Deep Dive
Shownotes Transcript
Welcome to Broken Potholes, the show exploring the fractures in our society being brought upon us by our political masters. And this year, a disease that has shocked the nation. This is a
special episode of Broken Potholes. We're going to be talking about the COVID crisis and hopefully coming up in here in a few minutes, we're going to have Dr. Kelly Victory, who is an absolutely fantastic voice on this issue. She has piloted the hashtag Facts Not Fear, which I think is maybe the most important thing
for people, maybe the most important message for people to hear during the COVID crisis, because there's so much fear out there. I'm here with my co-host, Chuck Warren, our friend, Kylie Kipper. Chuck, from the start, there has been a real break between the reality of this disease, which is bad, and the news and the politicians who have been talking about it, who are acting like this is the plague.
Well, there just seems to be no common sense middle ground by people. You know, you have those on the right or some on the right, not all, but you have some on the right just like, well, you know, I'm not going to do X, Y, Z. You're taking away my freedom. Well, there's freedom to be able to go to work. There's freedom to keep an economy open. There's a freedom to be able to go worship.
But for somehow that's taken away their freedom, saying a mask probably helps slow it down and spread. And then you have on the left saying if you get it, you're dead. You might as well just write your will right now. And they act like it. Yeah, they absolutely do. And I mean, for instance, here in Phoenix, folks might not have noticed our mayor when this first began tweeted out that by midsummer we were going to have a 747 worth of people, 800 people a day dying here.
Now, it's been bad, but it hasn't been anywhere close to that. What's the actual number we're averaging in Arizona now? You know, for the year, it's well under 100. The height has been around 200 a day. So she's, for the average, she's off about 600, 700 people a day. But she's been guided by fear. Yeah, no, you could see it right from the very start. When this happened, first off, she and her staff entirely went home. I mean, they abandoned City Hall for over a month.
You know, which I know we're talking about, you know, social distancing and remote working and all that kind of thing. But at some point you're the captain of the ship. You have to lead that ship. And that means standing on the deck in the middle of the storm. And when you have the city manager and other top leaders from the city who were there and she wasn't, that's a pretty big statement. Absolutely. Absolutely.
So, we're just getting the notice from the booth here. We do have Dr. Kelly Victory online. Fantastic. I'm very much looking forward to having a more informed opinion on this subject than either you or I have, Chuck. Dr. Victory, for those of you who don't know her, is a 15-year board-certified emergency specialist and trauma specialist, 15 years of clinical experience, president of Victory Health.
She has served as the CMO for Whole Health Management. And throughout this crisis, she has pioneered one of the most important things, I think, out there. She's put out the hashtag Facts, Not Fear. And I think that's critically important as we continue to deal with COVID going forward. Dr. Victory, are you on the line now? I am. Thanks for inviting me. Oh, thank you so much for being here. You know, obviously, Dr.
Everyone has been talking about this for a year, but the fear that has been out there that has been generated around COVID has just been incredible. It's been beyond anything we've seen. And the reality is not that bad. It's bad, but it's dealable. It's handleable, isn't it?
Yes, you're precisely right, Sam. And here's the situation. I spent many years, as you said, as a primary hospital-based trauma and emergency specialist. Over the years that I did that, I developed an interest in disaster management and really in what happens during times of mass casualty. And I made the transition to become an expert
in the medical management of mass casualty events. And as importantly, I became a student of disasters. I started to really look at disasters of all sorts, man-made disasters, natural disasters, pandemics,
everything in between, and looked at what works and what doesn't work, as importantly, in a response in those types of situations. And one of the things I learned along the way in studying that, and with the help of many others who have become students of disaster, is that our individual responses, how we perceive the situation and how we therefore react
manage ourselves really profoundly impacts our way to get out of the situation with as little casualty as possible. And one of the biggest impacts in that is our level of fear. People do not make good decisions. They do not make thoughtful decisions.
strategic decisions when they're operating out of a place of profound fear. And it's why fear is such a powerful, powerful intoxicant, why it allows people to manipulate us and manage us in ways we don't want to go.
I'm sorry to cut you. Fear can really be a weapon if people are wielding it for their own intent, right? Absolutely. And so what I watched very quickly when the pandemic began and I became aware of it the third week of January, so just about a year ago today, when I became aware of it, I
I watched very quickly something start to unfold on a national and global level that I found terrifying, and that was that people were not responding in the ways you would have expected because they were largely operating out of a pit.
this deep, dark pit of fear. And so I decided I certainly am not a naysayer. I've never claimed that COVID-19 was a hoax, that the virus isn't very real, that there certainly are people who can become profoundly ill from it and obviously die from it. But very quickly, I decided that we needed to bring a more measured approach
thoughtful approach to this and allow people to understand what is truly the risk. What are the risks? Everything from exposure to potentially falling ill to it, to any adverse impact, and really look at the facts
And try to parse that out from what is just a fear, knee-jerk, sort of deer in the headlights, fight or flight response to this, which is not helpful to anyone. Dr. Victory, this is Chuck Warren. My question is, why do you think we got to that point? I've given people, especially the medical community, where you hear a lot of people say, well, they told us this last month, and now it's a new directive.
And my comments always been, well, they're learning as they go along. So, you know, we have to give them a break. You know, if they had all the answers to start, then we wouldn't have had a problem. But why do you think we have just become this basis of fear? There's a segment of our society and journalism falls under it. It seems that if you get COVID, you're dead. You might as well write your will, say goodbye to everybody, you're going to die.
Why do you think we have come to that point? Because it's been so dramatic, so emphatic that it has turned off a lot of people. And then a lot of people, like you said, it's put them in such a rut of fear that they're just unable to function.
And I think here's what has happened. And we could talk about the actual statistics and really what is factual and what is not with regard to true risk from this particular virus. And people have acted as if we have never faced a viral pandemic in the past, which is preposterous because we have decades and decades of experience with these. But the real answer to your question, I believe, Chuck, is the 24-7 news cycle. It is the experience.
expediency with which you can get information to people. And that's terrific if what you are getting to them is actually factual, but it's absolutely treacherous if what you are able to get to them is instead a nonstop newsreel of data points and photographs and scary things, because it is so easy for people to react
in the moment rather than with the way it was when I was growing up. You had to wait until the newspaper came in the morning. And you got news at exactly twice a day, 6 p.m. and then again at 11 p.m. And you got sort of a factual result. Here's the data that we have from the day. You've got some numbers.
Rather, right now, what we have is this ability not only for 24-7 moment-to-moment changes, but we have the ability for people who are uninformed, ill-informed, misinformed, all the Facebook people and the Twitter people and the Instagram people to get out there and start posting things that are highly incendiary,
may or may not be based in fact at all. Frequently we'll see things, I'll see a news feed on something or a piece of video footage, and I'll think, that isn't even in the United States. You know, look at the sign on the wall, that's written in Russian. That's, you know, a Cyrillic. That's not even, you know, that's not even a U.S. news feed. They're showing a video clip that's supposedly from an emergency department in Los Angeles.
And you're saying, well, then why is the writing on the wall in French? But people can post these things and unfortunately, fear sells.
Fear, trauma, disaster, blood, gore, those things sell. And they sell newspapers. They sell everything. So the fear merchants, those people who are out there, who have a way to make a name for themselves or to certainly commercialize something, to monetize something, have found a way to do it. And it's great to be able to have access to this kind of information in real time when it's correct.
But there's far more harm that can be done when the information that's coming to people in real time is misinformed. Dr. Victory, this is Chuck Horn again. Your hashtag is facts over fear? Facts, not fear. Facts, not fear. Facts, not fear. Two things. Can you tell our listeners just some of the facts that they need to know about what's going on with COVID-19?
And then second, if you could follow up, is how much pushback have you received from the medical community for your fact-based conversations? Well, let me start with that one first because I think it's critically important. I did launch the Facts Not Fear hashtag very, very early on. It was in January when this first came to light. And what happened was I started getting...
personal inquiries from friends of the military and people around the country uh... who know that they're involved in public health for decades thank you what do you make of that and i was picking up on an element of fear that i had never heard from the people and so i decided to watch that hashtag that yes call me anytime and i will keep you up to date with true al i'll give you the unvarnished i'm not trying to put a happy spin on it i'm simply saying
Let's not overreact. The reality with, and as a result, I received tremendous pushback. I've been highly censored. There's been every single video I put up, every YouTube I put up has been taken down over and over again. What happened that really launched things was
In May, I was asked to make a video on behalf of a huge evangelical church in Texas, asked me to make a video for their congregation to help their folks feel safer going back to worship in person and sending their kids back to school when the time came to do that. So I've
I apologize, Dr. Victory. I got to cut you off real quick. We're going to break. We're going to bring you right back on as soon as we're done here. This is really critical stuff. I mean, especially the silencing of the media and of people who disagree. It's the new year and time for a new you. You've thought about running for political office, but don't know where to start.
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Welcome back to Broken Potholes with your hosts Sam Stone and Chuck Warren. In the studio with us today, Kylie Kipper. But on the phone we have an amazing guest, Dr. Kelly Victory. Dr. Victory has spent 15 years working in hospitals here. A very high level doctor. Very respected in her industry. We were just talking about some of the kickback, the lashing that she and others have gotten from her.
since COVID started. Yeah. Dr. Victory, let's talk more about the pushback. Sam and I, and I think we fall in your camp, are COVID's real. COVID kills people, but there's a lot of people that get it who don't pass away. And it seems that, you know, with your hashtag facts, not fear, that
We've seemed to forgot about this, and for some reason there's a segment of society that really want to push the death is around the corner instead of providing facts that
that would help people, that would probably lessen the fear to a degree, and probably educate people more to be more observant outside. And if you could tell us more about the pushback you've received from journalists, from the medical community, and then also share some facts about COVID that people just probably don't recognize. Who's really at risk from this, and how is it really being transmitted? I think that information, I don't think most people know the truth. Yeah.
Sure. Well, the pushback, as I said, has been very, very real. I and others have been highly censored. And because of the media platforms that we are using, typically it is very easy for someone to simply take down...
What I post, I received my initial pushback from YouTube and an email that said that they were taking down my video that I made for that church because, quote-unquote, these were their words, because I made statements that did not support the stance of the World Health Organization.
Now, you should find that chilling in and of itself because the World Health Organization essentially is the strong arm of the Chinese Communist Party. We had left the World Health Organization at the time that I made the video, so the idea that I would be censored because I made statements that simply didn't support them is important because the entire basis of scientific endeavor, the way that we have become one of the greatest medical and scientific communities ever,
on the planet is because we have allowed free and open dialogue. And when you shut that down, it's a very scary thing indeed. With regard to the actual facts, let's look just at what the CDC says. COVID-19, while it is, quote, novel, it's a new virus. It's something that we hadn't seen before. That doesn't mean we have no experience.
with it whatsoever. Novel viruses come along all the time. We have decades and decades of experience in how other respiratory viruses spread, and this one we could assume would be not significantly different, and in fact, it's not. We know the real people who are at risk from this, and those people are largely over the age of 75, 10,
To date, the median age still of people who have died from COVID is 76 years old. That's a fact, okay? Those are the people who are at highest risk. We also know that people with a very well-defined set of comorbidities, other medical problems, are at risk, namely obesity, diabetes, and heart disease, and obviously anyone who has an already suppressed immune system.
If you look at the CDC's numbers, the risk of dying from COVID, if you are under the age of 18, is essentially zero. The risk of dying is 0.003%. That's about as close to zero as you can get.
And the people under 18 who have died have had one of those existing comorbidities. Then look between 18 and 50. Your risk of dying from COVID if you are under the age of 50 is still 0.02%.
it's well below your risk of dying from influenza. Then if you look between the, these are the, these are the CDC's numbers and people need to sit back and think about what these numbers mean. I've just told you that if you are under the age of 50, your risk of dying from COVID is well below your risk of succumbing to influenza on an annual basis. And because,
And between, you know, between 50 and 70, the risk rises slightly, but still to 0.5 percent, still a half a percent. And then it only goes up significantly. And it does over the age of 70. When people are over the age of 70, your risk of succumbing to COVID, if you get it,
is somewhere between 4.5% and 5%. And that is not insignificant. And that's why our approach should always have been to rally around and protect those people who are in those highest risk categories, namely over the age of 70, people in residential communities like nursing homes and assisted living facilities, and those people with underlying comorbidities.
Dr. Victory, you hear a lot about long-term ramifications to people's health. Long COVID. Long COVID. How real is it? What are the, are you worried about as a doctor?
It is absolutely a very real entity. But let's be clear, this happens with a huge number of viruses, many viruses, including influenza, Epstein-Barr virus that results in mononucleosis. If you hear about many viruses have long term the potential to
for long-term effects in a small percentage of people. Generally, those impacts will resolve over time, but it is not uncommon at all for someone to have mononucleosis and then end up with residual fatigue for a period of many months. There are people who have influenza who end up with cardiac impacts that last for some months.
So COVID-19 is not unique in that. Unfortunately, again, because of this pandemic, many people are being exposed to the fact that viruses are nasty things. They can cause some long-term effects. But don't be fooled into thinking that COVID-19 is somehow unique in this. We have always faced this risk. And that's really where the rubber meets the road.
We are faced every single year with an outbreak of influenza, for example. Yet we have never behaved in the way that we are behaving with COVID-19. Never before have we done this. We had a tremendous H1N1 outbreak in 2009. Every bit is contagious. Every bit is serious.
Yet there were no lockdowns, no school closures, no limits on capacity in bars and restaurants, no mask mandates, no social distancing requirements, whatever the heck that is. We had SARS back in 2003 when I was the chief medical officer of Continental Airlines, and I was front and center on managing that pandemic.
We did none of this. We had an enormous outbreak of influenza in 1968, far more deadly. 1957, same thing. If I can stop you for just a second, we have to go to break again in about 45 seconds. But I actually want to touch on the 68 comparison when we come back, because we really did nothing at that time. There was really no special...
precautions of any type taken. And as you just pointed out, that virus appears to have actually been more deadly than COVID.
Far more. Far more. And that's what I'm asking people to look at is to say, let's look historically. Let's not act as if this is our first rodeo with a viral pandemic. And let's be thoughtful in our approach. And I'll talk a little bit more from a public health perspective about really how we should be doing that. Fantastic. And we're looking forward to that right after the break. Thank you, Dr. Kelly Victory. Thank you.
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Welcome back to Broken Potholes. I'm your host, Sam Stone. In the studio with me today, my friend and co-host, Chuck Warren. And on the line, Dr. Kelly Victory. Doctor, this has been, I think, a very important discussion. As we're talking about COVID, we threw out, I think, every bit of the planned response to a virus. And the response that we've had has been draconian to an extreme.
into the point that it is actually hurting more than the virus itself. Could you talk a little bit about that? Absolutely. And I think it's important for people to understand really the mandate of public health. If I put on my public health hat, it is very different than when you come into my office or into my trauma center as a patient. You are my singular concern. You and your well-being is all I am concerned about.
When I put on my public health hat, I have to consider the ramifications and the repercussions of anything on not only you as an individual, but on the entire population. I don't have the luxury of simply focusing on an individual. And the public health response to COVID-19 has been disastrous because we have failed
to really consider the impact of each of these mitigation schemes, whether it's lockdowns,
school closures, mask mandates, to look at the impact of those things on the entire population and their health. And it's not only physical health, it's economic health, emotional health, spiritual health. So if you look, for example, at what has happened as a result of these draconian lockdowns and school closures,
We've seen an escalation in suicides and depression and substance abuse that has heretofore never been witnessed in this country. We have seen economic devastation that will result
Even if you look at the U.N. estimation, they are estimating that 213 million people, almost a quarter of a billion people, will die of starvation globally as a result of the lockdowns and disruption in food chains. And how many, to compare that, how many have died of COVID to date according to their figures? Somewhere in the millions.
in the low millions. So we're talking about doing 200 times as much damage through our response as this virus. That is correct. If you look just in the United States at the number of people whose cancers will not have been diagnosed because mammograms, colonoscopies,
skin cancer screenings were all canceled starting in February of last year. So when I see a patient now who gets a mammogram and has a breast lump diagnosed now in February this year, and that patient says to me, would it have been different if I'd picked it up last year in March when my mammogram was supposed to have happened? How can I look at that patient and say anything other than, yes, it would have been different?
We are allowing people to delay treatment for cancer, for diabetes, for heart disease on a weekly basis. We see patients coming into the ER saying they've been having chest pain for over a week. And when you ask them, why didn't you come in? Their answer invariably is, I was afraid I'd catch COVID. I didn't want to put more additional strain on the hospital. And
And so we are harming people, children. And not only have their educations been delayed, but children are suffering immensely from the devastating impact of social isolation. For many children, school is the only place they get their one nutritious meal of the day. And they've been missing it for a year. This is something I want to explore with you in the future some more. Dr. Victory, if you're willing to come back on the program again, we'd love to have you.
Obviously, one hour program is not enough to talk about everything that we need to talk about around COVID and this disease and our response to it. But I cannot thank you enough for coming on the show today and joining us for this discussion. And from the start, because I have been following your Twitter feed and your facts, not fear approach has really resonated and helped me. And it's something I've shared with others. So thank you, doctor.
Thank you for having me, and I'd be delighted to come back anytime to talk again about the true risks from this, how people can protect themselves and their loved ones, things that all of us can and should be doing simply to make sure that our own immune systems are at peak functioning, and how to actually work our way out of this mess in a thoughtful manner going forward. Absolutely. Thank you so much, Doctor. We really appreciate having you on the show. Anytime.
Fantastic interview with Dr. Kelly Victory. Now we have our sunshine moment. Which will be on after this break, which everybody should be very excited about. Something we have been focused on is trying to put just a little bit of sunshine into these programs because I think it can be so much doom and gloom, especially with what you've been hearing, what you just heard from Dr. Victory. There's a lot of fear out there. There's a lot of anger. It's nice once in a while to have a little bit of sunshine come in, isn't it? We'll be back.
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All right. Welcome back to Broken Potholes with your hosts Sam Stone and Chuck Warren. It's time for our sunshine moment. And today we have a very special guest on the line. Very special. Annie Warren. No relation, right? No relation. Hello, Annie. How are you?
Hi, Dad. Hi. Annie, you've been volunteering at the State Farm Stadium doing the immunizations. And could you explain to folks what the process is and how it's going firsthand experience? This week to do an eight-hour shift at the State Farm Mass Vaccination Clinic that they are doing in Arizona. And basically what they do is they're utilizing about 100 people.
general volunteers and about 40 clinical volunteers per eight-hour shift running this 24-hour shift. Luckily, I was lucky to get a spot as a general volunteer. Most of those are being filled by Blue Cross employees or their direct family members, but if they have a slot that they can't fill, they'll go to a general wait list that's around 3,000 people long right now, so I just happened to get...
A lucky spot on that. And basically what you do as a volunteer is you help get everyone through the system. So at State Farm, they have a really streamlined system right now for how they're vaccinating. Basically, you come in your car. You never leave your car. Clearly directed to the parking lot where they immediately check you in, make sure you have an appointment. You have a barcode and identification number. They make sure all that matches.
Once you're matched, you go through a system and there's about 10, give or take, tents after that, after you get through the check-in process. And they have people at every single tent that are administering vaccines. And then once you get through that second set of tents, there's a third set of tents. And you sit there for about 15 minutes. You're monitored by a clinical person there who makes sure that you're not having any adverse reactions, the infection.
the injection sites clean. And then also at the same time, they have general volunteers there who are registering you for your second dose of the vaccine. Once that 15-minute period is up, you are on your way home. From start to finish, it's taking roughly 30 minutes or less to get people through getting the vaccine. And how many people are they getting done a day?
They're saying they're getting close to 4,000 or 5,000 people done every day just at that site. And how do people who come to get their vaccines, how are they acting? Are they being patient? Are they being thankful? What's been the general reaction you saw on your shift?
I was told I was in the happy part of the vaccine clinic. That's how it was defined to me. You're going to love this. This is where everyone's happy because I was at the last set of tents, which is where you're registering people for their second dose, and then they're being monitored by a clinical volunteer. And honestly, it's just gratitude. There was no one there who was grumpy. Honestly, the funniest form of gratitude came from the old people who realized we were going to register them there. They were happy they didn't have to use the computer again. I was like, oh, thank God. My second dose.
The very biggest fear was not being able to get it because they couldn't figure out the computer again. So, I mean, honestly, just grab it.
And it was so funny. We had one person pull up and he was driving his very elderly mom who was in the vaccine. He's like, I got a question for you today. And I was like, what's your question? He's like, I want to know, is my mom the oldest to get vaccine today? I was like, well, how old is she? He goes, 95. And she was in the back fist pumping, like just elated. Just thrilled. She's like, I've seen a lot in my lifetime. She's like, this is one of the weirdest. Yeah.
I mean, if you've lived that long, you really have seen a lot in your lifetime. Oh, you've seen a lot. You've seen a lot, that's for sure. Well, Annie, thank you for coming on and telling us what's going on there. We appreciate it. You are welcome. Have a great day. Thank you. You too. Bye-bye. All right. Sam, why don't you introduce our happy hour here? That's a pretty big ray of sunshine right there. That is a ray of sunshine. It's working well. What's funny about it is I was reading the USA Today this morning, and they were talking about in San Francisco, what they do is they make you go park. Instead of having a volunteer there...
If you feel like you're getting symptoms because of the shot, they make you honk your horn and flash your lights. That's how they come over and help you out. So they seem to be a little more organized here at State Farm Stadium. It sounds like they're doing a really brilliant job. And thank you to Annie and all the other volunteers who are going out there. Absolutely. Well, next in studio with us, Kylie Kipper, Mackenzie Semerad. They are here.
And going to give us a little bit more fun for the program. What do you got, Kylie? All right. So as we all know, the Super Bowl is coming up this next weekend. And I found a very interesting story that people are talking about to help bring awareness and stop the fight and fight against global and sex and human trafficking. And it's kind of a dark subject for this program.
But it's a very interesting story that I found that kind of does it in a more different and interesting way. So we have Airbnb that has partnered with different nonprofits to educate their hosts and, you know, how to deal with the situation in the event that that happens. What to look for and things like that. And Uber's done the same thing. So they're educating their drivers on, you know, in case the event of someone gets in their car and something weird's going on.
but Rafa International, which is formerly Rafa House, and they mainly deal with females who have been caught in the act of human trafficking. They've partnered with Athletes and Causes Foundation on Project GOAT, capital G-O-A-T. And what they're doing, that stands for Global Offensive Against Trafficking. And what they've done, it's an art-based campaign where they have 55 life-size goat statues. And these artists have painted these statues to represent the...
that have been through RAFA International to kind of tell their story. So I saw one online that was painted in a Yankee. So I can just imagine that they're a Yankees fan. So they have these goats and they're offering them off
auctioning them during Super Bowl weekend. And they're going to be hosted at the Tampa Bay Zoo. So you can go and see them in person if you're there, or you can go online and you can bid through there. So it's just a different way. All the proceeds go to RAFA International. And it's just a different way of spreading awareness. I mean, look, we know that Bob Kraft needs a new goat for his team. So perhaps he can start with this one.
It would be better than going back to the massage parlor. Yes, yes. It will be interesting to see because they're only allowing 25,000 people there. If there's going to be the traffic in this that they've had in the past. And it's also going to be interesting to see
If the Biden administration continues its laser like focus on this issue like Trump did. This is something Trump was a Democrat Republican all agreed on him on this issue. He was he focused like a laser beam on it. And I mean, was it in California this week? They found 11 people.
teenage women who are being trafficked in California. I mean, this is 2021. What the heck? Chuck, I can tell you from my work with the city of Phoenix that if you end up with a young woman, I mean, essentially young enough, under 40, 50, who ends up on the street here,
statistically, they will be sex trafficked within 48 hours of ending up on the street. I mean, 48 hours. So that's why the homelessness crisis is so critical. And that's why these sex trafficking issues are so critical to try to address. And how does the city of Phoenix handle that when they arrest someone? I mean, knowing that
What do they do? You know, we go out of our way not to put any sort of legal burden on the woman in question. Obviously, we don't want to get them involved in any way. You know, we try to protect them, get them into shelter, get them into programs.
We are very aggressive prosecuting the individuals who commit these crimes, who traffic these women. It's not all women. It trafficked a lot of children. We are very aggressive. City of Phoenix has a standing task force on this and has devoted a lot of resources to it. And still, here, right in our own valley, 48 hours after a young woman ends up on the street, she's still trafficked.
at that risk, despite all that focus. Are there nonprofits in the city of Phoenix that specialize in when these women come in and help them get off the streets and help them get away from these slavery, modern day slavery? What do they do? That's absolutely, there are a number of organizations here. And I would tell you, look up on your phone, Phoenix Cares.
There is a hotline number there. They will connect you with the appropriate resource. They will send a van. They will come pick you up. They will take you to a shelter. If you find yourself in this position, there is a way out. It's just that a lot of folks don't know it's there and don't know that they will be protected. And we will make sure that the person that is victimizing them pays the price.
Kylie, anything else you have to add after looking that up and finding this story? Well, I just thought it was very interesting that this industry itself generates $150 billion. So the fact that these organizations are all working to raise money, like it's going to take a lot of money to battle that kind of influence that they have. I mean, I just, these women and men, girls and boys, I don't know how they recover mentally.
It's a very hard road. I've talked to the experts in the industry about this. It's something that takes years and years. It's something that can become the type of lifelong trauma that leads to enormous additional harms and leads to them becoming a permanent fixture on the homelessness landscape and leads them to long-term abusive relationships and possibly putting themselves in a position to be badly injured or killed.
That happens all the time. The mental trauma stays with you. And again, we have resources to help. But recovering from that, it's a long road. And this is a really serious thing. You brought up the amount of money, Kylie, that they make off this. Years ago, I had a good friend who was actually a CIA agent who did a lot of work in South America on the drug trafficking issue, cocaine in the 80s, that sort of thing. He had all sorts of wild tales. But his big point was, look,
The drug traffickers, their profit margins are 100 to 1. They spend $1 producing cocaine in Colombia. They sell it on the street for $100. They can have 75% of their shipments intercepted, and it makes no difference to them. It's still one of the most profitable businesses on the planet, and this is the same with sex trafficking. It's one of the reasons it's so hard to stop. It's incredibly profitable, and the money to battle against it is almost nonexistent.
Well, it's amazing on the drug sector and this human trafficking. If people just practice a little bit of responsibility and moral fortitude, it would stop the demand and the supply would stop. Or take the more libertarian approach like Nevada where you legalize and regulate it. Honestly, that is a less harmful scenario than what we have throughout most of the world and most of the country. Now, I understand a lot of people have significant qualms with that as well.
But what we're doing right now isn't working. And when you hear about these programs, we need more of this and we need more cities and obviously the Biden administration to follow through with what Donald Trump started because it's been a massive shift in how aggressively we've been going after. Well, also in public awareness. Yes. I mean, you didn't hear people talking about this two years ago. No. No, absolutely. You heard the Super Bowl. You always had the Super Bowl articles. They're putting these task force together and –
I don't know where they're meeting these people because hotel rooms are triple the price during regular times. I don't know how they're doing that. But that was always the only time you heard about it. The Super Bowl or some other major event were going to crack down. But now it seems to be part of the conversation. You see it on social media a lot from people you would never expect to see it. It's just an onerous evil that just absolutely needs to be wiped out. Yeah, no question at all. And really, it is incredibly heartwarming. And yes, it is a ray of sunshine to hear about those programs.
Because you do need to really look at these types of problems directly in the eye. I mean, we can't avoid our issues that are affecting people the way these are anymore. Absolutely. Let's go back real quick here as our waning minutes about our guest today, Dr. Victory. You and I and her were talking in between the break. I think one...
problem we have when you talk about facts is they could appear to be cold hearted. Yeah. Right. So yes, 99.5% will survive COVID. 80% will never have major complications. Right. Right. But that does not in any way ease the pain of the families that have lost loved ones throughout the world or here in the
lost her father, a good man, a good man. Mom had it, father had it, the father passed away. The family is going to take years to just fight this back. And so, um,
Those of us who really want to base this on facts because we want to see this end and people get back to their lives, we also have to be very cognizant and empathetic the fact that there are people who have died and it's serious. Yeah, no, I mean, you know, it goes back to the adage that one death is a tragedy and a thousand or a million is a statistic, right? Right. And it makes it very cold when you have these kinds of public health discussions. And that's always kind of been one of the feature of public health is that it is a
sort of cold industry. You have to balance one, you know, X many lives over here versus Y over there. And whichever number is greater is who you try to protect. This is something that's going to be an ongoing conversation. I don't think people realize that even with the vaccine, this will not be over
anytime soon. We are still months, potentially years away. We'll still be talking about this next year. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we will still be talking about it. And I am looking forward to bringing Dr. Victory back on for a future episode because I think a lot more people need to hear the message that she's spreading out there. Absolutely. Well, Sam, great show today. Kylie. Thank you for having me. A little ray of sunshine. And thank you to Annie Warren for her ray of sunshine. Her special guest spot today. And
We thank Mac for dropping by today. So everybody have a good week. Yes, thank you, Mac. Everybody have a great week. Thanks, Al.