them have severe communication difficulties. That's a big deal. I think it's become so, I don't know, not politicized, but it's like because of vaccines and that being a part of this discussion that there's almost this push to just normalize it, normalize it. And that way if it's normal, then it's not because of a vaccine or it's not because of some chemical insult and therefore we don't have to even look it at. Into it. And I think that's a huge disservice to our kids as we're seeing this increase. I think we need to almost split up the conversation a little bit and try to figure out what, if anything, is triggering it for that percentage where it is triggered. And we just go from there. We just are open. I think that's what RFK is talking about. I mean, I don't know why he said he would know by a couple months. Maybe he knows some things that I don't know. But I think that the essence of what he's saying is. Is very important and very real. We have a big issue. We have to get serious about it. We have to look into it. We have to be open. We have to be open to anything being a trigger or root cause and just research it and just get back to basics, figure out the main triggers, and then try to change some of those things. It's not that complicated. Autism is complicated. It's not simple, but basic research is not that complicated.

Courtney Swan (49:51)

Yeah, well, and. And when you look at what we're doing right now, which is virtually nothing, versus, like, what we're saying that we want to do, I just am blown away that there's not more people that don't have just a simple curiosity about it. I'm very curious, and I want to know. And I have my own theories about it, because, look, there are also cases of children. There's many cases of children that have never been vaccinated that still have autism, so.

Dr. Joel Warsh (50:16)

Correct.

Courtney Swan (50:17)

I want to know. And actually, I would love to know what your thoughts around this in general are. Like, is it something where maybe the mom has toxic burden and overload and then she's passing in utero to the baby?

Dr. Joel Warsh (50:31)

We just don't know. Right. And I think that's the thing that's so crazy. I mean, just like you said, I've taken care of kids with autism that never had a vaccine. So it's obviously not just vaccines. Of course, there are many things, and there are many, many theories. I mean, certainly genetics. Genetics plays a part, older age plays a part. And then many toxins and infections are thought to trigger it or correlate with it, but we just don't know. And when you have this huge discussion about vaccines and this huge pushback, wouldn't you think there would be at least one big study looking at vaccinated kids versus unvaccinated kids, even retrospectively, even taking some big database like, I don't know, Kaiser or something, and Being like, all right, let's get all unvaccinated kids, kids, let's see how much autism they have versus kids that don't. That doesn't even exist. Not even that.

Courtney Swan (51:15)

Yeah.

Dr. Joel Warsh (51:16)

How can you say the science is settled when you haven't even looked at the big databases that we have and have a study that shows that it would obviously be published and be front page news if it existed?

Courtney Swan (51:25)

Well, because, Joel, they say that it's unethical to study non vaccinated kids because it'd be unethical to not vaccinate them.

Dr. Joel Warsh (51:33)

Not retrospectively, though.

Courtney Swan (51:35)

Exactly. I'm just, I'm playing the counter argument.

Dr. Joel Warsh (51:37)

But. But even still, you could still study it prospectively by letting people choose what group they're in. They could choose to be vaccinated or unvaccinated and you could follow them. There's no reason why we can't do that. It's not the perfect study because it's not randomized, but it's still good information. And if you look 10 years from now and kids that are unvaccinated have a very different autism rate than kids that are vaccinated, then the kids with the unvaccinated lifestyle, there's some things that they're doing that are different. That's good to know. And if they're exactly the same, then. Then we know it's not vaccine, we know it's probably not vaccines, and that's good information that people will say, okay, well, maybe I was wrong. And everybody thought for sure it was Mercury 10 or 10, 20 years ago. Well, 20 years ago, I guess now. And I'm sure if I was around at that time and doing podcasts, if they existed back 20 years ago, I would have thought that too. They took that out of vaccines. Autism rates are still going up, so it's probably not the primary driver. So just because we think something doesn't mean it's true. Just because we're, you know, a lot of people are like, oh, it's for sure vaccines. Just because you think that doesn't mean it's true. Yeah, but it certainly is a main suspect in our case here, and we should be at least exploring it. And we shouldn't say that the science is settled until you've actually done a few studies to show that it could be and you could do it. It's possible. You can't say there's ethics, you could do it. There are ethical ways to do it.

Courtney Swan (52:55)

Yeah, well, in the scientific process is you start taking note, you have a lot of anecdotal things that continue to repeat themselves over and over again. And then you have a theory, you have a hypothesis, and then you test and see if it's true. And then you know, and then you can say for now the science is settled. Because then we always learn things later on down the line. And you know, as you, as you learn more, the more you realize how much we don't know. Which is also something to like, keep in mind with science and to keep you humble. Is that, yeah, this is what we know right now, but things could always change.

Dr. Joel Warsh (53:27)

Yeah. Well, I think one of the biggest issues is that especially with the medical community, doctors don't actually know. We don't know, we assume we're told things and then we kind of take that at face value. I guarantee you nine out of ten doctors, if they would go read the research themselves on autism, would never say it was settled. Again. I just don't think anyone's ever done it. I think we just told the CDC says it, our establishment says it, we know for sure it's not. There are huge studies and they don't even know what those studies are. There's no way that a doctor would look at that research. I think unless I'm missing something and they would say the science is settled. They would be like, wait, what? Because that's what I said. Yeah, that's what I said. I thought it was a lot more settled. I thought there was a lot more research. I thought for sure we had big studies because why wouldn't we? But we don't.

Courtney Swan (54:10)

So would you say that that's the thing that surprised you the most when you started looking into all of this or what shocked you the most?

Dr. Joel Warsh (54:16)

Yeah, no question. The autism research shocked me the most. Most. The lack of long term trials. I think that really shocked me as well. Just really realizing that we don't study vaccines after the fact. They're really studied for the most part before they're studied by the companies. They're studied often in biased ways. So most of the pre licensure clinical trials don't have a true inert placebo. They're placebo controlled trials. But they get around it by the placebo being another vaccine. So you have a relative safety. You're studying one vaccine versus another versus against an unvaccinated kid. So it kind of masks their research a little bit. So I think that that is quite shocking if you don't really realize how things are studied. And the way that we monitor injuries, I mean, it's really non Existent. Right. We have vaers, which is self reporting. So you can report it yourself, A doctor can report it, the company can report it. If you identify that it could be a vaccine injury. There are a few other things, like the vaccine safety data link, but that's just a small percentage of the population. It's still medical reporting and there's some research studies that might be done by individuals, but you have to create a hypothesis, get funding and do it. Let's say you take the hepatitis B vaccine today and you get cancer, thyroid cancer 10 years from now. If that was associated with the vaccine, how would you know? How would you report? You wouldn't think, oh, I got cancer day. Well, the vaccine I got when I was two days old, that's the thing that triggered this thyroid cancer. There's nothing watching it. You have to watch prospectively to see, oh, wait a minute. Kids that are vaccinated have a higher rate of this. Why? You can't know those things unless there's something paying attention. And we talk about asthma and allergies and autoimmune conditions and all these things that happen years later. There's no easy way with the current system to identify those things as being related to vaccines or not. Because you wouldn't, you wouldn't self report you got asthma because of your vaccine, because you wouldn't know.

Courtney Swan (56:17)

Yeah, yeah, well, and parents aren't even taught really to make this correlation. I, I just made this correlation a couple years ago just because of all the, all the research that I've been digging into and various areas of, of all of this with health. And there was a connection made for me that all of a sudden not only are autism rates going up, but you know, autoimmunity is through the roof. Eczema, psoriasis, asthma, allergies in general. And there is a hypothesis that it could be because we're doing something to our immune systems, making them overactive. And again, I mean, is there science to prove that or do we have we not studied that either?

Dr. Joel Warsh (56:55)

Well, that's the problem, right? Because just like we're saying it's correlation. So, so you wouldn't report that your autoimmune condition had to do with vaccines? Because we don't have that kind of evidence. So you don't even know that it is. Right. How do you know something 10 years from now is related to something before? It might have nothing to do with that. The only way you could study that is either long term prospective trials before something comes on the market, if they continued, or if somebody does that research, or at least if somebody looks into these things, which there is some research. I mean, the problem is the research is mixed and it's not the best kind of research. But we certainly have epidemiologists studies. As of right now, if you look at mainstream stuff, they would say, no, we have big studies, these things are not related. But then you can also find many studies that are good quality studies where they say maybe, maybe this study might show that it's related or this study might show that it's related in this way, so it's not cut and dry. And there's two sides to the arguments. But also people are really disincentivized from doing this kind of research. So it's really hard to get anything that shows a problem if there would be. Because no one's doing that kind of research because they don't want to find problems. Or if they do find a problem, their paper doesn't get published or they lose funding. Most of it is done by CDC researchers and people that are biased. I mean, it's not that CDC shouldn't do research on vaccines. They should. But if the head of the Safety for Vaccine research does a study on vaccines and they publish 10 things that show the vaccines are unsafe, they're not keeping their job very long. That's who's doing the research right now.

Courtney Swan (58:25)

Exactly. And they most likely either have a cushy job waiting for them at Pfizer or they came from Pfizer and they went to the cdc. And that's part of the problem. And that's a, that's a symptom of a greater issue that we're dealing with right now.

Dr. Joel Warsh (58:35)

We need unbiased research from other people, but there's nobody to do that research.

Courtney Swan (58:38)

Yeah.

Dr. Joel Warsh (58:39)

So I don't know that they do cause these issues, but I definitely know that we don't know for sure because we haven't studied it in that way. You'd have to follow people, you'd have to have long term trials. You have to look at things just like we did with, with heart disease. We had the Framingham study. They studied people, they're still studying them for generations, looking at how your lifestyle and different things affect heart disease. And we find all sorts of things that you never even imagined because you have to be following people for a long time to do it. You can't just know. That's why you can't just guess. That's why you can't just say, oh, I think vaccines cause autism. You have to get that kind of research. But you can't say that it doesn't until you get that kind of research. And when there's is this continued discussion around the topic, it's really important that we do, especially as we're doing more and more and more. How many vaccines are we going to have? 100, 300? Are you going to come to the Doctor and get 30 shots? At what point is it going to stop and what point are we going to. So I think that's why we need to stand right now, because kids are so unhealthy in general that we have to look at what could be causing it or triggering it. And maybe vaccines have some part in that and maybe we can improve that, that to improve their health. Because we want to be living to 120 and 150. But we're not. We're going the wrong direction right now.

Courtney Swan (59:53)

Yeah, I don't know if a lot of people know that, but we are actually trending backwards now, forever. The, the, the narrative around this is that, oh, we're living longer than ever. And you know, like humans have a huge lifespan now. And it's actually we're now reverting back. In fact, I read a statistic that if we don't get a handle on this next generation of children's health, they. Well, actually they're expected to not outlive their parents, which would be the first generation to not outlive their parents.

Dr. Joel Warsh (60:19)

Right. Which is insane because the first comment, like you said, people says, well, we're living longer. And it's true. We're not living till 40 anymore. You're living in life expectancy in your 70s. So that's good. I mean, some of the stuff that we've done is very good. And a lot of that has to do with sanitation and better healthcare in general and understanding of disease and not being overcrowded. I mean, and water filtration and sewers and all that stuff. So that makes a huge difference. And it did make a huge difference. And most of the infectious diseases plummeted before we ever had vaccines. So most of the deaths had already disappeared by that point. In terms of infectious disease because we were so much healthier because people were getting calories and they weren't living 300 people in one little building or they weren't going to the bathroom in the street. These things make a huge difference for infectious disease. And they also also understand vitamins. We didn't know what vitamins were back then, so you didn't know what to eat. And we don't have the best food, but you still get your vitamins, you know, these days. So it's a little different world, but life expectancy is going back down. Chronic disease rates are skyrocketing. And so we have to have a little bit of humility, which medicine is not very good at, and say, look, we're good at some things, we're much better at infectious disease in general, but we're not so great at some of these other things. What have we done in the last 20 years to start seeing these trends go in the wrong direction? And what kind of course corrections do we need to make so we can continue that upwards trajectory? Because we want our kids again to be living to 100 or 120. That's where our life expectancy should be if we keep getting healthier. But if we're doing something that's impeding that health, if it's increasing our chronic disease, if we're now going to die earlier, we're going to be on multiple medications, we're going to be overweight and obese, we're going to have diabetes. We need to figure out how we can shift that a little bit so we can help our kids. Who doesn't want that?

Courtney Swan (62:09)

Yes. And who doesn't want a better quality of life? Like, I just was sitting here thinking, you know, almost every single one of my girlfriends that have babies have really been struggling with some bout of like eczema or something with their kiddos and, you know, and asthma and food allergies and there's just all these things that, that my generation is now dealing with their children that, that when I was a kid, our parents didn't really have to. I'm not saying no kids had it, but I didn't know anybody growing up that had food allergies or like eczema or. We just really weren't seeing it in the numbers that we're seeing now.

Dr. Joel Warsh (62:41)

No, it's exploded. Most of the things are at least three times higher, even just a couple of decades ago.

Courtney Swan (62:46)

And that's uncomfortable.

Dr. Joel Warsh (62:48)

It's not just happening like something is going on. And again, it's not just better diagnosis. We sell it. But it's like if a kid had asthma, you would know it back then, you would diagnose it. They'd be in the hospital. Like these things. We wouldn't. If a kid's not speaking, I mean, they might not have been given the diagnosis of asthma, but they would have had some diagnosis at that point. So we weren't just missing all these severe cases. We have something going on and we have to be okay to explore it. And that's where I go back to saying, again, I don't have a desire for people to get more vaccines or fewer vaccines. I have a desire for kids to be healthier, whatever that means. And if we do all of the right research and it shows that vaccine just protect you from everything and have zero side effects, great, they can have 10,000 vaccines, go for it. But that's not the reality of what's going on. I have no problem if there's some magic pill you give to your kid and they'll never get sick again, right? Who does it? But that's not how things work. There are side effects at risk and we have to know what those risks are so we can make an educated decision for ourself. Just like if you have cancer and you take chemotherapy, we know that there are risks for chemotherapy, right? Like it's good, affect your immune system and you might lose your hair and all sorts of complications. But people still choose to do it because they want to treat their cancer, right? So that's informed consent. Some people won't want to do it. They don't want to do chemotherapy. They don't want that. They'll try something else. That's informed consent. They have that right to choose. That's what we need with every medical product. And just because vaccines have some risks, they're going to have some risks. We're probably going to never have zero risks. We want to know what that is and then people can decide. And if those risks are truly one in a million and they prevent you from 1 in 10,000 chance of getting a severe disease, great, then, you know, you're choosing that. I think that the benefits outweigh the risks and I'm going to go ahead and do them. But if the risks are kind of even on both sides, or maybe you even have increased risks of some things that you're concerned about, or maybe your kid is already sensitive, maybe they already had seizures or they have a seizure disorder. And you know that these vaccines increase the risk for seizures. Maybe for you, you're not going to, you're not going to want to take that chance to give your kid at increased risk for seizures. So you won't choose to do it. That's how we do everything else, just not vaccines.

Courtney Swan (64:54)

I know, and that's what's very, very weird to me. And I mean, I just, I can't help but think it has to do with the fact that, I mean, it's money in my opinion, you know, and I know it sounds like conspiratorial, but. And it's hard, I think, for a lot of people to wrap their brains around the fact that these medical companies, these pharmaceutical companies could be potentially putting their profits over human health. And I think it's hard for a lot of people to swallow that.

Dr. Joel Warsh (65:20)

I, I think that's just the way the corporations work. I mean, I don't know that it's all nefarious and evil. I'm sure there are some nefarious evil people, but I think for the most part a corporation doesn't care about you. Why would they? They care about whether you buy their product. That's their job. Their CEO's job is to make more money, this money than last month. They have to have better profits or they get fired. That's all they care about. That's what their job is. Their job is not to make you healthier per se. If that's a side effect, great, you know, but they just want you to take their product. That's. And that's what we have with food and that's what we have with, with pesticides and agriculture. That's what we have with pharmaceuticals. We just have moved to this society where these companies have gotten so big that they have so much money and they know how to play the game. They have the best lawyers, they have the best PR firms, and they know how to do everything to shift attention away from the problems with their products and to have everybody just fight with each other and bog everything down with regulation to the point where we just don't even know what's true anymore. And that's what they've done. They bought the medical schools, they fund everything. They fund the journals, they fund the researchers, they fund the news, they fund everything. That's not because they're philanthropic individuals, you know, they're not like funding giving free food in other countries. They're funding politicians and the news and medicine. And people don't realize, like as a doctor, you go through med school, you don't realize that your school has gotten multi million dollar donations from something. You don't realize that the journals have gotten multimillion dollar donations. They just know what they're doing. And they're not doing it to be evil, they're just doing it to kind of influence things. And if the news organization has most of their funding coming from a big pharma company, you're probably not going to say something bad about that big pharma company. You're at least going to give them the benefit of the doubt. And they know that, and that's what they're doing. And they've done that for 20, 40, 50 years. So we just live in this world where we don't even realize that we are so biased. Like, doctors don't realize that before the pharmaceutical model, there were other models. And we kind of moved to this pharmaceutical model because that's what Flexner had in his report, and that's what Rockefeller wanted. I mean, he had the oil and he had connections with the schools, and he made that. They made this be our system, and there's a lot of good for it. I mean, science is a good thing, and medicine is not a bad thing. But we have a very specific system that has been cultivated for over a hundred years now.

Courtney Swan (67:49)

Yeah.

Dr. Joel Warsh (67:50)

And we don't realize that we're doing something one way, but it doesn't necessarily have to be that way, or it's not necessarily the best way, or there isn't maybe other ways to think about things. We just think that the American way is the best, that the California vaccine schedule is the best schedule. And it's like, well, other places do it differently. Not everyone has the same. There are many ways to do things. We think fluoride is, like, the best thing, Right. Oh, we should have fluoride. Most countries don't do it, but we do.

Courtney Swan (68:14)

That's true.

Dr. Joel Warsh (68:15)

So why do we assume that we're rice?

Courtney Swan (68:17)

Yes. Well, in a lot of other countries have science that they've looked into certain things, like, for example, food dyes, you know, that I've talked about a lot on this podcast. It's like, why are. Exactly. Why are we not looking at some of the research that other companies have done as well? And just to be clear, I don't. I also am. I'm on the same page as you. I don't think that there's like, some nefarious, like Dr. Evil, you know, the head of a big pharmaceutical company, being like, like, laughing all the way to the bank. I just think it's like they're looking at spreadsheets and they're looking at numbers, and it's become all about sales and hitting, you know, numbers, quotas. And it's like they're not seeing those individual sales as like. Like your mom, your dad, your children. You know, it's just like, how it is.

Dr. Joel Warsh (68:57)

Right. They're doing everything they can do to improve their bottom line. And that involves buying everybody.

Courtney Swan (69:04)

Yeah.

Dr. Joel Warsh (69:04)

Having everyone in your back pocket. I mean, that's what I would do. If I was in charge of a big company, just think about what would you do if you had unlimited dollars and you wanted to run and the only thing you care about was making more money, you would make sure you make more money. And the best way to do that is to rig the system for you. It's not evil. It's just what you would do. And if we don't want that, then we have to have checks and balances. And when those organizations that were supposed to be the checks and balances are mostly funded by those companies, and people go back and forth through those companies. Not an evil way. They're just, they're just funding research. It's not bad. Like, we want that research too, but they're funding it. Why do you think they're funding it? It.

Courtney Swan (69:42)

Exactly. Because then they can sway the. The outcome.

Dr. Joel Warsh (69:46)

Why does a pharmaceutical company do the. Do the research on their product?

Courtney Swan (69:51)

I know, it's insane. It just is. It's. This is where it becomes a hard part of the conversation, because then who's going to pay for it? Where are we going to get the money to pay for these studies? So it's like, I, I understand.

Dr. Joel Warsh (70:01)

Right. I understand it. But we also have to understand it.

Courtney Swan (70:04)

Exactly.

Dr. Joel Warsh (70:05)

It's not evil. It's just this is the system. And we are in a system that we have gotten to a point where because of the way that society is set up, these companies are so big. They're bigger than government, they're bigger than countries. They're so big, they have so much money and they know how to play the game, and they've done it for long enough. We have to open things up a little bit, shake things up and really figure out how we can monitor and make sure that there are some checks and balances, at least, especially when it comes to our health. If we want to be healthy, we have to assume that these companies don't have our best interests at heart. So we have to do it like we need to. And I think that's what RFK is saying. Even though people get mad at them so much, it's like, we have to get these people out of the research and to do real research on what we actually want to find. Like not just researching what they want us to do.

Courtney Swan (70:54)

Yeah, it's like, how can we get past, like, what they want to find? And how can we just get. Get the freaking research? Like, just get the actual research and the truth, Like, I just want to get the truth, you know, without everybody else having a say in a sway and oh, well, you know, this company wants it to be this certain way. I want to ask you.

Dr. Joel Warsh (71:14)

It can happen.

Courtney Swan (71:15)

It definitely can. We just have to get all the corruption out. And it feels like a David versus Goliath kind of situation. And I'm, I'm very optimistic, but it just feels like we have a lot of work cut out for us.

Dr. Joel Warsh (71:25)

I think it is, but at the same time, I think a lot of it is about recognizing that this is going on because especially in this society now we have social media, people can get their information out there. It's much harder to be censored. And even just the threat of being exposed is a huge deterrent. And, and I feel like there's such an awakening in this last year of the reality of all of these corporations and food and pharma and, and, and you have seen such a rapid change in just a few months that I actually do feel like we're going to have a big change. Like we're not going to ever stop all nefarious stuff. We're not going to, I mean, in the short term, we're not going to stop corporations from wanting to make money and doing all sorts of crazy stuff to get around it, but at least we can point our North Star in a better direction and we can fund and we can use our taxes towards trying to get some research about some things to start moving in a better direction. We can, could do that. It's possible.

Courtney Swan (72:22)

Yeah. Yeah, it definitely is. And that's why I'm so grateful we have RFK in there, because I feel like he's our, he's our North Star and like the, finally, the first real chance, in my opinion, that we have to actually get these questions answered and the research looked at.

Dr. Joel Warsh (72:36)

Yeah, he, I mean, he's obviously a controversial figure. He's an interesting guy, but it doesn't really matter if you like him or you don't like him. Our health is suffering and it's out of control and it's not good and we need somebody to shake it up. And he's going to do that and you're not going to agree with every single thing he says, and that's fine. What politician do you ever agree with? Everything they say? That's fine. But as long as he's moving in a different direction and opening things up and having discussions and pushing research forward, I think that's a good thing. And I hope that he will continue to do that and continue to do what he feels is best for health, because what we were doing wasn't working. So whatever is going to be done is going to be better. I think. Think.

Courtney Swan (73:14)

Yeah, I think so too. You know what I was just thinking about, which I just think is so funny about how you were like, you know, he's a polarizing figure and not everyone likes him and was thinking about how like when we watch movies and there's like a known like corporation that's like poisoning someone or there's this company that's taking advantage of people and then you have this like disruptor and like renegade and that's like the hero of the movie. We're literally watching this play out right now. But there's, there's a large portion of society that has made the hero in this be the villain. And we're like protecting the companies and it's because the companies are lashing out and putting out a lot of, you know, propaganda and the news and, you know, everywhere else on social media.

Dr. Joel Warsh (73:56)

I mean, he has the potential to be the hero. We'll, we'll see where it goes and what he actually does over time. It's, it's one of the most interesting things that I've ever seen in my life. The person who was maybe the most anti establishment, anti health, medical figure, you know, for, for better or worse, is the person who's running it like a year later. It's so weird. It's so weird to watch like, like that kind of shift. Like him and Del Bigtree, like the superst of fringe people. A year and a half ago they shouldn't have been, but they were, and then now they're run. It's weird. It's very weird. And, and we'll, we'll see what happens. But I think, I think if people actually listen to what he said, he says a lot of very intelligent things. They don't love him. A lot of people in the medical center because of what they think he thinks about vaccines. So I think he's got a long way to go in terms of winning people over in the medical establishment. He's going to have to do that if he really wants to make real change. I mean, I think he can push things through, but ultimately he has to win over the healthcare providers and he needs to hopefully continue to, to move that needle forward a little bit. So we'll see how he does with that. He's got an uphill battle.

Courtney Swan (75:05)

Yeah, he really does.

Dr. Joel Warsh (75:06)

But he could, he could be the hero in the long run because he's doing what nobody else will do. He's saying what no one else will say. And even though so many people in the healthcare industry feel like they hate him or feel like he's doing these evil things, they may turn around in five years and be like, well, I actually didn't know what the research on autism was. I was kind of wrong about that. Oh, well, he was saying these things, maybe. Aren't you. Oh, you know, remember that person who was talking about lead all these years ago? Maybe they weren't crazy. Maybe that person was talking about glyphosate. Maybe they weren't that crazy. Like, those people are heroes later. So he's, he's, he's going to be like a, like an artist or something that, you know, after you, after you die, your paintings become really valuable. It's like we don't recognize the hero until later sometimes.

Courtney Swan (75:50)

Yeah, that's so true. Wow, that's fascinating. I want to ask you about a specific vaccine because I get a lot of messages from parents that are dealing with this now, later in life, where they're. They're starting to push it on their kids at, like, 12, 13, 14. And there's a lot of controversy around the Gardasil vaccine. What are your thoughts, like? Because I know also in the book, too, I know that you, like, peeked inside the syringe and you were. You went down the line and, like, looked a bunch of different vaccines. What did you find out about the hpv? HPV one.

Dr. Joel Warsh (76:21)

Yeah. HPV is probably the most controversial after the COVID vaccine, I would say, around the world. It's controversial because the benefits seem to be huge these days. I mean, it seems like there are more and more studies coming out that are showing that it's actually working really well, and cervical cancer rates have plummeted after the vaccine. So that part makes it hard because you're preventing cancer, and that's what you hear all the time. The concern around it is the autoimmune conditions, the side effects that people continually said that they had. After it came out, there was a huge spike in VAERS reports and incidents that people are reporting about all sorts of autoimmune conditions. And there was research done, and most of that research shows that it wasn't related, it wasn't increasing the risk. Again, I don't know how great. I would say all that research is a little bit biased, but that's what it is. And we don't really have anything to counter that. I mean, there are some studies, not so great ones, but again, you have this anecdotal evidence, kind of like autism, where people are saying something over and over again. And I've certainly seen patients and had patients come to me after that have big concerns after they got that vaccine. But the science is not there yet because at least as of mainstream, it's still preventing cancer. And the risks are minimal and everything has risks, but the risks are low. So that's kind of where we are with hpv, but it's right up there with the cova vaccine. And all these vaccines have two different worlds. I mean, there's nothing more than the COVID vaccine when it comes to that. You look at one website and it's the best vaccine ever and it prevents death and prevent millions of deaths and it saved trillions of dollars. And then you look at the next influencer or website and it's the worst thing ever and it's killing everybody and we should pull it. And you're like, well, they both have good research. Which one's right?

Courtney Swan (78:02)

Yeah.

Dr. Joel Warsh (78:03)

And that is a big problem with vaccine research because nobody talks to each other. You have two worlds. They're completely separate. And they never have debates, they never have discussions, can never get to the bottom of anything because you have. Have good research over here and good research over here. And they both think the other research is crazy.

Courtney Swan (78:18)

How do we divide that gap? Because it's so frustrating. Because I'll tell you, like, I actually, I, I was in, in the other lane of like, I'm so grateful I didn't get the Gardasil vaccine because I was hearing when I was younger, when everyone I knew that was getting it, I was hearing all these insane, like, there was a lot of litigations happening. I remember I thought I was going to get pulled at one point. I'm. I'm honestly shocked that it didn't because of how much controversy controversy there was. There's also a lot of stuff circulating now about people getting like, like severe. I mean, I just saw this kid like a week ago who's severely paralyzed from it. And so there's like, yeah, so anyways.

Dr. Joel Warsh (78:53)

I just think it's so hard because I don't think we have a good understanding of the risks. And that's where it's so hard for me because people always want to know, like, what should I do? And I don't know the answer to that. The only thing I can tell you as a doctor is the CDC schedule. Is the CDC schedule. It's. I have to be humble. It's really arrogant be one person to be like, you should do something that's not the CDC schedule. A lot of people Study that for a long time. That's what they think is best. So that's what is the recommendation. You want to do anything else? That's a personal choice. But when you talk about things like that, I've heard so many stories. Everybody knows, heard so many stories about COVID vaccine, about hpv, so it's hard to know what's true because you read the literature, you read the mainstream stuff, and they're like, nah, it's rare. Yeah, but how rare is it when everyone's heard it so many times? How much do we actually not know? I think that's a huge question. And again, it goes back to a lack of. Of good data on injuries because I feel like the vast majority of injuries are not reported and are not recorded. So we really have no idea the scope of the injuries. And so, yeah, preventing cancer is good, but at what cost? I don't know. I don't know the answer. Because you need to know what the cost is.

Courtney Swan (79:57)

Yeah, that's so true. Okay, so then just to kind of wrap this up, I guess what would be. I mean, obviously, like, parents need to get your book, but let's say, I mean, like, speak to me, I guess, you know, I would be a perfect example. So I'm hoping to get pregnant by the end of this year, and I am, you know, struggling. As I've learned more about all of this and had a lot of these conversations, I'm very much in a place of like, oh, my God, like, what do I do? Because it's kind of, you know. So what would be your advice to someone who's really struggling with this with their kids?

Dr. Joel Warsh (80:32)

Yeah, the big thing is, I think people need to get educated on it. They have to read, and if they're really struggling, then they. Well, first you gotta find a place where you feel comfortable talking. I think that's the first key. You have to go to a doctor where they're at least open to having these discussions, because a lot of places are not. If you're gung ho on the CDC schedule, that's fine. You can go wherever you want. But if you are hesitant or you have questions, then you want to go somewhere that you can feel comfortable having conversations. So that way you can work this out over the next couple of years, because we don't know where the research is going to be a few years from now. As a physician, there's nothing that you can recommend other than the CDC schedule. And that's why I tell every parent that comes in, that's the recommendation. If you want to do anything else, that's up to you. We can talk about it. We can come up with a plan. And you have to decide how comfortable you are moving through the vaccines. A lot of parents just want to do one at a time. So we talk about the pros and the cons. We talk about what's most risky, what they're most likely to be exposed to. Some people do vaccines because they want to do them for school, wherever they are. I mean, there are different reasons, so you have to talk that through. But it's really key not to read one source. That's the most important, and that's why I wrote the book in the first place, because nothing like this exists. But at least if you're going to read other things, then you got to read two different things. You can't just read Paul Offit's book. I mean, it's a great book. If you want the CDC narrative, he's a great speaker, and it's just really important. But you also have to read other things, too, and you have to weigh that for yourself. Nobody has a crystal ball. So you have to decide where you're comfortable with the risks. Do you want the risk from the diseases or do you want the risk from the vaccines? And I can't decide that for you. I don't know who's gonna be the one kid to get measles and die. I don't know who's gonna be the one kid to get a vaccine reaction and have a severe reaction. I don't know. I mean, most things are rare, so most kids get vaccines and they're just fine. And most kids never get these diseases, which is great. So, you know, at the end of the day, you have to choose what you feel like is best for you. And that's not always easy. But there isn't a simple solution. You have to think about it and come up with a plan and you can work your way through. You don't have to decide everything for the next 20 years. You just first decide, do I want to do any vaccines? Which one do I want to do first? And then you do that one. Or you just. You follow the CDC schedule if that's what you're comfortable doing. But at least for me, most people are not coming to my office because they're wanting to. The CDC schedule.

Courtney Swan (82:46)

Yeah. Yeah. It's so interesting. I do want to say if you. It, you know, we don't know this. I know we've talked about this the entire episode, but we say right now that it's rare for a kid to have a vaccine injury and that I'm looking at eczema, psoriasis, Asthma, autoimmune, autism, 1 in 12 in California and boys. And I'm going, are they rare? And I'm literally, literally, like, legitimately saying, are they? Like, I'm not trying to insinuate anything.

Dr. Joel Warsh (83:13)

That is why I can't answer. That's why when people ask me, I have such a tough time answering the question, because the answer hinges on that. Right.

Courtney Swan (83:21)

And that's what we need to know.

Dr. Joel Warsh (83:22)

If vaccines have nothing to do with those, and they truly have nothing to do with those, then the benefits probably outweigh the risks. But if vaccines are a major cause or a major contributor, or even a moderate contributor to autoimmune disease and eczema and allergies and all sorts of things, a long list of things, even if it's 1% of each of those things, that's a huge risk compared to kind of minimal benefit right now. I mean, yes, if everyone stops vaccinating, the risk is going to increase. But as of this very second, where you sit, most of these diseases are extraordinarily rare. So the chance that you're going to get it and even if you do get it, get super sick are quite small. So that makes it a really tough decision. And that is why it's really tough for me. And that is why I wanted to write the book in the first place, because I wanted to look into this. And I still don't have the answer to those questions because it doesn't exist. And that's why, if there's one thing that I want from this book, the goal is to get discussion. I want discussion. I didn't have a goal of getting people to vaccinate or not vaccinate. It's to look at what is available and what information that we have and ask the tough questions and discuss these kinds of things so that way we can move forward and say, okay, well, maybe we don't know all this information. We need to go get it. I can't answer the question appropriately without that information. I can't. I can't answer for you a risk benefit question without knowing the risks. And I don't feel like I know the true risks of vaccines yet. Doesn't mean they are more risky. But I don't feel like I can give you. No, definitively the perfect answer. And my answer would be very different depending on how vaccines are related to some of those things.

Courtney Swan (84:55)

Yeah. And let me be very clear. With what I just said, because people love to put words in my mouth. I'm not saying that I believe definitively that they are causing all those things. I'm just saying, just reiterating and mirroring what you're saying is that we actually just don't know. And I'm encouraging again, Yes, I love, I love that you just said that, that you're not encouraging people to do one way or the other. You just want to open the doors for discussion. Because the more people that are talking about this and the more that we shine light into this darkness, because right now there's this. It's this like, dark, untouchable conversation we're not even allowed to have. And it just lives in the shadows. We're never going to get to the truth if it lives in the shadows. So the first, first step of determining in this is we need to shine a light on it. We need to make it normal and acceptable and safe and okay for us to even have these conversations. Because that's how we eventually get to a point as society where it's okay to start questioning these things and then have real science be done.

Dr. Joel Warsh (85:53)

Yeah.

Courtney Swan (85:54)

And that's ultimately, like, what my goal is with this, too.

Dr. Joel Warsh (85:56)

And I hope in 20 years this is a very different conversation. And I'm sitting here and we're talking about, about the new research that we found and the new study is that we're looking into this. We finally know that it's related to this and it's not related to that. I mean, that's what I ultimately want. And that's where I go back to it. Just read it. Or you said, like, I'm not saying it's related either. I don't know. So I can't answer the question appropriately. And I should be able to answer the question appropriately. When I'm giving kids vaccines and I'm giving them 30 vaccines and a parent says to me, I'm concerned, I'm worried about side effects. Should I do this? I should be able to give them a very definitive answer. Here is the benefits. Here is the risks. Choose what you think. We don't have that. And if we can't talk about it, we're never going to get it. And if it's so controversial to say, look at the research at vaccines in autism, we need more. We're never going to get more. And I'm not going to be able to give you a good answer. And it starts with actually just talking about it and maybe people proving that it has nothing to do with it great. I'm totally fine with that. I'm totally fine with 100,000 vaccines if they don't cause any problems. Problems. I have no problem with that. I want to know that for my own kids.

Courtney Swan (87:00)

I mean, honestly, it would be so amazing if we figured that out because then it. Yeah, like if we just found out that it wasn't them at all, then we could just go on with life and not have to worry about this facet of it. Because there is a concern, like you said, that if, if we do learn this and then like these disease rates come back and they get high, it's like, what are we gonna do? But we're gonna have to face that, you know, as it comes. But what an amazing thing to find out that it does not and not that they're not caused by vaccines.

Dr. Joel Warsh (87:25)

Wouldn't we want to know that? Like, what if some new disease comes out and we could have a vaccine that could protect you and that would be great and people just don't want to do it because they're too afraid of the COVID vaccine and other vaccines and they just don't take it and then a bunch of people die and your kids die. Like, that's not what we want either. I want confidence in vaccines. I want confidence in the side effects. I want to know that the companies are doing a good job to study it safely. So when the next thing comes out, if we need to take a new vaccine or there is a new vaccine or it's presented, you're going to feel comfortable that the research that I'm presented is research and it's information and I can trust it and I can make an informed decision. You don't know what's coming in the future. We don't know what kind of super bug is going to show up that you have a 50% chance of dying. I don't know. Maybe there will be a vaccine that will be very useful for something like that, but no one's going to do it if they don't trust the CDC and they don't trust the establishments and nobody trusts them right now. I mean, how many people are getting Covid vaccines even though it's still recommended? It's like 10% of kids and 25% of adults. It's not very many. So people clearly don't trust the recommendations anymore.

Courtney Swan (88:24)

Yeah, and that's a huge problem because you're so right. It's like down the line, we, because we need to have confidence in our pharmaceutical companies and our medical system. It's incredibly Important. Like you said, if something comes out later down the line, I mean Covid did a real number on us. Let me tell you. I already had my concerns and distrust. But after Covid, wow. Do I not trust anything that comes out of the medical right now?

Dr. Joel Warsh (88:45)

But what if we need something? We might, it might be different next time.

Courtney Swan (88:49)

Exactly. And I very much recognize that. And I think that it is a huge concern that we have such low trust in our medical system because we should be able to trust that we can go to them for good, good, solid advice.

Dr. Joel Warsh (89:01)

Just honesty.

Courtney Swan (89:02)

Yes.

Dr. Joel Warsh (89:03)

I don't know where it happened in medicine that you couldn't just say, I don't know. There's nothing wrong with saying we don't know the long term risks. Here's what we know. Yes, that's what we need. That's it. We don't need to know everything. We just need to, to get the best research we can and we need to force companies to get good science and data so we can trust it. Because otherwise they're going to just bring out some other vaccine for a newborn baby, another one for a two month old, another one for a year old. We're going to have vaccines for everything and at some point that's going to cause a problem. It's not already.

Courtney Swan (89:32)

Yeah, exactly. It, yeah. It's like where does it stop? So before we, we wrap this up, I just want to ask if there's anything in the book or just anything about this conversation that we didn't cover that you feel like is important for people to hear.

Dr. Joel Warsh (89:45)

I mean we can talk about vaccines forever, but I think to me, at the end of the day, if we're going to finish with anything, it's okay to ask questions. You should not feel like you're woo woo or out there some sort of crazy anti vaxxer because you have a question about vaccines. If you are doing something to your beautiful healthy baby, especially 20 or 30 or something should have questions about this. That if you were giving them a pill, if you were taking them to a program, whatever it is, if you're doing that to your kid many, many times, you should have questions about that. It's not crazy to do that. You shouldn't feel bad about it. We should all be talking about it. We should all be asking questions. You should feel comfortable talking about it with your doctor. You should feel comfortable doing it if you're going to do it. And we're not going to get there until we open up this conversation. And that is why I wrote the book I want this conversation. I'm glad that we're having it. I could not do this just even a few months ago. It seems like most people are willing to talk about it. At least a lot more people are willing to talk about it. And I hope that people will continue to have these discussions because that's how we will get safer products.

Courtney Swan (90:44)

Yeah, absolutely. I love that. Just encourage people to have more conversations and ask questions and, you know, with your friends and your family, try to open up discussion about this because they're. I think it's been hammered into us for the last, like, five years or so that it. It is so dangerous to just ask a simple question. And I don't believe that at all. This is how ideas flourish in society. When you open up and you have honest discussions about things, it's not a bad or dangerous thing. You learn something.

Dr. Joel Warsh (91:11)

You do. I mean, I started the book with that, with the joke of, like, vaccines. It's like, you know, fight club, except it's like vaccine club. You just. You can't talk about vaccines. It's like, why? Why the one rule, why am I, a pediatrician, not allowed to talk about vaccine vaccines? Why do I have to be worried about it? That makes no sense.

Courtney Swan (91:26)

Exactly. And normalize, like you said. Saying, you know what? I actually don't know. That would give me more confidence than my doctor just being like, absolutely not. Like I. Like I said earlier with the. With the birth control, if my doctor had just been honest with me and said, you know, we actually don't know if that's gonna. If that's like a side effect or not, then I could have been like, okay, consciously now, like, do I feel comfortable with my doctor not knowing about these side effects? Do I still feel comfortable moving forward with taking this or not? And that's how you actually have an informed consent decision.

Dr. Joel Warsh (91:56)

Correct. I mean, that's how everything else is, and it's not the way that it is with vaccines. And. And that has to change.

Courtney Swan (92:03)

Yeah, absolutely. Joel, thank you so much for coming on. Please let everybody know where they can find your book and also where they can find you.

Dr. Joel Warsh (92:08)

Thank you for everything that you're doing. Thanks for having me on. Most people find me at Dr. Joel Gator on Instagram or X. Or you could find the book between a shot and a hard place. You can get it, you know, anywhere books are sold, Amazon or theshotbook.com.

Courtney Swan (92:21)

Thank you so much for having the courage to not only write this book, but ask the questions, put yourself out on the line. I know that it's definitely becoming safer to talk about it, but it still is kind of one of those things where you have to have some courage around it. And I just want to honor you and say thank you for having the courage to talk about it and ask questions.

Dr. Joel Warsh (92:40)

Oh yeah, everyone has their comments on this stuff.

Courtney Swan (92:43)

Yeah.

Dr. Joel Warsh (92:43)

It doesn't matter which side. You don't. You don't make anybody happy when you talk about vaccines.

Courtney Swan (92:48)

It's important you're doing something I think that's incredibly courageous and incredibly important. So thank you so much.

Dr. Joel Warsh (92:53)

Thank you.

Courtney Swan (92:53)

Thank you so much for listening to the Real Foodology podcast. This is a Wellness Loud production produced by Drake Peterson and mixed by Mike Fry. Theme song is by Georgie. You can watch the full video version of this podcast inside the Spotify app or on YouTube. As always, you can leave us a voicemail by clicking the link in our bio. And if you like this episode, please rate and review on your podcast app. For more shows by my TV team, go to wellnessloud.com See you next time. The content of this show is for educational and informational purposes only. It is not a substitute for individual medical and mental health advice and doesn't constitute a provider patient relationship. I am a nutritionist, but I am not your nutritionist. As always, talk to your doctor or your health team first. If you struggle with bloating, gas, constipation, digestive issues, yeast overgrowth, well, you may already know about digestive this. It's the podcast hosted by me, Bethany Cameron, also known as Little Sipper on Instagram. I dive into gut health, nutrition, the food industry, and drawing from my own experience, I break down what's good, what's bad, and what's the best for your gut, your skin, and so much more. I even offer gut friendly recipes. New episodes every Monday and Wednesday. Produced by Wellness Loud.