CLAY: Joined now by Johns Hopkins, Dr. Marty Makary, who’s been on this show many times in the past. Hope all is going well with you, Dr. Makary. I want to dive right into it. NBC News — I feel like I’m going back in time — has a story up today — I don’t know if you’ve seen it yet, but I’m sure you’re familiar with the idea — saying — wait for it — natural immunity actually provided better protection than the covid shot did. Again, I feel like we’re going back into a time warp. It’s amazing how so many things that you argued for years are now being acknowledged in the present day. What is your reaction when you see stories like this coming out in 2023?

DR. MAKARY: Well, NBC News has been hostile towards many of the ideas that many of us have been putting out there against the medical establishment. But I’m glad that NBC News is finally catching up with the fact that in 430 B.C. —

CLAY: (laughing)

DR. MAKARY: — the Athenian plague resulted in natural immunity, and it was well recognized that if after you had infection, you were immune. So I’m glad they’re finally getting up to speed.

NBC Now Claims Natural Immunity IS BETTER Than Vaccination, Youtube COVID Policies ARE INSANE https://t.co/YRhJnF0zy9

— US Burning (@UsBurning) February 17, 2023

CLAY: When you look at it now, you see acknowledged that there is, for instance, in 25- to 44-year-olds, a 30% increase in heart attack deaths. That is an age range where we typically do not see people dying of heart attacks. That data is now acknowledged, but there’s an argument about what could be causing that. Based on what you have seen, do you think that it could be connected to the covid shots and the boosters or do you think it’s a legacy of covid? Do you think maybe it’s just people were super unhealthy because of covid and, as a result, we’re seeing the fallout? To what would you attribute what we know to be a 30% increase in heart attack deaths for young people?

The media has now begun to cover the massive increase in heart attacks in young people. This was unacceptable to mention just a few months ago. Yet, amazingly, this article blames covid infections and doesn’t even mention the covid shot as a potential cause at all. pic.twitter.com/bqMECZQJRU

— Clay Travis (@ClayTravis) February 10, 2023

DR. MAKARY: Well, first of all, if somebody is a part of a cult, they are not going to listen to the data no matter what we say, and I think that’s most public health officials. It doesn’t matter how much data, how many quality studies are out there. It’s a religion for them. They’re not going to leave their positions. But if we look at the data, there’s a lot of information that the vaccines cause myocarditis and even that some have died from the vaccine-induced myocarditis that’s out there.

The effectiveness of different interventions aimed at improving ventilation and reducing the risk of SARS-CoV-2 airborne transmission in a typical classroom. #SwissMedWkly #DiamondOpenAccess https://t.co/2SmS0jx7RK pic.twitter.com/DOJOn97Y3p

— Swiss Medical Weekly (@SwissMedWkly) June 3, 2022

CLAY: Yeah.

DR. MAKARY: I mean, the Swiss study found that almost 3% of people after the vaccine had some minimal heart damage, measured with a test called a troponin increase. And in the original Pfizer vaccine trial, in the supplemental document, six people died of heart attacks and two people died in the placebo group. Six people in the vaccine arm died of heart attack, and two people died in the placebo group. That was never explored. That was probably an early sign.

New Study: “cardiac autopsy findings in five persons who have died unexpectedly within seven days following anti-SARS-CoV-2-vaccination… Our findings establish the histological phenotype of lethal vaccination-associated myocarditis.” https://t.co/L4ciyWbgec

— Marty Makary MD, MPH (@MartyMakary) December 3, 2022

CLAY: So, if you were advising people right now, it’s 2023. I think most people have made the decision, “I’m not getting the covid shot. I’m not going to get a booster.” I think that’s what the data reflects for substantial majorities. What would you tell people they should do at this point with covid? Would you just say, “Hey, you’ve probably had it multiple times; you probably have natural immunity for both you, your kids, everybody else in your family”? Based on your knowledge, does the covid shot or boosters make much sense for anyone at this point in time?

DR. MAKARY: I mean, it would be hard to envision a subgroup that really benefits from it, clearly. But if there is a group, I would say it’s high-risk people who have not had covid if those people are still around.

CLAY: Which would be a tiny number of people probably, right? I mean, because almost everybody has had covid in particular. If you’re high risk, you’re probably more susceptible to it because you’re not in great health in the first place.

DR. MAKARY: Exactly. Everyone’s going to get covid seven or eight times in their life at least. I mean, this thing is going to circulate. It’s a seasonal virus. It is joining the common cold family of coronaviruses. It has been less severe. How do we know that? China just had covid rip through the entire population, and did they see the massive run on hospitals and, you know, two-months crematorium wait list that we saw during the Wuhan outbreak? No. This is a less severe virus. Doesn’t mean somebody couldn’t get hurt from it. It just means it’s in the family of respiratory viruses that circulate. But I’ll tell you what people are dying from: Mental illness, substance abuse, being shut out of school, wearing masks, and learning disabilities. So, we are seeing significant harm from the restrictions. And at this point, we’ve just got to recognize (laughs) that a lot of these things didn’t do anything. And the covid boosters ruined a lot of lives. That took a toll on society.

CLAY: You mention that you’re basically a member of the covid cult at this point and the data doesn’t really move you to a large extent if you’ve convinced yourself that it’s the worst thing that ever happened in United States of world history. Having said that, it feels to me like we’re seeing a pivot from, “Oh, all of these things were justified — the lockdowns, the essential versus non-essential businesses, the arresting people on paddleboards.” From a, “That was all necessary,” to a, “Well, we just didn’t know any better.” I know you’re not a historian, but what do you think this looks like from the medical establishment 20 years from now, 40 years from now, as people look back and the immediate impact and emotions of the moment have vanished, and you’re looking at it in a more analytical perspective?

DR. MAKARY: Well, I think one of the reasons history is written by the victors is they can tell their own narrative. And right now, the medical establishment is using the inflated numbers on covid — that is, people dying from other things, but they happen to test positive for covid, getting counted as a covid death, that massively inflated number — is being used to tell a narrative that they believe in, and that is that they prevented more deaths and that we still need to take this seriously. You still see schools are universally masking. You still see the vaccine mandate in places where the data is irrefutable that it doesn’t affect transmission. The vaccine doesn’t stop transmission. So why do they have the mandates in place? I mean, it’s going to take years to pull this back. And somebody was actually honest with me — one of these covid cult members — and they actually said, “You know, it’s good to keep the masks on the kids in schools while covid levels are high and then just keep them on for an extra few years and then take them off.” I mean, that’s the kind of cult that we’re dealing with here.

CLAY: I’m still so furious because we haven’t seen — we’re talking to Dr. Marty Makary, who has done phenomenal work. He’s been on this show a lot. He has done such a good job trying to fight public health battles on behalf of sanity in what was certainly an insane world surrounding covid in terms of where we go now. You made such a good point about China. Everybody said, “Oh, my goodness! You know, we use China as an example — Dr. Fauci did — of what the United States should do,” and then finally, Chairman Xi just said, this is a disaster. The protests started even in China about lockdowns, and they ended it. And all the people out there who said it was going to be an unmitigated disaster basically had to acknowledge that this thing swept through China. Everybody got it. Most people were okay. And now there doesn’t seem to really be any element of the lockdown universe that even still has an adherence. Where do we go from here?

DR. MAKARY: (laughing) It is amazing, as you describe it, how China has essentially abandoned the locked down policy and we still defend it here in the United States.

CLAY: Yeah, it is true!

DR. MAKARY: It’s very ironic. Look, I think public health officials need to do a couple of things. One, you give an honest apology. I mean, this new study that just came out in The Lancet that you mentioned at the beginning, it’s clearly showing natural immunity is as effective or better acknowledged. All those nurses that were fired, we need them back at the hospital.

CLAY: Yes.

DR. MAKARY: We need them rehired with back pay and the soldiers and so many other people, teachers. So they need to apologize. They need to rehire. They need to just be honest about where we are today. And I think we finally need the NIH to announce an all-out, forever ban on gain-of-function research. It’s not that hard, just once and for all, come out and say, “No more Frankensteinian viruses and juicing them up to make them more contagious. That should never happen ever in the history of the world in perpetuity with a universal declaration.” That is something where the U.S. should be taking a leadership position on, but no one is even talking about it at the NIH. None of the medical establishment want to even bring it up.

BREAKING – New Lancet Study Shows Natural Immunity to COVID Provides Strong Protection for at Least 10 Months

“And even at that 10 month mark, protection against severe disease and death is still at almost 90%. Researchers say that’s about as good as 2 vaccine doses.” pic.twitter.com/8Mc27YdDPL

— Chief Nerd (@TheChiefNerd) February 17, 2023

CLAY: Are you optimistic as you look foward? Biden has said, oh, we’re finally ending the emergency declaration in May. One of the things that… We were having a conversation, I think, this week and one of the possibilities is it’s so bad for Democrats because they’re supposed to be the party of science and they ended up getting everything wrong, that they’re just going to pretend this story never happened. Right? And just try to pretend that covid never happened and just move right on into 2024 trying to make new arguments. They may claim, “Oh, we beat covid thanks to the vaccine policies and everything else.” But by and large, it feels like they just want to pretend everything they argued — the school lockdowns, the teachers unions, Randi Weingarten and all those loony bin members — that it just didn’t happen. Right? Like, it’s almost like they want to do the Men in Black memory stick, if you remember that, where they could just erase everything and just pretend, “Okay, covid didn’t happen,” or they claim victory and just move right on. Do you think that’s kind of where we are?

DR. MAKARY: Well, look, I did see an article. I think it was in The Atlantic or it might have come from pharma or the FDA. I can’t even tell the difference anymore. But it said, “Let’s just give amnesty to all of our public health officials.”

CLAY: Oh, yeah, I saw that.

DR. MAKARY: Remember? “Let’s just forgive them all.”

No ⁦@TheAtlantic,⁩ let’s NOT declare a Pandemic Amnesty. No Way.

Forgiveness happens when people repent & apologize. Many of those people and top decision makers who pushed LOCKDOWNS, unethical MANDATES, school CLOSURES, toddler MASKING…have zero remorse for what they did pic.twitter.com/LDWj38mIKl

— Suneel Dhand MD (@DrSuneelDhand) November 1, 2022

CLAY: Yeah.

DR. MAKARY: My faith teaches me to forgive, but there’s been so much damage, they have not even been honest about what actually happened. So it’s a problem right now. It’s a big, huge problem because we can still do a lot of repair and we can still rewrite history, to be honest. If we’re honest, natural immunity beat covid, wasn’t anything else. It wasn’t our lockdowns or arresting surfers in California. It was natural immunity. So, I wouldn’t encourage someone to try to get the infection. But let’s be honest about what happened. Natural immunity beat covid.

CLAY: Dr. Makary, you have been absolutely phenomenal. Make sure you text me the next time you’re here in my hometown in Nashville. We need to go out and get a drink and have a dinner. I appreciate all the work that you have done over the years. Also, on the Wall Street Journal editorial page. I don’t want to forget — and I don’t want our audience to forget — how much heat you and others would take for sharing all of this information even though it was counter to the narrative of the time, and I hope — for people who write the histories in the years to come — that you will be one of the heroes of the medical establishment. I certainly appreciate everything you’ve done.

DR. MAKARY: Thanks so much, Clay. I appreciate you.

CLAY: No doubt. He is Dr. Marty Makary. Encourage you guys to go follow him on Twitter and make sure that you follow people who are actually truth tellers as opposed to — frankly — liars, which far too many people in our medical establishment have been over the past several years.