The Checkup with Doctor Mike - Hated By Anti-Vaxxers & His Public Fallout w/ Joe Rogan | Dr. Peter Hotez

Episode Date: May 25, 2025

Pre-order Dr. Peter Hotez' new book "Science Under Siege" here: https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/michael-e-mann/science-under-siege/9781541705494/Follow Dr. Hotez on X/Twitter: https://x.com/PeterHotez?I'll teach you how to become the media's go-to expert in your field. Enroll in The Professional's Media Academy now: https://www.professionalsmediaacademy.com/00:00 Intro2:04 Complexity of Battling Misinformation05:51 Making His Owns Vaccines14:23 His Joe Rogan/RFK Controversy25:00 Doctors On Social Media27:45 Online Abuse From Elon Musk29:22 Meeting with RFK Jr. / Measles42:30 Attacks From Other Doctors44:44 The Failure Of COVID Messaging53:37 Vaccine Funding / Autism1:07:47 Casey Means / Removing MAHA1:10:12 The Future Of Medical Experts1:19:18 AI1:23:03 Climate Change vs. Vaccines1:27:42 Our Impact / Hookworm VaccineHelp us continue the fight against medical misinformation and change the world through charity by becoming a Doctor Mike Resident on Patreon where every month I donate 100% of the proceeds to the charity, organization, or cause of your choice! Residents get access to bonus content, an exclusive discord community, and many other perks for just $10 a month. Become a Resident today:https://www.patreon.com/doctormikeLet’s connect:IG: https://go.doctormikemedia.com/instagram/DMinstagramTwitter: https://go.doctormikemedia.com/twitter/DMTwitterFB: https://go.doctormikemedia.com/facebook/DMFacebookTikTok: https://go.doctormikemedia.com/tiktok/DMTikTokReddit: https://go.doctormikemedia.com/reddit/DMRedditContact Email: [e-mail] Producer: Doctor MikeProduction Director and Editor: Dan OwensManaging Editor and Producer: Sam BowersEditor and Designer: Caroline WeigumEditor: Juan Carlos Zuniga* Select photos/videos provided by Getty Images *** The information in this video is not intended nor implied to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. All content, including text, graphics, images, and information, contained in this video is for general information purposes only and does not replace a consultation with your own doctor/health professional **

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Close the garage door? Yep. Installed window sensors, smoke sensors, and HD cameras with night vision? No. And you set up credit card transaction. alerts at secure VPN for a private connection and continuous monitoring for our personal info on the

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It was free with this Tim's rewards points. I think I just stole it. I'm a donut stealer. Ooh. Earn points so fast. seem too good to be true. Plus, join Tim's rewards today and get enough points for a free donut, drink, or timbits. With 800 points after registration, activation, and first purchase of a dollar or more, see the Tim's app for details at participating in restaurants in Canada for a limited time. You have now a rough relationship with Joe Rogan. It started off positive.

How are you, sir? How are you? Good to see you again. I'm thrilled to be here. He was inviting you on as an expert to talk about what's going on in the early days of the pandemic. How did that change? I criticize him when he puts out vaccine disinformation and ask him not to do that. If you're like 21 years old and you say to me, should I get vaccinated, I go, no. I was writing to him. I said, Joe, have me on because what you're doing is dangerous. People are now making decisions based on what they're hearing.

How did he respond to your messages? There was no response. I didn't hear from him in two years until he taunted me to debate RFK Jr. There were a few reasons why I wasn't going to debate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. I didn't want to send the message that science is done by a debate with crackpots. And who was ever the says more clever things in a debate, that's how science gets done. I thought that would be very dangerous. You faced a lot of abuse during that time, harassment, anger, vitriol from the general public.

What was that like? I got stalked at my home by an anti-vaxxer, a couple of anti-vaxers. It was very dark. very quickly. Today I sit down with Dr. Peter Hotez, pediatrician scientist, co-inventor of a $3 patent-free COVID vaccine, and the researcher antivaxers love to target. In this episode, we peel back the curtain on how he was able to create a low-cost vaccine with the help of Tito's vodka.

And without the help of Big Pharma, we get into the details between his public clash with Joe Rogan and what really happened when RFK Jr. tried to lure Hotez into a deba eight cage match with Elon watching for $100,000. Sounds like I'm making all this up, but I'm not. If you ever wondered how to fight misinformation without losing your mind or your funding, Dr. Hotez brings receipts, a few spicy stories, and a blueprint for keeping public health alive in 2025 and beyond. Without further ado, please welcome Dr. Peter Hotez to the Checkup podcast.

I'm excited to speak. I've seen your work throughout all of social media, all the major cable stations. you've been a prominent voice in debunking a lot of misinformation, both online, offline, and on television. What are some of the lessons you've learned over these last few years as to how complicated it is to battle misinformation? Well, it's, you know, Mike, it's gotten more complicated because the anti-vaccine movement has grown in sophistication.

They've grown in political power, in money, in infrastructure, and the kinds of pieces of disinformation. that they're putting out have become more sophisticated also. I mean, not really, but it requires people with more technical knowledge than the past to debunk it. You know, so for instance, you know, saying Bill Gates is sticking microchips into your vaccine that, you know, most general physicians could debunk that. But, you know, in the Florida Surgeon General, Latipo says MRI vaccines are causing

turbo cancers because they're inserting nucleic acid into our genome, you have to think about that for a minute. And you have to say, wait a minute, those things are a turbo cancer. It's a made-up term. And MRNA lipid nanoparticles delivered the nucleic acid package past the cell membrane into the cytoplasm, but they don't get into the nucleus for that. You need electroperation. That's why we have no DNA vaccines.

And even if they did, we have proteins of urinate immune system that prevent incorporation of foreign nucleic acid into our genome. Otherwise, every time we get a hamburger, you'd have cow DNA in our genome. But I have an MD and a Ph.D. And so that's not so hard for me. But for a general physician, they're like, oh, gee, I never heard that. And they need time to look it up. So it's becoming tougher and tougher. Yeah. What strategies have you used both successfully and unsuccessfully in helping people better understand what's true versus what's not? Well, I think, you know, over the years I've come to recognize that, you know,

people who espouse anti-vaccine views are themselves victims, victims of a very targeted, predatory, often politically motivated, anti-vaccine campaign very much linked to money in the health, wellness, and influencer industry, which is very corrupt. And so that's very important to try to be as patient as you can. And I think the hard part is you wind up repeating yourselves a thousand times. I mean, how many times have, you know, somebody online, whether it's through social media, through an email, we'll say, you know, I'm a shill for Pfizer or the pharma companies. And how many thousands of times I would explain, wait a minute, we made a low-cost COVID vaccine

that bypassed the big pharma companies. We reached 100 million people with our recombin protein COVID vaccine that we developed to Texas Children's Hospital in collaboration with, India and Indonesia, showing proof of concept that you don't need big pharma, that you could bypass big pharma. So it's just the opposite. But you know, you practically have to repeat it on a daily basis. When you do say that, what's the feedback from the general audience? Sometimes it's rarely you'll get an apology, which is always the best, or they'll try to find something else to discredit you. You know, there's so much garbage, you know, about me and my

colleagues that's online. The one thing that's circulating says that I'm worth $35 million. And, you know, I have to explain, no, you don't get, you don't get a net worth of $35 million making low-cost for accommodant vaccines as a professor in an academic health center. It's nothing like that. I'm curious about that. How do you go about bypassing big pharma in creation of a vaccine like you did? Well, this has been my lifetime dream. So I actually did my MD PhD in New New York, not far from here on the east side at Rockefeller University and Wall Cornell Medical College. And that's what I wanted to do with my life, make vaccines especially for parasitic diseases, diseases of poverty in low-income countries. And the hookworm vaccine that I started

working at as an MD PhD student 40 years ago is now showing close to 100% protection in clinical trial. So that's really exciting. And then, you know, we started making coronavirus vaccines because we got approached by a group at the New York Blood Center who said, hey, Peter, just like no one cares about your parasitic disease vaccines, no one cares about our coronavirus vaccines for SARS and mirrors. And those were the two original pandemics back in the early 2000s. You know, would you work with us? So we did.

And that allowed us to learn how to make COVID coronavirus vaccines. So when the COVID-19 sequence came online in January 2020, we're able to pivot and make that. And we licensed it with this, when I see we, we call it our Texas Children's Hospital Center for Vaccine Development. And I'm co-director with my colleague for the last 25 years, Dr. Mary Elena Potazzi. We licensed it with no strings attached, no patent to India, Indonesia, Bangladesh, and ultimately 100 million people got immunized.

So when there's no patent on it, no strings attached, that means the country's manufacturers can just start creating it. selling it without any royalties, any kickbacks to your organization? There are some modest milestone payments that go back to Baylor College of Medicine, but it's really extremely modest. But the point is, you know, you didn't need to be a big pharma company to do this. And that was one of the reasons why we were cut out of Operation Warp Speed because we weren't a pharma company.

So Operation Warp Speed, and the Trump administration didn't think we had the child. to do that. But our vaccine wound up two to three dollars a dose. Wow. And there was no limit to the amount you can make. And we chose this technology deliberately so we could be compatible with vaccine producers in low and middle income countries.

We do make recombin proteins through microbial fermentation and yeast. It's the process similar to how hepatitis B vaccine is made. And we did that because it is low cost. So we make the prototype in our laboratories Texas Children's Hospital in Baylor, a college of medicine, literally send the production cell bank via World Courier to the vaccine producer, and then we'll do the scale up, say, at the 5, 10, 20-liter fermentation scale, and then we work with them on the large scale, scale up for the time.

Does that mean also the refrigeration and the storage of the vaccine is easier? So it's a great technology because there's no limit to the amount you could produce the proteins, recombin proteins made by the yeast, either baker's yeast, Saccharomycese or methanol utilizing yeast tend to be very stable protein. So you can use simple refrigeration. You don't need any onerous freezer chain. The cost is low. Parents trust it because they've already vaccinated their kids against hepatitis B.

So it checks a lot of boxes. Also, you can do it without animal cells or human cells, animal proteins, or human proteins. So in a sense, it's a vegan technology. And that turned out to be really interesting for Indonesia, because, you know, Indonesia is the world's largest Muslim majority country. So we, so the Indonesian, people from the Indonesian government came into our labs, looked at all of our records, confirmed that every reagent came from a non-animal, non-human source,

and they work with their clergy to get it halal certified. Wow, that's amazing. What was the timeline in the creation of your vaccine in comparison to the big pharma ones? Well, it depends when you say when we began, because we started this project. in 2011, 2012, with SARS and Mears. And that, severe acute rest, so COVID-19 is also known as SARS-2. So the original SARS, which is quite similar to SARS-2, came out in 2002, and then Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome in 2012.

So we had been tweaking that technology for over a decade when COVID-19 hit. So, and that allowed us to, and all of the lessons learned for SARS and Mears, we could apply to COVID-19. How much tweaking needed to be done in order to make the vaccines that were compatible with those coronaviruses with SARS-Cola? Well, it was a slightly different sequence,

but it was still high-producing yeast strain. And among the bugs that we had worked out or the hurdles that we had worked out is we had to express the protein without an internal asparaging because that was glycosylated interfering with the immune response. And there was a free cysteine

that was causing interming. molecular disulfide bonds, which caused aggregation. I mean, it wasn't rocket science chemistry, but it took us time to work it out at scale over the last 10 years. And, you know, it turned out SARS-2, COVID-19 was so similar to SARS. It was about 70-80 percent similar in terms of the amino acid sequence that it, you know, pretty much everything we had done successfully for SARS worked for SARS too. Interesting.

And when was the completion? of the vaccine, when was it ready for use? When did it go to India, Indonesia? It went, well, we did technology transfer probably by the end of 2020, beginning of 2021. So tracking kind of the same timeline as... Yeah, the MRI is a little faster at the beginning, but we kind of made up for it in terms of time frame because there were already vaccine producers that already had the technology

in place for hepatitis B. So they could use that. infrastructure. So that was really great as well. It's the same fermentation technology. It's it almost, you know, when you visit a vaccine producer that uses fermentation technology, it almost looks like a trip to the brewery because it's a similar process, right? It's fermentation technology. And is it true that because you were open sourcing this vaccine technology, that Tito's vodka is one of the biggest sponsors? Is that? Yeah, Tito's vodka came through for us. It gave us quite a bit of $2 million, I think it was.

Wow. I mean, we didn't need billions, but we needed millions, and Tito's was amazing. How did that collaboration? Like, how does that happen? I think it was Tito. It heard me doing a podcast. Oh, really? I think it might have been Peter Atia.

I'm not sure, but, and I think maybe he's Peter, or maybe somebody from the foundation, and they contacted me, and I was thrilled. That's really amazing. Because in terms of governmental support. So I'm indebted to Peter Fadio for that. So you got the funding that came out. Results-wise, in terms of protection from severe illness from death, how do they compare to the MRI?

Level of virus neutralizing antibody was right up there with MRNA vaccines better than the adenovirus, better than the antelanactivated virus vaccine. So it was a great vaccine. It was frustrating that we couldn't get it into the U.S. Yeah. Why couldn't that happen? Well, they wanted us to repeat all of the clinical trials because the whole dossier had been worked out in India and Indonesia.

And, you know, we didn't have the financing. I mean, you know, those phase three trials for Modern and Pfizer, you know, 40,000 and for the Pfizer vaccine, 60,000 for the Moderna vaccine and those placebo-controlled trials, those were probably tens, hundreds, and millions of dollars. And we just didn't have that level of financing. What was interesting is I think more people got immunized globally with our vaccine than Novavax, because Novavax had an extra complication for the manufacturing process.

To make that particle, that nanoparticle step was pretty complicated, and they had to go through several different manufacturers. But they got, I think, it's $1.6 billion in the U.S. government and $400 million from SEPI. So we didn't get anything like that, obviously. But it's a good vaccine, the Novavax. Sure. But it's a, in terms of clinical. complex in production.

Oh, hi, buddy. Who's the best? You are. I wish I could spend all day with you instead. Uh, Dave, you're off mute. Hey, happens to the best of us. Enjoy some goldfish cheddar crackers. Goldfish have short memories.

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Learn more at scotia bank.com slash banking packages Conditions apply Scotia Bank, you're richer than you think It's interesting that you wouldn't be immune pun intended, from criticism from people who don't like COVID vaccinations because of the MRNA technology, because the vaccine you created doesn't even use that technology. And yet it seems like people are still critical of you and putting you into the same category. Well, the problem is, you know, if you're just watching, you know, Fox News every night or Joe

Rogan podcasts or all these, you know, Russell Bran or Alex Jones, you don't hear about what we do. So you're in that rabbit hole and say you don't, you don't hear about. about all the good stuff we do. And then, of course, the other thing was, you know, I was in this interesting position because when COVID hit the U.S., I was one of the few American scientists

that had ever developed a coronavirus vaccine. So I went out there on the cable news channels pretty early on. I was even going on Fox News early on until I wouldn't go along with the hydroxychloroquine nonsense and they stopped inviting me. But I was going on everywhere. And when it was clear that our vaccine,

was not going to be in the mix because we were cut out of Operation Warp speed. You know, I didn't want to be like one of those contrarians and then start slamming other people's vaccines. I really felt it didn't matter that much. I mean, it was more expensive than we needed to have it in the U.S., but it still worked well. And so for me, it was all hands on deck and encouraging people to get that vaccine. Yeah, you have now a rough relationship with Joe Robbins.

what happened there how did it started off positive right he was inviting you on as an expert to talk about what's going on in the early days of the pandemic how did that change what was the turning point there yeah well i'd even uh went on one of his shows even before the jo rogan experience i think we did something on whether zombies are real or something like and um and i'd gone on his show a couple of times and he was he was great he was a lot of fun i even want i even introduced him to my son He came and did a, he had a comedy act, and he came to Houston, and I introduced him to my son. We hung out, and it was great. And then I'm starting around, and I don't think we've ever exchanged harsh words between each other.

It's more like... Just publicly. Not even public. I criticize him when he puts out vaccine disinformation and asks him not to do that, but I don't think I'm criticized. He sometimes goes after me personally, but I try not. try not to go that that route i mean i don't know them that well um and i certainly have no you know harbor ill feelings towards them but what happened was in in 2021 um during that delta wave you started to see fox news go into full gear and and try to discourage people from getting vaccinated so

in their zeal to push back against vaccine mandates which you could kind of understand They started going, unfortunately, that next step and bringing out all these talking heads that would falsely discredit the effectiveness and safety of vaccines. You saw this at Fox News. You saw this, you know, Tucker Carlson, Laura Ingraham, Sean Hannity, every night.

You know, we're discrediting vaccines. This was documented by two groups, Media Matters, a watchdog group and a research group out of the Federal University of Science and Technology in Switzerland. Then you had the CPAC Conference of Conservatives. Again, in their zeal to push back against vaccines, mandates and they would say over the top things like, you know, first they're going to vaccinate

you and then they're going to take away your guns and your Bibles. Right. I get that. But then they brought on all the really toxic anti-vaccine activists to discredit the effectiveness and safety of vaccine. And essentially what Rogan did was, you know, push the agenda, the influencer in wellness industry, which is, you know, built on buying up anything they can that they can get in bulk like low-cost ivermectin or hydroxychloricin jacking up the price and then selling it with telehealth visits that's the basis of the health and wellness industry and so he was pushing hard on the ivermectin and at that point i had already been on his show twice and i was riding to him i see joe have me on because what you're doing is dangerous people are now making decisions based on what

they're hearing not to get vaccinated there was no response he just he just didn't respond at all And I didn't hear from, that was in 2021, I didn't hear from him in two years until he taunted me to debate RFK Jr. along with Elon Musk in the summer of 2023. And he put out the $100,000. The $100,000. I mean, there were a few, there were a few reasons why I wasn't going to debate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. First of all, well, I'm curious before you get into your feelings on that, because I want to discuss that thoroughly. When Joe Rogan offers you $100,000 to debate RFK Jr., ignoring you for two years when you were messaging him about misinformation being shared on his show, what do you feel as a human? Well, you know, that, you know, it sort of reinforced what the anti-vaxxers are trying to say that you just bought off the minute for the money when it's just the opposite, right? I've devoted my life to, you know, using science for humanitarian purposes.

So it was pretty insulting. And then even some of Joe's wealthy friends started adding to the pot. And I didn't even know who would pay the bill. Who would actually, you know, pay up or not. But, you know, I just wasn't going to go there. Got it. Was it true that you were then saying, instead donate to my lab, $50 million? Yeah, I said that.

And then I thought that was, that sounded cheesy too. And I just, I think I think I took that down. Because I know he highlighted it after the fact. Yeah. Yeah, I think I did say that, but then I said, no, that's the wrong message, too, because, well, first of all, he's not going to do it. He's not going to know. Right. But. So what you were starting to say, what was the concern or reasons that you were against debating RFK Jr.? Well, there were a few things. One, you know, I had a relationship with RFK Jr. because the NIH asked me to speak to him back in 2021. And we can go into more details like that if you like. And I knew it was a waste of time. because he was deeply dug in. Why would they ask that? What?

Why would they ask you to speak with him in 2021? The NIH? Yeah. No, 2017. Oh, 2017. What was that about? Let's park that for a second. Let's just finish this train of thought with why didn't debate RFK.

So that was one. I knew it was futile. Second, I felt that they really wanted me out there to sort of schmooze them up to make them look like an important. because at that time he was running for president and they wanted to back him for president and I think they wanted to show him with a serious scientist

to help his political campaign and I didn't want to help him do that. But the third reason was I felt it sent the wrong message to scientists. That's not how we do science, right? We do science through writing our papers and peer-reviewed journals and we submit grants

that don't get discussed or do get discussed and reviewed in scientific meetings. I didn't want to send the message that science is done by a debate with crackpots. You know, that and who was ever the says more clever things in a debate, that's how science gets done. I thought that would be very dangerous to sending that message. So there's all those reasons. Do you agree with your decision back then, or do you have any regret? No, I mean, given what RFK Jr. has done in public since then, I think it just reinforces that.

I made a good decision. Well, I, too, shared the notion that debating individuals who are just fully anti-science, in fact, I had an opportunity to debate. And not willing to be honest with the facts. I mean, you've seen what he's done in the last couple of months. I mean, it's just misrepresentation after we can even go through that if you want. Yeah. I remember there was this, quote-unquote, scientist that did a documentary called Plannedemic.

I don't know if you remember that. And we did a review of it on YouTube and it got millions of views. And someone wanted me to debate her. And I realized debating someone who's just making things up out of thin air wouldn't really get me anywhere because if someone feels something,

I can't tell them that they're wrong for feeling that way. And if I just kept saying, but the evidence doesn't show that, and they say, but I saw something, no one wins there. Well, actually, no, the pandemic person wins and you lose because just by agreeing to have that platform of a non-serious person

with a serious person, what it does is you've already lost three quarters by putting them on the same platform. You've already lost most of the battle. They've already won by doing that. So I think that's a big mistake. Yeah, I also, flip side, I'm seeing what's happening right now with RFK, the people that are in charge, Dr. McCari,

Dr. Renee Persad, all the individuals, Dr. Oz, these are all controversial figures to some degree, and they've become popular because they haven't been afraid of the media spotlight, have leaned into social media quite heavily. So I'm thinking, has the medical community missed out on the ability to fact-check these individuals because we've stayed off these platforms? Well, for instance, so I don't know that we could treat them all the same. So since I, with Mehmed Oz, I went on his show at least half a dozen times during the pandemic. He was great.

You know, he was, we had great discussions. And at least, at least with me, you know, we, he was very supportive of vaccines. He was very concerned. We, I thought we had great discussion. And I love the opportunity because I was reaching people on Mehmet Oz, the show that I would never reach. You know, you know, getting kicked out of, getting kicked off of Fox News are not being invited back. you know, I was missing a whole segment of the country. And I was always very thankful to Dr. Oz that he gave me that voice to a segment that

I couldn't reach otherwise. And so I wouldn't, I don't know that they're all necessarily the same. There's different, you know, degrees of that stuff. Yeah, of course. I just put them in the controversial bucket for one reason. Right, right. No, I understand Dr. Oz also has, you know, a lot of controversy too. Sure. But yeah, I thought the reason why I've done my social media work that I've done, I know you haven't

come across it much. It's because I feel doctors were almost shamed in being on social media, like it was viewed as being unprofessional to some degree. There was some fear around it. And as a result, when, especially during the pandemic, 2020, there weren't a lot of voices on YouTube, for example, which is the number two most visited website in the world where people were spreading misinformation. And unfortunately, it was me as the loudest voice that was able to fact check them.

would have loved to see support from the leading agencies doing it quite well, but they were behind. They didn't have that system in place in order to fact check, make good content, get eyes on them. But people like Joe Rogan, they had tremendous success. Their shows grew exponentially during that time. So I thought it was a missed opportunity. Well, there were lots of missed opportunities. I mean, the CDC for years, even decades, you know, had this policy that they would not debunk misinformation, disinformation about vaccines. And I remember, you know, writing an article for the New York Times back in 2017. You know, when you write an article for the New York Times, you don't get to pick the

title, the editor does. And then the editor, of course, will always pick the cringiest title that you can find, he or she can find. Well, it's better than the New York Post. And it was called, you know, how the anti-vaxxers are winning. And I was like, oh, okay. But, you know, it said important things. I wanted to predicting a lot of things that came to happen.

And I remember I was rebuked by the leadership of the CDC. in private. I mean, they were very nice and people I know, but they basically said, Peter, we're not talking about this now because you're going to give it oxygen. And, you know, it's our belief, our policy, that you don't call this stuff out

because it'll draw attention to it. And so we had to agree to disagree, you know, that by, because I felt they were still kind of stuck in 1990s mode like everybody had a compact computer. And... Floppy disks. dial-up modem and ash-gease was the search engine the world and had moved on. And I said, you know, this thing's got all the oxygen it needs.

It's blowing up. And to this day, we still don't debunk. So it's left to people like myself, you know, to explain why Dr. Latipo is totally wrong. And here's why MRNA vaccines don't cause turbo cancer. But of course, I don't have the bandwidth. I mean, I can go on CNN and MSNBC and National Public Radio and PBS News Hour. And I do. but there's a whole segment of the country that's not tuning into that.

So that's always the toughest part for me to reach. Yeah, that makes sense. During that moment where Rogan offered you the $100,000, and there was some back and forth, you faced a lot of abuse during that time, harassment, anger, vitriol from the general public. What was that like? Yeah, I mean, and then Elon Musk started weighing in, you know, I said something like,

what are you hiding and that kind of thing. I mean, you know, between Elon Musk and RFK Jr. and Joe Rogan, that's just about every follower on Twitter, except those following Taylor Swift. So that was a scary place. And then I got stalked at my home by an anti-vaxxer, a couple of anti-vaxers. It was very dark very quickly. So that was tough. And even, you know, most of the mainstream media was pretty supportive in terms of op-ed pieces and various newspapers.

Actually, the New York Times was a bit too-faced. So one of the opinion pieces were a very nice thing that, you know, Peter was right not to debate RFCG. But Ross Dothad, who's a conservative columnist, say, why shouldn't he debate RFKG? I was really angry. You know, when I get, you know, when the nutcase, you know, when the nutcase. cases go after me, you know, it's scary, but it doesn't get to me. It's when people that I ordinarily would respect that that turn on you, that that gets distanced. So the hardest thing for me is when serious people start going down that rabbit hole. That is really tough. Sure. In 2017, you met

with RFK Jr. How did that go? Why did that come together? That count. It was kind of interesting. I was it was at the request of the NIH and the leadership of the NIH. And at that time, RFK Jr. had come out and said he was going to head a vaccine commission in the First Trump administration, which we all knew his views on vaccines. And it would basically give him a license to start dismantling vaccine infrastructure. So the NIH asked me to speak to him, and they had it mediated by a third party. And it was Tim Schrever, who's also a Kennedy brother of Maria Shriver. Tim was great, and I would do these long conversations with Bobby.

So you met in a room? No, they were all through either cell phone conversations or through email. And I would do long walks with my wife, Anne, and through where we live in our neighborhood. And he was just really deeply dug in. And it was, he was a tough person to get to know. And I never really saw kind of a lighter, cheery side of him. So what were they, like, hour-long conversations?

Some of them, some yes, some no. But, you know, I remember one of the things that I got really perturbed about was, you know, I talked to him about autism genes. So we had done genomic sequencing on Rachel, and we found Rachel's autism genes. So there's been about 100 autism genes that have been identified, and they're all involved in early fetal brain development. So, you know, there were kind of three or four parts to the discussion with Bobby. First part was the evidence showing there's no link between vaccines and autism.

And that in itself has a series of moving goalposts because the anti-vaccine lobby keeps on switching up what they're alleging. So it started with the MMR vaccine and the Wakefield paper. So that was 1998, the Wakefield paper. And then in 2005, Mr. Kennedy wrote an article in that very important biomedical journal called Rolling Stone, together with Salon, that it was, okay, if it's not an MMR, it's thymarousal, I'll preserve it. And each time the scientific community does these large cohort studies showing that there's

no link that kids who get either MMR, thymarousel containing vaccines are no more likely to acquire autism than kids who don't. And then in the thimerosal case, there were even non-human primate studies that were supporting showing no neurodevelopmental aspects. And then it moved to, if you remember, they went through this whole thing, a spacing vaccine vaccines too close together. I think it was Jenny McCarthy and Jim Carrey were parading around a green t-shirts saying we have to green our vaccines.

It's all BS. And then it was Alamon vaccines. And it just went through these series of false claims. that scientific community had to put a lot of effort into debunk. So I went through all that with them, but then there was, for me, a more important aspect, which is the lack of plausibility, given that we have those 100 autism genes. They're all involved in early fetal brain development before kids are born. This is all happening prenatally, probably early on in the first, maybe second trimester

of pregnancy, which makes a lot more sense for something that you, to be called pervasive developmental disorder. Now, it's not to say that there's no environmental toxin effects, but if they are, they're happening early on in pregnancy. So let me give you probably the best documented example. So if you're pregnant and not aware of it on an anti-seizure medicine called adepicoat, also known as valproic acid, that interacts with autism genes, and your child has a much higher likelihood of being born with an autism phenotype.

And for Mr. Kennedy, I identified about half a dozen chemical exposures that do something similar. And I remember saying to him, you know, Bobby, you should be all over this. This is your sweet spot. You're an environmental attorney. Yeah. This is your moment. These are the toxins. I mean, why are you going after vaccines, but it doesn't even make sense?

You know, it was like the Monty Python disarmament with fresh fruit skin. You know, this is what you should be focusing. I couldn't engage him on it. He just said, no, I completely disagree. I can't remember the exact. But just kept going back to vaccine. Bobby doesn't make any sense. This is what you should be looking at.

And then I got really miffed a couple of weeks ago. You know, he made a public statement. I forget if it was on Fox News or where he said, you know, he positioned himself that as the champion of looking at environmental exposures, that, you know, he was saying that the scientific community claims, that the rise in autism cases is all due to shifting diagnostic criteria, which I do think is probably the major component. But, you know, they deny that there's any environmental role.

It was BS. I went through half a dozen exposures, and I said there are probably many more, you know, pushed them hard to look into it. I even wrote it up in the book. Vaccines did not cause Rachel's autism. And yet he still comes out with those kinds of statements. So that's typical the kinds of stuff he does. And after these conversations, did you speak to the people in IH explaining that there's no beneficial outcome to speaking with him?

Yeah, I think there was some follow-up. Got it. And then have you had any communication with him since? No, just his organizations just target me quite a bit. You know, children's health defense and the others go after me a lot. What do they go after you for? everything, you know, the whole list of, you know, alleged conflicts of interest, which I don't have. And, you know, they try to discredit my statements and that sort of stuff.

What about seeing what he's doing now in terms of, we have a measles outbreak, over a thousand cases in the United States, largest we've had in 30 or so odd years. And he's not fully supportive of the MMR vaccine as our best form of prevention for measles, but then he does put out a message saying, oh, yeah, this is our best way of preventing measles. Then if you ask him at a congressional testimony, the same question. He says, oh, you shouldn't listen to my medical opinion on this. I mean, here's what he's been doing. And he's done this before. You know, first of all, you know, he'll make what I view as a half-hearted statement about, yes, you should get the MMR vaccine. But then, in practically,

in the same breath, they'll say, or you can get this cocktail of useless supplements, right? You can, you know, this cocktail of vitamin A, Budescineid and Clarithromycin or Codiliveral oil, it's ridiculous. It does nothing to prevent measles.

Creates hospitalizations for vitamin A toxicity with liver fat. I mean, it's ridiculous. Or, and it's every few days he's coming out with one of these things. While we're in the middle of a horrific measles epidemic, with two measles deaths in Texas of well children who were denied access to a vaccine. Then he'll, then he'll say

thing, he said, well, the MMR vaccine's a leaky vaccine. What the heck is that? And then, and then he says the, um, and it declines in protective immunity around 4% a year. I said, he misread the Lancet article from 0.4%. Well, no, it's, um, there was, there is an article out there is showing some reduction, but it's 0.04%. Oh, even less. So it's 100 full less, right? So you, okay, saw 5 factor of 100. Then, and then, and then it goes on.

And then he'll say, then he'll say the vaccine is contaminated with aborted fetal material, right? That's nonsense. I mean, the two M components, measles and mumps, is growing in chick embryo cells. The rebella virus is grown in a cell line that was propagated for the last 60-plus years.

In early 1960s, the original cells were obtained from two aborted fetuses. But they've been propagated in the laboratory. There's no fetal material. And the Pope and the Vatican have signed off on this. So again, this is the kind of stuff that he continually... does. And it's, and it's so destructive. His goal is, and then he'll say the hospitalizations are due to, poor medical care. Are due to no quarantine and isolation. Those are sick kids in the hospital. Well, I think what it's doing, I mean, and to be so tone deaf to do this in the middle

of a raging measles epidemic, one of, you know, this has gone on since January, Mike. I mean, this now we're, now we're into May. It's still going on. I mean, every time there's a Texas Health Department, Texas State Department of Health Services updates it on Tuesdays and Fridays, every time there's an increase, you know we're in this for at least another two weeks because that's roughly the incubation period of measles. So this is clearly going into the summer.

And if it goes on longer than that, we could even lose our measles elimination status, which is the criteria that we don't, the CDC said is a criteria, no sustained transmission for a year. and who knows how long that will happen. And so for him to be pushing that agenda, the nutritional supplements agenda,

and going by the same modus apparandi to downplay the severity of measles and to exaggerate the rare side effects is just so destructive. Yeah, maybe you could share with the audience what are the dangerous complications in measles and why people shouldn't just think, oh, it's no big deal.

Yeah, I mean if measles, back in the 1980s, Measles was a single leading killer of children globally. Three million children died of measles. Then through the expanded program in immunization, we brought it down to about half a million deaths annually by 2000. Now through the Gavi Alliance, the Global Alliance of Vaccines and Immunization,

which unfortunately the U.S. government is not pulled out of. We're down to about 100,000 deaths. So pretty impressive that we've been able to do that. but why is that? Well, measles, what happens is when you're infected with measles, it replicates in the lymphoid system, and it begins with a characteristic prodrome of cough, what's sometimes called carise, which is col-like symptoms and conjunctivitis. And then the virus goes inside lymphoid cells, and those lymphoid cells travel in the blood. So when the virus is circulating in the blood, it's in lymphoid cells, and it goes to the skin. And that's why you get the rash.

but it also goes to the lungs and causes measles pneumonia. So 20% of kids, on average, require hospitalization. A significant percentage of those are hospitalized for measles pneumonia, which is a life-threatening condition, sometimes requiring intubation in the ICU, or it'll cause measles encephalitis, or it'll cause measles oititis and deafness. So permanent neurologic damage, hearing loss,

visual disturbances, GI disturbances and dehydration. And it's a bad actor. And to be so dismissive of it is really concerning. If he has his way and gets people to stop vaccinating as often as they do currently, maybe not just with MMR, but with other vaccines as well. What do you think happens in the United States? Well, also, I think it's really important.

It's not just Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., right? I mean, even if Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., we're not Health and Human Services Secretary, we'd still be in a very tight situation because, you know, we can go back to how the anti-vaccine movement, you know, took on this mantle around libertarian politics and health freedom, medical freedom, and the fact that 200,000 Americans died because they refused COVID vaccines, and then it spilled over to childhood immunizations. We'd still be in that problem. And then the very toxic and pernicious health wellness influencer industry that in order to peddle their

products like Ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine and vitamin A, they have to discredit vaccines. And not only the science, but also they target the scientists like me and others. When you think about the health influencer industry, are there any individuals or groups that come up in your mind? There are a bunch of them. I'd rather not go into it in too much detail because they're just so aggressive. Makes sense. What about the people that are in charge surrounding RFK Jr., like Dr. McCarrey, Dr. Oz?

Do you think that they're having a positive impact trying to get him to reconsider his stances on vaccines, or you don't see that happening? I don't have the inside baseball on what's going on in their interactions. I do know the FDA director, Marty McCarrie, you know, made a lot of false statements about, you know, this whole great. Barrington concept of getting herd immunity, you know, you wrote that opinion piece of back in early 2021. They said, well, I've heard immunity by April, which was very misleading. And I thought, you know, that did a lot of damage. And the other health and human services appointees, you know, we're basically Fox News talking heads. And they, you know, just did a lot of discrediting of vaccines. And so that, I can't imagine that's going to be helpful at this point.

Yeah. You've also had some criticism from Dr. Persad on social media. Oh, yeah. He goes after me like, I've never met the guy. I felt you were close to debating one another. Did that ever come to him? No, no. In fact, I just remember early on the pandemic. Who's this guy? He's a professor at UCSF. That's like a serious place. And he's saying crazy things about me. So I just blocked him. What do he say about you? I can't remember, but I know that he pointed out that you were pro-toddler masking or something. That was a frequent talking point of his.

You know, I never really talked very much about masks. I mean, I was, you know, when I would go on the cable news channels or right, I was mainly focused on vaccines. And by the way, I was spending a lot of time trying to work with school teachers to keep schools open. I think he's gone after me for that. and just he comes up with all this crazy stuff. So, you know, masks were never, obviously very important, particularly before vaccines became available.

But I was mainly interested in promoting vaccines. That's what my training is. Of course, yeah. And I want to play a little soundbite for you of something you said during a episode with Joe Rogan. And I want to give you credit here because I think a lot of credit is due. Because I think one of the big reasons, not the sole reason, obviously, that there's so much

distrust in our major agencies and why the situation is the way it is right now is because folks spoke with a lot of certainty at an uncertain time, whether it was about masking, vaccinations, spread of the virus, predicted deaths, et cetera. But you said a statement that I think should be heard again. And this statement was said in March in 2020. Anything we say today, I might look like the biggest idiot in the world tomorrow or next week. And that's because this is a brand new virus. And we've never seen before, right?

So we're on a steep learning curve. So we're learning new things about this virus every day. So that's why, you know, so many things I'm going to say today by sound like I'm waffling or hedging. It's because I am. I think we need to say that more often as scientists. I applaud you for saying that. Well, here's, so this gets to something very interesting because one of the things you're seeing now is all the, you know, I've been on countless Zoom panels around trust in science and medicine. And the, and a lot of it is built on a false narrative, that it's because the scientists and the docs communicated so badly and were so disingenuous.

Yes, there were mistakes made, but the communication on whole wasn't all that terrible. It was just that there were bad actors weaponizing it at every turn. That was problem one. Problem two was I think too often the government spokespeople were tended to use this old style of communication that said, and I was told this as well, you have to talk to the American people like they're in the fourth grade or sixth grade and dumb it down. And I found that didn't work so well for me.

So I would actually go into underlying assumptions. So if I could, let me give you a couple of examples. And I think this is important. So, for instance, when, you know, if you remember when the MRNA vaccines rolled out for COVID and the Pfizer vaccine, two doses, three weeks apart, but they're in a month apart, I looked and then, you know, basically saying everyone gets vaccinated, you get out of jail free card and, you know, we can open up the country and everything. And I said, well, you have to be careful, too, because as a pediatric, you know,

as a pediatric scientist, I know that that's not how it works with almost all pediatric vaccines. What you do is you give our kids a series of primary immunizations, then you wait. You wait six months, a year, sometimes longer, and then you give a boost. And that's what gives you the more enduring protection. So don't be surprised if six months for an hour or whatever, the call's going to come out to get a third dose. that's what we should expect, but nobody really said that. And so come around the Delta wave when there was a mutation in the virus and we needed that boost, I was looking like the smartest kid in the class.

But even then, what I didn't anticipate was that the durability of the MRI vaccines is not what anyone had hoped. After six months, it really started to wane. Well, the original series did a good job against severe disease, even moving forward. But the boost definitely were. were helping. So that wasn't one example. But another one was this. If you remember when the vaccines were licensed, they were licensed on the basis of symptomatic illness. The way the trials were done is if you started feeling sick, you tested yourself, and if you were positive,

you registered as a case. So all the cases were symptomatic illness. But then, early on, the CDC was not measuring vaccine effectiveness, which was a sort of of frustration. So all of our vaccine effectiveness data early on in the pandemic came from the UK or Israel. And there was almost all with the Pfizer vaccine because that was the vaccine they had. And if you got Madeira, well, you kind of extrapolate from Pfizer. If you got the J&J vaccine, you felt you had buyers remorse because you weren't getting any data, if you remember that. But what happened was the Israelis who showed early in 2021 during the alpha wave that these vaccines were not only stopping symptomatic illness,

but the level of virus-neutralizing antibody was so high that the virus-neutralizing antibodies were getting the throat and nasal washings and neutralizing the virus. So you weren't shedding virus, and you were stopping transmission, 90%. And that was the reason why vaccines came off. I mean, my mask could come off.

The problem is the CDC didn't explain that. Now mask can come off. So there was that, again, that sort of old, school way of communicating, sort of dumb it down. But I would give the underlying assumption. And that was important because then when the virus mutated to the Delta variant, the level of virus neutralizing antibodies went down. Still enough to keep you out of the hospital, still enough to prevent you from dying.

Not mild disease or transmission. But there was some, there was actually still some reduction in transmission. To this day, there's actually some reduction in transmission and virus shedding for all the vaccines. but we don't talk about that enough, but, you know, not 90, anything close to 90%. And then, but then that's why, and if you remember, there was the epidemic in Provincetown. I remember over the summer of 2021. And all of a sudden, masks had to come back on, but that's because of the level of virus-neutralizing antibody. So I would try to give those assumptions and explain it.

But what the federal government had to do is, you know, said, mask can come off, masks can come back on. And that was very confusing for people. So, you know, we had... And that wasn't the first time they did that. Yes. Because at the beginning of the pandemic, you had the surge in general laughing at people on planes wearing masks on Twitter.

I don't know if you remember that. I don't remember that. And saying like, oh, you don't need to do this. Whereas like on this YouTube channel, we were saying, hey, right now, no need to mask because we need them for the first responders, etc. We're facing shortages. But in the future, we may need them. But they were making jokes like, hey, no need for masks.

It's completely unnecessary. So that was probably second or third time that they were going back and forth. Yeah, it was just kind of this simplistic kind of messaging. And I think the other thing that I would do is, you know, I would talk to Americans like they're educated adults. And, you know, I basically just assumed it was, hey, doc, just tell me what I need. tell me what I need to do, and if you can explain the basis for what you're saying, it really helped me to understand to protect me and my family. The problem was there was another part of the country that was totally tuned out

and not interested in anything. And I think the CDC wanted to talk to the American people with a single message or the federal government. And it was hard to amortize over all of that. And it came out sounding like baby talk, I think, I'm out of the time. Yeah, I remember even Dr. Offutt mentioned that one of his, main frustrations with the booster messaging was that instead of making it for high-risk individuals, we instead recognized it for everybody, bypassing some of the usual approval steps,

and he said that a lot of that came from the higher-ups saying they don't want a garbled message. They just want a straight message. Everyone should get posted. I think Paul and I differ a little bit on this one, because I do think the boosters were helpful because it wasn't always about death and hospitalization. There were a couple of other things going on to keep up with boosters. One was long COVID. You know, if you were vaccinated and keeping up with your boosters, you had a greatly diminished likelihood of getting long COVID.

I think that was important. The other was, you know, I don't think we adequately explained that this virus is a, you know, we called it a respiratory virus. It was probably first and foremost a thromboembolic virus, right? It was, you know, causing coronary artery blockage and heart attacks and strokes. And so actually one of the best ways to protect your heart health was actually getting vaccinated and keeping up with your boosters. Which, by the way, is another aspect of flu vaccination.

We don't talk about enough. People, you know, die from flu, in part because they have terrible heart attacks while they have influenza. There's, you know, the band Rush and Getty Lee talks about his father who died as a relatively young father of heart attack while sick in bed with flu. Yeah. Well, that brings up a good point where RFK Jr.

frequently makes a dichotomy between chronic illness and infectious disease research. And he says, why are we putting all this effort in infectious disease research and ignoring chronic health conditions? I don't think anyone's ignoring chronic health conditions. Even the newly appointed surgeon general makes statements on podcasts saying all doctors are ignoring chronic health conditions. I don't know. I've been practicing medicine for 11 years.

We're not ignoring it. That's our conversation all the time. And also there is a blurring between infectious disease, especially chronic infections and non-communicable illnesses. So again, the reason why you often die from COVID is from thrombo-emabolic events, right, heart attacks and strokes. And if you have risk factors for heart attacks and strokes, that goes hand in hand with that.

But even cancers, you know, the estimate is between 16 and 20% of all cancers are caused by infectious disease agents. On the African continent, it may be as much as a third. So things like hepatitis, HPV, there's a parasitic worm that causes cancer known as opus thorcus. And as we get better at this, the number, the percentage of cancers caused by infectious agents keeps on going up. So the idea that we're only going to focus on chronic disease and, you know, it doesn't make sense. but Bernie Sanders yesterday put out a white paper on the cuts to the NIH.

And it was pretty disturbing when you look at by individual institutes. So the worst affected institute, National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, had half a billion dollar in cuts so far. The next one down is heart, lung, and blood, 60 million. So it's clear they have it out for NIH, so it's going to destroy. infectious disease research. And very, I mean, I want to talk about that more, but very interesting. I'll also play a soundbite from your interview with Joe Rogan, where he actually was at this

point in early 2020, very supportive of the fact that we need more research surrounding vaccines and prevention. So here's this. Is the possible silver lining to this cloud that this is a wake-up call for people to really take serious the funding of vaccines, the funding for pandemic research to make sure that we never let something like this ever happen again. That's a pretty softball question. But isn't it interesting?

He's for pandemic research, making sure it never happens again. And yet, right now, where are we, cutting millions of dollars, hundreds of millions of dollars? Yeah, I don't know why he pivoted like he did. And I think he got beat up about the ivory mactin. And I think people made fun of him because they called it horse dewormer. Not entirely fair either because, you know, I mean, I helped organize this massive neglected tropical disease program through USAID for mass treatment with repurposed medicines, including Ivermectin. I may be responsible for more people on this planet getting Ivermectin than any other person alive, but for riverblindness for Anka-Sarchiasis and lymphatic filer eyes. So it is a well-established human drug.

And I think, you know, just keep on going back to the horse dewormer probably got to him at some level. I don't know. I don't know what was in his head. But it's, but it's, you know, it's always disappointing when you lose friends. Yeah. I, you know, I look at the HHS administration as it exists today. And they talk about fighting back against chronic diseases, fixing our nutrition. And then they're cutting all these budgets, losing Kevin Hall, these amazing researchers

that are actually looking into what hyper-processed food does to our bodies. It seems like they're speaking on one side against all these issues, and yet when it comes to funding or actually trying to solve the problem, there's no real solutions put forth. What do you make of that? Well, everything's with their own slant, like the way Mr. Kennedy talks about autism. You know, he talks about it in these very dark terms, right? says, you know, these, these are individuals who are not productive in society. They can't use the toilet by themselves. You know, they, they never, they don't earn money. They don't pay taxes.

You know, I look at my daughter, Rachel, you know, Rachel has a verbal IQ in the 1890 range. She has a functional IQ in the 40s. She can't count money. She can't live independently. She lives with us, but she walks to goodwill industries every day. She has a job. She loves her job. She loves her boss. She earns money. She's proud of the fact she earns money. She pays taxes. She's proud of the fact she pays taxes. She has friends. She goes to the movies. You know, she's, you know, it's, she has a very full and interesting life. But, you know, he always talks about it in these very dark, dark terms. And, um, and I, and I, and then he, walked it back, I think, a couple of days later, he said, well, I only meant the 25% of people

on the autism, but I don't even think it's 25%, but, but, um, and then he wants to create the registry. Yeah, what's that about? Which scares the crap out of me. You know, I don't, I don't, I don't my daughter in any registry with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., right? Um, first of all, it's not going to, although it feels like we all are in, in a registry if he's running HHS. Well, you know, we've got, we know the two causes of autism, right? It's the genes, and there are environmental factors. None of that's going to be in the registry, right? It's a registry for what purpose? And the fact that he always talks in such dark terms, and also he has this fascination with Holocaust imagery. You know, he's always comparing, he's twice now in public compared vaccines to the Holocaust, and each time he's apologized and walked

back, or people who work with them, you know, have been going to anti-vaccine rallies parading around in yellow Jewish stars offensive as hell, you know, and I'm Jewish and, you know, with the words no vaccine and this kind of stuff. And so, you know, creating registries for people who Bobby seems to think are mental defectives. What does that remind you of? So, you know, keep my daughter off of that registry. Right. Yeah. Where do you see this going, this administration? Do you think at some point there'll be enough public pressure to get them out of their current positions? Or you think this is going to be exactly as is? I don't know.

You know, I think one of the things that I recently spoke to our PhD and our MD PhD students. And by the way, I'm not actually very political. I know the MAGA people like to portray me as a political figure. I'm actually not. You know, when I moved to Texas 15 years ago, you know, I worked with George, H.W. Bush, Jim Baker, Republicans, right? And I never doubted they cared about the country, and they certainly were all in on science and medicine. That's this new and twisted stuff that really alarms me. But, you know, I was speaking to the Ph.D. and M.D. PhD students

gave a talk in our big auditorium and our junior faculty say, okay, where do we go from here if there are sustained government cuts in funding for science and where are the gaps, in terms of biotech and that sort of actually wrote a paper on it and plus biology a few weeks ago. But one of the things that I said is, you know, I know there's a lot of people who are telling you, hey, just hunker down for a bit and, and this will all be over in either two years or four years because the House and Senate will flip or there'll be a due election. I say, I don't think so. To me, this has a more enduring feel about it. And don't just hunker down and hide, but lean in, but lean in a productive way and really try to understand what it is that you want to do

with your life and what problem in life do you want to solve what a success look like for you in 10 to 15 years and draw that roadmap with those constraints that there could be significant in sustained cuts to government science. It's tough. Do you see optimism in their eyes when you speak to them or are they really? Well, first, when I started doing this, the first thing I got was a bit of relief because they were feeling all this anxiety and nobody was being frank with them. Everyone is saying, hey, just hunker down and it all go away in four years. I don't think so. I think this is a, this feels like a different country from the one I grew up in.

And we're going to have to find some very innovative strategies to manage it. Yeah. And, you know, to echo your apolitical point, the anti-vaccine movement started on the left on the West Coast. And now you have RFK in a conservative administration. He was running for president as a Democrat. This is not about D's or ours.

I used to say it was the two extremes, the far left and the far right, or many of us said that. A lot of the far left pieces have gone away. Although I was recently out giving a talk at University of California, Santa Cruz, and they pointed out some old school, you know, far to the left.

anti-vaxxers, which there were sort of remnants of what was. And now, but about 10, 12 years ago, it took this pivot in Texas to the far right around this concept of health freedom, medical freedom, and libertarian philosophies. And anti-vaccine groups started getting PAC money, political action committee money, to push anti-vaccine legislation bills and support Canada. to run anti-vaccine platforms. And then it really took off at the CPAC Conference of Conservatives in Dallas in 2021. And then you got Fox News. And then you got Senator Ron Johnson holding the phony baloney vaccine injury roundtables and Rand Paul.

And so it became very much, you know, embraced by the MAGA movement. And, you know, as much as I would try to say, look, I don't care about your political views. That's your right as an American citizen. But don't adopt this one because it's. going to kill you. And I just couldn't thread that needle very well. And now, and there's a reason why you're seeing the big measles epidemic in West Texas and up in the panhandle into Oklahoma and can't.

Those are the same places where people refuse COVID vaccines. There's direct overlap. So there's now spillover back over, you know, went from childhood immunizations, health freedom to COVID-19 refusal vaccines. Now it's spilling back over to, to, to childhood immunizations. So that was one big track. Then the other big track is the health wellness influencer movement pushing the Iverbeck.

And now they're reinforcing each other. And that's playing out, you know, when you see Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s choice for surgeon general. And you're starting to seeing this melding of the influencer movement with libertarian politics. Yeah, what is your take on the new pick of Dr. Means? I don't know. She was never on my radar screen. knew a little bit, the one initially chosen, who I would talk to during the pandemic around vaccine, she would seem fine. I think she would have been a good surgeon general. So I think

it was disappointed of all the people to turn down, that was not the one I wanted. Yeah, it seems weird when we have over a million practicing physicians in the United States to pick one who doesn't have a medical license to lead the surgeon generalship. Seems an awkward choice for sure. Yeah, that's for sure. Do you think that we're going to get to a point, or do you maybe hope that we get to this point, where a lot of doctors start calling on RFK to resign? I think that's already happened, but I don't know that the medical community has that influence, right? I mean, this...

You don't think so? I don't think so. I mean, you know, this administration does what they're going to do. I think I don't know. But you don't think this administration also is very, attuned to public pressure and hearing what they say if they make enough noise? I don't know. I guess we'll see. I guess we'll see. Have you publicly called for RFK to resign? No, I've not. Is that something you would consider doing? Well, I don't, I never

understood why he got up in the first place. I mean, it seemed, I mean, for a number of reasons. One, he, well, and it's not just that he has no science background. I mean, the previous health and Human Services Secretaries also didn't have a science background, right? Tommy Thompson and the Bush administration had a science background or Secretary Azar in the first Trump administration, you know, I guess had a role in pharma, so maybe some, but they weren't recruited on their basis of science background. Right, they were brought in on the fact that they knew how to manage large organizations

or they had a lot of executive experience in government. But that's the other reason. So he doesn't. So it was a combination of lack of society. And also, you know, they had a different temperament. You know, they, they were, you know, I've, I got to know Tommy Thompson a little bit and Secretary Azar in the first Trump administration brought me out to Geneva to speak on why vaccines don't cause autism.

He was great. He was terrific. So they had humility and they had intellectual curiosity. So it's not just not having scientific background. It's, you know, they had those other attributes that made them, I think, pretty good secretaries of health and human services. This episode is brought to you by Square. You're not just running a restaurant. You're building something big.

And Square's there for all of it. Giving your customers more ways to order, whether that's in person with Square kiosk or online. Instant access to your sales, plus the funding you need to go even bigger. And real-time insights so you know what's worth. working. What's not and what's next? Because when you're doing big things, your tools should to. Visit square.ca to get started. So what do you think the incorrect attributes that RFK Jr. has? Well, you know, not he, I can't, at least in my interactions with him, I could not get him to accept any science. He had no interest in the science. He had it all worked out ahead of time and he had preconceived

notions. And it was all about finding facts and factoids to confirm what he had already decided. And that was extremely frustrating. Yeah. And you see a play out on his public statements, right? I mean, that's, and it's been this unending stream of misrepresenting measles, misrepresenting the MMR vaccine, misrepresenting autism, misrepresenting autism, misrepresenting causes of autism and showing no real interest in learning. That disturbs me the most. Do you think he doesn't believe in germ theory? I don't know.

I never asked him about it. Well, I think there was some recent podcast done by Malcolm Gladwell where he really saw from his books that it seemed like he was buying into the notion that germs don't cause disease. And that's why the whole notion of infectious disease, research, vaccines, don't make sense to him. Oh, I see. And that's why, you know, he could go swimming in Rock Creek Park. Correct.

Yeah. Not worrying about E. coli and such. Do you know the feud between, oh, is it Pettenkofer and maybe I don't have him pronouncing his name wrong? And Koch. So Pettenkofer was actually a very good public health doctor. but he virulently disagreed with Robert Koch on the germ theory of disease. And to prove it, he drank a vial of cholera bacillus and did fine, because I think it was probably either inactivated or, you know,

it didn't have the right stomach gastric content. Well, I've seen that experiment play out in both ways. I remember in some states they legalized raw milk sales. and the lawmakers who got that approved cheered with a raw milk glass or a glass of raw milk. And they ended up getting a gastrointestinal bug after that they said was a virus. I'll tell you, what I feel really worried about are the young people choosing scientific careers.

You know, I'm 67 now. And, you know, I'd like to work for a few more years. You know, we got our COVID, low-cost COVID vaccine out, our hookworm vaccine is protecting close to 100%. I want to get that, see that licensed and distributed. That's been a lifetime of work. But, you know, if I had to close my lab early because of drastic government cuts, I'd be sad,

but it wouldn't be catastrophic, right? I did what I wanted to do in life, which is, you know, if you're a vaccine scientist, that's a dream to make a vaccine that actually goes into people's arms. And I've done that. And so if I had to close my lab, you know, I still could write my books and speak and things like that. But what about the 30-year-old postdoctoral fellow or the 32-year-old, 33-year-old assistant

professor, you know, what do we tell them, right? And, you know, when I was talking to them at that big group meeting and the big auditorium at Baylor, I felt like, you know, I was Melissa in the desert, you know, why did you bring us here? You know, it's awful. And, you know, trying to find ways to, you know, encourage them and to say, yes, there's, there are other options. You have your PhD gives you a lot of incredible skill set. Same with your medical degree. But, you know, you might have to go back and forth between biotech or industry or, or, but it's, there's no roadmap right now.

The roadmap was, even on a good day, it was tough to make a career. as a professional scientist. Now it's really tough. Well, a lot of them are going to work for pharma in one way or another, and that might not have been their first choice. They wanted to pursue an academic career, but they're afraid of that.

And I see that across the board, not just infectious disease research-wise, but also nutrition research. Metabolic labs are closing. So it's very hard. And now you're seeing that there's been some outreach from some of the European countries, from France and Sweden and the UK, Belgium,

to say, come, come here, and that may happen as well, which will really accelerate the brain drain. But, you know, if you're a scientist, you have to move. I mean, that was a reason I moved to Texas. You know, I moved there because it was, you know, away from, you know, my wife's family, my family. We all moved to Texas because there were opportunities to be part of the Texas Medical Center, which, you know, you can do things in our Texas medical centers. It's the world's largest medical center. It's the first medical city of 120,000 employees

and 16 institutions and the MD Anderson Cancer Center and Baylor College of Medicine, Texas Children's Hospital. You know, we do everything big in Texas. And so that was an incredible... I just spoke at the Texas Medical Association last week. All right. A lot of your colleagues were there. Yeah, I mean, it's been a great 15 years,

but I did it because that's what I needed to do to do science. So this is what scientists may have to do. It's almost like it was. in the 1920s where scientists would go to Germany or France, you know, to get to get educated. Right. What about for those individuals that are going to work? I hope that doesn't happen. I mean, I hope we find ways.

I mean, that's what it makes America great. People came here and escaped persecution from their countries to do research here. Well, you know, I served as U.S. science envoy in the Obama administration. This was a role he created when he was inaugurated. I was one of the classes of U.S. science office. I was doing, I was all over the Middle East and North Africa, mostly around vaccine development. And, you know, what was interesting is the people you would meet,

the technocrats in very high levels in government positions, they all trained in U.S. universities. And oftentimes got their Ph.D. in science at one of those universities. It wasn't just the MITs and Harvard's and Stanfords of the world, but, you know, they were Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa, or University of Oklahoma. And that's when I realize one of the greatness of our country is our research universities and our land grant universities.

They're really extraordinary intellectual powerhouses. And I sure hope we don't dismantle that because, you know, this is what gave us the Manhattan Project and victory in the Cold War and helped us to defeat HIV AIDS and to dismantle all that. in addition to directly hurting our national security would really damage, I think, one of the reasons why we are such a great nation. And I wish I could have that meeting with the president and say, don't do this. This is the wrong direction. Yeah.

What about those young students, postdocs, who are going to work for the pharmaceutical companies? What message do you have for them, given the fact that you thought it wasn't for you to go work for a pharmaceutical company. Well, and not just pharmaceutical, but biotech. I said, you know, there's a lot of good science, you know, going on in biotech now. And especially in some of these biotech hubs, you know, historically, and over the last 20, 30 years, the big biotech hubs were the San Francisco Bay Area and then Boston, Cambridge, maybe, you know, the Rockville, D.C. area.

But now you have these emerging biohubs in, well, La Jolla, California is another one. But now you have these emerging biohubs in Seattle. Washington, where we are in the Texas Medical Center in Cleveland and Chicago, here in New York City, they're really building out quite a lot of, really, biotechs. I think those are exciting places, but I think we're going to have to think about scientific careers differently, that your PhD or your advanced degree in science may be less about the specific content that you gained and more about the skill set that you have, you know, critical thinking skills and being able to do data management or project management or being

able to analyze data or knowing how to communicate complex ideas. Those are skill sets that you could be able to use anywhere. So I think people are going to have to look at their advanced degree in that way. I also think we have to figure out a way to be more, and this is what I wrote about in the paper and plus biology a few weeks there. We're going to have to be more fluid in our willingness to go back and forth between academia and biotech and pharma companies and maybe even private equity, which we don't really allow right now because of, you know, for good reasons, for conflict of interest.

But figuring out ways to soften those so people can go back and forth. So I could imagine, for instance, if these government cuts are sustained and prolonged, being the professor of the future, might have a lab in a biotech, might have a smaller lab in the university, maybe spending time in venture capital and private equity, being fluid and going back and forth. There was an interesting article that I cited in that paper I wrote in Harvard magazine where they interviewed three prominent Harvard professors who left because of they weren't allowed by university rules to have such a big footprint in biotech.

So it was a Stor Treiber, a giant chemical biology, and Doug Melton, a developmental biologist, and Michael Minna and an epidemiologist, and they talk about the struggles, not only for themselves, but the people in their laboratories going back and forth. And I think we're going to have to find ways to see if we can soften that a little bit to give people more flexibility. I'm curious how that plays that.

So for instance, a PhD, a PhD right now in the U.S. is a five to six year, sometimes seven year undertaking, usually with one major principal investigator, and the goal is to get two papers or three papers in high-impact journals. And you can't argue with success. That has been very successful, but I don't know that we can finance that anymore.

We won't have the T-32 training grants from the NIH. And so at the future PhD, maybe it's a four-year degree where you spend nine months in an academic lab, but nine months in a biotech, maybe nine months working in private equity or venture capital to learn that side of the business. And so I think there are things we can do, but the universities and the academic health centers are going to have to be willing to look at this through a new lens. So maybe that's not so terrible either.

I mean, it is terrible what's happening to government cuts in science, especially to NIAID, but maybe it'll help foster some innovation as well. Yeah. I know that the current administration doesn't like that. They're making a push to say that if you work for the FDA, you can't go work for a pharmaceutical or biotech company after because they don't like that conflict of interest. I don't know if it's going to happen during this administration, but for the future, definitely reasonable. Do you agree with Bill Gates about the fact that AI will replace doctors in a decade? I don't know. I think, you know, remember, being a physician is not just about technical knowledge, right?

There's that, there is the art of medicine also. So I don't think so. I mean, I do think, I think AI is a valuable tool, for instance. That can be, that can really help. So I'll give you an example. I have a good colleague, a friend, I won't give you his name, but he's a Yale medical school radiologist. And AI, I think, is probably having the biggest impact right now.

on radiology and, you know, reading CAT scans and MRIs. And it's really interesting. He says it's a really useful as a screening tool, but there's still things AI misses, and there's still things AI either overcalls or undercalls. So it's not quite... Requires tuning. It requires tuning and still requires that human touch.

And I would imagine that's going to be true for the foreseeable future in medicine. I think it will be an ally, especially, you know, for all the electronic health records and writing notes and things like that. I mean, I'm buried right now on notes. Fortunately, I got out of clinical medicine before I had to do your EHR.

But I think, you know, that's how I see it. And we shouldn't look at it as there's a replacement necessarily. Do you use AI in any way right now? I haven't used it much so far. I'm trying to figure out unique ways to utilize it. But every time I do, it starts hallucinating and writing fake things that don't exist and I get worried. especially around education.

Like, how are high school and college students using this or overusing it? Because there was always ways to cheat, but this feels new and different to some degree. Yeah, it doesn't. It's still, you know, when you look at, when I've looked at things, it still has a lot of awkward prose and I've noticed it doesn't really, it has the inability to really go into depth and to, and the writing is not beautiful. It gets ideas on.

So there's still a lot of missing pieces. I think the big or more immediate threat is the use of AI and disinformation. My friend Renee DeResta, who... Stanford. She was actually kicked out of the Stanford. They closed the Stanford Inherd Observatory. It was very unjust what happened to her, I thought.

Wrote an article in the Atlantic, early on in the pandemic, called disinformation is about to go infinite. And that was a really chilling. I think it was a brilliant article. It was a very chilling article also. And then I got asked to review a paper and write a commentary for one of the JAMA journals

and was JAMMA internal medicine where this group in Australia tried to use AI in order to see how good it was as generating health disinformation. And they picked two topics. They picked vaping and they picked vaccines. and that's why they asked me to review it. And on the vaccine side, it generated something like within an hour,

it generated 100 disinformation blogs. Wow. And the blogs were tailored to specific groups, you know, to pregnant women, to certain ethnic populations. And not only that, it had a mixture of fake references that sounded real and real references. Yeah, truth-wrapped in a lie, right? It was completely diabolical.

And so I do worry. I mean, things are as bad as you can get right now with health disinformation around vaccines or virology. And I can only imagine the impact of that. Continuing on our trail of doom and gloom, how is the climate change impacting infectious disease research for you? Well, you know, I've been really looking a lot at that because I'm on the Gulf Coast and Texas

and we're seeing a rise in mosquito transmitted. virus infections, West Nile, Dengue, chicken, guinea, Zika. I wrote an article in 2023 in New England Journal of Medicine about the possible return of yellow fever, which I think would be the ultimate epidemic because of the high mortality and the fact that we don't have vaccine stockpile. So it's clearly going up, but it's not just climate change alone. I find it's climate change in concert with urbanization.

So what you're seeing now for the first time, more people on our planet live in urban areas than rural areas. That transition happened about a decade ago. And the urban growth is not symmetric. It's happening in these big clusters or megacities. So some estimates say, well, the world's population will have 40 plus megacities by the year 2030 by the end of this decade. And, you know, for centuries or decades, the three megacities were New York, London, and Tokyo. Now they're all in low- and middle-income countries. So Kinsasha in Congo and Lagos in Nigeria could have as many as 40% of the world's people living in poverty, you know, by the year 2050.

Or Dara Salam or in India, Calcutta and in Mumbai and Delhi or in hydraulic. or Dhaka in Bangladesh or Cairo in Egypt and then the Latin American megacities, Mexico City, and Sao Paulo and Rio. So kind of the apocalyptic vision is hot and sweltering megacities. That's where we're headed. And so the mosquitoes are going to love that, especially urbanized mosquitoes like the 80s Egypti mosquito. So I see a steep rise in herbivirus infections.

But the other is going to affect some of our big picture pandemic threats, like Ebola as well as new coronaviruses like COVID. Why is that? Because they're viruses of bats. And with those changing climate patterns, we're seeing bats migrate to new habitats and coming closer to the people. And so these viruses are now jumping directly to people

or through secondary or intermediate animal hosts. Some people estimate 60,000 times a year that's happening right now. And it's not just, so it's not just the bats coming closer to the people, but because of urbanization, the people are coming closer to the bats. And so we had Ebola in Dallas in 2014. So I think that's the big pandemic worry that I have is in our big urban clusters. And I think the Texas, talk about hot and sweltering megacities, the Texas Triangle cities, Dallas-Fort Worth and Houston and San Antonio and Austin, they're going

to be the tip of the spear on this. And that's why we set up our tropical medicine school there. So I think that's the big worry. And now you've got HHS cutting the NIAID budget 10 times more than any other institute. And you're seeing with USAID and pulling out of WHO and the Gavi Alliance. And then, you know, this portraying people like me is or vaccine scientists or virologists as cartoon villains or public enemies. all of that means we're we're toast in terms of being able to fight future pandemics and that's why we have to speak out yeah it's so strange because what happens to us impacts all of us so if they're anti-vaccine and we start having pandemics that's going

to impact them impact their businesses they're almost like hurting themselves by hurting no it's it's so self-defeating for the country I mean between the the spantling of research universities and throwing away all of our pandemic preparedness and our vaccine infrastructure, what goes well for this picture? I don't see it. So we just have to keep fighting back is the strong takeaway. And keep on our, in trying not to make it, that's why I don't like talking too much about RFK Jr.

or the individual personalities because that becomes a distraction. The key is to really focus it on this is why it doesn't make sense for the country. Yeah. If you had the opportunity to go on Rogan again, would you do it? I've asked him, but, you know, he's not interested. Yeah, interesting. But alone, one-on-one. You know, I don't...

Of course, yeah. I don't want to go on with one of these nutcases and turn it into the Jerry Springer show. Sure. That makes sense. Well, you're doing an amazing job in fighting the good fight. Thank you. In educating the world. And you, too, my friend.

Thank you for all your good work. Thank you. And in some ways, you know, but you're more powerful in this because you're a physician who takes care of patients on a regular basis and somewhat more relatable. And so don't underestimate the impact that you're making. You're making a big impact. Well, it's great. I mean, this YouTube channel reaches this month 150 million people. That's watched. That's not subscribers. That's watched this month. And we're putting out evidence-based information, having conversations with leaders like

yourself, Paul Offitt. Meanwhile, I'm still looking for Walter Cronkine on Channel 3. But this is where young folks are. This is where when people open their phones and Google what's going on. That's why we depend on. We depend on people like you to keep all this. So keep it up. And I'm thrilled that you're still seeing patients.

Absolutely. That's, honestly, that's the symbiotic relationship. Atlantic Health System here in New Jersey. Oh, wonderful. But what most people don't see with social media is that I think social media and health care is really a symbiotic relationship. because when I started doing social media, folks thought I would leave clinical medicine.

And I actually find doing social media, preparing scripts, doing research about certain conditions, makes me a better doctor for my patients. But at the same time, when I see my patients, I know what language to use, what questions they have, what misinformation they're falling victim to, that I can then bring to social media.

So actually, both jobs actually feed well. It makes a much more powerful combination. I feel the same, you know, being a working scientist and still staying in the mix in lab media, meetings and conferences and, you know, solving scientific problems helps me explain that to people as well, because things do change and very quickly. So it's all a moving target. Well, let's do this. Let's end this conversation on a bit of good news. What's something good that you've discovered? Well, I guess your 100% efficacy in clinical trials.

Close to it. Yeah, I'm really excited about that. If I could get that vaccine out, I'd be so excited. And so that would be, that's the dream of a life. I began that as in, as a 21-year-old MD Ph.D. student, you know, more than 40 years ago in New York City. And take people through, shine a light on this a little more. Give it some more publicity. Give it some more air. What illnesses do hookworms cause? What is this preventing? It's a leading cause of anemia, iron deficiency, anemia among kids and pregnant women. And it often goes hand in the glove with malaria. So in the African continent, wherever you see malaria, you have hookworm. So, you know, this is why women die in childbirth,

because they come in with hematocrats, you know, in the six or seven range, because they have both hookworm and malaria or why kids have profound iron deficiency anemia, and the additive anemia of malaria, and this causes not only physical growth development, but cognitive delays as well. So it's one of the most common afflictions of people living in poverty, you know, more than 100 million people are affected. So it's very exciting to be able to make it. How does the vaccine work? How does it? It's a recombinant protein vaccine and induces viruses to a protein required for the hookworm for blood feeding.

So the worm extracts blood out of the intestinal wall when it lacerates capillaries and the laminarproproperia. And it's an enzyme involved in heem detoxification. You make an antibody to it at the worm nutritional apparatus. It's a very cool mechanism. I wonder if that same principle can work to some degree with mosquito. There have been tick vaccines along some similar line. But this took me a lifetime to us, a lifetime to dissect out the mechanisms by which the biochemistry, by which harkworms feed on blood.

So that's extremely gratifying. We have other vaccines. We have a new vaccine for Shagas disease that I'm hoping we'll go into clinical trials soon. And we have a schistocytosis vaccine. Yeah, that's where people don't realize how many of these viruses are impacting us globally. My kids used to call it Dad's Guaranteed Money Losing Company. But it's been very meaningful. And then I have a new book coming out.

So I started writing books around 15 years ago. And this new one is called Science Under Siege. And I'm writing it. We wrote jointly with Michael Mann, the climate scientist, is someone you may also want to have on. And Michael's a brilliant climate scientist that is the inventor of the hockey stick curve. You know, you lay a hockey stick on the ground. The part of the blade facing up is the change in temperatures over the last 200 years.

And for years, he was getting attacked like I get attacked on the climate science sides. We're comparing the attacks on biomedicine with climate science. Yeah. A lot of excitement as well as frustration. Well, you know, one of the things that I realized is, you know, part of my life that was planned and part that was unplanned. And the part that was planned was I wanted to make use science to make. make low-cost vaccines for the world, what I call science Tikoon for Tikun alum that taught to me by

my cousin, Phil Lazzowski, a rabbi, and a Holocaust survivor, and trying to think about how we build vaccines out in pandemic preparedness in that framework. But then there was the unplanned part, having four adult kids, including Rachel, who has autism, intellectual disabilities. And at some point, I figured if I don't say something, who will. And then, you know, went up against Mr. Kennedy and started becoming this, you know, public target. You know, he labeled me on the Instagram, the OG villain. And I think it was both me and Paul was that. And I was so old and square, I had to Google what it meant, you know,

what is OG villain? And in the original gangster villain, so thanks for having me on. But I do find it meaningful because now I realize that in terms of saving lives, countering all the anti-vaccine activism, ultimately maybe as important as making vaccines. Oh, sure. I mean, you're vaccinating the public with good information. Yeah, I mean, it's not what I plan.

You know, as John Lennon says, life is what happens and you're busy making other plans. It's not what I set out to do, but I do find it meaningful. And, you know, during the day, I'm talking to people like you in the mix. I feel really good at night.

It bests with your head. For sure. And the death threats and the stockings and stuff, yeah. Well, if you're going to be successful, it'll always take shots at you. That seems to be the case. I guess I'm very successful. Exactly.

I'm curious, we did an interesting video animated talking about Jonas Salk and the polio vaccine. Were you inspired by some of his work? I see similarities. Not only inspired, but I had the opportunity to meet with him for a full afternoon. I was giving a talk at the Society for Pediatric Research Conference in 1995. and he was at the Salk Institute in La Jolla and I asked to meet with him and he did. And I spent a whole afternoon together talking about the hookworm vaccine. Oh, wow.

And he offered to help me and gave me some ideas and we spent the afternoon. And the Salk Institute, if you've never been, this gorgeous institute overlooking Black Beach in La Jolla and designed by Lewis Khan, the architect. It's an extraordinary place to visit. And he was connected. married to Francois Joulo, the artist, who was previously connected to Picasso. And she was a famous artist in her own right. She was showing me her paintings.

That's so cool. And then unfortunately, I was on a meeting in the UK and my wife said, did you hear what happened? And she told me that he had passed away. So I got to see him just a few months before his death. But this year, I was honored, or last year, I was on. by the University of Pittsburgh where Jonas Salk worked with their Porter Medal for Public Health.

And it was presented to me by Peter Salk, Jonah Salk's son. Wow. He was a really cool guy and really nice man. He's a physician also. You know, I feel like we're gonna have this conversation again. Obviously, we'd love to have you on to promote your book once that's ready. Sure.

But also this year I was named the UNICEF's ambassador. So I'm the ambassador for UNICEF in order to combat vaccine misinformation. Good, great. So I'm sure. sure that we're going to be talking about your hookworm vaccine. Well, UNICEF does some amazing things. Alyssa Milano, who I know, has also been a UNICEF ambassador. And it's an important role.

UNICEF just does. Yeah, they have huge. We're in there based here in New York, too. So good luck with that. We'll continue sending your message. I think they made a wise decision. I think you'll be a great ambassador. Thank you so much.

Appreciate it. Thank you. Where can people follow along your work? Where do you want to send them? Well, I have a website, just Peter Hode. Oneword.org, and then I have my ex account at Peter Hotez, and then I just started a blue sky account. Okay. And that one's, I think, at doctor.

I couldn't keep the same one because it had already gotten hacked. I think it was at Dr. Peter Hotes and LinkedIn. I don't do Instagram or. Okay. Well, thank you so much. Thank you. Appreciate it. Huge thank you to Dr. Hotes for traveling from Texas for this interview.

Keep your eye out for his new book, Science Under Siege. which takes a deep look at how our most trusted scientific institutions are being attacked. If you like this episode, I think you'll also like my conversation with Dr. Paul Offutt, creator of the rhodovirus vaccine. So scroll on back to find that episode. I'd really appreciate if you help us find new listeners by giving us a five-star review and leaving a comment. If you enjoyed this episode, we need all the help we can get spreading accurate information these days.

And as always, stay happy and healthy. Thank you.