The Highwire with Del Bigtree - PUBLIC HEALTH POWER SHIFT: BIG CHANGES AT HHS, NIH & FDA

Episode Date: March 14, 2025

Public health shake ups continue in the wake of RFK Jr’s confirmation as Secretary of HHS. The FDA vaccine advisor’s most recent meeting was canceled unexpectedly, Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, of Great Barrington Declaration fame, gets one step closer to confirmation as head of NIH, and Marty Makary is making waves as Trump’s pick for FDA lead.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-highwire-with-del-bigtree--3620606/support.

This week especially, we have RFK Jr., obviously, HHS Secretary appointed, but this week there's a lot of other things going on. So we saw the ASIP committee was postponed. Now the VIRPAC committee is also canceled. This is Reuters meeting of U.S. FDA Vaccine Advisors. Canceles committee members said no really reason why when you go into that article, but it is canceled. So we have ASIP postponed, Verback canceled, business as usual in the health space is changing.

And this week we have Dr. J. Badacharya. he's starting his journey towards the confirmation as the head of United States National Institutes of Health. Wow. This is a gigantic. This is where Francis Collins was. He has stepped down. Jay Bajara, obviously professor of medicine, economics, and health policy research at Stanford University, but also one of the signatories of the Great Barrington Declaration.

And what's interesting was that Great Barrington Declaration, as everyone knows, was warning about the collateral damage that the restrictions, the pandemic restrictions were going to cause. And remember he, Jay Batatariah is a true American story because he was attacked viciously by the Biden administration and those within the top heads of the agencies like Francis Collins. Here is the actual article when it happened. Trump's NIH pick. I'm sorry. This is Batacharya. This is the article is heading up here. Trump's NIH pick urges scientific dissent in Senate hearing remarks.

So this is what he's going to be talking about. It was just yesterday that this hearing happened. But why is the urging scientific dissent is because at the time when the U.S. needed COVID-19, this is the headline, dialogue between scientists, Francis Collins, to shut it down. So basically, Collins shut this down. Remember, he called Batachara and the other two signatories fringe epidemiologists. He says we need a quick and devastating takedown to these people in the media to Tony Fauci. Because, again, they were just warning, hey, you may want to pump the brakes here. And now you have Collins coming out and saying, ignoring the collateral damage inflicted by COVID-19 policies was really unfortunate.

So this is where people's appetite to get new people that are going to shake things up are coming in because the old people, the gaslighting, the basically, I'm going to punch you in the eye and then go, wow, there's a lot of violence on the street here. We should do something about this. It's just no longer happening. But what's also happening today as we speak is Dr. Martin McCari, surgical oncology. and John Hopkins professor, he is going in front of the committee as well to talk about his appointments. Here's headlines being made by him on the run-up Trump's FDA pick made his name by bashing the medical establishment. We see a theme here. Soon he may be leading it. So what to expect from Trump's pick to lead FDA? Well, you know, Makari, he's done a lot of great stuff. Surgical

oncologists, he was actually leading trying to limit the medical errors in the surgery space in a American medicine, which was one of the leading causes of death, according to the BMJ. So this is a person that knows, understands systems, understands how to change them. And both of these men, I mean, they're ready to shake things up. So the appointments, we should soon hear from them, whether they're going to be appointed or not. Obviously, most president's appointments are kind of pushed through there at some point or another. So this is an exciting day for American medicine, an exciting week as well. It really is. Both of those picks, I know Robert Kennedy Jr. is really hoping they get in there because they, too, as we know, have challenged the system. And by the way, even if you're looking at this from the other side or somehow you're worried about it, the scientific method demands scientific dissent. It demands that the best thinkers come forward and say, I think I see a flaw in your hypothesis, or I think I see a problem with your vaccine. I think I want to ask the question, how much protein is it and how long does it last?

And no, we're going to look into it and get back to you who's not good enough. People are taking this right now. Those voices were shut down. And by the way, you know, Francis Collins, who was trying to like, you know, dance around it, shut down. Jay Batachari is saying we need to be, you know, decisive and take this down while he knew for a fact. And we all now know that the six-foot distance rule was completely made up, not based on science. That there was no reason to lock us down if the distance from one another made no different.

whatsoever. So to think that he was saying that Badachari was fringe when they were the liars, they were pushing a non-scientific agenda that did destroy lives, did destroy businesses, did destroy the education of our children, did destroy our economy. So shame on you, Francis Collins, and all the lies from Tony Fauci and the rest. Maybe they're protected by Joe Biden, you know, and sort of giving them protections. But in the end, we know, we know. the truth and now we have the people that were calling it out from the beginning up for a job.