Rep. Morgan Griffith

Boy, does that have the potential to harm people. And then they suppress the evidence that would help us assess whether we have harmed anybody with this. Because knowing that it harmed people would make them feel bad. So harm literally has taken a backseat to feelings now. So reality has a backseat to feelings. Harming patients has a backseat to feelings. It's interesting to me that...

You know, I know Caitlyn Jenner very well. I know Nikki Norton very well. And both the two of them are very opposed to surgery for children in particular. They're very circumspect about the condition that they have. And both of them had told me things like, you know, essentially think of my condition as like my handedness. It's just I have left hand or right hand.

This is just a feature of who I am. I'm not going to. get into anything else. And I'm certainly not going to champion an ideology based on this thing that I have suffered from and now I'm satisfactorily managed. But it really, there's going to be a lot of harm done because listen, doctors, if they're not selecting the right thing for the right patient, they harm people.

And it's something I'm very concerned about. The other topic I want to go ahead and maybe you'll go ahead and speak to this. Go ahead.

Capcidin is made with a proprietary formula that contains no non-steroidal anti-inflammatory agents, no opioids, no anesthetic or steroid, nothing, no chance for addiction, no side effects. No chance it's going to interact with other medication you might be taking. Capsodin contains capsaicin, which is the substance in chili peppers that burns your tongue. That gives you that burny feeling.

Do you have a specific sort of prescription for getting the scales back? Is it just the reissuance of the golden rule that we seem to have left behind somewhere?

And of course, I've recommended capsaicin creams to patients over the years, but other capsaicin creams burn your skin. That's what makes capsaicin so unique. In clinical trials, capsaicin has actually been demonstrated not to burn.

Yeah, I mean, I think you must be aware that the truth has been under assault for quite some time now. Part of the post-structuralist frame is that there is no such thing as truth, therefore everything is subjective and political. And it has adulterated everything. This is a disgusting philosophy. It's fascinating to me.

I heard a French philosopher speaking about this and she said, what is this American preoccupation with these worthless philosophers from 75 years ago that we disposed of 55 years ago? It's like, why are you preoccupied with these essentially... mind games that they invented to sort of screw with the whole functioning of philosophy.

So truth, I agree, is something that has meaning, has, I would say, virtue. And is it not the time to reestablish virtue ethics?

Are you familiar with the trolley experiment?

Yeah, and I just think we need to challenge people with it on a regular basis, those sorts of conundrums, and challenge them to address why they feel the way they do and how their moral sensibilities work. Because people have just abandoned it completely, it seems like to me, in the name of, hey man, it's whatever you're into, who am I to say? And again, that's back to a kind of a toxic empathy.

The other thing is, your other book, do you address self-esteem? Is that a lot of what's going on there in that book?

Get the pain relief you need from various sources, even backaches, sprains, bruises even. Order now at capsidin.com slash drew to get a 15% discount plus free shipping. That is C-A-P-S-A-D-Y-N capsidin.com slash D-R-E-W. As I said, in about 45 minutes, we'll have Representative Morgan Griffith in here. You do not want to miss that. You can follow him, morgangriffith.house.gov.

Ali Stuckey, the book, the podcast is relatable. The book is Toxic Empathy. We're going to take a little break and then we'll come back and finish the conversation. And then we'll, after a few more minutes, have Representative Morgan Griffith come in to talk to us about the HHS findings and COVID excesses.

And he also saw some of the stuff that Caleb was putting up about his commentary about the Venezuelan gangs and the excesses of our border problems. So we'll be right back after this. The Wellness Company knows that taking charge of your family's healthcare is a top priority and being rationally ready, and who knows what the future will hold for us,

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There you go. Even you call him Dr. Drew. And we have some Paleo Valley news. They've introduced a new variety of grass-fed and finished beef bone broth. It is becoming a favorite in this household. It is the salted caramel. Like the chocolate, the vanilla, and the unflavored, it is just delicious. It is low-calorie, made from bones, not hides.

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Go to doctoru.com slash contact and select Paleo Valley Ideas from the drop-down menu. Stock up now for the holidays at doctoru.com slash Paleo Valley for 15% off your first order, 20% off when you subscribe. And let me reintroduce our guest, Allie Beth Stuckey. The podcast is Relatable. Yeah, Susan said, what about your emergency kit? I want to show you something. That's her book, Toxic Empathy.

But I got to show you this. I was kind of excited about it. This is the new, they call it the Field Emergency Kit from TWC. This is, yeah, I know. You wish you had that at Special Forces. This is serious business. This is serious business when you really need it. If a fire or a bomb, whatever, this thing will survive all that. This is amazing.

I don't know that factually, but it feels like it would.

Everything. It's including EpiPen, everything. All the really emergency stuff we recommend. It's pretty much everything we provide all in one place. You can get the list out if you want. It is the...

I want to get Allie Beth Stuckey back in here.

AllieBethStuckey.com, S-U-C-K-E-Y. On X, it's Conserve Millen. It is Allie Beth Stuckey on YouTube. So before the break, we were talking about toxic empathy, obviously. And one of the things that we had promoted was talking a little bit about how the empathy that you point out so vividly in one of your case studies for the...

where the immigrant does not take into account the effect on people that become perhaps victims or affected and Lake and Riley's killer convicted. He was in the US illegally. And yet here's a young woman who's dead and there's only empathy for him. How does that work? Or is just what comes with the territory? You have to break a few eggs in order to make an omelet.

Is that what we're supposed to believe here? Or can we stand back and go, hang on, There's realities to the human condition. There is such thing as truth. There are things we must do to maintain a country. There are ways to maintain safety and well-being. And there's a rational approach to a border that things that call countries must maintain. And that's that.

You can get it all the usual places. and she's Allie Beth Stuckey on YouTube. Again, that's S-T-U-C-K-E-Y. Allie, welcome to the program, and congratulations on New York Times Best Seller. Well done.

I also think it is so dishonest when people go, we're a country built on immigrants. Yes, my grandparents are immigrants. Susan's family has immigrants. Of course, immigration. And by the way, my family was fleeing the whole of Delmar and had to work hard to find their way into this country and to have sponsorship and to prove how they were going to make a living.

So, I almost don't know where to start with this conversation. I guess I would say I've talked about it on this show before, that this... I'm a good person. I'm nice. And I do what's right has become so misappropriated, it's actually become disgusting.

And they found a place for themselves here. That is not what we are talking about. Oh my God, it's so interesting. I was just thinking about Dr. Fauci's words about the Great Barrington Declaration. They just want to let it rip. Well, this is let it rip border management. This is let it rip immigration, which is not what any country should do. That's not how countries are maintained.

But anyway, I want to get off that a little bit and I want to talk about the psychology of some of this stuff a little bit, which is that you base a lot of your principles in a particular theological frame. And one of the things about theological frames, particularly Western theology, it seems to me, I could be wrong, but I'm humbly, sort of my sense of it,

is that thousands of years of Western culture has carefully warned humans about envy. They have carefully supported the ascension to the truth and the good and the hard work associated with that and reminded us always that we're flawed and we're sinners and we are at our core not so great. Talk to me about that.

Transgressions of the excesses of the COVID response and the COVID pandemics. We'll get to that. First, though, we have Ali Beth Stuckey. Her book is Toxic Empathy. This should be fantastic conversation. Her previous book was You're Not Enough. No, yes, You're Not Enough. Oh, there's toxic empathy, how progressives exploit Christian compassion.

Low self-esteem is an asset. It causes you to always question yourself, to blame, to take responsibility for things, to not feel you're better than anybody else. If high self-esteem is, as you said, at its core, a me-ology and a narcissistic impulse. Allie, I appreciate you being here. Let's throw the book up one more time, Toxic Empathy. It looks like a lot of fun.

And I became acutely aware of it when I was up at sort of ground zero of this nonsense in Victoria, British Columbia, where they are actually very nice. But if you scratch under the surface, there's a... a, what's the word I'm looking for? A seething rage, a seething rage right under the surface.

The book and the pod, I guess, relatable anywhere you listen to your pods. Is that true?

And then the X is conserve Milan. Right. Conserve Milan.

You got it. We're going to switch gears and talk to Representative Morgan Griffith. Let me give you his particulars. He's the Virginia 9th Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives. He chairs the Energy and Commerce Committee Subcommittee on Oversight Investigations. Serves on its health and energy subcommittees. He also sits on the committee on House administration.

Previously was the Virginia House Majority Leader, the first Republican to hold that role. Holds degrees from Emory and Henry College and Washington and Lee University School of Law. You can follow him on X at Rep. M. Griffith. That's R-E-P. M. Griffith. G-R-I-F-F-I-T-H. Mr. Griffith, thank you for being here.

There's a lot to talk about. We've been talking about immigration and the excesses, and Caleb has been throwing up some of your ex-posts about the Venezuelan gangs and the insanity of all this. But before we go into that, I wonder if you could give me a little primer. on the HHS document about the excesses of the COVID response.

And what you learned, what your overview was, and if you wouldn't mind, why it isn't being screamed from every hilltop of the press? Why aren't they interested in this very important document?

So a lot of this misuse of empathy is actually a defense, a cover from actually being kind of a shitty person.

So what do we do with this? No, I do too. And you uncovered, I mean, you formalized findings that any of us paying attention who were clinicians knew you would find. It just is the truth. It just happens to be a matter of fact. And guys like Scott Atlas, who was in the room with the bureaucrats and was told to stand aside because the data he had begged no issue.

And guys like Jay Bhattacharya, who decorated hopefully the head of the NIH sometime soon. A decorated professional was subjected to a devastating takedown, to quote Francis Collins. And we have Francis Collins now on the record saying, well, we were just focused on one thing, which is the opposite of medicine. Medicine is... Risk reward for every decision you make. Do no harm.

Public health ran amok. It was disgusting. And so my question is, given that you have formalized the findings, what do we do with it? How do we make sure this doesn't happen again?

Great guest for you today. The second half of the show, we are going to have Representative Morgan Griffith. He is United States Congress from Virginia. He chairs, amongst other things, the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations and the hearings that Jay Bhattacharya has been referencing or referenced on this very show, the HHS, the findings of some of the

certainly should be at least vaguely aware of what we're handing to an enemy, it seems to me, humbly. And as you mentioned, you're not a doctor, I'm not a lawyer, but you're a lawyer. And so I'm wondering if this doesn't reach a level of gross negligence that suggests a legal liability to it.

So I would say- Of course, of course.

And I just want to frame it, if you don't mind. I was watching the Martha Stewart Netflix documentary yesterday, and she was put in prison for saying, I don't remember. I don't remember. Nobody was hurt. Nothing happened. She sold a stock. She went to prison. I don't remember. Excuse me, but I think we have something a little more serious going on here. It's so gross when you put it in that frame.

It's just like, you've got to be kidding me.

Yeah, look, if I was running a hospital ward or something or running a program where something about my supervision rose to a level of absolute, I mean, way outside of the standard of care, was negligent, yeah, there's liabilities. I want to share with that always, always, always.

So, again, I hope as this evolves, you'll keep us posted and let us continue to push out the information or help you if there's any way we can. Is there anything you'd like? We've got a lot of people on X listening today. Is there anything you want people to know about this report or that you'd like them to do in response to it?

Look, Redfield has been actively following on his sword. He's been doing a good job on talking about where he went wrong and correcting course.

A little bit. We've been following that. We've been on their tail a bit too. So I want to talk about the border a little bit too before I let you go. But before we switch topics, did you figure out why the military took over and the national security took over so much of the decision-making from the original infectious disease pandemic preparedness plan? Yeah.

Yeah, it was nutty. Yeah, crazy. Well, the only thing that comes close to an explanation that would make sense for me is somebody in the military or the security apparatus believed that this was a bioweapons attack with unpredictable consequences, like beyond the immediate term, sort of AIDS-like problems downstream. And

They were scared of what the potential of this thing was, or they learned somewhere some intelligence told them that this thing could be far more awful than they imagined, even given what we knew about the age specificity and the risk. So that's the only thing that would make sense to me. But everything else is egregious. Everything else is truly... negligence and incompetence.

But okay, so who am I to say? Let's talk about the border, speaking of negligence and incompetence. You've been concerned about, or at least putting up ex-posts about the Venezuelan gangs and the effects on safety of the American people. And God knows there are layers and layers and layers to these excesses.

I was talking to Ali in the previous interview about how disingenuine and sort of disgusting it is to go, but we're a country of immigrants. Yes, of course. Of course we want immigration. We don't want a just let it rip border. We want to have a rational... We want to have a country. To have a country, you must have a border and an immigration policy. And lots of immigrants, absolutely.

But where are you with that whole mess?

Yeah, it makes perfect sense. And it's the way we've always done it. It's the way, I don't know, we have decided that, you know, it's like the famous words about markets. This time it will be different. Now we understand how humans work. Now we understand what the right thing to do is. And those are the scariest words of humans.

Let's sort of deconstruct what we mean by toxic empathy because real empathy, true empathy, has at its core a deep understanding of what the other person experienced, what they need, what their motivational states are. But there's, for me, there's sort of two things at the core here that make this so toxic. One is a seeming complete lack of understanding about

Not to step on Reagan's, I'm from the federal government, I'm here to help you being the scariest words. For me these days, the scariest words are, now we've figured it out. Now we know what's right, good for humans. Finally, finally, we figured it out.

So what are you looking forward to going forward? What's on your radar?

And finally, in terms of actuating those changes to the health agencies, are you going to help us get RFK Jr. in a position of authority there so we can start to dismantle the corruption?

Oh, Congressman Griffith, you're so picky and so extreme in your opinions. How dare you? Again, return of common sense. For years, I was saying I wanted to form the common sense party, but I think common sense has reemerged. Well, listen, we appreciate you sharing your thoughts here with you. We are grateful for the work you have done with the HHS committees.

it's essentially human motivation and what people need and what makes them ascend to a greater good. And that's when people are their best and feel their best. And if you're really empathic to somebody, it's the equivalent of letting the drug addicts die on the streets here in Los Angeles. That is not empathy. That is disgusting. And empathy is hard. It's like, No, man, come with me.

And I hope you'll come back and keep us posted and let us help you deliver the messages wherever they need to be delivered and help you out in any other way we can.

You got it. Senator Mark Griffith. Thank you so much for joining us. You can follow him, Rep. M. Griffith. And for us coming up tomorrow, Susan, you have your show at three o'clock. Very special, super special guest coming in. We can't tell you because of the psychic.

Susan's very particular about not exposing the possibility of doubt. So she hasn't let the psychic.

Right.

Right, exactly. All right, Claire Craig coming in tomorrow. She is in the UK, and Jessica Rose, I think, is in Israel or something. So we're going to do our show at noon tomorrow. It's a one-two powerful punch. There's a lot going on. Andrew Gruhl is coming back with Wilkinson. We have... Justine Bateman coming on December 10th. That'll be a lot of fun.

Gosh, I'm going to get the list here because I think Caleb, I saw a few other people that really, Jeff Dye coming in, Matthias Desmond, Aaron Cariotti together will be a very powerful show.

Yeah. Allison Morrow. So we got a lot of stuff coming up.

Well, and to have an outlet, and you guys are so attentive. We are so appreciative of this audience. You're attentive, you're motivated, you're watching, you're thinking. And by the way, to that end, if you have other guests you'd like us to interview, go to drdrew.com slash contact. Is that right? Contact us.

We're very lucky that way too.

And by the way, we formed our sponsorship with you all in mind. Like this kind of stuff, the wellness company, it's about getting- Open it up. All right, I'll open it up. Now we have a little time here. You broke my mojo here.

I don't know if you can see it. Wow.

Yeah, this is mupiricin. This is a topic antibiotic. This is an EpiPen. It just fell out of here. Odansetron, albuterol. I mean, this is everything you could want.

Let's do this. Let's do the work together, whatever it means. Fighting against the disease, fighting against the defensiveness. But this sort of toxic empathy lacks an understanding of human need and human motivation. Is that about right?

And essentially the emergency stuff. And a manual how to use it and telehealth support. So it's just tremendous.

It's empowering the patients. You guys get the goods and get to take care of your healthcare the way you know how to. Yeah.

Well, they end up sending you to the ER.

There's a better way to do healthcare. I've spent my career protecting the patient physician. Clearly, that's a lost cause. We got to go right to the patients and give them the power. You deserve the power. You deserve control. But don't be heedless. You want to use our telehealth and use our manuals and things. We work on that very carefully.

But we do trust you to deliver healthcare in a systematic way, properly informed. You should be. You should have access. You should have access.

The previous one, you're not enough and that's okay, I think is what it was called. We'll get into that. And Carolla and I have been talking about the misappropriation of empathy and the self-esteem movement and the deleterious effects of that. We'll get into it all right after this. Stay with us. Our laws as it pertain to substances are draconian and bizarre. The psychopath started this.

Why don't you send them a little suggestion? That's a great idea. I don't think they have things like that.

I'm going to send them an email right now.

All of our people should have gift certificates. You know what I mean?

Okay. I just sent it a thing for gift certificates. Let's see if they can get that up and going.

It's an interesting idea. And of course, there's the One Health thing at TWC. If you're a regular customer over there, you can save a lot of money by signing up for One Health. They've got a lot of interesting services as part of that organization. And they're going to expand that. Yeah.

I completely agree. Look, does Paleo Valley have a gift certificate thing? You and I talked about that.

We're going to be giving Paleo Valley some of our gifts. All right, so in any event, we're enthusiastic about the people who support us.

We are enthusiastic about you all. We'll continue to offer the best we can through the holidays and then we'll launch into the new year. And until tomorrow at noon, we'll be talking to Claire Craig and Jessica Rose. Should be a very interesting conversation. Then Susan is at three o'clock Pacific time. We'll see you there.

Ask Dr. Drew is produced by Caleb Nation and Susan Pinsky. As a reminder, the discussions here are not a substitute for medical care, diagnosis, or treatment. This show is intended for educational and informational purposes only. I am a licensed physician, but I am not a replacement for your personal doctor, and I am not practicing medicine here.

Always remember that our understanding of medicine and science is constantly evolving. Though my opinion is based on the information that is available to me today, some of the contents of this show could be outdated in the future. Be sure to check with trusted resources in case any of the information has been updated since this was published.

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In a weird way, I guess the empathy becomes adulterated by ideology. And then the empathy is used sort of as a cudgel. I was thinking about this today when I was thinking about it, which is, you know, I'm a good person. I would never say anything that would harm a transgender individual. So I'm going to keep my mouth shut because I would never be somebody that would hurt somebody else.

And then in the name of... As I keep my mouth shut, those with an ideological bone to pick and with the cudgel of toxic empathy will go to really crazy places and they don't care where they go. They don't seem to have any limits of where they go. What is that, do you think? That's no longer about protecting transgender. That's doing something else.

He was an alcoholic because of social media and pornography, PTSD, love addiction, fentanyl and heroin. Ridiculous. I'm a doctor for . Where the hell do you think I learned that? I'm just saying, you go to treatment before you kill people. I am a clinician. I observe things about these chemicals. Let's just deal with what's real. We used to get these calls on Loveline all the time.

But I also see how seductive it is to go, I would never, if that's what they say they need, that I'm an empathic person, I'm going to protect them. I won't say anything. Oh yeah, Allie is phobic and she is interested in harming these people. That move of making you a harmful person rather than a person with a different opinion, again, that's toxic, right?

Well, speaking of harm, protecting feelings from challenge is how you harm people. The most significant advance in psychiatry is exposure therapy. Now we live in a time when the vast majority of psychiatric symptoms are treated with exposure to those symptoms to learn to regulate them. And so by keeping people away from their feelings, you are literally making them ill.

Educate adolescents and to prevent and to treat. If you have trouble, you can't stop and you want help stopping, I can help. I got a lot to say. I got a lot more to say. Joint muscle pains are exhausting and frustrating, but I've got a over-the-counter medication I want to introduce you to that provides great relief using the power of, check it out, chili peppers.

So I see this and I'm going to stand back and tell you, I have a sort of a medical frame on this. I don't disagree with anything you've said, but my frame is you are talking about patients who come to doctors to receive treatment. lifelong therapeutics with potentially dangerous medication and in very invasive surgical procedures that are also quite dangerous and potentially harmful.

You just mentioned a couple of the harms that people get into. That's the superficial harms. I worry about the liver failure and the hepatomas and really the serious things that happen. And so for me,

it is incumbent upon doctors not to be affected by ideology and to just rely on the scientific process that helps them select the right patient for the right treatment and in most countries that's the way they do it i have many transgender friend patients and the ones that do the best

were actually carefully assessed by first a doctor and then a psychiatrist, and then told that you're going to need these dangerous medications that I will manage and carefully administer possibly the rest of your life. And when it's done that way, it works very well. It's really good. But when it's everybody gets the same treatment as aggressive they want because of what they're feeling inside,

Great to be with you.

Well, it's bewildering to all of us. And, you know, there's just so many different things. And so we put in a number of bills. But when you look at all the things that the NIH was supposed to do through NIAID, that would be Dr. Fauci's agency, National... infectious disease, allergies and infectious disease department under Francis Collins at the time at the NIH.

They were doing all this research, spending millions of dollars with EcoHealth Alliance, 800,000 of that, according to their own data, went to the Wuhan Institute of Virology. And we didn't get the documents we paid for. It's that simple. We didn't get the information we paid for. And isn't it interesting that one of the reports we didn't get was from September of 2019.

And eventually, EcoHealth would provide us with some of the data, or their report at least. They didn't have the Chinese data, but they gave us their report. But they had doctored some of it, as it turned out. Now, that was the evidence that I believe came out in committee. We had two different transcribed interviews with them. We had transcribed interviews with Dr. Fauci.

But EcoHealth Alliance was not... straightforward with the NIH. But NIH knew they weren't getting the documents they were supposed to get, knew or should have known, which is where some of these bills come from. I mean, Chip Roy and I are carrying a bill to break up NIAID into three component parts, infectious diseases, allergies, and immunological diseases, because they're different. And

Sometimes they overlap. I'm not going to say they don't occasionally overlap, but there's also a lot of differences.

Infectious diseases and allergies are totally different.

First off, I think that both Dr. Francis Collins and Dr. Fauci were pushing the envelope on gain of function. Now, I will tell you that my good friend, Senator Paul and Fauci got into a lot of fights. And sometimes I thought they were talking past each other because you can have your standard gain of function, which is breeding a Labrador retriever with a poodle and coming up with a Labradoodle.

That's technically gain of function. And yet what we really are concerned about is gain of function where there's a risk to human health. And I don't think they pay close enough attention to the grants they gave to EcoHealth Alliance, both in the beginning.

The mindset is that they fear that there will be a natural mutation. They fear that desperately. And so they want to be in advance of the natural mutation. So they start studying these infectious diseases. And then somewhere along the way- It's not biowarfare.

They're worried about Ebola. They're worried about Mpox. They're worried about all these other things. And I think what happened, being generous, is they were worried about that. So they kind of looked the other way when they knew that they were doing research in a level two lab. It clearly should have been a level three lab.

And they kind of looked the other way thinking, well, we got to get this research done. So we'll give it to this third party group, EcoHealth Alliance, and they'll go to a foreign country. And we can march our hands of it. And that's what they tried to do.

And when they realized it might blow back on them, I think there was some feeling that if it was a lab leak even, which is what I believe happened, they were afraid it would come back on them. Well, I think it has. I think most rational people today would admit that it is the odds-on favorite. that it was a lab leak.

What I was going to say is I believe that I could get a jury to find on circumstantial evidence that all we have today that there was evidence beyond a reasonable doubt, or at least two, eliminating all reasonable doubt that it came out of the lab. I don't think it was intentional. I think it was just sloppy work. Their filtration system was horrible.

Even with a level two lab, I'm not sure they really met level two, but the Chinese claim they did. But one of their own doctors was advocating in 2019 that they might want to get a better filtration system because basically all they had was your basic charcoal filters. They didn't have filters.

In my opinion, they closed the barn door after the horses were out. And I think that's what happened. That's exactly right. But they were doing dangerous research. And we've seen signs they might be continuing to try to do some of that. And we've been trying to put a stop to that.

And some of the legislation that we have, one of the bills that Dr. Paul and I have together, is a bill that would say you got to have an independent group, independent of NIH. They have an internal group that's supposed to be looking at risky research. Nope, nope.

You didn't do a good job on COVID, whether it came out of the lab or it was somehow natural, which there's no evidence that it was natural. But even if you wanted to buy that, you shouldn't be doing that risky research without an independent review process because it raises all kinds of questions about whether or not you made the right call.

And mistakes can happen, but we need to have an extra safety net to try to stop as many as we can and as many mistakes as we can at various labs. If the taxpayers are paying for it, we better have some security around it.

Yeah, I think that's accurate. I think you can make an argument, and look, Congress is equally guilty on this. You can make an argument maybe for the first two or three months with shutting down some stuff. After the first two to three months, there's no argument for having our society shut down. I mean, my favorite one was, I'm a swimmer, I've been a swimmer my whole life.

We shut down all the swimming pools because they didn't think it was safe to have people swimming in a vat of chlorine. I mean, if you wanted to raise the chlorine level attached, that's fine. But it was not, oh my gosh, you can't be in a swimming pool. Come on, people. They didn't use any reason. Yeah, I mean, it's just a terrible-

Cuz he didn't wear a mask. I'm just teasing.

100%.

A little bit. We've seen a little bit at the NIH with some of their scientists that they're now sounding the same kind of concerns that were raised by this. So I think there's a little bit. I don't think it's sufficient, which is why I think we need to get legislation passed that, as I said, we break up NIAID.

We make transparency at NIH more available for people getting royalties on certain types of research and whether or not that's right. There may be an argument for it. To get the top scientists, you may need to pay a little bit of a royalty.

At the same time, we need the information delivered to Congress so that we can make a decision on behalf of the American people, whether that makes sense or it's just somebody lining their pockets. And then last but not least, that risky research panel that I mentioned is absolutely essential, I believe, because

someday, someplace, sometime, maybe not 2024, 2025, or 2026, but by 2029, people will have forgotten. And NIH may go back to not paying as close attention to risky research as I hope they are today. And we need an independent board out there that will make sure that we are studying all of this information and making sure that If we're doing something, there better be a good reason for it.

As you said, it can't just be, well, we got to do something. No. We need to leave some of these viruses alone. They're very dangerous. Why would we want to spread them around the world to do research and possibly have an outbreak? And the one that I'm most worried about in the midterm is monkeypox. I mean, bird flu is something to keep an eye on. But there's a lot of things we can do on bird flu.

But monkeypox is a problem, Ebola, it's a problem. Why would we wanna go and stir everything up and spread those viruses around the world with hundreds of researchers or even dozens of researchers working with the virus? Every time you have that virus out there, there's a greater likelihood

that it's going to be some kind of an accident or somebody's going to forget they've got it in the back of the freezer. And I mention that because when I first got to Congress a number of years ago, they just finished a study of US labs and it was a government lab. They found a frozen substance in the back of one of the lab freezers. Nobody knew what it was. So they took it out and they tested it.

They had live smallpox living in, I mean, it was frozen, but it was in the back of the freezer and it was unlabeled. So the more times you put human involved and there was no outbreak as a result, the more time you have that kind of human involvement where they're taking it in and out of the freezers or refrigerators, they're messing with it in the lab, they're goofing around, doing whatever.

I mean, people do things. And next thing you know, something bad is breaking out on the world that we don't have any information on. And that's what happened. One of those scenarios is what I think happened with COVID-19.

Yeah, well, I agree with you that there's some denial. They're looking at these significant threats, but ones that are more remote instead of looking at the immediate threat. That's the denial. The hysteria is, I think, and this is an opinion based on some information, but it's just part of my gut feeling.

I think that the leaders at the NIH thought they could get ahead of this, and they were so good, they could prevent future outbreaks of bad things like Ebola and Mpox and coronaviruses.

And they didn't look sufficiently at the risks they were taking, and they weren't focused on, and I think this is true across a lot of government agencies, they weren't focused on the day-to-day stuff that's a real problem.

i mean yeah you're right yeah the the antibiotic resistant bacteria there's a big deal i've been pushing for phage therapy i love the concept uh because we're gonna need it and uh i'm probably one of the few people that's actually visited sewage treatment plants for a different reason but that's where you find the the viruses that attack the antibiotic resistant uh uh

Bacteria, great book out of a couple, The Perfect Predator, coming out of San Diego State and how they saved that man's life. It's a fun book to read. Lots of good science in it. It's about five or six years old now. Talking about phase therapy. But those are the kinds of things we need to be looking at because that's a worldwide problem. And it's here today. It's not here next month.

It's not here five years from now. It's here today. And then the dengue fever, you know, yeah, it's a problem.

I can't help but laugh a little bit at that because when I was in high school, I read a Scientific American article that posited that perhaps the common cold came in on an asteroid because it didn't exist until something like the 12th century. It was not in the medical records anywhere. And then all of a sudden, it's all over the place.

And so we say that, but we have seen microbial life in several different places in the space. I mean, it's a little out there, but it's possible.

Maybe I believe that that's God playing with us. He does these things. He uses different devices, but I think it's God's healing.

I don't. I mean, my gut again is that they panicked. And I think there was some feeling that in the back of their minds, they would deny this. They have denied it. that they thought maybe it was a lab leak. Even those who most staunchly said it was not a lab leak, I think deep in the recesses of their brain, they woke up at night going, oh my gosh, we might have accidentally contributed to this.

And I think that led to them going to more severe restrictions because they were trying to put the genie back in the bottle. That's, again, conjecture on my part. And as I said, the scientists who were involved at the time would all deny that.

I've got to believe that that's part of the explanation for such a, and lasting more than two or three months, such a strong, we have to continue to shut everything down response.

I have to say I have not seen any evidence in my examination of witnesses and talking with people of any thoughts about bioweapons in this case. Now, you know, and a lot of people early conjectured that maybe it was something the Chinese planned. If the Chinese were going to plan that, which I don't think they did, they would have had it affect non-Hong Chinese people.

It would have been specific to China. Other races, not them. And they suffer just as badly as the rest of the world. So I think this was, I truly believe, my opinion, and I've stated this to Collins, I think to Fauci too. I think what happened was we gave them the humanized mice, which they didn't have. The Chinese didn't have that. We gave it to them as a part of this coronavirus work.

And they had the ability to do a lot of mixing and matching. And I know that this is not part of the Chinese culture, but I can see some of my buddies, if they had the capability of doing something, saying, hey, Hey, let's look at this. Let's see what happens if we do this in the lab. And then they accidentally created something and they couldn't figure out how to get it under control.

That, I think, is your best theory. Bioweapons are a concern, but I think you would see something that was targeted more to the enemies of China if it was a Chinese plot or to some other nation if it had come out of their nation. You would have seen something that triggered... And there's lots of diseases that affect Africans and Greeks sickle cell.

It does. And there's no question about it. I mean, I have blue eyes. There's a study out there that says you can trace that all the way back to one mutation somewhere in the Nordic countries tens of thousands of years ago.

I'll just always be keeping an open mind. If you've got some good studies, I always like to read a good study. Sometimes it takes a while because I have to look up a lot of the words if it's not in my field, which some of this is and some of it isn't, but I enjoy learning.

And so that's what we have to keep doing is pushing forward, getting the information, getting the facts, and make good decisions based on actual facts and real science.

I look forward to, I've heard her speak, I've met with her before, and I look forward to reading her book.

And that's the key. That's the key. Reduce the possibility of this happening.