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Clawing Our Way Back

Published Nov 29, 2024, 8:00 AM

Dr. Rob Davidson returns to Woke AF Daily to discuss the need to restore faith in public health after years of attacks on our health care systems.

Good morning, Peepsen. Welcome to WIKF Daily with Meet Your Girl Daniel Moody pre recorded from the Home Bunker, Folks. On today's show, we chat again with doctor Rob Davidson, who is an emergency room doctor in Michigan, and we chat with him today with regard to RFK Junior and the potential that a conspiracy theorist, an anti vaxxer, a lunatic could be in charge of public health for over three hundred and thirty million Americans. And doctor Davidson walks us through all of the ways in which this is incredibly dangerous, reminds us of what happened in Samoa with a measle outbreak that killed over eighty people, largely children, after RFK Junior talked about anti vaccines there and you could literally trace the deaths back to him and is anti vaccine And you know, here we talk about what will it take to restore faith in public health that was broken by Donald Trump during COVID and has yet to recover. What he reminds us is that vaccines helped and has helped millions upon millions of people, whether it be polio, whether it be measles, malaria, and has the potential to eradicate cervical cancer in terms of HPV. And so you know, we are at a time where the lunatics are going to run the asylum and it isn't just about tuning out when their hands are literally going to be everywhere in our water, in our food, in our medicine, and what is that going to mean for our health moving forward? I get into this and more with doctor Rob Davidson, Folks, I am very happy to welcome back to f A doctor Rob Davidson, who is a er doctor in Michigan, East Michigan and the executive director of the Committee to Protect Healthcare. Doctor Davidson, you joined us a couple of weeks back when we still had hope. How about three years three weeks ago and a lot has happened, And now we are in the throes of Donald Trump's second regime taking shape. And one of the most troubling I mean, they're all troubling, but one of the most troubling picks that I have seen thus far for his cabinet is that of RFK Junior to head up HHS. RFK Junior has been known for his wild conspiracy theories, has been known to believe that fluoride in water causes autism and all sorts of odd things. Just recently, I think what has been released this week is that heroin has helped him become a better student and retain more information. Walk us through how in jeopardy our public health is with this incoming administration.

First, thanks again, it's good to talk with you again after three weeks and a lot hasn't back happened? Boy, I think with this incoming administration, what we've seen is there they It feels like he and they exist more to kind of shock the system than they do to actually provide benefit to people. To whoever voted for him and why they voted for him. People are figuring that out right exactly which groups and which people and why they did. But no matter what, people who vote for whomever they vote for are doing it because they think that person being in that particular office are going to somehow benefit the lives of themselves, their families, their community, their country, what have you. And so in picking someone like our Ka Junior, and you know, the conspiracy theories are concerned his anti vaccine views, his record of going into Samoa in twenty eighteen promoting anti Vat's views against MMR and then seeing an outbreak of measles happen in that small island, killing eighty three people, mostly children, making four thousand people very sick. Yeah, and you can draw a direct line to OURFK Junior and his organization promoting that. You know, when you have someone like that coming in, a lot of the picks are concerning. And you said it right, that's true. As a physician and as someone who leads a physician organization who are advocating for our patients, this is the one that we care about a lot, you know, both personally professionally, and feel like we can speak to with some degree of authority and have an impact on keeping this guy out of there. I think we turned back the clock right before science, right before we believed in basic science. And you know, the history of healthcare in the world is certainly this country. As we learn new information, we change how we practice. I mean, there are things that I learned in medical school that are absolutely proven to be not true today. There are things that I do and that I've learned today that I'm sure in twenty thirty years we'll look back and say why we were a little off, you know, hopefully not a lot off, but certainly off in those views. Before vaccines, people died of measles. Right before vaccines, I think prevented ten million cases of paralysis with the polio vaccine. Before polio vaccine, kids were in iron lungs because their diaphragms were paralyzed and they couldn't breathe. You know, before vaccines, there were entire strains of meningitis that people who taught me in the nineties talked about that because of the specific vaccine hib hemophlos influenza in the eighties, we got rid of it. I've never seen it, and we are so grateful for that reality. Right, particularly children, but and adults. Right because of vaccines, we could eliminate cervical cancer and women. Right the HPV vaccine, if we had wide uptake, we could totally eliminate a form of cancer. Like it's you've never even imagined this kind of stuff thirty years ago, forty years ago, but it's true. And we got a guy coming in who wants to turn back to clock, you know, to the fifties and sixties and make us all in our communities to deal with these diseases and see people die from them unnecessarily, But as as physicians and clinicians watch people suffer when we know it could have been different, it's terrifying.

I kind of want to take us back to COVID for a moment when Donald Trump was in office the first time and the global health pandemic hits, and that is when his administration put public health on trial. And instead of using his platform to urge people in the United States to wear a mask, to urge people to wash your hands and do basic things, as scientists and doctors and researchers, we're trying to figure out what is this thing? What is COVID, how is it spreading? How is it harming so many people? We watched them turn the field of medicine and health into a political hot potato, so much so that post the spikes of COVID that we had experienced over the last four years, that we have seen vaccine use be depressed, not just for COVID but overall vaccine. So, as you were watching doctor Davidson that unfold over his term, did you think that he was planting the seeds for what would then blossom dangerously across this country? Did you think that a Joe Biden presidency and administration was going to be able to kind of right size our perception and our understanding of public health.

I mean, I think the danger and sort of the culture personality surrounding Trump is a certain group of people, whatever that percent is, forty thirty percent, some number of people in this country will just take what he says and believe it and bring it in believe it and nothing else could ever be true despite any fact that was presented. That's I mean, that's tough, right, how do you go against that? But then, particularly with COVID, even people who maybe weren't on board with Trump and a lot of the things he was doing, thought he was unfit, you know, concerned about a lot of aspects. They were said of COVID. Right, COVID was disruptive to people's lives, to our kids education, to people's work lives, to people's ability to earn money, COVID taking lives of family members. People were just at some point just over it. Now, it's hard to prove a counter narrative, But had someone other than Trump and President COVID almost certainly wouldn't have been as bad. The economy almost certainly wouldn't have been as bad. I mean, he screwed up in epic proportions, and part of his lack of response and his pushing back against masking his massive rallies during the summer and fall of twenty twenty, when COVID was just a running rampant, getting more people sick, causing deaths. Right. I mean, Herman Kane died after going to I think it was in Oklahoma, going to a rally of his he got COVID and died. I mean, Chris Christy recounts that Trump gave him COVID when they're doing debate prep before he went into a debate with a seventy seven year old former vice president who was his opponent with COVID and didn't tell anyone, and he almost he killed Chris Christie, right, some guy who was previously supporting him. That happened, you know, over and over and over at these big rallies, this disease spreading. But the reality is the big majority of people who maybe weren't on board with Trump overall, were just sick of COVID, and so if they found something or someone out there who could give them information to say that they weren't a bad person for all gathering in groups with their friends and family, right or for opening their business because they simply needed to be able to earn a living. And they found that in Trump, or in RFK Junior, or in doctor Oz or any of these other people that he's putting into the public health apparatus. People clung to that, right. They were looking for someone to tell them, you really don't need to stay away from people. You really can get together at Thanksgiving and Christmas. Don't You'll be fine this it's the flu, it's the cold, it's no big deal. None of that was true, but they wanted to hear it. They were ready to hear it. And I think that is to me, the irreparable damage that has been done is that those people kind of got into those places. Then that began the distrust of the system in general, and it primed a whole new group of people for believing a sort of anti science views of someone like our a junior that's going to take a long time to sex right talking about it with someone like you here, and this podcast is part of it. Like people like me trying to go everywhere we can to talk about to highlight the problem and to reinforce the importance of science and fact based practice of HealthShare and public health. I think that's how we claw our way back.

You know, one of the things that I've seen recently, and I know that obviously you have seen all of the headlines of mass exodus of doctors leaving Red states, largely around abortion, but fleeing and turning certain states, these red states into health deserts. And I'm wondering, as again this administration takes is it going to be possible do you think for blue state governors to be able to keep their constituents safe, Like if you have all of these doctors that are leaving. Leaving is largely an economic privilege when people are able to afford to be able to leave. And these doctors are doing so because they don't want to go to jail.

Even besides that, they don't want to practice an environment where they know they know what to do medically, but they're not allowed to do that, even not with that, even with vaccines, with other aspects of healthcare practicing in environments. I mean, I practice in a state where Medicaid has been expanded under the ACA, but there are still ten states that happen, and that, to me, would be really hard to practice in a place like that with people who could otherwise afford healthcare if they just happen to live in a different state, but they can't afford to get insurance. Like the moral injury associate with that in practicing medicine. There's a lot to that, and people go into mesine for a lot of different reasons. But if you ask everyone who you know first applied to med school, what's the first answer to the first question when you want to be a doctor, I would venture ninety ninety five percent would say because I want to help people. When an entire system is set up so you can't help people, and it's a different state by state, and it becomes more challenging when a new administration comes in and puts up rules and tries to do things like Medicaid blog brands, which will decrease a number of people in Medicaid, which decrease the number of people with ACA plans, which they did when he was last president, two millions fewer people had insurance than have it now. That makes it harder to do this job. It is genuinely a moral injury, and you're right we have the economic privilege to say I'm just going to step away, you know, I'm going to do something else, and I'm going to use my savings or what have you and try to live a different life and not have to day by day be exposed to this risk and that moral injury of people being sick that don't have to be sick. That's hard, and again that's something from which we have to claw back, and I think we will. I think we can, but it's going to just take a concerted effort people talking about it and promoting truth wherever we can.

And to that point, I wholeheartedly agree. And I wonder about your thoughts with regard to places like New York and California who have governors that are saying, you will keep you safe, You'll be safe, you know this place, it will be a haven, etc. To what extent do you think that that is possible when the government, right, the federal government is the largest institution that can help or harm people at will.

Yeah, I think it's possible to blunt the negative impact. And don't forget my governor Gretchen whitmerher in Michigan. Yes, you love her, and she is vowed to defend people's rights and to help promote their health. So I think yeah, they definitely can have a very significant impact on that. State policies and state boards of health and even in communities right, county health departments have a huge say in what's of available right and spreading truth and good information. It just having someone like Ourka, or having Donald Trump, or having os and positions of power with a platform with a megaphone just makes it harder. It just means they're going to have to work harder to provide the counter narratives of truths from what people are getting from the administration and find the right channels of communication to do that right, whether it be on podcasts like this YouTube TikTok, you know, where people are consuming the information. It just makes their job harder and I'm sure very frustrating, But you know, these are people. That's why they're there to help protect and defend the people of their state. I have faith in them. I feel badly for people in Florida, people in Texas. I really do my colleagues, but just general citizen rido, mate just kind of can't think about it every day. They just set their liver, the lives and you know, take care of their families. But they're they're being bombarded, you know, with people like DeSantis out there kind of voice the same crazy use as we're hearing from Trunk.

What advice do you give to people right now, particularly those who use the Affordable Care Act for their healthcare who are at risk? I think, what is it? It's over twenty million people, myself included as a self employed person, who are at risk. What advice do you give to people as this administration comes in?

I think, no matter where you live, please please please communicate to your elected officials in the federal government. You're a member of Congress, your senator. You know, if you happen to live in an area with a Republican member of Congress, Republican senator, call in. Let their office know how much you depend upon those and if they are going to make changes, they have to make sure they have something ready to replace whatever they think is not working. Let's be real, it could all be better, right. Your insurance is still expensive, I'm sure, and your cope and doctorbles are still more than they should be. So if they have ideas, I mean, we are you know, I work to this organization the Committee to Protect Healthcare. We're a non partisan organization. It just so happens. We haven't yet found a Republican with policy proposals that actually are going to help people more than more than what we've got going. But if they come to the table with something that generally is better, is cheaper, provides more access, let's go like we are ready, We'll jump on board. The problem is everything we've seen them do makes it more expensive, that has less access, less coverage, and will hurt more people. So I think it's really speaking up and voicing that your support of what you have and your need to have affordable health care to those people in those positions to take the vote that could take it away.

Yeah, I agree, And I had told my listeners and followers, you know, to book their doctor's appointments, to make sure that they're up to date on their vaccines, to do whatever seizures that maybe they had been putting off because we don't know when and how it will be pulled away, but that you know, it could very well be a light switch moment where you know, tens of millions of people wake up and don't have health care.

I think that's smart advice. I don't think anyone could argue with that advice. We don't know what the future holds, but if we know what is happening in the present and what we have, yeah, I mean, I think that's a very good advice that I'm going to take to heart.

And finally, doctor Davidson, again, we have but a couple of months left until this takes shape, the fullness of this administration comes into view. What is your advice to young people that are going into the medical profession at the same time that this administration is taking shape? What do you say to those young people?

I think too fold one, it is still a very rewarding thing to be able to be a person in your community that helps keep the community healthy, to help take care of people and their families. So it is still extremely rewarding and it's worthwhile. I think. The other thing is we have agency. We have a voice through organizations like ours or other organizations. Physician voices are critically important. Right to speak out on behalf of our patients, whether it before policies we believe in or against the policies or the actions of Trump or anyone else who is going to endanger our patients or our ability to help them, and so do not just sit on your hands. I mean it's hard. Early on, we've had people in organization who've been threatened by employers, by big hospitals because we've kind of been going after policies that the hospitals use to make things more expensive. And you know, these folks are like, I have a mortgageized student loans. I'm the primary bread earner. I get it. I get it. But I think if we want to have you know, the system we have and we want to make it better, we have to lift up our own voices. You know, we have to it. It's as much as it might be difficult for us, it's a lot easier for us than this for a lot of our patients. You know, we have that ability, and we have the economic security to be able to do that, definitely more than a lot of our patients too. And we have expertise, and we for the most part have the trust of people who were talking to And so make that a part of how you practice medicine advocacy, using your voice and as public the way it is you feel comfortable doing. I think that's a new piece of medicine that I didn't consider back in the nineties when I first got into those and I think it's just become clear that we have to be there, we have to have that piece above the way we practice medicine.

Yeah, doctor Davidson, thank you so much for making time for WOKF Daily. Really appreciate your insights and your advice.

Absolutely, I really enjoy talking with you, and I'm happy to do it anytime.

Absolutely, we'll have you back again soon.

That is it.

But for me today to hear friends on Woke af as always power to the people and to all the people power, get woke and stay woke as fuck.

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