Weird Medicine: The Podcast - 438 - A Dude with Bloody Splooge

Episode Date: January 8, 2021

Dr Steve and Tacie discuss public health funding, hematospermia, testing procedures for covid-19, half dose vaccine silliness, and more! PLEASE VISIT: stuff.doctorsteve.com (for all your online shopping needs!) noom.doctorsteve.com (lose weight, gain you-know-what) Get Every Podcast on a Thumb Drive (all this can be yours!) roadie.com (OMG the coolest stringed instrument accessory EVER MADE) simplyherbals.net (for all your StressLess and FatigueReprieve needs!) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

If you just read the bio for Dr. Steve, host of Weird Medicine on Sirius XM103, and made popular by two really comedy shows, Opie and Anthony and Ron and Fez, you would have thought that this guy was a bit of, you know, a clown. Can you please stop bullshitting and get to the question? I've got diphtheria crushing my esophagus. I've got Ebola dripping from my nose. I've got the leprosy of the heart valve, exacerbating my incredible. I want to take my brain out, blasts with the wave, an ultrasonic, ecographic, and a pulsating

save, I want a magic pill, all my ailments, the health equivalent of citizen cane, and if I don't get it now in the tablet, I think I'm doomed, then I'll have to go insane. I want to requiem for my disease, so I'm paging Dr. Steve. It's weird medicine, the first and still only uncensored medical show in the history broadcast radio now a podcast. I'm Dr. Steve with my wife Tacey, the professional WebEx attendee. Hello, Tacey. Hello, everyone. This is a show for people who would never listen to a medical show on the radio or the internet. If you have a question that you're embarrassed to take to your regular medical provider, if you can't find an answer anywhere else, give us a call at

347-7-66-4-3-23. That's 347 Poohead. Visit our website at Dr. Steve.com for podcast, medical news and stuff you can buy, or go to our merchandise store at CafePress.com. slash weird medicine and get yourself a weird medicine Bristol stool scale mug and where you can rate your stools while you're drinking your cup of coffee in the morning. Most importantly, we are not your, that sounds like fun, doesn't it? We are not your medical providers, and I sell it so well. Yeah, you do, really. Take everything you hear with a grain of salt.

Don't act on anything you hear on this show without talking to it over with your doctor and nurse practitioner, practical nurse, physician, assistant, pharmacist, chiropractor, acupuncturist, yoga master, physical therapist, Clinical Laboratory Scientist, Registered Dietitian, or whatever. All right. Don't forget to check out stuff.com for all your Amazon needs. And there's something new on there. If you go to stuff.com that you can click through.

And I'll be danged if I can remember what... Oh, I remember what it is. For people who play instruments, you have to check this out. Go to stuff. on Dr. Steve.com. I think the second link down is for the roadie. This rowdy is a robotic instrument tuning device. And it looks like it just does guitars and basses.

It's not true. We tuned up Scott's Mandolin the other day. You can do alternate tuning. You can do all kinds of stuff. And they are unbelievably reasonably priced. I was astounded. He's in love. I am completely enamored with this thing.

And I'm playing with, I've tuned every instrument in the house and I want to tune more things. So if you have an instrument, bring it over and I'll by God, I'll tune it. But check that out at stuff.org.com. Also, tweakeda audio.com offer code fluid for the best earbuds for the price on the market anywhere. And if you want to lose weight with us for your New Year's resolution for 2021, go to Noom, n-O-O-M dot, dottersteve.com.

Do the free trial for two weeks. If you like it, you can continue it. You get a 20% discount if you use Noom. Dot, Dr. Steve.com. And people with an Oculus, we don't get anything out of this other than the satisfaction of knowing that people are, their mental health is better, is go to the Oculus store and get the Trip app, TRIPP, and you can go to trip.com, TRIPP.com, and use offer code Dr. Steve, DR Steve.

and you get 20% off. We don't get anything from that. They were just nice enough to do that for our listeners because the CEO enjoyed being on our show. So check that out. Greatest thing ever. Bobby Kelly did it absolutely just fell asleep in the chair and we had to catch him.

That's how awesome it is. Anyway, and check out Dr. Scott's website at simplyherbils.net. Oh, I liked your Dave Landau impression at the beginning. I think you need to keep doing it. I don't understand why you think it's an impression. It's saying hello, and it's saying to everyone. Hello, everyone.

Well, okay, so I'm going to start saying, hey, girl. No, no. I know, I like it. Hey, girl. You know, that reminds me of the time when our son, Liam, he was six, and he was sleeping with a Santa stuffed animal. It looked like Santa. And I made, I remarked about how I liked it.

I thought it was cute. I was like, oh, did you sleep with Santa last night? And he was like, no. And he stuffed it under his bed. would never sleep with it again. So that was not my intent. Well, your intent, I don't care. I'll probably forget by next Wednesday.

But I'll say it whatever way I want to. I'll probably say, hey girl or something stupid like that. Hey girl, I like that. Or like on Star Trek last night when she said, let's fly. Oh, I hated that. Let's fly. Because they made a big deal. Okay, that's a spoiler, I guess.

Spoiler for the season finale. Is it really? Oh, sorry. But they made a big deal out of Saroo not having a catchphrase, and he tried to use different ones because, you know, Picard's was make it so, and then Kirk's at the end, oh, spoiler at the end, you know, and the movie thing was like, oh, just go wherever, go that away or whatever. And Saru didn't have one, and now there is one, and I thought it was really cringy.

Boo! Did not like it. Okay. Like you said, make it so is the one that it ought to be. No argument for me. Yeah. I had, oh, you know, we've had some questions about the COVID-19 vaccine. I was actually on with the air traffic controllers in one of the areas.

We're on here, a large air traffic control thing, and did a Q&A with them. And one of the questions that came up was, if you have already had COVID-19, should you then turn around and get the vaccine? And I wasn't 100% sure, but I know that the vaccine makes different antibodies than the virus does.

How do I know? Because I tried to cheat when I was in the Pfizer trial, they gave me an injection, two injections, three weeks apart. I thought that I had gotten vaccine because I had pain in my shoulder and had some mild muscle aches and pains. It was like saline didn't going to do that. But then I went and tried to cheat the system a little bit and asked my primary care to order COVID-19 antibodies on me and they were negative. I'm like, well, crap, that means I got the placebo. But as very often is the case in science, what I assumed made sense wasn't really true because the vaccine makes a different antibody, different set of antibodies than having the illness does.

So there are a couple of trains of thought that if you get the virus after getting the vaccine and you're generating a different set of antibodies, if the first set could block the second, set and cause a chain reaction that would cause a very serious syndrome. This was seen in some experimental models and in CAT coronavirus vaccine trials way back when they were first starting with this. And so there are some people who have some concerns about that. Well, it turns out so far so good because there were quite a few people that got the virus in the trial. Well, I say quite a few.

I mean, there was a small number, but it was actually 5% compared to 90. Well, let me put it this way. I'm putting it wrong. Compared to the placebo group, only 5% had contracted the illness in the vaccine group. So if there were 100 people in the placebo group, 5 in the vaccine. group actually got COVID-19, but none of them had that severe syndrome that we were worried about. So, but 100% of them didn't die, too.

So that was a real plus. So that doesn't seem to be an issue. So I went to the CDC website, and they actually have an answer for that. And they said, yes, we believe that you should get the vaccine, even if you've already had COVID-19. So don't worry about that. And it maybe gives you even better, better long-term immunity to have both sets of antibodies, you know, in your body. I've heard that side effects of the vaccine are worse if you recently had COVID.

And that makes sense, doesn't it? Because you kind of does, yes. When you inject this MRNA strand, its instructions on making a viral protein that the body makes antibodies. against. If you already have antibodies against it, it will mount a more vigorous response to the vaccine. But that's a good thing. So that makes sense. And when you get that pain and the muscle aches and pain, you know your immune system is revving up to fight off this pseudo infection that you're creating. Because that's the way this appears to the body is viral proteins that emerging from the surface of the cells and they're expressed on the surface of the cell

looks just like an infection to the body. So you're mounting a good immune response against that. So it's pretty interesting. Very interesting indeed. All right. Well, you want to just answer some questions? Let's just answer questions because I didn't do any homework. Did you not?

Nope. Well, guess what? Neither did I. Okay. Number one thing, don't take advice from some asshole on the radio. All right, I'm going to see what we've got. Thank you, Ronnie B. That's absolutely true.

Hey, Dr. Steve. This is Brian from West Tennessee. Hey, Brian. And I read a Wall Street Journal article a couple months ago about how poorly funded the public health system has been for 20 to 3. 30 years. And I think that's where you're seeing this hiccup in getting the vaccine out is public health, you know, we don't have pandemics often. And so when it comes time for that to be a distribution channel, it has just been so poorly funded that it's hard to expect anything great from that. Just thought I'd add that. Thanks.

Yeah, I know what he's talking about. And really, I'm not 100% convinced that it's the lack of funding to community health centers that's causing some of this problem. But it's probably multifactorial, and it's got something to do with it. I mean, when's the last time you went to your county health department, days? I know a lot of people do use it, but I've talked to people on this show. And they want to get, say, STD testing. I say, go to the county health department.

They're like, do we have such a thing? It's like, yes, you have that. I think a lot of people aren't aware of them. And I think even if they are aware, they don't want to go there. Right. Well, maybe. So I've worked in the county health department. They do some great work in there.

And, you know, it's, but it is something people aren't necessarily aware of unless they're just plugged into that. And so if people aren't aware of it, they're not using it. If they're not using it, they're not getting funding. So it becomes sort of a law growing thing. And there's a little bit of a stigma against it. Is there? I think so, yes. And also, I don't understand why, like he was talking about the vaccine,

a lot of county health departments are charged with giving the vaccine out when we have all these other areas or places that can give the vaccine. I mean, our health center, our health system is giving them out. Let's just talk a little bit about the phases. Phase 1A is this jumpstart phase where high-risk health care workers that are in the COVID units are getting the vaccine first, and then first responders. Phase 1B would be people of all ages with comorbid and underlying conditions that put them in significantly higher risk. So that would be older adults living in congregate or overcrowded settings, people with morbid obesity, diabetes, or compromised immune systems, then phase two or K through 12 teachers and school staff

and child care workers, and then critical workers in high-risk settings that are in industries essential to the functioning of society and substantially higher risk of exposure. What if you don't fit in a phase? I know. Well, if you don't fit in a phase, you're three. You're phase three. It's young adults, children, workers, and industries and occupations. important to the functioning society, but not included in phase one or two.

So that's just everybody else. That's pretty much everybody else. Yeah. So anyway. It's bull crap. I want that vaccine. I agree. We need to get you the vaccine.

Yeah, here's the national estimate of COVID-19 incidents per 100,000 populations from the CDC. And it's really 18 to 29 is number one. but then 85 plus is number two, and that's because of nursing homes. But the mortality rates are much higher in 85 plus, and that's almost three times higher than people in 75 to 84, and then 65 to 74 is half again that much, and then it just starts to drift off to almost nothing. Anyway, yeah, we're seeing this third phase.

Now, we are recording this on Friday, January 8th, 2020, in case this thing gets replayed. And what I'm seeing at COVID.stoutlabs.com right now, which is the best website for visualizing this data, is that the new cases in the United States are starting to level off. Now, cases, me, you know, cases in the best way to judge this, because what if we're judging case? So what if we run out of testing materials? If we ran out of testing materials, new cases, as far as some of these things, the way that they were reporting them, would drop off to nothing.

Well, as people may still be getting sick like crazy. So new hospitalizations and new deaths are interesting to look at because that's really what we're interested in, right? I mean, purportedly, the reason that we're doing all these lockdowns is to keep from overwhelming the medical system, right? so in our health system there are you know COVID units where I didn't even know we had beds before so and when people say why are we doing all these lockdowns I'm not a fan of lockdowns myself and I think you protect the vulnerable everybody else keeps away from each other to the extent that you can and when you can't you wear a mask hoping hoping that it will decrease transmission somewhat, but trying to stay out of crowds as much as you possibly can.

And when you do that, then the health system so far seems to be able to handle it, but a lot of health systems are getting right close up to that brink where if this continues to increase, they're going to have problems. And it's not necessarily, I was in a meeting the other day. It was like, well, we've got plenty of medication. What we're running low on are things like syringes. Oh, really? Yeah. So with this influx of need to give people vaccines, there are some sites that will have vaccine but not have syringes.

So it's just stuff like that because everything's got to be in place at the same time. I mean, think about it. Just sending out 300 million vaccines, you've got to have 300 million little bottles and 300 million little caps and the little septum that goes in there. if the supplier that supplies everybody with the rubber that you put the syringe through somehow is delayed, well, there's no vaccine going out. You know, that becomes the rate limiting step. And then 300 million labels and then the little cardboard partitions that go in the box and the whole damn thing. You know, everything's got to fall into place perfectly. And American industry has gotten pretty good at that just-in-time kind of operation.

But still, there are vulnerabilities there. And so, anyway, I'm just rambling at this point. That's okay. I guess you want me to talk, but I'm not really in the mood. No, it's okay. I'm trying to have a conversation, but I'm okay monologing. Just go to COVID.com. You can look at new hospitalizations.

And, again, that's really where the rubber hits the road, because we could have cases going through the roof of people aren't getting sick enough to go to the hospital. and not ending up on the ventilator and dying, and then taking up beds in parts of the hospital that have never kept acutely ill people before and then preventing people from getting things that they need, like colonoscopies, because we're going to have, there will be an uptick in advanced cancers after this thing

because people are not getting their colonoscopies like they would have for a year now. And you can think of lots of other things like that that are just not being done. Going to the dermatologist, I need to go and get my skin checked. Yeah. I've never had it. I've got a couple of places and I don't want to go. How is that place on your chest doing?

It's looking better. It's still there, though. It's still there, but it's a lot better. Yeah, I need to biopsy that. Fun. Yeah, loads of fun. But anyway, if we can do that, then it doesn't matter. We can go back to functioning as normal.

Yes, we'll have this virus that's running through, but it's just the act of the virus running through. Our populace doesn't require us to lock down everything. It's trying to keep the medical system from completely collapsing. And so far we've avoided that in most places. Maybe I would venture to say all places as far as complete and utter collapse that hasn't happened. I'm just tired of being afraid. You know, I'm sick of it.

I get it. I do get it. So, yeah, I think public health is important. That's something that if it's being underfunded, it needs to be funded at a higher level. Because we are not the greatest country in the world when it comes to preventative maintenance, for example. Or mental health. We're terrible at mental health. Are we?

Yes. What's the data on that? Are other countries better than us? I'm not going to spit out data because I don't know it, but I mean. So you feel that that's a case. No, I think any psychiatrist or psychologist you talk to would tell you there's just not enough funding for mental health, period. And people who are sick and who need to see people aren't getting in. Yeah, that is a problem.

You know, the state will say, if you're going to prescribe a benzodiazepine, which is a drug like Valium. And an opioid or a narcotic like oxycodone, you have to get a mental health consult to say whether the benzodiazepine drug is appropriate. And we just, you know, this is one of these, you know, because there's where we're supposed to send them to. Yeah, exactly. You know, there's not enough mental health providers out there for us to send. all these people too to get this approval or you know blessing the the plan or whatever so but the state mandates these things but they don't give us any way to to implement those things a lot of people need help and they're not getting it yeah yeah one country uh encouraging mental health awareness is

luxembourg of course there's what a 50 people live there you think we could move there I mean, I'm just, I'm opening, I'm open to options at this point. Yeah. It says here, while many, this is an article from talkspace.com, that wonderful medical journal, but while many countries struggle with opening the discussion around mental health care, the United States was ranked third for burden of mental and behavioral disorder. I would say that's true, adjusting for population size by, oh, by the World Health Organization. I wonder who was first, according to the National Alliance on Men's,

mental illness, 47.6 million adults, that's almost 20% in the United States experienced a mental illness in 2018. Well, now, how are they defining mental illness? They had a panic attack, or is it people, you know, mere spacecraft controlling their bowels? Let me see. It says here that 26 million Americans with a mental illness are still going untreated. So again, not 100% sure how they're defining mental illness. Let's go to this World Health Organization. I'm going to see who's worse than us. Now, now that takes me to a page that's just worthless.

So I don't know. I would like to know. Once you look that up, if you can. I'm sorry, what? Sorry. Not even less. Sorry, but I'm serious. What?

Okay, it said, while many countries struggle with opening the discussion around mental health, the United States was ranked third for burden of mental and behavioral disorder. I want to know who's ranked first. It says according by the World Health Organization, but just put ranking for burden of mental health and behavioral disorder. I would do it, but then we've had enough dead air today. All right.

While you're doing that, I'll do this one. My name's Aaron. I'm calling from Canada. Hey, Aaron. I'm a healthy 36-year-old male. I listen to your guys a show every week, and you guys are great company while I make my weekly 500 kilometers commute to work. Oh, my goodness. What is that?

Four miles? Well, roughly five years ago, I had an experience with. What's 500 kilometers days? I can't do two things at once. I think it's 300 miles or something. And I don't even know what, like, I can't even find an article on this. Okay. Bull crap.

You don't have to, you can just look while I answer this. And I'm telling you, I can't find it. It's okay. I don't know what article you were on. I'm getting... Okay, you don't have to give us the commentary. True global burdens, but I'm not getting... You know what?

Echo, how many miles is 500 kilometers? Why, we're Scott? 500 kilometers is about 310 miles. Oh, okay. Hey, I was right. How about that? It's Friday one day. I can't...

Uh-oh, I have a friend calling me. I have to give yourself a bill. I'm going to have to take that. Okay. Well, feel first. free to do so off the air. How about that? How would that be? Would that suit you?

Jesus Christ. It's that cluster. Okay. Born with one kidney and apparently it's roughly twice. Oh, wait a minute. Okay. I also had an ultrasound. You know, I make my weekly 500 kilometer commute to work.

Okay, 310 miles, I think. So roughly five years ago, I had an experience with hematosphermia. Seamen was a pinkish red color. Okay, so he's talking about hematospermia. We have talked about it on the show, but it's been a long time. It's blood and the semen.

Ooh. Clear it up pretty quick. Do you remember when I had that? No. Was it a pretty pink color? No. It was blood red, and it was when we were in Jamaica. Ooh. You don't remember this? Well, you were probably three. I hope I had consent that night.

I doubt you did. If you don't remember it. I doubt you did. Yeah, it was bad. And then I ended up having to have the the scope and then I ran into that person's car and I left the scene of the accident we'll talk about that in a minute let this person in appointment with my family doctor right away they did blood work and a urinalysis both came back normal course I also had an ultrasound on my bladder and kidney which also came back normal course the conclusion was idiopathic I was born with one

kidney and apparently it's roughly twice the size of a normal one. So fast forward to October 2020, then I had another episode of hematospirmia. I'd also like to add I had it the second year around four months prior to the second episode. Shouldn't have made any difference. And it was discovered. I only have one Vaz deference. Apparently, this is common in people born with one kidney.

This time, it looked like pure blood. It was also accompanied with extreme pain in my paint while ejaculating and I have also to develop some erectile disabilities. I called the urologist right away who performed. I just realized he's reading this. He is reading this, yeah. That's actually an okay thing. I mean, yeah.

He's written down all his thoughts and he doesn't want to leave anything out. That's right. And he's got a little outline. And he said to get to a doctor right away in case I had an infection. So I received some antibiotics from a walking clinic as I was away from home. and when I got home, I made another employment with my family doctor. This time my blood work came back with slightly high hemoglobin and white blood cell count. I was told this was normal and I should donate blood.

What? The urinalysis came back normal again. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. This time my blood work came back with slightly high hemolubin and white blood cell count. I was told this was normal and I should donate blood. Okay, slightly high.

The urinalysis came back normal again. Testosternal level was right around the 300 mark and was told this is normal. This time I was given an ultrasound on my testicles and a small lesion was found on my right testicle. The ultrasound tech didn't think it was anything to be concerned about and I will have to come back for a follow-up ultrasound in three months' time to see if it has changed. I wasn't really happy with the... Wait a minute. The tech, surely to goodness, it was the radiologist. that said that.

And what they would normally say is there was a thing found here where it's indeterminate. We recommend follow up in three months to see if it's growing. And then the primary care provider would interpret that and then decide whether they want to agree with that or send the person to a urologist. So I'm really hoping that it wasn't the tech that said that. Final outcome, I've come back in three months and was wondering what your thoughts are on this whole situation. I also asked my doctor if I could get a CT scan.

but they said no because of the exposure to radiation was worth it at this point. Yeah, I don't disagree with that because that's not the right workup. So hematospirmia can also be called hemospermia, and it is defined as the presence of blood and the ejaculate, and it causes anxiety in men when it happened to me in a foreign country. Even though I knew, you know, I've treated lots of people with it, And I've always counseled them that the vast majority of time it's completely benign occurrence when it happens. Of course, I'm assuming that I'm the one where it's not benign.

And patients who are above 40 years of age and people with risk factors need to be thoroughly evaluated. This guy has some risk factors because he has one kidney and one vas deference and he doesn't have a normal immune. you know, a normal GI tract, sorry, GU tract. And in that case, you would want to do a more thorough evaluation. So there is an examination that's mandatory. They need to do blood pressure, need to palpate the abdomen to look for enlarged spleen or enlarge kidneys, and then you do a genital examination. You're looking for testicular lumps, which they did through ultrasound.

But for any discharge, and you want to do a rectal exam to look at the prostate. The next thing that you do is you don't do all this other BS is you do cystoscopy. And cystoscopy is what I had, and Scott had one, too, where they take a little thin fiber optic scope and shove it up your cockhole. Oh. Poor feller. No, it's, it's, I'm being ridiculous. Does it sound worse than it is? It does sound worse than it is.

It was not fun, I will tell you that. I would imagine. They take jelly that has anesthetic on it called lytocaine, and then they put it on the end of this tube before they shove it up into your urethral meatus. and that is really just to make the urologist feel better. It doesn't do anything to make us feel better because I felt every inch of that thing. But it wasn't the worst thing in the world.

I've had worse. But when it was taken out, I felt like someone had taken a razor blade and kind of dragged it across the inside of the urethra or the tube going from the bladder to the outside world. And which is why when I backed into somebody in the parking lot, I got out, I surveyed, saw no damage, and I just got in my car and left because I had to go lay down. The pain probably lasted an hour or two, and it was worse when I avoided my bladder, as you can imagine. But then that was it. And it was worth doing because what they're trying to accomplish is they're visualizing the inside of the bladder without cutting you open.

And the peace of mind that I got from knowing that I did not have a tumor in my bladder or in the urethra was absolutely worth the discomfort that I went through. So I probably should have driven you that day. Well, who knew? You know, they shouldn't have, they said it wasn't any big deal. And I wasn't under anesthesia at all. And the jelly just didn't really do anything. Like I said, it just made him feel better that he. He was doing something.

But, yeah, and then the police showed up and said, hey, did you leave the scene of an accident? I said, no, I backed into somebody's car, and I looked at it. There was no accident. And he said, well, you know, they're saying there was damage. It was to the wrong side. You know, I know what part of the car that I hit, what they did was they had damage, and then they decided, oh, we got this. Here's an opportunity. Here's an opportunity.

We got this guy's license number. Let's claim that he caused this damage. And then I ended up having to pay for it. But anyway, I should have just stayed there. But, you know, I was really in a hurry to get the hell home. You were a mess. And you also said, I think there's no damage to the car. So maybe I hit the curb.

Like, you didn't know what you hit. Yeah, that's true. That's true. But I do know what side of the car. would have been yeah there was zero damage to the car where I hit it I mean it was just one of those things where you you feel the resistance and your car you know isn't going back at the same rate that it was before well don't you feel good about fixing their car I do I feel I feel okay about it because it's no skin off my bones now you know it was a grand that you know I missed at the

time but I don't miss it now it was 10 years ago but anyway so yeah so that's what I would recommend that they do is a cystoscopy, but then the ultrasound is correct. And if there's an enlarged prostate or a nodule on your prostate and you're at risk, then maybe a prostate biopsy, but most of the time, no. And, you know, all these prosthetic pathologies are easier to find using that transrectal ultrasound, which where they take a probe and shove it up the other. orifice that's down there, your anus, and they can get the probe right up against the wall of the prostate, which is why it's great to do it this way.

Because remember, the backside of the prostate is the front side of the rectum. That's why we can stick our finger in the rectum and feel the prostate, but you can also put an ultrasound probe up there and take pictures of the inside of the prostate looking for tumors and stuff like that. So, you know, the MRI can be used to rule out rare causes of hematospirmia and doesn't cause ionizing radiation like a CT scan does. So I don't disagree that the CT scan isn't the best way to go. It exposes you to low doses of radiation.

That's, to me, not that big of a deal if you're just having one. but it doesn't do as good a job at diagnosing these kinds of things as an MRI does. So MRI uses microwaves. And there you go. So basically, and then after you do all of that, the vast, vast majority of people are completely benign. Have no syndrome that needs to be treated further. The fact that you had it twice tells me that this needs to be evaluated, though. That, to me, increases the risk that there's something else going on.

So cystoscopy, I'd go to a urologist, let them do their protocol, okay, and get out of the primary care office for this one thing, because this is really at this point, since its recurrent is beyond the scope of their practice, in my opinion. That doesn't mean they're doing anything wrong. I'm just saying it's time to move up to the next level. All right. And in Canada, it's probably easier for a urologist to get some of these things approved than it would be for the primary care. I'm just assuming that that's true if I'm wrong. Someone from Canada, correct me on that. Hey, Dr. Steve, Tango from Houston.

Hey, Tango. Hope your stupid nuts are free of lumps. I have a question about the COVID saliva test. Where's Kahn? I recently took and tested negative. Okay. Actually turned out to be a false negative. Oh.

And I was wondering. Oh, God. I'm still kind of sick over here. I was wondering, as I researched through the guidelines for taking the or administering the saliva test, that they didn't appear to do it properly when I went to the test site. They asked us to cough three times into our masks. They also asked us to swab our own cheeks and roof of our mouth and such. And as I researched it, I saw that the proper way to get the saliva was to kind of drool into a cup. So I'm wondering if you think that the administration of this test, the way that it's kind of self-administered,

is accounting for some of the false negatives out there. I had to dig pretty deep to find that guideline. Well, and it depends on the test, too. so there are some tests that require a deep dive into your sinus cavity basically into the turbinates in the back of your nose and some that are sensitive enough that you could do it from the front of the nose there are some that you have a long swab and it's inserted into the back of your throat which is called an oropharyngeal swab and most people can't do that because it'll cause a gag reflex that's pretty severe. fear. So they'll find it hard to do. It's a lot easier to shove a tongue depressor in

somebody's mouth pushed down on the back of their tongue, which makes them go like that. And when they do that, then you can, it opens up and you can swab the back of their throat. Is that why they do that? I never knew that. Yeah. Yeah, just to get the tongue out of the way, really. And

then other ones, you spit into a tube to produce the saliva sample. So just swabbing the inside of your mouth, though. I've not seen a test that has that protocol. They may have had one, and that may be on their protocol. So you have, but it is very important, and you bring up a good point, that testing does no good if you don't follow the instructions that are included with the test.

So centers have to follow proper protocol. they have to handle the samples properly. They've got to bag them up properly and send them off correctly in the right kind of containers. I've seen viral samples where people were doing herpes swabs, for example, and they would stick it in the wrong transport medium, and the virus dies. All those will be negative. So that has to be done properly, or it won't work. And those of us, when we're, you know, I'm a patient too.

when I go to my primary care provider or to specialists, you're assuming they know what the hell they're doing. And most of the time they do. But every once in a while, there will be issues. Just like when you go to the pharmacy, and every once in a while, you'll get the wrong pill. It's one time in maybe 10,000. But it happens because we're dealing with human beings.

So you always want to check that stuff. That happened to a friend of ours recently. And they... You know, which is, by the way, the argument that I use why you shouldn't do street drugs, because if you can't 100% trust what you're getting from a pharmacy where there's been checks and balances all the way, from manufacturing through distribution through dispensing, and still, you know, one time in a thousand or one time in 10,000, or whatever the number is, there will be an error. If I can't 100% trust my local pharmacist who I basically do trust to a very high degree,

how in the hell am I going to trust some guy making this crap in their bathtub or in a lab in their basement? I mean, come on. Yeah, give me a break. A toothless one at that. Yeah, it's right. You want some lab. You can have you some. How about one of my scabs while you're at it?

Well, you know that's a real thing, right? Yes. Yeah, meth scabs, because you can secrete methamphetamine through your pores that if you have a scab, it can become concentrated in the scab, and you can eat it and get you a little bit. Oh, geez. Yeah. So the CDC says that you may spit into a tube to produce a saliva sample. Results are available in minutes of analyzed onsite or a few days or longer, if sent to an out. outside lab. And the PCR tests, which is what those are, are very accurate when properly

performed by a health care professional. All right. So, yeah, there's no real recourse for this unless you say, let me look at the protocol, read it, make sure they're doing it. I would say 99.9% of places are administering their COVID-19 tests properly. But, you know, he also brings another point up. How many times have we heard of false positives and false negatives with these tests? Right. I mean, no matter what kind of test it is, we know a bunch of people who've had false positives and the next two would be negative.

Tell me one test that's 100% accurate, even colonoscopy is not 100% sensitive. So sensitivity is that measure of, how many people you're getting that are positive that actually have the disease. So sensitivity, you want to cast a wide net to catch all of the people that you can possibly get. And then when you do that, you follow it up with a, this is for screening tests, with a more specific test that would be negative in health. In other words, you're going to have very few false positives in a very specific test. and so the tests that you get should be true positives

and they should be mostly true negatives as well. So there will be false positive tests and everything. It doesn't mean the test is worthless. I hear, well, there's false positives, so that test no good. It's just like this whole thing, masks don't work if they don't work 100% of the time. My position is if they work 10% of the time, they work enough to serve a purpose. I'm not saying that there should be mask mandates and all that crap, because I don't believe in that. But I do feel that they serve a purpose, and just because they don't work 100% of the time,

as a matter of fact, maybe they don't work 90% of the time. They still have some value. So even more so on something like this, let's say a 5% false negative rate, that still serves a purpose. because what you want to look at is the pre-test probability. That's where the rubber hits the road when it comes to testing. So what percentage of the time would you say masks are effective? I'm going to, okay, well, going back to that, and I'll just forget about the argument I was making.

We'll come back to it. Sorry. No, it's okay. I'm just kidding. You know, you started saying that, and then I kept thinking about me at the gym with my mask. I'm thinking I'm okay. Yep, yeah.

Okay. Well, if you're thinking it, other people are thinking it, too. So it's important for me to address that. Let's say it's only 10% of the time. But is it only 10% of the time? It depends. And it depends on the mask. And it depends on who's wearing it and how they're wearing it and all that crap.

Right. So let's just say, though, that it's only 10% of the time that they're effective. Well, you know, well, somebody that's an anti-mask or give me that and say that, well, yeah, 90% of the time it doesn't work. That 10% is enough to prevent. enough cases of COVID-19 that certain states that have a very low level of disease could get their level so low that they would start seeing decline in their case rates. And we've talked about this before, that R sub-T, the effective reproduction rate. If you can get it, so if it's at 1.0, then 100 people give it to 100 people and you will always have disease. but it will be at a low level and it won't be increasing.

So if you look at the curve, it'll be linear. If the R sub T is two, that one person is infecting two people, then one person will give it to 200, or 100, will give it to 200, we'll give it to 400, give it to 800, 1,600. And so you'll see that geometric curve rising up. But if the R sub T is less than one, let's say it's 0.9, this is the example. I always give them 1,000 people, we'll give it to 900,

we'll give it to 810, we'll give it to 720, and you'll see decline. So if you have, let's just say you're in a place where the R sub T is 1.1, well, now let's try 1.05. And then decreasing transmission by 10%, we'll get that number below 1, and you'll start to see declining cases. Okay. So to ask me, what's the percentage of time that masks work? Yeah, it's not a fair question, is it? Well, it's a very fair question. and it's just not easy to answer.

I mean, because you're right, different masks and different people, how they wear them. I see people wearing masks in the grocery store, and I didn't stop in anything because they're wearing them under their chin. You know, people, a chin diaper, just don't even wear it. If you're going to do that, just say, I'm not wearing a freaking mask. I mean, that just almost shows a level of cynicism or disdain that's unseemly, really. Well, I'm going to wear it, but I'm going to wear it on the top of my head. Yeah, I might as well not wear one. Well, no, don't wear one.

You look goofy. Just don't. You look stupid. I'd rather not wear one than look that stupid. And we have, I work with this guy, and he can't stand to talk when he has his mask on. So when he's talking, he pulls the mask down. It's like, dude, that's when you need. Is this a physician?

I'm not going to say. Oh, no. But that, you know, it's like, dude, that's when you need to be wearing it. If you're asymptomatic, you could possibly. Have you spoken to him about this? Of course. And when he's at Subway and he does that, they go, sir, you have to wear your man. Oh, no, you had lunch with him?

Yeah, yeah, all the time. Great. He's a friend of mine. Oh, nice. All right. Hey, Dr. Steve. I'm Brady, and you told me to call in and ask you a question about this New York Times. article, U.S. officials consider half doses of Moderna's vaccine to give more people,

at least some immunity. So I wanted to ask you what the deal there was. Thank you. Have a good day. Yep, yep. Thank you. Thank you. Excellent. What an interesting voice. Oh, yeah. Or inflection. Okay, so some people have said, if we want to give more vaccines, give everybody a half dose. and that way we'll have twice as many vaccines. I'd take a half dose. Yeah, would you, though? You know what? I'd take a quarter of a dose right now.

All my friends are in the health care field. They've all got it, and I'm, and... Yeah, okay. Two of them are going and holding down bar stools, as they said, and what am I doing? Sitting in here with you doing radio. I'm 100%... Watching Virgin River. Oh, boy.

It's really pretty sad. Maybe Cobra Kai later on if I get low. Oh, now that's a good one. You know what else is a good one? What? The Great British Baking Show. Yes. So are you team Mary Berry or team Prue?

I like them both. Yeah, I do like them both. I love the faces Mary Berry makes when somebody says something nonsensical. She's got no poker face at all. Somebody said they were going to make a cookie out of Bergamon. and lavender, and she looked like she was going to just vomit on the tail. The greatest looks on her face. If you've not watched that show, you really should.

I always thought it sounded really stupid, but it's very, very entertaining. It's lovely to watch. It's better for me than Valium. If I come home and I'm all nerved up because I've been in COVID hell all day, and then I come home and we put that on as soon as I hear that music, I'm good. Everything's all right. It is. It's just lovely.

and I've learned a shitload. Now I'm buying all of Paul Hollywood's baking books. And look, and I'm like, ooh, what can I bake this weekend? That hem and cheese thing you were talking about. I'm by God making it. It's called a carone. Put mayo on it or butter. I guess that's French for crown because it looks like a crown.

And yeah, you make a dough and you put, and it's not mayo. You put goat cheese. No, I thought I was, you could put mayo on. Oh, hell yeah, you could. You can put mayo on anything taste. Or butter. And so you make this dough and you prove it and then you roll it out. Can't prove it too much or too little. It has to be just right. Too much and it will collapse. Too little and it'll be too dense. So people who watch the show know what we're talking about. And then you take like prosciutto and you lay it down and then goat cheese and then basil leaves. come on now and you roll it up real tight

no onions no onions because that would be good we could do that you roll it up real tight and then you slice it down the middle except you keep it whole right at the very end

and so you slice it into two things so it's opened up right and then you twist those opened up things around each other just in a twirl like a twizzler and then you get into a circle and join it up and then you bake it

and so when you bake it all the stuff that's inside, some of it will be exposed to the outside and it cooks a little bit more than what's on the inside. And it looks really, really cool. And I bet it tastes insanely great, so I'm making that this week. Oh, yummy. So there you go. Thank you.

Along with the low carb I am such a fan. Cottage pie. Oh, yes, and I will make that as well. And we learned the difference between Shepherd's Pie and Cottage Pie too on that. The cottage pies with beef and Shepherd's Pie is like. Now, that was from Sam, the Cooking God.

Oh, was it? Yes. Okay. Well, anyway, we're watching a lot of different cooking shows. Sam, the cooking guy, is our other favorite guy. We probably have a better chance of meeting him sometime in the future than we do Paul Hollywood and Prue and a Nolan Matt. But anyway, it's fun, though. Okay, so where were we?

We were talking about splitting up not the Corona, but the Moderna. Moderna vaccine or Pfizer vaccine. So, yes, why not give a half dose? Well, the reason is that they didn't study it at that level. I knew that's what you were going to say. And that's what they got approval. And the FDA says they've got some real concerns of using a single dose regimen or administering less than the dose studied without understanding the nature and the depth

and the duration of the protection that that provides. And they say, and this is from their. from the FDA's website is there some indication the depth of the immune response is associated with the duration of the protection provided. If people do not truly know how protective a vaccine is, there's a potential for harm because they may assume they're fully protected when they are not and accordingly alter their behavior and end up taking unnecessary risks. So I will guarantee you Pfizer and Moderna are looking now that they've got the thing approved and it's out there. Pfizer is studying how stable is their vaccine at higher temperatures, guaranteed they're doing that.

And if they find that their vaccine is stable at higher temperatures, they will apply for FDA approval, and then they'll be able to ship it at these higher temperatures. They didn't opt for that in the beginning because Pfizer wasn't screwing around. They're saying we're going to be first on the market, and we're going to test it at a temperature that we absolutely know will be stable. without any question so we don't have to go back to the drawing board later. So that's how they got approval. But they got approval at whatever it is, a minus 2,000 degrees, whatever the temperature is. No, 3 degrees above absolute zero.

And now it's approved at that. They have to market it at that, and they have to ship it at that. It has to be administered and stored at that temperature. Not administered at that temperature, but stored at that temperature. temperature, and then cooled according to a protocol and all this stuff because that's how they applied to the FDA. Now, they can modify that later if they get better data. Same thing with both of them looking at a single dose regimen or a half dose regimen.

If they choose to, they can study those. And then if they're effective, they can apply to the FDA and then they can be approved. But I would not recommend that crap. I mean, I was just joking, but really. No, no, no, no, I know. I get it. I know. I totally understand where you're coming from, but I wouldn't recommend it at all.

Okay, well, let's do a few more before we get out of here. What do you say? Okay. I'll do whatever you want because you're the boss man. Dave, it's Mike from New York. How are you doing? Hey, Mike. Hey, we're doing pretty good.

I'm doing fine. Thank you. Hope you and Casey and. God, I got the timing wrong. Let's try that again. You know, they go to all this trouble and then I mess it up. That's right. Hey, Dr. Steve, it's Mike from New York.

Hey, Mike. How are you doing? Hey, I'm doing good, man. How are you? I'm doing fine. Thank you. Hope you and Casey and everyone are doing well. No complaints.

Thanks, man. I have a question. I was at my doctor getting my infusion at the infusion center. By the way, I think this guy called, or somebody texted me and said, oh, crap, I forgot to do the bit at the beginning and then called back. So we do enjoy that because it's so ridiculous. And I realized I didn't have my pneumonia vaccine. It's been five years, so I was getting a pneumonia vaccine also. And I was just curious.

I asked the nurse, and she didn't know. If you take a vaccine or any subcutaneous injection, intravenously, what happens? Is that less potent, more potent? Because I figured, while they had the needle in my arm, they could put it in the bag like they do my bed. and my steroid and my steroid, I was just curious as to why they do not do that with the vaccines if you already have a needle in your and are getting medication.

Hope that makes sense. Yeah, sure, it goes. Thank you. Have a good day. Yeah, actually, there have been some studies on the modes of administration for vaccines and whether they work. and I haven't seen a lot on intravenous. And the reason is what you're doing is you're injecting antigens into the body,

and you want them to hang around for a while. So viral particles or proteins that are on the surface of these things or even bacterial cell proteins that the body can make antibodies against. And you want them to hang around for a while. So if you inject them into the bloodstream, they can cause some issues or they'll just be gone because the body will just eliminate them. Whereas if you inject them into muscle, then the body has to eliminate them has to mobilize cells to come find them. And that's called chemotactics where these cells will form. follow a gradient toward the sores.

And so the cells, it's really amazing. They can tell from where the gradient is that it's getting more and more concentrated, so they'll go toward that area of increased concentration. And then you have cells that are now discovering these proteins that are there and signaling to other cells to recruit them, to come, hey, we got a problem. There's an invader here, and then plasma cells are now starting to generate antibodies against those cells, and you'll get the IGM, which is the early antibody, and then later on you'll get IGG, which is the antibody that you detect in the bloodstream after you've had an infection, when you've got a resolving or resolved infection. All these things are happening. And to do that takes time.

And just injecting protein into the vein is fraught with problems because, number one, it'll get cleared quickly. And number two, the viral product or the, you know, the proteins may end up in a place that you don't want them to end up. And you don't want inflammation. Let's say they got deposited in your kidney and then you have inflammation there. You don't want that. You don't mind inflammation in the. muscle of your arm, you don't want inflammation being generated in your kidney. So anyway, I'm just looking at an article here to see if there's anything about, okay,

here's mucosal vaccination. Most pathogens enter the human host via mucous membranes. Vaccination in the mucous membrane using subunus-based vaccines may not be able to elicit adequate systemic immune responses because of many enzymes that are present in the mucosal tissue. So what they're saying is you could put it in the mucous membrane because that's where we, a lot of times come in contact with it, when you stick your finger in your nose and you take a virus and you get it in your nose and then you get infected, it's starting

at the mucous membrane. The problem is there are so many enzymes that are there to break down proteins like that that they feel that's not going to be a good, a good mechanism. Let's see, aerosol inoculation of recombinant adenoviral vaccine, induced comparable protection. Okay, so what they're talking about here is the flumist vaccine, which is a nasal spray. That actually works pretty well, but it's a live virus. So you're actually squirting live virus up your nose, and of course that will work.

Let's see here. What about those allergists who do? drops. Yeah, I've seen varying success rates with that. That's a different thing, is putting antigens under the tongue and then eliciting an immune response to those antigens that will block the immune response later on. And whether it works under the tongue or not, I don't know. I know that under the skin has been proven to work under the tongue. I've seen, as I said, I've seen some My immunologists say it's complete hoarse hokey, but then you hear patients say it really works for them. I've heard both.

I would like to do that. Maybe we should look into that. Let's put a note to ourselves to research that for a future show. I don't have any paper. What am I supposed to do? Well, you want mouth and do any of you? You can send me a text or an email, I think. Okay, I'll text you, but you won't read it.

There's this thing taste. It's called electronic mail, and it's mail delivered electronically, as our friends Ron and Fez would say. You are such an ass. Okay, so the anatomical site of injection has been shown to affect the efficacy of a vaccine. And this is partly because antigen administered via different anatomical sites interacts with diverse subsets of immune cells, which directs a drastically different immune response. That's interesting, isn't it? So that the immunogenicity of a vaccine is lower after intramuscular injection,

into the buttocks than other reasons, such as the thigh or, you know, for pertussis, diphtheriotetanus, and the deltoid muscle for other vaccines. So that is interesting, isn't it? That the ass muscle doesn't recruit

as many immune cells as to say the arm muscle does. So I'm looking for micro needle. Okay, needle free injection. Here we go. Needle-free injections can be delivered by liquid jet injectors and ballistic injectors, which are driven by a high-pressor gas and can respectively deliver liquid-based vaccines or powder vaccines intraderminally,

subcutaneously or intramuscularly. Okay, that's still not IV. Ultrasonication. Yeah, so they're not even looking at IV for the reasons that I think I mentioned. It's got to sit somewhere for a while for the body to develop an immune response. If you do it IV, it's just gone too quickly. interesting question hmm

it's me again I don't know hey but I did have a I think it's a good question this time what about this is big Ed I think it's Stacy DeLoch I think he said it's me again

what about starting a little 30 second to one minute segment each show about the body part I can give you an answer on that. No, thank you. No, thank you. I'm not going to do the work on that.

I don't have to be my job. I was curious to know if the R-SOTE rate of infection is very close to one, which it is in most states. Yep. Yeah, it is. If you go to RT. Let's do that right now, because yesterday the highest state, I think, was Georgia. and it was still just like 1.2, something like that. Let's see, yeah, it is still Georgia.

And the estimate of the R sub T, which we talked about earlier, the number of people in the real world that will be infected by someone that's infected is 1.2. So, okay, so that's the highest in the country right now. The recovery rate is pretty good. The symptoms are, for most people, are mostly mild. Right. why all the panic? Why go through all of this?

It's because of large numbers. That's really why. When you're looking at large numbers, 1% of a billion is still a very large number. I will take 1% of $10 billion, for example. You can deposit that in my account right now. I'll take it, too. Yeah.

I'd call my company right away. That's right. And just because I have trouble with decimal points, Echo, what's 1% of $10 billion? I think I know the answer. One percent of $10 billion is $100 million. Yeah, that's what I thought. I could take that. You know, I would take that. So that's the problem is, yes, the relative numbers are low.

The absolute numbers in human terms are pretty high. We could afford an ocean front. We have, yeah, the difference between the top 2% and the top 1%? is pretty incredible, you know? I mean, we do okay, but I go, when we go on vacation, we go to these places and there's this house after house after house after house. It's like we couldn't afford that in a million years. Who are all these people?

I mean, it's just endless. You go to these, like coastal towns, these marinas, it's just endless. All the way down the coast, it's like all houses we could never afford. And we do pretty good. you know wow anyway who are these people drug runners

may not it can't all be drug runners so but anyway why was I saying that I don't know huh oh shit I lost my train of thought me too did you I wasn't even really thinking

you weren't even listening to me no not really I feel like running this tape back and finding out I'm you know what by God I'm going to this is the first time in the history of this show because usually I've got Scott here to say, oh, well, you were talking about.

And the fact that that stoned out nut can remember what I was talking about when I can't remember. But there was a reason for this. We will be right back. You're listening to Weird Medicine. Okay. Now I remember. We were talking about the panic over this.

So it's just large numbers. And here's the thing. Yes, the vast, vast. vast majority of people do very well, but the people who are not doing well are really entering the medical system at rates that we have never seen before. So I have offered, except I can't get you into the hospital, to take people into one of our hospitals and just show them what the hell I'm talking about, because it's COVID unit after COVID unit after COVID unit, Whereas before, maybe these were units where people were delivering babies before or just regular medical med surge beds.

Whole ICUs have been commandeered to handle nothing but COVID-19. So this is something different than what we've seen before. And again, as we alluded to earlier, and I won't belabor the point. But if we go much further with these numbers, I'm really hoping, and you know, the numbers look pretty faint. favorable if you go to COVID.com and look at this simple moving average, that we are at the top of the peak right now and it's going to start declining. Even with Christmas just a couple of weeks ago? Yeah, because really we should be seeing those now. Okay. Christmas. And New Year's should be coming. I forgot about New Year's. Was New Year's that big of a deal this year? I mean,

it's not to us, but I mean, other people do stuff. So today we're recording this on the 8th. I would expect to see New Year's around the 15th. So we may have another week of increasing cases. Now, a lot of health systems, including ours and lots of other ones, are treating people at home, too, to the extent that they can. And that, those are, that's a whole lot of people that aren't being included in these hospitalization numbers, but are being treated. And if they all of a sudden came into the hospital, then there would be a problem. So, so that's why. That's the 100% reason why, and it's not just because of COVID-19, it's because if we have scarce resources for them, we have them for everybody else, too. And it's not even ventilators.

One thing that this administration did was make sure that we have all the ventilators that we'll ever need. We're fine on that. It's staff. That's the problem. Who's going to run the ventilators? And that's what you're going to run out of staff before you're going to run out of equipment at this point. so that's why and but i see light at there is light at the end of the tunnel we have the vaccine we have this monoclonal antibody that if people would just use it uh that you can give before people

go into the hospital if you're at uh certain risk groups uh so if you have COVID 19 you're over 65 you can get it if you are morbidly obese that would be a BMI greater than 35 body mass index greater than 35. And if you don't know what your body mass index is, just Google it, and there's body mass calculators. You put in your height and your weight, that's it. If you have a depressed immune system for any reason, chemotherapy or an immune deficiency of any kind, or on other drugs that cause a depressed immune response, then you can get

it. And people who are diabetic. Those are the biggies. So you can't get it if you don't have that. Right. Well, they don't have the supply, so they're keeping. it down to people at high risk that are likely, or not likely, at higher risk to end up with complications or severe disease, to prevent that from happening.

And it's been pretty effective in that regard. So it decreases people's risk of ending up in the hospital and ending up and dying. When do you think peons will get the vaccine? Like when are we thinking normal people? I was thinking it was going to be sooner than people thought because there's a lot of people in health care aren't taking it. but if we're going to vaccinate all the 65-year-olds, then it may be, I'm going to say optimistically, February, and then maybe mid-February at the latest early March is what my guess is at this point. Oh, the money.

I know it. All right. And then, okay, so let's check and see. Can you maybe raise your mic a little bit? You want me to Google. Okay. No, I want you to raise your mic a little bit. What, can you hear me breathe it?

Yes. Well, you know what? People do that. People breathe. I mean, for goodness sake. No, I remember when double vasectomy turd used to be here and his nose whistled or something and it was driving people insane. Because remember back in the day, there used to be five of us in here. And one person would be breathing into the mic.

And I would get all these complaints. So I'm just, I know how you are. I don't want to complain. I've breathed everybody. Can you stop breathe? Sorry about that. Okay, let's see here. Really, sorry.

Sorry, I just, I don't want, you know. Everyone else. My name is Danny. I'm, uh, okay, hang on. See, now that's perfect. I can't hear anything. Okay, here we go. Well, I'm glad.

Hi, Dr. Steve, Casey. Everyone else. Hey, man. My name is Danny. I'm calling about the, uh, the vaccine. Okay. Um, my wife and I are trying to get pregnant. Congratulations.

We already have one son, but we're trying for a second. And I've heard reports that it could cause sterility getting the vaccine. I just wanted to get your thoughts. Thank you. Y'all have a great day. Okay. Yes, thank you. There is absolutely no sign that the COVID-19 vaccine causes sterility.

And let me see. Okay, I have something. Yeah, go. Okay, so the claim is that the head of research at Pfizer says the COVID-19 vaccine causes female sterilization because it contains a spike protein known as, uh-oh, syncytin one. What? But the Associated Press's assessment is false. Yeah. Pfizer and Biointech COVID-19 vaccine does not contain the protein Sinsitin one.

Okay. It doesn't contain placental proteins. That was one of the things that they were worried about. Yes, yes, which is important for the creation of the placenta. Right. And so you wouldn't want to make antibodies against that protein. The head of research at Pfizer made no such claim. Yeah.

Yeah. So that is false. Would they have approved it? Wouldn't there be like a big warning label on it? Listen, the FDA is pretty on top of this stuff. for all the crap that they get, they kept thalidomide out of this country. They're a very deliberative body. That's why we were late in approving the vaccine when the U.K. and other places that had proved it.

I wasn't complaining about that at the time. Yeah, I wanted to get it out there. But also I wanted them to be deliberative, which is what they're good at. And this Pfizer vaccine doesn't contain plastic. percental proteins, it doesn't contain genetic material that codes for placental proteins. And there's an immunologist that I can't find their name, but they stated that the coronavirus vaccine, no, I'm sorry, the coronavirus protein that the vaccine instruct your body to make has nothing in common with placental proteins.

So there you go. So, no, that shouldn't be a problem. And as a matter of fact, let me just Google this. a second because we're at the end of the show, the COVID vaccine trying to get pregnant because somebody asked about that, and I thought I had a question about that today. But it says routine testing for pregnancy before COVID vaccine is not recommended. Women who are trying to become pregnant do not need to avoid pregnancy after receiving an MRNA vaccine.

That's straight from the CDC. So there you go. There you go. All right. Well, thank you all. I think we got through all of the questions that we had for this week. There's still more on the server. And I'm getting behind her and behind her all the time, and I apologize for that.

Feel free if I haven't answered your question or if we haven't addressed it to call back in again. And it's perfectly okay to do that. And if you need to contact us, just go to our website, click contact, ignore the warnings. just to keep the riff-wrap out, not people who are actually listening to this, and you can email us there, or you can reach us through Twitter at Weird Medicine. I never check messages on Facebook, so just don't bother with that. We can't forget Rob Sprantz, Bob Kelly, Greg Hughes, Anthony Coomia, Jim Norton, Travis Teft, That Gould Girl, Lewis Johnson, Paul Offcharski, Chowdy, 1008, Eric Nagel, Hogan's mom,

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SiriusXM Channel 103, Saturdays at 7 p.m. Eastern, Sunday at 6 p.m. Eastern, on demand, and other times at Jim McClure's pleasure. Many thanks to our listeners whose voicemail and topic ideas make this job very easy. I want to thank Drew and Garrett from Compound Media who helped me pick out some video equipment for our new video project. Go to our website at Dr. Steve.com for schedules and podcasts and other crap. Until next time, check your stupid nuts for lumps, quit smoking, get off your asses and get some exercise. We'll see you in one week for the next edition of Weird Medicine.

Goodbye, everyone. Goodbye. Goodbye.