US and Iran Back in War; Plus, Corona Calls

Good morning. It's Monday, July 13, 2006. This is up front. I'm Brian Edwards-Tieger. On today's show, John Fevers away this week. We're going to focus on the rapidly escalating conflict between the U.S. and Iran. A ceasefire deal hanging in tatters as the U.S. bombs dozens of sites in Iran, and Iran fires on U.S. military facilities in four of its neighbors. We'll speak to Amid Mamarian from dawn. In the second half of our program, it's Corona Calls with Dr. John Swartzburg. We will talk about the cyclospora outbreak that has produced more than 3,000 cases across 31 states and shows no indication of running out of steam. We'll also take your calls. It's all next. After the news. I'm Max Pringle with these headlines. The U.S. military struck more targets in Iran over the weekend after Iran fired at commercial vessels in the Strait of Hormuz. Iran also fired at U.S. bases in the Persian Gulf region. Karen Chamas has more. The attacks that continued into Monday morning further threatened any diplomacy to end the war. The US military's central command released footage of its strikes on Iran. It also said the strait was a vital pathway for global trade, claiming Iran doesn't control it. Iran's revolutionary guard has said the strait is Iranian territory and they would not allow what they called a rogue child-killing army from the other side of the world to continue its illegal interference in it. Iran's military on Sunday released footage showing drones being launched in response to what it is described as U.S. aggressions in the south of the country. Iran and the U.S. are nearly at the midway point of the 60-day period of an interim deal that was supposed to set up talks for a permanent end to the war. I'm Karen Shamas. The British government says an Iranian proxy group is responsible for recent arson and vandalism attacks. on the Jewish community in the UK. The government today announced a ban on the Islamic movement of the Companions of the Right. They also banned Iran's powerful paramilitary Revolutionary Guard Corps, or IRGC. Security Minister Angela Eagle stated that the Iranian proxy group has claimed seven attacks in Britain. She added that members of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps could's force almost certainly directed such attacks across Europe. British authorities said they are also designating the GRU Volunteer Corps, a group controlled by Russia's military intelligence agency, as a national security threat. A fire at a music bar in Bangkok, Thailand over the weekend, killed at least 27 people and injured 73. Anton Delgado has more from Bangkok. Outside of the beer hall here in downtown Bangkok that was engulfed in flames late last night. The fire killed at least 27 people and injured dozens more before firefighters were able to put out the blaze early on Monday morning. The site has been corned off as Thai officials and forensic police begin to investigate the cause of the fire. The windows of the bar facing the street have all been blown out and debris is littered across the sidewalk. I've seen burnt out speakers, television sets and even electric guitar melted in last night's flames.

Through these destroyed windows, you can see the inside of the damaged bar room where blackened beer bottles still rest on burnt-out tables. The cause of the fire is still undetermined. Several Buddhist monks visited earlier today to pray for the victims, and nurses have been seen here on the sidewalk handing out masks to keep pedestrians from breathing into fumes from the fires of the burnt-out club. South Carolina Republican Senator Lindsey Graham died unexpectedly Saturday, his family said. The foreign policy hawk was an early Trump critic before becoming a close ally and advisor. Haya Punguani has more. A medical examiner has found that Senator Lindsey Graham likely died after a tear in his aorta. The tear in the inner wall of the aorta, called an aortic dissection, was related to the hardening of Graham's arteries. An official cause of death will be disclosed after further testing. The prominent South Carolina Republican who served in Congress for more than three decades had turned 71 years old just two days before dying on Saturday night. His office had originally said he suffered from a brief and sudden illness. Graham was a close ally of President Donald Trump and was known for advocating a strong U.S. foreign policy. He had just returned from Ukraine where he'd met with Ukrainian president, Volodemir Volodymyr Zelensky. Hayuponjani, Washington. A Sudanese court has sentenced Mohamed Hamdan Dagalow, the leader of the paramilitary rapid support forces, or RSF, to death for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide over atrocities committed in the West Darfur region. The court in Port Sudan, which is still under the control of the army, convicted Dogalo, known as Hamedi, in absentia, along with 15 other senior RSF members who were given the same sentence. The RSF has not commented on the verdict, but previously rejected accusations of war crimes during the conflict. The trial centered on alleged atrocities committed in the regional capital of El Genena, including the June 23 killing of the state governor, Kamis Abakar. The court also found the 16 defendants guilty of orchestrating attacks on civilians, widespread destruction and looting of property, and the targeting of schools, places of worship, and residential neighborhoods. UN investigators and human rights organizations have accused the RSF and allied Arab militias of carrying out ethnically targeted attacks against the Mossolite population in Darfur. Earlier this month, the International Criminal Court Deputy Chief Prosecutor said they have concrete evidence linking RSF leaders to war crimes. New Zealand actor Sam Neal, best known for his role in the 1993 Stephen Spielberg Science Fiction Classic Jurassic Park, died over the weekend. He was 78. Luke Garrett reports.

A statement posted by Neil's family on his social media page said his death was sudden and unexpected, but that he remained cancer-free after previously being diagnosed with angio-immunoblastic T-cell lymphoma in 2023. Born in Northern Ireland in 1947, he and his family emigrated to New Zealand when he was seven. He came to prominence in the late 1970s with a series of TV and film roles. In 1979, his career was elevated by the film My Brilliant Career, which brought him international acclaim. But it was Stephen Spielberg's 1993 classic Jurassic Park, which brought him the highest level of fame. They do move in herds. He came to be known in his native New Zealand as a modest and unassuming person who didn't embrace celebrity. In 2023, he was awarded a knighthood by Queen Elizabeth II for outstanding contribution to film. That's Luke Garrett. The semifinals for the FIFA World Cup are set after Argentina outlasted Switzerland and England beat Norway on Saturday. England will now meet Argentina Wednesday for the right to face the winner of Tuesday's Spain versus France semifinal match for the final World Cup championship on Sunday. Mostly sunny today in the San Francisco Bay Area, highs in the 80s, lows to 9 in the 50s, and the Central Valley. Sunny today, highs around 100, lows to night in the 70s. Those are the headlines. I'm Max Pringle on KPFA. 708 in the morning. The show is up front. My name is Brian Edwards Teacert. We're having a moment of difficulty getting through to our guest on Iran this morning. John Feffer is out for the week, so we thought we would turn to the most topical topic in foreign relations right now. While our engineer tries to get him on the phone instead of the Zoom, let me just recap what's been going on. The U.S. has been conducting dozens of bombings daily inside Iran. in response to Iran strikes on ships navigating Omani waters in the Strait of Hormos. It's unclear exactly what all these sites are. The U.S. has striking military strikes, trying to minimize Iran's capacity to launch strikes in the Strait of Hormuz. It is clear from some footage and statements that have come out of Iran that some of these sites are principally logistical or civilian in nature, including a water pumping site.

Iran, in turn, has been launching strikes on U.S. military facilities in four of its neighbors over the weekend, Jim Jordan, Bahrain, Kuwait, and Oman. Meanwhile, the U.S. has reimposed sanctions on Iran's oil sales, but has not yet reimposed its naval blockade of Iranian ship traffic. The lack of a reimposition of a naval blockade is basically the last shred of the ceasefire agreement that was signed to much fanfare by the Trump administration that is still intact. Joining us to talk about the situation is Mehid Mamarian. He is the Director of Communications at Dawn, where he also serves as the organization's senior Iran analyst. Good morning. Good morning. Thanks for having me. Thank you for joining us. Start with basics for us. Why does Iran care about ships transiting Omani waters? Well, according to the Article 5 or Paragraph 5 of the Memorandum of Understanding, Iran will be in charge of administrating the Strait of Hormoz throughout the two months of the negotiations. That means the ships that navigate through the strait should communicate with Iranians. That's what the US and Iran has agreed on. What happened was in the past few weeks, the US and Omanis create a route closer to Oman. So ships can now go through that pathway. That means for Iranians that the US is trying to use the two-month negotiation time. to make Iran's leverage, Iran's biggest leverage, basically irrelevant by letting ships go through another pathway and closer to Oman. And that's why they think it's against the agreement that they have signed, the memorandum that they have signed, and they are trying to push back and keep their leverage alive.

This is the same route that the U.S. was attempting to escort ships through before the ceasefire, but called off within 48 hours because Saudi Arabia was denying use of its airspace. Yes, and I think, you know, the major point here is that Iranians believe that if the U.S. or Oman or other countries try to basically bypass Iran through the Strait of Hormoz, then that's just going to be a problematic thing for them. And again, you know, that's in the agreement. The U.S. has agreed on it. And I think that... the political backlash the president, President Trump received after signing the memorandum, was one of the reasons they tried to backpedal what they agreed on. And that's why I think one of the reasons Ibanians, I think, you know, if they lose the street of hormones. and then you know what else they are going to negotiate so that's the main leverage they want to get something in return the u.s has refused to for example be quick and be practical be operational with releasing iranian's assets they have not been moved towards like for example removing sanctions and so for those people in iran who have been fighting over the past few months who have kept the country going there has been a lot of pressure against negotiators that what did you get in return for Iran if we opened the Strait of hormones? For them, that's basically nothing if they lose the Strait of hormones and the assets are not released or the sanctions are not removed. I think that's one of the reasons, you know, Iranians also. The Iranian negotiators also cannot sell this memorandum as is to their public, to supporters, to their loyalists. As we don't have, as the president was not able to sell their memorandum here in the U.S. We got a rare public statement from Mostva Khomeini, the new Supreme Leader over the weekend. I thought it was remarkable in that. On top of this tit for retaliation, it promised a new kind of principle in Iran goals, that of revenge. The statement is translated by the New York Times, reads in part as follows, quote, we pledge that we will avenge your pure blood and the blood of all those martyred in these two wars from the criminal and disgraced killers. This revenge is the demand of our nation, and it must certainly be carried out. What do you read into that statement? Well, when we look at from the Iranian's perspective, what the Iranian leadership is thinking, they want to bring back to the equation the fact that there was a war. There is a war.

And the U.S. has killed the Iranian leader and many people are in the military and political leadership. The U.S. wants to bypass that to just put it on the side and say, okay, let's start from here. Now we are here. Many of your people have been killed. Many of your infrastructures have been destroyed. So now let's talk and see what we can do with Iran's nuclear program and other things. You're saying, wait, no, you started an illegal... war, it was an illegal aggression, you conducted extra judicial killings, you killed our leader, our political and military leadership, and you have to pay the price for that. So basically what's happening here is adding one more factor to the equation that creates a lot of like, so basically the next time they are going to the negotiation table, that is going to be one of the items, probably the US side has to. discuss with Iranians that you know what's your is this an aspirational demand is this an intelligence demand an operational demand operational thing in Iran so that becomes another leverage for Iran to discuss with Americans so the playfield is changing by the hour when it comes to this conflict and i think uh this is going to have a huge impact on the negotiations because uh the u.s so far thought that you know the war is behind the killing of Ali Khamenei is behind and the killing of so many other people is behind but they are going to cash this out and say this is a real thing for us and this um a call for revenge coming from Ali Khamenei the new Ali Khamenei i think i would have a very severe uh serious security implications for the US if they don't take it seriously because it's a call to action for anyone who can do anything. In the current form, it's not a systematic thing. They don't talk that the government has a plan, operational plan to do this. But the call for revenge, I think, coming from a religious figure. as very serious implications again you know it's going to add another dimension to the negotiations it's going to work as a leverage for iranians uh and uh it's going to make the negotiations much much more complicated what do you who do we think is like calling the shots in iran's government right now this is a very good question and a difficult one uh after the the six weeks war, it's very hard to know who is pulling the strings in Tehran. The perception is that the Revolutionary Guards commanders Vahidi from commander Fahidi is probably in charge. He is pulling the strings when it comes to the military, but he's a military person. He cannot run the country. So overall, there is a census that the president, the head of parliament, Alibov, and a few other figures within Iran's National Security Council, they are the main people who pull the strings, whether it's a kind of like a council of people or, but it doesn't seem that we have one person who calls the shots. Before the war, we had one person, Ali Khamenei, the former supreme leader, he was the man who called the shots. He had the ultimate power, he had the charisma power.

you know he was the ultimate person responsible for all the decisions right now we have that vacuum of power and it's very much decentralized compared to the pre-war era decentralized but at least given like the level of retaliation Strikes launched at four separate countries in the region, at U.S. military bases inside those four countries. It would certainly look like the hardliners are on top right now. Oh, well, absolutely. The hardliners are on top. We don't have... moderate right now in Iran. When we have a call for revenge, when thousands of people come to the streets and call with revenge, even though those people are not ordinary people, they are like people who support the regime, they are the base of the regime, the loyalists who kept the regime intact during the war. When we have that type of rhetoric in Iran, when we have people who say we should not open the Strait of Hormos, we should receive tolls from the ships, and we should get reparation from the US, and all those rhetoric, that means, yes, super hardliners are in charge. It's very much different than the pre-war era, because those who... were sidelined before the war in Iran in Iran's politics hardliners now are back to the center of politics in Iran in a very significant way so yes they are hardliners but it's not clear but before the war Khomey as one person he called the shots he had the ultimate power just one person right now there are a few centers of powers and seems that they have managed to at least on the surface to have this image of unity and make decisions in a way that doesn't show that there is a chaos in the leadership, even though we have seen in the past few weeks that the president says something about Iran's economy and the way forward. And then right after that, we hear something from the Revolution Guard doing something else that shows there is a rift, there's a gap between different officials. But overall, they have tried to keep the the optics intact. But other statements coming out of the government directed internally seem to suggest some amount of anxiety about local cohesion about the regions of Iran. This is attributed to Ebrahim Zolfagari over the weekend. He is the spokesman for Iran's military central command. He directed his comments to regional leaders saying that, quote, any cooperation with the U.S. or logistical support for its invading military will be regarded as an act of war against Iran's sovereignty and national security. Again, directed at regional leaders. That suggests Iran.

has reason to fear the loyalty of those regional leaders? Absolutely. I think Iran is facing a deepening crisis inside the country. When it comes to the both leadership and the body of the government, first of all, the economy is in a very, very bad shape. And it's not... It's very hard to imagine how much the government can take this and how much the people can take this much pressure over the past few months. There has been a lot of pressure on ordinary people and there is no prospect for a better future. So economy is one major factor. The other thing is that What's the next move? What's the path forward? There is a lot of anxiety about going on the pathway of confrontation with the U.S. Even though, yes, they have killed Iran's supreme leader and many people in the leadership. But there are people within the regime that they believe that at this moment, we have to get out of this vicious cycle of war ceasefire. War ceasefire. And if we don't do that, the regime might collapse in the near future because they are getting weaker and weaker by the day. So there is a rift on top of the leadership. There are people who are warning the hardliners, warning the revolution guards that we have to find a way to get out of this. We have to make a deal despite all the destruction, despite all the killings and all that. But the more the pressure is on the Iranian government, that's what the US is banking on, that the more pressure, if they have a, if they sustain the pressure on Iran for some time, these rifts are going to open up. These wounds are going to open up and create a lot of damage and change the... the way Iran is running in the very near future. So that's a major problem for Iranians. And as you said, there are concerns about border provinces, border provinces with Turkey and Iraq that they might collaborate with people who infiltrate Iran for military operations. And that's why those warnings are. you know, being sent to these regional leaders, governors to make sure that those places are intact when it comes to security and all that. In general, the ceasefire for Iran, the Iranian leaders might have been able to bring people together and create a sense of unity under the umbrella of nationalism during the war. They might have been successful about that. But during the ceasefire, many people are asking now, you have a chance to make a deal, you have a chance to, you know, make choices that we are, that would take us out of this ditch.

And you should make those very difficult choices, even though it's not, they might not be fair choices or just choices, but you should make those choices for the sake of the Iranian people. We have to see how that battle ends because the conversation in Iran is very heated. There's a lot of pressure on both sides. But yes, as you mentioned, going back to what we started, hardliners in Iran control everything now, both the military and politics and even the propaganda. So early in the war, I recall some evidence that the U.S. was trying to create openings for separatist pushes in Iran's border regions, among other things, we bombed like a border control post in a Kurdish region. Is there any evidence in these recent strikes that that is still a part of the U.S. military strategy?

I believe, I don't see any sign that the U.S. is trying to use local forces in border provinces, separatists, as a force to, you know, liberate Iran. They might have been used to create another front. for the U.S. to make Iranians busy with another front and exhaust their resources. But to think that this is going to be a viable option to change the regime, I think it's very childish. Maybe Israelis try to sell this to Americans to bring them to the table and to convince them to attack. based on these type of scenarios. But I think probably right now, at least President Trump and his team understand this is a very Disney-like scenario. It's not going to happen. And also, this is a very sensitive topic for Iranians. The fact that the Iranian regime was able to use all these conversations, like the use of separatists to liberate Iran and all that. to under the frame of nationalism and to bring even a part of the people who are against the regime, who fought against the regime, to its side, I think it's unbelievable. And that's what the U.S. has done over the past few weeks, a few months. That's what Israelis have done, that many people say, yes, we are against the regime. We don't want this regime to be in power even one more day. But the war that Israelis and the US are conducting, it's not about the Islamic Republic of Iran, it's not just the political establishment. This war is against Iran as a whole, as a civilization. Yeah. What has the war, the latest, go ahead. And so, it's against the civilization. And so they have not been supporting what the U.S. and Israelis have been doing. I think that was a huge blow to the planning of Israelis and the U.S. And I think that was the moment that President Trump woke up, that what was sold by Israelis to him was not a very reasonable, reasonable plan. To say the least, what is the war? What is this phase of the war meant for repression of internal dissent in Iran? I think the war means more repression, the deepening of repression, because the security environment would give the government a tool to suppress the descent. And so we are going to have a much more repressed society, at least for the foreseeable future. As long as we have the threat of war and there is a security environment, the repression is going to continue. And then they think they have.

the tool to justify the repression because you're at the middle of war. And they have used a repression many times during similar times, like when Iran was at war with Iraq, during the Iran-Iraq war between the 1980 to 1988, the level of repression was very high, and they used the security environment, the wartime situation, to repress the people. So I think in that sense, also, you're facing a way. civil situation. But again, you know, the economic pressure, the refreshion and all that, also the Iranian society can take it to some extent, to some point. This is not a plan that can continue for a long time. For this particular moment, I think the repression is going to increase as it has increased in the past few months. But it's not a sustainable scenario. They have to really make changes quickly if they don't, if they don't open up windows, if they don't let people breathe and there are not openings and there are no. spaces for the people, both economically and politically, I think this is going to be another crisis for them. All right. Omit Mamarian, we will leave it there. Thank you so much for speaking to us. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it. Omid Mamarian is Director of Communications at Dawn, where he also serves as the organization's senior Iran analyst. Again, John Pfeffer, out this week. He'll be back next week. Right now, it's 7.30 in the morning. The show is up front. My name is Brian Edwards-Tiger. Coming up in the second half of our program, it's Corona Calls with Dr. John Swartzburg, where we linger over discussions of infectious disease. This week, it's going to be a cyclospora edition. because there is an outbreak that has caused more than 3,000 confirmed cases across more than 31 states. That's coming up next. After the news. I'm Max Pringle with these headlines. The U.S. military struck more targets in Iran over the weekend after Iran fired at commercial vessels in the Strait of Hormuz. Iran also fired at U.S. bases in the Persian Gulf region. Karen Chamas has more. The attacks that continued into Monday morning further threatened any diplomacy to end the war. The US military's central command released footage of its strikes on Iran. It also said the strait was a vital pathway for global trade, claiming Iran doesn't control it. Iran's revolutionary guard has said the strait is Iranian territory and they would not allow what they called a rogue child-killing army from the other side of the world to continue its illegal interference in it.

Iran's military on Sunday released footage showing drones being launched in response to what it is described as U.S. aggressions in the south of the country. Iran and the U.S. are nearly at the midway point of the 60-day period of an interim deal that was supposed to set up talks for a permanent end to the war. I'm Karen Shamas. The British government says an Iranian proxy group is responsible for recent arson and vandalism attacks. on the Jewish community in the UK. The government today announced a ban on the Islamic movement of the Companions of the Right. They also banned Iran's powerful paramilitary Revolutionary Guard Corps, or IRGC. Security Minister Angela Eagle stated that the Iranian proxy group has claimed seven attacks in Britain. She added that members of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps could's force almost certainly directed such attacks across Europe. British authorities said they are also designating the GRU Volunteer Corps, a group controlled by Russia's military intelligence agency, as a national security threat. Paramount Studios is reportedly considering leaving California, as it and other states are said to be preparing a lawsuit over Paramount's planned $11 billion takeover of Warner Brothers Discovery. On Sunday, Semaphore reported that Friends and Advisors to Paramount Chief David Ellison have been urging him to consider relocating his corporate headquarters out of California. The news comes as the New York Times reports that California and other states are preparing to file a lawsuit to block the merger. According to a draft of the suit, it reportedly claims that the merger would hamper competition for tentpole movies, among other concerns. has argued that the deal will boost competition in Hollywood. Mostly sunny today in the San Francisco Bay Area, highs in the 80s, lows to night in the 50s, and the Central Valley. Sunny today, highs around 100, lows to night in the 70s. Those are the headlines. I'm Max Pringle on KPFA. Bit past 733 in the morning. The show is up front. My name is Brian Edwards Teakert. We're going to turn as we do most weeks at this time to new developments in the world of infectious disease. Our guest is Dr. John Swartzberg, Clinical Professor Emeritus of Infectious Diseases at UC Berkeley School of Public Health. Good morning, Dr. Swartzberg. Good morning. I wanted to start with the disease that has been dominating news coverage of late, and that is the cyclospora parasite, which produces cyclosporiasis. There is an outbreak that has produced reported cases in 31 states. The tally of confirmed cases exceeds 3,000, although that is a tally that media organizations have reached by tallying up confirmed cases by state authorities. The CDC's monitoring has lagged quite a bit behind. They have only confirmed, as of Thursday, 843 cases. I thought maybe we could start with the very basics. What is cyclosporiasis?

Sure, cyclospora is a parasite. It's a protozoan that was first recognized as a human pathogen in 1979, so not that long ago. It has some important properties that make it difficult to completely control. One of them is that The organism has a coating on it in its infectious stage that makes it very sticky to foods that we eat. So it's hard, even when you wash the foods, to completely be sure that you're getting off all of the parasite. Also, it's a very small organism, so it sometimes is difficult to, or at least it can get through some of the water filters that we use. But one of the most interesting things about it is that while it's an infectious disease, it's rarely contagious from one person to another. And that's because it has this interesting quality of when it comes out of somebody's bottom, if somebody has diarrhea from it. and it comes out of their bottom or gets on their hands and then you shake hands with somebody else and they get it on their hands and put it to their mouth it's not in its effective stage it has to be out in the environment for a few days to seven to ten days before it goes into its infective stage. So it would be very unusual for this organism to transmit directly person to person. And that's why I don't think we typically see much bigger outbreaks. Where we see the outbreaks that have been documented since 1979, have been related to foods, and in particular, foods that have grown in the ground and then may have been contaminated in the ground by human feces, because this organism doesn't appear to cause disease in other animals, at least that we have good evidence for. Or it could be in food that gets contaminated while it's being processed. So those are the times that we've seen outbreaks. You can imagine that the outbreaks that we see are difficult to figure out. Let me specify what I mean by that. With an organism like salmonella or shigella, which cause a lot of foodborne outbreaks, when they come out of somebody's bottom, they're infectious immediately. And so they're highly contagious person to person. So it's pretty easy if you're talking to somebody and you'd say, well, Where who were you around that had diarrhea or what food did you eat that may have been contaminated in the last 48 hours or maybe 72 hours or maybe even less than that?

There's plenty of blame to go around here, and we know where the blame belongs, but we've got to deal with this outbreak right now. Speaking to Dr. John Swartzburg, clinical professor emeritus of infectious diseases at UC Berkeley School of Public Health, if you would like to put a question to him, 1,800-9508. That's 1-800-908 for your corona calls. How have cyclospora outbreaks in the past? ended. Do they tend to burn down of their own accord, or does it always require public health officials identifying a common source in the food system and halting it? Well, if you can identify the common source and halt that, then that really helps. But if you can't, because there's no animal reservoir, If people change their behavior, which perhaps we can talk about in terms of how you get cyclospora, cyclospora, excuse me, or cyclospora, then these tend to burn out after a while. So we'll likely see that one way or the other, but if we have an aggressive approach to it, we can handle it much more quickly and fewer people will become sick. All right, what are the risky foods and food preparation practices during a cyclospora outbreak? Well, since we know the organism sticks to food, whether it's contaminated in the field or whether it's contaminated in processing, then you should avoid those foods that you can't cook and cook well. And you should avoid those foods that... have lots of nooks and crannies on their surface where the organism can get in and be very difficult to get off with washing, even if you have vinegar in the wash. So I think some tips are that I probably right now avoid bagged or box salads. These have been processed, and even if they've been triple washed, I think it's perhaps better to avoid those. You can still have lettuce, but what I do is get a whole head of lettuce and remove the outer layers of the lettuce and discard them and cut the lettuce yourself and wash it really well. Lean towards those things that, those fruits and vegetables that you can peel and ideally wash them very thoroughly. even though that's not 100% guarantee, and ideally cook them as opposed to eating them raw right now. Those are some things that will really pretty much stop the transmission of this in most circumstances. Don't

put any money into a lot of these products that are advertised that will kill the organism if you just wash it and there are special solutions. There's no good evidence for those things and people are just bilking you when they do that. So those are some of the things I would think about. Am I right to think that if this is an outbreak that has produced thousands of cases spread across 31 states with a presumably common source, that you are not exposing yourself to risk if you pick up your head of lettuce like at the local farmer's market? I don't know. Actually, my wife and I have been having this discussion because we went to our local farmers market yesterday. I would still follow what I said, and that is, If you're picking up lettuce, I'd remove the outer layers and cut it yourself as opposed to buying the pre-made lettuce, which you don't get it, of course, at the farmer's market. So that I would do. I would get things that I could peel because that will definitely remove the organism. The organism doesn't get into the fruit itself. We have some peas. that we've had in the refrigerator. We're going to cook those as opposed to eating them raw. So those are some of the things I think people can do. Is peeling 100%? Long time ago, I did some work in the tropics. And the advice for people like me was moving away from peeling everything because in theory you could transfer stuff from the skin of the thing you're peeling to the knife and then from the knife to the flesh of the thing you're eating in the course of peeling it. That's a good point. Certainly, let's say a watermelon, you take a knife and you cut through the watermill and you're cutting through the surface and you can actually bring the organism whether it's... a cyclospora or whether it's another protozoa or a bacterium, you can bring the organism into the fruit itself that you eat. So if you're going to cut something, you want to make sure that after you get through the surface with that knife, you wash it before cutting further in. I think it's just being a little more meticulous with all of those maneuvers. All right. 1,800-9508-908 to put a question in Dr. Swordsburg. That's 1,800-9508 for your corona calls. Dr. Swartzberg, we'll start with one from the inbox that is not about cyclospora. This comes from a listener who didn't sign their name, so I won't read their name from the top of the email. They write, I am 80 years old. I had measles when I was about 11. That is, in 1957. I'm sure it was measles because I was repeatedly warned not to read. Children who had measles at the time were told that if they read when they had the disease, they might go blind. My question is, do I still have a high degree of immunity from measles over 60 years after contracting it? The pithy answer is yes.

Remarkably, this organism does not change much. Contrast that with influenza virus or the virus that causes COVID. So the immunity she got at age 11 is still good at age 80. And almost everybody, there may be some waning of it, but it appears to be quite protective. So if you know you've had measles, you can assume you're still protected. But let me just focus on one piece of that, and that is she probably had measles. It was so rampant in 1957 that most kids got it. And as a matter of fact, the CDC has said for decades, if you were born before 1957, you can assume that you've had measles. i may have mentioned this on our show in the past but i my wife and i both were born before nineteen fifty seven and both of us assumed we'd had measles and i caught measles from a patient of mine when i was thirty years old and I've never been so sick that I was on the cusp of being hospitalized. And of course, I spread it to my wife and not my older child who was five at the time because she'd been vaccinated, but my six-month-old at the time, or excuse me, one-year-old at the time, hadn't been vaccinated yet. And he got it for me too. So I don't think just saying if you're born before 57, is sufficient. This person who contacted you gives an awfully strong history of having had measles, but there's one thing she could do, he or she could do, and that is just have a blood test done to see if she has immunity and it should show antibodies. I guess that does lead to a kind of subsidiary question, which is, The question of whether or not you had measles would be in service of answering whether or not you should get the vaccine today. Would there be a downside to someone with the faintest gliver of ambiguity about their own history to getting the vaccine? Like if she already had immunity to measles, is there anything wrong with getting the shot just in case? No, there's nothing medically wrong with that at all, and it's certainly a very reasonable strategy. There was a little concern when measles was wreaking its head up with this terrible outbreak that we're seeing. The concern was that... Would there be enough vaccine for people? Because the amount of production of it was never that great like it was decades ago when we needed it so desperately. So the idea that you could get an antibody test done. If it was positive, you didn't need the vaccine, had a salutary message for the public, and that is that it would save that vaccine for someone who really needed it.

So that's the only argument that I can see. The measles vaccine, in spite of the canards coming out of HHS, the measles vaccine is safe and very effective. What do vaccine shortages remain in consideration? Well, they do worldwide. And the shortage is based not only on production, but even more so on the availability of distributing the vaccine since the horrific cuts with, for example, USAID. So that's a problem worldwide. Here in the United States, I haven't heard any reports that there's a dearth of the vaccine. All right. Let's go to some of our callers at 1-800-9-908. First in the queue, we have Charlotte in East Palo Alto. Good morning, Charlotte. Oh, hi. Can you hear me? We can. What's your question? Oh, yeah. The question is on fruit that comes off a tree like cherries. or grows on a bush like blueberries, not in the dirt. I'm concerned about the blueberries more because they have the nooks and crannies that the doctor was talking about. And just yesterday we saw, I don't know if this is a hype, baking soda and vinegar, rinse with baking soda and vinegar and water. Let it drain. I just been rinsing with plain old water. But blueberries concern me. I get them from whole foods, organic, but sometimes there's a few moldy ones in there. And the fruit does have nooks and crannies. So what about blueberries because it's supposed to be so healthy? I don't want to buy them anymore. Yeah, I think we got the question. Dr. Swartzberg, are blueberries a known source of cyclosporin infections? Raspberrys caused a large outbreak in New York a couple of decades ago. raspberries even have more nooks and cronies than blueberries do. I don't know whether blueberries have caused an outbreak or been reported as a cause of outbreak, but I don't see a reason why they couldn't be. But Charlotte points out that you can pick them from the tree. If you could pick the, if you had a cherry tree and you were picking them or you could pick from a blueberry bush, that would not be a problem to eat. because they haven't been on the ground where human feces could have contaminated them. And they haven't been processed by others. So certainly ideally, but how many of us have those kind of wonderful fruit trees? So I think that to be very careful, Charlotte, you had mentioned using vinegar. and water and vinegar with sodium bicarbonate and water. I don't know about the addition of sodium bicarbonate. The vinegar with the acid may have some effect, but these sticky coats around the infectious form of this protozoa make it somewhat resistant to that. So you can't be sure that that washing is going to be 100% safe. So I'm not sure what else to tell you besides what we were talking about before.

But also like one warning sign that Charlotte probably shouldn't be warning about if you have a carton of blueberries and some of them have started to mold or spoil, that would have zero correlation to whether or not they have cyclospora, right? Right, right. Just another problem that you could have, but that's absolutely right. All right. Let's go to Jasmine Crockett for our next caller where Dominica is on the line. Good morning, Dominica. Good morning. Hey, I just wanted to thank you. I don't really have a question, but I wanted to thank you. for bringing up the idea of doing titers instead of immediately going and getting vaccinated. It seems to me like, just as you said, that there are limits to how many vaccines we have and the people that truly need them aren't getting them. So from a clinical lab perspective, I wanted to thank you. Thank you, Domenica. Let's go to the North Bay for our next caller. John is on the line. Good morning. Hi. Thank you, KPFA. Once again, I heard something in the news that they were approving some forever chemical pesticides. I don't know anything about that. I wondered if the doctor might. And also they're ramping up the production of glycoposphate to roundup to spray on public lands. I don't understand that one either. Those are news stories that are in the news, and that is the thing that the Forest Service is doing, and those are a little bit outside the wheelhouse of an infectious disease segment. So Dr. Swartzberg, you're off the hook in case you want to volunteer something to contribute. Thank you. Important questions, but I don't have an answer. One principle of this regular segment is that it is a bad thing when people start acting like experts in domains where they don't have expertise. A characteristic of many, many people doing terrible things inside the Trump administration. Let's see, we've got 90 seconds left. Let's go to Fresno for our next caller. John is on the line. You'll have to be quick, John. This is related to the first call and it's about COVID. How much residual protection do we have year-to-year? I got a news story. There's a new outbreak of COVID. There's no vaccine available for yet, or a different variety. Dr. Schwarzenberg, how much residual protection from one year's vaccine to the next year's vaccine or from one year's infection to the next year's infection? Right. Well, it depends on two things. One is how fast the vaccine that you got wanes in terms of protecting you. And we have pretty good data about that now. Really good up to three months, wanes between three and six months. And then wanes significantly after six months.

All of that said is we still have residual protection because we see people who have been vaccinated a year or two years before still showing much milder illness, generally speaking, than people who have not been vaccinated at all. So there is residual protection, and we don't know how long that goes out. I don't know anything about a, quote, new strain of COVID that is not responding to vaccine. So I can't comment on that. I haven't read anything about that. All right. Dr. Swartzberg, we'll leave it there for this week. Thank you so much for spending another Monday morning with us. You're welcome. Thank you. Dr. John Swartzberg is Clinical Professor Emeritus of Infectious Diseases at UC Berkeley School of Public Health. He joins us most Mondays after 7.30 news headlines to go for new developments in the world of COVID-19 and pretty much every other infectious pathogen that hits the news. If you want to send in a question for next week, you can send a message to Corona Calls at KPFA.org. Again, that's Corona Calls at KPFA.org. We usually pull a couple of questions from the inbox before we get to the phone lines. And that does it for today's show. Upfront airs weekday mornings at 7 a.m. We post information about our topics and guests at KPFA.org. A big thanks to the people who make the show happen. Our producer is Kimia Akbri. Our engineer is Kirsten Thomas. My name is Brian Edwards Teakert. Thanks as well to Max Pringle for the news headlines. Remember if you're incarcerated and postal mail is your best means of communication, you can write us at Upfront, KPFA, 1929, Martin Luther King Jr. Way, Berkeley, California. California, 94704. Stay up, stay tuned. Law and Disorder with Cat Brooks is coming your way in two minutes at 8.

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