BUCK: We are joined by Dr. Marty Makary — the public health expert at Johns Hopkins University — an MD, author of The Price We Pay, and one of the few people with impeccable credentials from the medical world who will actually just look at the data and speak the truth; so, he knows he is always welcome here. Dr. Makary, thanks for coming back.
DR. MAKARY: Great to be with you guys.
BUCK: I… (laughing) Doc, I’m sure you’ve seen some of this already percolating through some of the new sites on the internet, that Los Angeles County is now two weeks away from what would be a mandatory, across-the-board masking. What is it gonna take, Doc, ’cause I still see a lot of blue check MDs going around saying, “We know what works! Mask up.” And I wonder what is wrong with these people, is something no longer firing normally in the synapsis in their brains?
DR. MAKARY: Yeah. We might need to do CAT scans on the brains of some of the public health officials that are still holding on to the mask mandate because the studies have been done. Now, you can rewrite history. You can rewrite history of the Vietnam War. You can rewrite the history of anything. And right now, we’re seeing a rewritten history of mask mandates because we have good data.
If you look at the schools that were open free and clear with no masks — that was a lot of schools — and compare them to the ones with the mask mandates, those studies have been done. They’re conclusive, definitive, published, and there was no impact. So I think there are forever maskers out there that they can live their lives. I personally am not gonna enjoy my time with them. I’m gonna spend my time with people that are following the science, but there are forever maskers out there.
CLAY: You have a great piece up, and we’re gonna link it on ClayAndBuck.com. You can also see I retweeted it. But I saw this morning a really interesting data point that you shared that has not been much discussed, and that is the number of parents of kids 5 to 6-month-old that are now — maybe I should say 6-month-old to 5-year-old, young children are now — eligible to get the covid shot. And I believe the data reflected that 2% of parents are actually getting their kids those shots. You shared some of that data. What does that tell us about the way parents are responding at this point to covid?
DR. MAKARY: Well, it shows the complete disconnect. And you’re right. After nearly a month of the CDC urging parents to get their kids 6 months to 5 years vaccinated, the uptake in the United States is 2%. And, remember, some of that 2% are getting it just because their schools or summer camps are requiring it. So what percent of the public actually believes the CDC, using horrific data that’s so weak it’s embarrassing to even make it public, and they’re using that to authorize and push vaccines for kids under 5. It shows that nobody trusts the CDC anymore. The Moderna vaccine was 4% effective in babies, and statistically that number was not even significant.
CLAY: So, I want to cut you off because that is an unbelievable number. So it’s 4% effective against young kids. How in the world does this get approved at a 4% efficacy rate?
BUCK: Can I just tack on, what Clay is asking you, 4% efficacy at preventing infection? Is that what we’re talking about? ‘Cause it’s one in a million hospitalization or death for, like, 6-month-olds, right? Go ahead.
DR. MAKARY: Yeah, against asymptomatic infection, that’s right. But basically, it doesn’t work. And then what we don’t know is the risk, right? With anything we recommend it’s the benefit… You know, if you want that 4% benefit against asymptomatic infection, if it’s real, then what’s the risk of the vaccine? Well, we know some children have died from the vaccine. We know there’s been really sloppy data around it.
And the study that they used to say that it’s safe had a couple thousand kids. Well, how can you look at a rate of heart inflammation and myocarditis that occurs in one in 10,000 young males when you’ve got a study of just a couple thousand babies? That’s the absurdity, and that’s why people are leaving the CDC and FDA. They’re unhappy. I talked to them for the piece, and they’re pretty pissed off ’cause they’re smart people.
BUCK: Can I ask you…? We’re speaking to Dr. Marty Makary, health expert Johns Hopkins University. Check out his book, The Price We Pay. Doc, the other docs who are inside the NIH and the CDC… What’s gone on in those institutions at the top level — just as an outside observer who’s been covering this from the beginning — is indefensible. Are there people inside those bureaucracies who are honestly just such true believers that think the CDC and NIH have done a good job, or is everyone just scared of losing their job and so they just shut up and allow Fauci to march around with these pronouncements? I think Fauci’s the most damaging and destructive bureaucrat in the history of American public health.
DR. MAKARY: Well, it’s almost impossible to lose your job in the government, but they’re afraid of being treated badly. And they’ve said, “If we say anything, there are consequences. We will suffer.” One person described the environment as “toxic.” They said morale has never been lower, and they pointed to the NIH’s own vaccine research center in Fauci’s shop. They said almost all the senior scientists are gone. All the leadership is gone, the top three people left after long careers. They don’t feel comfortable saying publicly that the agency has lost its way because they need jobs out there in the future, but morale is at an all-time low.
CLAY: You’ve been a doctor for a long time now. You’re at Johns Hopkins. You’ve advised Glenn Youngkin. You’ve done a fantastic job, I think, speaking out about covid. One of the things that you have said consistently is it is the job of doctors and scientists in general to vigorously contest everything. In fact, that’s what the scientific method is. Have you ever seen a point in time where there is less ability to question consensus opinion in the field of medicine?
DR. MAKARY: Yeah. Right now, we have a modern-day McCarthyism, and for most of my career we never had this. We would be able to speak open. We would challenge deeply held assumptions. We would discover things in medicine. And we’ve got blind spots. But right now, there is a sense of martial law probably like what they have in China where you can’t say certain things. We’ve got a School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins that’s mostly paid for by Michael Bloomberg and is a revolving door of Democrat political appointees, and it’s very hard to anyone there to say anything, and then people leave an institution.
BUCK: Dr. Makary, I think it was at Stanford University at their graduation a couple months ago where the undergrads were unmasked outside at their graduation. Their ceremony was outdoors, Stanford, very nice climate in that time of year. But the medical school graduation had everyone masked up. When other doctors that you know see this, are they embarrassed, or do you know docs who defend this and say, “Yeah, that makes sense”?
DR. MAKARY: Oh, they defend it, but they’re defending it for political allegiances, because when I go to the doctors’ conferences — and I’ve been to about six major doctors’ conferences in the last several months with thousands of doctors — they are not wearing masks. What does that tell you? They’re shoulder to shoulder in busy social activities and events and then activities, educational and recreational. They’re not wearing masks. What does that tell you? That tells you that if the doctors don’t think the masks are needed for themselves, that it’s mostly a show out there right now because population immunity is high, and we know that cloth and surgical masks are basically not useful.
CLAY: We’re talking to Dr. Marty Makary. Shifting gears a little bit, you are a medical expert; Buck and I are not. There’s been a lot of discussion this week about whether men can get pregnant. In your esteemed history as a doctor, have you seen any men become pregnant?
CLAY: So, legitimately we could be facing… We have sex-change operations that go on now. There is a possibility in the future where a sex-change operation, someone could say, “Hey, I want to have a uterus implanted in me so that I could carry a baby”?
DR. MAKARY: That’s right and deliver it by C-section. It is medically feasible in the foreseeable future.
CLAY: Oh, my. Now you give me something new to worry about.
BUCK: Wow.
CLAY: My mind is blown.
DR. MAKARY: (laughing)
BUCK: It’s quite a moment right here. Whoa.
DR. MAKARY: Well, as long as the person is wearing a mask, though, it’s a safe pregnancy.
BUCK: There we go. Dr. Makary knows what’s up. Dr. Makary of Johns Hopkins University. Sir, we always appreciate you being with us. Thanks so much.
DR. MAKARY: Thanks, guys.
CLAY: Man. He has been, Buck, so brave, and a lot of people are gonna have nightmares over this.
BUCK: Men still cannot get pregnant, but he is saying there actually may come a time… So just to be very clear for everybody: The answer to the question is still 100% “no,” it has never happened. But he’s saying that medically it could be feasible to create the uterus environment in a male body in the future where the statement would actually get more complicated.
CLAY: Oh, no. This is like Frankenstein. Can you imagine, a uterus being transported into a male body so that the body could then carry a baby and then have it delivered via C-section?
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