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00:31Welcome, welcome, welcome to Last Week Tonight.
00:34I'm Gerard Alba, thank you so much for joining us.
00:36It has been a busy week, from George Santos getting over
00:39seven years in prison to Pope Francis dying just a day after
00:43meeting with J.D. Barnes, which, honestly, relatable.
00:48The Pope's funeral was on Saturday, and speculation
00:50about his successor is already brewing.
00:53Cardinal Pietro Parolin, an Italian,
00:55currently the Vatican Secretary of State.
00:57Cardinal Matteo Iuzzupi, currently the Cardinal of Bologna.
01:01Cardinal Pier Battista Pizzaballa,
01:04who is currently the Latin Rite Patriarch of Jerusalem,
01:07meaning the top Catholic in the Holy Land.
01:10His name in Italian literally means pizza dance.
01:14It's true.
01:16One option for a new Pope is apparently Cardinal Pizzaballa.
01:20I don't know, that sounds almost offensively Italian,
01:22but do keep in mind, every last name in Italy means pizza dance.
01:26Now, would electing a Pope pizza dance instantly repair
01:29the reputation of the Catholic Church?
01:31Obviously, the answer is, we won't know until we try.
01:33So, J.D. Barnes, you stay the fuck away from Cardinal pizza dance.
01:37You don't meet him, you don't go near him,
01:39you don't even think about him.
01:40Sure, he might be a terrible Pope,
01:42but don't take away Papa Pizzaballa from us.
01:45The way the world is, we need this right now.
01:49But we're going to dive straight in with our main story tonight,
01:51which concerns public health,
01:53one of the many good reasons to wash your hands.
01:55Some do it for the length of two happy birthdays,
01:57or row, row, row your boats.
01:59Personally, I do it for the length of one,
02:01my name is Keeeeeep Rockin'!
02:05That feels enough.
02:07On the campaign trail, Trump loved to talk about
02:10who he was going to put in charge of public health,
02:12and what that person was then going to do.
02:15Robert F. Kennedy cares more about human beings and health
02:20and the environment than anybody,
02:22and I'm going to let him go wild on health,
02:25I'm going to let him go wild on the food,
02:27I'm going to let him go wild on medicines.
02:30Look, even if he wasn't talking about RFK,
02:33I don't like the idea of anyone going wild on health.
02:37The same way I don't want anyone to go apeshit on water,
02:40get wasted on the census,
02:42or go full army hammer on agriculture.
02:44It sounds bad.
02:46Unfortunately, RFK is now
02:48the Secretary of Health and Human Services,
02:50and has indeed gone wild.
02:52In the run-up to the election, he pushed the slogan
02:54MAHA for Make America Healthy Again,
02:56and just a month into his tenure,
02:58he made this big announcement.
03:00We're going to streamline HHS
03:02to make our agency more efficient and more effective.
03:06We're going to eliminate an entire alphabet soup
03:08of departments and agencies
03:10while preserving their core functions
03:12by merging them into a new organization
03:15called the Administration for a Healthy America, or AHA.
03:19Uh, no thank you. I do not like any of that.
03:22I don't like him calling agencies alphabet soup,
03:24and I definitely don't like how he just said AHA,
03:27which is such a dumb name.
03:30It sounds less like a government agency,
03:32more like Manhattan real estate jargon
03:34used to describe the neighborhood above Hank Azaria.
03:37If you're north of wherever Hank Azaria is
03:39at any given moment, then guess what?
03:41You're in AHA.
03:43In practice, what that's meant
03:45is a radical downsizing of HHS.
03:47That same day, Kennedy announced a dramatic restructuring
03:50that would shrink the agency to 62,000 employees
03:53from 82,000, including about 10,000 layoffs
03:56and another 10,000 people who retired or resigned
03:59and now won't be replaced, which is alarming
04:02because HHS is an absolutely vital agency
04:05handling just about every high-stakes job
04:08related to health you could think of.
04:10And that alphabet soup includes
04:12the National Institutes of Health,
04:14the Food and Drug Administration,
04:15the Centers for Disease Control,
04:17the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services
04:19alongside 23 other divisions.
04:21Together, they cover around 28 percent
04:24of all federal spending.
04:26So these cuts are gonna have a huge impact
04:29on our day-to-day lives, and no one knows that better
04:31than some of the workers who just got fired.
04:34We oversee child welfare.
04:36We oversee federally funded
04:38temporary assistance to needy families, which is welfare.
04:41We oversee federally funded childcare,
04:43child support enforcement.
04:45These are the services that serve the taxpayer,
04:48and they are gone.
04:50Right now, it's this kind of,
04:52oh, someone else.
04:54It will impact all of you, the greater public.
04:57I think we're gonna have a lot of people die needlessly, honestly.
05:00Yep. And it is pretty alarming
05:03to hear a fired government employee say
05:05we're going to have a lot of people die needlessly,
05:07especially while wearing a T-shirt that says
05:09the horrors are never ending.
05:11Now, would you feel any better
05:14if I told you that apparently the bottom of that shirt says
05:17yet I remain silly?
05:19I mean, probably for a bit, right?
05:21But then you remember the man wearing it
05:23just told you people are going to die needlessly,
05:25so you'd feel like shit again.
05:27So given a critical government agency
05:30is in the process of being gutted,
05:32tonight, let's talk about public health.
05:34What RFK's doing, the many ways
05:36it'll impact us, and the troubling direction
05:38this is all going.
05:40Let's start with the sheer scale and chaos of these cuts.
05:43They actually began before RFK announced his AHA plan,
05:46because HHS, like most government agencies,
05:49suffered an initial round of DOJ cuts in February
05:51when over 3,600 probationary employees were fired.
05:55Around them, there were also a string of other freezes
05:57that hampered operations.
05:59At one point, DOJ instituted a $1 spending limit
06:01on credit cards, meaning researchers
06:03couldn't do things like pay for gas,
06:05for vehicles used to transport patients' blood samples,
06:08and in the words of one scientist,
06:10we can't order mice.
06:12Which is bad,
06:14because you don't have to be a scientist
06:16to know that lab mice are a key part of research.
06:19I'm actually pretty sure that the full scientific method
06:21goes observation, hypothesis, order a mouse,
06:24don't name the mouse, don't get attached to the mouse,
06:28experiment, analysis, conclusion,
06:31and finally, cry because you got attached
06:33to Colonel Nibbles.
06:35But then came the big AHA cuts,
06:38which were as sudden as they were cruel.
06:40Some federal workers didn't even know they'd been fired
06:42until they turned up to work and tried to use
06:44their badges to get in.
06:46If the light turned green, they still had their job.
06:48If it turned red, they didn't.
06:50Some fired workers were told to contact
06:52an employee named Anita Pinder
06:54if they wanted to file a discrimination complaint,
06:56which was hard to do, given she died last year.
06:59One former staffer even said,
07:01this bloodbath was so fucking bad,
07:03I had multiple officials asking me
07:05if I thought this was an April Fool's joke,
07:07because on top of everything else,
07:08this happened on April 1st,
07:11which has to be the most confusing April Fool's Day ever,
07:14second only to the one in 1945
07:16when U.S. troops landed on the shores of Okinawa,
07:19and the Japanese troops were like,
07:20wait, is this an April Fool's thing?
07:22And the Americans were like, no, it's actually World War II,
07:25and the Japanese were like, oh, right, it's just confusing
07:27because of the date, and the Americans were like,
07:29well, hang on, you guys do April Fool's Day 2,
07:31and that's how World War II ended.
07:34Now, RFK initially insisted that these cuts
07:37were made for efficiency and that nothing important
07:39was being lost, but it soon became clear
07:42some crucial stuff had been defunded,
07:44and he didn't know about it.
07:46There's like more than 50 pages of, you know,
07:49of cuts that I actually went through.
07:51The cuts were mainly DEI cuts, which the president...
07:54There were a lot, but I'll give you, for example,
07:56about $750,000 of a University of Michigan grant
07:59into adolescent diabetes was cut.
08:02Did you know that?
08:03I didn't know that, and that's something that we'll look at.
08:06There's a number of studies that were cut
08:09that came to our attention and that did not deserve to be cut,
08:13and we reinstated them.
08:15Our purpose is not to reduce any level
08:19of scientific research that's important.
08:22OK, it's not great that that's how he's finding out
08:25the health secretary should not be learning what he just did
08:28like some guy at a bachelor party being told
08:30what happened the night before.
08:32Do you not remember, bro? You spoke French.
08:34Well, then you pissed on a grave, fucked a bike rack,
08:37and cut $750,000 of research money for kid diabetes.
08:41You went wild.
08:43And for the record, simply reinstating studies
08:46isn't as easy as he's making it sound there.
08:49Some studies, once disrupted, can't just be restarted.
08:53So that's already infuriating.
08:55Before you hear him try to justify
08:57why the cutting of the wrong studies or staff is actually fine.
09:01Wouldn't it have been better or was thought given
09:04to say before firing them, going through and saying,
09:07hmm, what is that job? What is that job?
09:09Line by line by line and saying,
09:11I think that person's job maybe isn't needed.
09:14You know, this has to be eliminated.
09:16That would have been another approach,
09:18and it's the approach that has failed for 60 years.
09:21Because, you mean, it takes too long?
09:23It takes too long and you lose political momentum.
09:25Okay, so the question he was asked there boiled down to,
09:28do you think you should have figured out
09:30what you were cutting before you cut it?
09:32And his answer was no, which is not good.
09:36The rules for restructuring HHS
09:38should be the same as the ones for a bris.
09:40It is crucially important to know exactly what you are cutting.
09:44Speed is just not the most important thing.
09:47And it's one thing to hear about that in theory.
09:50It's another to see how these cuts are playing out.
09:52And let's start with the National Institute of Health.
09:55Its research and funding are key reasons
09:58why the Human Genetic Code was deciphered,
10:00Hepatitis C was discovered,
10:02the AIDS virus was isolated
10:04and the first drug to treat it was discovered.
10:06And it's where the basic research
10:08that helped lead to the COVID vaccines was done.
10:10It is by far the world's largest public funder
10:13of biomedical research, and in particular,
10:15the largest funder of cancer research.
10:17The NIH has been called the crown jewel of American science,
10:21which, if anything, is understating it
10:23because it's clearly better than a crown jewel.
10:26Those things don't really do much,
10:28aside from bedazzle a puffy hat that we occasionally balance
10:30on top of a collection of recessive genes.
10:33The NIH, however, is really important.
10:36But it's now in trouble
10:38because within weeks of Trump taking office,
10:40it stopped considering new grant applications entirely,
10:43which instantly stalled about 16,000 of them.
10:46It then announced hundreds of existing grants would be terminated,
10:49many seemingly for including terms like minorities,
10:52transgender, AIDS and vaccine hesitancy.
10:54In fact, they've reportedly cut about $750 million
10:58in HIV-targeted grants alone.
11:00And while that is clearly bad enough,
11:03all research is now threatened,
11:05especially because in addition to these cuts,
11:07this administration has a disastrous new proposal
11:10to cap what are sometimes called indirect research costs.
11:13Here is a doge guy in a group interview with Elon
11:16explaining the rationale.
11:18So if I take NIH as an example,
11:20today, if you're a NIH researcher
11:22and you get a $100 grant at your university,
11:24today you get to spend 60 of that
11:26and your university spends 40 of that.
11:28The policy that we're proposing to make
11:30is that you get to spend 85 of that
11:32and your university spends 15.
11:34So that's more money going directly to the scientists
11:36who are discovering new cures.
11:38OK, set aside the fact that that group
11:40looks like a regional choir of orphaned businessmen.
11:43What he just said there is extremely misleading.
11:46For starters, indirect costs don't come out of grants
11:49to researchers, they're issued on top of them.
11:52Essentially, right now, if you get $100 to fund your research,
11:55your university gets an additional $40.
11:58And it's not ideal that he doesn't seem to know that,
12:01especially as under this new plan,
12:03that $40 would be capped at $15,
12:05which is a real problem because that money
12:07goes to cover costs that make research possible,
12:10like buildings, utilities, lab equipment,
12:13animal caretakers and other support staff.
12:15As one expert pointed out,
12:17if you're going to use mice for your experiment,
12:19you actually need a mouse facility.
12:21Which does make sense.
12:23You cannot have your lab mice commute into work,
12:26however adorable that might turn out to be.
12:30And scientists will tell you,
12:32capping those expenses at 15% of a grant
12:34is a requirement that would make it functionally impossible
12:37for them to do high-quality work.
12:39Here is one scientist explaining what it would mean
12:42for his research on pneumonia.
12:44If there are no indirect costs flowing,
12:47we can't keep the computers running.
12:49If we can't keep the computers running,
12:51we can't do the science that we're doing.
12:53If we're supposed to work without buildings,
12:55without computers, without centrifuges,
12:57there's no way to get that done from someone else.
13:00Right. It should go without saying,
13:02but scientists need buildings and computers.
13:05I mean, maybe they can get by without centrifuges.
13:08I mean, I guess Carl can spin around pretty fast,
13:11but you know what?
13:13I actually think they're going to need those too.
13:15The point is, you wouldn't ask a research scientist
13:18to do their job without a computer or lab equipment
13:20the same way you wouldn't ask a Doge employee
13:22to do their job without an iron deficiency
13:24and a deep-seated conviction
13:26they're the smartest boy in the world.
13:28They need that for work.
13:31But the attacks on research don't end there.
13:33There have also been wholesale cuts
13:35to grants at institutions across the country,
13:37and not just at Ivy League schools
13:39that you might have heard about,
13:41but also at flagship state schools
13:43in places like Florida, Georgia, Ohio, Nebraska, and Texas,
13:45which is very bad,
13:47because virtually all of modern medicine
13:49relies to some degree on research
13:51that was supported by federal dollars.
13:53Interestingly, the same day as those mass layoffs,
13:56NIH published a paper about a breakthrough
13:58in using a person's own immune cells
14:00to fight gastrointestinal cancers,
14:02which is absolutely amazing.
14:04Unfortunately, two patients' treatments using that therapy
14:07have already had to be delayed due to these cuts,
14:10and that is just one example of many.
14:13As one Alzheimer's researcher put it,
14:15disruptions delay discovery.
14:17And it's impossible to know
14:19how many breakthroughs have already been delayed
14:21or that may now never happen.
14:23And while this is all supposedly being done
14:25in the name of saving money,
14:27I will point out a recent report found
14:29every dollar of research funded by NIH
14:31delivers $2.56 in economic activity.
14:35And not that we should be investing in health research
14:38purely for economic gain,
14:40but it is still worth noting
14:42that that kind of return on investment
14:44would make the sharks on Shark Tank
14:46shit in their Eames chairs.
14:48And so far, I've just been talking about the NIH,
14:51but RFK also oversees the FDA,
14:53where the cuts range from communication specialists
14:55who alerted the public to urgent safety recalls
14:58to veterinary division specialists
15:00who are investigating bird flu transmission.
15:02So now it's going to be much harder
15:04to get answers to important questions
15:06that you may have about bird flu,
15:08like, is it in milk, or is my pet vulnerable,
15:11or I fucked Big Bird two weeks ago
15:13and now I have a sore throat.
15:15Do I need to get tested?
15:18RFK also now oversees the CDC,
15:20and cuts there range from the firing
15:22of all 20 members of an office
15:24focused on Alzheimer's awareness and prevention
15:26to the shutter of a lab that tracked STIs,
15:28meaning the U.S. has apparently just lost its ability
15:31to detect drug-resistant gonorrhea.
15:33One former CDC staffer said,
15:35shit show is an understatement for what just happened,
15:39which seems right, doesn't it?
15:41Because shit show is a word you use to describe
15:43Anne Hathaway and James Franco hosting the Oscars
15:46or Fergie performing the National Anthem,
15:48not, hey, look out, everyone,
15:50turbo gonorrhea is on the loose, and it is pissed.
15:54And the thing is, the impact of cuts like that
15:57reverberate far beyond the CDC.
16:00Just take Wisconsin, where they've been dealing
16:02with a burgeoning lead paint problem
16:04in schools in Milwaukee.
16:05They've already had to close four of them for cleanup,
16:08and normally, a city can lean on the federal government
16:11for help in responding to lead contamination,
16:13but not right now.
16:15Milwaukee health officials turning to the federal government
16:18for assistance.
16:19To see that all of our partners at the CDC
16:21had been let go was pretty, pretty difficult.
16:23Totoritis received a CDC response saying
16:26quote, my entire division was eliminated today.
16:29Two days later, the health department received
16:32another follow-up email saying, quote,
16:34I sincerely regret to inform you that due to the complete loss
16:38of our lead program, we will be unable to support you.
16:41The move leaving the health department
16:43without any federal guidance.
16:45So right now, you do not have any contacts
16:48with the CDC when it comes to lead poisoning?
16:50Correct.
16:51Has that ever happened before?
16:52No.
16:53That is awful.
16:54And the CDC's responses there showed some superhuman restraint.
16:58My entire division was eliminated,
17:00and I sincerely regret to inform you,
17:02we'll be unable to support you,
17:04are an incredibly diplomatic version
17:06of what I'm pretty sure they wanted to say,
17:08which is, our shit just got rocked,
17:10and buckle up because your shit's about to get rocked too.
17:14Now, RFK has since said it is now classic style
17:17that if we make mistakes, we're going to admit it,
17:20and we're going to remedy it,
17:21and that eliminating that lead program
17:23was one of the mistakes.
17:24But as of right now, that has not been remedied.
17:27And the thing is, even if it had,
17:29I doubt he'd even know about it.
17:31It seems that he only finds out what's going on
17:33in his agency whenever he appears on an episode
17:35of This Bitch Brings Receipts.
17:37And that's not even getting into the fact
17:40HHS has also abruptly canceled more than $12 billion
17:43in grants to states for their health services.
17:45And while some states are fighting that in court,
17:48in many cases, the damage has already been done.
17:51In Minnesota, their health department was told
17:53that they'd be losing more than $220 million
17:55in previously approved funding.
17:57And they've warned that they may now have slower response times
18:00to infectious disease outbreaks.
18:02Which is bad enough before you learn
18:04the cuts could even compromise their Team D.
18:07Now, what is Team D, you ask?
18:09It's Team Diarrhea.
18:11A group of public health students
18:13who interview people who've had diarrhea
18:15to track food poisoning outbreaks.
18:17And I love that name so very much
18:20because it's straight to the point.
18:22If someone calls and says,
18:24hi, I'm from Team Diarrhea,
18:26you don't say, and what is this regarding?
18:29Because you know things are about to get personal.
18:32You're about to talk about force and viscosity
18:35with a stranger.
18:37Team Diarrhea is the best team name
18:39since the inter-department softball team
18:41on Law & Order SVU that was literally called Sex Crimes.
18:44Sex Crimes is still number one,
18:47but Team Diarrhea is a close second.
18:50And that's the impact on a big health department.
18:53In smaller rural communities,
18:55losing even a relatively small amount of money
18:57can be devastating.
18:59The head of a mental health initiative in Kansas
19:01said after losing around $50,000 in federal funds,
19:04that is nothing to the federal government,
19:06but it is massive to this agency.
19:08And it is massive to the people we serve.
19:11And I'm still not done.
19:13Because HHS grants also help support programs
19:15that might not immediately come to mind from this one.
19:18Which provides things like heating and cooling assistance
19:21to more than six million low-income families.
19:23To public services like Meals on Wheels.
19:26Yeah, Meals on Wheels.
19:28They get funding from the Administration for Community Living.
19:31And nearly 50% of the staff there was just terminated.
19:35One of those people actually tried to confront
19:37Indiana Senator Jim Banks about the cuts,
19:40and it didn't go well.
19:42Hi, I was a worker at HHS.
19:44I was fired illegally on February 14th.
19:47There are many people who are not getting social service programs,
19:52especially people with disabilities.
19:54Are you going to do anything to stop what's happening?
19:56You probably deserved it.
19:57I deserved it?
19:58You probably deserved it.
19:59I deserved it.
20:00Wow.
20:01Yeah, that's great to hear.
20:02Why did I deserve it?
20:03Because you seem like a clown.
20:05Oh, fuck off!
20:08All else aside, do you even know what a clown is?
20:12Can you imagine how disappointed people would be
20:15if they thought they were going to see a funny clown,
20:18and instead got a guy lecturing them about the dire lack of social services
20:21for people with disabilities?
20:23Trust me, they wouldn't like it.
20:26Sure, they'll tolerate it for around 12 seasons.
20:28They'll even come and see it filmed every once in a while.
20:31But that doesn't mean they like it.
20:34Believe me.
20:36And look, these cuts are dangerous on their face,
20:39but it gets so much worse when you remember who is in charge of all this,
20:43which brings us back to RFK.
20:46As we've talked about before, he has some extreme views on public health,
20:50although in his confirmation hearings,
20:52he tried hard to distance himself from them,
20:54pushing the idea that if confirmed,
20:56he'd steer away from his controversial views on things like vaccines
20:59and would instead prioritise health and wellness.
21:02Should I be so privileged as to be confirmed,
21:05we'll make sure our tax dollars support healthy foods.
21:09We will scrutinise the chemical additives in our food supply.
21:13We will remove financial conflicts of interest from our agencies.
21:18We will create an honest, unbiased, gold-standard science at HHS,
21:24accountable to the president, to Congress and to the American people.
21:29Yeah, that was his pitch, which does make sense, doesn't it?
21:32It'd probably be harder to get confirmed
21:34if he admitted that he's a rabid conspiracy theorist
21:36who, among other things, has suggested psychiatric drugs may cause school shootings,
21:39that Anthony Fauci was engaged in a historic coup d'etat against Western democracy,
21:43insisted that he won't take sides on what happened on 9-11,
21:46and thinks it's untemptable to go barefoot on an airplane.
21:49That is true.
21:51He took off his shoes and socks on, wait for it, a trip to the bathroom.
21:56Here is a photo of it.
21:58And I know, I literally just said 9-11 out loud,
22:02but RFK dragging his urine-soaked free-range piggies through first class
22:06is literally the worst thing to ever happen in American airspace.
22:11But regardless, that whole I just care about Americans' health argument
22:15appealed to a lot of skeptics at that hearing,
22:18and he even won over Senator Bill Cassidy, a medical doctor
22:21who previously expressed concerns about Kennedy's stance on vaccines.
22:25And I know there are some out there who still think,
22:27well, RFK's weird about vaccines, but he knows a lot about health-related issues.
22:33But you would be surprised by just how wildly wrong he can be
22:37when he is spouting alarming, official-sounding statistics.
22:41We are 4.2% of the world's population.
22:44We buy 70% of the pharmaceutical drugs on Earth.
22:4815% of American youth are now on Adderall or some other ADHD medication.
22:55When I was a kid, I always say this.
22:57A typical pediatrician would see one case of diabetes in his lifetime.
23:02Today, it's one out of every three kids who walks through his office door.
23:0520 years ago, there was no diabetes in China.
23:09Today, 50% of the population is diabetic.
23:16Okay, so here's the thing.
23:18All the numbers you just heard him say are bullshit.
23:21Americans don't buy 70% of the drugs on Earth.
23:24We buy around 6%.
23:2615% of American youth aren't on ADHD meds.
23:29Estimates put it closer to 5%.
23:32One in three kids don't have diabetes.
23:34It's actually .35%, or one in 285 kids.
23:38And the rate of diabetes in China is roughly 12%,
23:40not, as I think you already know, 50%.
23:44Half of all the people in China do not have diabetes.
23:49And look, we have asked our researchers to fact-check some dumb shit before on this show.
23:54Last year, we literally emailed J.D. Vance's team to ask,
23:57has Senator Vance ever had sex with a couch?
24:00And has Senator Vance ever had sex with any other furniture or household items?
24:05But somehow, that was still less embarrassing than writing to multiple diabetes experts this week
24:09and asking, do half the people in China have diabetes?
24:14And in return, getting a bunch of versions of no
24:16and one response from a doctor that called Kennedy's statement ludicrous,
24:20adding, these stats might be related to the worm in his brain.
24:25And when you get key information about problems that wrong,
24:30you're probably going to fuck up any attempt at a solution.
24:33And that's not even the biggest issue with Kennedy's approach,
24:36because for all his loud talk of making America healthy again,
24:39some of the cuts he's overseen are going to do the exact opposite of that.
24:44Because while he made a big show this week of claiming he'd eliminate eight dyes from foods,
24:48like Froot Loops, which, fine,
24:50he's been much quieter about his decision to fire everyone at the CDC's Office of Smoking and Health,
24:56even though smoking remains the leading cause of preventable death and disease.
25:01As one former head of that agency has said,
25:03shutting it down is the greatest gift to the tobacco industry in the last half century.
25:08With another former worker saying, if you're really worried about the ingredients in cereal,
25:12wait until you find out about the thousands of chemicals that are contained in cigarettes.
25:17And exactly, just ask the Trix rabbit.
25:20He smoked three packs a day for the last 30 years,
25:23and he was just diagnosed with lung cancer.
25:25And it wasn't eating Trix that did it.
25:28He has three months to live.
25:34He's going to die.
25:37In fact, for all RFK's self-promotion as being a scourge of Big Pharma and Big Food,
25:42he has just taken a buzzsaw to the regulatory agency whose job it was to keep them in line.
25:48And yet, there is one area where he is flooding attention and resources,
25:53despite it being the area that he had promised he'd stay away from,
25:56and that is sowing doubt about vaccines.
25:59He pushed out the top vaccine regulator at the FDA,
26:02who claimed Kennedy's team requested he turn over data on cases of brain swelling and deaths
26:06caused by the measles vaccine, something that was hard to do,
26:09since, as he pointed out, that data doesn't exist,
26:12because there have been no such confirmed cases in the U.S.
26:16But that is not all. Kennedy has also been making some very bold promises, like this.
26:22We've launched a massive testing and research effort
26:29that's going to involve hundreds of scientists from around the world.
26:32By September, we will know what has caused the autism epidemic,
26:36and we'll be able to eliminate those exposures.
26:40Okay, so first, there is no autism epidemic.
26:44There are autism diagnoses for people who are autistic,
26:47and it is pretty bold to claim you're going to get a definitive answer
26:50to something that people have been studying for decades by September.
26:54You're almost as bold as admitting to dumping a bear corpse in Central Park,
26:58your daughter telling the world you decapitated a whale with a chainsaw,
27:01and yet still having the audacity to make a highlight reel on Instagram
27:05that simply says, animals, keep their fucking name out of your fucking mouth.
27:11Most people agree the vast majority of the rise in autism diagnoses
27:17is due to there being more research, better awareness,
27:19and more access for people to get an accurate diagnosis.
27:22That is what can happen when you put time and money into health services.
27:26But RFK has persisted in treating the rise in diagnoses as a tragedy,
27:31and the way he talks about autistic people in general can be utterly dehumanizing.
27:36Autism destroys families.
27:39More importantly, it destroys our greatest resource, which are our children.
27:44These are kids who will never pay taxes.
27:47They'll never hold a job.
27:49They'll never play baseball.
27:52They'll never write a poem.
27:54They'll never go out on a date.
27:56Many of them will never use a toilet unassisted.
28:00And we have to recognize we are doing this to our children,
28:05and we need to put an end to it.
28:08Fuck you!
28:10And I've got to say, it is pretty telling
28:14that you are so divorced from any semblance of humanity
28:18that paying taxes is your first example of a fulfilling life.
28:22It may surprise you, but most parents don't actually hold their newborn baby for the first time
28:26and say, there's my future taxpayer.
28:29I can't wait until you get your first 10.99
28:32and therefore have any value as a human being.
28:34A coochie-coochie-coo!
28:37And to be clear, lots of autistic people can do the things RFK listed there.
28:42In fact, Marianne Eloise, an autistic poet, responded to those remarks with,
28:46I would love to read RFK's poetry if you could share it, adding,
28:49I am not familiar with his work.
28:52But also, even if someone can't play baseball or write a poem
28:57or needs assistance using the toilet, they're still a person
29:00and their life still has dignity and value.
29:03And as autistic advocates and journalists have noted,
29:05if Kennedy actually wanted to improve their lives,
29:08there are things he could be prioritizing,
29:11from research into how autistic people die needlessly from epilepsy episodes
29:15to fixing our onerous system to provide around-the-clock care services.
29:18You know, the sort of programs he's been taking a fucking hatchet to.
29:23So, yeah, there are good reasons to have doubts about RFK's plan to tackle autism
29:27even before you learn who he's bringing in to help him.
29:31Because among those he's turning to is David Geyer.
29:34He's a longtime vaccine skeptic who Kennedy recently hired
29:37to head a study of immunizations and autism.
29:40Geyer and his dad, seen here moments after telling each other,
29:43I love you, have published papers claiming vaccines increase the risk of autism,
29:49something that has been thoroughly debunked,
29:51as we've already walked through at length before on this show.
29:54Much of their research was conducted in what his dad called
29:57a world-class lab, every bit as good as anything at NIH,
30:01but apparently was in his house in a room that had water-wall carpeting
30:05and faux wood paneling.
30:07Here is the two of them in that home lab.
30:10No red flags there, just two regular dudes knocking out experiments
30:13in what looks like a 1970s jack shack.
30:17And their conclusions have been shockingly transparent bullshit.
30:21Geyer's dad was often called to testify in court,
30:23and over the years, judges called his testimony, among other things,
30:26intellectually dishonest and at best negligent, if not a fraud on the court.
30:31In fact, by the time he died, his medical licenses had been suspended
30:34or revoked in at least ten states.
30:36As for his son, that is luckily not a concern
30:39because, fun fact, he was disciplined by Maryland regulators
30:42for practicing medicine without a license.
30:44And while I do not know what the ideal qualifications are
30:47to run the nation's new inquiry into vaccines and autism,
30:50I'm assuming playing doctor for a while before getting caught
30:53isn't one of them.
30:55Not only is he not a doctor, he doesn't even play one on TV.
30:59Now more than ever, this is literally just some fucking guy.
31:04And if you are thinking, this is all going to end badly,
31:07it's already heading that way.
31:09As you undoubtedly know, measles is currently ripping across the country.
31:12As of taping, it has spread to at least 30 states,
31:15which is obviously bad because it can cause pneumonia,
31:17swelling of the brain, and one or two deaths per 1,000 people.
31:21So far, three people have died, two of them children,
31:24meaning the country's now seen the first pediatric measles death in 22 years.
31:28And RFK's response has been a long way from ideal.
31:32He initially called the outbreak not unusual,
31:35which it very much is.
31:37And even when he wrote an op-ed acknowledging the benefits of the MMR vaccine,
31:41he made sure to say that the decision to vaccinate is a personal one,
31:45and he has been recklessly pushing alternative theories and remedies.
31:49While Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
31:52says the vaccine does protect children against measles,
31:55he also touts vitamin A as an effective therapy,
31:58writing in an op-ed last week,
31:59vitamin A can dramatically reduce measles mortality.
32:03What is the cure for measles?
32:06Your measles is chicken soup and vitamin A.
32:10Okay, first, chicken soup is not a cure for anything.
32:13It is floating meat water parents trick their kids into eating
32:16by saying that it'll make them feel better,
32:18and that is only because the only way to get a child to eat anything
32:21is just to lie to them.
32:23Spider-Man eats broccoli all the time.
32:25Apples make you jump high.
32:27Santa Claus made these eggs, and if you don't eat them,
32:30he will kill himself.
32:33Kids will believe the dumbest shit,
32:34and apparently so will the head of the nation's health services.
32:37And while that clip was from a few years ago,
32:39Kennedy is still pushing vitamin A as a measles treatment,
32:42which seems to have had consequences,
32:44given multiple children in West Texas
32:46have been treated for vitamin A toxicity
32:48stemming from at-home attempts to treat measles.
32:51And all the while, Kennedy's funding cuts
32:53have hampered states' ability to mitigate this outbreak.
32:56Vaccination efforts in multiple states have been canceled,
32:59including in places like Dallas,
33:00which had to cancel 50 vaccination clinics,
33:02including events specifically targeting schools
33:05with low immunization rates,
33:07proving once and for all that the city of Dallas
33:09and anyone from the Kennedy family
33:11simply do not mix well.
33:15And it's not just measles.
33:16Whooping cough cases are also soaring right now,
33:19and multiple people have died of it in recent months,
33:21including two infants.
33:23The CDC's also been tracing an outbreak of hepatitis in Florida,
33:26but their lab that tests samples was just shut down,
33:29even though the kind of genetic tracing it performs
33:32is not conducted by any other lab in the U.S.,
33:34or indeed, the world.
33:36And on top of all that, as we've mentioned,
33:39there are currently real concerns
33:40about bird flu spreading among wildlife
33:42and its potential to spread among humans.
33:45That could be a total disaster.
33:47This Colorado veterinarian has been sounding the alarm
33:50about bird flu for a while now,
33:51and she's only getting more concerned.
33:54Do we have enough information about how this virus is spreading?
33:59I would say today, no.
34:00At present, we're given a stick,
34:03and they put a blindfold on us,
34:05and we're sent into a gunfight.
34:07And we're losing.
34:09We are losing.
34:11Well, that is terrifying.
34:13And I really hope the worst-case scenario doesn't happen here,
34:17if for no other reason,
34:18I so badly do not want to get stuck in that white void again,
34:21slowly losing my mind while talking to myself
34:23and occasionally a passive-aggressive face
34:25that seems to hate me.
34:26Don't send me back in there!
34:29The point is, these are just some of the current crises.
34:31The damage that radiates out from the wholesale gutting of HHS
34:35is only going to compound over time.
34:37We talked to Dr. Georges Benjamin,
34:39the executive director of the American Public Health Association,
34:42not a man given to hyperbole.
34:44And he told us,
34:45when you go to a restaurant,
34:46I cannot guarantee that the food you're going to eat is safe.
34:50And if there's a foodborne outbreak,
34:51I cannot guarantee there's going to be a mechanism
34:53to come in and do the investigative work
34:55to understand how you got sick.
34:57I can't tell you that if there's a train derailment tomorrow,
35:00there'll be an entity that can come in and assess,
35:02both in short and long term,
35:04what your exposure from toxic materials is.
35:07If there is an Ebola outbreak,
35:08we will not have the capacity, federal, state, or local,
35:11to get our hands around it quickly enough.
35:13It was a really uplifting conversation.
35:16And look, I'm not saying that our system was perfect before this.
35:19Over the years, we've done multiple stories
35:21about shortcomings in various parts of HHS.
35:24But our solution was always,
35:25it needs to be strengthened, and not,
35:27hey, here's a good idea, let's cut its budget
35:30and put a dipshit screaming, aha, in charge.
35:33But unfortunately, it feels right now,
35:35we're all about to get a harsh lesson
35:37in what each part of our public health system does
35:40as it gets taken away.
35:42Which is sort of like finding out what each of your organs does
35:44as someone removes them one by one.
35:47I'll be honest, in the course of working on this piece,
35:49we called a lot of people who've either worked
35:51for these agencies or rely on them.
35:53Sometimes, they were people we've talked to multiple times
35:55over the years on various stories.
35:57They include many doctors and scientists
35:59who are, by profession, not alarmists.
36:02They can be endearingly and sometimes annoyingly measured
36:06in everything that they say.
36:07But they've been utterly shattered
36:10by the last few months.
36:11When we started making calls after the election,
36:13they sounded alarmed, but they were still holding off judgment.
36:16Saying, well, let's just see how this goes.
36:19But more recently, those same people have been telling us,
36:21flat out, this is a disaster.
36:24People will die because of the mistakes
36:26we're making right now.
36:28That leader of the APHA recently put out a statement
36:30that read in part, as a physician,
36:32I pledge to first do no harm and to speak up
36:35when I see harm being done by others.
36:37Secretary Kennedy is a danger to the public's health
36:40and should resign or be fired.
36:43And look, I am not a physician or a scientist,
36:46despite, admittedly, looking like the child
36:48of Dr. Bunsen, Honeydew, and Beaker of the Muppets,
36:50but I completely agree.
36:53RFK needs to go.
36:55And by impeachment, if necessary,
36:57to the extent any senators like Bill Cassidy
36:59were willing to give him the benefit of the doubt,
37:01and I still cannot believe that they thought
37:03they could do that,
37:04that grace period is emphatically over
37:06because too much damage has already been done.
37:09This is a man who is clearly in
37:11way over his worm-riddled head.
37:14He doesn't know what he's doing.
37:16He doesn't know who he's fired.
37:17He doesn't even know how many diabetic people
37:19there are in China.
37:21And if that wasn't bad enough,
37:22he's currently spreading dangerous nonsense
37:24and gutting life-saving research,
37:25all while bringing in a basement quack.
37:28RFK in this job is dangerous.
37:31In fact, if I may quote every single passenger
37:34in the cabin of his ill-advised,
37:35piss-footed walkabout,
37:37there is something deeply wrong with this guy,
37:39and we need to stop him
37:40before he makes us all fucking sick.
37:43And now, this.
37:45And now, local anchors learn
37:48about their colleagues' families
37:50on National Siblings Day.
37:52Hey, today is National Siblings Day.
37:54I have four other siblings.
37:57I was gonna say, I think you have quite a few.
37:59Four?
38:00Four. I'm the oldest.
38:01Where are you in them?
38:02I'm the oldest.
38:03The oldest.
38:04It ranges down to my youngest brother
38:05who's 15 years younger than me.
38:06Oh, wow, that's a big age gap.
38:08Pretty big gap there.
38:0915 years?
38:10But the other, the rest of us
38:11are all kind of sandwiched in
38:12in a four-year time span,
38:14one after another.
38:15So was he planned?
38:16Not really.
38:17Siblings Day, shout-out to my four brothers,
38:19one of which will never watch me on TV.
38:21The guy with the perm, that's Rick there,
38:23he tried to change my cloth diaper
38:25and stabbed me with the safety pin
38:28through the hip, and I still bear the scar.
38:31So there you have the four of us.
38:33And you and Robbie are the two redheads.
38:35Two redheads, that's right.
38:36Different dads,
38:37but then that's the story of our lives.
38:40I think all of us have siblings, right?
38:42Oh, Todd, you're an only child?
38:45I am an only child.
38:46Did I know this in all these years we've worked together?
38:49Only been working together for 25 years, Joy.
38:52We met, and we met first day.
38:54You've never talked about a brother or sister before.
38:58Yeah, you know, now it takes,
39:01it takes the first day of this graphic
39:03just so happens to be National Siblings Day
39:05for Joy to realize that after 25 years of working together
39:08that I'm an only child.
39:10Wow.
39:11Wow.
39:12All right.
39:13Just when you think you know Todd Simcox.
39:15Yeah, apparently we don't.
39:17LAUGHTER
39:20That's our show. Thanks so much for watching.
39:22We'll see you next week. Good night.
39:24CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
39:34CHOIR SINGS
39:39Aha!