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The Dan Bongino Show
Is Something Big About To Go Down In Washington? - GUEST: Dr. Marty Makary | Episode 51
00:58:00
Corruption is being unearthed on all fronts in government and people are starting to pay the consequences. Also: FDA Commissioner Dr. Marty Makary joins me in DC to discuss.
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- [00:00]
Vince
Welcome to Vince. I hope you had a fantastic Memorial Day and an opportunity to contemplate on our nation's heroes and what they've done to ensure our freedoms. God bless them and God bless you. So great to have you with us today. I've got a bunch of stuff coming up. I got James Comey is still doing the rounds, but remember, he was calling for removing the President of the United States. 8647, he said recently. And now he's actively calling for FBI agents to join the hashtag resistance against Trump and to keep undermining the Trump administration and the American voter. We'll get into that coming up. We've got Memorial Day messages from the President of the United States, the vice President, the Secretary of Defense, all so good as these guys go to Arlington. And joining me today in studio, the Commissioner of the FDA, Marty McCary. Marty Makary from the Food and Drug Administration. This guy is phenomenal. We're gonna get into a bunch of stuff with him, including one why he's saying no more Covid jabs for everybody. Enough. Enough with jabbing the kids with the COVID jab. More on that coming up with Marty Makary. It's always wonderful to have you with us. This show is made possible by our great sponsors, and that includes ExpressVPN. Everything that you do online, you know, it's recorded, and then it's sold to the big tech companies, advertisers, and even our government. Now, who does this? It's democratic data brokers. Data brokers do that. Vultures that make billions of dollars selling your private data. How much do you get paid for that? Oh, nothing. Hey, remember, without privacy, there's no freedom. So take back control over your digital Privacy with Express VPN. Express VPN is a virtual private network that reroutes 100% of your Internet activity through encrypted and secure servers. No one can see what you do online. 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When you're ready to purchase your own Power Rack Pro X, use my promo code Vince. You can and you'll save 10%. That's getjackedup.com promo code. Vince yeah baby. We've got the good doctor coming by. Marty McCary. Really looking forward to our conversation. I do hope you had a really nice Memorial Day. We did the customary hamburgers last night. We had the grill going, I got the fire going. We were all sitting around the fire pit. We had a wonderful time again. I hope you did too. The President of the United States brought a couple of veterans with him to Arlington National Cemetery yesterday to mark Memorial Day. And so it was the President of the United States, the Vice President of the United States, J.D. vance, he's a Marine. And then he also brought the Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth. He's a soldier. And so all those guys show up yesterday at Arlington and they had a bunch of really important messages. And I don't think we can escape this weekend without reflecting upon the valuable messages that the President, the Vice President and the Secretary of Defense shared. Let's take the president first. Here's cut three. Here's the President talking about the sacrifices that these heroes in our history have made for the rest of us warriors.
- [04:48]
Donald Trump
And that's what they are, is great, great warriors picked up their mantle of duty and service, knowing that to live for others meant always that they might die for others. They knew that. They asked nothing for it. They gave everything, and we owe them everything and much, much more.
- [05:11]
Vince
They asked nothing for it. They gave everything, and we owe them everything and much, much more. President Trump honoring the troops. You know, there's a constant drumbeat, acclaim that somehow President Trump disrespects the troops, doesn't care about the sacrifices of our veterans, doesn't care about the people who've died the in war. And every single time the President has been called upon to speak about the troops and to speak about our heroes, he has spoken eloquently about them and he's honored their sacrifices and he's called us to love our country. That's not what the left does. The left calls us to have contempt for our country, that there's something wrong with it. And the underlying point of that is that the people who have served and sacrificed, it was all for nothing. It was a complete waste in the left's view. Not according to Trump. Not according to the people who voted for Trump, including many of the nation's veterans. The president honoring our heroes at Arlington and did a great job. All three of these guys just did a fantastic job. While the President was there. He also credited God with the timing of his second term, saying that it was only by the grace of God that he had a gap period. And now he's back as President of the United States to. To help us mark a bunch of really big events in our nation's history. Take a look at the President here.
- [06:29]
Donald Trump
Over the past 250 years. We're going to have a big, big celebration, as you know, 250 years. In some ways, I'm glad I missed that second term where it was because I wouldn't be your president for that. Most important of all, in addition, we have the World cup and, and we have the Olympics. Can you imagine? I missed that four years and now look what I have. I have everything. Amazing, the way things work out. God did that. I believe that, too.
- [07:09]
Vince
God did that. God did that. The left was sharing that clip this weekend as a way to attack Trump. So saying that he was being self indulgent. I don't think that was self indulgent. He acknowledged the role that God has played in his life and in the life of our nation. That was great. And also, it's an immense honor to be the President of the United States to mark a quarter century of the existence of our country. 250 years. I wouldn't have it any other way. I'm glad Joe Biden's not running the show for the 250th. I'm glad Kamala Harris is not running the show for the 250th. And I'm glad Trump is a guy who actually loves the country and wants to celebrate it, is gonna be in charge for the 250th anniversary this coming year. I love that. And also, there's a lot going on. He mentioned the World Cup. He's got the Olympics. But don't forget, of course, the 250th birthday of the United States army, the 250th birthday of the united States Navy, the 250th birthday of the United States Marine Corps. It's all happening. And this is the president that gets to oversee it, gets to be the master of ceremonies for this, for the United States. Very awesome. And he says it's only by the grace of God that this even happened. And I think he's right. We've talked about this before, but President Trump leaves office. And what is it that Dan Bongino used to say? Is it bad enough yet? Is it bad enough yet? That was the question. And for you and I, yeah, it was bad enough. It was definitely bad enough. Bring us Trump back, please get rid of Biden. But it wasn't bad enough yet for too many in the country who decided to go with Biden, who endured the suffering those four years with that guy in office and decided that they would make the 2024 election too big to rig. Is it bad enough yet? The voters with a resounding voice said, yes, it is. Let's overwhelm the system with our votes. And they did. And they put President Trump back in a position here to oversee again the 250th anniversary of our country. Wonderful stuff. The president not the only one to speak. JD Vance also honoring the fallen here. Here he is cut five by talking about, here's how we honor the fallen. We honor their sacrifice by being very cautious about when we send our men and women to war.
- [09:26]
J.D. Vance
Look, now all of us will honor the fallen and their families in our own way. But allow me to suggest two ways of honoring their sacrifice, two ways that I try to honor their sacrifice every day. First, we ought to commit ourselves and expect from our leaders to treat the lives of our troops as the most precious resource. The very best way, the very best way to honor the fallen is to only ask the next generation to make the ultimate sacrifice when they absolutely must. We must be cautious in sending our people to war.
- [10:11]
Vince
These are human lives on the line. And it is the most important decision a commander in chief can make about whether or not to put those lives on the line. And for what purpose would you do that? That's the most important thing. It is really encouraging to hear a Vice President of the United States, a United States Marine, get up there and say, we don't just send our boys to war for nothing. We send them with a purpose. And so we have to be very careful about when we use these lives, put those lives on the line, and for what cause. This is not something, by the way, that you hear very often from Washington. I know this sounds, because it is like a common sense thing, but normally America's leaders don't talk this way. You don't usually hear from presidents and vice presidents of the United States talking about how we have to be cautious with the use of these great American lives. There's the vice President of the United States saying it in the face of an establishment that hardly cares at all. God bless him for that. A great message. And he's right. We're going to honor the sacrifices of the people who have fallen in the past. We need to be careful with the people whose lives are entrusted to us going forward into the future. Great, great message. Also, Pete Hegseth, Secretary of Defense, also a veteran himself, had this to say about who the American soldier fights for.
- [11:37]
Pete Hegseth
You see, the American soldier fights not because he hates what's in front of him, but because he loves what's behind him. We honor his selfish sacrifice, his courage, his duty and his love. As Jesus taught his disciples, greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. This love is a gift given freely. And yet this gift comes with responsibility. To those living, we owe a duty to those who have fallen in war, they have paid a debt we can never repay. And for that we owe gratitude and remembrance.
- [12:20]
Vince
God bless them. Isn't that nice to hear somebody talk about Christ in that way, to hear somebody talk about sincerely, about the value of this human life. These Americans who fought and died for us. What a beautiful change of pace. What a beautiful change of pace. And three very good men getting up there delivering that powerful message. So my thanks to all Three of them for delivering a powerful message at Arlington this week. Totally typical for these guys. They do so on a routine basis, but really neat to see. And I wanted to share that with you because I do think coming out of Memorial Day, that the whole point is remembrance. And I want to dwell on that because it matters. It matters a great deal. We have a really great country and we have so many fallen to thank for that. They gave all so we could have so much. Okay, let me move on now to what is going on. There are people in our country who are looking to continue to actively undermine it and to turn it into something. Garbage. Turn it into complete garbage. That includes James Comey. Don't let this idiot fool you. This guy, I shouldn't even call him an idiot because he knows exactly what he's doing here. Going from that beach nonsense where he takes a bunch of shells, arranges them into 8647, which means get rid of the President of the United States, dispense with him. Then he moves into all these interviews that he's been doing. It's all to promote a stupid book. But one of the interviews that he just did this weekend with the former White House press secretary for Joe Biden, Jen Psaki, I think contains the latest iteration of Comey just being completely dangerous and pretending like he's not doing anything wrong. This is just completely innocent. This is just political analysis. And instead, what James Comey is doing is. Is trying to convince active FBI agents to undermine the American voter and the President of the United States. Take a look at James Comey with Jen Psaki.
- [14:17]
James Comey
I mean, one of the things that is happening now is that the Trump administration is, of course, testing the system in ways it hasn't been tested before in the law enforcement sense. Do you think there are laws that should be put in place that would help better manage this that aren't in place now? I mean, are we equipped, Is the law enforcement system and the legal system equipped to deal with what we're seeing now?
- [14:40]
Jen Psaki
Probably there could be changes at the margins, but in the main, we have the tools. There are cultural impediments to doing this work. Let's say you work in the FBI. You know that one of the two political parties is, let me put it nicely, white supremacist adjacent at a minimum. And so why would you want to throw your career on that side of the line and be summoned to Capitol Hill to. He asked, why are you pursuing these innocent groups? And so we have a cultural impediment to working it Effectively, that should get more attention than it does.
- [15:12]
Vince
What a complete jackass that guy is. What a complete jackass James Comey is. You know what he's doing here? There's a bunch of things. One, he says that it's Republicans, wink, nod. He says on MSNBC with Joe Biden's press secretary, they're white supremacist adjacent. That's what he's saying. He's saying that somehow they're crypto bigots or whatever. You understand something really clearly here. If there's any party that is wedded itself to judging people on the basis of their skin color, if there's any party that has bigoted prejudice, animating its underlying principles, it's the Democrats. It's the party that James Comey is associated with. James Comey's Instagram is littered with all sorts of resistance garbage. The guy's hanging up rainbow flags, transgender flags, suggesting that people are born in mistaken bodies, joining in on all of this left wing bigoted garbage. That's not acceptance, that's destruction. That's destruction. And so Comey starts there by casting aspersions on Republicans, generally suggesting that the American voters who chose Trump did something wrong because they're bad people. That's his view on the subject. And then he goes on, he thinks he's being really cute here. This is just some analysis. He says, you know, you know, there's cultural impediments going on at the FBI. Cultural impediments? What does he mean when he says cultural impediments? What he's saying is that there's an act of resistance going on inside of the Federal Bureau of Investigation to stop the agenda of the President of the United States. Because in Comey's view, it's an illegitimate agenda. Screw the voters and what they want. To hell with them. We're not going to do what they want. We're gonna resist it because we have a culture that doesn't support the American voter. That's what he's saying there. Now he dresses this up in this absurd language of these FBI guys. You wouldn't wanna go after one of these innocent groups. You don't wanna be called in front of Congress to account for that behavior. If you do this, and there is no evidence to support that, what he just said is conspiracy theory garbage. Nowhere along the line has the Trump FBI, led by Cash Patel and Dan Bongino. Nowhere along the line is the President, United States or Pam Bondi ever gone after innocent groups or they're hassling people who don't Deserve it. Or they're investigating things that aren't crimes. Those are the behaviors of the American left when they have power. Those are the behaviors of people like James Comey, who send FBI agents after Mike Flynn in order to destroy his life and his family life. So spare us your stupid lectures about let's not abuse power. Let's not go after innocent people. They. That's precisely what you did. Call me. Who have interfered in election after election using the power of the FBI. So there he is. He's trying to be cute. He's pretending like I'm doing something very defensible here, when in fact he's going on resistance television and urging every FBI agent he can get to do it. To resist the President of the United States. And that means to resist the will of the American voter. And this is entirely about going after crimes in real life. This is about going after crimes. That's what's happening here. So this is disgraceful, what we're seeing out of Comey yet again. Additionally, I've got an update. Speaking of the FBI, I've got an update for you out of our friend Dan Bongino, the FBI Deputy Director who posted the following this week. Fellas, if we could pull my screen up here. Let me get this full screen for you. He posts the following just yesterday, now seven o'clock in the morning. Thanks for following this account, allowing us to update what we're doing at the FBI. A few updates for you. One, the director and I will have most of our incoming reform teams in place by next week. The hiring process can take a little bit of time, he says, but we're approaching that finish line. This will help us both in doubling down on our reform agenda. Reform agenda. Do you know what the reform agenda means? The reform agenda means cleaning out the kind of garbage that would be a part of the resistance to the President of the United States. That's the reform agenda. Dan, kind of using, you know, the business language to describe purging the bad forces inside of the FBI. That's the reform agenda. He continues here. He says, shortly after swearing in, the director and I evaluated a number of cases of potential public corruption that understandably have garnered public interest. We made the decision to either reopen or push additional resources and investigative action attention rather to these cases. Okay, Understand what I just read to you. This is what Dan is saying. Public corruption. Public corruption. You know what public corruption is? That's when a government official abuses their power. Okay, so what kind of cases, in his view, involves a government official abusing Their power. Well, look right here. These cases, he writes, are the D.C. pipe bombing investigation, the cocaine discovery at the prior administration's White House, and the leak of the Supreme Court Dobbs case. This is a deeply important paragraph in this post from Dan this week. Public corruption cases, that is government officials abusing their power, include the pipe bomb investigation, the cocaine discovery at the White House, and of course, the leak of the Supreme Court Dobbs case. Now, that makes the last one. Obviously, that's the only way that happens, right? A government official leaked the Supreme Court case. We know that. But if he says that the D.C. pipe bomb investigation involves public corruption, or at least he suspects it does, that means he believes that government officials played some role in what went down in the D.C. pipe bombing investigation. That's a really big deal. And the cocaine discovery at the prior administration's White House, they're investigating that as a public corruption case. So this is a massive, massive piece of this. I would not miss this this week. Keep an eye on that. He continues here. He said, the director and I have done our only one media interview together. That's what they did with Maria Bartiromo. We decided early on to limit our media footprint overall in order to keep the attention on the work being done. There are both positives and negatives to this approach. We've chosen to communicate in writing on this platform to fill some of the inevitable information vacuums. I try to read as much feedback as possible, but the workday is busy. My office is a scif. That means that's where they do classified information. They can't bring phones and stuff in. He says has limited phone access. In response to feedback, both positive and negative, from our interview last week, we will be releasing more information which will further clarify answers to some of the questions asked in the interview. Okay, this is the last big takeaway I have for you from this. He says that he's been hearing the responses from people, both positive and negative, from the Maria Bartiromo interview. Now, what is negative? What is negative? Forget what the left says about this. This is mostly just people on the right. I think that he's caring about here, this negative response. The negative response was, well, wait a second. You said Epstein killed himself in the interview. I don't believe that that's what so many of us responded with. Well, wait a second. You said Epstein killed himself. Can we have more details about that? And so I believe that what Dan is saying here, this is based on no other information than what I'm reading to you that they intend to release More information about Epstein's death coming up soon. He said more of this information will soon be released which will further clarify the answers to some of the questions that were asked in the interview. So I'm looking forward to that. I suspect that's probably Epstein information that's gonna come out. So useful stuff. Very useful stuff. And I hope Dan keeps up the effort of constantly giving us updates to the extent that he can. All right, in just a moment, I wanna bring in the commissioner of the fda. We're gonna chat with him. Before we get there though, I wanna thank our sponsors. You know, this administration has had their sleeves rolled up and streamlining monumental moves right now. But it's difficult for them to take your personal finances into account when they're trying to fix the country. 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Fellas, make sure to do that because I want to bring in our guest and have a good conversation with him. Good uninterrupted conversation with him. Blackout Coffee. Blackout Coffee is awesome. It's a great sponsor of this program and it supercharges my day every day. John is the owner of Blackout Coffee. He's the real deal. He built an amazing coffee company, Blackout Coffee, from the ground up and they don't compromise on quality or values. This is America first coffee. It's delicious and it's roasted fresh right here in the United States. No woke nonsense. Just bold strong coffee for people who actually get stuff done. And as you know, blackout coffee has been the official coffee of everybody here at Silverlock. So you know this is a brand that stands for the Right. Values. I drink my coffee black, which means I can tell whether it's good or not. And blackout coffee is fantastic. Here's the deal for you. John is hooking you up. Head over to blackoutcoffee.com Vince. Use the code Vince. That's V, I, N, C, E for 20% off your first order. Whether you like whole bean ground or even instant coffee that doesn't suck, blackout coffee has you covered. Support a company that actually shares your values. Blackoutcoffee.com Vince. You can use the code Vince and you will get 20% off your first order. Blackout coffee. Come on in, doc. Let's get Dr. Marty Makary in here. Here he is. Nice to see you. There's the FDA commissioner in the building. How does it feel to be the FDA commissioner? Did you ever imagine that would happen?
- [25:44]
Marty Makary
No. Pretty wild.
- [25:45]
Vince
It is pretty wild, pretty cool. And you've got a lot on your plate right away.
- [25:49]
Marty Makary
The FDA regulates about 20% of the U.S. economy.
- [25:52]
Vince
Yeah.
- [25:52]
Marty Makary
And the agency has had a lot of opportunities to modernize, so we've been busy.
- [25:57]
Vince
Yes, you have. The fda. One of the things that always bugs me about the FDA is the start of the opioid crisis is often attributed in no small part to the role that FDA officials played in basically signing off on OxyContin and saying that it wasn't addictive, even though it is highly addictive. And as a result, we had an opioid crisis absolutely explode. And then apparently the guy who signed off on it goes and works for Purdue Pharma afterwards.
- [26:26]
Marty Makary
Yeah, right away.
- [26:27]
Vince
So you've gotta be on guard for that kind of corruption, don't you?
- [26:30]
Marty Makary
Yeah. The agency has gone through cycles where it's been captured by the industry it's supposed to regulate. And that was probably the ultimate low point of the fda. And you know, we have to recognize that we can create health crises as a government, as we did with OxyContin. That was an illegal label. That was an approval for chronic pain based on a 14 day study. And so it was totally inappropriate. Vioxx, we learned years after it was approved that 38,000Americans may have died from Vioxx. So we're doing something pretty cool, which is to get eyes on a drug the second it's approved in big data. So we're using AI, we're using big data. We, we are using computational modeling to predict if a drug is dangerous before it goes through animal testing, because mostly animal testing is unnecessary. And so we're reducing animal testing. We've made that Announcement?
- [27:23]
Vince
Yeah.
- [27:24]
Marty Makary
You know, God did not put these animals on Earth for us to torture them. And so we are figuring out every place where animal testing is unnecessary.
- [27:31]
Vince
So wait, so you've gotten rid of some of it already, right? I mean, because, you know, we all have reasons to be angry at Anthony Fauci, but one of them was that he was signing off on the torture of beagles on a routine basis. There was one experiment. You know the details better than I do, but I remember something to do with. They put the heads of these beagles inside of boxes and then filled them with fleas.
- [27:50]
Marty Makary
That's horrible.
- [27:51]
Vince
And then they were tearing up the beagles. People hear that, and they're rightly completely outraged by it.
- [27:57]
Marty Makary
I mean, just because you can do something in science doesn't mean you should. And look at, you know, messing with a bad coronavirus in Wuhan or doing these beagle experiments. They were trying to show that a fly could spread. A certain biting type of fly could spread a certain infection. Well, you don't need to do these mad scientist experiments to know that. And if you know it, what are you going to do with that information? So we're reducing unnecessary animal testing. We're doing it with NIH and J. Bhattacharya. And so we're doing a lot of cool stuff, and it's an exciting time.
- [28:31]
Vince
You're also reducing the amount of medicines that the FDA recommends get injected into human beings, which is nice. It was last week, I think, that you came out and said, enough with COVID jabs for the kids. Enough with COVID jabs for everybody under the age of 65. That's not happening unless we have some extraordinarily good data to support it. Can you take us through the decision making there? What happened?
- [28:54]
Marty Makary
We're bringing back science to this process. You know, when I got there, the FDA was just rubber stamping Covid vaccines, and it was gonna do so in Perpetu. So if a girl born today lives 80 years, they would get 80 Covid shots in their lifetime. With an FDA just rubber stamping, with no clinical trial data every year, just approving. So we said, we're not doing that. We're bringing back science. We are going to require for healthy Americans some clinical data to let us know that these Covid shots are still safe and effective. That is, you need them. How do you know you need them? I mean, Covid now is less virulent. The population immunity is ubiquitous.
- [29:37]
Vince
Yes.
- [29:38]
Marty Makary
I mean, with hepatitis B, we say you need two or three shots, depending on the age you start with MMR, we say two. Why is it with the COVID shots, it's 80?
- [29:50]
Vince
Yes.
- [29:50]
Marty Makary
And using the flu model doesn't work because flu's been around for 80 years and we have a long experience. There have been 40 plus trials on the flu shot. It's a totally different animal. It doesn't. Covid, doesn't mutate anywhere near as fast as the influenza virus. So how can you make an honest recommendation without clinical data? We're bringing back data.
- [30:11]
Vince
But doesn't, you know, the COVID jabs, forcing them, especially on young people, hasn't it just been hurting them? I mean, the downsides seem more meaningful than the upsides.
- [30:19]
Marty Makary
Well, as you may have seen in the news the last couple days, it turns out the FDA knew about the myocarditis complication in young boys.
- [30:27]
Vince
Swollen heart.
- [30:28]
Marty Makary
Swollen hearts with now evidence that say roughly a third or more will have long term scar tissue. That is what appears to be permanent. They knew about the myocarditis complication and did not make a public announcement or disclosure or warning about it until months after, when they should have. So this is the sort of stuff that ruins public trust and hurts all of us who are physicians who need the trust of the public. So, you know, we're taking a lot of steps to try to rebuild that public trust. And one of them, one of those steps is to say, show us the data. We're gonna be evidence based.
- [31:02]
Vince
Okay. Does the. So let me go back for a second. You mentioned hepatitis B, and I'm curious about that because I know a lot of parents of newborns, they have to make decisions about which vaccines their kids get right away. There's a vaccine schedule, Right? Does the FDA handle the vaccine schedule? That's a recommended schedule of vaccines to receive.
- [31:19]
Marty Makary
It's actually at the cdc.
- [31:21]
Vince
Oh, it's at the cdc. Okay. But I'll ask you anyway, because as a medical doctor and as the commissioner of the fda, one of the things that I heard the incoming Surgeon General, KC Means talk about in the past is that hepatitis B is a sexually transmitted disease. So why is a newborn being given a hepatitis B vaccine at all? What's the point of that?
- [31:43]
Marty Makary
You know, I think a lot of people are appropriately asking that question, and a lot of people are saying, no hepatitis B shot at birth, in the delivery, on the day of delivery for my child, because it is. It's spread by sexually transmitted or a bloodborne. Occupational hazard. I mean, what's the baby gonna do? Like step on a hepatitis B needle while they're in the hospital. So a lot of people appropriately say, this doesn't make sense. And so, you know, I think the CDC has taken a look at all of that. I think you have to respect the questions people are asking. You can't blow them off. The most dangerous thing you can do in medicine is to put out something with such absolutism when the data is very flimsy to support it. Now they might say, we're never going to see the kid again. So this is our chance to get them immunized. Well, these are human beings. They're not aliens or wild animals that you've captured, and you get to poke and prod them. We have to do things based on good evidence. And the evidence to support doing it at birth is really not there. Other countries don't do it at birth.
- [32:48]
Vince
And also treating all of this like it's a matter of religious orthodoxy is just really alienating people. They're like, you know, people. They don't trust the system and for good reason, because they're not treated like the adults that they are.
- [32:57]
Marty Makary
85% of healthcare workers did not get the COVID booster last season. Yes. What does that tell you?
- [33:03]
Vince
That tells you everything. Yeah, I was gonna ask you about that. 1 in 6 healthcare workers, only 1 in 6 keep getting the COVID jab. Everybody else is not doing it. And I've seen some of the coverage of this, including your decision to back off on these recommendations for everybody to get Covid jabs all the time. And one of the critiques is like, well, I saw Stat News wrote about it. They were like, well, one in six healthcare workers are getting the COVID jabs. And then they get some expert to respond, and they're like, well, that's basically like science by public opinion polling. That's not the way we should do it. Saying, even healthcare professionals are being ridiculous. That's what they're saying.
- [33:35]
Marty Makary
It's always the same couple doctors that these news outlets are citing go to people. These are the same folks that misled us during COVID And so, no, look, I think we got to rebuild public trust. And the way you do that is being incredibly honest. We're being very transparent with everything we're doing at the FDA. Dr. Vinay Prasad and I just published in the New England Journal of Medicine last week our framework of how we see COVID vaccine regulation. Basically saying, we've got to get back to both gold standard science and common sense. We got to be practical. It's been four years since we've had randomized trials in humans that showed an efficacy. It was a very different virus. Then it was a better match with the circulating virus. There was low natural immunity in the population. And we learned that some of that effect was transient. That is your baseline risk. Your risk came back to almost the baseline level after a transient period. So we cannot be blind. We have to use a scientific approach. And we do that for every other drug at the fda. Right. There are cures for cancer, you know, and it's for certain types of cancer that is not all cancer. And why does it take 10 years for a drug to come to market in the United States? We gotta ask these big questions. So we're streamlining the process every place we can.
- [34:50]
Vince
Okay, so let's talk about drugs. And the president just said recently, he announced that he doesn't want drug prices to be like berserk here in the United States and then super cheap in other countries for these American drugs. He said it's totally unfair. And I agree, because it seems to me that if the price is out of control here, all we're doing is we are subsidizing. So American drug users are both paying for their drug and paying for some other country to get these drugs.
- [35:18]
Marty Makary
It's the great American ripoff.
- [35:19]
Vince
So what's going on here with these.
- [35:20]
Marty Makary
Prices we're getting taken advantage of? I mean, I think they're laughing at us in other countries. They negotiate sweetheart deals that the drug companies give them in other countries. So a drug can be one tenth the price. You know, a drug for 1100, $1200 in the United States is $88 in London and 100 some in Germany. And so they're laughing at us. Now, pharma, the pharma's budget for research and development's about 15 to 20% of their overall revenue. Their budget for marketing is 20 to 30%. So they're spending more on these commercials where everyone's dancing and singing non stop. Yeah, I mean, I watch some of these so called news shows and it's basically a non stop running pharma advertisement with an occasional insertion of some, you know, news. And then we got to go right back to break and then it's more singing and dancing. Are these claims, are they creating an accurate picture of the claims of the medication?
- [36:19]
Vince
Yes.
- [36:20]
Marty Makary
And so we're looking at everything, we're looking at direct to consumer ads.
- [36:23]
Vince
Yep. Meaning potentially banning those.
- [36:26]
Marty Makary
We would not ban them, but we have the ability to assess whether or not they're providing an accurate picture for the viewer. And Honestly, I don't even know if these companies are trying to entice people to use their products or they're just channeling money to all the news outlets.
- [36:45]
Vince
Well, that seems to be the case. I mean, I remember Tucker Carlson showing, when he was on Fox, he showed a big clip of all of the news operations that were paid for by Pfizer. So they kept showing every news clip during COVID And then this segment brought to you by Pfizer. This segment brought to you by Pfizer over and over and over again. So wait a second. All of these news operations are being funded by the drug companies, so they have every incentive not to be tough on the drug companies in the face of a very important health crisis.
- [37:18]
Marty Makary
Yeah, it's tricky because on one hand we believe in the First Amendment and on the other hand, we don't. As an fda, we don't want a company to misrepresent their product to the public. I mean, the process that they go through to get approved by the FDA includes a part where they have to show what their claims are to the public. And are they creating a notion that if you just take our drug, you're gonna be singing and dancing and playing the banjo and on jet skis and, you know, nonstop? I mean, I watch these things. They're so convincing.
- [37:51]
Vince
Yes.
- [37:51]
Marty Makary
You know, I don't even know what the drug is for sometimes. And I'll be like, okay, I'll take it. I give up. I give up. I'll take it.
- [37:57]
Vince
Yeah, no, that's right. My life's gonna be like that. Yeah, I'll do that. Yeah, no, that. It is ridiculous. But it. So, so you have tried to decrease the influence of the drug companies. The Trump administration has. There isn't, there's, there's advisory panels. Right, that, that work with you. And is it right that the pharmaceutical companies occupied a bunch of the seats?
- [38:17]
Marty Makary
So pharma and industry had people as members of our FDA advisory committees. In other words, some of the FDA advisors, almost all the FDA advisory committees had a pharma or industry employee as a member of the FDA advisory committee. So one of the first things I did is I removed all industry and pharma members of FDA advisory committees. Wherever statutorily possible, we have to have a scientific process that's impeccably independent. At the same time, we can partner with America's pharma developers and inventors and create a user friendly process for them. Streamline the process. You know, one of our goals is to deliver more cures for the American public. And there's amazing stuff now for neurodegenerative diseases, for diabetes. I mean, the stuff that I see, it's an amazing privilege at the FDA to see what's in the pipeline. We, you know, our goal is very simple. We want to use gold standard science and common sense to bring more cures for the American public and meaningful treatments and healthier food for children. And so you saw, we banned or we went ahead with the removal action on the petroleum based food dyes.
- [39:25]
Vince
Yes.
- [39:26]
Marty Makary
So we took that bold step and it's incredibly popular.
- [39:31]
Vince
What do those food dyes do to people? Why remove them? There's obviously a reason.
- [39:34]
Marty Makary
There have been some studies suggesting that they affect the behavior of children. There are many parents who have said that when they eliminated in sort of an elimination diet these artificial petroleum based food dyes, there's nine of them in the United States. When they eliminate them, the kids behavior improves. And when they're reintroduced, then the kid's behavior gets worse again. So those are data points. They're not randomized controlled trials. There was a randomized control trial that found the same conclusion. So we're saying, what are we waiting for? Do we want to do a randomized trial injecting half of our nation's children with, with petroleum products and half without and then follow them for 10 years?
- [40:15]
Vince
Also, the point of the dye doesn't change the quality of the food. I mean, well, actually you're saying it deteriorates it, but it doesn't even change the flavor.
- [40:25]
Marty Makary
There's no taste.
- [40:26]
Vince
It's just a visual appeal. And so it turns out there's only downside to it. It's just meant to convince a child that that's the kind of thing they want to eat.
- [40:34]
Marty Makary
It's messing with the kid's brain. There have been studies that show it's messing with the developing brain of a child. Kind of suggesting these are attractive.
- [40:42]
Vince
Yes.
- [40:42]
Marty Makary
You know, if you create these very attractive rainbow of colors, kids are drawn to them. And so, you know, what we're doing is we're creating, we have a food system in the United states now that's 70% ultra processed in the diet of kids and thousands of ingredients that are banned in other countries that we have all over the US food supply, including these petroleum based dyes. You know, the food companies make two versions of their cereal, one for Americans with the petroleum based dyes and one for Canadians without and you know, and Europeans without. And so what are we doing? We are drugging our nation's kids at scale for behavioral problems, for depression, for autoimmune diseases, for diabetes, for obesity. And no one is talking about the ultra processed food. So we are. We now have this MAHA Commission report that is taking a hard look at that and sets our agenda.
- [41:35]
Vince
How many drug companies also own food companies? So how many companies. So in other words, are there companies that are generating this also processed food that are both selling the food product and then they're also on the other side selling drugs to resolve the issues that come with all of that?
- [41:52]
Marty Makary
I don't know of any that do both, but maybe you're thinking of Monsanto is owned by Bayer. The drug company Monsanto that makes pesticides is owned by Bayer. Yeah, but I think a lot of people look at this stuff and they're just like, can we just get back to whole foods? Like things that grow out of the earth? So we're doing a lot on foods at the fda.
- [42:12]
Vince
Okay. So on that quest, I have all sorts of friends, including myself, who are obsessed with eating healthier these days, knowing what we know now. And one of the ways you assess when you go to the grocery store is that they have organic labels on food. And that's your job. FDA organic, it says on it. And so the big question is, are those legit? If something says FDA organic, is that some sort of seal of approval that your agency has given? And how do we tell the difference between something that's healthy or maybe this isn't exactly what it says it is.
- [42:44]
Marty Makary
USDA does a lot of the organic inspections and FDA also. But I think it's good to generally move towards less chemicals in the diet. I think it's just a good thing. I think it's good for you kids. It's not a perfect label, but it does indicate that there are far less chemicals or sometimes even no chemicals in the food.
- [43:05]
Vince
Right. Okay. All right. So not a bad way to assess things. Yeah, I do wonder about that. Is it? So you are being. You're talking about diet and health. It's so funny. In preparation for this interview, I was like, let's see what Marty Makary is in the news for. And one of the things you're in the news for this week is they're attacking you. The left is mad at you for recommending that diabetics eat healthier. Apparently you had said that it'd be better, quote, maybe we need to treat more diabetes with cooking classes, not just throwing insulin at people. You said, you know, scientists have been waving the flag for years saying you've gotta look at this body of scientific data and the modern medical establishment really has been disconnected. So you said that on Fox this weekend. What do you mean by that?
- [43:52]
Marty Makary
Look, maybe we need to treat more back pain with ice and physical therapy than just surgery and opioids. Maybe we need to treat more high blood pressure by talking about the quality of somebody's sleep instead of just throwing antihypertensives after antihypertensives at people. And maybe we need to talk about food as medicine and the microbiome. And that includes we have to look at everything. And that means can we take a different approach to some patients with diabetes? Can we not just treat them with insulin and metformin and all the drugs I've been prescribing my entire career at Johns Hopkins and talk about root causes and get them fresh, healthy foods and get them educated on a lot of these issues instead of the misinformation of the food pyramid the government has propagated. And can we talk about things like cooking classes instead of just treating people? We have a reactionary healthcare system. Yes, but purely throwing medication and operations at people, I mean, that is almost 99% of it. And we need to be not just reactionary, but proactive. And that's what the Maha Commission report outlines. It looks at everything. It looks at light exposure in children, it looks at microplastics, talks about pesticides, talks about ultra processed food being 70% of the child's diet. Today, something is going on and no one has a good explanation. 40% of kids now have a cross chronic disease and half our nation's kids are sick in some way.
- [45:16]
Vince
40% of chronic disease. 40%. So what are the most typical chronic diseases?
- [45:20]
Marty Makary
ADHD, depression, diabetes, obesity, something we call insulin resistance, which is sort of early diabetes or pre diabetes. If you take five college students and they all look thin as a rail just like you do, like healthy. And probably two of them has early insulin resistance.
- [45:40]
Vince
Wow.
- [45:41]
Marty Makary
And that is because it may not manifest at that young age where the body is very resilient, but we've got to talk about it. So we can't just feed bad food to our nation's children, drug them at scale and blame them for their sickness. That's what we do. We blame kids for being sick subconsciously.
- [45:58]
Vince
It wasn't that long ago, a couple decades back, that it would be almost impossible to find a diabetic child. And now we are seeing that.
- [46:06]
Marty Makary
Oh yeah, you're right. I mean, two generations ago, a pediatrician might see one kid with type 2 diabetes in their career yes, that's what I mean.
- [46:14]
Vince
Type 2 diabetes.
- [46:15]
Marty Makary
Yeah. And now it's like 20% of kids, one in five kids will have diabetes or pre diabetes or early insulin resistant of teens. And so what are we doing? We've got to stop sometimes we're engaging as a medical profession in the over medicalization of ordinary life. The kid doesn't sit still in a desk. When you mess up their circadian rhythm, feed them ultra processed refined carbohydrates and then they won't sit still at a desk for six hours. And we say bad kid, take this medication. What are we doing?
- [46:48]
Vince
Especially with boys. That's one. I heard somebody describe it once that in schools they treat boys like they're broken girls, they don't act the same way as the girls and that the boys get treated worse as a result there's something wrong with them. And my reaction to that has always been you've gotta run them. So they got to have a healthy diet and they've got to have a lot of recess.
- [47:10]
Marty Makary
Run em right.
- [47:11]
Vince
Just get the energy out. You want them to focus, let them get that energy out. They're boys, they're supposed to run. Yes, yes, I think, I think so. What are the chances of success here? I mean this is the most unique group of health professionals I've ever seen assembled in an administration. I'm shocked by it, I'm overjoyed by it. I'm glad you're there. I'm GLAD we got Dr. Casey. Means showing up.
- [47:35]
Marty Makary
She's awesome.
- [47:36]
Vince
HHS Secretary RFK Junior is there. This seems like a once in a lifetime opportunity. What are you guys gonna do with it?
- [47:43]
Marty Makary
Look, we have to do everything we can because the path we're on is totally unsustainable. You know, healthcare is the biggest part of the federal budget and it's not just Medicare and Medicaid. The Defense Department has its own health care system. Half of Social Security checks now are being used for health care expenses from, you know, uncovered services and co pays and coinsurance. It is consuming our US economy. It is an underlying problem that's burdening businesses and the competitiveness of the United States and individuals. And so we have to tackle this by not just talking about the issues around the periphery, like different ways to pay for things. In healthcare we have got to talk about the health of the population.
- [48:29]
Vince
So on the cost side, here's something that I would love to see and I'm sure you'd wanna see it too. I wanna see math to tell me how much money we can Save if we make the population healthier. Because that's a missing component to the debate. That always kind of drives me crazy. I ask sometimes, like, you know, economics guys, conservative politics, economics guys. Well, wait a second. We're spending all this money on healthcare in Washington, the only debate is, do we spend more on health care? Do we spend less on healthcare? It's always this stupid debate instead of how do we get a healthier population that doesn't require all of these drugs?
- [49:03]
Marty Makary
That's right.
- [49:04]
Vince
And so the question I have is, let's just say we were able to decrease chronic disease by 10% in the United States. What does that mean in terms of dollars?
- [49:12]
Marty Makary
Yeah.
- [49:13]
Vince
What would that number be? And maybe you are equipped with the answer to that today. But I feel like in this debate, I keep kind of wondering what the answer to that is. Because if we had a healthier population, that seems to me it could go a very long way towards getting our fiscal house in order as well.
- [49:28]
Marty Makary
Yeah, well, 70% of health care costs are related to chronic diseases. And the drug costs is another portion of that remaining amount of the budget. And so the president wants to see drug prices go down by 50 to 80%. He's sick of us getting ripped off. And you're seeing Mehmet Oz, who's really a transformational leader over at cms, talk about an entirely new, fresh approach of paying for health care. We can't just keep throwing good money after bad into this system. At the fda, we've got to talk not just about gene therapy and proton beam therapy and chemotherapy. We. Which is my old world, we've got to talk about that and healthier food for children. We've gotta look at what we're consuming. Talc was in baby powder and then they got rid of it because of an association with ovarian cancer. There's been a lot in the news about it. So we got rid of talc out of baby powder. But do you know over 20 million Americans are eating talc every day in their medications? Cause it's used as a lubricant in the medication processing. It's in the medication. Kids are eating talc in candy. We just had a roundtable at the FDA on this issue. So we've got to examine everything we're doing and asking. Why are cancer rates going up in young people in the United States? Why is early onset Alzheimer's gone up by 35%? Yes, we've got to ask these giant questions by taking a look at our food supply. And that's a Huge priority.
- [50:55]
Vince
So you have the food pyramid at the fda.
- [51:00]
Marty Makary
Embarrassingly, we do kind of own that.
- [51:02]
Vince
So we started the conversation talking about the opioid crisis. But another embarrassment of the FDA is the extent to which there was industry capture to build the food pyramid, which was not based on health. It was based on the special interests who were able to buy access to the fda. That's why it recommended that the biggest thing you eat is grains every day. You need lots of carbs, eat lots of bread. That ended up being an insane thing. Insane to do what can be done not just while you're here now, but for the future to safeguard that agency against that type of destructive capture. Because I think about the fda, I think most people think, okay, it's an agency that's supposed to be dedicated to health, but far too frequently it hasn't been. It's actually been dedicated to lining someone else's pocket at the rest of our expense.
- [51:48]
Marty Makary
Well, we're redoing the food pyramid with Brooke Rawlings and a lot of great food scientists. We are now redoing that entire, entire heap of misinformation that was foisted on the American public for decades. Ignoring the role of refined carbohydrates and sugar, ignoring the role of ultra processed food, ignoring so many of the dangerous food chemicals that are in our food supply that people have had concerns about. Scientists have been waving the flag for years about them. They're banned in other countries and demonizing natural fat. Natural fat has been around for millennia. I mean, and all of a sudden, you know, a bunch of doctors decided to demonize it. And they did three major studies to prove that natural fat was. That drove heart disease deaths. And all three studies failed to show that. And so they were. They didn't. They wanted to save face, and so they didn't. You know, when the medical field gets something wrong, they don't come out with a broad apology. You saw this after Covid. It's just kind of. They just kind of fade out, you know, they just kind of fade back.
- [52:53]
Vince
Yes.
- [52:54]
Marty Makary
And so we're redoing the food pyramid and, you know, we may not get it perfect, but people should know that they've got to do. They've got to educate themselves with their doctors, with people who understand food and farming and regenerative farming, and get back to the basics sometimes. You know, my grandmother had some of the best insights on nutrition, and it turns out she was more right than all the experts I was taught by in medical school and throughout my training. So we got to get back to the basics?
- [53:23]
Vince
Yeah, for sure. Okay, then let's just end there. Lastly, on the basics, what should the average American household do to improve the health of their family right now? If there was one thing you could have everybody just knock out right away, what would that be?
- [53:35]
Marty Makary
Drink water. Cook. Instead of buy things pre frozen and with 500 ingredients on a little bar.
- [53:44]
Vince
You know, so that matters the number of ingredients. You know, for years, I gotta be honest, and I'll say with a little sense of shame and guilt, I always kind of mocked this. I always mocked this as like, hippie nonsense. I was like, oh, you're reading the label, the nutrition facts, whatever, all that stuff that you can't pronounce. That's because you're not a scientist. That's all. You just don't know. And I would stuff the latest DiGiorno in my face. But you're saying that the people who were suspicious of the labels were right to be.
- [54:08]
Marty Makary
Why is it that in my career, I've seen people come in with chronic abdominal pain? We do everything, every test under the sun, we throw meds at them, we give them these bogus general diagnoses, these umbrella terms that basically mean we have no idea and no one can crack the case. And then we hear that they went to Europe for a summer and they're cured when they're in Europe because they're just eating healthier food over there.
- [54:33]
Vince
Yeah.
- [54:33]
Marty Makary
That is a seething indictment of our US Food supplies. Right.
- [54:37]
Vince
And is it true you and I have had this conversation before, but is it true that medical educations almost include no dietary component? That the dietary side of things is considered an afterthought for medical education?
- [54:52]
Marty Makary
Well, my medical education included a couple hours of nutrition education, but it would have been better if it were zero because the few hours were misinformation. I mean, it is historically one of the most corrupted sciences in all of science, that is nutrition. So people are seeing, you know, they're getting educated now directly through podcasts with, you know, nutritionists and medical doctors like Peter Attia and Mark Hyman and people who are now bringing the truth. And it's amazing how in medical school, we never once ever talked about pesticides and microplastics having estrogen binding properties. Or why the sperm counts have gone down 50% in the last half century.
- [55:34]
Vince
Yeah.
- [55:34]
Marty Makary
Or why the age of puberty goes down by a week and a half each year. We never talk about those topics. Just kind of relegated into a corner of, oh, well, we don't have randomized controlled trial data on it. Therefore, we ignore it. These are the number one issues facing this country in our health care system. This Maha Reports report puts those issues on the map and makes them front and center in our new health care agenda. There's no one silver bullet and there's no one ingredient causing this chronic disease epidemic. We have to look at all of it.
- [56:04]
Vince
Yeah, man, if you can solve any of that, you'll make a big, big step. It's like a moon landing. Hey, thank you very much.
- [56:11]
Marty Makary
Great to see you, Vince.
- [56:12]
Vince
Dr. Marty Makary, nice to see you, brother. I have to have you back. I want to ask about the groundwater at some point, too. There's a lot there. I've got all sorts of health questions. And thankfully we have a doctor here in the administration. Our thanks again to Marty McCary. Glad that he's the commissioner over there at the FDA. And look, this is just one of those issues where I am glad that you have this really impressive health team who's all in place to try and address this, to really get to the bottom of, hey, what is the problem here? Why is chronic disease exploded in the United States? Why are sperm counts dropping to record lows? Why is there so much hormonal disruption in the United States? And we've had a health establishment for years that hasn't intended to try and resolve or even pretended like they care about any of that. Instead, they've only used it to enrich their friends and the pharmaceutical companies by saying, well, why don't we just maintain your chronic disease rather than cure it, rather than prevent it in the first place? So really, really think that this is great having Dr. Makary and the team there working with President Trump. And it's always funny to me, President Trump, a guy who consumes McDonald's all the time, I love that he brought in the health team. And I also love that from time to time he makes RFK Jr eat McDonald's just to just to keep him guessing. It's the funniest thing ever again. I hope you guys had a very nice Memorial Day. Thank you for being with us today. I've got the big national radio show coming up, 12 to 3 Eastern Time. You can watch it rumble.com Vince and I'll be back tomorrow with all sorts of brand new information and maybe a guest who can keep up with how good Dr. Marty Makary was. Great to have you with us today.