The Dr. Hyman Show - Why Vaccine Safety Is So Hard to Talk About — with Dr. Joel Warsh

Episode Date: May 21, 2025

Dr. Joel Warsh was trained in conventional pediatrics—but he quickly realized that vaccine conversations often overlook what matters most to you and your child’s unique health needs. On this episode of The Dr. Hyman Show, discover how Dr. Warsh blends medical research with real patient experience to offer an honest, balanced conversation about vaccines. Together, we share a practical discussion—exploring what we know and what we don’t—to empower you to make informed decisions. We explore: • How you can better understand vaccine risks and benefits to protect your child wisely • What questions to ask your pediatrician to ensure your concerns are heard • Ways you can strengthen your child’s immune system naturally before and after vaccination • Why focusing on prevention and root health supports your child’s long-term wellness Tune in for a grounded, thoughtful look at a complex topic—one that respects your questions, your values, and your role as a parent. View Show Notes From This EpisodeGet Free Weekly Health Tips from Dr. Hymanhttps://drhyman.com/pages/picks?utm_campaign=shownotes&utm_medium=banner&utm_source=podcastSign Up for Dr. Hyman’s Weekly Longevity Journalhttps://drhyman.com/pages/longevity?utm_campaign=shownotes&utm_medium=banner&utm_source=podcastJoin the 10-Day Detox to Reset Your Healthhttps://drhyman.com/pages/10-day-detoxJoin the Hyman Hive for Expert Support and Real Resultshttps://drhyman.com/pages/hyman-hive This episode is brought to you by Fatty15, PerfectAmino,Big Bold Health, LMNT, Pique Head to fatty15.com/hyman and use code HYMAN for 15% off your 90-day subscription Starter Kit. Get pure essential amino acids today. Go to bodyhealth.com and use HYMAN20 to get 20% off your first order. Try HTB Immune Energy Chews for yourself, visit bigboldhealth.com and use code DRMARK 25 at checkout to get 25% off your purchase today. Get a free LMNT Sample Pack with any order—just head to drinklmnt.com/hyman. Head to piquelife.com/hyman to get 20% off + a free beaker and frother today.

Coming up on this episode of the Dr. Hyman show. Vaccines, we're not allowed to talk about it as any other medical treatment, which has benefits and it has risks. We need honesty. We need to have discussions not to stop people from vaccinating, not to stop vaccine, but to hold these companies liable in some way or to hold them accountable. Dr. Joel Wersch is a pediatrician. And opening up honest conversations around vaccines.

Helping people make informed choices. With confidence. Every single vaccine before it hits the market, it's studied against a placebo. The thing is, a lot of those placebos are not inert. Not everybody is a saint. Each of us have different genetics, different immune systems. At Mayo Clinic, they're looking at how different people respond to vaccines. Why do the kids that are living an unvaccinated lifestyle have a lower risk of autoimmune

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by my personal practice, there's simply not enough time for me to do this at scale. And that's why I've been busy building several passion projects to help you better understand, well, you. If you're looking for data about your biology, check out Function Health for real-time lab insights. And if you're in need of deepening your knowledge

around your health journey, check out my membership community, the Hymen Hive. And if you're in need of deepening your knowledge around your health journey, check out my membership community, the Hymen Hive. And if you're looking for curated and trusted supplements and health products for your health journey, visit my website at drhymen.com for my website store for a summary of my favorite and thoroughly tested products. Welcome to the Dr. Hyman Show.

I'm Dr. Mark Hyman. This is a place for your conversations that matter. And this one matters more than most. It's about vaccines and it's very controversial. It's very confusing for both parents and even doctors and scientists, because when we have a topic like this that has been taboo to talk about,

it's hard to get answers. And so I'm really excited for this podcast with Dr. Joel Gator-Warsh, who's a board-certified pediatrician in Los Angeles, California. He specializes in parenting, vaccines, wellness, and integrated medicine. He's got a great Instagram at Dr. Joel Gator. He gives great advice on there. He's the author of a new book on vaccines between a shot and a hard place. Tackling vaccine questions with balanced data and clarity. Wow, that's refreshing.

He has a master's degree in epidemiology and community health. He got his medical degree at Thomas Jefferson and did his pediatric at UCI Children's Hospital of Los Angeles. And he's worked in Beverly Hills where he does incredible work to help guide parents on how to navigate a very confusing world. So I'm super excited to have Joel. We dive deep into all kinds of things in terms of what, what do we know? What do we don't know about vaccines? The common trope, which is that they're safe and effective is a problem because nothing in medicine

is totally safe or totally effective, even an aspirin. We also dive into the history of vaccines. We dive into some of the questions around the controversies up now, why we need better science, and just how to think about this and how do you apply this to your life if you're a parent or thinking about having kids or grandkids? What do you do? So we talk everything about the problems with our pharmaceutical industry, the problems with our federal policies around science, some of the decline in trust in medicine, and why more and more people are questioning vaccines, even though they do have a role and we need to kind of have a dispassionate look at this.

So get ready for a very deep and exciting conversation. Let's dive in. Joe, welcome to the Dr. Hyman show. I'm so excited about this conversation because it's a conversation that nobody is allowed to have, which is about vaccines. Yeah, no, I'm so excited to be here. And before we jump into that, I just wanted to say thank you to you.

Back when I was in training, I met my wife and she was very integrative minded. And that kind of set me on the path towards learning integrative medicine. But at that time, there really wasn't a lot of integrative medicine, certainly not for kids. And your work really resonated with me. I was following a lot of what you did.

I went to functional medicine courses because of you. And I used to tell people, I wanna be the Mark Hyman of pediatrics. That's probably why I'm sitting here today. So I just wanted to say thank you for everything that you do, because it makes a huge difference. Well, that is really appreciate that. And I've worked really hard to try to spread the word

and help people open their minds and think differently about health. And one of the challenges is that there's such a set of dogmas in medicine, which is very strange. We had all these beliefs that have been overturned by the progress of science. And sciences are really about asking questions. What really strikes me around the issue around vaccines

in your new book, Between a Shot and a Hard Place, Tackling Difficult Vaccine Questions with Balance, Data and Clarity, it's a breath of fresh air. It's just, it's extraordinary to me that we, when you look at the progress of science we've seen, historically we used to think that autism was caused by refrigerator mothers. We used to think that ulcers were caused by stress

and not by a bacteria, which we now know, and the guy who'd figured this out won the Nobel Prize and was laughed at for making this hypothesis that a bacteria would cause ulcers. Recently, we used to think that aspirin was the best thing to give to everybody to prevent heart attacks and that that has been kill you flipped and it's only good for a certain subset of people

who are at high risk, not everybody else, because it's gonna cause brain hemorrhaging and intestinal bleeding. Or we used to give arsenic and mercury as medicine. That was a long time ago. Those were the medicines of the day. That was a long time ago. In fact, one of the things they did for teething

for babies back in the 30s and 40s, they'd give them this powder that actually they would kind of relieve some of the pain and discomfort, and it was full of mercury. And it caused a whole syndrome that actually looks like autism of relieve some of the pain and discomfort and it was full of mercury. And it caused a whole syndrome that actually looks like autism, which is crazy. So I wanted to kind of have a far ranging conversation about the history of vaccines, what we know,

what we don't know, and open up the question because this has been one of those areas that is just off limits. When I was at Cleveland Clinic, we started the functional medicine center there. It was fun, it was great, and a lot of openness to what we're doing. And there was at Cleveland Clinic, we started the functional medicine center there, it was fun, it was great, and a lot of openness to what we're doing. And there was an article I wrote,

like maybe a decade before, about a patient with autism, that I just said in the history, this patient had an MMR vaccine, and the mother said that after that, the kid had issues. And so I was just sort of recounting the history. And I even put in the kind of disclaimer at the beginning, I'm not saying the vaccines cause autism.

I'm just noting the historical context of this patient. And I was called out by the pediatric department and said, you're an anti-vaxxer, prove that you're not. We think you're a heretic, or you're in trouble. Basically, I was like in trouble. So I had to write a letter to the entire pediatric department saying, no, no, I'm not anti-vax, but I think they're important and essential

and great advances in medicine. And I think it's worth more conversation and discussion. But it's crazy that you can't talk about it. I mean, you never could. And same thing for me. I mean, I never talked about this outside the office until recently. Yeah.

I was even on RFK's podcast in 2022. And before I went on, I said, you know, is it okay if we don't talk about vaccines? And he was totally fine with it. And he said, yeah, I get it. And I mean, I should have at that time, but it was just so controversial. I mean, it's still so controversial,

but I think the times have changed a little bit and people are much more interested. And I feel like we need to have that conversation and we need to be open to discussing everything for our kids' health because our health is suffering and we're seeing higher rates of chronic disease and we have to be open to looking into everything. Not to say that we shouldn't vaccinate or vaccines are bad or anything like that, but we want the best possible vaccines.

We want the most minimal side effects and we shouldn't assume that we have the best vaccines that we're ever going to have in the history of the world. Like, we should try to continue improving things. And there's no reason why that should be controversial. And that's why I wrote the book. I'm not against vaccines at all. They give vaccines in my office. I just don't believe people should be forced to do things.

I think we should have discussions, and we should have debates, and we should provide the best information so people can make the best decisions for themselves and I don't have any motive behind this book in terms of pushing people to vaccinate or pushing people not to vaccinate. Everything that you see on the market when it comes to a book really seems to be one-sided. It really seems to be super pro-vax or super anti-vax and there's nothing in between that doesn't help I

think the majority of parents who are concerned and want information and want to discuss the pros and the cons, the risks versus the benefits. And I think that's the conversation that we need to be having. And that's what we have about every other topic in medicine. Yeah, there's a thing we're supposed to do

called informed consent, which is you lay out the risks and the benefits of any treatment, whether it's surgery. I mean, I even had surgery. Okay, you could die from bleeding, from infection, from this, from that. I'm like, okay. You know, I mean, I had an ablation for atrial fib

years ago, and the doctor was all in this, and well, you could have perforated your aorta, you could do this, you could do that, and I could die. I mean, oh God, you know, this is terrible. And okay, I chose to do it because I didn't wanna have this problem anymore. And I had informed consent. But with vaccines, we're not allowed to talk about it

as any other medical treatment, which just has benefits and it has risks. And it's just, it's extraordinary to me that we hear this trope that's, they're safe and they're effective. They're safe and they're effective. Well, they're sorta safe and they're sorta effective for a lot of them, right?

And I think that phrase over the pandemic is what really shifted things. It certainly did for me as one of the big concerns. I mean, that was something that we all lived through recently and we saw the marketing around vaccines. We saw how that played out. And when you talk about a new vaccine, safe and effective doesn't

make any sense. It's just propaganda. What should have been said, what would have been completely reasonable, if we were being honest, would be based on the information that we have, the benefits seem to outweigh the known risks at this time. We don't have any long term data, so we don't know anything about the long term risks from the vaccine. But we do feel like based on what we know, the risks seem minimal, the benefits seem great for decreasing death, decreasing hospitalization. So here's why we're recommending it.

We're recommending it to these individuals because they're more high risk for the individuals that are less high risk. Here's our recommendation. What's wrong with that? Like, that's honest. That's what we should have been saying. Instead of saying safe and effective, safe and effective.

And then people had problems. With anything you're gonna take, there's going to be issues. And if you're not honest, then you see this decrease in trust in medicine, because people say, well, they're not being honest with me about that. What else are they not being honest with me about?

And I'm seeing that in the office. I mean, we're seeing the vaccine rates decline across the board. Trust in medicine is at the lowest it's ever been. It was 70% before the pandemic. In many studies now it's around 40%. That's crazy. The vaccination rates, there are more kids than ever

that are unvaccinated. There are more kids than ever that are not fully vaccinated. We have to take a hard look as physicians and as a medical establishment and look in the mirror and say, what are we doing? I mean, medicine is trying to stop vaccine hesitancy. They're actually creating it by not having discussions and having debate. And we have to look in the mirror and say, what are we doing? I mean, medicine is trying to stop vaccine hesitancy. They're actually creating it by not having discussions

and having debate. And we have to look in the mirror and say, what can we do? How do we bridge that divide to bring honesty back and trust back in the system and to hear what concerns parents have and not to vilify them or to call them anti-vax, but to listen to what their concerns are so that way we can address those concerns, get the research that we need or to call them anti-vax, but to listen to what their concerns are,

so that way we can address those concerns, get the research that we need to either disprove what they're saying or to make some changes to make the vaccine safe or whatever it is, but we're vilifying people for talking about it, and that creates this system where people don't wanna do anything with medicine anymore, they don't wanna go to doctors, they don't trust anything,

and that is bad. Look at the COVID vaccine rates right now. I mean, you're talking like 10% for kids getting the vaccine this year with a recommendation from the CDC. That means that people don't trust the CDC anymore. If half of kids are getting flu shots and 10% are getting COVID shots

and 20% of adults are getting COVID shots, then there's this distrust of the things that the CDC are recommending. And that is very bad. We need to have our establishments there to protect us and to provide us information. And if we don't trust what they're saying, it's like the boy who cried wolf,

what happens next year or the year after where something does come out that we need to be listening to and everybody decides, I don't trust the CDC. They don't know what they're talking about. And then we don't do the things that we need to do. So that's very concerning to me, and we have to take that seriously. I think what you're saying is so important.

The public trust in medicine has gone down. The questioning of vaccines has gone way up. And one of the things I find very disturbing is that when you hear people in government saying, it's a waste of money to do any further studies on vaccines because we know they're perfect. And I'm like, what? Is this medicine, is this science?

There's nothing else that I can think of in medicine that's like that. It's science fundamentally is based on hypothesis generation which is questioning an assumption and then trying to prove your hypothesis. And it's always about the question. It's never about the answer. And yet to say we don't need any more research

and a waste of federal dollars to actually look at this. Well, I wanted to sort of go back a little bit, Joel, because I think people need to understand how we got here. You know, when I was in medical school, we had just DTaP, which was diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis, and we had MMR, which is measles, mumps, and rubella, and we had polio vaccines.

That was it. That's what I got, that's what my kids got. That's what I got when I was little. And you know, when I was in medical school, I got hepatitis vaccines, because you were at risk of getting hepatitis B or A, or whatever, from traveling or from the medical work we do. And I think that's fine for certain high risk populations.

But now, instead of getting like eight jabs or whatever, we get like 72 jabs that are from a whole host of different vaccines. There was a problem with the swine flu vaccine where it was a problem and it caused a lot of side effects and complications and deaths and Guillain-Barre syndrome, which is paralysis. It was not a good situation. And that was in the 80s.

And then the vaccine maker says, we're not going to invest any more money in vaccines unless you, the government, protect us. So rather than us being liable for any complications or problems or side effects, the government is going to take that on. And it's called indemnification. We indemnify the pharmaceutical manufacturers who make vaccines so that they can't be sued. And since that time, there's a vaccine adverse event reporting system called VAERS, which has received over 2.6 million adverse effects.

Now, not all of them are causal, so it doesn't mean if you've got a vaccine and you got a fever, it didn't mean the fever was caused by the vaccine, but they report this. And more importantly, there's been $5 billion of federal money that's been spent to pay people who've been injured by vaccines. So on one hand, the government's paying out all this money

and acknowledging there's a problem, and on the other hand, they're like, no problem, it's perfect, and don't study it anymore. So that kind of led to this plethora of vaccines on the market where like, okay, it's kind of open field day and we can just make vaccines, no one's ever gonna sue us, and we can make a ton of money. And the RSV vaccine, which is an important disease

that kids get, respiratory syncytial virus, it's a respiratory disease. And the company made $100 billion off this vaccine. Why are we protecting them? So can you talk a little bit about that? Why, what's wrong with it, and what we need to do to sort of think about it differently? It's such a problematic setup for safety and research.

It's great that we have more vaccines. I mean, that's a good thing. We want to protect against diseases that we can protect against. But the issue is we have this system now that protects the companies. They were going out of business in the 1980s. They were threatening to go out of business, especially around what you were saying and also the DTP vaccine. There were a lot of lawsuits around that. They had to stabilize the market in some way. And that's what they decided to do to take their liability away but the problem with that is if you take away the liability they have no incentive to make them better. And they have every incentive to get a vaccine on the market they have every incentive to get something on the schedule.

And they have so much money and so much power and that has grown over the last 40 years to the point where they're bigger than many countries. I mean, they have just so much money, they know what they're doing and they know how to lobby everything and push things forward. And so we're at this point now where we are hearing from doctors, I mean, we're trained. We're not talking about safety

when we're learning in med school, right? We're talking about, here's the schedule, here are the diseases that you protect against, go do it. And you don't think anything differently. And I didn't, I didn't think anything differently when I was going through school. And until you start learning about it. Get your pouch test, get your mammogram,

get your clonospin, whatever. Just do it. Those are fine. But like it's sort of in that same bucket of like, this is just a general safe thing to do. Exactly, and anybody that says anything about vaccines, you're crazy, you're a crackpot, you're vilified. Parent whose child has a reaction to a vaccine, or at least that they think had a reaction to a vaccine, they're vilified, they're a crackpot, you're vilified parent who, whose child has a reaction to a vaccine,

at least that they think had a reaction to a vaccine, they're vilified, they're called anti-vax, which makes no sense. This is a parent who took their child to get a vaccine. They believed in vaccines and they had what they think is a reaction. And then they're vilified for being a crazy crackpot tin foil hat wearing individual and vilified for talking about it. And yes, sometimes it's correlation. Sometimes you could get a vaccine today, have a heart attack this afternoon and die. And that might have nothing to do with the vaccine. But certainly it's reasonable if it happens that you should consider that it could be

related. And just asking the question should not be something that we're unable to do. But it has seemed like that's the case for the last, certainly last few years to the point where the censorship was so great that things were labeled as misinformation or taken down even when they were true. Mark Zuckerberg said it recently that the government was pressuring them to take down true information about vaccines because it would lead to hesitancy. And that's the opposite of what we need to be doing. That's not honest. We need honesty. We need to have discussions not to stop people from vaccinating, not to stop vaccines, but to hold these companies liable in some way or to hold them accountable.

Right now we're seeing this back and forth between the pharmaceutical companies and government. They fund all the politicians. They fund the news. They fund everything and they do it on purpose. It's not philanthropic. They know what they're doing. They are, you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours. And that's what we're seeing. And it's to the point where doctors just don't even realize how much we're being fed a pharmaceutical curriculum. I mean, there's no, the joke in the book, there's no, why do we not trust

pharma one-on-one in med school, right? It's here are the things that you should do. And they're funding the med school, they're funding the journals, they're funding the studies, they're doing the research. They know what they're doing. And that doesn't mean that the vaccine is unsafe or a medical product is unsafe.

We need medicines. They're fantastic. We have a lot of amazing medications and things that are fantastic, but who is watching over the pharmaceutical companies? Who's pushing back? Who's making sure they're safer tomorrow than they are today? And who is doing the research to look at things that they don't do? They look at the products before they go on the market. They're not going to look at their products again to find problems with them. If you're a CEO of a company, you're not funding a study to say,

hey, let me check my medication again to see if it's causing allergies. Let me see if it's causing asthma five years from now. Why would they do that? Who is doing that? Nobody's doing it. And then there are, you know, in medicine, there are cases where there have been scientists

who've questioned or doctors who've questioned things like Vioxx, which is one of the most powerful anti-inflammatory drugs we've ever had. And Steve Nissen, Cleveland Clinic actually, who I know very well, he's a brilliant guy. And he's like, geez, it seems like there may be some connection between increased heart attacks and taking Vioxx.

And so he did the research, and he showed that there was a problem, and it was taken off the market. But you can't do that with vaccines. You certainly can't do it anymore. I mean, you're almost everybody who does a study on vaccines that they show any sort of problem, they get vilified. And so I think there's this huge incentive or disincentive to even do research on vaccines.

People just don't. I mean, we just don't see a lot of it these days. I mean, there certainly is a little bit, but most of what you see is individuals who are very pro-vaccine, doing pro-vaccine studies, looking for an outcome that's funded by a pharmaceutical agency in the first place. And so that is what we're seeing.

And you can't say that we don't ever have problems with vaccines. We took the original DTP off the market because it could theoretically causing a lot of encephalitis and neurologic issues. We took a rotavirus vaccine off the market because it was causing a deception. That's what we should be thinking about.

Not that we don't want the rotavirus vaccine, but hey, is there an issue with the vaccine that we have now? Maybe we can figure out why that we have that issue and make it better. Wouldn't we want to do that? Doctors don't wanna harm patients. No.

Doctors are good people. And if there was good research and good studies to say, hey, this ingredient in vaccines is increasing your risk for asthma or this in this ingredient or this combination of vaccines increases your risk for eczema, doctors would want to know that we'd want to look at the schedule, adjust the schedule and figure out how do we provide the most benefit from vaccines while minimizing the risk. While there isn't a lot of research out there

on long-term risks, there is some. And if you look at a very pro-science book, they just say, oh, vaccines have nothing to do with allergies. Vaccines have nothing to do with eczema. There is no research on that. But if you look at a different book, you look at Neil Miller's book or something like that, there are good studies out there

that show that there are some connections potentially between eczema and vaccines. There are some connections between allergies and autoimmune conditions. And the majority of research still says that there isn't. But there certainly is some. There certainly are some good studies that show that there might be some relation or if you change up the schedule a little bit or you delay things a little bit that you can see a difference.

And that's the kind of research we should have more of. There's nothing controversial with saying, hey, let's study the schedule that we have. Maybe we can try some alternate schedules, see if some of these rates go down. If they don't, great. That's the research that parents want. That's right.

And I think the other problem with this is that, when we look at studies on vaccines, when they're done, they're basically done with a single vaccine. Most of them aren't even tested against placebo. I wanna talk, because I think that's super important because it's really, really important to be very specific because I've even heard RFK say this incorrectly.

I know he knows, but he doesn't always say it very specifically and it's really important. So every single vaccine before it hits the market, it's studied against a placebo. The thing is a lot of those placebos are not inert. That's right. And that's the- Right, right, it's like, well, you're thing is a lot of those placebos are not inert. That's right. And that's the, the key thing. Right.

It's like, well, you're giving it a time. But they say the word placebo, so they can say, no, no, it was placebo controlled, studied and they were, but it was studied against another vaccine or an earlier version of the vaccine. Basically all the vaccines on the market that are the children vaccines were never studied against an inert placebo. Like a water, like saline. We never studied against saline.

And so when somebody says they weren't studied against a placebo, then another person listening who's being a very pro-vaccine says, oh no, no, they were, what are you talking about? They have all this pre-licensure testing. But it's very specific. They rigged the deck, they studied against another vaccine, they study it in the setting of doing other vaccines.

Most studies are looking at one vaccine versus another vaccine in the setting of getting all the rest of your vaccines. So you're not studying vaccinated versus unvaccinated kids. So you don't have a true baseline of safety. And there's a huge difference in a vaccine study between saying the old DTP versus the new DTP is safe versus DTP is safe versus nothing.

And that doesn't mean that there's a safety issue, but they're all studied in that way. And if you go back through with history. There's a set of a lack of integrity in science. It is a lack of integrity to a degree. So I think we're in this weird place now. Because they designed the studies to show the outcomes they want.

They certainly want to minimize their chance for having a problem. They rig the deck in a sense, because if you're doing a blinded study, unless you're lying, then you don't really know who's getting what. So the best way to rig the deck is to put it against something that's gonna have a similar profile, and then you minimize your chance to have a problem.

So like testing Advil against the Leave. Correct, exactly. And then when they both have the same profile of issues, so let's say you test Advil versus the Leave. You're not gonna see any increase in problems. Right, let's say they get three seizures in that study. Okay, they say, well, there are three seizures in both groups, so there's no they get three seizures in that study. Okay, they say, well, there were three seizures

in both groups, so there's no concerns. But if you studied against water, you had zero seizures, there would be a difference there. And that's not the way things are done. And we're in this weird place now because of ethics, where it's hard to do a study against unvaccinated kids when you have a vaccine that's already on the market, because there's an ethics there around

not giving the standard of care. And so we're, because they weren't done correctly or the best way in the beginning, now we're in this catch because we have all these vaccines on the market. If we want to restudy them, how do we do that in a way where we can get a baseline? Makes it really tough.

It's tough. You gotta go to populations that are unvaccinated like the Amish or Mennonites or groups like that. But we should acknowledge this. So if we do bring something new on the market, then we can increase those standards. Say we need you to do a study against an inert placebo for a new product like the Prevnar vaccine,

the original study, there were no other Prevnars on the market. They studied against the meningitis vaccine. That makes no sense. They can study it against free solution, water, but they studied it against meningitis. Yeah, that's sort of shady science. And it's amazing the FDA allows that

and then would approve it. There's no reason that you should approve that. They should require them to have a third group that's also saltwater. There's no logical reason you wouldn't do it unless you don't wanna take the chance to show what the difference is between that and saltwater. And you may find the exact same thing,

but we should require that. And you know, Peter Marks just resigned from the FDA. He was sort of the head of the vaccine program. Do you think it was because of some of these reasons that he didn't want to look at? Or why do you think he left? I think he left in part because he knows there's going to be a greater lens on vaccines.

And I think that for anybody who has lived in that world for a long time, that's been extraordinarily pro-vaccine, that doesn't want this discussion or debate, then I think it's going to be really tough for them moving forward because there's a lot of people moving in that do seem to want to have the discussion a little bit more. For individuals who've had a long career, they don't want to necessarily be in a battle. Again, these are people that love what they do, love helping patients, and most doctors, I mean, almost all doctors, firmly believe in vaccines and they don't want to have that

discussion. They're not even aware that they should or should look into it. I really think that people should look into it. You don't have to take my word for it. Go look at the research yourself. I didn't know any of this 10 years ago. I didn't even know most of this two years ago until you really dive into it. You you don't know. And and I feel like with presenting this information, I've showed it to a few doctors

who are conventionally trained thus far. And all of them are still my friends and they're still talking to me, which is great. Cause I don't know how this is gonna be taken. And are they open to it when you share the data? They were open to it. The discussion comes very quickly when they say, but what do you think?

You don't want people to get vaccines? I'm like, no, no, I do want to get people to have vaccines. I just want people to have information. And I think that we could always have better research and here's the information. And that seems to calm people down a little bit. And then they're a little more open to having the conversation. I think right now, a lot of people think that individuals like RFK or other people are going to push a narrative of we don't want any more vaccines.

We don't want people to get vaccinated. And that as far as I know, is not the truth in any way, and certainly not what I'm aiming for, and I think that doctors want to know that we're moving forward in a way that is still gonna promote vaccination, but maybe do it in a safer way, but they have to at least be open to the discussion first,

and I think if you come at it from that angle, then there isn't any doctor out there that doesn't want safety for their patients. And better science. And better science. They want that, and I just don't think that they know, because I didn't know. And we sort of taper,

where it's like there's all these vaccines now on the market, the schedule has, how many vaccines now? I don't know, a lot. I mean, it depends what you, you know, how many, it depends on how many combos you take, but you're talking like 30 to 40 actual pokes if you're doing combination shots.

You know, when we talk about evidence based medicine, it's sort of a trope that's used to discredit people who questions science. To my knowledge, maybe I'm wrong, but there's no studies that look at what is the combination of all these vaccines at these ages. Each one is studied singly singly. So if you do 30 different jobs with combos of maybe dozens of vaccines, what is the cumulative effect? No one's really looked at that.

There's nothing even close to that. How many vaccines are new in the last few years? You have to do vaccinated versus unvaccinated studies and you have to look at them together and it's not unreasonable to do that. There are so many parents that are concerned about too many vaccines. That is one of the biggest concerns

that I hear over and over again. That is a reasonable thing to discuss. When you have more and more vaccines, even if there is a small risk, that risk compounds, and when you're doing four vaccines on a day, when you're doing vaccines at birth, and two months, and four months, and six months, and one year, and 15 months,

and you're just getting more and more vaccines Logic would state that at some point there's going to be a breaking point that there are going to be too many and so we need To be thinking about where is that breaking point? When do the risks increase to the point where we don't appreciate or we don't approve of that level of risk and where we would Need to bring it back to some degree But the issue still right now is if you look at Immunize.org, you look at, you know, Paul Offit's information, and I love Paul Offit's book. I think he's a really bright guy.

He says things like, oh, you could have 10,000 vaccines. You have as many antigens as you want. I don't think that's totally correct. I understand the general thought that, okay, we're exposed to a lot of antigens on any given day. You eat an apple, you're eating all sorts of bacteria and all sorts of stuff that's on there. So yes, you're not getting adjuvants, but even still, you're not getting injected with that. It's going through the regular pathways that our body has always developed to to deal with these

pathogens, not injecting it into your body. So that's a different pathway. And on top of that, you're you have all the other things in the vaccines. You have all sorts of adjuvants and all sorts of other ingredients, and we don't 100% know how those interact. And so there has to be some upper limit of safety for the adjuvants. I mean, it's not woo-woo or anti-science. There's got to be some upper limit to the amount of aluminum that you could safely take from a vaccine.

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There is also zero prep time because it dissolves in water in seconds. I start my mornings with their Poo Air Green tea. It covers my bases for immune support and revs up my mental clarity and energy. And I go for their pure black tea in the afternoon to kick start digestion. It's really become my daily go-to. Right now, Peak is offering 20% off for life plus a free starter kit with a frother and glass beaker. Just go to peaklife.com. That's p-i-q-u-e life dot com slash hymen. Try it risk-free with their 90-day money-back guarantee and feel the difference. And historically it's interesting when you look at the vaccines, and this happened very

quietly where there was a preservative that was used in most vaccines called thimerosal, which is ethylmercury. And it's been used for, excuse me, like, I don't know, 100 years. And it, you know, mercury is the most potent neurotoxin, second most potent toxin after plutonium on the planet. And you could argue that this form is better than that form, but at the end of the day, it's mercury. And what happened was no one had ever added up

all the amount of mercury in the vaccines that the kids were getting. Isn't that crazy before you go on? Isn't that crazy that no one ever added it up and no one thought about that before they put it in a vaccine and inject it into their kids? No, it's crazy. But you would think that they talked about that

and there were- It was like, oops. Oops. But how could you inject something like that without at least having the discussion that is it safe or not? Is it okay to put this in here? And by the way, of a kid,

it's about 162 times the amount of mercury that the EPA says is safe to have in a baby. And then in quietly around 2000, they took it out of most vaccines except the multi-dose flu vaccine and a few other vaccines. So it's still out there, but I actually went to the federal government, met with the head of vaccines for every single department, CDC, NIH, HHS, FDA.

And I said, look, here's the data. And we present over 900 studies on the effect of thimerosal in human health. And as a sort of cumulative amount of data, it was pretty compelling. Not any one study will tell you what is good or bad. Maybe you kind of look at the result of everything, it's like, okay, this is probably not a good idea. And they kind of all agreed. And one of them said, well, oh, maybe it's an adjuvant. I'm like, well, it's not approved as an adjuvant.

An adjuvant for everybody listening is basically something that pisses off your immune system so the vaccine will work better. So you give something irritating, like aluminum or mercury. Is that a good thing? an adjuvant for everybody listening is basically something that pisses off your immune system so the vaccine will work better. So you give something irritating like aluminum or mercury. Is that a good thing? And it's not a proof of that. And then I also said, hey, any of you,

would you willingly inject your grand kid or your kid with mercury if there was a better alternative? And there is, and there was. And they're like, no. So why is it still in the market? And why is the FDA still approve it as a preservative, which is in vaccines? It's kind of crazy to me.

Yeah, I mean, I've read what you've written on it and I totally agree with your perspective. I always have. And it's, the research still to this date is not clear that dimerosal is damaging to the human body. I mean, that's what you hear people say back all the time. Oh, the research still doesn't show that it is damaging. It's a different form of mercury and it's a very small dose and it's safe. But back all the time, oh, the research still doesn't show that it is damaging. It's a different form of mercury,

and it's a very small dose, and it's safe, but at the same time, you could just walk by a whiff of a peanut if you have a bad allergy and it can cause some sort of serious reaction. So even a small amount can cause harm. For some people. Yeah, it's heterogeneous, and I think this is a really important point.

Not everybody is the same, and each of us have different genetics, different immune systems, and there's a whole field of vaccinomics, which is at Mayo Clinic, they're leading this field where they're looking at how different people respond to vaccines, which is great. But that means it should be personalized.

Where is that though? Like we're putting 50 vaccines in kids. Where is the research to say, all right, here are the 10 things that you should do to minimize your risk of having a reaction from a vaccine. What is controversial about that? What are the genetic markers? What are the lifestyle factors that you could do?

How could you decrease your risk to have a reaction? That's going to give parents more confidence to give their kids vaccines because they're decreasing their risk and it's going to decrease the side effects for kids. Why wouldn't we want that? But where is that research? Where are the studies? But I think it's because you have to admit that there's a potential problem.. Why wouldn't we want that? But where is that research? Where are the studies?

But I think it's because you have to admit that there's a potential problem. Yeah, who wants to do that? Then nobody wants to do that. Nobody wants to say you could have a side effect, even though we know that we have IOM reports, we have individuals that get encephalitis and Guillain-Barre and febrile seizures.

And again, these are fairly rare, but they happen. And if those things happen, then I don't know why other things couldn't happen too. And certain kids, if we would study it, you probably would see that some of these things have at least a slight correlation for some people because everybody's different. Yeah. We're moving into precision medicine or personalized medicine and the science is going there and we're going to be able to map your whole genome for a few hundred bucks

and be able to understand what's going on with you and how to personalize medicine. And that's happening already. I mean, I do this. If someone has a lipid issue and I want to prescribe a stat going on with you and how to personalize medicine. And that's happening already. I mean, I do this. If someone has a lipid issue and I want to prescribe a statin, which I don't do that often, but if I do, I'll check their genetics.

Are they gonna get statin myopathy? Are they gonna get muscle damage from statin? Or there's genetic tests you can see that people might not tolerate aspirin or other things. So we're already doing this medicine, which is called pharmacogenomics. And it's a whole field of understanding the differences in each individual

and how they'll respond to different treatments. This should have be also the case for vaccines and we just have this kind of knee-jerk reaction that they're just safe and effective. And if you question it, you're a kook. And I'm not a kook, you're not a kook. We look hard at the science. And the reality is we need more because we don't really have all the answers. It's still confusing. Even to me. I'm like, I don't know. Because we don't know. Anybody that says the science is settled on Long-term issues. How can you say that? Where is the research for that? Who is following kids for five or ten years? How do we have any idea? I mean you talked about theirs before that verse reporting that we have but that's personal report You do it the company does it the doctor does it if they decide to do it? But you have to associate the issue with a vaccine.

If you get hepatitis B vaccine today and you get some sort of cancer 10 years from now, you're not gonna be thinking, oh, well, my kid probably got cancer because of the vaccine they got when they were two months old, so let me go report that to VAERS. There's no way to see those things

unless you follow kids prospectively, you follow them for 10 or 15 or 20 years and you say, hey, how come the kids that are getting more vaccines have more of this kind of cancer? How come those kids have more asthma or allergies? You don't know that unless you follow it prospectively. People can do research on that topic, but nobody wants to do research on vaccines. You have to follow people for a long time. You'd have to have that association in mind beforehand

and have 10 years of time to follow those kids. It hasn't been done. But we could do it. We could do something like the Framing Hand Study. We can start following kids for 10 or 15 years. Yes, the ethics are difficult around it, but you can certainly have people self-select which group they're gonna be in.

There are plenty of people that are gonna choose not to vaccinate. It's not gonna be the perfect study because there's gonna be some bias there, but at least you can get some good information. Wouldn't it be really useful to know 10 years from now that the kids that live an unvaccinated lifestyle have a lower rate of asthma than the

kids that, that get vaccines. And then you can say, okay, why whatever, whatever it comes up, then you say, well, why, why do the kids that are living an unvaccinated lifestyle have a lower risk of autoimmune diseases at the food that they're eating? What is it about their lifestyle that's different? There's nothing wrong with that.

That would be super useful information. And if we found that there are no differences, that is the information that parents want that will make them be more confident to get vaccines. That's what they want. And if we have that research and we show those things, then you're gonna improve confidence in the vaccine program. And if you do find problems,

you're gonna improve the confidence because you're gonna fix those problems. And I think that's right. I mean, it's just really about upleveling the science. And that's really, I think what is happening now. And I'm glad that that's the case. And yes, it's gonna cost money and it's gonna take time, but we have to ask the questions. And we can't just fall into this. There's no evidence that that's the case. And yes, it's gonna cost money and it's gonna take time, but we have to ask the questions.

And we can't just fall into this. There's no evidence that it's been settled that the science, I mean, these are the things I hear all the time in the news and I'm like, what? First of all, you're a reporter, you shouldn't be talking about that. Second of all, like, you know, this is just anti-science. So it's truly anti-science to say the science is settled.

It doesn't make any sense. You'd never say that in science. You're always looking forward and the science is definitely not settled on any of these topics. I mean, there's no way that you could say that going through it at this point. I have no reason to say anything other than I'm not against vaccines, but there are so many aspects of the science that it's just not settled on. And the foundation of a lot of this research is quite flawed and not great. And you go back to the research on some of these original vaccines like DTP and polio,

those studies were not done in the way we do studies today. And so you're basing the safety profile on some of the things that we used to do. We didn't even have randomized control trials back then. So other than the polio, the polio, the original one, which was an amazing study, so it wasn't quite to the degree of the things that we do today, but it was like two million people in that in that original polio study because people were really invested. Can you

imagine if we had studies today that had two million people in them? That is the kind of research that we should require to give a new vaccine to our kids, especially to a baby. You know, we have hepatitis B vaccine on the market that the original studies in the package insert say the safety was studied for four or five days and there are all sorts of you know requests to look where is the other research, where is the data that it's safe. How can we give something to babies that we don't have the most strict evidence that is safe and the most benefit? That's why again some people question the vaccine program because they say giving hepatitis B to a one-day-old baby, it doesn't make sense to me.

So why are we doing this? It's a disease that's only acquired by sex or intravenous drug use. So no baby is doing those two things. And the theory is, well, they're here in the hospital, we got them, let's just do it because they're gonna leave and we don't know, it's gonna be a problem.

Right, but now we have- And other countries actually don't mandate that. Most countries don't mandate it, certainly in the first couple of days. I understand, I mean, it certainly has worked. The program to give vaccines for hepatitis B has decreased the risk of hepatitis B. You're basically making the notion

that vaccines don't have any potential harm or issue when you're giving to one-day-old baby, and we have to be reasonable. Now we're doing a hepatitis B, a vitamin K, and an RSV, potentially, in those first couple of days. There has to be a point where you say, oh, how many things do you wanna give to a newborn baby

that is one day old? Okay, let's look at hepatitis B. Do we truly need to give that to a one day old baby? Or if the parents been tested, if they don't have hepatitis B, is this something that we could say, if you wanna get it now, go for it, but if you wanna move it back a few months,

or you wanna do it later in life when you're gonna get your other vaccines, maybe your teen vaccines, can we have that discussion? Because you're throwing a lot of patients off of vaccines in general because they say, this doesn't make sense, my baby's not having sex. I'm giving them, you're telling me that I have to do

a vaccine on the first day of life. Now I don't trust you. Well, I think that's an important thing. And I kinda wanna sort of zoom out a little bit and kind of ask you about a theory I have, which is that there's been a real change in our overall immune health as a population. We've seen a dramatic decrease in infectious disease,

which I think we can talk about why that is, and I think it has a lot to do with sanitation and hygiene. I agree. And not necessarily the vaccines, and we can talk about that. Like for example, vaccines, measles, just increased by over 90% in 1968 when the measles vaccine came out, and it already had decreased by 90% in the population. Yeah, and measles just increased by over 90% in 1968 when the measles vaccine came out.

And it already had decreased by 90% of the population. Yeah, and measles vaccines do work and they help reduce the risk, especially in developing nations where these kids are susceptible. And that was what was going on in the early 1900s and 1800s was the sanitation and the lack of hygiene and flush toilets. I mean, it was just like a disaster. So yeah, people were getting really sick. They were malnourished, they didn't have vitamins and minerals. They were, and there was so many reasons why they were so susceptible and died from these.

And when you look at the developing world, that's those are the kids that die. The kids are malnourished and have nutrients in their system to be able to fight these things. And the same thing with COVID. You know, COVID only killed the people who were susceptible, which was those chronically LNOBs. And that's why we had four times the rate

of other countries in terms of the number of deaths per population. We had 16% of the global deaths and 4% of the population of the world. So how did that kind of sink? But the theory I kind of have is that our immune systems have been just screwed up because there's been an increase in C-section rates,

there's been a lack of breastfeeding, there's been early increase in c-section rates, there's been a lack of breastfeeding, there's been early use of antibiotics, there's other stresses that the baby has, environmental toxins, all of which dysregulate the immune system. And you give a vaccine on the top of that and there's a problem. And I don't know if you were trained like this, but I was trained when I was trained and I did family medicine, so I did a lot of pediatrics, that if a kid came in and they were sick, had a cold or something, you cannot give them a vaccine. Like just don't do it, because it's gonna mess them up and it's gonna be bad.

And so that was what I learned, but then what's happened is that doctors will say, oh God, I don't know if the kid's gonna come back in the office, I'm just gonna give it to him anyway. And that kind of seems odd to me, and I'd love you to sort of comment on my theory and this whole sort of sense of, well we got him in the office, we got him in the hospital,

let's just give him vaccine, even if it's a bad idea. Well, I totally agree. Going back to the first point, it is really important, physicians, everybody needs to go look back at the history. There are some good books on it. I didn't know any of this even a couple of years ago. But the reality is that sanitation and nutrition had a huge role in our immune systems. Before the vaccines came out, all of the diseases were way on the downswing. So most of the diseases had almost no death anymore, very, very little death. I mean, you're talking even measles before the vaccine, you had a couple, you know, a couple hundred deaths a year, lots

of cases, but, but still not as many deaths. so because we we had antibiotics because we had hospitals because we understood medicine better we knew what a virus was and a bacteria was we knew how to treat things we were eating better we had vitamin c you know people didn't have scurvy anymore i mean all these things that make a huge difference for your immune system we saw the death rates moment and there were still lots of cases of some of these diseases and so you look at when the vaccines came out and a lot of the vaccine preventable diseases did decrease to almost zero after those vaccines came out. So they certainly had an impact.

I mean the most, I guess, memorable for a lot of young adults would be chickenpox, right? We all had chickenpox when we were young. I did, I got a little chickenpox going. We used to have chickenpox parties. Right, and we did, but there was still lots of chickenpox around, right? And then the vaccine came out,

and then we don't see chickenpox almost at all anymore. So you can't say that the vaccines don't do anything. I mean, you can see that they clearly drop the morbidity. And some kids from chickenpox, I mean, I hear it too from parents, right? It's like, oh, chickenpox, I had it, it was nothing. But when you have an entire population of kids getting chickenpox in millions of people,

some kids get a really bad infection, it puts them in the hospital, some kids get a meningitis, some kids get a pneumonia. So things do happen at a population level. There is some benefit certainly from public health initiatives, and that's where the vaccines certainly come into play. To say that our health is better because of vaccines or that's the thing that's doing it, I think that's an overstatement. I think it's a part of everything that we've done that has brought us to where we are today. We certainly are better than we used to be in terms of our health. We used to live till 40. We live till, you know, our 70s now. That's good. So not all of medicine is bad, but we're seeing our life expectancy go back down. We're seeing chronic disease rates skyrocket, and we need a little humility in medicine to say, hey, maybe some of

the things we've done in the last 20 or 30 years aren't all the best. Maybe we're not doing everything perfectly. And maybe there's some sort of middle ground here that can get our life expectancy to 90 or 100 or 120. And maybe all the toxins that we're being exposed to and the chemicals that we're being exposed to and the food that we're eating that's not the best anymore, and most kids are eating just mostly ultra processed foods, maybe that has something to do with what we're seeing. And maybe, just maybe vaccines have some part in that for some kids, maybe there's a certain genetics

where it throws you over the edge, or maybe for kids that are already so depleted, don't have the right nutrients, have a toxic load, it throws them over the edge. And most kids do fine with vaccines. I mean, I've given vaccines in my office and I've never seen the horrible things that are written. I've taken care of patients after that, swear by it.

And there are way too many stories not to believe it. And there are certainly people that have gone to court and won in their cases for it. So there's a lot of established- So have you seen in your practice adverse effects? I mean, we see a lot of benefit. I'm acknowledging that. And I think I've seen that as well,

and I definitely recommend vaccinations. The question is, what kinds of things have you seen? Because I personally have seen a lot of things that I have like, hmm, this is interesting. It's supposed to be okay, but I'm seeing these problems. In the short term, I wouldn't say that I've seen all the horrible things that are out there. I've seen really bad rashes, I've seen fevers,

I've seen kids crying for a long time and being super fussy. I've seen all the minor or moderate things. I've never personally yet seen any of the super severe things that people have had, but they've come to me after the fact and sworn by it, so I've seen lots of kids that have stated it, as well as I've seen, you know, certainly lots of kids. So you've seen kids who were ill,

who hadn't been vaccinated. Who hadn't been vaccinated, who swear by it. Like one patient who, they had a newborn and they got vaccines and then they had a super heart, super fast heart rate in the 200s and they had a super SVT and they had to go to the hospital. It was just right after like a couple hours and then everybody said,

oh no, it's not because of the vaccines. It's probably not to do with it. And then they ended up getting more vaccines in a couple months later after being convinced because they were gonna kick them out of the office if they didn't do with it. And then they ended up getting more vaccines. And a couple months later, after being convinced because they were gonna kick them out of the office if they didn't, the exact same thing happened. The doctors still didn't relate it in the hospital to the vaccines, the doctor they had still didn't relate it

to the vaccines and the mom was crying because she was like, I don't wanna give my kid vaccines anymore like this. She had another kid that was fully vaccinated that was older, she wasn't against vaccines but this kid was having a clear reaction an hour or two hours after getting vaccines was affecting this that was older. She wasn't against vaccines, but this kid was having a clear reaction an hour or two hours after getting vaccines was affecting this child's heart.

And the doctors at the hospital wouldn't call it a vaccine reaction. The their doctor wouldn't call it a vaccine reaction when they wanted to stop doing vaccines. At that point for that child, the doctor kicked them out of the office or told them they couldn't come back if they didn't continue vaccinating.

So that's when they came to me and I was heartbroken because it's like, we're at this point where doctors are so afraid to call something a vaccine reaction that we're doing our patients a disservice. Like in my state, it's like impossible to do an exemption at this point unless the child is like basically on their deathbed. And that's doing a disservice to kids that have all sorts of concerns and taking ability for parents who have a reasonable concern around a vaccine or a reaction or a previous reaction or a family history of something.

You can't take that into consideration as a doctor, which I think is unfortunate because people are scared. It's interesting, you know, it's interesting this moment because, you know, RFK Jr. is now Health and Human Services Secretary, and he's been labeled as an anti-vaxx conspiracy theorist, and I know him personally, and he's been on my podcast a number of times.

And I've had deep conversations with him about this. And he's all about questioning the data, which is something that should be just a natural part of the evolution of our scientific inquiry about anything. Vaccines or anything, drugs, surgery, anything. He gets labeled in that way, and he's just calling for better science and to

actually ask the questions, is there a problem? He was an environmental lawyer and he was giving talks about mercury in the rivers and the pollution from the coal burning that we had in this country and the cement plants and how it was really causing huge pollution that was contaminating all the fish you if you look at the EPA Recommendations you shouldn't eat fish from any lake or river in America period ever like they're just a poison Mercury and when he was giving these talks about this the women would come up to him and say hey, you know You know my kid got these vaccines with mercury in them Maybe you should look at that because the kid got sick after or they got autism and maybe there's something there

And so he went down that rabbit hole and he's a smart guy and he saw there was some signal there. Now do we know absolutely it's true? No, but there's some noise there. And I can tell you, there's a medicine, there's something called the doctor years of a disease. In other words, how many years you'd be practicing medicine or to see a certain condition.

So like I've never seen a pheochromocytoma, which is a rare tumor of your adrenal glands. Like I just never seen it and I'm probably never gonna see it and you've never seen it. I've never seen it. You could probably ask 30 doctors and they've never seen it and they may collectively practice hundreds of years of medicine. Personally I have seen many many cases where parents say look my kid got vaccinated and then afterwards they got sick or they got autism and I could I literally dozens. In my small kind of cohort of patients who've had autism, it's not uncommon.

And so it calls in the question of like, what's happening with these kids? Are they just susceptible to it? And I always hear the same story. That's why I sort of mentioned the susceptibility. C-section, bottle fed, colic, lots of antibiotics, ear infections, strep throat, whatever. Boom, they get the vaccine at 15

months and then wow, they're off to the races where they have regressive autism. Regressive autism is where you're developing fine, you're talking, you're walking, you're doing all the normal things and then you stop and you go backwards. And that's like, well, they weren't born with this. What happened? And so nobody wants to ask that question. And when I sort of dug deep into these kids' health, they had terrible gut issues,

they had tons of heavy metals in their system, they had lots of nutritional deficiencies, they sort of had a susceptibility when you started looking at it. And when you correct these things, these kids often would improve or get better, which was amazing to me. So was somebody able to undo the harmful effects by actually treating it?

People would say, almost everybody would say, no, the science has been done. They would say that, and that's what I would have said 10 years ago. And I think that's why it's so important to talk about it, because when you say something like, oh, well, this child had this thing happen after they got a vaccine,

then the knee-jerk reaction is saying, no, no, what are you talking about? The science has settled. It's been debunked. We have so much research on all the vaccines and we know that vaccines don't have anything to do with autism. Nothing shocked me more when doing this book

than looking at the autism research. Now, I want to be clear, I don't think vaccines cause autism. Correct, there's nothing to say that. But they can be a trigger in a susceptible kid for dysregulation of their immune system and autism is a neuroinflammatory disease. When you look at kids' brains, with autism who've maybe died in a car accident,

their brains are just full of inflammation. The glial cells are lit up. In fact, on MRI scans, their brains are literally larger because they're swollen. Right, and your point is the same point that I have, which is there are so many parents that are saying this, so many stories, thousands, hundreds hundreds of thousands millions. It's information It's data its parents. We have to listen to them. We have to

Take that into account and we have to have discussions You can't just just dismiss these parents who so believe in science and so believe in vaccines that they took their kid to get vaccines And then they swear that something happened and then you call that person anti-vax crazy for saying, look, I think my kid was normal today. And then the next day they had issues after getting a vaccine. This is my experience. Those people are the information that we need

to figure out what's going on. It's true funny, like one of the kids that I saw, their mother was a top executive advisor which does vaccines. And she was like, this has happened. The research doesn't show that vaccines cause autism. It doesn't really show anything. There is research on MMR and there's research on thimerosal and that's the majority of the

research. So we have some data on that, but when people say, oh, it's been debunked or oh, it's been studied. I looked through everything. I went in to ride in on a white horse and say, look, here's all the research that shows that vaccines don't cause autism. Like, this is why people say it.

And when you look at what's actually out there, most of the research is from a long time ago. It's on those two specific things. And it's not on all vaccines. It's certainly not on vaccinated versus unvaccinated kids. So when somebody says we should get more research and then everybody rushes to yell at them and call them anti-science, say that the science is settled,

that makes no sense. There's nothing wrong with getting more research. It's certainly not settled in terms of, Everybody rushes to yell at them and call them anti-science, say that the science is settled. That makes no sense. There's nothing wrong with getting more research. It's certainly not settled in terms of, we have all these prospective great clinical trials to show this, we don't have that at all. And that is really important that when we're talking about moving forward, we should do more research,

we should listen to these parents, there's nothing wrong with that. Let's do more studies and we'll see what it finds and then we'll go from there. As someone who's practiced medicine for 30 years and seen a lot of these kids, but very various things, you know, kids even for example, who the vaccine I don't think was a problem,

there are things that cause issues. We learned from Phil Landrigan and others that lead, which was measured in kids' teeth, was causing severe behavioral issues, aggression, violence, ADD. I'm like, so they made the conclusion, gee, lead's bad, let's get lead out of gasoline, let's get lead out of paint.

But we didn't stop using gas. No. We didn't stop using paint. We just stopped having lead in there so that way when kids were living in their house, they weren't ingesting lead. But it started with somebody recognizing, it started with somebody talking about it. And I hope if RFK is listening or someone's passing along to them, like we do need more information and we do need more research. But what I think needs to be done first is

we need to get actual data and information of what vaccine information exists to the doctors. That's one of the things that I hope that my book can help with but I think we need some sort of either a new commission or a new IOM or some sort of literature review done by the most pro vaccine people mixed with other individuals and we need to go through the research and we need to show what Actually does exist so that doctors can see it and read it and put it in the New England Journal of Medicine or Journal of American Medical Association or whatever, some sort of major body that doctors are going to respect. I think if we can get the information out there of what actually exists, what research has been done, what we have and what we don't have, that's going to be a really good first

step because just to go to a bunch of studies, which is good, we need them. But I think if you get a study here or there that shows vaccines are related to X, Y, or Z, people are just gonna trash it, they're not gonna be even willing to listen to it. And I think we need to first get the doctor's information on what the research actually shows, because I'm 99% positive that most people don't know.

Yeah, and when you say that, you mean a dispassionate look at the data, and not just some of the data, but all of the data. All of the data in a report. Present in a way that is digestible and easy to understand for both practitioners and even laypeople. Because I think that would not increase what the people call vaccine hesitancy,

but it would actually decrease it. It would, and it hasn't not come from someone like RFK. I mean, he could push it to happen, but it needs to be someone that the doctors are not just gonna say, hey, you know, this is an anti-vax kook. We're not gonna listen to it. Get somebody who doctors love, I don't know,

get Paul off of that headed, I don't care, whoever wants to do it, and get a group of people together and go through and show, here's what the research shows, here's what it shows on autism, here's what it shows on asthma, here's what it shows, list it all out, let people read it, let people digest it, on asthma. Here's what it shows. List it all out. Let people read it. Let people digest it. And then they're going to have an understanding. But it has to be

dispassionate and it can't be provax. It has to be balanced and it has to show both sides. Nothing thus far does that. I hope I did it in some way in my book. That was the goal, but it's still just a book. It's not fully comprehensive of everything. There's only so much you can go through. It would help doctors. I think doctors would be willing to listen if they received the information in a way that they would respect. And right now I think there's this concern on everything that's talked about

when it comes to vaccines, that there's this push to stop people from vaccinating or take away their polio vaccines, which is not the case, but that's what they hear and they never hear past the headline. And we have to get past that headline, have to get the information to doctors

so that way we can come together to say, hmm, that's what the autism research shows? Interesting, okay. Well, then I'm not super against getting more research because I thought there was a lot more research than that. Like that's what would actually, I think, move the needle in the first part. So when you started digging into this, Joel,

and talking about the research, what were the things that were the most surprising that you learned, both in terms of things that were in support of the vaccination approach to managing disease risk, and also things that sort of challenged that. What were the things that you found in your discovery of these things, by just having a pediatric

kind of open-minded view of like, I'm just gonna look at what does the science say? What does the data say? The first thing that I was most surprised at was that everything is super one-sided. So you read one book and you get one view of a product and you read another book and you get a completely different view

and they never talk about the information on both. That's number one. Number two, it's like a tennis match. You kind of go back and forth and you're like, hmm, that's pretty bad about vaccines. Oh, well that's really good. So you have to be willing to do that You kind of go back and forth and you're like, hmm, that's pretty bad about vaccines. Oh, well that's really good. So you have to be willing to do that and kind of go back and forth and look at,

okay, here's what the diseases were. Oh, I don't want that disease. I don't want my kid to have this disease. This is what the vaccine's actually done. That's good. You have to be willing to go back and forth. Next, the way that research was done, I was very surprised at how things

haven't been inert placebo controlled trial and going back through the research and going back through the research and going back through the history and the data, how we really didn't have the best trials a long time ago and we're basing a lot on that. They're kind of rigged in some way. Yeah, they're rigged or they're just done in the way that they were done back then

and they weren't as rigorous as that. I found listening to Aaron series, Rees, he's a lawyer, some of his trials and some of the depositions of different individuals like Stanley Plotkin and Kathleen Edwards just very eye-opening in terms of just asking them questions and getting their honest opinions on vaccines and how the research was done in the past.

I think that was really interesting because- So he unpacked that because Aaron C. is a lawyer who was involved in some of these vaccine cases and who are interesting because. So you can unpack that, because Aaron Sear is a lawyer who was involved in some of these vaccine cases, and who are these other people you're talking about, and what were they saying? So Stanley Pluckin's one of the founders of vaccines, a brilliant guy, one of the founders of the Rubella vaccine,

and he's been involved in multiple trials, and I listened to his trial with Aaron Searie on, it was a religious exemption case, and it's just really interesting to hear him discuss the use of aborted fetal tissue back when they were doing the research and how they were doing the research many years ago and how many fetuses they were using

and just the way that they were studying things back, 50 or 60 years ago is really interesting. It wouldn't pass the ethical review at this interesting. It wouldn't pass the ethical review at this time. It wouldn't pass the ethical review and there is still an ongoing debate about religious freedom and religious exemptions with vaccines and whether the use of aborted tissue should be considered in that.

As of right now, all religions technically state that you can get vaccines and there's nothing that's problematic about it, but when you look at the way that things were done originally and using aborted fetal tissue, then it does at least bring up that discussion. And I think that whether your church says that it's okay to get vaccines, that you still might personally feel

like that's unethical to you. And I just thought that was interesting because I never considered any of that before. I mean, I really didn't even know that aborted fetal tissue was in there until you start learning about vaccines. I mean, these are just things that, they're not aborting fetuses now, they know that a board of fetal tissue was in there until you start learning about vaccines I mean, these are just things that they're not aborting fetuses now They're using old old aboard fetal tissue, but it just brings into question when when people are called anti-vax kooks

Well, maybe they have a reason why they're they're concerned or maybe they're They're vegan and and they don't want to inject something that has pork, you know pork products in there which gelatin does I mean they're they're taken from from from pigs. So some of the, pork products in there, which gelatin does. I mean, they're taken from pigs. So some of the vaccines have that in there. So these are just things that as someone who's open-minded, doesn't mean you shouldn't do it, but I think it's reasonable if you understand those reasons why somebody might be hesitant, that can help build bridges.

And I think we need to build bridges as an understanding to why people might be more hesitant that we give them credit for as opposed to calling them some sort of crazy mom, crazy dad, they're crazy anti-vaxxer. Well, maybe they have personal beliefs that are different than mine, and not everyone has to have the same beliefs or the same understanding of everything.

So that was really interesting long-term studies that we don't have any. We really don't have any vaccinated versus unvaccinated trials. That's crazy to me and autism research. I mean, it's interesting, you know, I heard RFK Jr. talk about this and Del Bigtree also, who worked with him on this issue.

He said they actually met with Anthony Fauci and Francis Collins, they went to the NIH, they sat with them and they asked them, can you please show us the data on which this is, sort of this whole program is based and the randomized controlled trials. And they said we have them.

And then they pushed, they pushed, they pushed. And then ultimately they don't have them. Can you kind of speak to that? Is that legit or? That is legit, that's in there. I read all those transcripts and I read the FOIA, the Freedom of Information Act requests, and they were, I mean, they've put in many Freedom of

Information Acts over the years now, but they were basically saying, show us the research and the data, show us the placebo-controlled trials, show us the data that shows that all vaccines don't cause autism, like provide it to us, please. We're not saying that it doesn't exist, but for example, with the hepatitis B vaccine,

like we were talking about, please show us the information and the safety trials that were more than four or five days. Please show us the polio studies that were done. That's what those, when we're talking about like the Aaron Seary and RFK not wanting the polio vaccine, like that's what they're talking about.

They were asking for more information and more data and what data exists because they couldn't find it. And that's the same thing, I couldn't find this stuff. Like you're really trying to look for it. And so it either doesn't exist or it's not readily accessible and I would hypothesize that if you had some amazing study, then it would be front page news at the New York Times. So it doesn't exist probably,

and I've read multiple of Paul Offit's books. Paul Offit is a vaccine researcher. A vaccine researcher, like one of the most prominent individuals. And he developed many, many vaccines. Yeah, and he's part of all the committees. And if there was more, I would think he would have it his books Peter Hotez another

You know prominent vaccine doctor It would be in his books the research that I found is the same research that they had and I went through all these books Before and after because I didn't believe what I was finding Yeah, because I was I was you want to know how to be more good to read the other side and there was there was nothing There it just didn't didn't exist that I could find in any way. And so the research that I could find was what they reported on. And I think that's shocking.

And that's why I think doctors don't know because I didn't know. I'm an integrative doctor. I get asked about vaccines all the time. The reason why I'm doing a vaccine book is because I didn't have the answers to some of these questions. People ask me about vaccines every single day.

It's why most people come to my office or what they ask me on social media. And I wanted to look at the research and figure out what is out there, not to convince people to do it or to tell them not to, but to say, okay, here's what's out there. Here's what we have. Here's what we can move forward.

And I was shocked at what we didn't have. And the people that were calling anti-vax conspiracy theorists back in the day, like Del Bigtree and RFK, who are pushing for these things, and I found the very same things that they're asking for. When you get the sound bites of these people, well, maybe we need to look at ourselves and

say, we got to get past the headlines to look at the actual research and we have to care about kids and we have to care about kids more And we have to care about kids more than what pharma is pushing for us and what we were trained originally. We have to get past that and say, well, what is the research actually show? And what do we need to do next?

Let's not call names of people. Let's create a, let's create a, let's have the NIH actually build a research agenda that asks the right questions. Yeah. Or just, just or just move forward. It's not about blaming anybody. There's no shame in this.

We know what we know and then we know more in the future and nobody's taking away vaccines, but we want safer vaccines, we want better vaccines, we want more research on vaccines, so that way in a decade or two decades, we have better vaccines than we have today. We have lower risk of side effects, whatever those might be, and we have more data. Yeah, I think, you know, it's important.

I mean, I, as a physician, I've seen vaccine preventable disease and work in the developing world. In Haiti, I saw tetanus, which I'd never seen before. And it was horrifying to see someone with a disease that was just so awful that it was hard to treat that they could die from, it could be prevented by a simple vaccine.

Or my stepfather had mumps when he was a kid. He was born in the 20s and ended up getting infertility and sterile because of that. So these vaccines do have a role in medicine. The question is how do we best apply them? So this has been quite enlightening and we've uncovered a lot of the problems in medicine and science. We clearly need more and better science and the tropics all save it effective. I think we need to just kind of get past that and say look this is like anything else in medicine. There's risks and there's benefits. So

when a parent comes into your office and says Dr. Gator, which is your kind of nickname, what should I do? Like, I want to protect my kid. What's the best way to vaccinate my kid? Because the CDC, Center for Disease Control and Prevention, which they don't really focus on much, is telling me I should do this whole list of dozens of vaccines, and this is the schedule they give in.

I mean, when I was doing my board certification, my re-upping my board certification, I went to a review course, and the pediatrician from UCSF was like, here's the vaccine schedule, and like, boy, this is what we're told to tell you, but it's a lot. Even he was like, it's a lot. And then he was a regular pediatrician from UCSF.

So when a parent comes in and wants to know how do they proceed, which vaccine should I give, in what order, which ones together, at what time, how do I navigate that? So what do you advise your patients? For that, it really goes back to my philosophy on vaccines or everything, which is informed consent. And I, as I said, I don't tell people what to do.

I never do. I don't tell people what to do in the book. I don't think that we should. I don't think that's reasonable. I think it's a doctor's job to inform and to discuss and let parents make the best decision that's for them. The only thing that a doctor can recommend currently is the CDC schedule.

And so if individuals want to follow the CDC schedule, I think that's fine and reasonable for them to do. I think that it would be extremely arrogant of me to say that I know better than the CDC or I should tell them to do something different than the CDC should do based on my own personal knowledge. But I don't feel that people should be forced to do anything and we should have discussions and parents should be able to do whatever they feel is right for them. I have patients in my office that follow the CDC schedule.

I have lots of patients that go on a slower schedule and I have some patients that don't do any vaccines. Most people that come do want to vaccinate. Most people do end up vaccinating and many do some sort of a slower schedule and so we can certainly talk about that, but there is no studied or researched or specific slow schedule. It's really just personal choice of how quickly you wanna go,

how many you wanna do, and how you weigh the risks and the benefits of any given vaccine. And that is how people go about things. And vaccine schedules are different in different countries. They're very different in different countries. So I talked about that at the end of the book a little bit.

Most of the countries have a fairly similar schedule. I mean, most of the vaccines are the same, but they're done in a different order. Not everything is required that we require here. So a lot of countries don't require HEPA. A lot of countries don't require chickenpox. A lot of countries have measles, the MMR vaccine on different schedules.

So a lot of them do it later. And so actually our country is one of the few that doesn't do the meningitis shot early. A lot of countries actually do the meningitis shot earlier, the meningococcus. So there is and are different schedules out there, but they are fairly similar. But when you're talking about a slow schedule, I think the way that I talk to parents about it

is really weighing risks versus benefits of each vaccine. So what are you more likely to get? What is more likely to kill you or cause serious harm? What's going on in the community right now versus what we know about any specific risks? And that is usually how people go about things. And there's certainly whooping cough all the time. We see it in our communities.

Homophilus influenza is still around. Whooping cough is Pertussis. Was Pertussis, yeah. So the Pertussis part's probably the biggest part of that. I mean, there is still a little bit of tetanus, but that's pretty rare. Diphtheria is extremely rare these days, but we wouldn't want diphtheria to come back. Homophilous is not common anymore, but certainly very concerning. So that is around still, and that's something that people do tend to choose to do.

Polio, obviously nobody wants polio, but we haven't had polio in a very long time in this country So sometimes people choose to push that one back and there's live versus, you know inactive virus. Yeah well, we yeah, we don't do the live one anymore just because We realize that we're causing more polio With the live virus that you actually have and we haven't had a case in a very long time from wild polio, so people sometimes push that back. I think it's important, we don't want polio to come back, obviously, and if you're traveling somewhere where there is polio,

then that makes a lot of sense, but there isn't a lot of polio in our country, so sometimes people push that back. Rotavirus is a common one that we give to children, but in our country we have IV fluids, so a lot of people do tend to choose to push that one back Yeah, rotavirus gives you bad diarrhea and diarrhea new mocochus can cause meningitis and pneumonia So that's one that people tend to prioritize in that first year and then that measles mumps rubella

Certainly the measles part people prioritize that and certainly are prioritizing that a lot more in the last few months and chickenpox They tend to prioritize less that that's the way that people think about it. If they wanna do the regular schedule, go for it. If they wanna do a slow schedule. They can do a la carte. Yeah, then they can do, and they could do what, I mean, a lot of times people still do all the vaccines

and they still get them on the same general timeframe, but they just might come in a little bit more and do one at a time, and that makes them feel more comfortable, so that's fine by me. Sometimes they'll do it every couple of months. And that's up to them. Is there a rationale for giving one at a time

as opposed to just loading them all up as it visits? That goes to a little bit more on common sense, I would say, because there's no research to show that if you do a slower schedule or you do one at a time, that's gonna decrease your risk. So we don't know. And we don't have signs on the current schedule either. Right.

It's the truth. So I don't know that it decreases your risk at all, but the theory that a parent would have is, I't want to give my kid four vaccines on a day There's more toxic load there's more that the body has to deal with and therefore it Potentially increases their risk to have a reaction so I feel more comfortable giving one at a time instead of doing two vaccines today I'll do one today, and I'll come back in a month and do the other one. They're still doing them They're just doing them one at a time and that yes It means more visits, but they're still at the end of the day doing all the vaccines

So I don't have the research to say that's better, but we should have that research. We should be studying that We should be looking hey if we space it out does that decrease your risk of anything? that would be good to know and then the other question is, you know, vaccines are a really big immune irritant and Babies don't have a fully developed immune system until they're over a year old. I just like they don't have a developed neurological system. When you look at a baby, their emotions are like jerky, they look like they have cerebral palsy or some spastic movements,

but that's because their neurologic system's not developed and their immune system's not developed and their gut and their oral tolerance is not developed. So is there a rationale for waiting a little longer when a kid's not so immune, sort of underdeveloped in terms of their immune response? Or do we still wanna give it to little kids, babies before a year old?

There's two sides to that question. The first part of that would say, and this is what the general consensus is, we wanna give the vaccines early because you get the protection and you wanna protect before you get the disease. So that's the general body of science. The concern give the vaccines early because you get the protection and you want to protect before you get the disease. So that's the general body of science. The concern around giving vaccines early is, like you said, the immune system is developing, the baby is developing, they're still small. So any sort of toxic load or any chemicals or any sort of stimulation is going to most likely have more effect on them than it would for an adult or somebody older.

than it would for an adult or somebody older. And so that's the concern. There certainly are some studies that say if you delay certain vaccines, then you decrease your risk of asthma, you decrease your risk of eczema. I mean, these studies exist. They're not the majority, but they're out there. And there are some actually very good studies

and good journals that show this. So it's not an unreasonable hypothesis to have. And again, it goes back to the research we should be getting. We should be asking, hey, if we move the hepatitis B vaccine back, does that decrease your risk of anything? I mean, just in basic common sense, if you give a vaccine to anybody, the biggest risk you have is having a fever, right?

Having a fever, not feeling good. If a baby in the first week gets a fever, what happens, right? If you give a hepatitis B vaccine and they have a normal side effect from a vaccine of getting a fever, what happens to a baby? They're going to the hospital, they're getting a lumbar puncture, they're getting a full workup, they're being exposed to all these potential diseases in the hospital. That maybe they got that fever just from the reaction from the vaccine, but we don't know that in a newborn baby. So we're going to do the full workup anyways, because we want to protect them. But we don't talk that in a newborn baby. So we're gonna do the full workup anyways because we wanna protect them. But we don't talk about that risk versus benefit.

Do those babies need that risk? They need the risk to go to the hospital, they need to risk to get the fever? Good, they wait till two months old or four months old and take away that risk. I mean, those are the questions that smart people need to have. They need to sit on stage, they need to debate,

they need to go to Harvard and Hopkins and on TV, on full cameras, sit there and debate these questions. They need to talk about that, they need to talk about all of these ethics so people can watch it and say, well, you know, maybe, maybe you're right. Maybe we, we should rethink our hepatitis B or maybe somebody smarter than me is going to say, no, no, no, here's why we do it. Here's what the reason is. Here's why the risks, the benefits that way, the risks. And I'll say, okay, no, no, here's why we do it. Here's what the reason is. Here's why the benefits that weigh the risks.

And I'll say, okay, well, that makes sense. Like that's what we need, but we can't shut down the discussion, which is what's happened for the last decade. How are we gonna move forward unless we can have these conversations? And it has to be someone who's pro versus someone who's anti, whatever labels you want.

Somebody who knows this research and understands it really well and can debate and discuss it publicly. So that way we can, I don't have any skin in the game. Whatever the research is, it's fine by me. I want kids to be the healthiest. I agree, me too. And I think what I would love to see

is a catalog of the key questions that need to be answered. Here's what we know, here's what we don't know. Let's fund research that helps us understand what we don't know. But let's fund research that helps us understand what we don't know and have better answers and be able to actually show populations or doctors and healthcare system, what actually we should be doing. Because right now, there's so many questions

because there's a lot of unanswered questions. But those questions won't even be asked until the literature is written down and we're allowed to ask the questions. You have to be allowed to ask questions and no one's gonna allow that to happen until they realize that there are holes in the research. And so I think it starts with putting that all down,

having open discussions about what exists, getting doctors on board with the research that actually is present right now today. And then we move forward from there with debate and discussion on the open topics. And then people will say, hey, okay, well, hepatitis B is a reasonable discussion to have. Let's get the committees together and let's talk about, okay, here's what we have, here's what we don't have, here's what the smart people say. Maybe we move hepatitis B back or maybe we just make it a general recommendation for those that test positive for hepatitis B or don't know move hepatitis B back, or maybe we just make it a general recommendation

for those that test positive for hepatitis B or don't know their hepatitis B risk. Let's start to focus on safety, because what I think is happening most right now, and especially when you're talking about the people that are hesitant, and I hear this over and over again, they don't feel like anybody cares about their kids. They feel like right now, everything is about money

and about pushing more medications and drugs and nobody actually cares about safety. And everybody understands that there is some safety risk with any medication that we have or any vaccines and they'll be okay with some risk. But they want to know that we're acknowledging the risk, that we're studying the risk, that we're figuring out what that actual risk is, and that we're moving to make things safer and better over time and until those discussions are had publicly, more and more people and more and more parents are gonna be hesitant about vaccines

and that is what we're seeing. The rates are plummeting, people don't believe in medicines anymore, even doctors. There's some studies that show that doctors, there's like five to 10% of doctors don't fully believe that vaccines are safe anymore. That's a huge crisis. It is, I agree.

And I think these questions need to be answered and I gotta thank you for having the courage to step out in this field. Because I know for me personally, it's been an area that I often avoid because all of a sudden you get labeled as a quack and all the rest of the work you wanna try to do in the world is compromised.

But all we're asking for is better science so we can have safer vaccines. Bobby always says this, he says, I was calling out the fact that fish were poisoned with mercury in our rivers. I'm not anti-fish, I just want safer fish. If you want safe planes to fly on, doesn't mean you're anti-flying, right?

And I think it's the same thing with vaccines. So, Between a Shot and a Hard Place is a great book tackling difficult vaccine questions with balance, data, and clarity. Everybody should definitely get a copy if you're interested in this topic. If you're a have a kid or a thinking have a kid or a grand kid, I think this is such an important

conversation and I encourage doctors out there listening, I encourage scientists out there listening to ask these questions, to not kind of lean into the propaganda that the science has settled, they're safe and effective. That's just a nonsense statement when you think about everything else in medicine that doesn't apply to. So, Joel, thank you for writing this book.

Thank you for the courage. And hope you all love this. Make sure you check out Joel's work. You can find him online. Tell us how to find you where we can get more information about you in your social media. Yeah the best places are probably at dr. Joel Gator on Instagram or X or you can find the book Between a Shot and a Hard Place on Amazon or anywhere books are sold or you can go to theshotbook.com. You've also written another book, Parenting at

Your Child's Pace, the Integrative Pediatrician's Guide to the First Three Years came out last year. So you're prolific. I don't know if you're going to follow my pace. I hope you're not. It's almost killed me. But. Yeah.

The last one, not as controversial, I guess, but, uh, this one, in this one, I have worked, I've had it for a while and we've been working on it, but this is the time to get it out there. So I've been working super hard to get it out and that's why it's kind of too in a row. Well thanks Joel and thanks for every courage doing this and we're all gonna keep looking at what you're doing and taking guidance from your thinking and hopefully the people listening will in

the right places will advance the science so we can all better answer to these difficult questions. Thank you. Have you ever wished there was a trusted space where you could get real support on your health journey, where your questions get answered and you don't feel like you're doing it all alone? That's exactly what's happening inside my brand new membership community, the Hymen Hive, and I couldn't be more excited about it.

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