The Daily Signal - Dr. Peter McCullough: Early COVID-19 Treatment Sacrificed to Promote Vaccine

Episode Date: March 3, 2022

Early treatment for COVID-19 was not prioritized. Why? Cardiologist Dr. Peter McCullough says he believes health officials did not pursue early treatment options because they did not want to discourage Americans from being vaccinated.  "There was a belief, and I think there's still a belief today among many stakeholders, is that the only way a vaccine is going to work is if every single person takes it. ... In order to do that, if we have suppression of early treatment and people think there's no other or option, they're going to be much more likely to take the vaccine," says McCullough. "I think, actually, a suppression of early treatment was by design a vaccine promotion strategy." In December, McCullough joined “The Joe Rogan Experience” podcast to discuss failures to pursue early treatment options for COVID-19. Rogan was criticized for the interview with McCullough. Only a few weeks later, Dr. Robert Malone also joined Rogan’s show to discuss the pandemic. Afterward, a movement arose to deplatform Rogan.  “Joe Rogan is in the thick of it now,” McCullough says.  McCullough joins “The Daily Signal Podcast” to discuss the failures in the fight against COVID-19, and the left’s reaction to his interview with Rogan.  Also on today’s show, we speak with British conservative Nigel Farage. He explains how Russia’s war on Ukraine will influence the Western world. We also cover these stories: President Joe Biden expresses his support for Ukraine. The United Nations passes a resolution condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis announces new guidance concerning mask requirements for Florida workers. Enjoy the show! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Daily Signal podcast for Thursday, March 3rd. I'm Doug Blair. And I'm Virginia Allen. Early treatment of COVID-19 was not prioritized by health officials. Why? Dr. Peter McCalla says he believes there was a suppression of early treatment in an effort to promote the vaccine. Dr. McCullough joins the Daily Signal podcast from the conservative political action conference to share his insights on the failure to treat COVID-19.

Also on today's show, we speak with British conservative Nigel Farage. Farage explains how Russia's war on Ukraine will have deep ramifications for the continent, as well as how that war will affect our relationship with Europe here at home. But before we get to those conversations, let's hit our top news stories of the day. As Russia continues its invasion of Ukraine, President Biden continued to express his support for the country and its people. He also condemned Russia for targeting civilian areas. During a brief encounter with reporters on Wednesday morning, Biden addressed a question over whether or not Russia was intentionally targeting civilian areas. It's clear they are, he said.

Biden also reiterated his support for Ukraine, saying that his administration is doing everything we can. Additionally, on Wednesday, the Biden administration announced a new series of reprisals towards Russian ally Belarus. The administration plans to restrict exports of key technologies toward the country. country. The Commerce Department also announced that it would extend export controls placed on Russia last week to Belarus. The European Union additionally introduced sanctions on Belarus this Wednesday. The United Nations has passed a resolution condemning Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The measure calls on Russia to immediately withdraw its troops from Ukraine, but the action does not have any real authority to compel Russia to pull its troops out of Ukraine. The United Nations, the United Nations,

is a hundred and ninety-three-member body, 141 nations voted in support of the resolution, only five nations voted against the measure, including Russia, Belarus, Syria, Eritrea, and North Korea. The other 35 countries abstain from the vote. The Ukrainian people and military are continuing to fight against the Russian invasion. CNN reports that already more than 2,000 Ukrainian civilians have been killed during Russian. as invasion. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis announced new guidance on Tuesday for Florida workers concerning mask requirements. Here's that announcement via DeSantis's Twitter. For all the businesses, we are recommending officially against force masking policies, particularly for retail workers

and for people working in the services industry and our hospitality industry. Every time I go to these places, I'll be in these big events and you have all these people having such a good time, and the poor servers are forced masks. And I will ask them, are you allowed to take the mask off? They say not yet. They're all waiting for it. They all want to be liberated. They want to be treated normally.

And in Florida, yes, this is based on science and data. But it's also the case that when you have health guidance that conflicts with the data that has the effect of creating a two-tiered society, that is harmful as well. And you don't want to have instruments of public health marginalize different communities of people based on their occupation or vaccination status or anything like that. DeSantis's announcement follows a press release last week announcing changes to Florida's COVID-19 guidance. That guidance recommended pushing back on unscientific corporate masking, reducing isolation for all Floridians, including those in schools and daycares, and recommending that physicians should

exercise their individual clinical judgment and expertise based on their patient's needs and preferences. Now stay tuned for our conversations with cardiologist, Dr. Peter McCullough, and Nigel Farage. At the Heritage Foundation, we believe that every single policy issue discussed in D.C. tells a story. So we want to tell it well. On the Heritage Explains podcast, co-host Tim Desher and Michelle Cordero, take one policy issue a week, mix in a creative blend of clips, narration, and hard-hitting interviews to equip you on crucial issues in under 20 minutes. So get your story straight. Subscribe to Heritage Explains wherever you listen to podcasts. I am so pleased today to be joined by Dr. Peter McCullough, a cardiologist. Dr. McCullough,

thank you so much for being here. Well, thanks for having me. So let's go ahead and dive in, talking about COVID-19 and preventative treatment. So I know thinking back to, well, and even, you know, before we dive in, let me ask you, could you just share a little bit of your own, of your own credentials, your own background in the field of medicine, so our audience knows the perspective that you're coming from. I'm a practicing internist and cardiologist, non-invasive cardiology in Dallas, Texas. So I have a large academically oriented practice. I see and care for patients about half the time. The other half the time, I'm an author, an editor, and clinical investigator. Now a news commentator since the start of the pandemic, I have had my complete and total clinical and academic focus on COVID-19.

and I've learned a lot about it. I have over 50 publications in their peer-reviewed literature on COVID-19, over 650 overall in the National Library of Medicine. I've testified twice in the U.S. Senate. America has relied on my opinions and expertise. The important points, and the CDC was right on this originally, that 15% of people cannot get COVID. That was the estimates when we do what's called herd immunity calculations,

and now we understand leading work by Sabine Hazen in California has shown that the constellation of bacteria that's in the nasopharynx that's contiguous to the GI tract, in some people, protects them against COVID, believe it or not. The virus just can't set up shop in the nasopharynx, and so therefore the natural microbiome protects them. For people who are susceptible and vulnerable to COVID-19, we've learned the most important preventive measure is nasal washes. So because the virus, we literally breathe it in and it sets up shot for about three to five days, and it replicates that we can wash the nose in the mouth with dilute palvidone iodine, which is dilute betidine or dilute hydrogen peroxide, squirting some up in the nose,

sniffing it back and then spitting it out, doing twice in each side and gargle. That is a thorough nasal wash. 12 clinical studies support it, including three large randomized trials. Okay, so let's go back to March 2020. Obviously, at that point, we didn't know a ton about COVID-19, but you were sitting in meetings with health officials, medical experts. Take us into those rooms. What was being said?

What were the conversations that were happening about early treatment? There was a context of fear. Everyone was fearful. They were fearful for themselves, for their staff, for their patients. They were fearful of contagion spreading through hospitals. Remember early on, we had heard about nursing home outbreaks. Well, if nursing home outbreaks occurred, why wouldn't they occur in hospitals? Why wouldn't hospitals be wiped out? So the very first discussions were all driven by fear. We quickly learned that we could actually contain the virus. We used negative pressure ventilation in the hospital, used pappers and more extensive personal protective equipment, and thankfully there were no major hospital outbreaks. The next stages of thought was how to handle it in the hospital. What can we do for the sickest of patients? And then we worked our way backwards. You know, it's been two years, and finally the CDC,

has its first little monogram cartoon out that says treat the virus early. Two years. So I've been saying that from the very beginning, and it's not uncommon for doctors to be years ahead of society's guidelines and other bodies. So why do you think that there wasn't a focus earlier on on early treatment? I think they're overwhelmed. I think people are overwhelmed with the nature of it. We weren't ready for this in any way, shape, or form. And I think there was an overwhelming feature to it. And then there was this immediate task at hand, right? Stop the spread of the virus, treat sick patients in the hospital. But as things wore on, I think when it was known about the advent of the vaccines, I think there were steps taken, unfortunately, to suppress early treatment. Why? That's an interesting

statement to make. Why do you think that steps to actually treat the virus early, that that information would have been suppressed? There was a belief, and I think there's still a belief today among many stakeholders, is that for the only way a vaccine is going to work is if every single person takes it. A needle in every arm. A needle in every arm is the most important. And there is a belief that, listen, it's not going to work unless everybody takes it. And so in order to do that, if we have suppression of early treatment and people think there's no other option, they're going to be much more likely to take the vaccine. So I think actually a suppression of early treatment was by design of vaccine promotion strategy.

So where do we stand today with early treatment? We have a drug called Paxlovid as a Pfizer oral medication, 90% effective in preventing COVID-related hospitalizations and clinical trials. The FDA granted emergency youth authorization in December. The Biden administration, they've agreed to purchase 10 million doses of that, and distribution is underway so far. So are we beginning to kind of write this ship as far as early treatment and do what we need to do? Yeah, we have many signs at early treatment.

Of course, doctors treat ahead of pharmaceutical offerings. They treat ahead of guidelines in society. So early on in the pandemic, the oral nasal washes, nutraceuticals and supplements, the intravenous monoclonal antibodies, don't forget, those are emergency use authorized. They were approved before the vaccines. So we used them. I've used them in my practice consistently since the release. And then the oral drugs.

The first year of the pandemic was the year of hydroxychicoroquine. The second year was the year of ivermectin. I think the third year is going to be the year of Paxilvoid, which the data looked great on Paxilvoids, a five-day course, combination of Nelfin-Pyriivir and Ritonovir, protease inhibers that really shut down the virus. Very effective, as you stated. And then I think as a weak second choice would be Mullenapirivir,

which is the Merck drug, only about 30% effective. But these drugs will not stand alone. We need to use inhal abudocinide, oral steroids, oral coccasicene, oral aspirin, and blood thinners in the highest risk patients. But it's great to have Pfizer drug, available and what my patients tell me is they go to the pharmacy no copay they simply go and pick it up it's wonderful interesting okay so it's a combination of all these different tools and resources right i want to ask you a little bit about um jo rogan so you went on the joe rogan podcast back in december just actually a couple

weeks before dr robert malone went on and after you know you were you were criticized joe rogan was criticized for your interview and then after dr robert malone there came this kind of cry from the far left to cancel to the platform Joe Rogan. What are your thoughts on that? You know, I'll give you the context of this. Pierre Corey and Brett Weinstein, who's an evolutionary biologist, they went on with Joe Rogan a few months ahead of me. Joe ended up getting COVID.

His friend Aaron Rogers, quarterback for the Packers got COVID. They followed the McCullough Protocol, so they knew it. So Aaron was on Pat McAfee saying, listen, I took the McCullough Protocol. There is a protocol that I developed with other doctors, has been copyrighted in my name by other doctors to honor me. And because of that, there was a setup. And Joe reached out to me, and I couldn't get to his studio for about a month. So when I prepared with slides, I had over 100 scientific slides.

They were curated by the Association of American Physician and Surgeons. I sent it to Joe's producer, sent to Joe. I said, Joe, this is going to be a medical grand round. No opinion, no hyperbole. I'm just going to show you the data. We sat down in the studio, three solid hours. and Joe is very intelligent. He asked good questions.

He's very perceptive. And it was basically a disclosure of the state of the science on COVID-19. What was really interesting, I was on December 8th. By December 27th, we had hit all new records for a Rogan experience. We passed Elon Musk, everyone else. And people said, wow, this was such a helpful interview to help understand COVID. And then the blowback happened. And the blowback happened, well, Dr. McCullough, then Dr. Malone.

Then it was Joe Rogan. And then it was Joe Rogan about his prior podcasts, right? So, and then after myself and Dr. Malone, I was the treating medical doctor. Dr. Malone was the preclinical vaccineologist, scientist. He had Dr. Majid Nawaz on. Noaz from the UK basically filled out the story about the digital passports and the global strategy about the great reset. Joe Rogan's eyes got so big during the Noaz interview.

The pictures are priceless. So here we are today. Joe Rogan is in the thick of it now. He's a wonderful guy. He's a friend. He's a wonderful guy. He's come out with a video about censorship and about how censorship is a sign that freedom is being attacked and he's right.

And as we see here today, I have got the most frequently viewed and listened to interview of all time on the Joe Reagan experience. I'm the winner right now. And I haven't been deep platform and near there's Joe, but other, there's collateral damage of other prior interviews. Neil Young has come back to Spotify. has Prince Harry. And interestingly, Spotify carries Robert F. Kennedy and the Children Health Defense, which has strident views against the vaccines, and they haven't said anything about RFK.

Wow, wow. Okay, real fast before we let you go. Are we on the right path with COVID-19? Are we out of the woods on this? The emergency phase is over, which is wonderful. You can see here. We've got thousands of people here at CPAC. No one's wearing masks. I'll be speaking just ahead of President, former President Trump. And I plan to, if I can, I'm going to ask a question. How many of you have been through it? You'll see that in large groups like this, most people have been through COVID-19. They have some degree of protection. People's worry levels are down. There still will be some residual cases that will treat going forward, but we've got this. We can go back to normal. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you.

Conservative women. Conservative feminist. It's true. We do exist. I'm Virginia Allen, and every Thursday morning on problematic women, Lauren Evans and I sort of through the news to bring you stories and interviews that are of particular interest to conservative leaning or problematic women. That is women whose views and opinions are often excluded or mocked by those on the so-called feminist left. We talk about everything from pop culture to policy and politics. Search for problematic women wherever you get your podcasts. My guest today is Nigel Farage, Honor, a president of Reform UK, and a presenter on G.B. News. Welcome to the show.

Thank you very much. Of course. Pleasure to have you. We've gotten some heat for your tweet earlier today on Ukraine, which it's the news topic of the day. So you wrote, well, I was wrong. Putin has gone much further than he thought. I thought he would.

A consequence of EU and NATO expansion, which came to ahead in 2014, it made no sense to poke the Russian bear with a stick. Could you elaborate what you meant by that? Yeah, 2014. The Ukrainian government was brought down. in what was called the Orange Revolution. And it was interesting.

In Kiev, there were people waving European Union flags. It had been European Union policy to extend, extend, NATO policy to extend, extend, extend, all of this despite the fact we'd made promises after the fall of the Berlin Wall that NATO would not extend. And I could see Putin's anger at the time. And what we've done is to give him a nationalist cause.

We've given the nationalist a cause, one that he can sell to the Russian people. And I've been right. Sadly, I've been right. We've provoked the Russian bear. He now appears to be out of control. None of what I said is, as my critics would say, supportive of Putin.

Funny, isn't it, really? You know, all these people that supported Iraq and Afghanistan, which I didn't, you know, all the warmongers are now saying I'm somehow pro-war. The whole thing is twisted around its neck. I, for 30 years, have felt this ever-easwas expansion of both the organizations was a mistake.

So what now that we've... You said he's been unleashed, so what is the response now from the UK? What should we be doing here? Well, we're talking sanctions and fine, but all that does is push up the price of gas and oil, which means everyone pays. The other worry about sanctions is that it drives Putin closer to China

in terms of, you know, where's he going to issue his bonds and raise money? Well, China, where's he going to sell his gas and oil if we do slowly in Europe start buying less of it? China. In the end, of course, China will swallow him up and have him for breakfast, but short term that suits him. It doesn't suit us as a world for Russia and China to have got closer together. I think the big thing now is NATO. I understand why many Americans will say, well, look, where the hell is Ukraine, why does this matter?

I understand why many Americans will say, well, World War I, World War II, how many times do we have to come? But if we don't defend the integrity of NATO now, and that means Poland and Estonia, we don't defend that now, then the West is 15. The West is finished. As a cohesive unit, it will give great encouragement to China to do what the hell they want. And the truth of it is that NATO is nothing without America.

Nothing. Does Putin move on Poland and Estonia now that he's moved on Ukraine? I don't know. I just don't know. But it has to be a fear. And, you know, frankly, ever since Kabul fell,

ever since America walked away, there's been a question, do America actually want to lead the Western world now or don't they? It's a big, big question. And there's no easy answer. So far, through Biden, it's difficult to determine what the answer to that question is. And most Americans won't want to get involved in a war in Europe. Sure. But equally, I think when push comes to shove,

most Americans would want America to be the lead. of the Western world. So these are the things that you have to weigh up. Things are up in the air. Now, in terms of just, there have been responses from both the UK and America, but also Europe has had some responses to, most importantly, I guess, Germany has decided to cancel the Nord Stream to pipeline. They're going to, they're going to stop doing that. After Donald Trump vetoed it, and then Joe Biden approved it. Right. And Joe Biden also, of course, he approved a pipeline there, but closed the pipeline down in America. I mean, you couldn't make this stuff up. Right.

So I guess the response from European countries, you're not seeing this as effective. It's not very cohesive. I mean, today's a bit more cohesive. This week's been a shambles. Interestingly, the British have been quite strong. Brexit, Britain, has a much bigger voice than it had before. And we are seeing some of that. I suppose Boris Johnson's premiership has been saved.

Because it was in a bit of trouble before. You know, elected as a conservative and governing as a liberal. It wasn't working out very well. We'll see. I mean, you know, so there are two things to answer here. One is the future of NATO. Is America assuming that role unconditionally over NATO territory? The second question is Ukraine, what do we do?

We're not sending troops in, but are we going to send in more kit? Are we going to get involved in airstrikes? Are we not? You see, those eastern provinces in Ukraine are Russian speaking. I want to be with Russia. Western Ukraine doesn't. So another big decision. It's the possibility of maybe a divided Ukraine.

You know, Ukraine didn't really work anyway. Just didn't work. As a concept or more in the sense that it was never going to work where Russia was at its doorstep? It was never going to work with Russia trying to put it eastwards and Europe trying to push it and pull it westwards. Look, Ukraine is a deeply divided, very corrupt country.

You know, it's a mess. Why the hell? We ever wanted it in NATO to give Putin yet another causes bell-eye. I don't understand. We did speak a little bit before this about how the UK has eliminated virtually all COVID-19 restrictions. England has. England has. England has.

Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland will follow, but there'll be a lot slower. Yes, taking us a long time to get to where we are, but we're there. And that's terrific news. It's a victory for a victory for a free press. and it's a victory for the independent-mindedness of enough conservative backbenchers who rebelled against Johnson's position. Johnson has been forced

into freeing us up, thank goodness. So you're saying that Boris Johnson would have preferred to maintain restrictions in the UK? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Very clear at the end of December, he was calling on Macron an emergency. He's been forced to do this, but he's done it. So he'll want to take credit for it.

I'm not sure he deserves it. But he probably gets a bit. Sure. We're seeing similar things here in America where restrictions for Amicron were across the board, and then all of a sudden they kind of fade away. Are we seeing something somewhere here? Yeah, and even Austria started to ease. Just Canada and New Zealand, the peter have gone mad.

Completely mad. But, no, I think the tide and force of public opinion now is going to push these governments back. I genuinely do. I pray so. Now, before we wrap, I would love to talk to you. you were one of the architects of Brexit. You were very much in favor of this even before it was sort of a thing when you were part of the UK Independence Party

and then, of course, the Brexit party. How has Brexit been for the UK? It seems like there were people that thought it was bad, but... Well, look, I mean, you know, the Conservative Party on their own would never have done this. Never done. There were critical voices. You're a skeptics, but I was Euro certain.

We shouldn't be there. So, I mean, UKIP goes down in history as an amazing movement that completely changed the narrative in the UK. There is now, I mean, there's no going back. We're not rejoining. The anger is that Boris hasn't taken advantage of it at all. And his chief negotiator, Lord Frost, has even resigned his position in frustration.

And you do wonder whether Boris actually ever believed in it or whether it was a political weapon. Because he joined the campaign very late. He'd never ever suggested in the previous 25 years we should leave the EU. He was critical the bits of it. But look, we're better off than we were. We're speaking more freely on the world stage.

We're able to join America in a deal on the nuclear submarines with Australia, which we could not have done. We would not have come out of restrictions as EU members. We'd had to have marched a bit with the others. So we're getting some benefits, but there's a lot more to be had. Overall, well, it's 7 out of 10. so far. There's a lot more to be done. Sure. One final question on that note.

There was a concern following Brexit about what to do with Northern Ireland. How have things played out on that front? Terribly. Johnson said, oh no, it'll all be fine. It's not fine. Northern Ireland's effectively been annexed, economically annexed,

by the European Union. It's a mess and it's one of those areas that needs tidying up and pretty quickly. Otherwise, we could see more troubles in Northern. than Ireland. That's the last thing we want. Absolutely. All right. Well, that was Nigel Farage, Honorary, President of Reform, UK,

and a presenter at G.B. News. Nigel, thank you so much. And that'll do it for today's episode. Thank you so much for listening to the Daily Signal podcast. As always, you can find the Daily Signal podcast on your listening app of choice. Google Play, Apple Podcast, Spotify, and IHeartRadio. If you have it already, please be sure to leave us a review

in a five-star rating and encourage others to subscribe. Thank you again for listening. We'll see you back here. morning. The Daily Signal podcast is brought to you by more than half a million members of the Heritage Foundation. It is executive produced by Virginia Allen and Kate Trinko, sound designed by Lauren Evans, Mark Geinney, and John Pop.

For more information, please visit DailySignal.com.