The Highwire with Del Bigtree - Episode 426: PESTICIDES, PILLS AND POLITICS

Episode Date: June 2, 2025

Moms Across America founder Zen Honeycutt on the growing pesticide crisis—and how the MAHA movement plans to take action; Jefferey Jaxen details the MAHA Commission’s 100-day report, the exploitation of autistic children within the medical system, and a must-see update on the WHO’s looming Pandemic Treaty; Dr. Adam Urato shares alarming new findings on SSRI antidepressants and how prenatal exposure may be harming fetal brain development.Don’t miss this critical episode.Guests: Zen Honeycutt, Adam Urato, M.D.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-highwire-with-del-bigtree--3620606/support.

Have you noticed that this show doesn't have any commercials? I'm not selling you diapers or vitamins or smoothies or gasoline. That's because I don't want any corporate sponsors telling me what I can investigate or what I can say. Instead, you are our sponsors. This is a production by our nonprofit, the Informed Consent Action Network. So if you want more investigations, if you want landmark legal wins, If you want hard-hitting news, if you want the truth, go to I Can Decide.org and donate now. All right, everyone, we ready?

Yeah. Action. Good morning, good afternoon, good evening. Wherever you are out there in the world, it's time for us all to step out onto the high wire. Well, we've had a pretty amazing week here in the United States of America. It appears that the Maha movement has really set its course. report dropped just last week, just moments after last week's episode of the Highwire. I ran over to the White House and watched really an incredible gathering of just all of the

thought leaders of the Maha movement, doctors and chiropractors and health enthusiasts and influencers. It was really a spectacular moment. And to see it all come together, to see all of the different people, I've never really seen anything like it, to see Robert Kennedy Jr. HHS secretary and Marty Macquarie there from FDA and Jay Batacharya from NIH, but then also head of USDA and head of EPA and many senators and congressmen, just all of these people gathered together, working together to talk about one thing, health in America.

It really, it was a cathartic experience for me after the last few years of really pushing and driving, working to get Robert Kennedy Jr. into that place. It just felt like, oh my God, this kite is up. the air, it's soaring. So many great things I think are on the horizon. But at the heart of this movement, of course, is the one thing everyone's talking about, the Maha moms. We've been calling the warrior moms for years when this was just a medical freedom movement, but now that we're in the age of Maha, the Maha moms are still, I think, really driving this. Of course, there's fathers there. Bothers come up to me and say, Del, we mentioned the Maha dads too, so I know you're out there.

I know all the great work that families, Maha families are doing, but the Maha moms are still at it. One of my favorite Maha moms and one of the most tenacious and driven and hardworking Maha moms out there, of course, is Zen Honeycutt. And she gave a great little speech at the Maha Institute Roundtable on May 15. Take a look at this. Thank you, everyone. My name is Zen Honeycutt of Moms Across America. And our mission is to educate and empower.

mothers and others with actions and solutions to create healthy communities. We are a national coalition of unstoppable moms and this is a historic moment. We have been deeply betrayed by previous administrations. We've also been focusing on GMOs, the hiding of GMOs, glyphosate, toxins, and the food and in vaccines, but finally we have an administration that is listening to, shining the truth on and taking actions on the critical requests of American mothers to protect our children. There's an investigation on the cause of autism. Operation Storkspeed is exposing and focusing on baby formula.

Moms Across America submitted heavy metal information about baby four formula and within weeks after a year of previously submitting it to the previous administration. Within weeks this administration came out with Operation Stork Speed to make Baby 4 formula safer more reliable and more nutrient dense. They're removing food dyes, which is historic. They're looking at glyphosate in vaccines after nine years of submitting that information to our CDC and FDA. They're looking at the COVID-19 vaccines right now and taking comments on that, on the ingredients. Keep in mind, media, we are at a critical point in history. You can expect Big Pharma and Big Ag to push back, create lies, characterist assets,

And I'm going to ask you media, which side will you be on? Will you be reporting the truth or will you be perpetuating the corruption? Thank you very much. That's my honor and pleasure to be joined now by Zen Honeycutt. Zen, thanks for taking the time today to join us. Thank you, Del. Thank you for having me. I so appreciate your team.

This is a historic moment. And I'm so glad you were there in D.C. I was supposed to be in that room, but I missed the invitation because I was at a school nutrition conference for two days. So anyway, I was doing media. You got to answer to your phone. I can't believe it. I was, I was doing media outside the White House, though. So that was fantastic. I'm so glad you were there. It was well deserved. Yeah. You know, as I sat there, as I said, it was really a powerful moment. But it's been sinking in on me, you know, as this incredible week is unfolded, lots of great press around, you know, issues that you and I have spoken about through years here on

the high wire. But also, you know, a concern. that it feels like this weight has been lifted and people could just sort of go back to sleep and say, well, the government's got this now. Everything's off and running. And you and I have talked a lot about this. It seems more important than ever that we've really got to now do the work on the ground. I think, you know, there's only so much a government can achieve. But, you know, what are we, what are we demanding? What's really happening? You continue to test the food supplies, something that you and I have been working together on also. But just tell me, you know, What is it that you, you know, what is your message right now to maha moms, maha dads?

What is it that we can do? Because I think so many people to sit in awe of what's happening, but don't know, like, what can I just do on the ground? Oh, well, there's so much that we can do. I mean, first of all, whether you're a Democrat, Republican, you know, libertarian, Green Party, Tea Party, no party, we all want to be healthy. And we can't wait, as you just mentioned, for the government to do it for us. There's two aspects that we need to look at.

One is legislation. We do need to get after the government to do their job. And Bobby needs our help to pass some very important legislation to enable him to do his job. So we need a groundswell of grassroots awareness to pressure our senators and support our senators and representatives to do their jobs, right? That's very, very important. And the other aspect is we need lifestyle changes.

As we, you know, we know, Bobby cannot. can put a picture of Bobby in our fridge to tell us to not eat the ice cream, but we really need to make the lifestyle changes, right, and put it down, like just not even put it in the shopping cart, but most of our friends and family members don't even know why they should do that yet. So what we're proposing is that we mobilize and organize and strategize and support our communities to get healthy again. And when I met James Maskell and he shared this story, I'm sure he shared it with you, about this little, he's the author of Community Cure.

And he's been very active in this movement for a very long time. And he shared that a little town called Frome, UK, mobilized and got every single one of the members in their town into a group. They wanted to first address the loneliness going on, which we're all aware of, you know, after COVID. And when they did that, they got people in, you know, hiking groups, men's church groups, women, knitting groups, gardening groups and a year later the total health care cost in that town dropped by 15 percent

which was 20 20 million pounds that's not shabby you know and the the ER admissions dropped by 45 percent that is significant and that shows us that the community can cure so we want to get community together and when i asked him after he created a healthy Eldorado event he created a community event with almost a thousand people there where everybody got together and got connected with groups and had workshops and learned and support each other to get healthy again. When I asked him what was missing out of that, he said, you know, I really could have used 10 or 20 people to help organize this huge event. And I said, well, we can do that by joining into 4th of July parades, reaching out 1,000 to 2,000 flyers, you know, which moms across America

has done for years now, and then gathering a group of maybe 100 people afterwards at a, you know, a park or a playground. And out of those 100 people, probably 10 or 20 people would be willing to organize a thousand person event three months later. And we're proposing that that time is October, which is National Children's Health Month, and organized an event on October 18th, and gather people together, have like TED Talk style speakers of your local, your local acupuncturist, chiropractors, you know, natural paths, fitness, trainers, health coaches, gather those people together to really support the local community and not just fulfill an Amaha commission strategy, which Bobby's going to release in July,

but connect with each other, connect with each other, and restore connection in our communities. So I'm super excited about this. I love that. I mean, and this is one of the things in that you and I talk, a lot of people can get together and sit in meetings and talk about the future and what they want to do, but it really takes someone special to get active. And what I love is you, you, it's sort of a multi-pronged plan here. So you're saying, let's all get out at these Fourth of July parades, submit, get a float or at least walk with a group of people and assign hand out flyers. This is how you do it.

Just go to Moms Across America.com slash health 2025 events. And you can read all about, tells you exactly how to get involved. And from there, you're right. You first of all put that group of people that are all going to march, you meet all the people that are out there, then you find those that are passionate enough to maybe start having meetings and discuss how we're going to put something together, and then you run that event. We all do it in October together. And so we sort of create this community, and it gives you something to invite people in. Come on, join meet. Let's talk about it. And by the way, let's get out from behind our computers and our, you know, our little screens and cell phones and meet up and start being human

beings again in a community super cool and you've been doing this and it's been really successful but you know one of the things that i want to point out zen is that you know we can in every group we can go out and join that parade but you keep doing all this work to bring all these people together i've talked about it you need staff to do that you need help so that you can organize that and i really have been saying to you we need to help you zen so did you do what you What I said, I wanted you to do, did you put together some sort of fundraising platform so that we can get our audience to help here? It's not a video, but it is a website page. It's our donate page.

There we go. So we have that up and I want everyone, let me just interrupt here, Zan. I want everyone in this audience right now, momsacrossamerica.com slash donate. If you go here, and honestly, Zen is one of those people on the ground that does. not get enough credit for all the work that she's doing. She has supplied us with some of the most important information on pesticides and herbicides. She is fighting the real fight and she is organizing, you know, these Fourth of July parades. Please donate what you can today to help Zen because she doesn't have the high wire here.

She doesn't get every week to, you know, ask you for funding. But Zen, you are such a powerhouse. And I just want to take this moment to thank you for all the incredible work that you keep doing. You're really selfless on it, and you're out there, and you're one of the few that pounds the pavement every single day, every week. And I just want to honor you for that work. It's really important. Thank you so much, Del. And right back at you, your team, you know, you guys were the beacon of hope and light, especially during COVID, the only ones really telling the truth and having the courage to invite people to be brave.

And that, I mean, that moved me to my core. So, you know, that I just want to echo what you had to say about. about that because some people get intimidated about, you know, being like a leader for groups. We're just calling it facilitator, right? You're just facilitating a group of people. And when you get out and step out onto that road and on a parade, it's astounding because you have people on both sides. You're reaching 5,000 to 30,000. Some parades are 200,000 people who are cheering for you, who are like, you know, go moms or go health. We're going to have t-shirts and banners that say healthy on it. Everybody needs to be healthy. Everybody wants to be healthy. Everybody wants to be

healthy. So it's a really exciting opportunity. And by the end of the parade, which is usually, you know, walking for maybe an hour in the parade, you don't want it to be over. It is so fun. You connect with other people. You make new friends. Who knows if you're single, you might meet your future partner. You definitely connect with people who are up to making a difference in the world. And that is encouraging and inspiring. And when you've done that, when you've reached 5,000 to 30 to 50,000 people in your hometown, then put your feet up, you know, go float in a tube in the river, have a barbecue, but you have done your job in reaching out to more people than you ever could anywhere else in person. And it's just a really exciting opportunity. So thank you

for the acknowledgement. It is my honor to continue to do this work. And I promise you, if you donate, we will use those funds for the best use possible. We all of our team, we have a very small team. We wear like six hats. We are getting it done. So I truly appreciate your support. And if you could be a monthly donor, you have the opportunity to do that as well. We appreciate your support and your encouragement in any way that you can. Zen, I want you to keep up the good work. Let's just bring this up one more time, everybody, moms acrossamerica.com slash donate. Please help Zen get this work done. So many of you come up to me. I don't know what to do. How do I get involved? This is how you get involved. Get involved in his parade.

Start, you know, just it may seem simple, but when you meet all those people, when we start building a community, and one of the things that Zen and I are working really hard at is to get this out of sort of a partisan space. Right now, you know, this should not be just Republicans are the only ones that care about their health or their children. In fact, I think, you know, we've both been, you know, politically marooned Zen and I over the years in this process. But honestly, it's time. And what's great about a parade is everyone's there from all walks of life and it's celebrating health. And I think we need to start really reaching across the aisle. If we want that lasting change.

If we want Maha and Robert Kennedy Jr. and the great team around him to be successful, we've got to get the other side involved. Or they're just going to, you know, hate, get in there, get their leader at some point and try to erase all that's been done. So these are those ways we reach out and build this community, diversify this community and get involved. So Zan, it's a great idea. I know you've been doing this every year, but let's make this the biggest Fourth of July ever, all right? Awesome. Thank you so much, Del. Thanks to your whole team.

All right. Awesome. Take care, Zen. I mean it. Do not walk up to me at my next event and say, what should I do? I'm telling you right now, go ahead. If you can start a Fourth of July parade, you have all the information there at moms across America. And if you can't do the parade, then go ahead and donate and help make sure that those resources are there so other people can do that great work.

We've got a lot to talk about today with the Maha movement. We're going to be talking with Jeffrey in just a second here about this incredible report, what's in it. And then a little bit later on in the show, a very, very important topic that I had never actually thought about. Dr. Urato is going to be in here talking about troubled pregnancies and why are they troubled? Because of all the women on SSRIs. This is something we're not even thinking about. Can you imagine, you know, this incredible drug that's having all sorts of negative consequences for people that are using them. But now what's happening that developing fetus, he's been studying this and looking very closely at that.

So we're going to talk to him just a little bit. But first, it's time for the Jackson Report. All right, Jeffrey. Very exciting week, I have to say, you know, it feels like in many ways. And we've been talking about it. There's a lot of change. But to really see that report finally dropped was something special. Yeah, we have a lot to cover in the American health space this week.

So let's get down to business. So in February, President Trump created with an executive order the Maha Commission. That was all the heads of the health agencies, HHS, NIH, FDA. And he ordered them to submit this report within a hundred days. Now, that report was submitted as of last Thursday. And there was a conference, some call it a celebration. This is what it looked like. Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States.

As we mark a historic milestone in our mission to make America healthy again, we've built an unstoppable coalition of moms and dads, doctors and young people and citizens of all backgrounds who have come together to protect our children, very importantly, keep the dangerous chemicals out of our food supplies, get toxic substances out of our environment, and deliver the American people. The facts, for the first time ever, this report examined some of the root causes that many believe are making our children sicker and our population sicker. With us today is the man who fought harder than anyone I know to bring these issues to the center of American politics, our Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Bobby, thank you very much. The report is a call to action for common sense.

We've relied too much on conflicted research, ignored common sense, or what some would call me. mother's intuition. It's common sense that ultra-process nutrient-poor food contributes to chronic disease. It's common sense that excessive screen time and isolation lead to anxiety and depression, especially in children. It's common sense that exercise and healthy foods come before prescriptions and surgery. It's common sense that not all calories are equal in nutritional value. It's common sense that over-medicating kids is dangerous. There is a reason that the Maha mom sided with you, President Trump. It's because this administration has the bravery to tell the truth

and solve problems through innovation and not in any state regulation. It's shocking to me that what this report says, which is that our kids will live less long, less healthy, more unhappy lives. We can't have that. That doesn't have to be the future. We can change the future. by doing excellent gold standard science, understanding the root causes of all these problems,

reversing it. The United States is the best in the world when it comes to proton beam therapy, CAR-T, sophisticated operations. But when it comes to the health of the population, it's been a 50-year failure. And we have got to change course. And I think this will transform our healthcare system from a reactionary system where doctors are playing whack-a-mole to a proactive system. At the center of making America healthy again is making American agriculture great again.

It does start with the farmer. It starts with soil health. And I just want to know that our farmers are so committed to this as well. And so many of them are already doing great things. They're making the soil healthier. They're using less pesticides. They're doing all the right things. It's going to take a little bit more effort and time to get everybody with those practices. Let me say congratulations to the entire Maha movement. This movement has become very hot. People are really, I tell you, they're going crazy over Maha. It was such a great sharing there. Steve Miller had a line.

There's a whole section that happened before they allowed the cameras in and to roll cameras. But Steve Miller made such a great point. He said Robert Kennedy, Jr. has been fighting for the health of children and the people his entire career. But now his work is getting the presidential seal on it. And it was a profound statement to just see how far we've come, for those of us that have stood with Bobby for years on the stages talking about vaccine injury and other things to see, you know, all this coming together and all these great minds working together. And I know it wasn't easy.

I'm sure there's been some tug of wars between Brooke Rawlins and Robert Kennedy Jr. discussing pesticides, herbicides. She's got to care for the farmers. He's trying to care for the children. These are complex issues. And that's what this document really represents, a lot of the United. lot of people, you know, banging their heads, trying to find where can we come together and really get working together. So it's a historic moment. Yeah, the collaboration's been beautiful. And I've had an opportunity to look across the

media, the corporate media's reporting. And it's been really just lukewarm. And, you know, we have to say we've been titrated with chemicals and generationally acclimated to ill health for so long in our country. And it's been careening off course. And for the corporate media to say, well, this, you know, there's not really much in there that we don't know. They didn't really understand the purpose of this report. The purpose of this report was to identify the drivers. That's what President Trump said. We want to identify the drivers for the Maha Commission to create this strategy to basically

spotlight these targets. So the policy interventions can come down the pike from the U.S. government and make these changes. So let's get into this report. So this report, if generations look back and go, why did this revolution happen in health? These first handful of pages are a testament to why this change needed to? to happen. And if anybody's out there and people are thinking in their family, what is this Maha thing all about? Show them this first graph right here from the report, directly from the report. This is life expectancy and health expenditure per capita by country from 1970 to 2023. That red line

is America. It's this thick branch that's ready to break off. And at the bottom there, it's health expenditure. So almost $12,000 and life expectancy is lower. So we're on the, we're on the wrong end of both those x and y axis and so basically in short there our wealth has been extracted so we can live shorter lives that is why we're changing this and let's go to the children now so i'm going to go just run through a bunch of graphs to show the purpose why the urgency why would people talk about this so they have such passion so this is the evidence of the prevalence of pre-diabetes age 12 to 19 so again in kids you can see in 1999 you're a little over 10 percent now almost 30 percent then we go to autism rates, we've covered this before, one in the 31. That's from 22 numbers. That's the latest

we have. So remember, California was one in 12.5. They had some better reporting there. Just complete epidemic, exponential rise. Then we have cancer rates in children, ages zero to 19. Those are rising. Major depressive episodes. That's rising from 2004 to 2022. The black line is females. That's an interesting point. Females are really having a problem here. And then finally, the food allergies, is also going up from 1997 to 2018 to 0 to 17. So I mean, just for a second, just looking at this, there's not a single category that we're improving in. The fact that in every single category, we're just getting worse and sicker across the board.

This is the United States of America. We celebrate how awesome our hospital system is and how free our country is and how great our innovation is. and we are so incredibly sick in every category you look at. Yeah, that's a wonderful point. And so now we get into the actual report, and there's four sections of this report. The first section is on the ultra-processed foods,

and the shift, the American shift to these ultra-processed foods. And, you know, this is a prime mover. So when people look at this whole, imagine yourself as Kennedy or Badchari or Macri or anybody that's coming to this position, and you see those graphs and you know you know the people you've been in the hospital systems you see how bad the chronic disease is in this nation or just a mother how the heck do you turn that around well the food conversation is a prime mover if you look at this from a triage standpoint do the most good

for the most amount of people in there in the report it says 90% of the medical costs are from chronic conditions and most of those chronic conditions are tied to our diet and also 70% of the branded food and grocery stores is ultra-processed. So this is, you know, no pun intended, a low-hanging fruit. And the ultra-processed food, just to give a basic idea that is negatively refined food. So they're taking out the vitamins, the minerals. They're adding the food coverings, the artificial sweeteners, and all the other chemicals we're talking about. So we've already seen a lot of movement in that before this report even came out just from state levels.

We have HHS removing an FDA removing the food coloring. We're having movement in a lot of those areas. And obviously, this is to spotlight future policies. So anything in this report is fair game to really get looked at. And local farmers have been pushed out, as we know, to really behold into now these large corporate chemical industries in our food. So there's policy changes that look like they may come down the pike for local farmers to get them back in the game. So that is really exciting in the ultra-process food conversation. But let's go to section two here.

the cumulative load of chemicals in our environment. This is something that our audience knows well. We report on this almost every week. And there's a great one-stop shop image from this Maha report to talk about what is really needed. So those are really the chemical classes they're talking about in the exposure pathways. You can see a lot of things there.

We have pesticides. We have air pollutants, heavy metals, we have industrial runoff. Everything we've talked about. On the right corner, it's a small bottom right corner in yellow there, that could be the sleeper category. Exposure to Wi-Fi, mobile phones, electromagnetic radiation, 5G.

And when people think about chemicals, they think about actual molecules and toxic pollutants. But these are invisible. This is the new category of invisible things in the air that are categorized as a toxin. And why is this happening? I want to point out one thing that's not on there, and I think should have been on there.

And that should have been vaccines. This is something that's one of the reasons I've stepped down from Maha officially, so that I can call it as I see it. This report does have vaccines in it, which is very powerful. It is being stated as one of the issues. But let's bring up, when you look at that graph right there, maybe it's hidden somewhere there in heavy metals

or maybe in pesticides because we know that's making it into the vaccines. But ultimately, I believe, you know, in the future as we watch this thing grow and this government gets more and more bold, that should be stated there also, that we are injecting aluminum into children's bodies on the very first day that they're born that is off the Richter scale. And so I know that those are the things. I know that this is a chess game. I know that Bobby is, you know, I'm sure fighting for every word he can get into this thing.

But I just want to point it out for everyone out there, we at I can, the high wire and me Del Big Tree. We are not taking our eye off the ball. It is very important. We're going to keep the pressure on. We're going to be bringing FOIA request. We're going to demand that the attention remains on the one product. And I want to say this, and I've said this actually last night at a dinner I was at that was all about Maha with some representatives here in Texas. I said, you will not find a mandate for Kellogg's Fruit Loops.

You will not find a government mandate that forces our children to drink Coca-Cola. You will not find a government mandate for them to even eat pesticides and herbicides. But we have a mandate for a product that was said to be safe that now the entire nation is admitting never went through a proper safety. trial and contain some of the worst chemicals and additives the world has ever seen. So I just want to point that out there. I'm in huge support, very happy with the work that Robert Kennedy Jr. is doing, but you can see in a document like this what type of tug-of-war is going on, and we're going to call it like we see it from here on out.

That's a wonderful point. And on that vaccine point, food doesn't have post-marketing safety surveillance or an adverse reaction portal from the CDC that vaccines do. We're talking two different categories here. And with the vaccines, too, the one size fits all. Adults can have the same adjuvince as children, no big deal. Well, this is in this category, in this section two of this Maha report, it goes into these toxicants, these pollutants, and it talks about children. Why are children most vulnerable?

And it gives a list here. And so finally, we're recognizing that children are not the same as adults, which seems so counterintuitive. It's so intuitive, but it's been counterintuitive with the medical community. So sensitive developmental windows, they have a short time. developing very rapidly. They're developing their immune systems. Sometimes they have detoxification challenges. The babies are struggling for that. Accelerated brain development. We know a lot of these are affecting that endocrine disruption. And then brain remodeling. So the brain is, especially in the adolescence, is remodeling before adulthood. So we can talk about the 5G and the Wi-Fi. And so also,

just to Zen Honeycutt's point, we had in there, they talk about the pesticides, herbicides, atrazine, glyphosate, there is a report from the U.S. government's a health assessment on those pesticides that are supposed to come out in 2026. So in addition to the strategy that we're focusing on for the probably in July, believe, about 80 more days that this is going to come out and now start making rapid policy changes. We have another government report in 2026. There's several layers that are going to be looking at the pesticide conversation. But then it goes on now to section three, the crisis of childhood behavior in the digital age, the wording is very important there. So they go into some of just the basics of lack of activity, lack of sleep.

But then they talk about the systemic impact of technology, which is really great, because we're talking now mental health issues, emotional stress, the loneliness epidemic that we talked about, Mark Zuckerberg is going to capitalize on with his AI friends for you. Well, this is actually an issue that's affecting chronic health. So the fact that they're encompassing all of those things into this as potential targets for legislation or for policy directions, very exciting. But now for our audience, we go to the final section here, not to be ranked in order of importance, the over-medicalization of our kids. And this is where we get into a lot of the drugs being pushed on our kids for the issues being created by these pollutants

and by Wi-Fi and whatever else is going on. And we look into, this, and we talk about this list here. They've identified this list of problem areas, the stimulant prescription drugs for ADHD, antidepressants, antipsychotics, even antibiotics and asthma drugs. They're being overprescribed, even for mild cases, they're giving these out. And they do have, they do have long lists of harms associated with them. And then the injectable GLP-1 drugs, these are these weight loss drugs that the American Pediatrics Academy said, you can give them the kids now, because that should be the first line of defense. Well, that's what's going on there. But then we get into what our audience is probably really waiting to hear, looking for, which is the vaccine conversation.

And I'm going to read right from the quote here from this, from this Maha report. It says, despite the growth of the childhood vaccine schedule, there has been limited scientific inquiry into the links between vaccines and chronic disease, the impacts of vaccine injury and the conflicts of interest and the development of the vaccine schedule. It goes on to say these areas warrant further inquiry. So we can see some snapshots here from this section. And you can look at the entire growth of the vaccine schedule. That is really the heading of the section. And they're talking about this is a concern.

This is concern because other countries aren't as aggressive. Denmark has nearly half as many as the U.S. says in there. And unlike other pharmaceutical products, these vaccines are unique in that in all 50 states. There's some type of enforcement for a vaccine mandate for kids in public schools, although there are exemptions in many. this is unique from the other drugs. But then it goes on to talk about the other pieces there, the conflicts of interest, which I thought was interesting because the conflicts of interest, they're talking about

HHS that you and I have both brought up in the show many times. HHS is defending the same vaccines. It's promoting. It's defending them in vaccine court from the injuries, but it's also promoting them on the vaccine schedule and major conflicts of interest there. So look for that to possibly change, which would be really exciting. Then it talks about the clinical trial. This is where a lot of the conversation is going to happen.

We need more rigorous clinical trials that science need to be better. We need true placebos. We need larger sample sizes, longer follow-up periods, all of this, because we have limited safety monitoring right now with the VAIR system. It goes into talking about that and the vaccine safety data link. So we have both of those represented in the report talking about how those are not serving the public. Even the vaccine safety data link is completely off the table for the public to even use or for scientists even run studies on. So this is the focus on the vaccine section. It's smaller in comparison to the

entire report, but what it's hitting on is our very, very key points. It's where the skeletons are in the closet. So the policy changes, you know, a lot of people are really waiting for these policy changes in that piece. Well, and I think just to point out, this document is the problems. What it is laying out is here are all the things we believe are contributing to this chronic disease epidemic and vaccines is listed as one of those problems. So we have come a long way. That is not, it didn't end with, and the way we're going to fix this all is by vaccinating everybody, which is what we have lived in all the way up until this year. That has been the position of HHS and the entire health department. So we're definitely seeing a huge seed change.

I know for some people, like we're, you know, tiptoeing into it, but folks, this is a huge moment. I think we should all celebrate the wins when we get them. This is a huge win that the conversation of vaccine injury is now in a government document stating the issues of chronic illness and the things that are causing them. So we can expect more. I think you're going to watch Bobby taking steps as we get into. Then in, you know, 80 days from now, the report that talks about, now here's what we're going to do about, the types of studies that they know they're going to need to do. So it's a huge, it's really a huge step for mankind. For some of us have been looking at this for, you know, a decade or longer, you know,

I suppose we wish it could all just come smashing in. But remember, there's also a strategy to this. You know, you're trying to work with 65,000 employees that are going to be pushing back on a lot of this. So it's a very exciting document. But again, we are going to remain critical here at ICANN, the Highwire. I will not rest until we see a true investigation in this vaccine. program like we've been doing on this show for, you know, many, many years now since 2017. And as our health regulatory agency heads are clearly in this document, starting to do forward-looking

conversations, forward-looking with chronic disease for children, there's still issues from previous administration, the previous administration, the Biden administration, that are coming in, and they're still having to feel that. And those are concerns as well. So this is one of the recent headlines just breaking yesterday. It's really all over social media. U.S. cancels more than $700 million funding for Moderna bird flu vaccine. So at least for the next three plus years, this administration is saying no injectable bird flu vaccines for human beings. So that was their HHS is basically saying it did not meet the scientific standards or the safety expectations for funding. So now we're tying it with with the economic piece. If you don't have gold standard

science, you're not getting a pass. And this goes to their opportunity to buy it. A little common sense. Right, right. And now we have the conversation about economics, because that seems to be, that seems to be really the carrot and the stick. That's the stick that this administration is using to look at this, these health issues. And one of those are the doge cuts. Those have been And really somewhat controversial for some of the cuts, but one of the places it has not been controversial is this. Take a look. All right. We've exposed hundreds of millions and dollars of NIH spending, even spending by the NSF and the U.S.

Department of Agriculture on animal experiments in colleges and universities across the country that are giving animals, lab animals, hormone therapies, invasive surgeries to create trans-feminine, trans-masculine mice and rats, giving puberty blockers to baby and animals to mimic trans kids and then electro-shocking them. In some cases, they're even giving these transgender animals sex party drugs and overdosing them to see what happens. There's over 22 active grants from NIH for funding specifically the creation of transgender animals in these laboratories. And if you look at the titles of the grants, the grant descriptions, and the titles of the taxpayer-funded papers that are coming out of these laboratories, they specifically state we are trying to create

transgender mouse models, trans feminine, trans masculine mouse models to mimic transgender adults and children. I wonder if they're trying to get transgender teachers to teach the mice at very young ages to question their own sexuality. That might be a way to fast track their way too, trans mice. And yeah, you hit on that. There's three really big moving parts of this conversation. There's the economic piece that we're talking about right now. There's a social piece. What's happening in the schools? was happening in sports, but also the medical piece.

So let's stay on the economics just for a second because that movement, those cuts really started that ball rolling. So we can go through the headlines here. New NIH grant terminations target transgender studies, even in mice. That's what he was talking about there, white coat waste. Then he goes into House Republicans request ban on federally funded transgender animal experience in 2026 budget. That's a huge move.

When you ask for this to be out of the budget, terminate this from the 2026 federal budget. I mean, that is just where it withers on the vine. Nothing will happen moving forward with that because the funding is completely gone. But then HHS now has moved on this. Secretary Kennedy has moved on this conversation when it comes to the medical part of this. We've been waiting for this. We're a late adopter to this. The UK did it last year. The Nordic countries have done it years ago. HHS releases comprehensive review of medical interventions for children in adolescence with gender dysphoria. It says the review highlights a growing body of evidence pointing to significant risks, including irreversible harm such as infertility,

while finding very weak evidence of benefit. That weakness has been a consistent finding of systemic reviews of evidence around the world. And then even NIH director, Jay Batakaria, says this, quote, our duty is to protect our nation's children not to expose them to unproven and irreversible medical interventions. We must follow the gold standard of science, not activist agendas. So, I mean, that right there is pretty much a mic drop to show where the government is standing when it comes to this conversation.

But now I want to talk to the social aspect of this, because American parents, if your child is on the spectrum, you got to watch out what's going on in these schools, because now this is mainstream reporting in the UK. This is out of the telegraph, the headline. My son wanted to transition. An autism test would have saved years of heartbreak. It goes on to talk about how a secondary school ceded this idea

that school is teaching transgender ideology. The parents had no clue that was going on. And the child with autism on the spectrum came home and said, you know what? I want to change my gender. I mean, it's a heartbreaking story. But this is happening. This is what's going on here. So what's happening now in the UK, the NHS is calling now to test all trans children for autism.

So this has gone out. And this is following in the footsteps of countries like Sweden, Sweden in 2022, made policy updates to similar to do that, Swedish national board. of health and welfare, they put this in their update. The well-known lack of adherence to gender norms among ASD individuals could lead them to misattribute their experience of being transgender and inappropriately transitioned. And this has been known in the literature. I want to point this out here when some of the detractors or even the corporate media says, well, this is, you know, something new. We're looking at this and we, it can have more research maybe or maybe they'll

say that's conspiracy. It's been known in the literature since 2020. Here's one of the, of the studies, just one of the studies from 2020. This is in nature. Elevated rates of autism, other neurodevelopmental and psychiatric diagnosis and autistic traits and transgender and gender diverse individuals. It goes on to say across all five data sets, transgender and gender diverse individuals

were 3.03 to 6.36 times as likely to be autistic then were cisgender. That's basically someone who's not transgender, individuals after controlling for age and educational attainment. Three to six times more likely in that community to be autistic. And so the issue that a lot of the public has with this is the predatory medical system that knew that and they targeted these kids and the schools that knew that and they targeted these kids. And one of the major institutions that front ran this idea is the Tavistock Institute out of the UK. The UK is done, it's doing not much judges for free speech, but for this conversation, the gender conversation, they've become a clear.

They're cleaning house. They're really cleaning it up. Here's the headline. More than 70 children aged 3 to 4 were sent to Tavistock Transgender Clinic. This is closed now. That is insane right there. That's my joke about teaching young mice. I mean, just insanity.

What child at three or four years old has any concept of what their sexuality or gender identity is? That shows you the madness right there. This is medical experimentation at its worst, and we think like, well, this didn't happen. It's not going to happen in our lifetime. This is something in the past before there was checks and balances. No, this has been happening. They had to close the Tavisak Institute. This is such a tragedy and such a scandal.

Let's go into this article because, again, three to six times more likely to be autistic. So when you read these numbers, think about this and think about these doctors. The figures first reported by the Daily Mail newspaper and released by the trust show that over the past decade, 12, 3-year-olds were referred to the clinic along with 61, 4-year-olds, 145-year-olds, and 169-6-year-olds. The clinic had no lower age limit on referrals and was shut down after a damning independent review by Dr. Hillary Casson, 2022, found it was not safe for children. So that is the social aspect of it, the medical aspect.

We're talking about puberty blockers. That's kind of the first step for the medical transition of these children. Puberty blockers is gone now. it's out the window, that conversation's over. Even the Hill is putting op-eds like this just a couple months ago. The reckoning over puberty blockers has arrived. The next step in that sequence are the cross-sex hormones. So now the medical community wants to change their hormone profile after they did the puberty blockers and stopped the natural puberty that was happening. Well, the UK is out front on this. UK Health Secretary West Streeting considers banning

cross-sex hormones for trans teenagers. And HHS, they stepped up just yesterday. They have sent a letter to health care providers, risk managers, and state medical boards, urging immediate updates to treatment protocols for minors with gender dysphoria based on the HHS's review to found that there's weak evidence and there's risks. So now they are on notice. They have had this letter sent to them directly from HHS. So there's massive movement here in America on this conversation as well.

I want to just point out. I want to make it clear we do this every time that I, and I know you, Jeffrey and no one here at ICANN or on the Highwire has any issue with people's sexual preferences or their identity or their body identity as adults. What we're talking about is children. Everything single headline here is about minors. This is about castrating children. I believe they should be allowed to go through puberty and then decide after going through that very transformational process. If then they still have other thoughts and they're an adult and they can make decisions on their own like every other decision we make, then okay, then, you know, that's you. That's you. This is a free country. And I think we all recognize that you're allowed to, you know, get all sorts of plastic surgery. We see, you know, people, all of the streets, tattoos, you name it. We alter our bodies in many, many different ways. Some of us can have opinions about that or not. But this is about children. And that is where we have always drawn the line here. When it comes to children, they need love, maybe they need counseling, maybe they need to be heard and understood, but they do not need to be castrated and have their entire life taken away from them from thoughts they have before their mind and brain and ideas have been fully developed.

So I just want to make that clear. I'm all about loving all of our brothers and sisters on this earth. But let's be realistic. Children need to be left alone when it comes to issues like this. Absolutely. And the autistic community, autistic children, they also need to have a voice when it comes to this. And just wrapping up this segment, the NIH is actually put out an initiative, a science initiative. It's deadlines the 27th of June, and it says NIH is inviting research applications to support the autism data science initiative, which seeks to explore causes of autism. And then it talks about the data being protected and secure. But this is for researchers, for people,

who want to participate in this really to this is this is possibly a heavy lift possibly it's not we'll find out when the data really comes out a lot of people already say they know what it's going on but we once we have that data once we have that actual science can make some major changes in this country so again this is for all those parents out that have been going through this issue has been out there fighting uh and and really shouting from mountaintops to all of us look out these vaccines can injure children. This is what Robert Kennedy Jr. can do. He's in there. He's got, you know, Jay Badachari has said, I am willing to look at all of this. So they really want participants. I don't know what's happened with the VSD, but this is your opportunity to get involved. And,

you know, I would ask important questions as you're getting involved. What is the anonymity? What kind of, you know, list are we on? How is this going to be done? But I really do, I have to say, you know, I was close enough to some of the conversations around the choices here. I love this team around Robert Kennedy Jr. These are really respectable human beings, and I truly believe they're trying to make a difference in this space. And they need help. They've got, you know, there's a lot that's working against them inside of that system, but we need answers. And this is the moment of trying to get to the bottom of it. So I'm happy that they're doing it. And as always, you know, everybody, be skeptical, step in, ask all the right questions. But

you might just have an opportunity here to change the world. And right now, people noticing watching this, it's very American-centric because in the health space, America is making a lot of the news. And we're really on an island of our own when it comes looking at the rest of the world. And one of those views when we look at that is what was happening at the World Health Organization. And remember, the President Trump and the Trump administration, again, for the second time, once he became president withdrew from the WHO and withdrew funding.

And the WHO then goes to the headlines. And this is what it looks like. W.H.O cries poor as it faces existential crisis after U.S. funding cuts. So they have a problem here. I want a poster of that on my wall. You know, you know what? World domination is expensive and we need some help here. But that doesn't stop them from holding their world health.

Assembly in Geneva. That was just over a week ago, and it's interesting because although the U.S. wasn't there in person, they sent a video to give them a message. Take a look. All right. Like many legacy institutions, the WHO has become mired in bureaucratic bloat, entrenched paradigms, conflicts of interest, and international power politics. While the United States has provided the lion's share of the organizations funding historically, other countries such as China have exerted undue influence over its operations in ways that serve their own interests and not particularly the interests of the global public. Global cooperation on health is still critically important to President Trump and myself,

but it isn't working very well under the WHO as the failures of the COVID-era demonstration. The WHO has not even come to terms with its failures during COVID, let alone made significant reforms. Instead, it has doubled down with the pandemic agreement, which will lock in all of the dysfunction of the WHO pandemic response. Well, we're not going to participate in that. We need to reboot the whole system as we are doing in the United States. I can't imagine how good that felt for Bobby. I'm in a little envy right now being able to deliver that message to WHO.

It's so good. Well, while the WHO listened to that, what came out of that assembly was they did adopt the pandemic agreement or, as it's called, pandemic treaty, as sometimes referred to. And although it's not legally binding yet, it will be at some point, it will shape, whether it's legally binding or not. this does a big step to shape the long term of national policies. The U.S. is not included in that. But other countries are, and we look across the headlines here, the U.K., they're going backsliding, free speech, backsliding there, also their health recommendations. Starmor, that's their prime minister, signs treaty, giving WHA power to recommend lockdowns.

It says the UK is one of dozens of countries to join the agreement, designed to help the body coordinate the international response to any future pandemics. But then we have Slovakia's prime minister, just to give another position that's robert fico robert fico is really important this is really the key politicians out there future politicians if you talk directly to the public which he did here he went right to x after he received a phone call from tejros the head of w h o and this is what he wrote on x we read this whole thing he said a few minutes ago i received a phone call from director general the w hos adenom gabrieces who asked me for the who asked me for the government of the slovak republic to change its position and not

request a vote on the pandemic, which is scheduled to take place later this evening. So he's reaching in there and telling him how to run his country's policy. He said, I reiterated that Slovak delegation is bound by the instruction of the Slovak government to request a vote on the pandemic agreement. The prime minister of the Slovak Republic expresses a surprise that there are efforts to avoid a fundamental democratic institution, a vote. If a vote does take place, the Slovak delegation has been instructed not to support the pandemic agreement, as it undermines the principle of the sovereignty of member states and disproportionately interferes with the sphere of human rights. Well, that's exactly what happened because here are some of this, Slovakia, Italy, Iran, Singapore,

Russia, Israel, Poland, other countries as well, did not. They abstain from the vote, meaning they did not want to be part of this agreement. So this is what happened. This is what happened. And it's really interesting to see. You have Tedros basically getting caught with his hand in the cookie jar saying, hey, maybe subvert the will of your people. don't let them vote so we can pass my regulation, my pandemic treaty from my organization.

So it hasn't been ratified yet, and it won't be implemented for at least a year. But it will include these national legislative bodies in these countries once it's ratified. And it will come into force, according to the WHO and after countries, 60 countries, rat out. Let's look at this agreement as it's stated. So I think one of the big red flashing lights of this agreement is, in the, There was a lot of versions of this. The most recent version was in May of this year, obviously,

but the one before that, version three, was in February 2024. And into this, it talks about, it's a pandemic agreement. It's just, you know, help stop pandemics. So in February 2020, this was a major priority for the WHO and really for the world, which is the gain of function research. So you go into this document and it says this, they want all countries signing on to this to monitor all

types of genetic research including gain of function research and big data analysis associated with highly transmissible pathogens and alert the scientific community of biosecurity concerns. It also says that they want to supervise research involving pandemic potential pathogens, including genetic engineering and gain of function research with the view of avoiding biosafety and biosecurity concerns. So obviously a big deal. We know now that I think the consensus is really the the COVID pandemic was lab, a lot of the gain of function and a lot of the initial work was done in a labs in the United States. It was shipped over. It was given funding by NIH to really expand out in Wuhan and

the rest of this is history. Now we look at the new pandemic agreement. You would think this would be a big deal for them. They took out. It's not in there anywhere. You do a keyword search for gain of function. Bio safety, biosecurity, you're not finding these words. So they're giving a green light to gain of function, essentially. But what is in the new document? If you go in there, this is what it looks like. You read this. The parties recognize that WHO pandemic agreement and the international health regulations, 2020, 2005, and other relevant international agreement should be interpreted so as to be compatible. So the Trojan horse, the pandemic agreement is letting in these IHRs, is letting in all the other relevant international agreements that are legally binding.

We're going to let all of those in when you rubber stamp this. So that's, and international health regulations are basically for preventing, these are all these regulations preventing the spread across the world of infectious diseases, not just pandemics, but other, there's a whole not that work. But it also says this in there. You go into the pandemic agreement that is now adopted. It says each party shall, as appropriate, take measures to strengthen science, public health, and pandemic literacy in the population. So every population should trust the silence. The government should make sure they trust the science and they should really expand pandemic literacy. Bureaucratic speak.

We all know what that looked like here in the United States during COVID, and this is what it looked like. Biden labeled COVID-19 opposition domestic violent extremists. That's how you get people to trust the silence. This is the science. You silence the people trying to question it. And this was put out by Tulsi Gabbard. This was the internal document.

We reported on this at the time, but we didn't have this document. Now we do DVEs. that's domestic violent extremists and foreign analogs may react violently to COVID-19 mitigation mandates. And what does it say? It says, prominent narratives include the belief that COVID-19 vaccines are unsafe, especially for children, are part of a government or global conspiracy to deprive individuals of their civil liberties or livelihoods or are designed to start a new social or political order. Well, it's more like a crystal ball because kind of all that came true. Yeah. You know, this is such an important issue. And it's one that is.

is actually keeping me up at night. And it's something that we're going to continue to keep our focus on, Jeffrey, because as great it is as it is in the work that Robert Kennedy Jr. and this team that we're gonna keep talking about, it's something that we have worked hard to get to this point.

But while we are this island, all around us, nations are falling prey to this world takeover. We've said it from the beginning. They're using health as the structure for authoritarianism around the world. Europe's falling, England's falling. watching people being arrested for even posting tweets about this issue, warning that we're losing our freedoms. And they are all around the world. And so they're at our borders. They're

at the borders of America. We are surrounded. And we have to ask ourselves, as we ask, what can I do? Should I do a Fourth of July parade and maybe get involved with Zen Honeycutt? I don't know. I mean, you want to risk not having all of America signed up and recognizing who the real enemy is here? What is really going on? Because if we don't, if we don't reach those impact, numbers to really hold our ground and stand side by side in this as Americans. We have a fate that is a tidal wave sitting out there. It's waiting for the moment Robert Kennedy Jr. and this administration are done with whatever they're going to do. Farm is not going away. The WHO is not going away. Clearly, the W.EF isn't going away. They're just waiting for their moment. And our question should be,

are we ready for that moment? Are we doing everything we can right now? So I want people to stay passionate. exciting let's celebrate all these amazing things you just report on Jeffrey but also recognize that this is really just a stay of execution and execution that's happening around the world of destruction and death and murder of sovereignty in nations all around the world if we don't want to happen here we have a lot of work to do right now Jeffrey so we're going to just keep our eye on the ball speaking of eye on the ball another one of the ways that they're manipulating us is not just health or how health is being combined with the environment. And you have a brand new episode of Jeffrey Jackson Investigates dropping next week.

The rush to green energy. Look, I've said it before. I'm environmentalists. I want clean water, air, food. But that is not what this is about, is it? No, no. We break down every aspect of this, the science that has echoed through the walls of the United Nations,

who has been the driving force of this climate change narrative that we see in the news. We break all that science down to find out what the truth is. And then we go all the way to the dirt of Mother Earth itself, to the mining companies that are taking out mineral in the United States to really fuel and supercharge this electric transition that we're told is really required for the environment. We take an indigenous perspective. We speak to some elders to talk about their perspective of what they're seeing in this conversation as well. So we try to cover the waterfront of this entire, this.

really this entire conversation. Awesome. Well, I love the work that you're doing. We love that you're double-timing it here. You're working the high wire and doing these incredible documentaries. I look forward to seeing you next week. And everybody, this is what the episode dropping just next week. It's happening coming our way. Take a look. Climate change. Climate change.

Climate change. Climate change. Climate change. And a media war over that crisis. What we're talking about here is really the climate conversation that's dominated science and the conversation in society for decades. The climate has varied over billions of years, sometimes huge. How has the climate changed before humans started industry? Ice ages come and go.

We've seen a lot of variation in the climate. Dangerous human cause, climate change. That's what the UN is focusing on. Dangerous is the human value judgment. The push towards a green battery-powered future comes with a major trade-off. It's the left's electric vehicle hype real. I thought climate change. wasn't political.

In your dreams. It's been political right from the start. Where does the electric car fall into this? There is no greater source of carbon in our society than from combustion engine sources. Looking at headlines, I'm seeing the word of the white gold rush. This is lithium. What we've always could have heard is that we need the minerals and we need them now. You can file a claim on public land anywhere and you have the right under the mining law to work that claim.

We have done this project right and not everybody again. that we've done it right. The problem is, is that any kind of extraction is enormously damaging to the environment. Regardless of whatever people say they're sacred sites that are out there. One day our Mother Earth is going to say enough is enough. Sign up for Highwire Plus, and part of when you're doing that, in order to be a part of High Wire Plus, you have to be a recurring donor. It's really just a minimal investment.

That investment not only allows you to see all the extra bonus content like this. content like this incredible documentary. If you didn't see the polio documentary, all of it's there waiting for you at Highwire Plus. But we built this to try and inspire all of you to get involved and help us do this work. We're really all alone. If America is an island right now in a world that is loses

in its sovereignty, the High Wire is an island right now. We're the only one that do what we do. We're the only news organization that I know of that not only reports on all these issues, but then starts fighting on these issues in courtrooms around America. Sues the government when we have to to get to the bottom of the issue. And as I've said before, we will sue. I don't care that I have friends in government now.

That's just going to make it easier to move these legal cases along even faster. There's some of the legal wins. We've won against NIH, CDC, FDA, HHS. We have spent tens of millions of dollars standing in courtrooms around America fighting for you. And it's part of, it's the energy of that that has made this transition in government. I think it's a big part of why we find ourselves in this position. We are not stopping here. I am not going to wait.

We have so much work to do and we need your help. So Highwire Plus is our way of giving back to you having even more content, bonus content. And the more of you to sign up, the more we can do, the more extra content we can do, maybe even build a network someday. What do you think? Why don't you get involved? Why don't you help us do that, be a part of maybe? making that change. You can go to the highwire.com. Just go up into the top corner.

Hit Donate to I Can. We're asking to become a recurring donor. If you can give $25 for 2025, that would be awesome. But honestly, $5, one cup of coffee. If you're watching right now, and you haven't taken us up on this, but let's say if you've watched at least five episodes of the High Wire and you've not decided to go ahead and put $5 from a cup of coffee into donating to us once a month, you know, I want to ask yourself, how you expect the world to change? I mean, what is it going to, does it do it on its own? Are you going to just sit back on your couch and hope that everybody else does it for you? The truth is, is we need you. The American dream only works when we put our hands together, when we all work together. That's what this nation

represents. It's not about the good of everybody else over the individual. It's about the power of the individual. Our Constitution celebrates the individual and the individual, individual will be the greatest that each one of us can be, that when we focus on our greatness, we together make a great nation. One of the best ways to focus on your greatness is to do things with it, to actually say, hey, you know, I've done really well. In fact, I can do a lot better than $25 a month. And I love the work that I Canada, the High Wire is doing. I love the truth telling. I love that they never stop. They are always peddled of the medal, and they're winning more lawsuits, you know, on my behalf than anyone I've ever seen in this country. Today is the day.

Sign up, help us do this work. If you want to make a large donation, if you're one of those people that maybe at a windfall, maybe you've got an inheritance, go to info at Icandecide.org, and we'll reach out and maybe discuss a very particular donation that you can make, something that we're working on specifically

that you could even say, hey, I did that all on my own. I want to thank everybody that makes this possible. We, you know, it's incredible those of you that have been donated, that have been sponsoring that keep making all of this a reality, that we can continue to spread the message and give the truth where no one else has dared to tread. I mean, look how popular we've made the vaccine issue.

We were all alone. It was the third rail of third rails. And now, you know, Joe Rogan, everybody's jumping in. The water's warm. You made that happen by helping us continue this conversation when we didn't have to back away. When they took our YouTube channel and they took our Facebook channel, yet you donate and say, Del, you know, I can go build a powerful website that they can't take down.

And we did. You made that possible. And because our voice never went away slowly but surely, and you shared the show slowly but surely that message grew. And now it is mainstreamed. Everyone's talking about it. And we now have our own guy at HHS. So it's pretty incredible what we can do when we put our minds together and when we vote with our dollars. All right, speaking of voting with your dollars or finding your people, well, here we go. You can follow us. I want you to take a look at the fact that we're really pushing the social media, too, because so many of your friends have, you know, the short-term memory problem or attention spans. So go ahead and check out all of these different ways that you can watch us on Facebook, on Instagram, on X.

It's all there. Check out my accounts at Del Bigtree. And what I want to say is it's all, it's really about community right now. We've got to build powerful communities, small communities that are passionate, that then reach out to larger communities and counties and cities and states. We really need this movement to, as I said, the work parades, whatever way we can to get outside of it being a partisan issue. It's not. We finally have a government. Look at that government. Robert Kennedy Jr., I guarantee you still thinks he's a Democrat.

He's sitting right next to President Trump that, you know, is a Republican. But remember, it was once a Democrat too. You have a diverse field of people right in that room all working together. That's what this represents in this moment. And the best way to find your community is to actually, you know, signal to them. You know, you don't really need a little secret hand signal with everybody you pass. Maybe you just need some, you know, merch from the highwire store. So take a look at what's available and it's still on sale.

Summer is coming in hot and it's time to get fired up with exclusive highwire gear in our biggest sale ever. Everything in our merch store is 25% off from hoodies to hats to our signature highwire teas and it's happening right now through May 31st. Our gear is more than just apparel. It's a statement. So join the highwire tribe. But hurry these deals won't last long. Shop now at highwire.shop to support our mission and bravely spring into summer with style. grab some of like some of this is really ultimately going to end up being like vintage high wire merch we're working on new designs and things that are coming but grab your t-shirts two more days for the 25% discount and all of it goes to us being able to do the incredible work that we're

doing just go to the high wire shop got great has dot shop we've got and look the fair day bag still selling like hotcakes but all this great stuff and by the way if you want to like you know practice being a i'm going to need someone to replace me in here every once while I need a vacation, you guys. So start using the cup and see, you know, practicing and put on the tie and say, hey, Del, I think I can do one of your episodes for you. Go take a break. All of this stuff is available at our store and a lot of other things and it all goes to our cause. So thank you for everybody that continues to join the community and show it off. I love running to you guys in airports, you know, guaranteed. You get a

photo with me in any airport I see you wearing high wire merchant and I'll even sign your hat. So wear it everywhere you go. Every once in a while an issue, you know, comes out of my radar and I'm shocked I hadn't really thought of it or no one had talked about it. And, you know, this one is such a common sense thing. I'm surprised that we haven't really covered it yet on this show. And that is, you know, we keep talking about this drugged nation, this over-medication, that was in the Maha report of our children. We're putting boys on, you know, really methamphetamines at very young ages now, kindergarten, first grade, because they don't want to sit still.

Let's just put them on speed. And then, you know, for the girls, it tends to be boys are, you know, all getting wired up. And then the girls have depression issues. Let's put them on SSRIs. There's some amazing books and studies now being done. And the problem is there's no off-ramp. No one's figured out how to get these children once they become adults. Do they ever come off of it?

And then how do they come off of it? What are the side effects of that? What does it like to be a child that's now an adult and you've never actually had a sober day in your life? Well, that issue has caused another problem that we haven't thought about. What if you're on these drugs, you're taking them? We've all seen how the effect the emotions, you know. We know that SSRIs are even targeting the wrong thing, serotonin, the type of things, complete and total disaster and amiss. But what's it doing if you're taking it while you're pregnant?

Well, if you're watching the news, this is what they'd say about it. More women are turning to antidepressants than ever before. It's estimated that between six and eight percent of all pregnant mothers take antidepressant medications. Anxiety and depression affect thousands of pregnant women and new moms every year and many take antidepressants. A growing body of research points to evidence that it's not that the antidepressant. that will harm newborns. It's when mothers neglect treatment for depression that can put their babies at risk.

Researchers looked at more than 145,000 women and their children over a 14-year period. They found that the use of numerous types of common antidepressants are not linked with medical concerns like autism, behavioral issues, and mental disabilities. They observed that using antidepressants during pregnancy was not associated with autism, ADHD, or speech, language, or learning disorders.

Pregnancy has appeared. where women are at increased risk of worsening mental health disorders. Women who are pregnant have, you know, their bodies are changing, they're at risk of certain physical symptoms, and we know that people with underlying mental health disorders are more likely to be sick and have an escalation of their symptoms. So when baby is born, the baby's going to get a little bit less, may have some irritability, kind of a withdrawal, not really a withdrawal, but side effects. So the doctors will treat that, not a reason to be off of the medication, and mom may need

to increase her dose in pregnancy because her medication. tabalism changes. There is no shame in the game. Speak up. Get help. First of all, thank you for being here. Pleasure to be here. Thanks for having me. I just want to say like any time I watch the news, things like it definitely doesn't cause autism. Like what? Like as though anyone asked, there's something a red flag there. But this is an area of expertise. Give me your background on why you've been looking into this issue of SSRIs and their effect on pregnancy. I'm a maternal fetal medicine specialist, and so I'm a full-time clinician. I take care of pregnant women every day. I'm in the office doing ultrasounds, and I'm looking at developing babies all day, every day,

and counseling women about these things. And one thing that's become clear to me over time is that the patients that I see don't have the right information. They're not being properly counseled, and that's really my focus on this. I think the, I always say sometimes when people hear me talking about this topic, the effect of antidepressants in pregnancy, people think that, you know, is this about pill shaming pregnant women, or is this about guilt-tripping them, making them feel bad? But it's none of those things. This is about compassionate care. Yeah. And a big part of compassionate care is providing the right information to the patient so that they can actually give informed consent.

You can't give informed consent if you're not. non-informed. And so it really is about getting the right information to the patients. And the patients don't realize never before in human history have we exposed developing babies to synthetic chemicals like this during development and affected development in this way. And so over time from having seen enough of these women and talk to them, I've tried to make an effort. I've seen, well, there's a lack of information here. And so I've tried to really make the effort to get the right information out there. So SSRIs are like so prolific now. especially in young women. I've talked to college students that say like all my friends are taking them.

I was actually sort of surprised that in the news piece there they said it was as low as 6% of women are on SSRIs while they're pregnant. I would have, you know, I almost feel like there's a tidal wave coming of an even higher rate given where young people are today. But when we think of, you know, this issue, one of the big problems I think is getting off of an SSRI. What are your thoughts on that? I mean, when women are taking it all the way through college and then they get used to being on it, it seems like it's really difficult to get off of it. Is this something that women think of doing

when they're coming up to a pregnancy? Is that even counseled or a thought, you know, in mainstream medicine? Yeah, I'm really glad you raised this point because it gets to the issue, the fact that it's this conversation that we're having is really important that it gets out to the public and to women of childbearing age. It's never too late to make decisions about your health or what medications you're on, but when you're doing this counseling with pregnant women who are already, for example, 12 weeks pregnant,

a lot of embryonic and fetal development has already occurred. So in that sense, where you really need to have this conversation is during the preconceptional period, and even it needs to be on the radar for all women of childbearing age and the doctors that take care of them. because of the issue that you raise, which is really important, of withdrawal and the difficulty in coming off these medications, increasingly this is being realized now. I think when the drug, Prozac was first released in 1987, and I think when it first came out in those several years, there was this feeling that you could come off of it rather easily. Now it's very clear that it can be very, very difficult for patients to come off of these,

and that's probably multiplied even more so during pregnancy, given the issues and the stress is involved in not in being pregnant. And so it really is something that needs to be thought about beforehand. Interestingly enough, you're asking what the numbers look like. In pregnancy, the numbers are all over the board. It depends on the study that you look at. Some put it at 5%, some people put the number as 10%, other even higher than that.

About half of women do stop the medication when they find out they're pregnant. And many of the women are able to do that. I wouldn't say easily, but they're able to do that. But a large number of patients can't. The symptoms that they get are just too difficult. And so the conversations that I have with pregnant women, part of the conversation is this issue about,

will they be able to come off? Do they want to come off? And I don't tell my patients what to do. My focus with my patients in counseling them is to counsel them compassionately and to give them the risks, the benefits, the alternatives, give them the proper information, and then let them make the right to do it.

right decision and support them in that decision. Well, let's get into the risks. What was there something that first had you start looking at this? I mean, what triggered your interest? I think I've had an interest in medication exposure since medical school when I was doing my rotations on the wards and doing my internal medicine rotation. I remember just seeing so many patients on so many medications. And so I think in that sense it was always on my radar.

In pregnancy, even more so because of the issues about mom. issues with baby and so it's something that I thought about for you know for years for my career and taking care pregnant women I've been a physician now since 1997 so 28 years I've been taking care of pregnant women and in terms of the specific risks what we see early on in pregnancy is an increased risk in miscarriage which is loss of the pregnancy yeah we see this in the animal studies I just want to step back and say that when you look at this area sometimes the human studies or the epidemiologic studies can be confusing or mixed because it's

harder to study these things in large human populations because sometimes the women will come off the medication, sometimes they'll go on the medication, etc. When we look though with the animal data or the basic science, let me step back to the basic science, when you just think about this topic, you'd say serotonin is crucial for, for example, embryonic development. Nobody's going to disagree with that. That's generally regarded as scientifically accurate. that serotonin plays a crucial role in embryonic development. The second part of the reasoning is that, or thinking is that SSRIs interfere with the serotonin system.

They disrupt the serotonin system. So if point one is true, which it is, that serotonin plays a crucial role in embryonic development, and if point two is true, which is that the SSRIs disrupt the serotonin system, then the only conclusion you can come to is that there's likely to be effect on the developing embryo because of that. And so we see that from a basic science standpoint, and then we see it in the animal studies.

When we do rat studies, mouse studies, rabbit studies, we see increased rates of pregnancy loss. In the human studies as well, we see increased rates of miscarriage or what's called spontaneous abortion in the literature. Moving forward in the pregnancy, we see increased rates of birth defects. Heart defects are the most well known, but there's a variety of birth defects that have been associated with SSRIs in pregnancy. And again, I go back to the common sense aspect to it.

If serotonin plays a crucial role in the formation of the fetal heart, which it does, and again, you bring in a dozen scientists here that will tell you the same thing, serotonin plays a crucial role in the formation of the heart. If that's correct, and if the SSRIs and other antidepressants interfere or disrupt the serotonin system, then it wouldn't be a surprise for them to cause birth defects. They do, and we see this in the studies. Not all of the studies, and there are those out there who will cast doubt on the whole field and say, well, the studies are mixed.

There are some mixed studies, but in general, moving from the basic science to the animal studies, to the human studies, we see, yes, there's evidence for birth defects. And this can be devastating for families, to have a child born with a significant heart defect, other significant anomaly. So we've got miscarriages that are increased, we've got birth defects that are increased. We've got preterm birth that's increased. Preterm birth is a delivery prior to 37 weeks. Babies that are born prematurely have higher rates of morbidity or sickness and mortality dying.

Those rates are increased in women that are taking SSRI antidepressants. Low birth weight also appears to be increased, that the babies don't grow as well when the mom is on SSRIs. And then even further in the pregnancy or in the third trimester, there's a disease called preeclampsia. is a very important disease. It's like a reaction of the mom to the pregnancy, and it can make moms very, very ill. Preeclampsia is one of the leading causes of maternal morbidity and mortality. And rates of preeclampsia are increased in women taking SSRI antidepressants.

Another major area that we see is hemorrhage. So the SSRIs affect platelets. rely crucially on serotonin in order to function. There's a lot of serotonin within a platelet. There's uptake of serotonin into the platelets. That gets blocked by the SSRIs. So the levels of serotonin are lower in the platelets of patients who are taking an SSRI. This disrupts their ability to clot. And so we see increased rates of postpartum hemorrhage in women who are on SSRI antidepressants. Then the big area is afterbirth. Afterbirth. Afterbirth, after birth for sure we see increased rates of what's called poor neonatal adaptation. So this occurs right off the bat when the babies are born. They tend to have increased rates of jitteriness.

They tend to have increased rates of agitation, sometimes difficulty feeding. There's increased rates of needing to go into the NICU into the neonatal intensive care unit. These tend to be self-limited, lasting one, three days, up to a week, but they can be severe in some cases. And then the big question becomes, what about the long-term effects? And when we look at the long-term effects, again, the human studies are mixed, but we're finding complications in babies that have been exposed to SSRIs in utero. And those complications are things like abnormal motor skills, increased rates of anxiety and depression, increased rates of autism, as people are studying this and gathering more information. So when we counsel women about this in women of childbearing age

and doctors who are prescribing these things, these are important things for women to know as risks of SSRI antidepressants. When we watch that news montage, they're all referencing this has been looked at and they're perfectly safe. I mean, I've dealt with this with vaccines and virtually every other pharmaceuticals,

products we cover. They're really good at doing studies that show that their products are perfectly safe. When you're talking, you know, in an argument, though, on that, where do you feel like the evidence is that that's not true, that we really are seeing an issue? There's a number of studies in this area. I would just step back and say, I call that sort of approach more of a commercial or pharmaceutical marketing. You can call it the big lie, this notion that the SSRI antidepressants in treating depression are like insulin and treating diabetes. By getting the diabetes under better control, it'll lead to better outcomes for mom and baby. This is what's kind of been rolled out by the pharmaceutical industry enrolled out by key

opinion leaders, etc. That's not actually what we're seeing though. The women on SSRIs during pregnancy aren't having better outcomes. The babies aren't doing better. In study after study after study, we see increased complications in the SSRI antidepressant exposed group. When we go to the specific studies, there's a large number of them that are showing this, that have moved in this direction. Just this past month a few weeks ago, a study came out by Zani from Columbia Medical Center showing abnormalities. You've got a...

There you. Perinatal SSRI exposure impacts innate fear circuit activation, activation. behavior in mice and humans? These researchers at Columbia have been looking at this for years. Jay Gingrich, Mark, and Svore, their team has been looking at this for years. And what they wanted to look at is whether there's a similarity between the animal studies and the human studies. So we know that in animals, when you expose rats and mice, rodent studies to SSRI

antidepressants during development, it changes their brain wiring. And they're more likely to behave differently in adulthood. These researchers were looking to see whether or not that was true for humans as well. And they found similarities between the mice and the humans in this fear activation. So what they looked at was an MRI study on mice, exposing them to something that caused fear in the mice. I believe they used mountain lion urine because mountain lions are their predators. So the mice then have fear, which can be seen in their

brain pathways in the MRI. The mice that were exposed to SSRIs show a different fear signature. They've got increased fear. When they look at humans, they find the same thing. They do those similar MRI studies in children, and they use children here, or adolescents aged 11 to 13, who were exposed to SSRIs in utero. And what they're finding is basically the same thing. They're finding an increased fear reaction in the adolescents, in the 11 to 13-year-old human, the children, who had been exposed to SSRIs in utero. Wow. I mean, the complications of that, you know, when you start looking at microaggressions is a serious issue, but all the way into when we start seeing problems with dealing with your environment, but also in getting along. And then, of course, school shootings going through the roof.

I mean, this is one of the things that I know Robert Kennedy Jr. has said he wants to look at SSRIs just in general in kids, but you're pointing to something. Are we sort of pre-priming them for issues going into youth? Yeah, this is a huge issue that you're raising and that I think we need to have more humility and realize that biology is complicated. And the formation of the human brain has been worked out

over millions and millions and millions of years. And babies start off with, you know, there's no brain when the sperm meets the egg, and then you end up with an incredible brain, 100 billion neurons, 100 trillion connections. And how does all that get established? Serotonin plays a crucial role in that. Serotonin, it acts as a neurotransmitter,

but it also acts as a cell signaling molecule and a growth factor during embryonic, in fetal development. So it's basically acting like a bunch of traffic cops, directing things, making sure that the wiring gets laid down correctly. When you're taking something that disrupts the serotonin system, like the SSRI antidepressants, it's like not having those traffic cops in the intersections. It's just, it's likely to be more chaotic. The pathways are likely not to get settled down or set in the same way. And then what ramifications are, you know, does that have moving forward?

I think we don't know. We're finding out now. We're finding out things like increases in fear. There are other studies showing increases in depression and anxiety. There are the studies that are showing decreased sexual function in males. Now, these are rodent studies.

Okay. In rat and mice studies, if you expose them during early development to SSRIs, and then you look at those males as adults and see what their mating behavior is, it's different. And those have been done now numerous studies have shown that.

And we talk about studies a lot, but when you do rat, mouse studies, we can accelerate the time period, right? We don't have to wait until, you know, child grows, you know, be 20 years old or get sexually active. Obviously, you're watching this happen in a much quicker rate, but they can so they can repeat it over and over again, and they're seeing a difference in sexual function in rats. This is exactly right, and this is why these are done in this way.

Also, we're able to control. We know the mice and we know the rats that we're expected. to the SSRIs in utero. When you start doing human studies, for example, large database studies, they'll often use as an indicator of exposure getting an antidepressant prescription. But I know myself, because I'm taking care of patients all day, every day, that many women that get an antidepressant

prescription don't actually fill it. Or if they fill it, they don't actually take it. And so that's going to throw off the human studies. That doesn't happen with the rat and the animal studies because they know what the exposures are. They're controlling that. that and then what do they see they see alterations in behavior it's not just sexual behavior it's social behavior as well in terms of grooming in terms of

socialization so getting back to your point Delle which I think was a good one is what are we doing in terms of what this is means for the future for our kids we really want to have a healthy society we want we all want healthy kids and if we're if we're adding this into the mix during brain development can this have an impact on the development of the brain, I think the best available evidence says yes. Well, I mean, it's shocking. Again, I say this about a lot of things that we cover on the show, which is it doesn't

take a rocket scientist, right? One of the things, I mean, we've watched over the years, it used to be mom would go out and have a beer. And I'm like, no, no, don't drink any alcohol. Now we look down if we see a pregnant woman, you know, smoking cigarettes or obviously using any kind of drug. So we know that, you know, even the light of science. amounts of these things have an effect, you know, on a developing baby, you know, are SSRIs,

you know, as bad or worse, or is there anyone looking at those things? Yeah, we've really taken our eye off the ball, I think, and to get to this, your point, we've really taken our eye off the ball in recognizing medications and other pharmaceuticals as chemicals. And I tell my patients this and when I talk, I lecture on this, I try to make this point that medications are chemicals. They They're coming out of a chemical manufacturing facility, and chemicals have consequences. They have consequences for fetal development. They have consequences for moms and babies.

So a lot of people have in their head, like tobacco or cigarettes are bad because those are chemicals, but that the medications are good because they're medications. And that sort of promotion that the pharmaceutical industry has been successful with in getting this sort of aura of goodness around them is not really there. And certainly not, you know, for any of us, but also for a developing fetus.

From a fetal standpoint, their chemicals going in. There was a study, Salzwazdel, I believe is his first name. This is I think from 2020, where he looked at six different exposures during pregnancy. He was looking at SSRIs, cigarettes, and alcohol, and opiates, cocaine, and marijuana. I believe those were the six. And then doing MRI studies on the offspring after delivery. And the question that this group was asking is, what impact do these six different substances have

on the developing brain? And according to the paper, they were surprised to find that the one that had the largest impact were the SSRI antidepressants. Wow. More so than the cigarettes, the alcohol. Cocaine and opiates. The opiates and the marijuana.

Wow. This is what this paper showed. So I think it gets to the point that from a fetal standpoint, These are just chemicals coming into the brain during a crucial time period, during development, when that fetus is trying to get its brain wiring correct. And it can certainly have downstream effects, which is why women need to be aware of this so that they can put that and weigh that into their decision making and actually be able to give informed consent, understanding what the risks are.

Have you looked at all? I mean, I know, you know, postpartum depression, I think, uses SSRIs too. So, you know, mother gives birth, she's, you know, breastfeeding, I guess. I mean, have you looked at any of that, you know, affecting the growth, like, once the child's born? Sure, and people are studying this. The postpartum period can be a very difficult time for women, obviously. The hormones are changing. There's a lot of sleeplessness at that point with the newborn baby.

And so obviously this is a big focus. and the question that arises, is it safe? I don't like to use that terminology safe or unsafe. I think it's just not helpful. I think it's more helpful to focus on accurately counseling regarding risks, benefits, and alternatives. There are risks to using SSRIs during breastfeeding. Each mom baby pair is different

in terms of how much drug the mom puts into her breast milk and then also how much drug the baby's getting. They process the drug differently, each mom-baby pair. And so while a lot of the studies have shown low levels of drug in the babies, one, we're not sure exactly what those low levels of drug mean for the baby's brain as opposed to adult levels. And number two, some of the babies don't process it as well or some moms concentrate the drug into their breast milk. And so we'll find studies where there will be severe complications. things like severe somnolence or agitation in the babies or difficulty with temperature regulation.

And then when they've checked on the blood levels, they found very high levels of, I think Certraline or Zoloft is one of those studies. And so how did that happen? Probably just because of the mom and baby's physiology leading to, for something about the way she developed her breast milk or put the drug in there and the way the baby suckled

or the way the baby metabolized the drug, ended up with high levels and ended up with a poor outcome. In the news report it was almost accidental, the doctor says, you know, once the baby's being born, you know, we can sometimes we have to sort of wean them all, like, or have a moment where we get them through the drug withdrawal, I think he ended up saying. Is this something that doctors are trained in that are giving, you know, that are birthing these babies, that they recognize a withdrawal symptom? Yeah, and I think there's increasing recognition

recognition now for my neonatal and pediatric colleagues realizing this. The nurses have been saying this for years, that they notice that those babies are behaving differently. This, interestingly enough, Dell, has also been shown in utero. So one thing I think that happens is that a lot of people look at the newborn effects, the newborn withdrawal, and they say, well, it's just newborn withdrawal. It lasts a couple days because they came off the drug. But there's some concern that it's actually an effect of the drug that we're seeing often immediately in the babies. So there's a couple of interesting studies that were done using ultrasound to look at fetal

movements in babies exposed to SSRIs versus babies not exposed to SSRIs. And in both of those studies, they used a control group of women depressed, but not on SSRIs, to be able to try to control for depression. This was done by Mulder in 2011 and done by Solis. in 2024. And both of those studies show increased fetal movements, what they describe as like agitated fetal movements in the fetuses in utero that were being exposed to the SSRIs. Instead of having periods of quiescence or quiet sleep, those fetuses are showing much more ongoing agitation, irritability movement. When the babies were born, we also see that in many of them.

this sort of agitated movements, irritability. And there's an interesting study done by DeVries, is the author, D-E-V-R-I-E-S from 2013, that looked at babies exposed to SSRIs immediately after birth and then also looked at them three to four months later. And that study shows that there are abnormal movements in the SSRI exposed babies immediately after birth, but it's also there.

The odds ratio to that study was 3.5, a three-time, three-fold increase, even three to four months later. Wow. So it appears that this issue about newborn withdrawal, it isn't just a, oh, it's something we briefly see during the newborn period, but doesn't represent possibly any impact that occurred to the baby or to the fetus in utero or will have any effect down the line.

I don't think that interpretation is correct. I think that that's sort of diminishing the possible complications or long term effects of it. I find it amazing that we sort of accept that we'll make statements like, well, it's just temporary, you know, infant withdrawal from an SSRI drug. When we have, you know, been so focused on babies withdrawing from alcoholism, like an alcoholic, you know, mother or drug with, you know, any other drug withdrawal, it's as soon as it's a pharmaceutical product, oh, no, just look the other way, it's perfectly fine, they'll

just be fine. that we've talked about this issue in every other product that we, you know, when we said in that study, cocaine, marijuana, you know, opioids, all of a sudden, if it's prescribed, then it gets this free pass. Yeah, very good point. I'm a local community doctor.

I take care of patients in my hometown of Framingham, Massachusetts, where I was born. I work in the hospital I was born in. And so I take care of people who I consider in my community, my neighbors, and these are our patients deserve care and compassion and understanding. When those patients are smokers,

I show them care and compassion and understanding as well. But I think in the broader society, there's this feeling of disdain or hostility towards a woman who's smoking, towards a woman who's using any substances. But this is, again, from a fetal standpoint or a pregnancy standpoint, these are all chemicals. And as you said, I think the pharmaceutical industry

has done Good job. They've been able to cast their product as in this glow or aura of health, which it doesn't really merit, particularly in a case like this, where you've got from a fetal standpoint just ongoing chemical exposure throughout the pregnancy. When you're speaking to mothers, obviously this is something you address. What talking point grabs their attention more? Is it that it could affect the developing brain? it could affect them emotionally in the future.

Like when you're having those conversations, is there a view just when you're checking in with moms, is there one point that seems to stick more than others? Well, I'll say when patients come in, one of the things that's really motivated me is that I see so many patients who when I ask them what counseling they've had on this, they'll tell me the only counseling I got

was that they're safe in pregnancy and they don't affect the baby. And that sort of misunderstanding is just too much out there. that the patients just aren't, you know, getting enough information. I think the thing that hits home most of my patients is I tell them, like, I just want you to have the information, and I'm going to support you, whatever you decide, because I'll be taking care of them for the next, I'll see them multiple times for ultrasound for the next nine months or whatnot, and I'll probably see them in future pregnancies.

So I think that helps to let them know that, look, I'm on your side in this. I just want you to have the information. Yeah. And then I think that a lot of them are surprised to hear the evidence, is there one thing that sticks out more than others? I think they're surprised just hearing the entirety of the information that's out there, which if you watch the news and you watch these segments, as you were saying, you get this misconception that basically they don't have any effect. It's like drinking a glass of water. It's often how they're portrayed,

no effect on the pregnancy, no effect on the developing baby, which really is beyond the pale when you think about the fact that serotonin plays this crucial role in the pregnancy, in the formation of the baby, and that these drugs are disrupting the serotonin system. I mean, our non-profits is called the informed consent action network. Certainly informed consent requires that you be told that there's side effects, that there's whatever benefits you think you're getting. There's also these other side effects that you should be thinking about too. And clearly these patients are coming to you and saying, well, I'm being told that they're perfectly safe.

Do you actually, what's your process? Do you actually show them some of the rat studies and things like that? Or I'm just curious, like I'm always curious about the human interaction, because it's a very sensitive space. We're all dancing around mental health right now. You can't really, you know, so it can't be an easy conversation. Yeah, and I think there's no one-size-fits-all answer for patients.

And the first thing I try to do with my patients is to hear their story first, to kind of know where they're at, to know where they're coming from. regardless of where they're coming from, I try to give them full and accurate counseling. But I think that story or the counseling is different and needs to be shaped and guided towards each patient individually. If you have a patient who comes in who's now at 20 weeks pregnant and she tells you that she's been on Prozac for 20 years and that the times that she's tried to come off, she's been hospitalized. She's been suicidal. That is a different conversation than someone who is.

possibly thinking of starting it and she's in the preconceptional period and she's been having some rough patches in her life thinking of starting it, there's going to be a different conversation there. So I think it's important just to meet each patient where they are and show them the care, the compassion, the kindness to try to inform them correctly but not throw a one-size-fits-all blanket onto that and absolutely not have them leave the interaction feeling like they should should be shamed or pill shamed or guilty if they've been on the drug or guilty if they were on the drug in other pregnancies. That's not what this is about at all. This is just about trying to get the information and the science right for patients and the public and put proper warnings

on the labels and get the right information out there so that patients can make informed choices. Do you think the FDA has been doing that, you know, as far as labeling goes and letting, you know, warning people? The FDA has not been doing that in this case, and in I think many cases up to this point, I'm getting more optimistic about the directions going in. I tell patients all the time when I lecture on this and people I talk to is that ideally what you would want would be you've got your patients here and you've got the drug companies here, and the drug companies are trying to get products, sell products to patients,

and make a profit. In between those, in between the drug company and the patients, you really should have strong, strong institutions working on behalf of the public, like the FDA, like the CDC, even like the media, your academic medical centers, your professional medical societies. All of those institutions should be working day and night doggedly on behalf of the public. But that's not typically what's been happening over the past several decades. Those groups, those institutions have essentially been functioning as cheerleaders. They've been working, in a sense, on behalf of the drug companies. And so this has been a huge problem with actually trying to get proper information to patients in the public.

This has been problematic. I'm optimistic, though, because I think we have an opportunity now to move in the right direction for those institutions to actually serve their role of standing up for patients, standing up for the public, informing them, and playing the role that they should be, rather than serving as a cheerleader, or some people would say industry shill, to the pharmaceutical industry and trying to increase profits and sales. Yeah, I mean, it's funny. I look back at all the episodes we've done, you know, hundreds of episodes.

And at this point, I feel like I'm going to be at Marty McRey's door going, Hey, Marty, got another one. And like, here, I'm like, I'm just thinking, I got to call Marty. We got to get him on this. You know, he's going to be a busy man. And so is Robert Kennedy Jr. And everybody at these regulatory agencies that just have shirked this duty for so long. I mean, really just during this massive drug increase, you know, we're taking more pharmaceutical

drugs than the entire world, really. And, you know, you've just had a regulatory agency that, you said seems to be just to be a sock puppet for the industry and so now we have a lot of work to do to get to warning labels and letting people know what's really going on. For someone that's looking at, that's, you know, using an SSRI that maybe wants to get off at prior to pregnancy, are there any studies that show how far out, you know, how, you know, when should you be off of it where it's out of your body enough that it doesn't affect the pregnancy? Like how much time do you need in between there? The less chemical exposure, the better.

So from a chemical exposure standpoint, the less the better, from an ability to come off the drug, it looks like that now is what's being discovered because of the challenges in coming off these medications, what's been discovered is that slow, very slow tapers, I think they call them parabolic tapering, which is gradual, very gradual reductions. over the course of weeks, but over months, and for some people even over years. Wow. To try to gradually come down or come off of the medication

is what's needed. This is an area of ongoing research and interest. They just put out, Mark Horowitz, just put out a guide, the deprescribing guidelines that discuss this, how to come off of these drugs. And as I said, the key is to do it under the supervision of someone who's able to guide you through the process and then do it in a very gradual,

manner. Abrupt stopping is not recommended because of the high rates of problems with discontinuing. Wow. I mean, it just, it leads to the thought of if you're about to put your kids on one of these things, you may want to think twice. I mean, it's just so difficult. It's a decision that really, and some describe as having no off-ramp. Yeah, I think that's exactly right. And I see that every day in my office because so many of the patients that I'm seeing were started on them during college or at another time period back in the distant past where it really wasn't on their radar at the time. But that's why I say this is information that I think needs to get out not so much to

pregnant women, certainly to pregnant women, but to women of childbearing age and to the public and to their prescribers so that it's on everybody's radar. And to be fair for males as well, because this ends up being really for some people a lifelong struggle and trying to come off of these medications. And that aspect really needs to be part of the informed consent process so that patients realize what they're getting into. To go back to the FDA though, I think it would be a huge, huge move in the right direction to have labeling that simply makes it clear what the scientific evidence is showing and

certainly that we know that these affect fetal development. Even that aspect is just currently not getting out there, that patients don't realize that that this medication that you're taking, it's affecting the serotonin system, which plays a crucial in fetal development. It's going to affect fetal development. So just getting that out there to prescribers, to patients, the public will be a move in the right direction. Absolutely. What are your next steps? I mean, you're obviously getting the word out. I mean, do you think it's a, is it a legislative move? Do we, you know, how do we, you know, we have a very active audience. What does our audience need to do other than just share this story?

how do we make a difference on a topic like this? Because it's a very complicated one. We're in the process of putting together a petition to the FDA to try to get them to look at this. I think they will. We're trying to get the FDA to look at this. And so once that petition is out there, the public can write in support of that.

I think they'll open the docket and then comments can be made. So once we get the ball moving on that, and that should be happening in the next few months, the actual petition to get the labeling. changed on SSRI antidepressants with respect to their impact on pregnancy. And then I think talking about this and spreading the word in that way, which obviously you do and your audience does, but trying to spread the word and just let people know this impact, again, in a non-judgmental fashion to just let people know, look, it's really not a judgmental issue.

It's more of an issue of a chemical problem. These are chemicals going into developing babies having chemical effects that people just need to be known to know about and then I'm also working on trying to come up with A very simple one-sheet one-page handout for patients right now there's a lot of information out there that's just not correct and you saw some of that in your lead in and if you Google it You'll see a lot even some of the leading institutions you Google antidepressants in pregnancy and you'll see that they're just whitewashing it and they're not really giving a good a good a good explanation of it. So trying to come up with a one pager that doctors can understand and hand out to patients so that they'll understand what they're getting into the with these medications. Dr. Erato want to thank you for taking the time joining us today. I think this is such an important issue and one I haven't honestly I'm sort of shocked it's like a no-brainer like yeah no

duh this is an issue but one we haven't really covered before so very important. Well I really appreciate you're having me on. Absolutely. Thanks. All right. Well, you know we want to give back to all of you that donate make the show possible as I say at the top of every show we're not you know taking any farm of funding in here we're definitely not selling you diapers but for those of you that do donate make all this possible we're creating new programming at highwire plus and one of those shows is off the record it looks just like this it's time to go off the record the show exclusively for our donors all right we're rolling here we go one thank you for just sticking around a little bit we call this off the record this is what we could

I couldn't talk about on the high wire. I actually want to dive into a very sensitive topic. You have no obligation to be honest with these people. Is anyone telling me the truth? No doctor wants to say that they're killing people. Yeah, but doesn't every doctor want to stop killing people? You have no freedom. You have no liberty.

You're a slave. Journalism massively failed the United States. It's silly to call people anti-vaccine. It's nonsense. Oh, the vultures come out. You married? Yeah. All of that's BS.

This whole system's rigged, and they don't care about our health. We will have full discovery power. Watch what happens when we go off the record. You are not going to miss this. Good hanging out. Indeed. Well, stay tuned right after the show. I'm going to get off the record with Dr. O'Rado. We're going to get into some other details about what he's learned in all of his work dealing with pregnancy. You know, it's an amazing week. It really has been, you know, something that many of us have dreamed about, but I see all of the conversations online. I see conversations about, you know, well, is it far enough? Is it hard enough? Is it fast enough? Why are we more focused on the food

issue than we are on the vaccine issue? And I think these are all important conversations to have. But I want to point out that we are a movement and we are a diverse movement and we've got to work to recognize that it's going to take all of us working together, coming together, and to continue to build this movement to share whatever issue we really care about. If food is your thing or chemical dies and, you know, petroleum dies and, you know, glyphosate or, you know, atrazine or whatever it is, you know, keep study and talk to your friends about it. Keep spreading the message. We need to build this movement everywhere we can. And for those people out there that, you know, I know have dealt with either a COVID vaccine injury or maybe years before even, you know, an autism

diagnosis that you believe came from vaccinations, you know in the work that we've done, we are very, very focused on this vaccine issue. But I want to tell you, you know, we can't let this vaccine issue just get, you know, bold over either. The chemicals and dies are important in the food and all of that. And I've got to get the pesticides and do everything. I can to keep this thing, these things away from my child. But, you know, I've seen the statements online, you know, no chemical dye has ever caused autism. We don't have lupus most likely, or, you know, all the issues that we have, the birth defects, SIDS is clearly not being caused by glyphosate on our food. At least it's not the main contributing factor. And I just, you know,

I was doing an interview with a reporter. I don't know what they'll end up reporting yesterday, but I said this, and I want this to be really clear to everyone in this audience so that you know where I stand on this issue. I said if for some reason this tenure of Robert Kennedy Jr. as HHS secretary does not end in a thorough investigation made to the public on the vaccines, both by themselves, do they cause autism, studying the people that believe that their children have gotten autism from the vaccine. If we haven't studied those that are injured compared to those that aren't the process that happened in the vaccine program, all the different ways that this needs to be looked at so that we can thoroughly say once and for all, what effect is this

single, each single vaccine having and the totality of vaccines, which we also know has never been studied, all 72, which I think is maybe 76 vaccines now that are going to be injected, injected in children by the time they're 18, add in COVID shots. Obviously, those look like they're being pulled back, thank God. But I said, if that investigation doesn't happen, and we don't get to the bottom of what the vaccine's contribution is to this chronic disease epidemic, then there will be many, many people in this country and around this world, probably the greater majority of this movement that will feel like the mission was not accomplished. And so it is critical that that work gets done. I believe Robert Kennedy,

Junior is doing that work and he's working on doing that. He's talking about doing that. But, you know, between you and I was at an event over the weekend, a biohacking conference and I spoke at a dinner. And, you know, the food recognition or chemical recognition, whatever they called themselves before we all became Maha, has great representation. Vani Hari was there, fantastic, dynamic, awesome lady that has been, you know, kicking Kellogg's butt. You've got Callie Means. And the sister Casey means great spokespeople for the issues of chemicals and all the problems in our food supply. Zen Honeycutt doing so much on herbicides and chemicals that are sprayed on our crops. And, you know, many of them talk about fluoride and water and all of these different contaminations all super important.

But as I was at that event, you know, and then it was my turn to get up and speak, I realized that there aren't a whole lot of people right now talking about vaccines. It's gotten very easy and comfortable. and I get that it's a much broader topic to talk about all the chemicals and food and those things, they are important. But between you and I, this voice of vaccine injury cannot go away. It cannot be silence. And it certainly shouldn't disappear inside this Maha movement. I've talked about it the last couple of weeks, but just because I keep getting questions from the media,

you know, why are you not the head of Maha organization anymore? Because as the head, I sort of couldn't just say everything I felt because it would reflect. on Bobby and the work that he's done and the work that he and I have done together. There'd be a conflict of interest if I want to sue or bring a FOIA request, which we've already done on the VSD. We are demanding that that may be made public right away. But as I stood up the other night, I thought about all of you. I thought about all of this work that we've done together. And I want you to know that my voice is here for the vaccine injured. That have happened, you know, whether it's your child or it's happened yourself, whether it's a severe injury, a light

injury or perhaps an even death to your child or someone that you cared about. This has been the focus. It is what, you know, I left CBS and the work I was doing on the doctors for this issue on vaccines. I believe it is the pinnacle. I think it's one of the greatest lies ever told. We have now, finally, after, you know, being at this since the beginning of 2016, we now have newspapers and most of mainstream media and medicine admitting they never did a proper placebo trial on any of the childhood vaccines prior licensure. Houston, we have a problem, okay? That's a problem.

It means we do not know if these vaccines are safe, and now the establishment will tell you, well, of course, it's safe. We just look at the amount of time. We didn't need a placebo trial. We've been using them for so long now. We've proven they're safe. Really?

Really? You've proven they're safe? Because when we look at your track record, we went from 12% chronic illness when you started increasing this vaccine program with vaccines that were never tested for safety to now 50 or 60% of our children are chronically ill, sick their entire lives on drugs. We don't see anything else that really skyrockets it that way.

But look at that list right there. No one in medicine can prove to you looking at those stats that vaccines are safe. There's nothing in there that tells us that they're safe and that they're making us healthier. What it appears has happened as that we have traded trivial childhood. infections for lifelong chronic disease. That's what I believe this vaccine program has done. And I'm going to state it as loud and as proud as I always have. I'm going to continue to stand for the things that I think are being done right by this government

now that we've got some of our own people in there. And I'm going to state the things that I think they're soft peddling too much. And everywhere I speak across this country, if you come and see me, you are going to see a full-throated discussion about the problems that we have proven here at the informed consent action network that we've broadcast on the high wire, the issues that we've discovered because no one has done a more thorough investigation into the entire vaccine program in the world. We have had scientists and doctors and the greatest attorney of all times in Aaron Siri that has crawled up this thing all the way up the pipe and found every single

hidden truth that has ever been available. We've read every trial, every study. And now we are demanding that real studies being done, that this government does what it needed to do and prove if these products are safe, how are you saying it? How did you do it without a placebo? And now you've got to prove that you are not responsible for this chronic disease epidemic. We're not going to take our eye off the prize, and we are certainly not going to take our foot off the gas. This is all of us together. It doesn't mean, doesn't mean I have anything against. I'm so excited our food supply is being cleaned up. And I consider my brothers and sisters and my close compatrious to be those that are fighting

on the food issue. But if you have a voice, I could use your help in here on the vaccine issue. And if you really want to talk about the greatest lie ever told, as I said at the top of this show, we have never mandated fruit loops on children to get into school. But we mandated a product that was never proven to be safe, that is minimized. manipulating their immune systems, not one time, not 10 times, not 20 times, not 50 times, more than 72 times now. We are confusing the immune system of our children.

And now, shockingly, we have the greatest autoimmune disease epidemic in the world in history. You're going to have to go a long ways to prove to me that the vaccines are not a critical part of that. And if we get through this time and that investigation has not been done by this administration, then we have failed America and we have failed the world. I take this very seriously, as you can tell. We did not work this hard and build this great show and do all of this great work suing the government, all to just have it fall apart now. So don't worry. We are here. This conversation is real. It's extreme. It's intense. It's focused. And we will not quit until the truth has been told. This is the high wire. I'm Dell Bigtree. I'll see you as I speak

all over this country and I'll see you next week on this show.