Dr. Makary: “Our Medical Leaders Have Failed Us”
22:02 Share

The land down under has never been easier to reach. United Airlines has more flights between the U.S. and Australia than any other U.S. airline, so you can fly nonstop to destinations like Sydney, Melbourne, and Brisbane. Explore dazzling cities, savor the very best of Aussie cuisine, and get up close and personal with the wildlife. Who doesn't want to hold a koala? Go to united.com slash Australia to book your adventure.

It's Livin' the Bream with host of Fox News at Night, Shannon Bream.

This week on Live in the Brain, we have someone who is brilliant. If you are a Fox viewer, you know him. He is timely and I couldn't be more grateful for him joining us on the podcast today. He's a professor at Johns Hopkins, a physician, a New York Times bestseller, and his book, The Price We Pay, is now out in paperback talking about fixing the broken healthcare system here in America. But we're also going to pick his brain about a lot of hot headlines. Dr. Marty Makary, thank you for joining us on Live in the Brain. Great to be with you, Shannon.

Okay. So let's talk a couple of COVID headlines. You have been a very vocal physician out there from the beginning, talking about what we know, what we don't know, what we're learning, what's fact, what's fiction. So I want to ask you about this newest thing that's making all the headlines today, which is the Delta variant. How concerned should we be about the variants? What do they mean to people who have had the vaccine, haven't had the vaccine? Like, what do we need to know?

I think the greatest concern about the Delta variant is the hype that comes around it because people are talking about it as if it's the next pandemic. And the reality is, Shannon, that the vaccinated immunity and the natural immunity are very powerful against this new variant. As a matter of fact, the life-saving protection of the vaccine and the life-saving protection of natural immunity are still entirely effective against the Delta variant. The Delta variant may be more contagious. I think it probably is.

We don't have hard data on that, but it looks like it is causing a small bump in cases in the UK. But they're primarily in younger folks where the case fatality rate is comparable to seasonal flu. So it may really sort of suggest that if you're younger and you can get the vaccine and you've not had the infection before, I would recommend getting the vaccine with one dose for now.

Okay. So will doctors do that? I mean, can you go and get a single dose where you get the card? Is that going to be good enough for places who want to see you quote unquote fully vaccinated? Well, I remind people we live in a free country and no one's going to force you to get that second dose. And we've seen a cluster of these heart complications called pericarditis and myocarditis.

within days of the second dose. Now, Israel had about 300 cases in a country that's pretty small, about 1 50th our size. So there's probably a lot of cases we don't know about, but remember the first dose is very effective. It's more effective than any flu shot we've ever had

And so I recommend one dose until we sort out these side effects. And remember also the second dose tends to knock people down and sometimes makes them sick for a day or two. You've got super strong protection after the first dose. So I recommend one dose. Okay. So other news that has been popping and we've heard,

you know, talk of this before that blood samples from more than a year ago, things that have been stored can be tested. Now people are giving blood and early on in 2020, seeing that they had some antibodies or some exposure to COVID. And in these latest numbers today suggest it maybe was percolating in the U S in late December, 2019. I would guess not surprising. What do you make of it?

Well, first of all, Shannon, I think it's important for us to show some humility as a scientific community around this virus. We've gotten a lot of stuff wrong as a public health community. And I can tell you as a doctor, patients appreciate it when you apologize. And they're very forgiving oftentimes. We did a lot of things wrong. And I think the original sin with COVID is that the government agencies have

regulated who could test, which universities could run a test for COVID. So all these labs and universities like our own were handcuffed and they couldn't test people for COVID. So it turns out, not surprising, there was a lot more community transmission and seeding of COVID before we really knew that this was bad.

And I think about those early days when the tests were hard to come by. And now there's a pharmacy by my house that my husband and I have hit it several times when we needed to have tests. And it's so easy. I mean, you can go, you don't need a prescription there. You know, it just seems like because the test is so widespread now, what does that say to you about the number of positives of cases that are testing positive right now? And I know a lot of some people don't consider positive.

a case and a positive test to be the same thing. But the fact that the numbers are so low now, testing is so widespread. So you would think we'd be picking up a broader scope if there were more positives out there. What do you think it says about where we are? And should we be hopeful? Is it time to say, okay, we think we've made it through the worst of this? Well, I think your gut feeling there, Shannon, is correct in that

A thousand cases of COVID say at a point last year is very different from a thousand cases today. Back last year, we could only really test those that had symptoms, those who were really at high risk. And so we only tested those where we really wanted a confirmation or we knew that they were sick.

Now we're testing folks as a part of routine screening for basketball, for camps, for leisure activities, for work and travel requirements. So we're getting a lot of positive tests in people with no symptoms and people who are not contagious. And we've got...

to stop testing the immune. That's actually consistent with some CDC guidance that says, if you don't have symptoms, you should not be getting tested if you've been vaccinated. We're picking up a lot of viral particles and it's translating as positive tests, but it's really not a public health threat. That's most of the cases, most of the 12,000 cases a day or so

are not a threat to the public. They're in young people. Many of them are in folks who are immune from natural or vaccinated immunity. And remember, these tests, like the PCR test,

they can detect as few as one virus in your nose. So if you're immune, your body's fended off this infection, but you still can have a viral particle in your nose. That does not mean that's a case. It does not mean that it's a public health threat. What we've got at some point to move on, because if we keep testing with this level of sensitivity and we find a couple thousand a day, which is where we are now, you can actually make this pandemic go forever. Well,

Well, and it seems like there are some who are interested in that. I mean, I find that there are headlines every day that say not out of the woods just yet. You know, we're going to see another bump. This is coming. That's coming. Or we're now detecting a new variant or don't let your guard down yet. Keep your mask on. Does that stuff line up with the science? I mean, we just want people to have the information that's accurate. So if there's a threat, they can make an assessment. They can make a good decision. Yeah.

Do you think that there are those who have some interest in keeping us afraid? Well, you're probably closer to the sort of political analysis of the COVID pandemic than I am. But I can tell you this, when I put out the prediction in February during the winter that we would see herd immunity in April or May and we'd see herd immunity in time for a normal summer period,

What I didn't realize is that became highly political because a member of the Senate told me that on the Senate floor that week that I published that projection was the largest spending bill in US history. And that was justified based on COVID, to fund COVID relief. And if some guy from Johns Hopkins was saying, "Hey, in a few months, we're gonna be in a much better place with a lot of population immunity," not eradicated, but at very low levels, which is where we ended up,

That threatens that entire spending bill. So that's where I found it became very politicized. You're right. There is so much of this has become political. So now we have this political conversation in a number of states where we have governors who are outlawing the use of vaccine passports or businesses who would require people to show some form of vaccination before they can come in or whether or not they have to wear a mask.

So that whole thing seems like it's become very politicized to concerts and venues and groups who say you can't come to our event unless you're vaccinated and you can prove it. But you keep mentioning this natural immunity as well. Are you confident that people who've had COVID and recovered are in a good place now? Do they need to get one, two doses? What what is your professional advice to them?

So the science has finally caught up with what many of us hypothesized during the pandemic. And by the way, it's not just me, it's a lot of us out there that have said we're not seeing reinfections of COVID in Wuhan or in Italy or in the UK or in New York. And we've got well over a year of follow-up data now. Where are the reinfections? Natural immunity from prior infection, it works. It's protective.

And now the science has caught up where we've got great data from Washington University that's suggesting that the immunity that's natural is probably lifelong. That certainly was true of the Spanish flu of 1918. Those survivors were tested 90 years later, nearly nine decades later.

and found to have activated T cells that work. They had immunity. And the Cleveland Clinic showed that if you have natural immunity, zero of those healthcare workers, and there was over 1,300, zero developed the infection subsequently. And they were around COVID all the time. And of those who had natural immunity and got the vaccine on top of it, there was no added protection of the vaccine. So look, I think it's reasonable for people maybe to get one dose if they've had natural immunity, but it's not necessary in my opinion.

So what about schools? I talked to a girl from Virginia Tech and she just finished her freshman year, which unfortunately was not super fun because it was a lot of remote and a lot of fear for these kids for their first year of college.

in class, out of class, whatever they could do. And, you know, tech has said, you got to be immunized to come back. And she's really struggling with that. She had COVID, you know, not a terrible case, but, you know, she knew she had it. It was not pleasant. And she feels fully recovered, confident that she's got antibodies and T cells and what she needs. But now she's really struggling with whether or not to go back to the school that she loves under that requirement. Yeah.

Gosh, it's so sad, Shannon, to see these schools require people who are immune. They have natural immunity. And by the way, it's a lot of people. It's about half of the unvaccinated. To see these schools require that they get injected with a vaccine in order to go to school when the data and the science clearly support not requiring it among those with natural immunity. It's so frustrating to see this. You know, I...

I blame our leadership, our medical leadership. Our medical leaders, our public health officials never talk about natural immunity, despite this overwhelming evidence that I summarized last week in the Wall Street Journal in a piece titled Power of Natural Immunity. It's overwhelming now, the science and the data from multiple top universities, universities

And to see that ignored, it's been ignored, you know, and I love Dr. Fauci and Dr. Walensky, I respect them and I've told them that, but I disagree that they should, they should only been, they've only been talking about a vaccination path to population immunity and they've ignored natural immunity. They're disenfranchising a lot of people. And it turns out if you recognize the power of natural immunity, we're actually at very high levels of population immunity. And that explains why cases are so low.

I thought your piece was very interesting. Folks could, you know, Google it, check it out. It just, it lays things out in a very understandable way. But when you publish things like that, or like you did earlier this year, talking about herd immunity, do you get a little side eye? Do you get a little pushback from within the medical community or people who are like, don't say that out loud, or they don't agree with you, or they don't think that some of what you've had to say fits the narrative?

I don't really. I mean, sure, Twitter is a shouting chamber, you know, and it's everyone shouting. So I don't pay much attention to that kind of stuff. But I get really crickets from those experts that have a different opinion. I get a lot of doctors from around the country saying, thank goodness you're speaking up on natural immunity and some of these other issues like focusing on first doses when we had a scarce vaccine resource.

And so I think a lot of doctors feel this way, but a couple, a very few number of doctors right now are making all the decisions. And it is frustrating. You know, I think if I didn't have the credentials I had, I think people would argue that, you know, they have more science on their side, you know, and that's been sort of a free fall argument that's been used in the past against good ideas.

But I studied epidemiology, as you know, Shannon, at the Harvard School of Public Health, where I got a master's in public health. And I've been on the faculty of the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health for almost 20 years now doing public health research. And so it's very, I think, hard for them to challenge me on the research side, on the science and data side. So when I hear feedback, it's usually crickets.

Okay. So the other controversy that we continue to weed through is whether we're ever going to know exactly what happened in China. I mean, unlikely we can have some theories and we can look at circumstantial evidence, but knowing that people there literally they and their families are under threat of, you know, being jailed, tortured, killed. If they don't take, take the communist party line, um,

There are going to be limits to what we can know, but there's now this call from the G7 for the WHO to go in and do another investigation. A lot of critiques of the first investigation that there were some potential conflicts of interest that they, you know, China's not transparent. There's only so much you can get. And then hypothesize from what's your gut on whether we're ever going to get to hard data answers? Is it possible?

Shannon, I'm actually against any investigation because it's going to be a sham and a waste of money and time. We're not going to get anything from sending a team over there, except we're going to spend a lot of money and we're really going to procrastinate answering the question, what is the conclusion of the circumstantial evidence? Right now, it's very clear. It's very clear. And as a lawyer, you would know.

that in any court of law, there's overwhelming evidence at this point. And that's why I said back in April of last year, at the beginning of the pandemic on Fox News, I think it was outnumbered.

that it was an infected lab worker who went to the local hospital there in Wuhan that was patient zero. It was very obvious to me then, and since then we've had a mountain of additional evidence. The idea that somehow you're going to do it in an investigation, they're just basically, I think, procrastinating answering the question of how you put the pieces together. And by the way, those samples, the original samples and the information that people want to claim they want to get with a full investigation,

They've been denatured, burned. The ashes have been flushed down the toilet. There's no samples left to collect. Live in the Bream continues in a moment. Precise, personal, powerful. It's America's weather team in the palm of your hands. Get Fox weather updates throughout your busy day every day. Subscribe and listen now at foxnewspodcast.com or wherever you get your podcasts.

All right. So thank you for giving us all that time to pick your brain on COVID. Let's talk about your book, The Price We Pay, What Broke American Healthcare and How to Fix It. Again, we're talking to Dr. Marty McCary, who is, among other things, professor at Johns Hopkins University.

As he's talked about for decades there, and he knows epidemiology. He has studied it. He is a New York Times bestseller. He's written and spoken prolifically on all of these things we're going through. But he's also talking about this issue of what's wrong with the health care system. Where do we start, doctor, on fixing this? What are the core issues and can we tackle them and unwind them?

Well, I'm really excited, Shannon, about this new paperback book because there's a revolution in medicine right now. And it's focused around two ways in which we can start redesigning healthcare. The first is we need honest prices. The old game of, you know, we can't give you a price and giving you the runaround. And then price gouging and predatory billing, which has become a new business model in medicine. That's a disgrace to our great medical world.

profession and enough doctors now are standing up and I show how we're doing it and communities are doing it and how now there's been coming a transformation of healthcare from a non-competitive market

to a competitive market. That's exciting. And I detail that in the book. And the other area where we're seeing the redesign of care is through more appropriate care. We've got the most medicated population in the history of the world. And we need to start treating more diabetes with cooking classes instead of just throwing insulin at people. We got to start treating back pain with

physical therapy and ice more often than just surgery and opioids. We got to start talking about school lunches rather than just bariatric gastric bypass procedures. And so we're seeing a new movement now to talk about food as medicine and addressing the causes of illness, even things like researching environmental exposures that cause cancer rather than just studying chemotherapy drugs to treat it. This is an exciting revolution in healthcare. And the book invites everybody to

to play their part and join that effort. - Yeah, we all as patients and potential patients when we're healthy and not actively under care, there are things that we can do. And I gotta tell you though, you mentioned so many things that we can all do better to take care of ourselves that are everyday decisions we make.

I got to tell you, though, I keep getting, you know, my women's fashion magazines and things that say big is beautiful and you can't look at someone, even if they're 50 or 100 pounds overweight and say that they're not fit and that we're celebrating all different body types, which, you know, I think should be a healthy thing that we should be accepting. We all are in different shapes and sizes. But where do we draw the line and be honest with ourselves about some of the unhealthy habits we have as Americans? Right.

Look, we have the most obese society in the history of the world. And that is one of the reasons why the United States had the highest case fatality rate, one of the highest of any large developed country during COVID. 78% of admissions to the hospital for COVID were in people that were overweight. But we couldn't talk about it because it was fat-shaming. And there was the political correct police was preventing any good data from coming out of the CDC around obesity.

We've got to start recognizing that you don't blame people for being overweight. What you do is you recognize that we were sending the wrong message as a medical community. We were telling people to move to low-fat foods when there's nothing wrong with saturated fat.

And when we told them to avoid it, they went into foods that were very high in carbs and added sugar. And guess what? Added sugar is addictive. And we're part of a generation that grew up with an addiction. Obesity is an addiction to added sugar. And with any addiction, you can't just go cold turkey. You've got to set modest goals and start making simple changes like switching your sodas to water and things like that. And they're very achievable.

Listen, you mentioned the low fat scam. I remember in my twenties, I'm always playing this game with the weight and with the food and I would get snack wells, but then I needed a whole box of snack wells, which was clearly not snack. Well, they're good and they have their place and they were delicious, but kind of defeats the purpose when you're still loading up on calories and sugar. And maybe we need more education. Maybe this is the kind of stuff we should be talking about with kids and in schools, um,

more specifically, and I know a lot of people have tried to make this a more public conversation. I think about first lady, Michelle Obama at school lunches and talking about nutrition and fitness. And it seems like, as you said, some people these days want to, um,

shut you down if you want to have honest conversations about how we take care of our bodies and take better care of ourselves we can always improve and there's so much to learn um again the book is now out in paperback the price we pay what broke american healthcare and how to fix it by dr marty mccary

It, by the way, was the business book of the year. I mean, this is serious medical, but also policy driven. And I think for people who want to take better control of their healthcare and conversations with doctors on billing and treatments and all kinds of things, it's a great resource. So doctor, thank you very much for your time today. Send me the bill. So great to be with you, Shannon.

Put the power of over 100 meteorologists and the worldwide resources of Fox in your hands with the Fox Weather Podcast. Precise, personal, powerful. Subscribe and listen now at foxnewspodcasts.com or wherever you get your podcasts.