>> From WXXI News.

This is Connections.

I'm Evan Dawson.

Our connection this hour was made in 1991, when the U.S.

centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended all babies get a dose of hepatitis B vaccine at birth.

The prevalence of hep B has plunged in recent years, and this is a remarkable medical success story.

Pediatric infectious disease doctor at the University of Maryland, Dr.

James Campbell told PBS news, quote, we we used to have 18,000 to 20,000 kids a year being born with this, a quarter of them going on to have liver cancer.

We now have almost none, end quote.

As PBS reports, vaccination at birth aims primarily to protect newborns who are particularly vulnerable to hepatitis B, the hep B virus attacks the liver.

Infected infants have a 90% chance of developing the disease.

Diseases more dangerous chronic form, and a quarter of those babies will go on to die prematurely from the disease when they become adults.

Untreated, chronic hep B infections can cause cirrhosis and death.

It's also one of the leading causes of liver cancer, so patients can seek treatments to reduce the virus's worst effects.

But there is no cure.

All of which leads us to last week.

After these decades of this medical success story.

Limiting these cases dramatically.

Now, the CDC committee that helped set vaccine policy has voted to overturn the policy of vaccinating at birth.

The new 11 member committee is a group in league with the anti-vax preferences of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.. Some of the committee members, including Dr.

Robert Malone, have spread misinformation about vaccines for years and promoted debunked theories about the effectiveness of things like ivermectin.

And so when this committee voted to overturn this decades long vaccine policy, the American Academy of Pediatrics essentially said, at least to my ear, nope.

A number of states and local governments kind of did the same, advising doctors to continue vaccinating.

And yet we know this can be a confusing issue for parents who just want to know what's best for their kids.

So we're not going to spend the full hour on hep B. That's an issue that has been well studied for a long time, but we can talk about that.

We're also going to talk about how how do you make sure you're getting good information in general, the U.S.

Supreme Court has instructed lower courts to take a fresh look at the states that have eliminated religious exemptions for vaccines in school aged children, and New York is on that list.

And just this weekend, President Trump was once again saying untrue things about vaccines.

Let's listen.

>> I think we take like 88 different, shots all wrapped up in one, one big glass of stuff like that.

And we're going to be reducing it very substantially.

>> Do you support the Paramount?

It'll be safe.

>> We're going to be reducing it very substantially.

>> Nobody is getting 88 vaccines in one big jar all at once.

I hope that's obvious to everybody.

But let's bring in the experts.

Dr.

Elizabeth Murray is with us in studio, pediatrician at Golisano Children's Hospital at the University of Rochester Medical Center.

Thank you for being with us.

Happy to be here.

Nice to have you back here.

What's the full title?

Golisano Children''s Hospital strong.

>> University of Rochester Medical Center.

>> There we go.

Okay, well, it's been a little while.

It's nice to see you back here.

And Dr.

Murray's got a couple colleagues who are on the line with us.

welcome to Dr.

David Topa.

And Dave is vice president of New York chapter one of the American Academy of Pediatrics and assistant medical director at Rit's Student Health Center.

Doctor, welcome back to the program.

>> Good afternoon.

Thanks for inviting me.

>> And thanks to Dr.

Justin Rosati, who is going to spend as much time as he can before he gets pulled back into work.

Assistant professor of neurology at the University of Rochester Medical Center.

Dr.

Rosati, welcome.

Thanks for being with us.

>> Thanks so much for having me.

Between patients.

>> Well, Dr.

Rosati, let me just start with you because one of your specialties, I would say, in the way that you use various media platforms, is trying to help the public understand how to get good information.

So when you hear the president of the United States say, we get 88 vaccines all wrapped up in one dose, I mean, like, are we back to square one here?

Like, what do you think when you hear that?

>> I mean, there's obvious untruths and things that are just clear lies like that.

I mean, there's no one giving that many vaccines to anybody.

And that's pretty clear.

but I think that the, the bigger issue right now and a lot of on social media that we see and a lot that's coming from the HHS is sort of twisting these little bits of truth.

And that's that's sort of how they started with the hepatitis B of claiming it as, you know, only a sexually transmitted disease.

And of course, why would a baby get this?

And so you're hearing all these mixed messages and it's it's taking away a lot of the nuance from medicine and science.

>> Well, to Dr.

Rosati's point there, let's try to get this out of the way early here.

Dr.

Murray number one, that is the argument that I often hear probably more than any other, which is a baby is not sexually active.

Then why are we giving a baby a hep B vaccine?

What's the answer?

>> Because there's many other ways you can acquire hepatitis B without sexual activity or IV drug use.

You know, Justin's exactly right.

Those types of tropes are to create fear and distrust when the reality of the situation is we did try that risk assessment self-screening model in the past, and it did not work because so many people can be asymptomatic in the baby's life or household.

Other caregiver, grandparent, relative that they will be spending time with.

And this is a germ that can be transmitted just by any kind of fluid contact.

So you could have the smallest cuts.

You could have a toddler bite another child, which lots of toddlers do.

You know, there can be all these other ways to transmit that have nothing to do with sexual activity or any type of inappropriate activity.

And that's how those cases were getting through.

So even though the the mom may in fact be negative, there are other people in the household that may be asymptomatic and positive and pass that disease along.

And so that's why the kind of the concept of, well, if mom is negative, we don't have to worry about it went by the wayside because it turns out we did have to worry about it.

Thousands and thousands of children became ill.

We introduced the universal vaccine, and those cases plummeted.

>> Did the ACIp decision surprise you?

Did your colleagues see this coming?

>> Oh, 100%.

I mean, they've been they've been they've been telegraphing for a long time.

Yeah.

>> Okay.

So it wasn't a surprise, but how much damage do you think it could do?

>> Well, I think that we need to fall back on what we, as doctors already know that we've already been talking to our patients.

It's always been informed consent.

The conversations are always there.

There's not some secret committee under the cover of darkness going around to nurseries and vaccinating babies.

Those conversations are always happening and we need to lean into those relationships that people already have with their doctors.

I think the the problem and the downside is, is that parents of newborns already have seven kajillion questions because it's the hardest job ever and you're sleep deprived and you could read all the books.

And I always joke that your babies read the different book, right?

And so they're doing their own thing and you're trying to do the best.

And so we just don't need to create more chaos in these lives.

>> Dr.

Toppo, do you agree with the characterization that the hep B story was a medical success story over decades?

And I mean, is it as simple as that?

I mean, was this a case where we had tens of thousands of of infections or deaths years ago and that we had done a great job bringing those way down?

>> Absolutely.

There's really no contesting the fact that a lot of these vaccine preventable diseases have really reduced in frequency, but that still doesn't mean that they're not out there waiting for us to kind of let our guard down.

And I am no longer a fresh physician out of residency.

And looking back, I can say that when it comes to hepatitis B, because of that vaccine being introduced in 1981, with it becoming a universal recommendation for newborns and 91, I really don't have much experience with it.

As an outpatient pediatrician because of the fact that we've done such a great job.

and so but there are still other ways that children can be exposed.

and also, it's important to keep in mind that about 35% of folks who have or pregnant women who are actually identified as having hepatitis B, never go on to a follow up care.

There's lots of big gaps in our safety net when it comes to trying to provide great care to individuals who do have hepatitis B, and so protecting infants from the very first day is the very most important thing we can do at this point.

>> Well, Dr.

Murray, you were saying that you can pick up this infection in different ways.

So again, I'm trying to show as much care as I can for people who are in the lay public who hear about this and go, I don't know much about hep B, I thought this was just either some might be drugs or might be through sex, and it turns out from what I read, not only can you come from blood, but it kind of stays.

This is the this is going to be the layperson talking.

It stays dangerous or active.

It could be sitting on a surface like a drop of blood for a while.

Is that correct?

>> Yes, yes it is.

And remember they had to invoke the sexually transmitted infection or IV drug users, because that's the thing that was going to create fear, which was going to allow them to do this.

If the whole truth was given and all of the information was out there, then people would have said, hey, why are we why are we arguing with this?

This has been incredibly successful, okay.

>> And do you agree, Dr.

Murray, with my characterization that the AAP, that New York State's Department of Health, it just it looked to me like by the weekend, all these different organizations were like, please ignore the ACIp, please ignore.

And that feels really dissonant.

But it was pretty fast.

How would you describe what happened?

>> Yes it was.

I can check my email, but I think the New York State Department of Health notifications physicians came out Friday afternoon.

saying what?

Saying nothing changes in New York State.

We will still continue to give that newborn dose.

And again, people have always had the ability to say they don't want it in that time period.

They can have it delayed.

They could do what they wanted to do.

That has always been the case, but we are not going to be changing our recommendations.

In New York State.

It appears at this time.

>> Okay, doctor Rosati I also want to I, I want to get your take on maybe if you want to critique me.

I don't want to.

I don't want to present this conversation in a way that is I'm probably too condescending or flippant at times.

There's times where I'm just I admit, I'm surprised when I saw what happened with this committee last week, I was not like you guys were.

I was not following it, so I was when it happened, I was like, whoa, I was not prepared for it.

I your profession, you understood it was coming.

So my reaction is like, wait a second, this should be so obvious.

And look who's on the committee.

But that probably sounds condescending and nobody wants to hurt their kids.

Nobody wants.

What's the wrong thing for their child, for their family member, for their loved one, for themselves?

So how can we do better at talking about this in a way that doesn't alienate people?

>> Yeah, that's definitely a great question.

I think a lot of it kind of gets back to some of the conversations that we've had about vaccines and some of the conversations we've had about this stuff.

I think part of the problem, and why a lot of us saw this coming, was they've been telegraphing this ever since the confirmation hearing for the secretary of the HHS.

We've been worried about this.

And over the last, you know, six months to a year, we've seen the signs, we've seen the change in the ACIp and and we've seen, you know, the people getting out in front of media and creating these narratives, putting out false information or misleading information.

And I think at the end of the day, it's it's very tough for us when this kind of information gets out there, because a lot of these discussions happen between a provider and the patient and the patient's family.

And I think that's where people need to get their information from.

But it does get murky when you're hearing from these big agencies that there is something inherently bad or wrong about this.

I mean, we saw this a couple of weeks ago with you know, the CDC changing their websites on on the whole link between autism.

It's it creates this.

Well, wait a minute.

This this is the, you know, people who aren't plugged in, who don't know, see a trusted organization change their opinion, not realizing that it was actually a single person or a small group of people who made these changes.

And so I think it's important for us to have these conversations be more active with talking to people about them and just being more aware of what's going on in the world.

I've actually talked to several people just today that didn't even know that ACIp changed these recommendations because they just they don't give vaccines.

They and these are other health care professionals.

They don't give vaccines.

And so it just did not occur to them that they even needed to know about this.

>> It is a very important point to emphasize with Dr.

Rosati is saying about this is an 11 member committee.

It's not a it's not a full industry or profession of people.

And the name that popped off the page to me was Dr.

Robert Malone.

I would encourage people to read a little bit more about Dr.

Malone.

I was shocked to see he was on this committee.

I shouldn't be because he is a close.

He's sort of a fellow traveler with RFK Jr.. But Dr.

Murray, I mean, what would you what else would you want people to understand about this 11 member committee?

Are there other names that I should know besides Dr.

Robert Malone?

>> Oh, yeah.

There's a there's a lot up there that are pretty notorious.

But but I think I want people to know that you can go back and watch any of the old ACIp meetings.

I mean, these were like the driest, nerdiest conventions ever that, you know, during the pandemic.

Certainly audience participation picked up because we all wanted to know, how is that vaccine coming along?

Yeah.

Right.

And so but, you know, you can go back.

They've always been broadcast.

They've always been live.

And you can just go back and see the order, the finesse, the intelligent discussion, the lack of rhetoric, the kindness towards each other and appreciation of all the different perspectives during those old meetings.

And then see the reality TV show component of the current meeting or the most recent meeting, plus the clear display of lack of understanding of how the meeting was supposed to even happen again.

We saw again they had to delay the vote.

They couldn't get the vote language right.

They didn't share it with the members.

There was lots of procedural problems.

I mean, just from the sheer technicality of running a advisory committee meeting, they couldn't quite do that very well either.

And so I if you have some spare time, go back and watch some of the older meetings and just to see the difference of of the expertise levels we're talking about.

>> And Dr.

Topa, what sparked this conversation was a couple of Connections.

Listeners reached out this weekend after the news and said, basically, does this mean now that we're going to see a big changes in how we vaccinate kids?

So as we establish New York State is not changing the guidance.

The AAP is not changing the guidance.

And does that mean to you, Dr.

Topa, that the the simple answer for, for people and at least who are in our region is no change on this.

Is that correct?

>> Yes.

the our recommendations on Wednesday or Thursday are no different than they are now.

And it's just a matter of reassuring folks that we are going on good information here in New York State.

Your pediatricians are well trained, have the information, have the experience.

They're oftentimes parents themselves.

And I've always told my families when I was in private practice that I would not give your child something.

I would not give my own child.

And including in the exam room, we actually the doctors gave our own shots.

And so I was the one actually administering the vaccines.

And so I really took that seriously and really did my homework.

>> Does this mean, though, Dr.

Topa, that depending on the state you're in, we could see significant changes in practice?

And are you worried about kids in other states?

>> Yes.

Impact of these recommendations on which insurers choose to cover which vaccines is terrifying in a way, in that each state does tend to heavily regulate their own insurance industries.

And so those states who maybe are less diligent than New York state would be on their own.

They'd be free to allow insurers not to cover the vaccine, which from a long term cost control perspective, doesn't make any sense anyways.

But that's kind of where we are right now.

But there are some great resources out there that parents can go to their pediatrician.

there's a children's Hospital of Philadelphia Vaccine Education center.

there are there's the American Academy of Pediatrics, both its organizational site at Aafp.org and also Healthychildren.org.

The Healthychildren website is the American Academy of Pediatrics website, designed specifically for families.

And what you'll find there is that we're really not selling anything.

Whereas if you go to some of these folks who are even on ACIp committee here, they're saying vaccines, you can't trust them.

But at the same point, they're selling you supplements.

They are using this type of media coverage to fatten their own pockets.

And in the end I really doubt that they have the interest of any individual child.

in at their bottom of their heart.

>> Dr.

Murray, you want to add to this?

>> Yeah.

With regards to insurance companies, I think it's important to remember that everybody in health care has a strong feeling.

I think, about insurance companies.

But all of the things we have heard so far is they plan on continuing to cover vaccines because they know what a cost savings it will offer them, because it will decrease disease as it has always done.

And so I just think that's an interesting point that the insurance companies, who often are thought of as the bad guys, they want to continue to cover these vaccines because they know they work.

>> Do you think there will be a material difference in the amount of kids who get this vaccine going forward?

Because of this?

>> I think it's very possible.

I think there's going to be a lot of delayed vaccines that my guess is that by the time they get to be two months of age, they'll probably have it.

But it's hard to know because again, there's just so many moving, moving parts.

>> Let me squeeze another one in for Dr.

Rosati before he runs back to work here himself.

this comes from listener named Charles.

I'd like all of our guests to kind of weigh in on this.

He says our states issuing their own guidance because they think the feds are wrong or because they think hashtag resist, he says.

I think it's a fair question.

These days.

I'm old enough to remember when Kamala Harris and Andrew Cuomo said they wouldn't take the COVID vaccine.

Then they won.

Aided.

That's from Charles.

What what vice president?

Harris said about the COVID vaccine was that she would not take it if Donald Trump was the only one telling her it was safe.

But if the doctors involved said it would say safe, she would.

and I understand it was a clumsy kind of communication.

And a lot of people took it as a kind of a Partizan shot at a time where vaccines should not have been Partizan.

But I. I hear you, Charles.

So, Dr.

Rosati baked into this question is, are we in a dangerous place if we've got these federal committees, if we've got organizations and institutions at the federal level saying or issuing different guidance, and then we've got different responses, either from different organizations or even individual states or localities here, any tension or concern there?

Dr.

Rosati.

>> I think it creates confusion because, you know, a lot of these shouldn't be political and we shouldn't be doing things based on political party or things.

The reason that I think a lot of these states which I agree with, have decided to continue to do certain things is because that's where the preponderance of evidence has pointed, and that is that is where I think their decisions lie, and I hope that's where their decisions lie.

I mean, we a lot of us would have thought that the CDC has been a great resource until recently, and it's not because we suddenly distrust the CDC.

We just have seen the change of career scientists who were evidence based being switched over to people who are solely opinion driven or politically driven.

And so that's that's the big change.

I do think it does create confusion, because a lot of people, you know, like, like this will sort of feel like, well, you know, are these states just doing this as, as a, as a way to, you know, go against the current administration?

and they might then again, this is sort of where they this is sort of part of the playbook too, right?

So like creating this confusion and saying and putting this like educational elite don't trust them because they don't like what we're saying and we're just asking for transparency.

And when they're really not.

And it's really just sort of manipulating, the data and the science.

And so I do think it will create confusion.

And I do think that there will be a lot of division over something that should just be based on evidence and based on experience.

>> Dr.

Murray.

>> Yeah, I agree.

And if you know, if we're entering a phase where people are going to have less health insurance and less access to care, that's going to cause huge health disparities, excuse me.

Anyways.

So, you know, we do potentially have a perfect storm coming.

>> Dr.

Topa, what do you think.?

>> I agree, I think that I've heard some individuals try to compare what we do to other countries in Europe, but they don't take into account the fact that in Europe they've got great safety net system.

usually they have good access to care.

We don't here in the United States.

So it's really important to lean upon vaccines to form the backbone of our public health efforts.

And I have heard nothing at the New York State level that makes me think that this is just a knee jerk reaction based upon political concerns.

>> Charles, thank you for the email, Melissa.

Emails to say, Evan, have you been on TikTok lately?

It is a firehose of medical misinformation.

Dr.

Rosati, I think you spent some time on TikTok.

Is Melissa right?

>> it is.

and I think it's but it depends on your algorithm and I, I think that that fear based content definitely drives engagement.

TikTok and Instagram, there are accounts with millions of followers who are spreading just the worst kind of misinformation about healthcare, vaccines.

And it's all to drive engagement.

And it's usually to sell something.

You know, Dr.

Topa mentioned this, but a lot of these people who are spreading this, this kind of information and driving engagement and, you know, you could always go to their bio and I, you know, nine times out of ten they're they got some discount codes.

They're trying to sell you something.

So they're trying to create distrust in the current system to sell you stuff.

it's also a lot of people have been getting, you know, their engagement.

And I've seen actually the past couple of months, unfortunately, a lot of people who have pretty serious illnesses who are turning away from medicine and having really poor outcomes.

And, you know, I've seen people like get really sick and or die on, you know, chronicling their own deaths on social media because they're just so distrustful of the system.

But I think it's rife with that information.

And my my word of advice as a doctor who does social media is to never trust doctors or anyone on social media and just talk to your own physician and somebody you trust personally who knows you.

>> Dr.

Rosati, I'm going to let you get back to your regularly scheduled programing today, which is your day job, but I want to thank you for popping on to the program and talking about medical misinformation.

And let's do it again soon.

>> Of course, I appreciate you having me.

>> That's Dr.

Justin Rosati, assistant professor of neurology at the University of Rochester Medical Center, and Dr.

Murray.

He's pretty good on social, isn't he?

>> He is fabulous.

He's fabulous.

He also has a very talented wife who helps him with his videos.

So I think he's not doing 100% alone, but he he has such a great knowledge base because he is a neurologist and he focuses on infant neurology.

And so he is the person who understands baby brains.

And that's what everybody's worried about with vaccines is could they hurt the baby brain.

And he knows baby brains.

>> doctors Murray and Topa are staying with us.

And after we take this only break, I see the phone ringing and I've got some emails to share.

We're going to talk about a number of other issues here, including the New York Times just reporting that the U.S.

Supreme Court, they've not agreed to take on this case, but they're signaling a kind of angle on it.

So they're asking the lower courts to reexamine the states.

And I think there's five of them now that have eliminated religious exemptions for school vaccination requirements.

West Virginia is one of the five, which might sound unusual, but West Virginia is already saying, we got this.

We're going to bring back those exemptions.

The other four are not.

And the Supreme Court is asking lower courts to look at it.

It could be an indication that if it gets back to them, they will say states like New York cannot ban religious exemptions, which would open up, you know, potentially a significant number of thousands of kids who will would not be vaccinated in schools.

We're going to talk about that.

We're going to talk a little bit more about what some of your national leaders are saying about a number of other medical issues, and, and just trying to find a way to kind of work through this.

That is, I think, helpful for people who just want good medical information.

Dr.

Elizabeth Murray.

Dr.

David Topa are with us.

The phone number is 844295 talk.

It's toll free.

8442958255263 WXXI.

If you're in Rochester 2639994, email the program Connections at wxxi.org.

I'm Evan Dawson Wednesday on the next Connections three local races in politics came down to very, very small vote totals one a 19 vote margin, another 12 votes, another race on election night was a one vote margin.

We're going to talk to the winners who really understand the value of everyone coming out to vote.

Talk with you Wednesday.

>> Support for your public radio station comes from our members and from Mary Cariola Center.

Supporting residents to become active members of the community, from developing life skills to gaining independence.

Mary Cariola Center Transforming lives of people with disabilities more online at.

Mary Cariola.

Org and City Magazine, covering arts and culture in Rochester and the Finger Lakes since 1971, the online city calendar covers everything from live theater to local music.

More at Rock City.

>> This is Connections.

I'm Evan Dawson Bob in Webster on the phone first.

Hi, Bob.

Go ahead.

>> Hi.

Thanks for taking my call.

Sure.

Thank you, doctors, for your research and your your your knowledge and all the hard work you do for for trying to keep us healthy.

ladies and gentlemen my my question or what?

I'd like to, if you're able to educate the public people that I've talked to are skeptics about vaccinations.

They're always coming back to the messenger RNA system for the COVID.

They say it it wasn't vetted.

There are so paranoid that it's going to go into each and every cell of the body and mutate the body.

would you would you talk about how vaccines are are created, the different types of methods that they're created?

And is there really a problem with messenger RNA, sir?

Okay.

>> And thank you.

Thank you Bob.

So hang there for a second, Bob.

Let's try to get an answer on that one first.

Here.

Dr.

Murray, you want to take it first.

>> So that represents about a month long course in medical school.

So I will say as far as the different types of vaccines and how they are created there are many different types and the types of evolved over the years to make them more streamlined, more efficient, less side effects.

the bad news for the mRNA skeptics out there is we have that throughout our whole body.

Anyways.

That's just part of our body.

the mRNA idea for a vaccine was around for a long time, far before COVID, and that was kind of the beauty of it, that a lot of that research already existed.

And what was different about the COVID pandemic is, for the first time, probably since polio, it was an all hands on deck kind of situation.

So the normal process is various labs get either some grant or governmental funding to look at a clinical question that they have, or try to solve a problem.

And so that one lab is doing it here in the United States.

And then at the same time, maybe a lab in France is also getting some funding to be able to do that research as well.

Everybody says, hey, this is what we found.

This is what we found.

Okay, great.

Now we need another place to see if they can confirm those results or take it a step further.

So there's this kind of stepwise approach.

What happened during the pandemic is we had almost unlimited funding for all of the labs to work in all the processes at the same time.

So nothing was sidestepped or rushed.

It was just there was funding so everybody could work at once instead of having to do a stepwise to say, yeah, this is really valuable, we can we should be looking at this platform that this one lab is showing.

And so that I think is a really critical point is nothing was rushed.

We just had the ability to do it.

in parallel instead of in sequence.

>> If I am a fan of cookies and I am, aren't we all?

And I want to make sure I'm always ready to make cookies.

And I've just got a batch of plain dough in the fridge, and then you show up one day and you're like, I got these cool new things called chocolate chips.

Do you want to try them?

And I'm like, oh, my gosh, yes, I've got the dough, put them in there, let's go.

And then in 25 minutes I've got a chocolate chip cookie in your hand.

And then you're like, well how did you rush these through here?

How did you how did you create them from scratch in 25 minutes like, well, listen, I didn't have the chocolate chips, but I had the base for this because we were already mRNA was something that was being researched, and COVID didn't exist until 2019 COVID 19.

But the platform wasn't invented in whole cloth in a matter of days or weeks and then rolled out to the public.

>> Correct?

Correct.

And I love the concept of having everybody be cookie ready at all times.

>> We should be.

>> Cookie ready at all times.

I fully endorse that.

>> Dr.

Topol, what do you want to make sure Bob hears about this?

>> So I think what's important for him is to, as he's having information with his family members is acknowledge, hear them.

I mean, you can even say, I hear you and it's important to realize, though, that the same process that we used to approve airplanes or make sure autos are safe, I mean, you pretty much come up with various experiments along the way.

Make sure that the end product is ready for prime time.

Then you roll it out.

And if your relatives are comfortable flying on planes then they should be comfortable with vaccines because again, it's the same process in terms of the same scientific method, the same process of doing the experiments and realizing, hey, what's this is what we see.

And something that's experimental is never rolled out to the population in this way.

And in regards to other things, in terms of the in terms of the mRNA vaccine, the history, again, it's goes back to even when those original SARS outbreaks were hit in the world the very mindful individuals had the foresight to begin the experiments then, so that once COVID hit, we really did have something ready to go.

>> And this is where I wish we could have a smarter, more nuanced conversation about medicine and about vaccines and about healthcare, because I think if we were having that conversation, it would sound something like this.

We could say, well, for all the predictions that this is going to change your DNA and this is going to mutate, you know, for the millions upon millions.

I mean, how many people have a COVID vaccine?

Several billion now, something like that.

So obviously that was not correct.

But we can also say that there's not a vaccine that I know of that's never had a single adverse effect.

and that what you try to do is limit the adverse effects, study them, but not play gotcha with them in a way that seeks to derail an entire process.

So right now you've got Dr.

Vinay Prasad, who is part of this administration too.

And he puts out a statement saying for the first time, we're going to acknowledge that kids have died from the COVID vaccine.

He's pointing to ten cases worldwide.

It's something like 19 cases worldwide, something like that.

And which, by the way, nobody wants any children to die.

Now, a lot of the cases, if you look at them, it's pretty debatable whether it was just a vaccine because there were other circumstances in a child's life.

It's not impossible, and it's not impossible that some of those children really did die.

Some of those, I mean, whether it was six or five or 3 or 16 or whatever, the small but real number is, and yet he puts this statement out as kind of a gotcha to the health media, saying, you would never admit it, but this vaccine did all this harm, as opposed to saying the vaccine saved millions of lives.

That's now been proven.

The vaccine did not mutate you.

The vaccine didn't do all these things.

How can we find the small number of cases that are tragic and real and figure out something useful from them?

But we're not having that conversation.

It becomes this political football.

And I don't know how how do we get better with that, Dr.

Murray?

>> Well, I think also you got to take a step back of beyond the end.

Justify means kind of a situation is, you know, his statements.

He as far as I am aware, unless something changed in the hour we've been here, there has been no actual data presented with regard.

Yeah.

With regards to what are these cases other than one a family come forward after meeting with him and Dr.

Hogan.

They took a bunch of pictures and posted it online about yeah, they got to meet these people.

But we don't know what the process was.

We don't know what the evaluation was.

There was a comment that these all came from various reports, which is the canary in the coal mine screening system of anything that potentially could have happened, which is good that we.

>> Have various bears v e r s vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System.

>> Yes.

So, you know, we don't even know how this number has been found.

And so I think that we can't have an actual nuanced conversation or any type of conversation unless we can please have that information of how did you come to these conclusions?

Because if you do go back and watch the old advisory committee meetings, you will see there is a discussion of two deaths of children with significant medical complexities.

who did die right after vaccination.

And those were discussed and things were looked at and and there was a discussion of was there something different about that child?

And it was.

And it's very clear that there was and they had information and they probably knew it going into it.

So those it's not like everybody said, oh, this vaccine is perfect, beautiful, awesome at all times.

Everything was looked at.

The concerns for myocarditis was vigorously, vigorously studied and looked at and again.

>> Which on myocarditis, my understanding, correct me if I'm wrong, is that if you get COVID much worse for your heart than the vaccine, correct?

but it doesn't mean that there can't be an adverse reaction.

It's not it's not impossible that it would come from vaccination.

>> Correct?

Correct.

And there does appear to definitely be cases of myocarditis.

The overwhelming majority of those related to the vaccine were very, very mild and also found with very aggressive diagnostics.

So I work clinically as an emergency medicine doctor.

Historically, if we were worried about a child having myocarditis, we would do X, Y and Z and and go from there.

Once the concern came out, we were being asked to do x, y, z one, two, three.

Like many, many more tests, many more detailed tests to look at the severity of the situation, which so, you know, our older numbers to the newer numbers, we were catching a lot more stuff than we would have in the past, which is appropriate because it was new and we want to watch and we want to make sure we're doing the right thing.

So you can do a study and you can get your information and you can say what it appears to be in a significant number of people that are in the original study.

But of course, it is reasonable and appropriate.

And this is what happens that you watch for years after to see.

So you have that real live experience, because maybe something is 1 in 1,000,000, like a severe anaphylaxis, a severe allergic reaction to vaccines in general is about 1 in 1,000,000.

Truly 1 in 1,000,000.

So we can't have a study necessarily early on involving a million people.

That would just be too cumbersome and probably not needed.

But over time, as we observed, because we don't stop watching.

>> When a billion people get vaccinated.

>> You start to get to know the numbers and you see what's going on.

It's not like, oh, that vaccine, we're done.

Peace out.

We're never going to take a look at it again.

That's why if you look at the ACIp schedules, they are still reviewing vaccines that have been around for a really long time to make sure.

Are we still doing it right?

Is this the way it should be?

What else can we change?

What can we streamline to make this better?

>> And I would say for anybody who wants to see real dissonance, watch the testimony and the interaction between RFK Jr.

and Dr.

Bill Cassidy from Nebraska.

He's a Republican, a Republican who voted to confirm RFK, but asked RFK, how can you claim that the vaccine killed more children than COVID, which is of course, not true?

And then still say the President Trump deserves the Nobel Prize for the development of the vaccine?

Ask yourself that.

It took Republican Bill Cassidy to put it that way.

And that's a pretty powerful way of framing it.

Earl and West are going to jump into the conversation.

Hi, Earl.

Go ahead.

>> Hey thank you for taking the call.

Something that's a little more philosophical and maybe it's outside medical expertise, but something that I think was Dr.

Rosario mentioned about the wellness industry.

And I've been thinking for a long time about all the forces that are pushing, vaccine skepticism or even anti-vax and not nearly as intense sometimes as as RFK Jr.. Where are they coming from?

What's going on?

And Dr.

Peter Hotez, who develops vaccines in Houston had a conversation.

the other day and someone had said, you know, I think you despise so and so who's anti-vax and you'll despise me?

And he said, no, I don't despise anyone.

I think these are people who are misguided largely in part.

And I'm paraphrasing here in part by the wellness industry.

And I've had an aversion to wellness.

that whole genre for, for years now.

And I think deep down we have missed a lot of scientific education at elementary school and high school level.

and there's just so much lack of knowledge out there that, you know, it's really, really hurting us.

And I'm afraid for the future.

Now.

>> doctor?

Toby, you want to grab that one first here.

How do you feel about the points there from Earl?

>> No, I agree, when it comes to.

I just taken some notes.

I think with the wellness industry, I don't think we can necessarily equate them with being preventive medicine.

Right.

I think they're two separate things.

preventive medicine usually tends to be evidence based.

Vaccines fall into preventive medicine.

a lot of evidence based dietary recommendations, that's preventive medicine.

The wellness movement is not really having much of a their hat on actual evidence, unfortunately.

And I think I have this discussion with college students all the time now where they'll come in and again, every visit they come in.

Okay.

Where are you taking medications, herbal supplements, home remedies.

And I've had some kids who are on, like, eight home remedies or herbal supplements.

And I remind them that on every one of those bottles, there is a disclaimer that says the FDA has neither, has not evaluated the claims made on this bottle.

For the most part.

And it's and so it's right there screaming in people's face, okay, we only have evidence behind this, but and when it comes to things like you know, what we see with the supplements, there's probably a number of them that are safe.

Maybe a few of them do work, but again, we need evidence, and that's what can take us from wellness to preventive medicine.

Is that base of evidence.

And I also think that going back to just trusting the medical system in general, I think people think that if you pull back the curtain, it's just this room.

people all agreeing, saying that, oh, yeah, this is our next plan.

We're going to push out this vaccine, and doctors are cranky.

I mean, even pediatricians, when they think that something is wrong, they're going to argue with each other because we all want to be right in that situation.

And, and, there's egos involved and people aren't just laying down to go along.

And so I think that you really do have to take into account the fact that we're all passionate about what we do.

We're passionate about caring for children, especially on pediatrics.

That's why we got into it.

There's no ulterior motive on my part or my fellow pediatricians part to really push things onto our families that we don't think is not good for them.

>> Well.

>> That we don't think is.

>> Good for Dr.

Murray.

Anything you want to say about wellness?

>> Yeah.

I mean, the pessimistic response is that the cranky, cranky, cranky response to that, you know, if if all these vitamins and supplements were efficacious, then drug companies would be having the studies and they would be selling them because it would make them money.

And that's not what's happening right now.

There are there is definitely data like research of vitamin D being helpful for multiple sclerosis patients.

Vitamin K is still a vitamin.

And that is really, really, really helpful to a newborn to receive that, you know, so there are definitely some things that are vitamins and minerals and things that can be very helpful.

Magnesium is another one that's showing some efficacy in different things, but we just have to remember that never in the history of ever has natural meant healthy.

>> okay.

Yeah.

>> Okay.

>> Yeah, yeah.

Go ahead doctor, don't.

>> Forget that.

You know, all natural is this beautiful thing.

But Mother Nature is trying to kill us all the time.

I mean, all natural is a life expectancy of, what, 45 years?

It's a huge infant mortality rate.

There's some horrible things that nature is trying to do to us.

And, you know, we've got these wonderful brains and these skills and a method developed over decades and centuries that helps us develop wonderful things that can help protect us against Mother Nature, trying to kill us all the time.

>> All right.

We've got a lot to try to fit in in the last ten minutes.

Let me grab another call from Hannah in Webster, who's been waiting.

Hi, Hannah.

Go ahead.

>> Hey, Evan, can you hear me?

>> I can go ahead.

>> Yeah.

so I myself, when I was six months old, I had an allergic reaction to a vaccine.

The pertussis vaccine.

But luckily, my mom still vaccinated me by.

Just got all the shots individually rather than combined, and just want to encourage listeners to, like, still vaccinate their kids because, like, for myself, like, I haven't gotten the pertussis vaccine just due to not sure if I'm going to have an allergic reaction to it, but like, herd immunity is important because it protects those who aren't able to give vaccines.

And yeah, just like, I'm, I'm just pro vaccine.

Even though, like, I had that experience in my life.

>> Hannah, that is a really interesting story.

And frankly, that's often the kind of story that leads someone to turn against vaccines.

But the wisdom there from the phone caller there, Dr.

Murray, is that Hannah needs other people to get vaccinated.

Yes.

>> She does for sure.

If she's not protected against pertussis.

But then also, I so appreciate the moment of clarity that I it sounds like her parents and her primary care doctor had to kind of say, how can we work through this?

You know, just because this one thing happened doesn't mean it's going to always happen.

You know, I think most people who are in a car accident get back in the car and drive again, not always, but I think a lot of times we do and for some reason, you know, all of these things that we do that are very, very, very risky every day compared to vaccination.

Somehow vaccination gets the bad reputation, even though, you know, eating shellfish is incredibly more risky with regards to allergic reactions than taking a vaccine.

You know, riding a bike is much more deadly than taking a vaccine.

And so it is interesting, I do I don't know how old Hannah is, but the older version of the pertussis vaccine was much more notorious for causing reactions and problems.

And so that's why scientists, some of them right here in Rochester, Dr.

Pichichero and Rochester, is one of them who said, what can we do to make it better?

And they did.

They created the acellular version of the pertussis vaccine, which had far fewer side effects and reactions.

So, you know, if a problem happens, we want to know because we want to know how we can fix it.

And that's why we improve and change and advance things over time, because we want we want to make things better for everybody.

>> Hannah, good luck to you.

That's a great story.

I mean, I really appreciate the wisdom that comes from that.

Dr.

Topa, I'm going to ask you to kind of again, we're going to try to move fast here.

I mentioned that the U.S.

Supreme Court's going to ask lower courts to review religious exemptions for vaccines.

And that is, I mean, a debate that lawmakers have had.

We talked about it way back in 2014 on this program.

but is that on your radar?

Is there anything that you want people to understand as, as that kind of comes back into the public discussion?

Dr.

Topa.

>> Well, I think it just brings into light the tension between individual rights versus responsibilities to the population as a whole.

And yes, people do have their absolute right to practice the religion, protecting the Constitution.

But the second that that starts to impede upon my child's safety in a school, then I think we really have to have a hard discussion about about protecting, not about protecting everyone.

>> Anything you want to add there, Dr.

Murray?

>> No, I agree with what he said.

>> Okay.

another thing that is I think on some of our radar is I want to play one other clip here, and it comes from RFK Jr.

talking about moms and breast milk.

Let's listen.

>> All of the ingenuity of corporate America, all the resources, all the resourcefulness has not produced an infant formula that is superior in nutrition and all the qualities that we want to the infant formula that God made, which is the infant formula in a mother's breast.

We at HHS are encouraging mothers to breastfeed as long as possible, because there is no better food for your brain, for your gut microbiome, for your physical growth, for your emotional growth.

And what's in God given breast milk.

>> All right.

So, Dr.

Murray, I mean, I hear the phrase breast is best.

What's wrong with what you just heard?

>> Well, there's a lot of layers there.

I mean, obviously the religious connotations are what they are.

And also, you know, just it's not true.

It's great if we can breastfeed, but it misses the huge points of the unbelievable logistic hurdles involved in breastfeeding.

Again, going back to naturals never meant healthy or easy.

It is very challenging for a lot of people to do, especially if you don't have any maternity time and you're going back to work in 2 or 3 weeks after your baby is born and you're not in a place where you can pump breast milk or have a break, or do all of the things that you need to do and in and maintain that relationship with your baby again, you know, so there's just so many layers of privilege, I think, that are stoked into that.

And again, but also, it just is another hit against moms where we just seem to have this narrative come up of, good moms do this, you better.

I hope you're going to be a good mom.

Good moms, you know, don't take Tylenol.

They suffer through headaches and fevers during pregnancy.

You know, good moms do this.

And that narrative is just so damaging and so false and so ridiculous.

And just I think not to be too foofoo, but it's just working to just make women feel bad about themselves again, and especially in an incredibly vulnerable time of their life.

Having a newborn is incredibly, incredibly challenging.

Whether you're would.

Regardless of which parent you are in that couple, it is a lot.

And breastfeeding is very, very challenging and also very, very wonderful.

And it would be great if everybody could breastfeed if that's what works best for that family.

But, you know, I think fed is best over breast is best.

There's plenty of wonderful children out there who are exclusively formula fed.

And that's okay.

>> Dr.

Tope, anything you want to add?

>> just that I spent a lot of time in private practice just trying to build up mothers and their confidence.

And I totally agree that comments like that just are totally counterproductive and judgmental and have no place in the discussion of maternal mother or mother baby health.

>> down to our last minute, we I guess we needed a whole other hour to talk about red flags.

When we see health discussions, especially online, because there's, I think, good faith discussion.

And then there's discussion designed to maybe mislead any red flags you want to throw out there.

For us to kind of be looking.

>> For when I need a clinical question answered, I got to make sure I'm asking the right questions.

So make sure the right question is being asked, not just a gotcha question.

You know, this comes up with how much training do doctors get in medical school about vaccines?

Well, medical school is not necessarily the right place for doctors to learn about vaccines.

It's actually residency.

But you have to know how to ask the right questions.

So make sure the right question is being asked.

And not just this gotcha, gotcha, gotcha stuff.

>> Or like, hey, I foiled this agency and I got nothing back.

But you intentionally foiled the wrong agency.

>> Yep, yep.

>> Which you've seen happen.

>> Oh, it happened during the pandemic.

>> A lot as a way for people to to claim that somebody was there was a conspiracy or there were denying information.

Correct.

So just look for some of these indicators and try to keep it in good faith, because good faith questions should benefit all of us, you know, what are we learning about vaccines?

What do we know about health and safety?

What do we know about best practices?

Let's talk about it even when it's hard.

And as Dr.

Toba said, don't assume that there's one big cabal that's out to that is just working in lockstep.

it's okay to be cranky sometimes and disagree.

Arguing is good, right?

Dr.

Topa?

>> Absolutely, doctor.

>> Thank you for making time for us remotely.

And we'll talk to you in studio.

I hope the next time Dr.

Topa.

>> It'd be my pleasure.

Thank you very much for having.

>> Me on.

Thanks to Dr.

Justin Rosati joining us earlier, Dr.

Elizabeth Murray, thank you for your time as well.

Great seeing you again.

Thank you.

And from all of us at Connections.

Thanks for watching.

Thanks for listening.

On our various platforms.

We're back with you tomorrow on member supported public media.

>> This program is a production of WXXI Public Radio.

The views expressed do not necessarily represent those of this station.

Its staff, management or underwriters.

The broadcast is meant for the private use of our audience.

Any rebroadcast or use in another medium, without express written consent of WXXI is strictly prohibited.

Connections with Evan Dawson is available as a podcast.

Just click on the Connections link at wxxinews.org.