Atul Gawande
Appearances
Pod Save America
Trump's Art of the Fold
Well, a lot of our attention has been on, what's he saying? Is he calling for the vaccine? And that is such a low bar.
Pod Save America
Trump's Art of the Fold
three months ago if this happened, or really in any other administration, you would have had the National Security Council pulling people together across all of the agencies, including CDC, the leadership at FDA, also USAID and others working abroad because measles is a global epidemic. We have...
Pod Save America
Trump's Art of the Fold
cases coming from abroad and we have spread in the United States, they would have had all of their clinical people together. We had what we called the doctor's group that we get together on a weekly basis to look at crisis situations. And we don't see any of this happening, right?
Pod Save America
Trump's Art of the Fold
You would see the HHS secretary or the head of CDC on calls every week with the states having the outbreaks and other states, public health officials, to get on top of this. Instead, we've had spread to where A outbreak in West Texas has gone over the border to Mexico and also is cropping up in 20 states around the country. So this is not the right steps. So not good is what you're saying.
Pod Save America
Trump's Art of the Fold
Not good. And this is solvable. We eliminated measles in the United States. Our elimination status is at risk. And we have one in 1,000 kids dies, the fact that there are already three people who've died indicates that the counts that say that there might be around 500 cases are way under what the reality is.
Pod Save America
Trump's Art of the Fold
I think it starts with the skepticism and then add in the there are multiple layers of destruction going on. Right. There is the attitude towards measles and the vaccine. But then there's the fact that there has been doge cuts across the government.
Pod Save America
Trump's Art of the Fold
including pulling $11 billion from state public health programs when they rescinded funds that were allocated during COVID for strengthening public health. That shut down vaccination clinics in West Texas that were trying to vaccinate against measles. Then you have all of the work that has undone advisory groups, any independent assessment within the government on paths forward.
Pod Save America
Trump's Art of the Fold
And you've purged CDC and FDA of many of their top vaccine people. This is a systematic dismantling in a chaotic and unsystematic way.
Pod Save America
Trump's Art of the Fold
He's got a million charges that he throws at vaccines. Here's the thing to know. We have reduced child deaths in the last 50 years by 75%. 40% of that reduction in child deaths has come from vaccines. And 60% of the vaccine death reduction has come from the measles vaccine alone. We're now in a world where there is about 10 million children who are being infected by measles.
Pod Save America
Trump's Art of the Fold
We're over 100,000 child deaths in the world. The United States shouldn't be joining that list. And so it's critical that we are stopping the direction of travel here. I mean, we are undoing our global systems and our state and national systems for everything from NIH research on production of vaccines and improving uptake, people's willingness to get vaccines.
Pod Save America
Trump's Art of the Fold
We're dismantling major parts of the expertise in the FDA around approving vaccines and have actions that have, you know, one of the first actions of the FDA commissioner was to disallow approval of a Novavax COVID vaccine even though it was recommended by the technical regulators. And then you have CDC guidance now under political controls.
Pod Save America
Trump's Art of the Fold
The direction of travel we see here is where technical expertise is being removed, independence to make scientific judgments and recommendations is being undermined, and communications are being put into the offices of the secretary or top officials who are political appointees. And so you're seeing more political controls over critical decisions and less technical expertise.
Pod Save America
Trump's Art of the Fold
Yes, you put your finger on it. Look, moving Peter Marks out and having him go was a sign of what was to come. But changing leadership is not an abnormal thing to do. What went with him was the top regulatory capacity and many of their experts. he oversaw a wide swath of work that ranged from vaccines to getting gene and cell therapies approved for the world.
Pod Save America
Trump's Art of the Fold
They were the ones who figured out how to look at sickle cell. We have a cure for sickle cell with a gene therapy now. And that was because of figuring out the way that you could actually safely regulate, test, and approve such new tools. That entire infrastructure has now been weakened. It's alarmed the community, the biotechnology community.
Pod Save America
Trump's Art of the Fold
The United States has been the leader in gene therapy, cell therapy, and in vaccine development. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Pod Save America
Trump's Art of the Fold
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Pod Save America
Trump's Art of the Fold
���������子子子子������������������������acacacacacacac cle cleacacac������������������������� cleacacacacacacacacacacacacacacacacacacacacacacacacacacacacacacacacacacacacacacacacacacacacacacacacacacacacacacacacacacacacacacacacacacacacacacac cle�子 disput住 disput住住住住住住住住住住住住住住住住住住住住住住住住住住住住住住住住住住住住住住住住住住住住住住住住住住住住住住住住住住住住住住住住住住住住住住住ac Thank you. Thank you.
Pod Save America
Trump's Art of the Fold
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. There's what they say and then what they do. And what they're doing is stripping out work that is vital for addressing chronic illness, whether it's diabetes research, whether it's clean air, and now trying to open the way to repollute our cities in a way that we have not had in a long time.
Pod Save America
Trump's Art of the Fold
get rid of our regulation, regulatory oversight of tobacco, which is still the biggest killer in the world when it comes to cardiovascular disease. And then, you know, we have had chronic issues in the United States with lead poisoning in poorer populations and minority populations. And that's a much bigger problem than fluoride when it comes to toxic metals.
Pod Save America
Trump's Art of the Fold
and is a major driver of chronic illness and disease around the world. So is there work we need to do on nutrition? Is there work we need to do around addressing our diabetes and obesity? Is there work to do on pollution and clean air and clean water? Yes, they are not doing that.