What A Day - Monkeypox Is Now A Federal Health Emergency

Episode Date: August 5, 2022

The U.S. declared a federal public health emergency over the monkeypox outbreak on Thursday after the states of New York, California and Illinois did the same recently.A Russian court convicted WNBA star Brittney Griner of smuggling illegal drugs into the country and sentenced her to nine years in prison — all because she had less than one gram of cannabis oil in her luggage.And in headlines: the Justice Department charged four police officers for violating Breonna Taylor’s civil rights, the NFL appealed Cleveland Browns quarterback DeShaun Watson’s six-game suspension, and Alex Jones was ordered to pay $4.1 million in damages to the parents of a Sandy Hook victim.Show Notes:New York Times: “How the U.S. Let 20 Million Doses of Monkeypox Vaccine Expire” – https://nyti.ms/3JE82u0Vote Save America: Fuck Bans Action Plan – https://votesaveamerica.com/roe/Crooked Coffee is officially here. Our first blend, What A Morning, is available in medium and dark roasts. Wake up with your own bag at crooked.com/coffeeFollow us on Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/whataday/For a transcript of this episode, please visit crooked.com/whataday

It's Friday, August 5th. I'm Dr. Abdul El-Sayed. And I'm Priyanka Arabindi. And this is What A Day, the daily news podcast that somehow managed to survive the merger between WarnerMedia and Discovery. And in today's news, we've got a merger between What A Day and America Dissected. So there's that. Yeah, very exciting day for mergers around here.

I mean, some better than others. On today's show, Russia sentenced Brittany Griner to nine years in prison. Plus, Alex Jones must pay over four million dollars to the parents of a Sandy Hook victim. And today a jury could go even further. First, yesterday, U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services, Javier Becerra, did the thing he probably should have done weeks ago. I will be declaring a public health emergency on monkeypox. We're prepared to take our response to the next level in addressing this virus. And we urge every American to take monkeypox seriously and to take responsibility to help us tackle this virus. It's like they're going from zero to one here.

This federal public health emergency follows an international declaration by the World Health Organization last week, as well as declarations in the states of New York, California, Illinois, and the cities of New York and San Francisco, all communities that are hardest hit by the disease. Okay, so we have been hearing about monkeypox for a while now. So why are they just declaring it a public health emergency now? That is the important question here, Priyanka. There have now been over 6,600 known cases of monkeypox in the U.S. so far. And scientists and public health officials worry that we're well past the moment where we can control the outbreak. And so much of our response has been hampered by poor communication, poor resource coordination, and poor outreach to the communities that have been hit hardest.

Yeah, I feel like that is all that I've been hearing about this response for, you know, quite some time. So how does declaring a public health state of emergency on a federal level fix these problems? Well, this emergency declaration unlocks a set of tools. The first is just more money that administrators can access to both speed up and expand the containment efforts. It also requires data sharing between different public health entities. Remember, there's not one health department in America. Priyanka, you live in L.A., right? Yes.

So you're under the jurisdiction of the L.A. County Public Health Department, the State of California Health Department, and the CDC. And before now, they weren't necessarily required to share information about positive tests with each other. This order requires them to do just that. And there's more. It also makes ordering and reporting tests easier for doctors and speeds up the efforts to get vaccines out to the people at risk. Yeah, truly wild system that we are living with. But speaking of vaccines, what is the latest? Because we have reported about how that has kind of been a big stumbling block in the response here. So what's going on with vaccines? Yeah, stumble would be being generous. This is more of a falling on your face block.

Definitely. There are two different types of vaccines. Jynneos and ACAM 2000, not to be confused with a robot. ACAM has all kinds of nasty side effects, particularly in people who are immunocompromised. Right now, the federal government is distributing about 1.1 million doses of JYNNEOS, of the 3.5 million that most public health officials believe we actually need. We won't get the next 500,000 doses until, get this, October. And the worst part is that the federal government was responsible for the delay.

Wow. Okay. So can you explain a little more about how this happened and how they're responsible? Well, according to recent reporting from the New York Times, this happened because the government failed to ask the delay. Wow. Okay. So can you explain a little more about how this happened and how they're responsible? Well, according to recent reporting from the New York Times, this happened because the government failed to ask the manufacturer, a company based in Denmark called Bavarian Nordic, to process the vaccine that the U.S. already owns in bulk into vials. By the time the U.S. did make the request, the company had already processed other orders from other countries. So the U.S. vaccine is literally being stored in huge plastic bags outside Copenhagen. I kid you not, Priyanka. And experts think that would take another company at least three months to be able to skill up to do this step, which is called fill and finish. Wild. It's mistake after mistake. You can't even comprehend.

Stumble and fall flat on your face. This, of course, is after the federal government failed to request the 372,000 available doses early enough to have them in time to stop the outbreak early and delayed an additional 786,000 doses because the FDA hadn't finished inspecting Bavarian Nordic's facilities. We'll link to the New York Times reporting on this in our show notes. OK, so will the public health emergency declaration do anything about that? Will it speed it up at all or no? Well, it can't really speed it up because we're stuck waiting behind other countries to fill and finish the doses that we already own. Right.

But it could expedite getting the doses to where they need to go. Here as well, the federal response has been shambolic. Every single dose in New York City, by far the place with the highest need, is spoken for, which means New York City needs more doses. According to one official I spoke to, the federal government has been using HIV data to allocate monkeypox vaccine doses, considering both HIV and monkeypox tend to affect the same community. Here's CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky talking about that yesterday. We estimate that there are about 1.6 to 1.7 million people who are at highest risk

for monkeypox right now. And that's the population we have been most focused on in terms of vaccination. But there's a real problem with that logic. And it's this. Monkeypox is a new disease in this population. And so like COVID, it's starting in the cities and then moving inward. But HIV has been around for decades and it's had decades to spread. So federal health officials are allocating vaccine based on a virus that has already spread rather than using their resources to stop this one from spreading. It's like covering your floor in towels every time you drink coffee rather than just making sure you don't spill the coffee in the first place. Maybe not the right approach to take for this.

Yeah, because one of the important things that the administration has done to try and address all this is to appoint two federal response coordinators and Robert Fenton, a female administrator, and Dr. Dimitri Daskalakis, a CDC official. OK, here is hoping that they can coordinate. Yeah, let's hope because monkeypox, while not deadly, is an incredibly painful illness and it can and must be prevented. We've got to do better, folks. Definitely. Moving to some unfortunate international news. After months of waiting to hear the fate of WNBA star Brittany Griner, who is detained in Russia, yesterday she was convicted of smuggling illegal drugs into the country and sentenced to nine years in a Russian penal colony. Really, truly terrifying. She was also fined one million rubles, which is about $16,400. Greiner's lawyers say they will appeal this decision. Yeah, a Russian penal colony just sounds terrible.

Really, it does. Just to remind everyone, Greiner has been detained in Russia for the past six months after being accused of trying to smuggle less than one gram of cannabis oil in her luggage. Her trial has been watched extremely closely, and there are lots of concerns that she is being used as a political pawn as tensions between Russia and the U.S. continue to intensify over the invasion of Ukraine. According to Greiner's lawyers, the average sentence for this kind of crime is five years. That is four less than Greiner's sentence, and a third of people convicted get parole. So what happens next, Priyanka?

Yeah, that is still somewhat unclear. President Biden called the sentence unacceptable and promised to pursue, quote, all avenues to bring her home. Last week, we talked about the possibility of a prisoner swap between Russia and the U.S. Griner and former Marine Paul Whelan from Russia in exchange for a Russian arms dealer imprisoned here in the U.S.

National Security Spokesman John Kirby said that those conversations are ongoing still, but he declined to give any more details publicly. He said it wouldn't be helpful to those ongoing negotiations. This is difficult to hear. Obviously, we all want that to work. We all want Brittany Griner home. But can you explain the alternatives she faces? What exactly is a Russian penal colony after all? Yeah, they are really scary places, it turns out. They are basically the successors of gulags, which are Stalin-era labor camps.

Prisoners have been tortured. Others have had to work 16-hour days. There also have been reports of prisoners being forced to watch hours of Russian propaganda. They are extremely grim and characterized by harsh conditions and even harsher prison culture. That's awful. Yeah.

Here's hoping Brittany Griner does not end up there. I don't think that's a place that anyone wants or should be. No. How have Griner and her family reacted to the sentence? Griner didn't react when she was in the courtroom to the sentence, but according to her lawyers, she is very upset. As she was led out, she said, quote, I love my family. She's probably, you know, wondering when and if she is going to see them again. Really heartbreaking situation.

Friends and fellow NBA and WNBA players have been posting messages of sadness and support, imploring that she be brought home. The same has been done by her team, USA Basketball and the NBA and WNBA organizations. Her agent tweeted, quote, Today's sentencing of Brittany Griner was severe by Russian legal standards and goes to prove what we have known all along, that Brittany is being used as a political pawn. More on all of this very soon, but that is the latest for now. We'll be back after some ads. Let's wrap up with some headlines.

Four current and former police officers in Louisville, Kentucky, were hit with federal charges on Thursday for violating Breonna Taylor's civil rights in 2020. U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland announced the charges yesterday at a press conference, and he said that those violations directly resulted in Taylor's death two years ago when police officers shot and killed her in a botched raid of her apartment.

Here is Garland. We share, but we cannot fully imagine, the grief felt by Breonna Taylor's loved ones and all of those affected by the events of March 13th, 2020. Breonna Taylor should be alive today. That is true. Now, none of the Louisville officers who actually shot Taylor are named on Thursday's indictment,

but three officers who helped obtain the warrant that was used to authorize the raid are. They are accused of conspiring to lie about their case to the judge who granted them the warrant. And the indictment literally says that these officers had no evidence to support why they wanted to search Taylor's apartment. The fourth Louisville officer named on the indictment is the one who blindly shot at Taylor's apartment 10 times and hit a neighboring unit during the raid. The one good thing about this story is that justice appears to be on its way to being done.

The NFL appealed a federal judge's decision to suspend Cleveland Browns quarterback Deshaun Watson for only six games without pay. The league wanted a much harsher punishment. The NFL filed its brief on Wednesday asking that Watson be suspended indefinitely from the field as punishment for his sexually predatory behavior toward two dozen women he hired for massages. And the NFL also recommended that Watson be suspended indefinitely from the field as punishment for his sexually predatory behavior toward two dozen women he hired for massages.

And the NFL also recommended that Watson be fined and required to undergo counseling as further punishment for his actions. There's no set timeline for when a new decision in Watson's case will be made, but the NFL's player union has until the end of the day today to respond to the appeal. I don't think the NFL has a particularly long history of doing the right thing, but in this case, that is definitely the right move. This man should not be able to, you know, play and profit from this league.

I agree with that. Florida's Republican governor and a man who shares a barber with all the male Legos, Ron DeSantis, suspended one of the state's top prosecutors on Thursday. That is because the attorney in question, Andrew Warren, said he would not prosecute abortion in a state where the procedure is now banned after 15 weeks. Warren has also pledged not to enforce laws banning gender-affirming health care should they be signed into law in Florida. DeSantis announced Warren's suspension yesterday, accusing the prosecutor of, quote, displaying a lack of competence to be able to perform his duties. Here is what Warren had to say about the decision to bench him. If the governor thinks he can do a better job,

then he should run for state attorney, not president. Whoa. I feel like he's goading Ron DeSantis into a potential lawsuit situation, and I'm here to watch. You know what? I love it. I love it. Do your thing, Andrew Warren. We are here for it. Meanwhile, in actual lawsuits, conspiracy theorist Alex Jones was ordered to pay $4.1 million in compensatory damages yesterday to the parents of a child killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012.

That's way less than the $150 million those parents were seeking. But it's not over yet. Today, after hearing testimony about Jones' net worth, jurors in Texas will decide what he must pay in punitive damages. And in even bigger fines for disgusting behavior, a judge ruled on Thursday that disgraced actor Kevin Spacey must pay nearly $31 million over his alleged sexual misconduct behind the scenes of Netflix's House of Cards. The eight-figure sum will be paid out to the show's production company, MRC,

which sued Spacey in 2020 for the revenue lost after the actor was dropped from the show. Yeah, you know what? Alex Jones is good for it, so come after him for all he is worth, please. I think that is said on behalf of pretty much everybody. I'd love to see that man penniless. Yeah. Big news out of the Senate last night.

Arizona Senator Kyrsten Sinema said that she could support the climate-focused Inflation Reduction Act after she got a few concessions from Democrats on their tax proposals. Thanks to Sinema and her commitment to the nation's giant checking accounts, a tax targeting wealthy investors and a new minimum tax on corporations that pay nothing to the U.S. government are gone. The bill now heads to the Senate parliamentarian for review. Just a few small concessions in the order of billions of dollars. Still a lot of great things in there.

Really happy this is getting done. But of course, she is going to chip away at this. Kirsten Chaos Cinema at it again. It took long enough, but science finally managed to make the thing of every Muslim's nightmares. Zombie pigs. Researchers at Yale published a study this Wednesday in which they restored function to cells in the organs of pigs one hour after the pigs died by heart attack. They did this by perfusing the deceased pigs with a substance called Organ X, Yeah, I'm not the doctor. Applications are really exciting. If a solution like OrganX could keep organs healthy in people who have agreed to be organ donors, it could allow many more people to receive transplants.

Yeah, I'm not the doctor on today's show, but this does sound exciting. It's really, really exciting. I just kind of wish they didn't pick pigs first. I seriously have nothing against pigs. I know I'm gonna get all kinds of hate mail. I'm just kidding. I'm just playing to the whole thing.

It's all right. Let's get nothing against pigs. I don't need them. Like, I want them to stay alive. It's a joke, everybody. It's a joke. We're keeping it light here on What A Day. And speaking of bringing back things from the dead, in a reply to a tweet lamenting the untimely murder of the Choco Taco, the official Klondike account wrote on Wednesday, quote, We're hoping to bring this favorite treat back to ice cream trucks in the coming years. Some specifics here would be nice.

Klondike clearly learned the art of committing to things in the most vague terms possible from 27-year-old men on Hinge. But when pressed for details by the Today Show, Klondike said that support for the Choco Taco had led them to rethink their discontinuation of the treat. But there was no definite timeline yet for bringing it back. Okay, so you know what? My counterpoint is Klondike is fully responsible. They are the ones who are in control of whether or not the Choco Taco

gets made, manufactured out there. And here they are in People Magazine being like, it's dead. No, it's not. They just wanted to drum up a little marketing. And you know what? Smart campaign. People bought into it.

But I have had enough of this nonsense. And those are the headlines. One more thing before we go. Crooked Coffee launched a new product today to get you caffeinated for those hot days, the Cold Brewer. It's a sleek bottle that makes brewing your own cold brew at home super easy. Like all of Crooked Coffee, a portion of the proceeds will go to register her to help millions of women across the country vote. Get your cold brewer now and a bag of coffee while you're at it at crooked.com slash coffee. That is all for today.

If you like the show, make sure you subscribe, leave a review, perfuse the Choco Taco with Organ X, and tell your friends to listen. And if you're into reading and not just the Inflation Reduction Act in full like me, including the parts that Kirsten Sinema just axed, What Today is also a nightly newsletter. Check it out and subscribe at crooked.com slash subscribe.

I'm Abdul El-Sayed. I'm Priyanka Arabindi. And come back, Choco Taco. We're literally sitting here begging to a chocolate and ice cream taco. So this is what Klondike has done to us as a society. I feel like this is the consequence of having elected Donald Trump president. I haven't done the math on it, but I'm sure it leads back. There's definitely a lot there.

What a Day is a production of Crooked Media. It's recorded and mixed by Bill Lance, Jazzy Marine, and Raven Yamamoto are our associate producers. Our head writer is John Milstein, and our executive producer is Leo Duran. Our theme music is by Colin Gilliard and Kashaka. you