'BradCast' 9/4/2025 (Guest: Dr. Tyler Evans on RFK Jr.'s War on the Science of Public Health)

Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., you are a hazard to the health of the American people. I think that you ought to resign. And if you don't resign, the President of the United States should fire you. Okay. Good luck with that, though. Well, I don't know why I came here tonight. That's why. I got the feeling there's something right. my chair and I'm wondering how I'll get down the stairs. Clouds to the letter me, jokers to the right, here I am, stuck in the middle with you. I am. From Pacifica Radio in Los Angeles, this is the broadcast as heard on KPFK, 90.7 FM in LA and on dozens of other fine affiliate stations on both the airwaves. And the Internet's around the country and the world. Blanketing, planet Earth. I'm Brad Friedman, your friendly investigative blogger, journalist, troublemaker, muckraker, and all around, swell fellow, says me, from bradblog.com. We have got a big show to get to today. I am very much looking forward to our guest, joining us momentarily. It's kind of amazing, but science. Yes, science is under attack today under the administration of Donald J. Trump on several fronts that will hit on today's broadcast from the attack on the science of public health. and both decades old and relatively new vaccine science, courtesy of Trump's Health and Human Services, Director Robert F. Kennedy Jr.., to the administration's now all-out war, it seems, on climate science and on clean, cheap, renewable energy, especially wind energy for a number of particularly stupid and, frankly, Grotesque reasons, which we will hit a bit later with Desi Doyen and your latest Green News report. Hello, Desiree. Yes, stupid, grotesque. They all apply. Right. And they're all ahead. Anyway, we need to start here with the science and apparently politics of public health, particularly with flu and COVID season upon us again, even as the nation is now seemingly... entirely confused about whether and how to vaccinate against, well, pretty much anything, as Robert F. Kennedy Jr.. faced at times withering questioning by Democrats and even a number of Republicans in a U.S. Senate committee on Thursday, while the HHS director, who has no actual expertise or credentials in public health or science, offered frequently frustrating and combative answers in response. to those senators. The hearing in the Senate committee comes on the heels of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s recent announcement that he was abruptly cutting off about half a billion dollars in research grants for MRNA technology, which some have described as miracle technology, as used in life-saving COVID vaccines and potentially many others, including even vaccinations against cancer.

With the gutting of that federal research funding, it is feared that much, if not all, of that critical research could come to a full halt in the U.S. at least. That announcement a couple of weeks ago was followed up by the stunning announcement from Robert F. Kennedy Jr. last week that he had fired the recently Senate-confirmed director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Susan Menares, after less than one month on the job at the CDC. Menares, who has spent decades as a public health official at the CDC, was reportedly removed after she had told Robert F. Kennedy Jr. that there were red lines she refused to cross regarding vaccination approval. Today, in an op-ed at the Wall Street Journal, Dr. Minara has offered a few firsthand details regarding her firing after a meeting with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. one week ago. She says, quote, I was told to pre-approve the recommendations of a vaccine advisory panel newly filled with people who have publicly expressed anti-vaccine rhetoric. adding that it is, quote, imperative that the panel's recommendations are not rubber stamped, but instead are rigorously and scientifically reviewed before being accepted or rejected. For that, apparently, she was removed from her job just 29 days after being sworn in. A number of other CDC officials who resigned in response to her firing told the New York Times that there is, quote, a growing sense of despair at what has long been the world's foremost health agency. Moreover, last week, some 600 CDC employees received... Termination notices, according to the American Federation of Government Employees, the union representing many of those workers. And that news comes, as the CDC has now instructed workers to return to work at the center's Atlanta headquarters after a gunman in early August left CDC staffers reeling. and cowering under their desks as he unloaded hundreds of bullets in the direction of CDC campus buildings, leaving around 180 bullet holes through the glass windows of its headquarters. Employees on duty that day said they felt like, quote, sitting ducks during the attack, avoiding semi-automatic gunfire from a man who appears to have shared many of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s skeptical thoughts regarding the health effects of, yes, vaccines.

As AP reports this afternoon regarding Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s testimony in the Senate, U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. came under pointed bipartisan questioning at a rancorous three-hour Senate committee hearing on Thursday about, among other things, turmoil at federal health agencies and efforts to pull back recommendations for COVID-19 vaccinations. Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s exchanges with Democratic senators on the panel repeatedly devolved into shouting. from both sides. But some Republican senators also expressed unease with his changes to COVID-19 policies. When North Carolina's retiring Republican Senator Thom Tillis and others asked him why the director of the CDC was fired last week less than a month into her tenure, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said she was dishonest. And that CDC leaders who left the agency last week in support of her deserved to be fired. He also criticized CDC recommendations during the COVID-19 pandemic tied to lockdowns and masking policies and claimed wrongly that they, quote, failed to do anything about the disease itself. The people, quote, the people at the CDC who oversaw that process put masks on our children who closed our schools are the people who will be leaving, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said. He later said they deserve to be fired for not doing enough to control chronic disease. Democratic senators pressed Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on his actions around vaccines. Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon said Robert F. Kennedy Jr. had, quote, stacked the deck of the vaccine committee, replacing actual scientists with, quote, skeptics and conspiracy theorists. But Robert F. Kennedy Jr. also pushed back on concerns raised by Republican senators, including Thom Tillis and Senators John Barrasso of Wyoming and Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, both of whom are physicians. unlike Robert F. Kennedy Jr.. When Senator Raphael Warnock, Democrat of Georgia questioned Robert F. Kennedy Jr. about his disparaging rhetoric about CDC employees before the deadly shooting at the agency in Atlanta this summer, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. fired back saying, quote, are you complicit in the assassination attempts on President Trump? What? Quote, I didn't even hear your question. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. replied at one point to one senator when he was repeatedly asked what the agency was doing to lower drug costs for seniors. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. called Senator Ben Ray Lujan of New Mexico ridiculous, said he was, quote, talking gibberish and accused him of not understanding how the world works, as Lujan had asked Robert F. Kennedy Jr. about his discredited charges that vaccines cause autism. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. also told Senator Bernie Sanders that the Vermont Independent was, quote, not making any sense during his line of questioning and engaged in heated near-shouting exchanges with Senators Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Tina Smith of Minnesota.

Back in May, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime leader of the anti-vaccine movement, announced COVID-19 vaccines would no longer be recommended for healthy children and pregnant women, a move opposed by medical and public health groups. And more recently, he said that COVID booster shots would only be officially approved for use by those 65 or older or with certain underlying health conditions, which means many insurance companies will no longer pay. for those shots that will otherwise cost hundreds of dollars for members of the public. Senator Elizabeth Warren confronted Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on that point, which appeared to contradict his statements during his confirmation process earlier this year at Thursday's Senate hearing, just to give you a sense of what all of this devolved into today. You're saying that is now the official rule of HHS. Anybody is eligible to get a booster by just walking into the pharmacy. It's not recommended for healthy people. No, no. If you don't recommend, then the consequence of that in many states... is that you can't walk into a pharmacy and get one. It means insurance companies. Don't have to cover the $200 or so cost. As Senator Dr. Bill Cassidy said, you are effectively denying people vaccines. We're not going to recommend a product for which there's no clinical data for that indication. Is that what I should be doing? What you should be doing is honoring your promise that you made when you were looking to get confirmed in this job. You're going like this. And that is you promise. that you would not take away vaccines from anyone who wanted them. You just changed the classification of the COVID vaccine. I'm not taking them away from people, Senator. It takes it away if you can't get it from your pharmacy. Well, most Americans are going to be able to get it from their pharmacy for free. Most Americans will be able to get it from their pharmacy free. No, the question is everyone who wants it. That was your promise. I never promised that I was going to recommend products with which there is no indication. When you said, and I know you've taken $855,000 from pharmaceutical companies, Senator. Did you hold up a big sign saying that you were lying? when you said that because you are the one who said you would not take them away. Look, you're putting America's babies health at risk, Americans' seniors' health at risk, all Americans' health at risk, and you should resign. Yikes. In June, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. abruptly fired the panel of experts that had been advising the government on vaccine policy, replacing them with a hand-pick group that included several vaccine skeptics. And then he shut the door to several doctor groups that had long helped form the committee's recommendations. A number of medical groups say Robert F. Kennedy Jr. cannot be counted on to make decisions based on robust medical evidence. Many of the nations leading public health and medical societies,

from plague to COVID-19. Dr. Tyler Evans, sir, welcome to the broadcast. Thank you. Great to be here. Looking for a thoughtful conversation. Yeah, you know, and frankly, I'm not even sure where to start, Doc, though I do know you cover a lot of these points in your new book. I want to drill down into the vaccine controversies and so forth. But first, I don't know how much you got to see of it, but let me just get your top line reaction to what you have heard from this hearing on Thursday in the U.S. Senate. You know, I mean, it's hard to watch. You know, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is really trying to hold on to concepts or ideas that, frankly, he doesn't even really understand and keeps on sort of going in circles. And, you know, I think times up. I mean, at this point, I mean, I think there clearly there were a lot of folks that were unhappy with this election in the beginning. I think there were certain folks that sort of gave him the benefit of the doubt. But, you know, at this point, effectively AirV trusted and, you know, sort of established or distinguished organization around infectious disease or public health, including, you know, the Infectious Disease Society of America. I used to be on the board of the HIV Medicine Association, which is sort of a sister of IDSA, as well as, you know, thousands of employees of HHS, the American Association of Pediatrics. The list goes on and on are essentially, you know, demanding his resignation. So, you know, I think time is up. It's, it's, again, his answers really are sort of circular logic. They're definitely not based in science. And, um, I guess the more he talks, and particularly for folks who really understand the science, it's sort of just nails on a chalkboard for us. You know, we sort of have the benefit of not being in the middle of the worst pandemic in 100 years at the moment. But as New York City's first chief medical officer during the city's COVID-19 response, how critical is cooperation with federal officials from, you know, the HHS on down during something like that? Would you have felt confident? Is someone like Robert F. Kennedy Jr.. in the job that he now has overseeing the nation's health apparatus at the time in New York City? Well, it's absolutely, I mean, you have a few questions there. I'll get to the first one first. There's absolutely essential to have, you know, coordination on sort of all levels of governments. You know, when I was in that position, you know, hoping to sort of make sense of what was happening and sort of, you know, try to, you know, establish a sense of trust with New Yorkers and work through opportunities to essentially provide as much protection as we possibly could, given the fact that we can.

We didn't have a lot of the sort of scientific discoveries at the time. What's key for effective public health implementation is trust, right? You need to have trust of the communities. And in order to establish that trust, you know, it goes way beyond sort of direct connections with the government and the people. You really have to have this sort of trusted messengers. working alongside, you know, the sort of, you know, established scientists and sort of government agencies that have, you know, the sort of the evidence and the sort of training behind them that gets their sort of right message out there. But in order for that message to really land in a language that communities will really understand, you really need those community stakeholders and leaders. When I was in New York, I mean, that was key to, and you know, the great thing about New York is it really does, especially the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, really does have established relationships with the communities. I think we could have probably done more. And in the beginning, there was definitely a lot of distrust. And, you know, unfortunately, actually, that sort of distrust further sort of... advanced or eroded not so much in new york but in in other places but it did take us a while for us to sort of you know get uh get connected with the communities and uh you know i was involved with one of the alternative care sites where we were you know, essentially just trying to provide some care for folks that were infected because of the hospital surges taking place. So it was at actually sort of apropos, because it was at U.S. Open, it's currently being played right now. So it was at the Beijing Center. And, you know, we spent about... $57 million on this operation and we only got 70 people into this facility. And part of it was a lack of trust and sort of coordination. That was also, I mean, that was under the same administration or, you know, under the same person running that administration, you know, 45 versus 47. Different secretary, you know, at the time. But, you know, it wasn't easy, right? Because at the time, you know, that's when, that's when, you know, President Trump was, you know, sort of socializing the importance of using Clorox, you know, to somehow sort of. Yes. And so, you know, you have that versus, you know, and then Andrew Cuomo, you know, or governor at the time, you know, sort of countering a lot of those sort of responses. And the way that I describe it is, you know, if somebody is in the emergency room in a hospital and you see two doctors that are actively arguing about somebody's diagnosis and treatment, how do you think that that's going to make the patient feel, right? Is that going to inspire?

Right? No, no. I mean, you're going to want to, you're going to feel very scared. You're going to feel, you know, sort of a great deal of angst. And you're probably going to want to sort of, you know, Google or chat, GBT, you know, what's wrong with you? And ultimately that leads to sort of the echo chambers. So. You know, what we're seeing right now with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is doing exactly that. I mean, his intent is clearly just to disrupt as much of the science as well as the implementation of the science in public health as much as he possibly can. And, you know, at the end of the day, Public health at its very best should be almost invisible, right? Like it should be essentially the sort of invisible sort of boundaries or safeguards around communities, keeping them safe and protected. And there are so many things that are happening on a daily basis that people are just not aware of, right? And we are tracking the, we're tracking the science, we're tracking the evidence around the science to ensure that, again, our communities are as safe as they possibly can. And it doesn't matter if, you know, if it's a blue or red city-state. At the end of the day, you know, microbes or other sort of, you know, pathogen or environmental stressors often don't, you know, understand the differences between red and blue. Right. It's all humans to them, right? So that we really need to depoliticized public health. And my book really, really focuses on that message of depoliticization. And unfortunately, we're going the exact opposite direction. I mean, it is. is such an accelerated direction that we are going right now backwards, that we are politicizing everything about public health. Who knew that face masks and vaccinations would be one of the most polarizing elements, you know, sort of almost competing with, you know, sort of our historically sort of core, you know, divisive elements like guns and, you know, abortion and, you know, a few other sort of pieces out there at the border. Right. For face mass and vaccines, we never really would have sort of thought that would have sort of top that. And again, now it's, now it's getting worse. And when, you know, when he is causing either the direct firing or the resignation of some of the most trusted scientists leading our scientific agencies across the country, where essentially we have our public health ships that are now being, you know, are being run without somebody at the helm. And so at this point, you know, they're sort of directionless. And as a result, you know, all Americans are at risk. I was sort of struck there by that exchange between Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Warren when he was claiming there is no indication for the COVID-19 vaccine that it is effective. Now, New York City, of course, was hit first and hardest by COVID-19 back in, I guess, early 2020 when there was little or no treatment available for the virus, a shortage of. Personal protective equipment, refrigerator trucks were used to store dead bodies for whom there was no room left in the morgue during the darkest hours. But Robert F. Kennedy Jr. now seems to suggest there's no evidence that COVID was effective in helping us out of that pandemic. You were there in some of those darkest hours in New York City. What is your response or your perspective on that? What ultimately, I guess, saved the...

people of New York as you see it. Well, it's a great question. It really there were there were sort of three different phases. There was in the very beginning the there was you know essentially trying to sort of unpack everything and sort of figure out what the appropriate response would be, trying to understand the sort of, you know, the, you know, how the pathogenesis of the virus. You know, the second phase really was the hoteling, which was I was leading, which was essentially taking sick people and trying to sort them and then having this exposed people and sorting them. So, you know, that's isolation and quarantine respectively. I spent a lot of time trying to, trying to educate, you know, you know, city hall and other sort of, you know, public officials about the differences between isolation, quarantine. But we had, you know, it's New York, New York, right? So we had, you know, high-rise hotels and in Times Square and, you know, a bunch of hotels by the airport. We ultimately had close to 500 hotels that we were deploying, partly for healthcare workers, partly for isolation quarantine, then came contact tracing, then came testing, and then came vaccinations, and then came treatment. So I guess there was a few other sort of elements of that. Well, do you agree with his statement that there's no indication that the COVID vaccines are useful in the fight against COVID? Well, I was getting to the vaccine part, which was one of the last, the last final stages. I mean, that is at that point we had, we had most of the evidence. And when it came to, even when we deployed it at that time, we had, you know, when it came to Operation Warp Speed, actually, which was under Trump, Trump One, It had one of the most sort of robust safety and effectiveness trials. They had thousands of data points at the time demonstrating that it was incredibly safe. At this point, we have millions of data points demonstrated as incredibly safe. The MRNA vaccine literally is the most effective vaccine against COVID-19. So these claims that somehow they're not effective or they're unsafe or just patently untrue. true. They're just completely made up. And I don't know how, I don't know how he or others seem to sort of get, get away with it, right? Like, does everybody have amnesia? I mean, everybody was a sort of armchair epidemiologist, you know, during the pandemic, right? We're like, oh, did you get the Pfizer, or did you get the Moderna or did you get the Johnson? Johnson, oh, mine's 90, 90, X percent. So everybody was tracking that data, and somehow this guy is just completely making stuff up. So it's just, it's patently and true. The defunding, the science behind advancing further MRI of vaccines just hurts all Americans because it's one of the most promising, you know, vaccine modalities out there. Well, that's what I wanted to add on the MRNA research, which, you know, relatively new. Some say miracle technology allowed this, the quick creation of these COVID vaccines now being researched. for other potential uses, flu, cancer, AIDS, etc. What should we know about the MRNA as far as how concerned we should be by this shutting down of federal research grant money to it? Who will pick up this research if it's abandoned by the federal government? Is it private organizations, other countries, or does it just sort of get kicked to the curb, so to speak?

Right. Well, so it is definitely deeply concerning. It is definitely a slippery slope. You know, at this point, yes, MRNA technology has been around for decades. It's really accelerated or advanced in the last sort of five years or so, and obviously that was significantly advanced during the pandemic. So we didn't just sort of pick this up, right? We've been tracking the data points on this for a while. You know, when it comes to vaccinations, you know, when we're looking at emerging communicable diseases, particularly respiratory diseases for Americans, you know, obviously COVID-night, having something fast and with an effective sort of delivery system is essential. You know, when it comes to the live viruses, when it comes to viruses, or sorry, vaccines that are based upon proteins. It's just not as effective for a number of reasons. Using MRNA essentially has, you're using direct genetic materials. So if you think back to sort of your high school science, you go DNA RNA protein. If you're able to sort of harvest that MRNA, that messenger RNA, you can you can sort of translate that into proteins in a very quick and effective way. So that's why it's so good. And when we're thinking about vaccinations, we're not just talking flu and COVID, right? There's going to be a number of emerging communicable diseases. And, you know, I talk about this often. My book discusses this. I mean, it's really the sort of focus of it. If we don't focus on building out more public health infrastructure that really addresses the social and political inequities in this country and in the world, we're going to continue to see pandemics. And I throughout my book, I look at, you know, pandemics that has started from 1890 with the third plague to COVID-19, you know, also going through the major flu pandemics as well as Ebola, and of course, HIV. And essentially, it's the same drivers that impact these. that these diseases where they could essentially be prevented or mitigated, but infectious disease outbreaks then lead to epidemics, which then scale to pandemics, unfortunately. And, you know, again, we're sort of going backwards. But, you know, using that technology, the technology, leveraging technology that we have. for vaccinations that could also protect folks in the global south for, you know, for infections like, you know, dengue and, you know, chicken goody and other sort of related, you know, vector-borne diseases, which actually recently, you know, we've been seeing increasingly more reports in the U.S. is super important, you know. And again, these microbes don't know borders. They don't know blue and blue and red states. You know, they will, they will transcend all of these. And if we continue to defund or decimate the infrastructure that provides the surveillance and response, particularly in areas that are the most historically marginalized, we're going to continue to see more of the same.

I know I got to get you out momentarily, but I got another couple of questions I want to try to fit in. You know, around this time of year, in recent years, I've been getting both a flu shot and a COVID booster at the same time as someone with certain preexisting conditions. This year, however, I have no clue what will be available or what will be covered. And if so, when, Dr. Tyler Evans, do you? Well, so the first, you didn't ask it, but I just want to, I want to. I want to just sort of flag that there is no, sometimes I get these questions, you know, Doc, can we do the flu and the COVID shot at the same time? Or, you know, what is the sort of, what is the maximum number of shots that I can get in one day from a, and the answer is from an immunological standpoint, with certain exceptions like live virus vaccines, there really is no limit. Sometimes from sort of a nursing standpoint, they will not recommend more than two in one arm so they could sort of just track or flag if you were having any sort of. you know, adverse local reactions. But there really is no, there really is no sort of hard data to, to support that. So it's really, you know, there's no issue with getting them both at the same time. So we're getting into, you know, cold and flu season right now. So strongly recommend people, you know, do max pack those vaccinations and get them. Now, in terms of the coverage of the cost, I mean, this is, this is the concern, you know, the ASIP meeting, the advisory council on immunization practices, which I was actually nominated for. is, you know, was completely the most eminent and sort of, you know, aridite physician scientists around particularly vaccinations. 17 members were categorically dismissed back in June. And, you know, now it's been partially replaced by many pseudoscientists, half of which are anti-vaxxers. So there is this meeting scheduled for, I think it's the 17th of this month. You want to check my math. We don't know if it's actually going to be held. You know, Bill Cassidy has recommended that it is postponed, given the current, the recent sort of disruption taking place at the CDC with, you know, one of my good friends and colleagues who also left. He was the chief of the National Center of Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, Dr. Daskalakis. You know, we, so we don't know if it's actually going to be held in place, but the meeting agenda is to focus on COVID-19, vaccines around COVID-19, hepatitis B, MMRV, and I think that's it. If there's not a new vaccine that's approved in the next month or two, would you still recommend that people take the booster just based on whatever the existing vaccine is? Yes, 100%. Yes, people need to be protected. It's still very safe. I mean, yes, we do have, you know, the sort of continual emergence of variance. But, you know, as far as we've been seeing the sort of the variance of concern, the, you know, sort of current vaccinations are very, still very highly effective. So definitely recommend them. And in terms of, you know, what I, what I, I think the question that you had asked that I wanted to get to is if, is if,

you know, at ASIP or on a state level if the health officials are no longer recommending vaccinations categorically or particularly for certain sort of specific groups. Then what happens is, yes, you can get the vaccinations, you know, you can pay sort of out of pocket. But, you know, what happens is, you know, as per usual, the folks that have the privilege to get those vaccinations, you know, will remain protected. And the folks that are historically marginalized that either don't have access to the vaccinations, whether it's, you know, related to transportation or out-of-pocket costs or it could be related to something we call health literacy. you know, those folks will increasingly be more at risk. And that's exactly we saw with COVID-19. With the, with the emergence of the pandemic, particularly in the beginning, we saw, you know, the folks that were at highest risk were those that were, you know, black and brown communities, obese communities, historically marginalized folks, American Indians, you know. uncheltered unhoused, unhoused, migrant communities, people living in multi-generational homes, you know, et cetera, et cetera. So those are all the social determinants, and that's what I sort of coined, the social determinants of pandemics. And, you know, the more that these people live and sort of... in situations that increase risk, and the less that we give them resources to protect themselves, the higher this polarization of sort of, you know, disease manifestation will emerge. And while certain people's politics may differ, which is... completely fine. The problem is, while certain people feel like they might be sort of protected, the reality is there are concentric circles around public health, right? And so you may think that, you know, you are protected in your community because, you know, you live in some sort of suburban privileged area. But the reality is what we saw with the COVID-19 pandemic. It didn't really matter where you were, right? I mean, everybody essentially was at risk. I think everybody was one degree, at least one degree of separation away. hospitals were so saturated across the country that if your, you know, if your partner, spouse, you know, uncle, kids, whatever. if they needed to get into the hospital for some other reason, it was completely plugged up. Right. Right. So as the result, you know, your ability to respond to just, you know, sort of non-infectious disease, non-communicable diseases, was significantly, you know, impacted. So it hurts all of us. Yeah, we all play a prize for it. And I'm, which, which is why I wanted to bring out.

That comment from, what's his name, for this, pardon me, Loon, who's now the Surgeon General down in Florida, Dr. Joseph Lattipo comparing vaccine mandates to slavery and ending them across the entire state. Now, some people will, of course. get their vaccines anyway, but what kind of effect do you expect that the elimination of the vaccine mandates for, you know, for kids, for measles, mumps, chickenpox, polio, you know, will that not only harm Florida, but also spread to other states? What sort of effect will that have on so many of the diseases that we have long sort of moved beyond? Yeah, well, I'll close with two responses. You know, one is I think that, I mean, the rationale or the reasoning around that sort of statement is just completely ignorant and has no actual sort of, there's no truth to that. You know, the reality is vaccine mandates, the way that public health works effectively is in certain situations, we do have to make policy decisions in order to protect the public that may not understand the factors that are, that, you know, may be sort of at risk for, and it's not just infectious diseases. I mean, there's a, you know, there's a, you know, a wide range of potential examples that we could use. You know, a very well-known one is smoking. You know, while a lot of people resented the fact that they could not smoke in their, in their hospitals or their airplanes or their school buildings or whatnot, increasingly at this point, I think in, you know, 2025, I think most people agree that that the sort of quote unquote ban on tobacco smoking was a good thing, right? And we have actually, when we compare our rates to Europe and Asia, we have one of the, that's actually very much a public health success. But how we did that was sort of banning it in sort of public buildings, you know, raising the taxes on it. So it sort of became out of reach for a lot of folks. And as a result, it worked, you know. And so, and as a result, the country is a lot healthier. You know, when we look at the number one, the number one cause of death in the United States is cardiovascular disease. And tobacco smoking historically has been the number one preventable cause of death, closely followed by morbid obesity. So, you know, so again, public health decisions and mandates work. And sometimes... it's not really up to the individuals to sort of make those decisions. And I know that's hard for Americans, you know, who are very much into sort of their liberty and choice. But they have to understand that sometimes the doctors, the scientists, the nurses are making the decisions because while different people might have different political, you know, sort of choices, we need to protect the population at large, you know. And if we are removing, and so my second response is if we are removing vaccination days, particularly for kids, it is probably one of the most disastrous things that we could ever do from a public health standpoint. Because when we look at the reduction of morbidity and mortality from the 19th to...

to where we're at right now in 2025, the most significant advancement in reduction in both morbidity and mortality has been in public health, particularly in sanitation and hygiene, vaccinations, antibiotics. It wasn't in modern surgeries. It wasn't in a lot of other sort of advanced medical biomedical modalities. It was in sort of the core public health practices and vaccinations are absolutely key. What I find infuriating sometimes is I will be I worked on. childhood mass immunization programs in the global south, in places like South Sudan, Central African Republic. I've worked in war zones. I've worked in complex humanitarian emergencies. Trying to get those vaccinations to those kids sometimes can be incredibly complex. But when we do so, we significantly increase their opportunity to live, to survive and to thrive potentially. So when we argue over these petty ideas and these sort of this, this, this, you know, tenuous and flippant sort of logic, it's frustrating to the scientists because we're trying to protect these communities. And the more that we sort of disrupt and challenge the confidence in vaccinations, the more that folks, particularly kids, are going to be at risk. And kids are little vectors. I mean, I got two little ones at home. And I was the chief medical officer for New York City running COVID-19. I was the belly of the beast. I never got COVID. When did I get COVID? When my little ones were coming back from daycare. And then I increasingly got. So they are little vectors, little adorable vectors of this disease. And so, and we've got to protect them. We've got to protect the communities. And what we're going to see... is, you know, if we do see these sort of recessions of mandates, what we're going to see is more manifestations of disease. And I think that might be, I don't want it to go that way, but I think that might be when the pendulum starts to swing, right? Because a lot of our infectious diseases have been so, because we've done so well in public health, because we've done so well with vaccine adherence and whatnot, the more that we peel that back, we're going to start looking like other sort of, you know, countries and low and middle. link in countries where you actually do see you know manifestations of infectious disease on a regular basis would Which I was going to say, which is, you know, it's just so maddening the idea that you've worked around the world. You're fighting to get these vaccines to these kids. Here we are in the U.S. with plenty of them. And we're, you know, ending these mandates saying, oh, never mind. They're not that effective. Don't worry about it. Yep. It's literally, I've literally seen tetanus. I've literally seen, I've managed measles outbreaks. I've, you know, I've managed polio. Like, you know, I've seen these things. I see what they do to people.

I've had kids die in my arms. You know, the fact that we have these resources to protect our communities, and we, you know, and we sort of, you know, damn them without really understanding what we're doing is really maddening to a lot of sort of scientific. It is insane. Dr. Tyler Evans is an infectious disease and public health expert, former chief medical officer for New York City, CEO and founder of Wellness and Equity Alliance at Wellness Equity Alliance.com and the author of the new... book, Pandemics, Poverty and Politics, Decoding the Social and Political Drivers of Pandemics from Plague to COVID-19. You can get more information and that book via Tyler Evansmd.com. Dr. Tyler, really, Dr. Evans, really appreciates joining us today. Hope you don't mind if we pester you again in the near future. Absolutely. Great to be here. Great discussion. Thank you. Thank you, sir. All right, I am running a bit late, but I think it was worth it. Oh, my gosh, yes. We've talked to him for hours. Let's take quick break here, and we will go from the administration's attack on public health science to the ongoing attack on climate science, as Donald Trump appears to declare all-out war at this point on clean, renewable energy in the U.S. and across the globe in favor of the dirty fossil fuel industry. We'll discuss that and have it. our latest green news report with Desi Doyen all still ahead on today's Bradcast I'm Brad Friedman

What the public hears on the public airwaves matters. At the broadcast, we do our best to bring you accurate news and analysis on the issues that actually matter, and we do it all independently without corporate or political influence. But we can't do it without you, now more than ever. Please help us stay on your public airwaves by going to bradblog.com slash donate to help keep us going. That's bradblog.com slash donate. And thanks. Yes, it is. Welcome back to the Bradcast, Bradfredman from bradblog.com. My thanks again to Dr. Tyler Evans. But as noted, I am now running late. We need to get to GNR momentarily. But Desiree, I'm going to have to be quicker about this than plan, but I've been trying to get to these remarks from Trump all week that he gave at his, I guess this was his dumb three-hour cabinet meeting for the cameras last week while we were off, where he spoke about coal. nuclear energy, solar, and wind energy. And I wanted to get your quick responses to it. So let me play this quick clip from Trump last week on those topics. And then we'll get some actual facts about them from you, if you don't mind, on the other side. And coal is back with this country, too, by the way. You know, there's a reason they use it because it's good. It works for them. And we call it clean call. We don't call it call. We call it clean, even very clean call. But we have coal going up. We have nuclear going up. Nuclear is very much in vogue now. It's safe and inexpensive and great. We don't allow windmills. We're not allowing any windmills to go up. I mean, unless there's a legal situation where somebody committed to it a long time ago, we don't allow windmills. And we don't want the solar panels that I'm speaking with the secretary about because they take up, you know, thousands of acres of our farmland. So I'm trying to... have people learn about wind real fast, and I think I've done a good job, but not good enough, because some countries are still trying, and they're destroying themselves. Those are countries that are really destroying themselves. I hope they get back to fossil fuel, because right now, Chris, whether we like it or not, fossil fuel is the thing that works, and then you can add nuclear with it and other things, but fossil fuel is what works. We're going to fire up those big monster factories. Okay. All right, very quickly, let's sort of step through this one by one, Des. Cole is back, he says, because it's good, it works, and it's very clean. Now, I don't know if it's back or not, and I know it ain't clean, but is it good? Does it work? Okay, well, as far as generating electricity, sure, it works. But no, coal is not back. Coal is not clean. Coal is now the most expensive source of electricity, not just in the United States, but around the world. So he, Trump's policies have promoted coal, but most countries, most communities in the United States are moving away from it, have moved away from it. All right. We have nuclear going up. It's safe and... inexpensive. That's also not true. I mean, it takes a nuclear planet takes you about a minimum of 10 years and, you know, maybe $20 billion if you're lucky to build a new one. And you can put in wind, solar, and batteries in about one tenth of the time and one tenth of the cost. And, you know, the fact that he says right off the bat, it's inexpensive, that tells you.

It's very expensive. Yes, it's true. Which is why he puts his lies out front like that. Yes. All right. Solar panels. Well, I hadn't thought about this, but they take up thousands of acres of our farmland, says Donald Trump. Do we not have enough room for farms anymore? Are we going to no room for crops? Are we going to starve because of all the solar? Now, when it comes to generating electricity or any kind of energy, remember that bioethanol, corn ethanol, requires millions of acres more than solar panels do. And also fossil fuels, the mining of fossil fuels, oil, gas, and coal, destroys millions of acres permanently. every single year that they have to be mine. So he's not really telling the truth when he's saying it takes up our farmland? Solar panels can take up farmlands, but it is a good use of the farmland. It gives farmers far more revenue than they would have had if they use some of their land for solar. Plus, new studies have shown that when you combine agrovoltaics, when you combine farmland with livestock and other types of plants that do well under solar panels, then they actually can do both. Sounds like you know what you're talking about. All right. Finally, he's trying to have. people learn about wind. We discussed that in our GNR, but he says, like it or not, fossil fuels is the thing that works. None of the other things work does. And of course, that is lucky for that. Industry, the fossil fuel industry, that Trump just happened to ask for a billion dollars from during his campaign last year. Yeah, that was convenient, wasn't it? Well, it turns out that the rest of the world does not believe Donald Trump, thank goodness, and the rest of the world is actually surging forward in renewables, wind, solar, and batteries, particularly Africa, which just had a big solar boom this year, but they're buying panels from China, not the United States. Brilliant. And there is much more brilliance in our latest Green News Report. The town was heavily damaged by the fire, with several structures reduced to ash and rubble overnight. Wildfire devastates historic gold rush mining town in California. Trump escalates his war against the U.S. wind energy industry. Plus, dozens of climate scientists issue scathing rebuttal to Department of Energy's science-denying report. All of that's science denial and more straight ahead. From bradblog.com, I'm Brad Friedman. And I'm Desi Doyen. Stand by for six minutes of independent green news, politics, analysis, and snarky comment. So I'm trying to...

have people learn about wind real fast. And I think I've done a good job, but not good enough because some countries are still trying. And they're destroying themselves. I hope they get back to fossil fuel. Right. They're destroying themselves with clean, abundant, renewable, cheap wind energy. Got it. This is your Green News Report. I'm going to soak up the sun. All right, Tessie Doyen, you heard the president there. He wants to get rid of wind and go back to fossil fuels. I'm sure it'll all work out well. What do you got for us today? Well, unfortunately, first, tragedy in war-torn Sudan's western Darfur region. More than a thousand people have been killed in a landslide that completely destroyed a mountain village, leaving only one survivor, according to a rebel group controlling the area, triggered by days of relentless, torrential. rainfall. Numerous studies show extreme rainfall events are becoming more frequent and intense due to man-made climate change driven by the burning of fossil fuels. Oh, really? Not by wind power? Nope. Here in the U.S., meteorological autumn began Monday, but extreme summer heat ain't over yet. An expanding heat dome is broiling the western U.S. and Canada bringing fire weather after weeks of hot and dry conditions. have parched the landscape. Parts of British Columbia this week hit 104 degrees, tying the province's all-time high record. In Northern California, dozens of new wildfires erupted this week after an outbreak of dry lightning, high winds, and thunderstorms, degrading air quality and intensifying several large, ongoing forest fires. Sadly, fire crews were unable to save historic buildings of the Gold Rush Mining Settlement. known as Chinese camp from the fast-moving fires. That is a pity. Donald Trump is escalating his war on the U.S. wind energy industry. The New York Times reports that the Trump White House has taken the unprecedented step of ordering federal agencies to come up with plans to attack the U.S. offshore wind industry, even agencies that typically have little to do with wind energy. Trump's government-wide assault against the booming. domestic industry that generates cheap, clean, renewable energy and jobs has sent shockwaves throughout the sector. Trump's irrational hatred of wind energy is apparently due to his failure to stop an offshore wind farm near one of his golf courses in Scotland. That's right. That's all this is about. He doesn't like the windmills off of his golf course, so we all have to, frankly, suffer across the entire planet because of it. A split appeals court has sided with the Trump Environmental Protection Agency upholding the termination of more than $20 billion in Biden-era grants to nonprofit environmental groups that had already been dispersed. Two Trump appointed judges on the three-judge panel rejected the nonprofit organization's lawsuit, but not on the merits, instead claiming it is a contractual claim and was filed in the wrong court. The group's plans. appeal, but some recipients may be forced to close if the EPA drains the funding from their accounts.

More than 85 scientists have issued a joint rebuttal to a recent report issued by the Trump Department of Energy that attempts to cast doubt on established climate science and calls the threat of climate change overblown. The scientists say the Energy Department's analysis written by prominent climate science deniers is, quote, not scientifically credible, riddled with errors, misrepresenting, and cherry-picking data. And this matters because the administration is using that Department of Energy. report as its basis to dismantle the government's authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions that are warming the planet. Here's Andrew Dessler, professor of atmospheric sciences at Texas A&M University, on why he coordinated the scientific pushback against the Trump administration's attempt to manufacture doubt. This report, it's full of half-truths and mis- citations, the literature, and some just sort of obvious errors due to a lack of understanding of the literature. And it's very important that the science be right in these because the government is going to be making policy from this. And so if you have a report that's full of errors, how can you make good policy based on that? That report was made by five climate-denying dopes challenging the scientific work of tens of thousands of scientists. Yeah, it's insane. Insane doesn't even cover it. For much more on all of these stories and the ones we couldn't get to today, check out our website at greennews. Bradblog.com. I'm Brad Friedman. And I'm Desi Doyen. And this has been your Green News Report.

Virtual insanity. Virtual insanity. Virtual insanity. If only it was virtual insanity. You know, I had a listener today who, a donor who dropped me a note and said, thank you for helping keep me sane. I said, you're welcome. Who's going to help keep me sane at this point? I don't know. It's true. You know, and one of the things that Dr. Desler just said in our GNR is he said that you can't make good policy without good science. That is the point. The idea is to degrade the science so that they can justify doing whatever insane nonsense they want to try to ram through. Absolutely insane. From... public health and vaccinations to climate science, canceling wind, wind power that we have already spent billions on, by the way, and just saying, oh, don't turn them on. Yeah, it's insane. Madness. All right. We've got to get out. My thanks again to Dr. Tyler Evans of Wellness Equity Alliance.com to our producer, Desi Doyen, and to all of you. For helping keep me sane, spending time with us today. If you missed any portion of today's program, you can download it at any time for free at bradblog.com. You can, while you're there, please hit a donate button or go straight to brandblog.com slash donate to help us stay on your public airwaves. Please. Thank you. Drop me email. I'm brandcast at bradblog.com. And on the social media, especially blue sky, I am the brand blog. Desi is green. News Report. You'll find her there as well. We'll see you there. Until we see you here next time, I'm Brad Friedman. Good luck, world. You're listening to the Bradcast. We are 100% listener supported. Thanks to listeners like you who drop by Bradblog.com slash donate.