Ben Meiselis (3:23)

Thanks so much, Ben. And hey Midas. Mighty. It's great to be on the Midas Touch Network and on the Midas Touch podcast. I'm going to be a correspondent on the Midas Touch Network talking about all matters health, giving weekly updates on key issues just to make sure you and your family are informed and have accurate health information. Because you know what, it's pretty self evident we're not getting that from the sources that we should be getting it from, like the U.S. government. The information environment right now is chaotic, especially on health. And we're going to fix that. We're going to make sure that you have information. When stuff pops in the news, like this measles outbreak, which we'll be talking about for this week's update, or if some, if it's something unexpected like say bird flu, we'll be making sure that you have all the information you need. I'll be keeping my pulse on current events and we're going to be doing this frequently. Before I get into that, I wanted to give you a little bit of a background on myself. I'm a pulmonologist, spent about 30% of my time at the bedside caring for patients in a hospital here in Seattle. I'm a reservist in the US Air Force Reserves, specifically in the medical Corps. Been in there for 11 years. I've deployed multiple times. And it's really doing what I do in a civilian ICU up at 30,000ft in the bay of a C130. So I see American healthcare. I see patients across the spectrum from a lot of different lenses, though. And what I promise to you is what I do in my other contributions for media. I'm going to give it to you straight. I'm going to tell you the truth. We're going to focus on actionable things that you and your family can do to stay safe. So with that being said, what are the things that you need to know right now, this week that are happening in health? Well, number one, I think we can't ignore the news coming out yesterday that RFK Jr. Is deciding to cut 10,000 people from the roles of HHS. That's a big deal. And it's Going to have real impacts to everybody, to all of us, to all of our families. And I think we should be talking about that in those terms. How are these cuts going to actually impact you and your families? Well, number one, he's bringing all communications under him. So no longer do the NIH, to the fda, to the cdc, get to actually have independence and what they talk about to the American public. They're all going to be now responsible and going up to him and he's going to have a say in terms of what actually gets communicated to all of us. So there's going to be a lot of bias injected into what's actually being said and communicated from all those agencies. By the way, that's not how this has been before. All those agencies, nih, fda, CDC have had independence for a reason. Because we shouldn't be in any way mixing politics and political appointees and their priorities with what these agencies are meant to do, which is to keep all of us safe and informed. So that's a concern. And that concern is already playing out in real time. I'm going to touch a little bit about meat on measles momentarily. But the reality is the communications environment on health has already been completely distorted. The CDC's chief spokesperson resigned in protest last Friday for a reason. He wrote a damning op ed in the, in the Washington Post on Friday detailing why, but basically saying that the American public was not getting accurate information because RFK had already co opted all the megaphones of those health agencies to advance his own agenda, which is, as we already know, highly, highly skeptical when it comes to vaccine safety and effectiveness. Highly anti science and frankly just putting forth a bunch of junk information when it comes to what people should and should not be doing when it comes to say measles. It's a bunch of nonsense. And so the communications environment is only going to get worse, which makes this engagement even more important. That's number one, the information that we're getting from the highest sources, the highest appointed officials. You can't trust it. Number two, it's important to keep in mind that he's, he's actually reducing workforce personnel from key parts of the FDA that oversee our food and drug supply, specifically quality and safety of our food and drug supply, especially when it comes from imported sources. That doesn't make any sense. You know, I mean we just came out not too, too long ago from a Beatty formula crisis where, you know, we didn't know if what was causing contamination of baby formula. I mean this is not even two years ago and we are having constant issues with food food contamination. I mean, we talk about salmonella outbreaks in some of our produce. We've had norovirus issues. We've had, you know, multiple cases of listeria in raw meats. I mean, this is something that the FDA needs, frankly, more manpower, more human capital to be investing in when it comes to making sure our food supply is safe, not less. Doesn't make any sense.

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Ben Meiselis (9:14)

Our drug supply. We know that we rely, and we knew this especially throughout the pandemic. We rely a lot on drugs being imported from other parts of the world to make sure that Americans have what they need, whether it's Tylenol, whether it's a prescription drug. We don't produce all of that onshore for a variety of reasons. So if we don't have enough people at the FDA to actually do critical evaluation of quality and safety of our food and drug supply, which is basically what he's removing when it comes to these cuts. When you look deep down and you scrutinize where these cuts are coming from, he's doing it in these key, really important areas that frankly need to be reinforced, not widowed. That worries me. And then lastly, it's this focus, this, this sort of markety type phrase that he's. That he's saying on his YouTube video yesterday that somehow the CDC is going to return to its core focus on infectious diseases and that that needs to be kind of its foundational cause and it needs to return to those roots. You know, it's a nonsensical statement. It may sound good. I think he's probably fooling a lot of people when he says that, and they're probably just blindly agreeing with him. But it makes no sense. And here's why. For the last at least 30 years, probably dating well past the last 30 years, the top 10 killers of Americans and frankly most people worldwide, are chronic diseases, things like high blood pressure, diabetes, being obese, smoking. It's not things like influenza or diarrheal diseases, infectious diseases. It's not any of those things. Those are important. The CDC needs to be investigating outbreaks like for example, the measles outbreak. When and where it happens, it needs to be keeping its pulse on things like the bird flu outbreak in across all mammalian species, luckily not humans, but pretty much every other species has been impacted. CDC needs to focus on that. But somehow this concept that the cdc, that that should be its only focus completely misses the point. Legions of Americans are dying because of chronic disease. If it doesn't focus on what's killing us, then what's, what good is it? Who else is going to do that? The answer is no one. It doesn't make sense. Don't listen to it. Question everything. He says he's going to own the comm shop, which is not a good thing because there's been no independence, there's going to be no accountability, no cross check to say is what he's going to put out actually true or is it just tinged with, you know, political priorities and political jargon? Is the FDA going to actually be able to do its, its charge and its mission when it comes to evaluating food, especially imported food, especially imported drugs, for quality and safety? I doubt it. If we're losing key personnel, I don't know how that happens. And what is, what's the future of the CDC for saying it needs a return to a focus solely on infectious diseases? Who's going to protect us from the epidemic of chronic disease that we know is killing us? That's the focus here. And he doesn't have a plan. It's gotta be the cdc. He can't take that away. Now on to measles. Where are we? You know, this last week we've already across the country, we've now crossed over 400 cases. We've seen it continue to simmer in places like West Texas and New Mexico. We've actually seen cases where some families have children who've taken so much vitamin A, thinking it's a preventative, potentially even a treatment because of what RFK and his former organizations have been putting out, that they come into the hospital with vitamin A toxicity which can cause serious organ damage. It's not a trivial thing. And here is the, here's the issue here. They put out all this garbage medical advice that has no basis in the scientific literature. But like, for example, a healthy diet replete with vitamin A is somehow going to prevent measles infection. Doesn't happen. That somehow it's going to be a substitute for vaccination. Again, not true. And they're putting people's lives at risk. I mean, the family of the child that lost their life is convinced that somehow the measles vaccine was part of the problem and that it's somehow precipitating all these rise in cases. It is directly because RFK and his prior organization, the Child's Health Defense, is putting this information out there. They're actually peddling this. And this is not a new thing for them. They've been doing this for a very, very long time. And his name was appended to all of it right before he had to resign from that organization to then become the HHS secretary. So make no mistake. What's happening in West Texas, what's happening in New Mexico and across the country? By the way, we're well past it's. Or it's not even April yet. We're well past where we were in total case numbers over the last four years. We're already well past that. It's not even April that's going to get worse. And the reason it's going to get worse is because our incumbent health secretary has created an environment where people think treatments for something like measles exist when they do not Listen. RFK and the people around him are not practicing physicians. Pretty much everybody around them has not practiced medicine either in a really long time or has never practiced medicine. They're not credentialed in most cases. They're not even well respected by their peers. And yet they're providing cover for him to put this information out there. Cod liver oil does not in any way treat measles. Vitamin A, in select cases, is used as a supplement to help in the management of, say, a child who's unvaccinated, exposed and hospitalized with measles. It is used as part of our as, as an aid, as a, as a supplement, as part of our treatment approach to a child once they're already super sick with measles. In no way does vitamin A actually prevent the illness itself. And by the way, where vitamin A can actually be useful in the world where people are actually deficient in vitamin A, places like East Africa, parts of Southeast Asia, parts of South Asia, the USAID actually funded programs to actually help get kids that were vitamin A deficient the necessary vitamins and minerals so that they were no longer deficient. On day one of the Trump administration, he ended those programs through cutting, ultimately, usaid. So on the one hand, we're talking about the importance of vitamin A, and yes, it has its purpose in select use cases. Not really relevant here in the uni, in the United States, because the United States doesn't really have vitamin A deficiency. But in parts of the world that do, we were actually doing something about it on day one. The Trump administration actually cut the funding to the ending of usaid. So let's be clear here, there isn't a logical train of thought. They're actually internally inconsistent in their policy. If they really cared about this issue, perhaps they wouldn't have cut the programs that are actually helping people when it comes to vitamin A and considerations about measles. So that's one, two, let's just please keep in mind one shot of the vaccine actually produces detectable antibodies against measles within just a few days. Remember, you can get, if, if, if you are not sure you got two shots of the measles vaccine, just get a booster shot. If you have no proof that you got at least two shots of the measles vaccine, just get a booster shot. It's safe, it's very safe, contrary to misinformation out there. And it's, it can only help you in the case of. If you're, if you don't think you got that second shot, if you're not sure if you have an immunocompromising condition, of course, talk to your medical provider. That's always going to be the default answer, but it's something that you can also be proactive on. And if you're just not sure, get the booster shot. If you're pregnant. If you're pregnant, you're unvaccinated and exposed immediately, talk to your obstetrician. We might give you a medication called immunoglobulin to help protect you. So that's something also to keep in mind. But just as a summary here, measles, we expect this is going to get worse, probably far worse in terms of caseloads and potentially even kids getting really ill. But before, hopefully it starts to subside. I'm hoping by sometime in the mid summer. This is going to take some time. Remember, vitamin A is not something that's relevant to measles and the management of measles. Here in the United States, we do give it to kids that are hospitalized with measles as a part of our supportive care, but in no way treats measles and in no way prevents measles.

Dr. Vin Gupta (17:57)

Please.

Ben Meiselis (17:57)

If you know somebody that's taking high doses of vitamin A for that purpose, they're injuring themselves that are potentially causing significant harm to their body. Number two, really important to keep in mind here that two doses of the vaccine, 97% effective at preventing measles protection is lifelong aside in very unusual, exceptional cases, like if you have an immunocompromising condition, that's where you might want to make sure and talk to your medical provider to make sure that you're fully covered. And really critically, if you were just not sure if you have had two doses of the measles vaccine, just go ahead and get a booster. If you're that. If you're in that group that was born before 1957, I'm sure you've heard, well, you're probably naturally exposed. You should be all good. Listen, if you're somebody in that age group and you're worried or you're living in the community where there's a lot of measles, just either you can do one of two things, get the measles booster, nothing wrong with it, or get your titers checked. Those are two actionable things you can do. So in closing, there's a lot going on, there's a lot of noise. We're going to be doing this frequently because you all deserve the best health information possible. What's happening at the highest levels of government is not acceptable. It's being conducted by people who've never really taken care of patients at the bedside, frankly, in the first place. So it's even more reprehensible that we're seeing this bunch of non health experts ruining how we speak about important public health topics to the American public. We need a better, better way here. We're going to develop it with all of you. Thank you, Midas. Mighty for your trust. I look forward to seeing you again soon.

Dr. Vin Gupta (19:36)

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