And, This Is Dr. Sanjay Gupta

Summary

**Podcast Summary: "And, This Is Dr. Sanjay Gupta"
Podcast: This is Gavin Newsom
Host: Gavin Newsom
Guest: Dr. Sanjay Gupta
Release Date: July 4, 2025

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Gavin Newsom’s podcast episode titled "And, This Is Dr. Sanjay Gupta" delves deep into the current landscape of healthcare policy in the United States, exploring critical issues such as the nation’s role in global health leadership, the impact of the MAHA movement on public health, and the ongoing challenges surrounding vaccine skepticism. Through an engaging and insightful dialogue, Newsom and Dr. Sanjay Gupta unpack the complexities of modern healthcare, providing listeners with a comprehensive understanding of both policy and practical implications.

1. The United States’ Role in Global Health Leadership

Dr. Sanjay Gupta opens the discussion by reflecting on the United States' historical position as a leader in science and healthcare. He expresses concern over whether the U.S. still maintains this stature amid rising challenges.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta [02:44]: "For 80 some years we were the world leader in science and healthcare, recruiting the best scientists and achieving great scientific milestones. But today, I worry if we still hold that position."

He draws a parallel to the auto industry decline, emphasizing the need for the U.S. to reassess its commitment to maintaining global leadership in healthcare and scientific research.

2. Wellness and the MAHA Movement

The conversation shifts to public health initiatives, specifically the MAHA (Movement for Health and Autonomy) movement, which focuses on wellness and prevention.

Gavin Newsom [06:16]: "Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move campaign was exceptional in its focus on chronic disease and obesity. How does the MAHA movement compare in raising awareness and driving change?"

Dr. Gupta acknowledges the positive strides made by the MAHA movement in promoting health consciousness but warns against the potential for it to be co-opted by politicized narratives.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta [07:37]: "The MAHA movement has struck a nerve, encouraging people to take autonomy over their health. However, it’s crucial to balance precautionary principles with evidence-based policies."

a. Ultra-Processed Foods and Food Dyes

A significant portion of their discussion centers on the prevalence of ultra-processed foods and the use of petroleum-based dyes, which lack nutritional value.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta [10:37]: "Food additives like petroleum-based dyes were primarily for aesthetics and shelf longevity. Removing them, as seen with Froot Loops, can reduce appeal but is necessary for better health outcomes."

He highlights California’s pioneering role in regulating these additives, noting a slow but growing national momentum towards healthier food policies.

3. Precautionary Principle vs. Evidence-Based Policy

Dr. Gupta explores the tension between the precautionary principle and the demand for extensive evidence before implementing health policies.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta [13:20]: "The EU’s strict policies on food additives reflect a precautionary approach, whereas the U.S. often requires extensive proof before regulation. This difference shapes our public health strategies."

This debate extends to vaccine policies, where precautionary measures must balance swift action with thorough validation.

4. MRNA Vaccines and Public Perception

A substantial segment of the episode is dedicated to MRNA vaccines, their development, efficacy, and the public's mixed reactions.

a. COVID-19 Vaccine Development and Efficacy

Dr. Gupta praises the rapid development of MRNA vaccines during the COVID-19 pandemic, considering it a monumental scientific achievement.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta [24:14]: "Creating a vaccine in nine months was extraordinary. The data shows significant protection against severe illness and death, despite some misconceptions about their ability to prevent infection entirely."

He clarifies that while MRNA vaccines effectively reduce severe outcomes, they do not entirely prevent the transmission of the virus, which contributed to public distrust.

b. Vaccine Hesitancy and Politics

The dialogue then addresses the politicization of vaccine acceptance, noting a shift in demographics of those hesitant to vaccinate.

Gavin Newsom [41:25]: "A decade ago, vaccine hesitancy was often associated with young, liberal women. Today, it's predominantly older, white, conservative men."

Dr. Gupta emphasizes that politicizing vaccines hampers public health efforts and complicates the dialogue around necessary immunizations.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta [36:53]: "Vaccine hesitancy has become a proxy for broader political conflicts, making it harder to address legitimate health concerns."

c. Measles Outbreak and Vaccine Opposition

Using the recent measles outbreak in Texas as a case study, Dr. Gupta illustrates the dire consequences of vaccine misinformation.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta [37:35]: "The measles outbreak, particularly in insular communities like the Mennonites, highlights how quickly misinformation can spread and lead to preventable illnesses."

He commends RFK Jr. for his initial advocacy for measles vaccination but expresses concern over subsequent backtracking, which undermines public trust.

5. Balancing Public Health and Personal Freedom

Throughout the episode, both hosts grapple with the challenge of implementing public health measures without infringing on personal freedoms.

Gavin Newsom [43:10]: "Michelle Obama was ridiculed for promoting healthy foods, yet the core message aligns with the MAHA movement’s goals. How do we navigate criticism while pushing for essential health reforms?"

Dr. Gupta advocates for a respectful, evidence-based approach to health policy, avoiding vitriol to foster constructive conversations.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta [43:28]: "While the MAHA movement addresses critical issues like chronic disease prevention, it must avoid being overshadowed by contentious topics like vaccines to maintain its effectiveness."

6. Future Directions and Takeaways

As the episode concludes, Dr. Gupta and Newsom underscore the importance of continuing to prioritize wellness, preventive care, and transparent communication in healthcare policy.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta [44:58]: "Effective preventative strategies are gaining traction, but overcoming vaccine skepticism remains a significant hurdle. We must persist in educating the public and addressing misinformation head-on."

Gavin Newsom acknowledges the progress made and the road ahead, emphasizing the need for bipartisan efforts to enhance public health outcomes.

Gavin Newsom [43:10]: "Focusing on wellness and prevention is paramount, even as we navigate the complexities introduced by ideological movements. It’s about finding common ground for the betterment of public health."

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Notable Quotes:

• Dr. Sanjay Gupta [02:44]: "For 80 some years we were the world leader in science and healthcare, recruiting the best scientists and achieving great scientific milestones. But today, I worry if we still hold that position."

• Gavin Newsom [06:16]: "Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move campaign was exceptional in its focus on chronic disease and obesity. How does the MAHA movement compare in raising awareness and driving change?"

• Dr. Sanjay Gupta [10:37]: "Food additives like petroleum-based dyes were primarily for aesthetics and shelf longevity. Removing them, as seen with Froot Loops, can reduce appeal but is necessary for better health outcomes."

• Dr. Sanjay Gupta [24:14]: "Creating a vaccine in nine months was extraordinary. The data shows significant protection against severe illness and death, despite some misconceptions about their ability to prevent infection entirely."

• Dr. Sanjay Gupta [37:35]: "The measles outbreak, particularly in insular communities like the Mennonites, highlights how quickly misinformation can spread and lead to preventable illnesses."

• Dr. Sanjay Gupta [43:28]: "While the MAHA movement addresses critical issues like chronic disease prevention, it must avoid being overshadowed by contentious topics like vaccines to maintain its effectiveness."

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This episode of "This is Gavin Newsom" offers a thorough exploration of the intersecting challenges in modern healthcare policy, emphasizing the need for balanced, evidence-based approaches amidst a polarized socio-political landscape. Listeners gain valuable insights into the complexities of maintaining public health leadership, the impact of public movements on health initiatives, and the ongoing struggle against vaccine misinformation.

Transcript

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This is Gavin Newsom. This is Dr. Sanjay Gupta. Sanjay, it's great to have you? I appreciate the opportunity because, look, all of us are reflecting on whether this is, as it feels to many of us, one of the most sort of challenging and profoundly consequential moments with healthcare policy in our lifetime, or perhaps putting it more perspective, more historically, and even thinking back a little bit to Obamacare and their debates and the sort of fundamental shifts in health policy we're taking shape there. So I thought I'd just open up, just ask you about the landscape, ask you about your perspective, particularly from the prison, of not just a policy expert, an a pundit, but also as a practitioner. What, what world are we living in as it relates to healthcare policy in the United States today?

[Voiceover Artist]

Well, you know, broadly speaking, I think one of, and we've been talking, thinking about this a lot is, is sort of what is the United States role when it comes to science, health care, science, public health, all of that. I think for 80 some years we were sort of the world leader, sort of post World War II. That became part of our DNA in the United States and take great pride in it. We recruit the best scientists in the world. Some of the greatest scientific achievements over the last century have come from the United States. And I think it's been something that certainly people in the scientific community, but I think the population at large really have rallied behind, taken great pride, people coming from other countries for our medical care, new therapies, coming out of the United States, all of that. And I think one of the, and I don't want to overstate this, but I think one of the worrisome things right now is is that still the case? Do we still think that that's important? Kind of like maybe how we talked about. My parents both worked in the auto industry. And I think there was a, there was a time period where people said, should we still be building cars in the United States? And my parents both ended up leaving the auto industry in 2001 because they were fearful that the industry was just going to change. It did not got bailed out, as you know, and all these things happened. And here we are today. I think it sort of feels this has some of those same tones as that. Are we going to look back 20 years from now and say the United States is still the global leader when it comes to these things? That's the thing that I worry about sort of philosophically, sort of more practically speaking, Governor, something you talk about a lot as well. We're not a healthy country. We spend $4.5 trillion on healthcare, and we don't have a lot to show for it in terms of outcomes, in terms of overall health. I think we saw that ripped off like a band aid during the pandemic. People say how could a country that spends that kind of money do so poorly with regard to patient outcomes? We walked in pretty unhealthy into that situation. So I think some of that needs to change. And frankly, most of that problem I think is in how we nourish ourselves. You know, the foods that we put into our body, the chemicals that we ingest. It's a problem. It's part of the reason I got into medical journalism in the first place. That needs to change. And people have been saying that for a long time. You talk about it in California. First Lady Obama used to talk about that. Michael Bloomberg talked about that when he was mayor of New York. So it's not a new discussion, but I think it's one that needs to be had.

[Gavin Newsom]

So I, I want to get to both subjects because I think it's, it's interesting as you start with the larger issue as some of us, and I'm not putting words in your mouth, but this sort of, this war on knowledge, more broadly speaking, and certainly scientific expression is a part of that. This notion of, of just confidence in, in transparency, truth, trust, we can get to miss and disinformation and how that debate plays out differently through the lens, ideological lens on both sides of the political prism. But the interesting thing I think you underscored is just this, this trend line that's been decades and decades, that's I think growing headline in some ways because of this Maha movement. And I think if there's one sort of reckoning, it's a recognition with RFK Jr. And we can get to the more controversial aspects of him. But this whole Maha movement is interesting to me. You brought up Obama First Lady Michelle Obama in the let's Move campaign. Her focus on issues of chronic disease, obesity, school lunches, which was exceptional at the time. And I was exceptionally engaged in that campaign. I think it was a 2010ish/ or minus. But where is, where are you in this Maha movement? Do you think it's a breakthrough in terms of consciousness, on a wellness frame, on a focus on some of these broader issues that are been under resourced in terms of time and attention?

[Voiceover Artist]

That's a good question. I do think a lot more people are talking about this. You know, I wish it didn't require, you know, sort of really demeaning certain populations of people to do it, but there's no question it has struck a nerve and I hear people talking about it from circles that I had not heard people talking about this before, just in terms of really wanting to have some autonomy over their own health. So there's a lot of kernels of truth, I think, to what is happening out of the Baha movement. It is, I think, largely based on precautionary principle, which we can talk about more because I think there's other aspects of what is happening in healthcare that are the opposite of precautionary principle. This demand for more evidence and replication of evidence. And it's not just be careful, it's let's prove this to the nth degree before we make any movements. But with regard to ultra processed foods, with regard to petroleum based dyes, some of these petroleum based dyes, Governor, should have probably never been approved. They have no nutritional value. They were purely aesthetic. There's many countries around the world that don't have them. These food manufacturers can clearly make these products without them. I have kids. I've worried about this for a long time. So people have been talking about it, but no one got it done. You did in California and now it's starting to happen, I think more at a national level.

[Gavin Newsom]

You know what's interesting, Sanjay, is some of the things we let on. I appreciate you highlighting, I mean this has been a passion project for me going back to my mayor days when, and you referenced Mayor Bloomberg. He and I were very competitive in this space as mayors. He with a much larger platform in New York, I with a little smaller platform in San Francisco. But, but I've, I've, I've deeply been committed as you have in terms of all your work, focusing not on sick care, but health care, focusing on social determinants of health, which we'll talk about in a moment in wellness and prevention. But one of the things that is really, you know, came to the fore with me through a political lens was this notion of ultra processed food. But specifically as it relates to food dyes. And we, we did something that was referred to on the far right, which was the great irony and mocked, I mean, I can't tell you how many. With respect to another news network, there three letter word news network, mocked consistently called the skittles ban because we were moving red dye and we were the first state to do that. Now it seems to be socialized in the political spectrum on the right as sort of, you know, endowed leadership from the Maha movement. But, but what was the movement towards all this? I mean it's, it's, it's there's chemicals, chemicals aside, but additives, there's sort of obsession is it just, was it taste, was it texture that we were after? Was it longevity, freshness? Why the us not the eu? What was it? What is unique about the United States that we became overly indulgent in these additives and chemicals?

[Voiceover Artist]

I think it's more than, more than one thing, but I do think a lot of it had to do with longevity initially, increasing shelf life of food. And that really got at a lot of additives, even going back to hydrogenated corn syrup versus sugar. You know, when you're adding these types of things in there, you're not only adding sweetness to some extent, but you're adding how moist the food is and how long it's going to last on a shelf. I think trying to, I remember, you know, former President Clinton used to talk about this. You can feed a lot of people a lot of calories for cheap if you're having these ultra processed foods. You know, feed a family at McDonald's for, you know, 25 bucks, you know, if you have ultra processed foods. So I think it's, you know, if you increase shelf life, you can decrease costs. I do think the aesthetics of the food is not an issue to be minimized though. It's very interesting. I don't know if you heard the story about what happened with Fruit Loops. I think back about 11 years ago, 2014, time frame, where, you know, they basically said, all right, let's remove some of these food dyes. There was a lot of pressure to remove the food dyes. And the Fruit Loops as a result were not as brightly colored. They were kind of color. If you go to Europe and go to a, you know, hotel or something and you go to the breakfast buffet and you get Froot Loops, they're bland colored Fruit Loops. They're the same Fruit Loops otherwise, but they just don't look the same. And what they found when they did that in the United States was two things. One is that people didn't buy those blandly colored Fruit Loops and two is they kind of got accused of the same thing that you were talking about, sort of nanny state. Don't take away our brightly colored Fruit Loops. Same thing that Mayor Bloomberg got accused of when he wanted to, to not sell 16 ounce sodas anymore. The big golf, any state. And, and so it's really, it's, it's, it's interesting, Governor, this, this balance between personal freedom and health. And, and what is interesting is that you can, you can be sort of thinking the Same thing. And approach that in two completely different ways. One hand, I'm going to do precautionary principle. We're not going to have food dyes. Doesn't make sense. No nutritional value. Why would we do that? I kind of agree with that. Again, as a health conscious person myself, I like to eat right, I like to exercise every day. Why would I do something like that to my body? On the other hand, what is the level of evidence you need to have before making a decision? Prove to me that red dye number three is bad. Prove it. Maybe some will say why do you need to prove it causes cancer in animals? And we should have never approved it anyways. But what is the level of evidence? And that's going to extend, I think, beyond food and additives to vaccines and therapeutics and other things. That I think that's going to be the crux of the issue.

[Gavin Newsom]

And that's, I mean, and it's important on the precautionary frame and the precautionary principle. I mean, I think that's fundamentally, isn't it the difference between the EU policy where so many of these foods just simply never make the shelf and fundamental policy that's advanced in the United States.

[Voiceover Artist]

That is your friend, I think, Todd Wagner, who's a friend of mine, he talks about this a lot. He started this organization, Food Fight. And you know, when I spent time talking to these folks and reporting on this, people will always say the same thing, which is, I go to Europe, I eat the same foods, I eat pasta, I do whatever and I feel great, great. I lose weight, I all that. Now some of that may be that you're, you're active more over there as well. There could be other things, but I think there's something definitely to that and that I think that, so it's, it's a little bit more than precautionary principle. You have these large cohorts of the population that say, I have lived in both those worlds, I've eaten both these foods and I can feel the difference in my own body. I think you can't, you can't ignore that. Again, with the backdrop that those petroleum based dyes don't have any nutritional value, right? Not losing anything by stripping them out other than aesthetics, which, you know, maybe may be important to people. People do like their brightly colored Fruit Loops, as it turns out.

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[Gavin Newsom]

So you talk about. You talk in the terms of precautionary principles. Sort of the the two ends of this. And you referenced the issue of vaccines. Is that a reference to MRNA vaccines? Is is it? In what respect is a precautionary principle? Sort of the 180 degree flip side of that principle being abused in terms of or Is it just moreover. And what more evidence do you need of something being bad or good? Is it the same thing?

[Voiceover Artist]

Yeah, I think it's, I think it's MRNA vaccines, but, but, but more widely, I think it' in general and I think it's maybe even the response to things like a pandemic. You know, when you're dealing with something that is novel. I mean, by the way, you know, Covid was a novel disease. We had never experienced it before and I know people said, said that a lot. Novel virus, you heard that a lot. But I mean, if you really sit and think about that, it's kind of extraordinary. I mean, as an adult, we don't get to experience novel things very often. Kids experience novel things all the time. But when is the last time you, Governor, experience something for the first time? Doesn't happen very often. So now you're dealing with something that is novel and you have to say, okay, look, our response isn't going to be exactly right. Nothing's exactly right. Where are we going to tilt? What side are we going to err on? Are we going to err on precautionary principle or are we going to err on the side of let's sort of see how things go and, you know, figure it out as we go along. And I think, you know, public health, the training often is to sort of side with precautionary principle. It's like, let's be careful as we sort of sort this out. How is this virus behaving? Who's it affecting? So I think MRNA vaccines were part of that. I mean, people, I think, understandably would say we need long term data on these things before we start, you know, releasing them. I think that's a really fair sort of thing to say. But you realize that in the middle of a pandemic, to get long term data means you have to wait long term. Are you going to wait five years, 10 years? What is, what does long term mean? You know, if it's for a kid, is it 80 years? What does it mean in terms of how long you're willing to wait? What struck me, and again, this is finding the balance between precautionary principle and evidence is that we knew that for vaccines the vast majority of the time, greater than 90% of the time, if side effects were to occur, they would occur within the first 68 days. That was the number. So just over two months. So then the idea that the FDA would say, well, let's wait three months, let's just, let's try and Cover as many possible side effects that will come from this as possible before we give emergency use authorization. That is an example, I think, of policy that you have to sort of think about in the throes of something like this. It is still precautionary because we don't know the long term data. On the other hand, you're using the best evidence that we do have in terms of what history has taught us. And I think, you know, I know it's been a sort of cluster since that, but I think at the time, to me as a reporter, medical reporter and as a doctor, but also as a dad, that made sense. Yeah. If the side effects are going to occur, they usually occur within two, two and a half months. Let's, let's keep a close eye on this thing, watch it like a hawk, wait even longer than that, and at that point, if things look good, then I go ahead and provide an EUA for it.

[Gavin Newsom]

I mean, it's interesting it continues to this day. I mean obviously at the state level we saw the Surgeon General of Florida come out and recommend against MRNA vaccines. Obviously the President is spoken from every side on this issue. I mean considering he, through Operation Warp Speed was the one advancing the platform and the technology. But obviously the new Health and Human Service Secretary has been very critical and has been prone arguably to some sort of wild eyed theories around DNA issues related to the, the, the RMA MRNA vaccine and concerns around DNA concerns obviously around its safety and, and the side effects. What, where, what's, where are you now in terms of just your concerns are. MRNA is not just for COVID vaccine.

[Voiceover Artist]

Right.

[Gavin Newsom]

It's also used for other vaccines, used.

[Voiceover Artist]

For other vaccines and used for other therapies entirely, including cancer therapies. Clinical trials now trying to use these types of platforms, MRNA platforms for very difficult to treat cancers, including pancreatic cancer, which we don't have great answers for. I think I'm pretty practical on this. I think where we are now in 2025 versus certainly when these vaccines got approved were in a different place. Meaning that even though the uptake of vaccines has gone way down, most people did get the initial series of vaccines and we know that they can, especially for young people, they can provide more durable relief. There hasn't, you know, after the initial, what they call ancestral strains of COVID before Omicron, I think these still provide pretty good protection, especially for young people whose immune systems really respond to them. So I, I still think, you know, I said this before, I think this was one of the great scientific achievements of my time as a human being. I think, you know, when textbooks are written about scientific achievements, the idea that they were able to create a vaccine essentially in nine months and be able to, you know, protect so many people, there's a lot of people who think they don't work. They do work. I mean, if you looked at the data, California or the country as a whole, who was in the hospital during the huge sort of swings and Covid, it was primarily people who were not vaccinated. So it was helping protect against illness and death. What I think was unfortunate, frankly, and this was a communications problem, was that they seem to also intimate that it would protect you from getting Covid at all, from carrying it. And there was not great evidence behind that. And you know, we reported as such that you don't have great evidence that shows that when you have a vaccine that's protecting against illness, it's usually protecting in your lower respiratory, in your lungs. So you're not getting that really, really sort of deep illness. But you might still have it in your mucosa, in your mouth and your nose and your upper airway. So you could potentially still be carrying it and still potentially spread it. That wasn't, I think, a communications error. And I think, frankly, Governor, I think it led to a lot of distrust overall of these MRNA vaccines. You said I couldn't get Covid if I got this. Well, I got Covid and I spread it. So what is this? This is a vaccine or is it not a vaccine? That was a problem.

[Gavin Newsom]

And do you, I mean, are we being oversensitive, hyperbolic as it relates to how now this is manifested with the new recommendations that for pregnant women and for children, they shouldn't even be getting these boosters on covet. Or is that overstated? Or is that a more targeted approach? Do you think it's rational? We can talk about how that was done without the cdc, an advisory committee that usually advises in terms of recommendation, but the, but the outcome ultimately of that decision. Where are you on that?

[Voiceover Artist]

Yeah, I mean, first of all, you know, with regard to the CDC and expertise, I mean, you know, it amazed me when I watch people like Tom Frieden during Ebola or Richard Besser during H1N1 do their briefings in front of the CDC and they would say, behind us we have 4,000 of the smartest, most hard working scientists in the world. They're so good that other infectious disease organizations in other countries model their organizations after us. Even calling their organizations the cdc. I mean, that, that, that was a source of Great pride, I think, for, for people in the public health world, myself included. I think where I am now at this point in 2025 is, first of all, I think what Secretary, Secretary Kennedy has said versus what is reality is, is different. There's, there's daylight between those two things. So he basically said no more boosters for kids. Basically no more shots. Even now on the CDC's website. That's not what it says. It says it should be a shared clinical decision between patient and provider for. So for kids, I think that makes sense. I mean, if your kid has asthma, do you want to get the, your kid a Covid shot? How bad is the asthma? How many times they require an inhaler? Do they have diabetes? Do they require insulin? You know, these are, there's nuance to that decision. And I think, you know, the, the general approach has always, instead of trying to stratify all this by risk, which can be difficult as a country to do, let's just recommend the vaccine. I think what they're saying is let's do risk stratification and let's put it at the hands of the providers, of the doctors. You know, for these, these kids, I think that makes sense. You know, you know, if your kid is otherwise healthy, they've had their primary series, which most kids have had. We haven't had new variants that are worrisome for the time being. I think that that makes sense. Pregnant women, I would put into a different category. I mean, the thing about pregnancy is that when you're pregnant, when someone is pregnant, they, their immune system is, is compromised intentionally. It's the way the body works. You don't want to reject this new body inside your body, inside a woman's body. So, so the idea that, you know, you would be more vulnerable to infections while pregnant is real. In fact, you know, the FDA commissioner wrote before these new recommendations came out, he listed pregnancy as a high risk condition for Covid and then a couple days later said pregnant women don't need it. I mean, if people's heads were spinning, I would understand why. The second thing about pregnant women is that if they get vaccinated, they can actually pass on some of the antibodies to their, to their child. So for the first six months of life, that child may have protection and, and they're very young. Kids like that are very, very vulnerable to Covid and some of the rates of severe illness, they approximate what older adults have. So very young, very old, both can get very sick. But young kids under the age of 6 months can't get a vaccine so mom can provide protection. But now they're sort of recommending against that as well. I don't think it'll stick. I think most infectious disease doctors, if you go to your doctor as a pregnant woman will say, hey look, here's the benefits. You're immune compromised as a result of pregnancy and you can help protect your child after they are born. I think most people will, you know, at least pay attention to that.

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[Voiceover Artist]

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[Podcast Host]

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[Voiceover Artist]

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[Gavin Newsom]

As a code Red. What's happening with vaccines generally? The, the dis. The sort of growing anxiety around vaccine. I was listening to your podcast recently, just about, you know, people expressing concern they're getting so many shots, a young child, newborn, and all of a sudden they're getting four or five shots. Twenty years ago they may have gotten less shots, but you described a very different construct as it relates to antigens and proteins and dose, which was fascinating to me and, and obviously calmed, I think the nerves of, of those who were inquiring. But, but talk to me more broadly about the state of vaccines, your anxiety and push back against some of this vaccine skepticism that's out there.

[Voiceover Artist]

Well, with regard to the, you know, you hear these crazy numbers, you know, 72 vaccines and all that. First of all, those are just made up numbers. It's weird to me, Governor, there's no accountability for people saying stuff that's just absolutely not true. I hope people, you know, they always say do your own research. I hope people do their own research with regard to some of this. So yeah, we vaccinate against more diseases than we used to when you and I were kids. We're around the same age. But what you're referring to is this, something known as the antigenic load, which is really what scientists pay attention to. How much of a sort of load of antigens are we giving to the body? And what you find is that nowadays compared to days when we are still vaccinating against things like smallpox, for example, the load is much, much lower, exponentially lower than we used to give. Even though there's more vaccines, vaccine technology has gotten better. They use adjuvants so you don't have to give as much of the overall, whether it be live virus or anything else as we used to. So we don't sort of cause the immune system to react nearly as much today as we used to in the past because of that antigenic load. So, you know, numbers of shots and all that. Look, again, as a dad, I don't like seeing my kids get shots. I get that, I understand that. But in terms of what it's actually doing to the body compared to what we used to do to the body at a time when, by the way, autism was much lower rate, so we used to give a much bigger antigenic load, had lower autism rates. Now we have a much lower antigenic load and we have higher autism rates. Make of that what you may. Those are. That's the data, that's the facts. And so I don't know that I would call it code red. But I think that this, the argument against, I think what is a very, very effective preventative strategy gaining a lot of steam. And I think people are becoming increasingly, increasingly concerned about vaccines and hesitate.

[Gavin Newsom]

What did you make? I mean, you were out there in Texas, this measles outbreak, I mean, and you know, you had folks arguing for more and look, I'm not belittling it, but it was interesting to me. Cod liver, vitamin A is the solution, not vaccines. I was reading in different sources that, you know, a double digit percentage of people that, you know, had measles ended up in the emergency rooms and, and yet people are still arguing for heavy loads of vitamin A. I mean, give me a sense of, you know, the on the ground truth seeking that you did. And you know, how does that play in sort of a modern flashpoint with this ideological movement and the practical realities on the ground?

[Voiceover Artist]

I think for the physicians and nurses and everybody who's caring for patients there, it was incredibly frustrating for them. I mean, you're talking about a vaccine preventable disease. We essentially eliminated measles in this country. I think when we say frustrating, it's like, how are we going to make big swings at big important things evolutionarily in science if we can't get the little things right? It's dying of measles, kids even getting sick of measles, being hospitalized with measles. It doesn't need to happen. It's a travesty. You know, and I think most of the people frankly that we spoke to, and not just people in the medical community, but we spend a lot of time talking to citizens, just, just going around taking the temperature. I think there was a lot of frustration, but at the same time they're being Assaulted with all sorts of information that is not accurate. You know, this seemed to have started in a small community, a Mennonite community. And it's really interesting. There's nothing in the religious doctrine that says they shouldn't take measles vaccine. What happens, as we learned, as you may know, governor, is that these very insular communities, they don't get a lot of outside information often. So they may have somebody in the community whose child developed a febrile seizure or something. I think that's what happened here. After a vaccine that can happen and right away that spread like wildfire through that community. And all of a sudden nobody wanted to get vaccinated. When you're dealing with something as contagious as measles, then that community, as they're walking through the town of Gaines or wherever the Costco or fast food restaurant, whatever it may be, you can start to spread the virus. So that's what was happening there. I will say, to RFK's credit, he did go there and he was conciliatory towards vaccines. He did, at least in the moment, recommend the measles vaccine to people, which I thought was really important and really, really good. I think since then he sort of backtracked on that, obviously with COVID I think Covid seems to be sort of low hanging fruit because the uptake has been so low already that the idea of saying we're not recommending it anymore was sort of, I think, easy. But I think with regard to MMR and other things, they're critically important. And, you know, I think the, hopefully that message continues to get out there. I think it's changing even in west Texas. I think that, you know, you did see increased measles uptake. We were at clinics, pop up clinics, and people were showing up to get measles vaccine that had never been vaccinated in their lives. So, you know, I think in the throes of something like that, you do see behavior changing a bit.

[Gavin Newsom]

It's encouraging in the behavior and I appreciate your reverence, rfk, but it just depends on the day of the week. I mean, he says that when he's there on the ground and then he gets into the cabinet meeting and says, well, we have outbreaks all the time. And you know, even though this disease was substantially, you know, what, 2000, it was declared gone, right?

[Voiceover Artist]

Correct. It was declared eliminated at that point. And there have been some measles outbreaks since then. I mean, there was one night, 2019, I think it affected Disneyland. And that's right as well, Minnesota, Brooklyn, so there have been measles outbreaks. But, you know, this, this, this vaccine hesitancy issue has been around for a while. You know, I've been a reporter for 25 years now almost. And I'll tell you what's, what's interesting to me, and I'm curious if this is interesting to you, but if 10 years ago, if you said, who is the most likely person in America to be vaccine hesitant, describe that person. And I think what you would likely have described at that point was a young person, liberal, and woman, usually a mom.

[Gavin Newsom]

Oh, yeah, trust me, I grew up in the Bay Area, so you can appreciate in California, I know a lot of them.

[Voiceover Artist]

Yeah.

[Gavin Newsom]

Perfectly described.

[Voiceover Artist]

And now in 2025, I think the demographics have changed in terms of who's most likely to be vaccine hesitant or resistant. Older, white, conservative men. And I'm not a politician, but I'll tell you, I think that these issues are used as proxy issues for a larger sort of conflict. Vaccines are the issue. I think people glom onto. It's understandable. They can sink their teeth into it and all that. But within 10 years, even less than that, frankly, I think it was 20, 19, maybe six years ago, you would have said young liberal woman and now older conservative man. I think within six years, it's completely flipped. And I think there's other proxy issues like that as well. And I think it just sends a signal that these are. You can't disentangle anything from politics. I never thought of vaccine hesitancy as a political issue. I thought it was concerned moms. My wife would have conversations, should we get all the vaccines at once or should we spread them out a little bit? And I would sit down and talk to her about antigenic load and all that. And I think she, she definitely listened to me, but it required a conversation. So I, I got that. Now it's, it's all politics, it seems. And that's, that's very difficult to sort of confront.

[Gavin Newsom]

No, and I mean, I think it goes to our opening conversation as well. I mean, that was this certainly the case with Michelle Obama. I mean, she was just, just ridiculed and attacked for, you know, focusing on healthy foods and focusing on our kids in chronic disease and, and issues around obesity and, and, and that's why I think it's important for those that may be critical of the MAGA movement to be at least sensitive to the attributes and the positive.

[Voiceover Artist]

Yes.

[Gavin Newsom]

Components of the MAHA frame that is focusing on the same issue coming in from different political lens. Certainly and not get, get, you know, sort of caught up in this vaccine issue. When we focus on the fundamental issues of wellness which I think we just as a country need to come to.

[Voiceover Artist]

Grips with, I think that's the challenge. People like to look at these in binary ways. Maha bad, Maha good. There's goods and bads to it. You know, I think there's a lot of stuff that, that as a health, very health conscious person myself, someone who thinks a lot about longevity. I got parents in 80s, I got teenage kids, I think about this all the time. There's a lot of things that the Maha movement says that I totally agree with and again things that you have been doing in California with regard to our foods. I think 70% of illness, chronic disease in this country is preventable. And the vet and again we spent four and a half trillion dollars on it. So preventing 70%, I mean medically obviously important, but also morally and financially and everything else. The vast majority of those preventable disease I think comes in how we nourish ourselves, our food supply. So I, I, I totally understand that. Again, I wish it didn't have to be done in a mean spirited way. You know, I, I, it's just not my personality to be vitriolic to get things done. But on the other hand I, I think people have been talking about trying to reform our food supply for a quarter century and it hasn't really been done. Maybe this will, it's already leading to some changes with regard to food dyes and things like that. We'll see where that all lands. So I think some of it is really important. But there's other parts of it that I think and vaccines I guess would be the best example where I have real concerns.

[Gavin Newsom]

Tune in for more with Dr. Sanjay Gupta.

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[Voiceover Artist]

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[Podcast Host]

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