The Comedy Cellar: Live from the Table - The Pharmacist

Episode Date: April 25, 2020

The Pharmacist

You're listening to The Comedy Cellar, live from the table, on the Riotcast Network, riotcast.com. Good evening, everybody. Welcome to the Comedy Cell Live at the Table. We're here with Perrielle Ashenbrand, Daniel Natterman. You have no space between your names. Daniel Natterman. We have special guest Peter Goldstein, who is a pharmacist, correct?

Correct. And Susanna Gim, who is an academic nerd? Yes. But you also, what's your profession? I'm a clinical pharmacist as well. So I have a hospital site and my area of expertise is evidence-based medicine. As opposed to non-evidence-based medicine, which is what we're all practicing right now. So you work for NYU Langone? Yes.

I'm a patient there, Dr. Lam. You know Dr. Lam? Oh, no. Is that a specialty area? He's head of men's health. He was on like 50th in Madison. Actually, I go to him too because Noam recommended him, but he's hard to get on the phone. You're not supposed to be calling your doctor on his cell

phone all the time no but i'm saying if you do need to get a hold of these people they're very difficult in this town i usually i usually email him and i get an email back pretty pretty promptly um but maybe he likes me better uh anyway so uh so peter so why don't you explain what you you emailed me to correct us on something. We invited you on. What was it? So I listen to your show all the time, every week. Love your podcast.

Love the cell I've been there. Everybody's been going crazy about the hydroxychloroquine, and you guys have mentioned it too. The amount of misinformation that's been put out there, it just blew me away. Just going back real quick, there are so many times in my pharmacy career where I was screaming out loud that this isn't right, something's wrong, going back to when OxyContin came out. We were being pursued by the drug manufacturer, Purdue Fredericks. Hey, this medication's great.

People can't get addicted to it. There's no side effects. And I remember going to a continuing education and I got into an argument with the people. I said, this is oxycodone. It's an addictive drug. It's one of the five most addictive substances known to mankind. And we see where we are. I can't tell you how many patients I had that had problems with it. Going forward to this, I guess it was about five weeks ago, I was having lunch at a NYU. I also used to work at Langone as well in the outpatient pharmacy. Gentleman next to me said, hey, you're a pharmacist. I said, yeah. He goes, oh, my wife is too. She owns a pharmacy nearby on Long Island. And we're talking and everything's going cool. I said, how are you

guys doing? There's people coming in asking for your reality of your everything in stock. And he's like, yeah, I guess, you know, I really don't think this is going to be a big deal. I think it's a hoax. And I looked at him and previous day, there's a writer that I know with Business Insider, Lydia Ramsey, and she had a really good piece in there. They got a PowerPoint slide from the American Hospital Association, and this was from back in January, they estimated that there was going to be 94 million cases, worst case scenario, 94 million cases, half a million deaths. So I said, you know, but I go, I just read this article. I kind of believe it. I think we're into something serious. And, you know, this person, they probably have something to gain from it. And I know Lydia Ramsey who wrote it she's a young girl she's very honest she would not put out anything that is you know not well researched that's just who she is so that turned into a

major discrepancy outside of this little spot and he started going off you know doing a fox news thing well you know started going on hillary clinton doing a Fox News thing. Well, you know, started going on Hillary Clinton. And I was like, well, I go, I'll talk to you in a decent tone, but I'm not going to get into an argument with you about politics over this. This looks like it's real. A couple nights later, I'm walking my dog, one of my neighbors, older gent in the 70s, Vietnam vet, retired cop. And they always ask me about questions about their medications and whatnot. So he goes, hey, Peter, what's the story with this virus thing? It's a hoax, right?

I was like, Tom, I go, no, this is not a hoax. This is when people started getting it. People were dying in China. You have to take it seriously, especially you. You're a little bit older. You have some comorbidities. You could be at risk here. Well, 10 days ago, he passed from corona.

His wife called our house at, it was a 30 night. She couldn't even get the gumption up to call an ambulance. He had been sick. He tested negative a couple of times. He was running fevers. It was a two and a half week, just real downward spiral. Ambulance got him to the hospital and passed a few weeks later. Those were false negatives?

Correct. Okay, sorry. Now, so it just, seeing all these people going on TV, on social media, you see the number of people talking about hydroxychloroquine. most of the people can't even pronounce it properly. They don't know the chemical structure. They don't know the side effects. They don't know what it's used for. They don't have a mechanism of action. And it's just frustrating to see all this misinformation going out there. I was asked to write an opinion piece in Newsday, which was published about three weeks ago, four weeks ago now. And I said, let's just wait, wait for the evidence. And it's kind of going both

ways because there was that bad report from the VA where the people died, but they're saying, well, that means there's no role for hydroxychloroquine. Well, that's not true. This wasn't a great study. They didn't have, it wasn't a, didn't have a control group. The people that got it, we don't know what stage of COVID. Can I stop you there for a second? Sure. They always say there's no control group. And I don't understand that. We have reams of data to model a control group, don't we? You just take people the same characteristics and you go back and look at how long were they sick? How long before they died?

How many went on respirators? Why is that not a totally adequate control group so the issue is that i'm sorry covet 19 is new so i mean for the last for the last three months right but in order for there to be a control that means these patients should not have gotten anything and before well no because by the time they come to us they are getting hydroxychloroquine control, that means these patients should not have gotten anything. And before even, well, no, because by the time they come to us, they're getting hydroxychloroquine. No, I'm saying, I'm saying you, you can take a hundred people and give them a hydroxychloroquine and then you can pick out from your data, a hundred people who were not given hydroxychloroquine, match it up for demographics, age, whatever it is. I mean, I know it's not perfect, but it's

unlikely to be way off and see what was the average time that it took these 160-year-olds to recover. And if you see that the 100 people who are taking hydroxychloroquine recovering half the time, maybe that's not a perfect study for some things, but that's a pretty profound result, no? Even without a randomized control group at the same moment. What I'm saying is I don't see why going backwards in time and taking data is not the equivalent of doing a randomized control group prospectively. Well, it's not equivalent, but what you're describing is kind of like a case control, and we can use historical controls. But what I was trying to explain is that because by the time COVID got to us, we were already had ideas about what

treatments we should be using. So there were very few patients that were confirmed COVID positive that did not receive other things. So, and especially there's different treatment stages, right? So the severity of disease is you present, you know, just feeling like you have a cold, but we stopped letting people come with just the cold symptoms, right? And we had limitations of the testing. So because of that, by the time patients are coming to the hospital now, they're usually already infected. They've gone through the symptomatic phase and now they're reaching that critically ill

stage. And in the critically ill stage, we're throwing a lot of different treatments at them. And there's, there's no way for us to have a control of people just dying without any treatments now that are COVID positive. Right. So what you're saying is that you might get a false negative on hydroxy chloroquine, meaning that you think it's not working,

but the reason is because other things are working. But I guess, I mean, you're not totally flying but you have a hundred how many cases have there been in the in the in the world over 800 000 yeah so i mean that seems like you if if you if you get if you do a study with a few hundred people hydroxychloroquine and you're getting a an average of half the general average of cases recovery in the world god it's not insane to say this is probably something right i mean how else would you explain it was finishing up uh something about uh the study in virginia with the uh okay sorry you might have been leading to where you're going, though. I'm just trying to understand because I hear this a lot. I never understood why you need 100 people.

But Susanna said something I hadn't thought of, which is there's so many people getting so many other drugs. No, it's a really critical point you just brought up. And I'm glad that that's a point that you're hearing a lot of and it's not making sense to you because to us, like those of us in the field, it makes a lot of sense to us. And we don't think about how we need to explain it better. But basically, the issue is the denominator. Because we don't have enough testing, we don't know how many people have it, so we're not able to track the disease in a timely manner and have an accurate denominator. And without an accurate denominator, the only people we're hearing about are the people that are going to end up with a lot of treatments, which makes the data dirty. So... I think what Noam is so saying is, say hypothetically somebody had stage four lung

cancer, and he gave them this new treatment, and it disappeared the next day. But there was no control group. You would still- A hundred people. A hundred people would disappear the next day. Disappear the next day. Even with no control group, you'd still be able to say, something is going on here in that situation, because the history of stage four lung cancer will tell you that it never just goes away. Correct. And that is exactly why the data we have for cancer is so bad because we don't need control groups because we have studied it enough to know the progression of disease without any treatment. Whereas with COVID-19, for us, the other issue is that we're in the U.S., which is different

from the treatment options available in the other countries that got it first, which also makes it difficult for us to figure out how to manage it. Our comorbidities are also different. Obesity has shown to be a big issue that's contributing to the progression of disease. So that's something that isn't, that's a nice, unique thing to developed countries, and especially ours. So is this fair? Will Silvan, briefly. Hey, Will. Yo, what's up, everybody? How y'all doing?

Hey. You guys sent me the email invite all late. So I can't, it's not like I was busy doing something. I was busy waiting for an email. You got the email the same time everybody else got the email? Dial-up connections take longer to the email to come through. So then, is this fair to say,

if the efficaciousness of hydroxychloroquine real, but not profound, you might not be able to, you'd have a lot of trouble drawing conclusions based on how dirty the data is, is your term. But if it was quite profound, if it was profound the way penicillin cures strep throat, you could probably see that. Yeah, we would have seen it faster. You would have seen it already. So somewhere in between. If it works, it's not a silver bullet. Well, I mean, the added complications are the dosing too. So everyone's using different doses, different durations, different combinations. Go ahead, Peter. You wanted to say so I could tell.

No, that's okay. Sorry, Peter. No, that's right. I give you preference all the time. Also, what stage the patients are getting. We like her better too. Go ahead. I wish I was half as smart as Susanna. The stages that they're getting at, is it early stage? Is it mid-stage?

Is it end-stage? And quite honestly, prophylactically, the drug is, it suppresses the immune system. All right. That's why people with lupus take it. That's why people with rheumatoid arthritis take it. So why would you want to suppress your immune system if you're healthy? That makes no sense. I mean, just on the face of it, that's what made me go crazy.

Is it fair to say that nobody actually knows anything about this disease? Like, it sounds like nobody. That is actually should be number one. Nobody knows shit. Well, look, I just saw this other video where this girl who had, who caught Corona and she had it, she got sick. She was like, you know, she felt like she was dying. She had it and she, and she got over it in 14 days. So she's like, Oh cool. I'm back. I'm good. And then she's like,

you know, I could go out and mix and mingle now. Cause I, you know, you know, whatever. And it's something, you know, I felt like something was not right. Something she felt like she was still like not over it completely or felt like it was just still there. So after getting tested the first time, I found out that she had it. She called the doctor up and said, yo, can I get retested? And the doctor go, oh, no, you can't get retested. You already got tested.

You got over it. So you're good now. And she said, well, I just want to make sure I don't have it anymore. And so the doctor said, well, let me set you up with a drive-by testing. And, you know, you could – but don't tell them you got tested because they won't retest you. So she went and got tested. Three days later, she has corona again.

So the point is because she was about to – Or still. Or still. Probably still. probably not again probably still well she she said she got over all the symptoms like she she had a fever she had you know and it went it all went away and she was feeling much better so it's like it's like how long does it stay in your system after you recover from all your symptoms then? They don't know. Just to answer Periel's question about

does anybody know anything? We know quite a lot. And in fact, I know more than most because I have been obsessively reading about this disease. So if you have any questions, you can certainly ask them to me. But we have learned a lot about the invisible enemy and there's more to learn.

I have a question for our pharmacy friends. Now, most people, when they think of a pharmacist, they think of the guy that's at the cash register at the pharmacy. In other words, most people don't realize that you guys actually know some shit. That's 100% true. You know, the thing that got me most upset this year or two years ago, there's an ad on the subways in the city for capsule pharmacy. And it said something to the effect, when was the last time you saw your pharmacist, the last time that you missed seeing your pharmacist? That's right, use us, capsule pharmacy. I went nuts. And I tell all my students,

that thing, if somebody comes into your pharmacy where you're working and they have those sentiments, you should be so pissed off because part of the job of a community pharmacist, which is what I did all my life, you have to give the information. You have to be open. You have to educate the patient. It's just so important to start a conversation. What Dr. Gim does is totally different than what I do, and it's at a whole nother level. Don't call me Dr. Gim. Well, you're a doctor of pharmacy. Peter, are you a doctor too? Are you a doctor of pharmacy? No. So I got my license back in 1984. Why was it taken away from you? I'm not going to go into that right now.

However. He didn't get his license back. It's a joke. It's a joke. His license back in 1984. License back. I graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Pharmacy about 20 years ago. They extended it to a six-year program and graduate with a PharmD.

So you're considered a doctor. Susanna has gone beyond that. They do what they call a PGY-1 postgraduate year one residency and a second year residency in a hospital. So they're working with doctors, doing treatment. Some pharmacists actually can prescribe medications, which is something I'm hoping that the governor does right now. There you go. I love it. Wait, go away for a second.

Move your head for a second. Who, me? Yeah. Wow, pretty cool. Will, I haven't seen you since the lockdown began. Are you – Go ahead. I wanted to ask Peter something

because it's just not related. Let's just get through all the questions. First of all, I had a friend when I was... I know two pharmacists who've gone to jail for distributing drugs, obviously. So do I. I know more than that, unfortunately. It's very common, right?

It's very tempting. People offer you money and money will corrupt anybody. I mean, it's not unique to pharmacy. I mean, look at Michael Jackson's doctor. Yeah. That's right. So how often do you get offered money by people desperate for drugs?

Honestly, I've never been offered that way. I did back when I had my pharmacy out east. There were people that used to go around and they would, it was a whole scam. They would buy drugs from Medicaid patients, mostly HIV patients. They would take their medications, they would give them some money, and then they would go take those medications and sell them to the pharmacies at a lower price than they would normally get it. So it was actually a big scam. It's called Operation Gold Pill. And there's undercover scams, right? They try to catch you. Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. Go ahead. I'm sorry. No, go ahead. Finish up. And in the hospital, Susanna, how often do drugs

disappear? Well, it's a little bit harder in a health system, especially if you have an issue with it already. So for pharmacy staff, it's not just pharmacists. We have administrators, we have clinical pharmacists, and we have technicians. And it's, I mean, even when I was an intern in a hospital, we would have to do things like sign off, you would have special bagging for the narcotics. It's trying to keep it really tight in the hospital setting, because obviously it's a lot easier to divert in a setting that large. I got in trouble. Hospitals, they have like a vending machine for the drugs,

where you have to have a card, and the card knows exactly which doctor or nurse pulled out what drug. Right. Now that it's computerized, we do that with everything now. It's not just narcotics. But narcotics did start out as being one of the first drugs that were controlled that way. So we had Perry Hill's friend, the epidemiologist, Satish. That is the name, Satish, right?

And I insulted him. I didn't mean to when I said that I thought that if they weren't careful with the masks in the hospital, that they would disappear because nurses and doctors, they want to give them to their families, to their friends. You know, and I thought of drugs in the hospital. It's like, and he, he was offended, but I think he was wrong. I wasn't knocking doctors, just human beings, you know. Well, no, in all fairness, you insult a lot of people.

Fair enough, Will. is this human beings you know well no in all fairness you insult a lot of people fair enough will but anyway okay and and so what and so and where do you guys what is your particular what are your particular wisdoms about the next three six eighteen months what do you see what do you see for the united states of america Well, I want to know where Peter thinks we're at with hydroxychloroquine. Okay, go ahead. Go ahead. You know where that's at. Is that completely done or is it still a possibility that it could be a value? Just from everything I read from the studies, if we went from a scale of zero to a hundred, we're not at zero. There's a possibility it might help with those cytokine storms to help suppress the immune system. There might be a role in that at a certain stage.

But if I went from a zero to 100, I would say maybe at about a 15, 20. I think that would be it. I just today, there was a study came out. I don't know if you guys know Dr. James Hamblin. He writes for the Atlantic. He's a New York guy. Really interesting. He's well worthwhile to read. Patients that are on Flomax, Tamzoflosin, which are men with benign PBH, enlarged prostate. So that medication helps you urinate better. It increases the force of the bladder. And those patients were able to withstand those cytokine storms better than other patients. So it's preliminary. I'm not saying everybody should go pop Flomax, but they're learning so much. You have to use what they call Bayesian logic.

You can't just come up with something and say, this drug is going to work, throw it against the wall, and this is what we're going with. You have to look at everything. And as you look at the studies and then move on forward and learn from what you're, all the data that you're getting, and we still need to get a ton of data. We really don't have enough. Well, Will, I want to ask you a question. I want to ask Peter a question. You had a bruised prostate. Did they prescribe Flomax for that also? Go ahead, Go ahead.

Thank you. Thank you, Norm. You insulted me. This is Hotem on the phone. Let me just tell him. Hello? This is Christ. You can't call him back. Hey, Mike, take a phone call. We'll be back in five minutes. There it is, Hotem, though, to be fair.

Go ahead. Peter, a.k.a. Dr aka dr goldstein i don't know anyway so you're not i could i'm eating healthy just plain old eating healthy the old old medicine just a hundred percent the best thing you could do for your immune system get the proper rest eat right work out keep your stress system, get the proper rest, eat right, work out, keep your stress levels low, get the proper amount of sleep. I mean, and social distance, wash your hands. Right now, that is the best thing that we have,

that we know. There's also, we discussed this on the Comedy Cellar TV show. It was one of the topics. I don't know if actually any of the jokes made it to air, but masturbation apparently is good for the immune system. Now, I don't know if actually any of the jokes made it to air but masturbation apparently is good for the immune system now i don't know if that's uh i i think sex in general is good for the immune system but masturbation is something that you can do uh while social distancing and

dan had a 40-year study of this well dan were you of the, Dan was part of the control group. Well, that might've been funny. For the sex. Talking about masturbation. Oh, sorry. That was a good joke, Dan. Come on. Talking about sex,

it might've been. But, you know, I know things too. Does masturbation boost your immune system? According to health.com, yes, it does. I'm every 36 years. My kids are going to be listening to this. So I think a healthy relationship is definitely a good part of your immune system.

Good attitude as well. Absolutely. We know that depression reduces your immune system, so it stands to reason that... Wait, wait. In all honesty, no joking aside, so Peter or Dr. Gim, is what Dan's saying is so true.

So not about masturbation, but about releasing that tension, releasing these whatever out of your body. So is that what's promoting the good health, according to Dan Adelman? Endorphins. Endorphins. Just like when you go for a run or you have a good workout, you get an increase of...

Are we really starting off by telling people not to have false hope and hydrochloroquine and then ending by telling them to go masturbate? Is that really where we're at on this show? I don't think we ever don't have false hope. We have to have realistic hope. And what's the dosage of masturbation,

Dan? As we know, the dosage matters here. We do know that it does save you a lot of money. A lot of money. Well, certainly with people out of work, that is a consideration. Now, can you explain to me one thing about this? Because they talk about the immune system all the time.

However, I always hear about this, that people are dying because of an overreactive immune system. The so-called cytokine storm or whatever you call it. So, and then the remdesivir, I think, or one of these drugs, no, it was another drug. They were experimenting with an AIDS drug, which actually they thought was hopeful because it suppressed the immune system in some way. So are you up on that? Well, that's a complex relationship with the immune system they're describing. So are you up on that? Well, that's a complex relationship with the immune system they're describing.

So why don't you explain that? Doctors. Do you want me to take it? I mean, if you want. Susanna, let him take it and you can correct him. Go ahead. Yeah, exactly. How did you know?

I'm not clear on whether Peter Goldstein is a doctor or not. No, I'm not a doctor. You're a doctor. I'm a druggist. I always say when people come in, I'm not a doctor. I'm a druggist, apothecaryist. So what happens when you get this infection, your immune system starts going into overdrive. It starts shooting something out called cytokines.

Too much is no good. It can attack your own system. So when they're using these new medications, even if you talk about hydroxychloroquine, if you're talking about ectemra, if you're talking about remdesivir, you kind of have to make an adjustment. You don't want to totally suppress your immune system because you want it to fight the bacteria or the virus in this case, but you don't want it going crazy shooting out these warning systems being decided. It's kind of like an alarm going out and the sprinklers are going on and now you're

flooding out the house. You don't want that. You just want to put out fire. So that's kind of like a simplistic version. I would tell my patients, Susanna, you can expound, I'm sure. No, I think you did a pretty good job explaining it. I mean, it all boils down to what was mentioned earlier, which is that we really have no idea what's happening. We don't know the trajectory of the infection itself. We just know that because of our lack of PPE and testing, we are being forced to manage very sick patients. So they're basically getting really severe by the time we see them. And at that point, we're throwing everything at them and they could be dying from things that are just complications

of their critical illness rather than the infection itself. I'm sorry, could I stop you for one second? Did you say because of your lack of PPE? Yes, she said that, but we don't want to get into a whole... I'm going to make sure I heard her properly. Nobody had ever argued that there wasn't a lack of PPE. Maybe there's some medication you need to take. Do you understand that we've never even argued about whether there's a lack of PPE, that the argument was about the best way to respond to the lack of PPE. And they're not the same question. If I disagree with the idea of GoFundMe bidding up

the price, when I believe that major institutions ought to be buying this stuff directly, and that it gives an incentive for hoarding. And I also smell a rat with hoaxes and with people getting into this for their own publicity, to promote their stores, whatever it is. That none of that is because I think that they're swimming in masks. It's because I think that this, I'm very skeptical that NYU Langone needs a fashion designer to go buy the masks. I don't, I, I've, I've trouble understanding that. I feel like the fashion designer is probably doing, uh, maybe getting some masks, but at the same time, the unintended consequences are probably, uh, real. That's all I'll say real. That's all. That's my, I think I don't even know that that's true, but I think, uh, instead of, instead of, uh, uh, you know, whatever it is, whatever word I

want to put on how I would characterize your reaction, that wouldn't be flattering. Why don't you just tell me what I'm missing? Anyway, go ahead. I do bring on people to have that discussion with Noam, but you know, you're hard to get to in terms of booking guests. You don't like to be involved in that. I don't like these group text text messages i have a group there with 30 texts i can't i'm not gonna go through 30 texts in the morning that you like i you know i i'm i used to say i'm a busy man that's not gonna fly anymore but anyway and let the record show perriel that was the worst hiding of a yawn i've ever seen in my life. All right?

We all saw it. Anyway, go ahead. Go ahead. Hey, by the way, I've been taking, because, you know, in case I get it, I'm a hypochondriac,

so I thought I had it like 14 times by now. But I've been taking Immune Silver, Wheatgrass, Sea Moss. Not sure you guys know about Sea Moss. Age, garlic extract, chlorophyll, turmeric, spinach, kale, broccoli. What do you guys think about that? The two main people, not the rest of y'all. I think that's a cheaper question for sure.

I think I'm not the two main people, but I think it's like chicken soup. Couldn't hurt. I think Mark Maron did a great job with that in his special, his first 10 minutes opening monologue about the supplements and stuff. And he's kind of saying like in his heart, he knows it doesn't work, but people take it. So I tell my students, there's three ways that you can go as a pharmacist. You can be a cynic, not believe anything. You can be gullible and believe

everything that's thrown at you, or you can be a skeptic. And to me, I think everybody, myself, I'm a skeptic. I read a ton of information. There's some great websites that have it. And you have to look at evidence-based studies. You have to see, well, if you give a hundred people turmeric and a hundred people a placebo, is there going to be any difference? Is it really going to reduce inflammation? And quite honestly, there's never been a study to show taking a multivitamin or any of these herbs, it's going to prevent disease, cure a disease, or make you healthier. And most of the studies have shown the opposite.

Antioxidants increase risk of prostate cancer in men. Increase, decrease blood glucose utilization with antioxidants. So if you eat right, somewhat right, that's 99% of the battle. You really don't need to be taking these supplements. And it wasn't great for business. Well, that's what you should do. I'll get your pharmacist. So you're trying to sell drugs.

So I get it. Right. No, but you know what? Honestly, I took more people out of prescriptions and of over counter products than I sold probably. I always tried to be real upfront about it. Will, sit down and have a dinner of salmon and blueberries three times a week. That is,

but from everything I've read about nutrition, those are the, those are the surest bets, salmon and berries and drop all that. Huh? He's a vegan. Well, get off the vegan stuff.

That's crazy. Okay. You're meant, we're meant to eat fish. Well, it's really to help me not get shot by the cops. When I tell cops I'm a vegan, they let me go. Or fish oil, I guess.

But I'm skeptical of these other delivery mechanisms. I mean, that's something over my head. But I have read that they're not even sure that you can absorb vitamins from pills. Well, the whole point is, right, the whole point of this podcast today is there is no point in protecting ourselves from the coronavirus, right? Stay home, Will. Stay home.

Even if you do stay home, and you go and check your mail, there might be a piece of corona on that last piece of mail. No one's staying home 100%. You have to make some kind of move outside to either go get food or to go look out the window. You know, I'm saying is, in the meantime, no one could afford these drugs. There's nothing to fight the corona. So my point to you guys is,

what about eating healthy? What about just switching to a better diet in the meat? Because yeah, there's no studies but- Dr. No, no. Healthy diet is great. There's definitely studies that prove that, Mediterranean diet, but I'm talking about supplements. Dr. Don't say Mediterranean diet to Wilk is going to go into a whole power thing. Go ahead. Dr. I don't know that, look- Dr. Which Mediterranean? You mean the europe the french uh mediterranean the the white people's mediterranean i would i would um i would be skeptical that changing your diet now would do much good you know uh if you get corona in the near future but if you've been

eating well your whole life and you don't have diabetes or pre-diabetes or hypertension or any of these other pre-existing conditions, that's a good thing. If you have a pre-existing condition, it's going to be hard to get rid of it in the next month through diet. Absolutely. I think it's a little bit too late. No diet, get rid of black. Huh? Nothing. Susanna Yes

What do you What's your diet That's a good question I mean I eat what I like I'm definitely a meat eater So I don't know Are you of Korean descent Yes I am

And you still eat culturally Korean foods like kimchi and stuff like that? I do when I go home, but my husband does most of the cooking, and he's kind of very American. Because kimchi is supposed to be extremely healthy. Yes, it is. So I always get that from my mom. She makes it. Is your husband a white guy?

No, he's Korean. He's just born and bred in the Bronx. He's very American. The Koreans, there's still a lot of Korean on Korean love going on. It's like the Jews, the Koreans stick together. I guess, I guess. What about inter-Asian dating? Is there a lot of Koreans say Japanese? Is that frowned upon or Korean Chinese mix? That's definitely a taboo subject. I'm not sure we should talk

about that. But yeah, Koreans don't usually talk about it if they are with Japanese people. Yeah, because the Japanese abuse the Koreans. It's a big thing. Yeah, it's a big thing. I'm sure there's a Wikipedia article at least on it. It's horrible. It's pretty huge. And they do get treated not so well in Korea if they're like that. And they abused the Koreans. Oh, there's a book about this.

I just saw this. I'm going to look at it. I just sent it to a Korean friend of mine. I'm going to ask you. I'm going to send it to you. And the Japanese won't admit it either. I think that's really part of the resentment Is that they did it and they pretend they didn't

Right But we recently got them to force Apologies and things like that I'm sorry, the Japanese did what to the Koreans? They basically It's kind of like the Civil War Except for it was Japanese people Trying to deny Korean as a culture.

They also did crazy things to the Chinese, too, right? Correct. Right. They did it to several cultures. So it's just kind of like a running theme in the world. Every Japanese person I met couldn't be sweeter. It's just interesting that, you know. So Susanna, there's a book called Pachinko by a woman named Min Jin Lee. I don't know how to say it. And I just ordered this book

because it seems so interesting. It's a woman about a half foreign, but oftentimes harsh new world of a Korean immigrant in imperialist Japan who Sunja gives birth out of wedlock to. But it's apparently a fantastic book. Yeah, it's a very popular book. I haven't read it, but

my friends have, so. I'm going to read that book. Yeah. Tyler Cowen, I think, recommended that book. I think that's what I heard on the Marginal Revolution site. Can I ask what Will, since I haven't seen him in so long, and by the way, Will, it's good to see you again. Good to see you, Dan. What you've been doing in lockdown for all this time? I know you're an exercise freak, so yeah, I assume you've managed to

exercise at home. No, I actually have been, I've been not exercising, but I'm gonna, I started this past weekend and everything hurts. My friend is doing some training through Zoom and it was great, but it was like, I wish I didn't stop. Besides that, I've been writing, I've been working on the script and I might do a little couple of news videos

with Brian Kennedy. Okay. And then I watch a couple of shows on Netflix. I'm not a big TV watcher. I mostly watch the news. But I watch, you guys ever seen Ozark? Yes. So good. Oh, man, Ozark is freak.

The writing on that show is freaking insane. And the performance, they think, you know, and the performance is insane. That's Will's gym. That's actually my high school prom What have you been doing Danny? You're writing a screenplay? What am I doing? Yeah I'm writing a screenplay I wrote like nine films

And I'm just going back and tightening a few of them up And yeah that's about it What have you been doing? Well I've been reading a lot about Corona and I consider myself one of the foremost experts on Corona. Okay, no, real quick. Was Corona made or was it a natural thing in animals? It's not proven.

All evidence seems to support- No, it wasn't made. I'm talking to the expert on Corona, everybody. I'm gonna have to veto them. It was not made. It was perhaps escaped from a lab. And I don't think anybody's serious. I haven't heard anybody serious who thinks it was actually manufactured.

So wait, wait, no. Escaped from a lab. What happens in the lab? That's not a natural place. That they could tell you about. Go ahead. What happens in the lab? Why would they have a virus in a lab?

Experts? It's bioterrorism. Wow. Yeah, no. There you go. Shut it down. Thank you. No, that's not that it was made.

What she's saying is they're studying it for maybe to release it and have a vaccine for themselves or something. I don't know what. Well, you can take naturally occurring things and then just play with it or mutate it to make it evil have a vaccine for themselves or something. I'm, I don't know what naturally occurring things and then just play with it or mutate it to make it evil. You can make it Susanna. You can make it stronger, right? Yeah. You could try to give it everything you want it to have. Cause if you think about the biological drugs we have right now,

we make them from naturally occurring. So Susanna, would that mean it was made? I don't know. I told you. I'm saying if they took the virus in the lab and they made it stronger, is that technically called made? Yes, that is, Will. That would be called made. However, if you read the articles on it, I know you don't believe anything anybody, you know, the media and the government says, but according to the United States intelligence, they've already, they've determined that it was not made, but they don't know whether it escaped from the lab. By the way, so I'll let you know,

I was trying to look up a picture of, because I had all those black guys in the gym. So I tried to look up a picture of Hasidic Jews in the gym. You can find almost anything on Google. I could not find a picture of Hasidic Jews working out. So all I could find is this gaggle of Hasidic Jews behind me. Photoshopped, right? This can't be real. Oh, no, that's real. That's real. And that's real. You think it's bioterrorism?

Who are you asking? You're asking- Will,. You think it's bioterrorism? Who are you asking? You're asking... Will, Will obviously thinks it's bioterrorism. No, no, no, no, no. I'm not sure. I'm not sure if it's like... I'm not sure if someone ate a freaking live bat or if it came from a lab.

I'm saying that's the two main things they're saying. Either made from a lab or it's a virus that was ever already in existence and they just soup it up they put steroids in it i'm just saying steroids or someone just ate a bat and they couldn't wait to to cook it they're like you know i'm hungry right now i gotta eat this bat right now you know what i'm saying so i'm not sure. Okay. Here is a. Oh, here we go. Wait, let her stay.

So what do you think? So I'm definitely not saying that it's bioterrorism. I was just saying that if that was the theory people were going to go with, then it could be a result of bioterrorism and it would be the purpose of it. But the truth is there are a lot of microbials out there that we haven't discovered yet because there's a lot of tests we have to do to figure out the structure of it and how it functions. I mean, this has been out for a while now and we all still don't really know exactly what's going on with it. So. So that's what I'm going on. I don't, I don't know if it's true. New coronavirus wasn't made in the lab. Genomic studies shows.

And this article has been, I mean, that's the first one that came up. That's from WebMD. Right, this story's been picked up in all the major, I think, the Washington Post. First of all, WebMD is not Breitbart. WebMD is...

Yeah, it's not bad. It's at least as legitimate as Will Silvins. Thank you. How long does it take a scientist or a pharmacologist or a pharmacist or a doctor or

all of those things? How long do you guys need to be able to know what the hell is going on? Because I had a doctor tell me, as you just did, that the general consensus is that nobody knows what the fuck is going on and what this is. Like, how long is it going to take before? I mean, she said the way that this is being treated is quote unquote, basically a crapshoot.

Wow. That's not my physician, but a physician who I was speaking with. Well, yeah, I think in terms of treatment, some are using hydroxychloroquine. A lot of people are using that, but as our pharmacist friend said, Peter Goldstein, the studies show different things there. But people take Tylenol for the fever. People take, I guess you can take a cough medicine for the cough, but there's no exact treatment for this that is correct. By the way, what happens if they don't take Advil? They were telling us, don't take Advil, don't take Advil.

Nobody even mentions it anymore. That's not true. That's not true. What's not true? What's not true? About taking Advil, you can take non-steroidal anti-inflammatories. It was a causation correlation thing. There was the NIH said it's fine.

I think one of the big things that they've discovered, not discovered, but they found over the last couple of weeks, that this disease is causing blood clots, like these micro blood clots. Some of them are really small in the lungs, and they're finding they're having good success by using anticoagulants like heparin and enoxaprin in the patient. So that's one area where they're actually making some progress. And I think that that's going to be a big deal. In the beginning, no one was right. They used to tell us don't take Advil, take Tylenol. That's better. But now you're saying that that's no longer true. So no one updated this info. Like I'm just now hearing about this new updated no Advil campaign against Corona. Well, you've heard the expression, the fog of war.

No, I never heard that. The fog of war is an expression when you're at war, you know, it's hard to find out what's going on. And there's a lot of contradictory information. I would think that analogously the fog of war applies to the corona pandemic. There's a lot of information, a lot of ambiguity, a lot of contradiction. And I think that that is much like a war in that sense. What about the plasma treatment? Again, these are pharmacists, so we have to be careful. Oh, I have another question, if you don't know about plasma.

No, no, no, we should talk about plasma. Go ahead, go ahead. It's the latest thing that everyone's talking about. That was pretty shitty of Dan to assume, to actually intervene on your behalf because he thought you wouldn't know about plasma. My point is when Noam does... Go ahead.

Can I just interject? What Noam has a tendency to do is when we have a person on in a certain field, Noam throws all skepticism to the wind and attributes to that person a infinite wisdom and omniscience. And I would caution Noam not to do that in general. I'm sorry for giving you the benefit of the doubt, Susanna, but go ahead.

What do you know about plasma? You tend to get people on omniscience, and also you tend to ask them questions that might be beyond their particular scope of study. So I just want to caution you. Susanna, I know you're married, but I think Dan likes you. But go ahead. Go ahead. No, I think that was, well, I do want to say that I thought it was actually really insightful for him to say that it might be outside of our pharmacist's scope of practice because usually convalescent plasma would be part of the blood bank's responsibility.

And we don't typically have to handle those drugs, but it's become tricky because a lot of the biologics are now sort of being shifted over to pharmacies depending on where you're at. But as far as the plasma goes, in theory it makes so much sense and everybody was jumping on the bandwagon. They're like how can we do get this? You know everybody's getting infected, everyone that's recovered, why don't they just go donate and we can save everybody. But obviously it's not that straightforward and it's not that easy. We don't really know exactly when you stop being infectious. So some of the people that have quote unquote recovered, like Will mentioned earlier, really probably weren't recovered. They just felt better. It is seeming like it's presenting symptomatic for a short while

and then you feel okay and then it comes back stronger. And so because of our lack of testing, we can't really confirm whether or not that's true, at least not in the U.S. And if you want to donate plasma to save someone, we have to make sure that you're not actually still infectious. So there's also another concept called antibody enhancement effect. And that basically means that your antibodies can actually increase the virology occurring in your body, which would just make you sicker. So because of that, we also, that makes the vaccine development issue a little bit longer winded as well. That's interesting. No way. I'm sorry. So plasma is good or no good?

Unknown. So again, like before, we still don't know. It looks like it's promising. Mount Sinai was the only place that was doing it for a while. Some of the other local hospitals are starting to do it, but everything is clinical trial status. By the way, Noah, there's some recent studies, I think, out in California and elsewhere are suggesting a much greater rate of infection potentially than we had thought maybe as much as 30 or 40 or 50 times, which would reduce the mortality rate quite a bit. And I don't know where things are with that.

Does anybody have a feel for the following question? I'm going to ask Tyler Cowen on Saturday, but. You don't want to ask question? I'm going to ask Tyler Cowen on Saturday, but. You don't want to ask me? I'm going to ask everybody. You don't need to answer though. If we had all started wearing masks on Valentine's Day, on February 14th, if we'd all been wearing masks rather than being told not to wear masks,

how many fewer deaths do you think we'd have? What percentage? I think it would be quite significant. Definitely. I think by so significant, maybe we wouldn't even need to have locked down like we did. I think we at least more than half, 60, 70%. It's amazing. I mean, it was so, like, they want to look for the bad guys here, but why the hell did they not,

they actually told us, do not wear masks. I think the reason why because the healthcare workers didn't have enough. It doesn't even need to be N95. It could be a scarf, anything. Right.

They sent us off to die? It's common sense that when you wear a mask, you stop your joints from getting out. They did this before. You know, the Chinese have been wearing masks. Americans made fun of the Chinese. Anybody wearing a mask in the street, they can make, you know, whatever.

And now, before they told us, don't wear a mask, now wear a mask. It seems like they're doing small steps. Like, okay, don't do that. All right, do that. All right, don't do that. All right, do that. All right, don't do that.

It's like, it's like this cat and mouse game since freaking February. It's like, no, no, no, you guys are good. Okay, no, no, let's do this. It's like, we should just go all out, take major precautions since day one. No, you should look at countries like South Korea who actually have succeeded in getting this under control very quickly. I was just about to talk about that. I'm so glad you said it and not me.

I was going to say that too. Basically, it's important to keep in mind that in Korea, you know, at first when it jumped up there, everyone was like, oh, my goodness, why is it happening in Korea? Korea's developed. But they were ready. They had a plan. They did not even do a lockdown, all the different people they were in contact with so that all those people would get tested as well. They did a lot of social distancing. They were always wearing masks. I mean, they also have experience with SARS and MERS. So some of these countries that are more familiar with how this arises, we will be right there with the masks and we'll do what's best for them. Unfortunately, it was a little late for this pandemic, but perhaps the next pandemic will be ready to go. I do want to say hi to Ray Allen, Aruba Ray Allen, as we call him. Hi, everybody. By the way, just to piggyback on what you just said, I heard that

de Blasio said we're not going to rely on the state or the federal government or other countries, and we're going to have plenty of supplies of our own ventilators and gowns, all the PPE. I was very happy to hear that.

We don't need ventilators anymore. By the way, so de Blasio said that the reason he told everybody not to wear masks was because they wanted to save on saving for the healthcare workers. But I've read a bunch of articles since then. And that was apparently just total unmitigated bullshit. He's just trying to cover his ass that the doctors really were advising and for medical reasons, they thought you didn't need to wear masks.

I think a lot of the problem, they were saying that the mask will, if somebody has COVID, if they're positive, you wear the mask, you're going to protect somebody else from getting it. If you don't have it and you wear it. And if you don't handle the mask properly, you're increasing your risk of catching it. Because if you're taking off the mask and then you touch your face

and for some reason the germ is on there, you have a better chance of getting it. Yeah, but the point is, what's the chances of someone not handling it versus like the percentage of people that's handling it right? I feel like... I'd say it's more handling it wrong, definitely. Yeah, but no, no, but my point to you is, you're containing your germs right here as opposed to letting them out into the atmosphere and then now is everywhere,

you know what I'm saying, versus the germs are contained. So even if you're handling your mask on, it's between you and your germs. It's not you and your germs and anybody else. I'm talking about as far as catching it. Yeah, so I feel like your germs, there'll be less germs out in the atmosphere if we have masks. Even if you're mishandling the mask,

at least that's you and your own germs. That's a good point. Good point. The quote, Noam's question still stands. Given all these variables, given mishandling of masks, everything, had we started wearing masks on day one, and of course, as Noam pointed out, you can make your own mask, how different would the situation be? And I think it's a valid question. And Peter, is your sense that the

situation would be much improved over what it is now. I think if we started social distancing early, obviously that that would have made a difference. I don't know if the masks earlier, I mean, the thing is that it's a good point. The thing is that, you know, I mean, what's going on? Oh, that's, that's, that's, that's not, that's not an accurate chart. I've seen, I've seen that. That's for my doctor's office. I don't care. It's if you look at Snopes or Politifact, one of the,

one of these, I fact check everything, right? This has been, that has been declared not accurate or not based on science anyway. It doesn't mean it's not accurate, but if it's accurate, it's lucky. You know, Is that not accurate? accurate well i'm not sure about the numbers but having a barrier is definitely better than not having one and i think the handling it's it's not just uh the way you have it around your nose it's also if you are touching yourself and touching the mask then you are and touching the mask on the wrong side then

you're also spreading. Now, this is the thing. I want to make an important point. Take that image off because it's very disturbing. I want to make an important point because I think this is a valid point. Given the nature of the whole concept of viral, which is the compounding nature of the numbers,

go from two to four to, you know, if you give a penny one day and 30, and you double it every day in a month, you have over a million dollars, right? That anything, that anything, which even helps us a small percentage eight weeks ago, as it ripples through the compounding effects would have a huge effect by today.

So to whatever extent, they're telling us to wear masks now because they think it has to be more than, I mean, it's a pretty inconvenient thing to put everybody in masks. So they must think it's somewhat significant. And that somewhat significance compounded over the effects of eight weeks,

I think would have to be very, very big. That's my point. That's what viral is. Thank you, Norm. Thank you for that point. that doesn't make sense so the question is is do the negative effects of mishandling the mask are they outweighed by the positive effects of a infected person not infecting others i think the answer is yes so they wouldn't be advising us to wear them um i don't know i didn't realize they were advising

everyone not to wear them they had had been Yeah, had been. They had at the beginning. At the beginning. Yeah. I think they were afraid of people not having the supplies. I mean, what's going on in the hospital? I think what's going on and then come up with it. They was doing it as they go along.

It's like this is... They were treating this like it's brand new. We had different viruses out before, so it's like, you guys, they've been through this shit, and there's been experts that have been through this shit.

They should have let the experts tell us what to do and handle it. But it was like, okay, we'll see how it goes tomorrow, you know? It was like a dead reality show. I come back to my fog of war analogy.

Or, to quote Mike Tyson, everybody's got a plan until they get hit. And by the way, think about what you're saying. Who? A lot of people said stuff. Who? Peter, it is totally unethical to tell the public a lie that impacts their health because you want to save supplies for doctors. You cannot do that. Well, unless saving supplies for doctors does impact the public's health. You cannot tell people lies about what if they have masks that they already own? Hold on.

A lot of people already own masks. I had masks. Wait. Norm has a point because it's like the whole purpose of you protecting yourself so you don't go to the doctor. You know what I'm saying? So if it's less people going to the doctor, then you won't have to worry about it.

So it seems like the mask is better for the people than the doctors. I bought masks in February. By the same token, we can't jeopardize the lives of nurses, doctors, anesthesiologists, respiratory therapists. What these people have been going through

the last few months, we're going to be lucky. We're going to be lucky next year if there's a nurse left, if there's a doctor left. I'm telling you. Absolutely not. You can make a law forbidding it, making it illegal to sell masks to anybody but hospitals. You can do that. But a doctor, the medical community cannot feed lies. I bought a box of masks in February and then I was told, you don't need them. I gave some away.

I didn't think I needed them. No, they were right insofar as wearing a mask is, there's a good argument to be made that it wouldn't protect you, but that it would protect others. And I think at that point, perhaps they didn't realize how many asymptomatic people were out there. So they didn't seem to feel the need that everybody should wear a mask. But I don't think they did it to save supplies. I think they believed it. I mean, I've read a lot about it. I think they did too,

and I think your point about lying is totally bad, and I think the fact about lying about taking these medications, that it's going to save you or cure you or prevent you from getting it, is just as bad. I mean, people can't get these medications who need it. You know, people with mucus. Imagine you had a mask, you can't get these medications who need it. You know, people with lupus. Imagine you had a mask.

You didn't wear it. You got sick. And de Blasio is on record saying, I only said that because I was trying to save supplies. You better fucking sue that guy right now. That is absolutely a lawsuit. But that wasn't the reason. The reason was is they felt that you wearing a mask because of mishandling it and not wearing a lawsuit. But that wasn't the reason. The reason was is they felt that you wearing a mask

because of mishandling it and not wearing a mask. Yeah, but de Blasio has said he did it to save supplies. I think he left himself open. I'm going to try to start putting him in trouble. Wait, you say sue? What about that state that's suing China? What do you guys think about that? Missouri is suing China, yeah.

I don't think China's going to show up to court. The courts are closed. The courts are closed. The courts are closed, and they're not going to open for like a year, and neither is the rest of the country at the rate we're going. Well, for us, it wouldn't make sense because they found out that most of our virus is from Europe. Are we going to sue Europe? No, but they're not suing China because the virus came from there.

They're suing China because they lied. They didn'tled the information. Yeah, yeah. Do we want to let Aruba Ray promote what he came here to promote? Yeah, then we'll go. Go ahead, Ray. Well, first of all, let me introduce Ray Allen, philanthropist, comedian, director, writer, and let's face it, ladies' man.

Lothario. Wait a minute. You didn't introduce me. Why? Is it a black thing? Well, I tried to. face it uh ladies man lethario wait a minute you introduced me well i tried to we were in the middle of a conversation which i've never actually heard you pronounce and i kind of like to hear that i'm so happy i use the word lethario correctly sometimes the words comes in i'm not really sure it means a man who behaves selfishly and irresponsibly in his sexual relationships with women. I'm not a Lothario. You are a Lothario. Lothario Allen.

I am a Lothario. Go ahead. Gentlemen. Go ahead. He came here. He has a charity that he would like to promote. Lothario the charity. Go ahead.

It's called supportcomedians.org. And it helps New York-based comedians who are out of work. We've been helping so many people in the past just five days when we first started promoting it. And it's very exciting. We had some huge, very generous donations from... Tell them, tell them. Louis C.K. contributed $25,000.

Which I was pleasantly surprised, very shocked when I saw that. And the money has really been being put to great use and helping a lot of people. Judd Apatow made a very nice donation as well. How much? He gave $1,000. Those are both public. They're on the page.

You can see them. I say wow because he gave a lot of money to a lot of other things already. Yeah, yeah, exactly, yeah. So if someone doesn't contribute, I totally understand they're giving other things. But if anyone can, exactly. Yeah. So I'm not, if someone doesn't contribute, I totally understand they're giving other things. But if anyone can contribute, it's for the New York City community,

regardless of skill level. If you're an open mic or if you're a headliner. Meanwhile, it's been helping comedians that everybody here knows. Wait, but the open micers don't get the same amount, do they? It's based on lead.

If you're a single mother and you haven't passed the salary yet, but you're working at the Village Lantern. Uber Ray, could I call you theoretically or email you and say, look, I did comedy. I'm an open mic. Actually, I only did it one time, but I am. Technically, I did it once.

I am an open mic-er. Give me the money. I would have to say, I'm sorry. Based on the criteria that we've outlined, it's working for at least a year in New York City. And again, based on the not level in the business, but we'll prioritize, you know, unemployment over underemployment, a single parent and one income family with a child. If you're over 55 or you have acute medical needs, those are all priorities. But so far, how do I get how do I get down?

You just when you go to support comedians.org there's an email address there for comics it's nyc comedians 20 at gmail you'll see it on the page support comedians you know the public should know there's certain people like uh judd amy schumer louis ck who really can always be counted on to to go into their wallets or pocketbooks to help not just things like this like when arty was sick and it's been a few you know there's been a bunch of times that when kyle goons was sick there's been a bunch of times that money was needed and it's the same names over and over who who are there that come back to the rescue yeah so that they really deserve our

appreciation for those of us of lesser means who can also be counted on to donate money, albeit a smaller amount. He already put you in crashing, Dan. I think he's done enough. Dan Adarin did contribute under two different names he contributed on this fund already. Under his own and an alias. But the emails I'm getting from people are, I mean, they're, they're moving. Like people are really stuck and I feel horrible and it feels great. So you should share them.

You should share the emails. I could, they'll remain anonymous, but I could certainly share the emails without saying the names. And, and everyone's receiving assistance within, I mean, usually within,

in five hours, but I always try to do it within 24 hours through Venmo or PayPal. And it feels good to do it. I'm happy that we raised $34,853. How much is left in the bank? Who donated something with three at the end of it? It was, I think,

I'd have to go back and look i think someone person ended something with an 18 like you donated 18 somebody else ended something with a five yeah so it's probably a high situation and a five situation that would that wouldn't come out to a three i don't think but go ahead what i would i wanted to well i think oh the five and three i get five and eight there you go no now you're getting it what i wanted to look arithman dick was never his strong suit but he makes a mean falafel. What I wanted to say- I was thinking multiple of eight. I didn't realize you meant the, yeah, go ahead.

I wanted to, what I wanted to make is, yeah, we certainly, you're absolutely right. There are some big donors like Judd, like Amy Schumer, like Louie that can always be counted on, but let's not discount the generosity of people like Will Silvins, for example. I noticed a very nice donation, albeit not $5,000, but I think in proportion

to his net worth, pretty generous. Put you down, Will. Like we all are. But Will gave a very nice sum of money to the comedy seller waitstaff. $300, $500, something pretty impressive.

The comedy community has shown solidarity. I think it's pretty unusual. I don't work in other businesses, you know, but what I've seen through numerous GoFundMes and numerous fund, when Artie Fuqua, remember when he had his accident, a lot of money was raised, and he certainly doesn't need it,

but he needed it at the time. You know, business is facing a real issue now. We're going to face it. The Wall Street Journal wrote about it. Then I guess we can wrap it up, which is that right now, people are getting approximately $1,100 a week to stay home in safety.

Why is somebody going to show up to work at the comedy cellar for $700, $800, $900, or even for $1,200 a week and risk getting sick when they can sit home and make $1,100 a week with no risk to themselves? Well, how long does that last at $1,100? The government will eventually say no more money. For now, if they let us open tomorrow,

I don't think anybody's going to show up to work. Well, I think people like having- That money can last a long time because no one's going shopping, okay? You're missing the point. My point is that they created an incentive, fine. But some people did write about this at the time and the New York Times really criticized it, but they were wrong. They, they, they,

they made the benefits so generous that, and they didn't consider what's that going to mean when it's time to get people back to work. They're not going to want to come back to work. I don't blame them. I would, I don't want to, I wouldn't want to go back to work either. The money's not going to keep coming once the, once the virus is eradicated or there's a vaccine, right? There's going to be an in-between period.

There's going to be an in-between period where they're back to work, but it's not eradicated, just kind of under control. Well, they said there's going to be another surge of it in the winter, for sure. I think there's going to be another surge of it in July, right? Who is this surge guy you're all talking about? Anyway, no, what they could do is say, say look you can keep the money we're giving you and you can make whatever money you make it work they could just say you get both and this would keep an incentive going like in other words when you apply for unemployment i get it how long is it good for two months three months i don't know it can be it can be for a long uh oh there's they

change the limit all the time in in bad times, they extend it all the time. By the way, there's a lot of... Dan, there's a lot of... I mentioned the celebrity comics who have donated to this, but there's quite a few who... It's all public. It's on the page. But people such as Jane Condon, Joe Mackey, Chris DiStefano, Avi Lieberman,

Brian Scott McFadden. Avi Lieberman, by the way, tested, we all know Avi, he's a comic, he just got an antibody test. You know, we're talking about antibody tests. Yeah. He tested positive for the, he had, he has the antibody. Yeah.

And he, this is what a weasel Avi Lieberman is, he was only sick for two days. Yeah, and it wasn't that bad. It wasn't even that bad. That's typical Abbie for you, just always a scam. He's Orthodox Jewish, right? He's modern Orthodox. Maybe there's something to that.

We got to let the pharmacists go. They have lives to save. Okay. Well, is the pharmacy still open at this hour? They got drugs to sell under the table. Susanna wouldn't do that. No. Oh, Peter would?

No. Nor would I. You know, also, some of the pharmacies don't carry the narcotics. That's an insider tip. Oh, how you know, Susanna. That's part of our protection plan. Here's a question I have about pharmacy. This is a very pharmacy-specific question. What do say you're a celebrity say you're uh well say

you're jennifer lawrence and you have to pick up baltregs i'm not saying this is just hypothetical is there a way to do that without going to the pharmacy or having your name known to the pharmacist? I'll deliver, but I don't know how to keep your name secret. How does that work? Well, we're not supposed to share patient-specific information. Well, just amongst friends. Tell us who's got herpes and all that. But the point is, do they come pick it up, big name people? Will they come to pick it up or they'll send somebody to pick it up so that nobody sees them at the pharmacy? 50-50. I worked in the city a little bit, so I did deal with quite a few

celebrities. And sometimes, you know, their guy or gal would come pick it up. Sometimes they would come up and pick it up. But you know what? We're always number one trusted profession in the country. Pharmacists and nurses, we're always up there. Now, like say a famous person comes to the pharmacy, he's looking for, she's looking for lithium, which is used in manic depressive illness, as you know. Absolutely. Would you be discreet and say, okay, Senator, the entertainer, we've got your lithium right here we only do that with viagra what do you be like years ago i'll be honest but years ago i was at upenn and i was picking

up a prescription for prozac and the guys behind the counter says how's the prozac working for you and i said hey dude i dude, there's a whole line of people behind me. He said, don't worry about it. Nobody knows what Prozac is, which at the time

was true. That's not okay. But it's not okay. I can't do that. And I schooled him. I schooled him is what I did. Good.

And he deserved to be schooled. It worked for me anyway. I stopped using it. But I know for some people it's very helpful. Absolutely.

All right. Well, let's just all say we're happy that Perriella's recovered from Perriella's disease. I'm not recovered from taking antibody tests. Perriella, you got corona? Yeah, she was diagnosed all over the phone. It's called telehealth. Noam is very skeptical of that. I can't wait to get this antibody test.

And then I don't, I mean, you're going to have like scientific evidence. Is that going to be sufficient? Just make sure that the test is one of the tests that have been approved. Because only four, I think now it's up to four companies have approved tests. I was just going to say, they'll give it to me. So they're assuming 5% of the population has it. And some of these tests, the specificity is only 95%.

So you're going to get 5% false positives compared with 5% of the population. So out of 100 people, 5 might test positive. But you don't know. Only half of them might actually be positive. Half might be false positive. Don't forget about the base rate fallacy.

What's the point of even taking the test then? Until they get a good test that has a good specificity. We don't know yet. It may not be all that good. It's just a way for pharmaceutical companies to make an enormous amount of money on the test. So don't take the test? You can do it if you want, but a lot of the tests out there are not approved by anyone. So it's highly questionable what the result even actually means. So,

and I don't know if your insurance is going to cover it. I mean, that's another thing you might want to check before you do it. I've been more nervous to hook up with someone and catch COVID than to catch, you know, HPV at this point. Thank you for that, Ray. Thank you. No one can get laid. When are you supposed to get laid? It's very dark when Ray Allen is not getting laid. Ray, stick to the sponsorship.

I want to thank the Lord for sending me Perrielle as a perfect foil who says something. She just delivers fastballs right over the plate on a regular basis. She's the Sandy Colfax of, of liberalism. And by the way, I was calling Perrielle PRL when I first met her for a long time and she never corrected me. You're a visionary. You're an originary.

You knew what was precious. That was something that we needed. I just thought it was your accent, honey. PRL. He doesn't have an accent. He's born in Brooklyn. Thank you, Norm, for the facts. Yeah.

All right. Okay, so who do we have on our next episode? Don't sign off, because I have a non-pharm pharmaceutical question for you for me okay okay i don't want to keep them if you want to say please i mean they can say goodbye is there they can say goodbye they can no we'd like them to stay i just don't want to pressure them to stay so go ahead let's go this is i really want to know what you guys think about this. I got called an anti-Semite in front of 30,000 on a Facebook group.

Oh, you're going to get shut down. You're going to get cancelled. Somebody posted something about how the Orthodox Jews are donating plasma in large numbers. And I said, well, that's great great it would also be helpful

if they would stay the fuck at home and practice social distancing and one of the people in the group said oh well it's nice to know how you feel about you know jews or orthodox jews or whatever and i was was like, excuse me? Have you heard the way I speak? I was like, how dare you call me an anti-Semite? I was like, these are material facts. My mother said that to me once. What?

That I was an anti-Semite. Because? I said something anti-Semite. And we are Jewish. I mean, Goldstein. You withheld a prescription for her and she got upset and called him an anti-Semite yeah you know you're an anti-Semite Peter what did you say though what was it what was it what was it

it's not a nice thing to say what you said well you said you're an anti-Semitic well it's true isn't it I mean I didn't even say anything that was it's a fact I mean it? I mean, I didn't even say anything that was, it's a fact. I mean, they came out and said, we're not-

It's like saying, there's a story about some black people doing some sort of good work. That'd be, yeah, but that'd be nice if they would stop murdering each other. So it's like, yes, you can point at something, but it's just not the time and place to say,

it betrays a certain hostility. You're not talking about that issue now. You're talking about something good that they're doing and to just pull out a hostility to try to, you know, like as if any conversation about Hasidic Jews is now appropriate to say, yeah, I wish I'd fucking stay home. I could see why somebody said, you know, I don't think you're anti-Semitic. No, I mean, no. You're anti-diplomatic. Well, coming from you, I might take that as a compliment.

I mean, no, I don't. I'm not even criticizing you. I'm just saying. I don't know that that's true. I thought that was exactly the place. It's like beating the shit out of your wife and then being like, oh, wasn't that nice of OJ to take Nicole to, you know, out to dinner or to that women's shelter? It's like, who cares if you're donating plasma?

Okay, I take that back. I suppose you're right. I don't know. It's a way of letting people know to donate plasma. You know, not... You guys can argue all day, but please do not drop the N-bomb. So, questions, comments,

criticisms about the podcast, podcast at comedyseller.com. I don't think it was a nice thing to say, Peril. As I said, podcast at

comedyseller.com. Do you have any data? Well, an article... Is that a real question? No. You know, an article came out in the Times saying how there's a very high infection rate

amongst the orthodox, the acidic community in Brooklyn. That article came out today or yesterday. Oh, I assume they're giving it to each other, but are they spreading it to us is what I'm saying. I didn't say they're spreading it to us. They're going into hospitals like Maimonides that, and infecting, I mean, infecting nurses and doctors. I mean, I didn't make this up. This is a fact.

Well, people in general are doing that. Fair enough. Fair enough. I mean, I, I know you're, I mean, people get too sensitive. You were making a point. I love when you whites fight. Keep going, please. There's not a lot of real white people. And I didn't mean to say, now I'm being like, and I didn't mean to say anything. I'm just saying like every group has their Achilles heel,

their statistical Achilles heel of the things that somebody points to if they want to put them in a bad light. And often they're true. But when you bring it up. But I didn't bring it up. Somebody else brought it up. Somebody else brought it up. Somebody else brought it up and was like, look, they're doing this good thing.

And it's like, well, they're doing this good thing after they've been in the news for the past month doing this very bad thing. And frankly, it gives Jews a bad name. Well, you know, I think what I'm trying to to say is, it's not 100% of the Jews. So it's like a group of them, but that doesn't represent all the Jews. You know, that makes sense. It's like, yeah, this group of Jewish people were doing this so-called bad thing, but that does not represent all the Jews. So when you say, I wish they would stay home, a simple fixer as well, go tell that group that came out that's doing this bad thing to keep their ass would stay home. Simple fixer as well. Go tell that group that came out that's doing this bad thing to,

to keep the asses at home as opposed to they all should keep the asses at home. I'll say this about, we Jews suffer from something that, that I know, I know black suffer from it and probably Asian suffer from it too. Is that police shootings that we, we get uncomfortable

when somebody airs our dirty laundry in public. And so the things that you and I might say to each other, many Jews will, like I used to tell this story about the time when the rabbi tried to molest me one time. This is a true story. He didn't molest me, he tried to molest me. And I got so many horrified

Jews just furious at me that I would tell this story public. Why would you publicly tell this story about a rabbi doing something disgusting? So that's human nature, I guess. But I will tell

anybody you are not anti-Semitic. Wait, wait, wait. No. Was it Larry David? No. Who defines, I think it's Larry David who defined anti-Semitism as hatred of Jews more than is appropriate. Wait, no.

What was the point of your molestation story? More than we deserve. What's that? What was the point of your molestation story? You just started it and just ended it. Like, what happened? Well, that's a story for another day.

It's a bedtime story. To be very quick about it, I was being tutored for my bar mitzvah and the rabbi tried to get my father, my parents left the house, and the rabbi tried to take my pants down and show me where I was circumcised.

Wait, wait, wait. How old were you? 12. 12. So did you know what he was doing when he tried to take your pants down? You had no idea? I had no idea, but for some reason, I didn't want to do it. I was shocked.

Did you have an erection? Maybe that's why I was embarrassed, but I didn't. I had no idea in those days it was not on our radar uh that someone would try to molest you we just we that was not something we thought of and it never entered in my mind that this guy was doing anything wrong or or anything like that i was just shy and i was like i i certainly have nothing to you, to be proud of down there from what I understand. In any case. Let that sit there.

That is awful. Do you know how many kids that rabbi probably molested? Chai is my guess. It probably ends with three. So wait, how did you get away, Noam? If he's molesting Noam, imagine what he would have done. I didn't do it. And then we went on with the lesson.

And my father came home and I told him the story. And my father says to me, next time you hit him with your purse. That's what he said to me. Are you serious? I swear to God. Really? Which I guess was my father. And then he called the synagogue and he complained.

He knew exactly what was going on. I guess he made a joke out of it, not knowing what to say and not wanting to alarm me or something. I don't know how to process it, but it certainly wasn't because he took it lightly. But that is what he said. Did you laugh or were you confused? process it, but it certainly wasn't because he took it lightly, but that is what he said. Did you laugh or were you confused? I laughed. It's so long ago.

You knew it was a joke. I knew it was a joke. I'm not sure exactly how I interpreted the joke, but like I said, the idea that there was such a thing as molestation of children was totally not on my radar. I never had that. So I couldn't understand it. To this guy, you didn't know that he was going to molest you. He could have been just taking your pants off just to save you a circumcise or not. So there's no real proof that he was going to molest you. You want to confirm his Jewish identity.

This was not Jussie Smollett, all right? I'm telling you, I know. And his juicy smollett according to Dave Chappelle. He took me up to my bedroom. He made me lie down on the bed. He started to unbuckle my pants. And at that point, I actually don't remember what happened. No, at that point, I stopped him.

And yeah, it's clear what he was up to. Did you continue studying with this guy the following week? Yes, I went back numerous times. Your dad called the temple, and then what happened? That I don't remember. I never saw the guy again.

No, he was hired by the man at Olive Tree. Come to find out he was not Jewish at all. He was Catholic. He was Jewish. So anyway, so like that's the kind of story if you tell that in public,

people will accuse you of anti-Semitism. We are in public. All right. I think we should go. I got to do the comedy. So Dan, why did you and Ray

join me on the comedy seller show after this? And Will. Ray has a Zoom meeting with some friends that he convened. But Dan, why did you and Ray join me on the Comedy Cellar show after this? And Will. Ray has a Zoom meeting with some friends that he convened. Just say no, Dan. Just say no. You want to do it, Will?

We got Jay McBride, Emma Willman, and Mike Fennoyer. Yeah, I think I could do it. I'll send you the link. I'll tell Liz to send Will the link. All right. So podcast at comedyseller.com. Noam, have you haven't, has nobody been writing in?

Cause I, you haven't been forwarding any emails lately and it's hard to believe nobody's written in for two months. You're reading what? Nothing. Nothing. I got somebody wrote in for something that, but didn't, wasn't like a criticism of the show or somebody,

somebody wanted to know where the old Louis CK interview of, you know, Melina Rizek was that kind of thing. Anyway, um, comedy, sell a podcast at comedy seller.com. Also,

Perry, all those books are still available online. Um, eat my bush and down on my knees. Everybody who's watching jump onto the comedy seller. We're going to go to part two of No's Molestation. Peter, where's your live, Will?

I don't have them. I teach at Long Island University at LIU in Brooklyn. So I'm kind of like semi-retired right now, but ready to get back into the scene. Is your license revoked again? And everybody, please give a good night, everybody.

Good night, good night, good night. Thank you, Farmacist. That was great. Yeah, and actually, I wanted to do a quick plug, too. We started a Facebook groups page for New York. It's NYCOVID19, like one nine, and you can go there. It's public to get

information on COVID-19. And after you get information about COVID-19 and after you get information about COVID-19 donate what you can to supportcomedians.org can I do a quick plug yeah of course gofundme.com slash I am Maurice for my film say it again because no I just to make sure people got it gofundme.com slash I am Maurice. Okay, everybody. We'll see you next time. Nice meeting you, everybody. Bye.

Nice meeting you guys. Thank you. Thanks for having us.