Episode 114- Richard Helppie and Dr. James R. Baker Jr., MD
Brian Kruger
Welcome to Richard Helppie’s Common Bridge, the fiercely nonpartisan discussion that seeks policy solutions to issues of the day. Rich is a successful entrepreneur in the technology, health, and finance space. He and his wife Leslie are also philanthropists with interest in civic and artistic endeavors, with a primary focus on medically and educationally underserved children.
Richard Helppie
Hello, welcome to The Common Bridge. I’m your host Rich Helppie, and we have a returning guest and maybe even consider him a regular guest, Dr. James Baker. He is the author of a highly recommended blog, pandemicpondering.com, and I encourage all my listeners and viewers to subscribe, get his emails. I’ve been looking for information around immunizations and around viruses and the pandemic; I have found no better source, and it is very understandable too, even for a layperson like me. But I’m sure Dr. Baker this morning will have to clear some of the fog for me, so Dr. Baker, welcome back to The Common Bridge. We’re really happy that you joined us today.
Dr. James Baker
Well, thanks, Rich. Quite honestly, I had hoped I’d be done with the blog by now, but obviously, we have some ongoing issues.
Richard Helppie
Yes, we , yes, we do. So for my listeners and viewers of The Common Bridge, Dr. Baker’s full bio is at Richard Helppie.com. His past episodes are number 102 and number 80. He is the founding director of the Mary H. Weiser Food Allergy and the Ruth Dow Doan Professor at Michigan Medicine. He has over 20 years as the Chief of the Division of Allergy and Clinical Immunology at Michigan Medicine. Among his impeccable qualifications, over 300 peer-reviewed publications and listed as the inventor on 50 patents. He’s also been in the commercial world, including being the Global Head of the vaccine franchise for Merck. I don’t think we could have anybody better qualified. He also is current, he has access to the best subject matters in academia, and really importantly, he can talk without political constraint. In fact, he’s served in administrations and legislatures of all stripes. So we’re very privileged to have an opportunity to speak to Dr. Baker, and let’s just jump into the questions. Dr. Baker, look, I’m a person– I don’t have a clinical or a scientific background. I’m a little confused, is there a lay definition of a breakthrough infection and you know, for that matter, a lay definition of an infection itself. And kind of what I’m trying to get to is the notion that I may have the virus in my nose or my throat, but the antibodies I got from the vaccine or for people that have natural antibodies repelled it, does that make me infected or not? Because I’ve got vaccine, it does it have to advance further?
Dr. James Baker
Well, first off, I can understand your confusion. I think, I think the messages that have come out have been inconsistent and confusing. Clearly, part of that is because of the nature of the pandemic and the fact that it’s gone back and forth. But a great deal of it has also been, unfortunately, bad communications. And I don’t blame people for being frustrated and confused. The first thing I can say is that the vaccines work very well. The RNA vaccines from Pfizer, and from Moderna are effective against every variant of Coronavirus that’s been identified, including the now famous Delta variant. Even though it’s more infectious, it’s not really breaking through to any substantial degree with people that have gotten fully vaccinated with one of the RNA vaccines. What, when they talk about breakthrough infections, there are really two different things that we’re talking about here. One is the fact that the vaccines are 95% effective in preventing infection. So in fact, that means that 5% of people that get the vaccine don’t have enough of an immune response to protect themselves. And in fact, normally that would be viewed as remarkable, because most vaccines like flu vaccines are only 60% effective.
Dr. James Baker
What we’re seeing now is there’s so many people who have been vaccinated, that that 5% breakthrough number, i.e., when they say breakthrough, it’s breaking through the vaccine’s protection, which we expected, is becoming a significant number. So in fact, when you talk about this, you know people who have been vaccinated are eight to 10 times less likely to be infected with the Delta variant or any other form of Coronavirus compared to unvaccinated people. So in fact, the protection is still there, as we get more people immunized, fewer, you know, there are more people that have breakthroughs in that they have, you know, for whatever reason, not a good enough immune response to keep from getting infected. But there’s another variable in this and that’s how you define an infection. And I think you brought that up very effectively. In the old days, we defined an infection as someone who got sick from the virus. So in fact, 95% of people, you know, are protected the other 5% don’t, you know, get sick from the virus. But what’s happening is that we’re now screening for virus with very sensitive assays these PCR assays with the nasal swab, could detect very little virus; they actually amplify it 30 million times. So the question is, is a positive PCR really an indication of a breakthrough infection? Or does it just mean that this person has some virus in the nose, and that’s not defined yet. And there are two big important things that we need to know about that, number one, finding a positive PCR in someone which you see in people after they’ve been infected for weeks or maybe months may indicate that they have dead virus in there, because their immune system has killed that virus, but the PCR will still amplify it. So the PCR doesn’t tell you if you have live or dead virus. Now that’s very important, because if it’s dead virus, you don’t infect anybody else. And in fact, I think most of the people we’re seeing…first of all, most of the breakthrough infections that we’re identifying are asymptomatic. These people are not sick. So that’s really good news, because they aren’t going to the hospital. Yeah, 96% of the people in hospitals for COVID are people that did not get vaccinated. The other 4% are people that have bad immune systems, even though they got vaccinated. 99% of the people dying from COVID right now are unvaccinated people. So in fact, most of these supposed breakthrough infections are not causing disease. Now the the CDC came out with this guidance from last Friday, where or last week, and they they finally presented the data Friday. And this was based on an unusual event in Provincetown, Massachusetts over Fourth of July weekend, where 40,000 people got together for a party basically. And they were mingling and and you know, it was just an interesting event, given the number of people and the fact there were no precautions being taken. The CDC did PCR in a number of people after this, and in fact, they found virus in people that were immunized. And they said the virus on PCR was about the same as the virus on you know, unvaccinated people or vaccinated people. So their assumption was that vaccinated people might be equally effective in transmitting the virus. Despite that, Israel, which has much better data, you know, the Health Minister of Israel –Public Health Minister was on CBS’ Face The Nation on Sunday, and said they’ve only seen minimal transmission from their breakthrough infections. And in fact, although the new COVID infections in the unvaccinated with with the Delta variant are infecting nine and telling people for each infected individual, only ten percent of the people that have a breakthrough infection infect anyone, and they only infect a single person. So I think the bottom line is, it’s to be expected there’ll be some people that have a quote unquote, “breakthrough infection,” but almost all of them have a mild or asymptomatic infection. They don’t get hospitalized and they certainly don’t die. And from the best data we have in Israel, they aren’t very effective in transmitting the virus. So bottom line is the real risk remains unvaccinated people. If you’re vaccinated, you have a very low chance of being infected, and you have an even lower chance of transmitting it to anyone else.
Richard Helppie
And again, I would encourage my listeners, please read pandemicpondering.com, sign up for Dr. Baker’s emails, he does a phenomenal job of talking about these issues in a way that a layperson can understand it. And Dr. Baker, that definition set that you just provided us is very is a lot of clarity to me. Would that mean if my if I’m a vaccinated person, which I am, and I was next to an unvaccinated person, and we both took a PCR test, we might both test positive but they could be testing dead virus in me and live virus in the unvaccinated person making me relatively safer to especially to vaccinated people yet making the unvaccinated person someone that could spread live virus is, did I follow that correctly?
Dr. James Baker
You’re exactly right. The likelihood even if you had some viral material in your nose, the likelihood that you would get sick or transmit that to somebody else is very, very low. And the likelihood that you would wind up in the hospital is even lower, you know. So I think what we need to do is give people an understanding of what the relative risk is, with this new wave of the pandemic. The real risk is from people who are unvaccinated. They’re the ones spreading this. And they’re basically spreading it to other unvaccinated people. And you could tell that when 96% of the people in the hospitals are unvaccinated. So I think, you know, masks protect other people from you. You know, a mask really is less effective in preventing you from being infected, because you can breathe around it, what it’s good at is preventing the aerosols that infected people have from getting out and infecting others. So in fact, the really important thing right now is to get unvaccinated people to wear masks all the time. You know, it’s their choice. If they don’t want to be vaccinated, I’m not going to get into the issue of mandates. But if you’re going to make that choice, you need to protect the people around you. Because basically, with Delta variant, you shed more virus, and every unvaccinated person that gets infected with the Delta variant, basically, is their own super spreader of that.
Richard Helppie
One of the thing you talk about nomenclature and hospitalizations, and I watched a report locally and the physician reporting was real careful to say people in the hospital with COVID– not because of COVID– is anybody breaking that data down any better? You know, someone gets, I don’t know, they get hit by a car, and they go in and they they could be vaccinated, from what I just learned, get a PCR test. Their dead virus signals that they’re positive, and they say, Well, now we have a COVID case in the hospital.” Is anybody keeping track of with COVID? Or because of COVID? Or is it important?
Dr. James Baker
I mean, unfortunately, yeah, unfortunately, what we’re seeing is that the U.S. data is not very good in terms of how things are being monitored and defined, we’re actually winding up looking at the UK, or at, you know, people in Israel, for better public health data to understand what these waves of the pandemic look like. I think that’s a legitimate concern, that we’re identifying people who, you know, may have some virus in their nose, or even dead virus. We may even have people that have been infected, you know, six or eight weeks ago, and they’re still carrying small amounts of virus. Understanding what all this means in terms of public health and precautions is important. And right now we’re having to look to other countries to get that data.
Richard Helppie
I want to get to that a little bit later in our discussion. But look, while we’re on nomenclature, and I really appreciate you filling me in on this. We’ve heard a topic in the news called Gain-of-function and that there were experiments or development around Gain-of-function in the Wuhan laboratory. So is there a lay definition for Gain-of-Function and you know, why would a Gain be needed? Is it something that always happens? And is there any speculation or proof that such experiments or work spawned the Covid-19 pandemic? I guess a lot of questions wrapped in there, but just like what the heck is Gain-of-function and what’s/ why are we doing–why are we even hearing about it now?
Dr. James Baker
So the part of my history you didn’t go into was the fact that I was in the military for 14 years and basically in Bio Defense and I’ve been a consultant to the government around this. I’m, I’m very aware of what is and isn’t Gain-of-Function research. So let me give that as background. (Rich: Thank you, thank you.) Normally, Gain-of-function research is engineering a virus to make it more deadly, or more easily communicated. So in fact, you know, they’ve taken toxins from, you know, like hemorrhagic viruses like Ebola, and tried to put them in other viruses, so that when you get infected, you wind up with hemorrhage and death more readily. These are the types of things we’re talking about.
Richard Helppie
Bio warfare, Bio weapons.
Dr. James Baker
Right, exactly. A purposeful attempt to engineer something to harm people, and do it in a more efficient way. If I can put it that way. There is a fine line by the definitive line between understanding how a virus actually works, and how it could evolve in nature in a way that could cause more disease or evolve to a virus that that doesn’t cause human disease evolve into one that can cause human disease. You know, I think, from everything I’ve seen, the work that was being done in Wuhan, was not purposeful Gain-of-function. Now, there may be things there that I’m not aware of. But in fact, what what’s been debated in Congress does not appear to be Gain-of-function, what it appears to be is trying to understand how these viruses work to infect, and how they might jump from bats to humans in a way that’s more effective. You know, the government.. I think, you know, the old line, keep your friends close, and your enemies closer. (Rich: Yeah.) I mean, you know, we want to know what’s going on in these labs. And one of the ways the government does that is by funding some of the work there so that we know what they’re doing. And I think a lot of what was being funded in Wuhan was, was work understanding these viruses, and certainly SARs has already taught us, before they started funding, that these were potentially bad viruses for people. So I think there was a reasonable concern that, you know, we should know what’s going on, and we should understand these viruses. And this was the one place in the world that was studying them very well. The reports that have come out, you know, the the report that that Senator Paul was waving at Dr. Fauci was not a classical Gain-of-function experiment. So in fact, I don’t think anything we’ve done would indicate that we’re supporting Gain-of-function research, number one. Number two, if you will look at this virus. If you look at isolates of this virus, from different sources throughout Asia, the genetic changes we’re seeing in these viruses in bat caves in Thailand, and in other places. So this was not anything de novo that was engineered at Wuhan. And in fact, the genetic changes are so diverse, you know, we aren’t smart enough to figure out how to put these things together. You know, nature is much smarter than we are in doing that. I don’t think this was a purposeful release. And if you look at the fact that the Russians and the Chinese actually had significant issues with this, it’s not like normally if you had a bio weapon, you would protect your own people before you released it. Now people say oh, well, you know, that gives you plausible deniability. No. I mean, the no one in their right mind infects their own people to try and get an advantage. I think, I think if you worry that this was an accidental release, that type of thing can happen. It’s happened in the U.S. with a couple of things– it’s happened with an anthrax shipment and some other things. Fortunately, there were no true outbreaks from that. But certainly in Russia, they’ve had outbreaks of anthrax from accidental release from some of their bio warfare facilities. So I think it’s reasonable to go in and look and see what was the cause of all of this, but I don’t think right now there’s any data that suggests that you know, that this was a purposeful act, or that was actually engineered. And I think the most important thing right now is figuring out how to stop the pandemic. Yeah, we have a long time to figure out what started. So if we focus on ending it, and we have the tools to end it with our vaccines, I think we’ll do much better than trying to run around and figure out where it came from, until we get it under control.
Richard Helppie
I really appreciate that explanation. And that look, that’s a great segue way. This next section I want to talk about, its a little bit about precautions and personal behavior. And two parts of this: a summary of you know, what the known science is today, and how, you know, public policy has been communicated or miscommunicated. But that description you just made about Gain-of-function. Look what happened: Side A grab and all their, you know, media megaphones, and allies and partisan talking points, grabbed an interpretation and ran this way. And Side B, did the exact same thing on the other end, and the public is less informed. And I like the way that you frame that with that these new theories… this is something new, so theories and discoveries are going to continue to emerge. And so I start thinking about this. This is a framework and I’m playing with right now that public health relies on sound policies, based on reliable studies, communicated by trusted sources. And from, again, my lay perspective, it seems that the reliable studies are just getting overwhelmed by some unsound policies, and distrust of those communicating. And there’s a lot to be said, we’re going to have some guests on our show coming up about why there’s such distrust in governments and medias and corporate life. But let me try a summation of what I think the evidence says today. And first of all, foremost, the vaccines are working, they’re making a difference. And in fact, they’re working remarkably well. Number two, that natural infection is contributing to some level of herd immunity, but at the current level of research, vaccination is perceived to be a more assured protection. Thirdly, and perhaps you have an update on this, that the antibodies are effective as infection fighters for as long as they can be studied and get, you know, basically making a case of we won’t need boosters, at least for the foreseeable future. Another item, some of the places like Singapore and Australia that avoided the Alpha variant by very strong social shutdown, are doing worse today with Delta than those that had targeted protections like Sweden. Next that the virus is moving through age groups, yet remains most deadly to the elderly, the immune compromised, and those with underlying conditions. And of course, as you said earlier, masking does reduce the aerosols put out by the wearer, which gives some protection to others if the wearer has any type of infection with flu or cold or COVID. But only N95 masks can protect the masked person with the proviso that it fits right, and they put it on right and then wear it all the time. I’d be surprised I encapsulated that entirely correctly. But is this where the science kind of is today? And and I understanding that that science does change?
Dr. James Baker
I would agree with almost all of that. I think, you know, I mean, we were talking about worrying about Gain-of-function engineering, the most effective engineering in the world, is allowing the virus to replicate in hundreds of millions of people. You know, biology will find a way. And, you know, we, we all knew that we were going to see variants, we all knew that these variants would probably be more efficient, because that allows them to be propagated more efficiently, and they will come to dominate the picture. And that’s why I think we’ve been so anxious to get people vaccinated not just to protect themselves, but to provide a much smaller group of humans that can harbor viruses that can evolve and become more deadly. So in fact, you know, if people are concerned about Gain-of-function research, they should realize that the most efficient Gain-of-function research is happening out there in the wild, you know, in all the people that are unvaccinated.
Richard Helppie
Ad that’s a great point about the the Delta that the virus wants to live. So it says I’m going to find a way to infect faster and yet I’ve heard people tell me well, the the variants will be less deadly because they don’t want to kill the host. Is there any validity to that at all?
Dr. James Baker
There is a theoretical thought that that might be an efficient way to do this, but what we’re seeing is because these viruses are so much more efficient at infecting people, they don’t have to worry about killing the host, because they’re infecting many more people before the host gets really sick. So that’s a that’s a different scenario than the idea while you want to keep your host alive. Yeah, what we’re seeing is that these people are shedding much more virus, they’re infecting many more people. So they can propagate even if they get sick later on and/or die. So I think, I think that concept goes out the window. I think the also, the concept I hear from these folks is that being infected with the virus is less dangerous than the vaccine. That’s just craziness. I mean, you don’t, even if you know, you’re a young person, and you don’t, you know, die from this? Yeah, you don’t have an immune problem that makes that allows you to become deathly ill? You still get sick with this virus for the most part. And you know, young people, you know, Bryson DeChambeau, you know, unvaccinated, just got infected, he lost 10 pounds. Yeah, maybe that was a good thing for him. But I mean, bottom line is, people get sick with this virus, young people get sick. And you know, it’s not killing them at the same rate as elderly people. But the idea that the vaccine would be more dangerous than that infection is just crazy. Now, I know, at some point, we’re going to talk about some of the side effects– I’m one of the lead investigators looking at adverse reactions to these vaccines, in an NIH trial–but I think I think quite honestly, people have to understand that this is still a dangerous infection for young people. And yeah, you may not die, but you can get chronic COVID you, it disrupts your sense of smell, there are lots of bad things that can happen.
Richard Helppie
And I do want to pick up on the side effects and you know, some of the heart infections and things. So scientific community is going to have various opinions, but there does seem to be consensus. So now we have the reliable study. So we turn to public health policy and communication. And so we’ve got vaccines that are widely available, and it seems like the case for getting one versus not getting one is beginning to be compelling, you know, natural immunities from prior infection not withstanding, not understanding yet, because we haven’t had the time to find out how long they last, but that research is ongoing. But it seems like getting policy consensus is overly difficult, and that we’re mangling the communication. They’re both self-inflicted wounds. And I collected just a few headlines in preparation to chat this morning. So David Axelrod, who of course, was the chief strategist for President Obama’s campaigns, he said the C’s in CDC do not stand for communication, which I thought was great. And we’ve seen some strange leadership and messaging. So in Chicago today, Lollapalooza, they’re going to defer the protective measures until that concert with hundreds of thousands of people cheek to cheek is over. Of course, we had the John Lewis funeral, we’ve had our problems with our governor here, not following her own mandates, the Washington DC Mayor being photographed indoors, unmasked, the Speaker of the House, and of course issues with the southern border. And then we have the great communication systems we have today. And they’re being used, I think, in a harmful way. And I think, as the author Matt Taibbi said, that one sure way to have people run from vaccination sites, is not only to and to get them to buy into every wild story about the harms, is to pretty much you know, the worst way to do it would be a massive blame campaign, in his vernacular: “delivered by sneering blue noses, who have a richly deserved credibility problem with large chunks of the population.” And it seems to me that we’re missing this opportunity to say, who’s not getting vaccinated. And most recently, as of last night, it’s we still have an urban issue in New York in particular, and it’s almost like urban people of color and rural whites are the ones avoiding it. And then of course, we had the CDC Director Walensky saying that hey, we only need two weeks of mask wearing and more vaccines to beat the Delta variant and that lit the echo chamber like yeah, here we go again. And Dr. Baker, this leads to the thoughtful analysis that you posted at www.pandemic pondering.com on July 31st The title of that particular entry is called “The CDC’s mask guidance is based on confusing information that has been misrepresented in the press.” And I thought that was so chock full of clarity in every paragraph. First, I’m encouraging all my listeners and viewers to go and read it for themselves. But also Dr. Baker, if you don’t mind just recapping that and take as much time as you wish, because I think you had so much to say in just one entry, as much as you would care to share with us today would be appreciated.
Dr. James Baker
I don’t blame people that don’t want to get vaccinated right now. I think they’ve received so many bad messages. Social media has been embarrassingly bad and trying to police this. This osteopath down in South Florida that’s selling books and stuff, that they’re just full of lies. You know, people read this, and because, you know, it looks legitimate, they have great concerns, and I don’t blame them for that. The real problem is that we wind up fighting with each other so much politically, that we haven’t been able to give a coherent message that’s been able to recoup this discussion and and, you know, really get a direct message to folks that allows them to be confident and get the vaccine. And we need to do that right now. We need to clean all this up. Social media is a morass. And you know, I get a lot of commentary to my blog, where people are arguing and and just say, you know, I know that 80% of the people who get the vaccine die. Well, you know, then we’d have probably 160 million deaths from the vaccine in the U.S. right now. I mean, this is craziness, making broad statements without providing you know, the underlying data is a bad thing to do. I was very concerned when they made the statement about going back to having people who are vaccinated wear masks, because as I said, most of the time, people that are vaccinated don’t even get infected. And most of the people that get infected with these breakthrough infections don’t get sick and don’t spread the infection. So I was very concerned to find out what data this was based on because this was a total change in what everyone thought about the vaccines. And it came on Friday afternoon from the CDC’s publication, MMWR,. and you know, I actually have a link to it on my blog. But what this was, is this very unusual event where 5000 people came to Provincetown. You know, it’s not only that they felt that the people who were vaccinated had virus in their nose, but they they claimed that more vaccinated people got infected than non vaccinated people, which no one has ever heard of, you know, this was, if this event really worked out that way, then it’s very strange. You know, it is very unusual compared to any other event, when you look at all these other events that have resulted in lots of infections. There was a biker meeting in Michigan, there were other things, in Arkansas and Missouri, the majority of infections were still in unvaccinated people. So the idea that the majority of infections by a 3:1 margin would be in vaccinated people in Provincetown tells me that either the numbers are not right, and they missed most of the infections in the unvaccinated people, or there’s some other problem with their data collection. And again, I said, You know, I thought they had done like viral cultures to see if these people were infected– to see if they have live virus that they were spewing on other people. But no, it was simply by PCR. And PCR, as we mentioned, can’t differentiate live from dead virus and amplifies the virus so much, 300 fold, that seeing, you know, roughly similar amounts of virus with that degree of amplification doesn’t tell you anything about the infectivity. So I was concerned about that. And I think the data, you know, I mean, basically they made it sound in the press, like vaccinated people were as likely to get infected as unvaccinated people which was totally wrong. And even more importantly, that they were very likely to infect other people and there have been other mistatements. This week, Francis Collins, who’s a good friend and a great scientist said that vaccinated people should be wearing masks at home with their unvaccinated children. And that’s just wrong too. And he actually had to withdraw that statement a couple hours later, because it just made no sense. The risk right now is from unvaccinated people. They’re the ones that get readily infected with the Delta variant and produce tons of virus that can infect other people. That’s the real issue right now, vaccinated people are not the problem. And quite honestly, I think that this Delta variant will run through the population, and much like the other surges we’ve seen, will go its route. And the idea that, you know, it can only infect people that aren’t vaccinated, so in fact, you know, it’s only got a third of the population in many states that it can, in fact, should limit its effect in those states, and states where two thirds of the people haven’t gotten vaccinated, that’s a huge problem. And that’s why you’re seeing these outbreaks in southern states. And I’m not going to tell people they have to get vaccinated. I mean, from my perspective, you know, if I’m your doctor, or I’m your, your husband, or your brother, or whatever, I would tell you absolutely get vaccinated, because it’s the right thing to do. But I’m not going to mandate that to people. But if you choose not to get vaccinated, you have to understand that you are a source of infection for everyone around you. And you need to understand that the likelihood you could infect an immunodeficient relative, an elderly relative, even if they’ve been vaccinated, because they didn’t make as good an immune response, or your unvaccinated children, is a possibility. And if you if you aren’t concerned for yourself, you need to think about your concern for those people around you. I agree with you that the messages have gotten very politicized. I mean, Tony Fauci is one of my mentors, I trained under him 40 years ago, they made a statement the other day that he was particularly happy to see Republican senators supporting vaccination. You know, I mean, we can’t make this a Republican and Democratic thing. I certainly think some of the media outlets have been horrendous in what they’re saying. And you know, in some of these places, they themselves have vaccines. The media outlet is demanding that all the employees have vaccines, and they’re going on TV and telling people, they don’t need vaccines. I mean, this is absurd. I feel bad for people because they’ve been fed all this misinformation. But you know, all I can say is, every piece of data we’ve seen is the vaccines work, they’re remarkably safe, as well. And in fact, it’s much safer than the infection, not just for you, but the people around you.
Richard Helppie
And this is, again, where I’m encouraging people to take a little time get on your email list I did, it’s really easy to do at the bottom of pandemicpondering.com because reading that story about Provincetown, and there are items in there that you didn’t hear in the news, like some of the people were vaccinated, but it was with the J&J vaccine, which is not nearly as effective, and that some of those that became ill were HIV positive, which means that you can’t vaccinate them if you can’t stimulate an immune response. And people can understand this, and the political overtones are absurd. And you know, pre-election, it was like the other side was saying, I don’t trust these vaccines, because they were done on this guy’s watch. And now it’s like, oh, now that group is saying, Don’t trust it, because this group wants you to, and then politicians are saying, oh, follow the science. And they don’t say what the science is and they come out with a policy, that doesn’t make sense. We can do a better job with that, and this program, hopefully will help some people get that. Again, thank you for you being here. Let’s take a minute on side effects. And of course, with any medicine, any intervention, there’s always a risk. Okay, it comes with balancing the risk. And to your point, we all should evaluate the risks that we’re going to take on ourselves and what we might be imposing on others. I sent you this morning, a report from JAMA, that frankly, I read twice and didn’t understand about infections around hearts, but any way that you can boil some of the side effects down for us and how big of a problem are we dealing with and where do we go from here?
Dr. James Baker
So first off, I’m going to leave the J&J vaccine out of this discussion, because I think it you know, our data has shown that it’s less effective. And there are more side effects. You have some of the blood clotting issues. It’s obviously much better than the AstraZeneca vaccine. And I won’t go into why that is. But at the current time, you know, if you’re at all concerned about side effects, don’t get the J&J vaccine. The MRNA vaccines are available everywhere and they’re much more effective.
Dr. James Baker
That’s what you’re looking for is Moderna or Pfizer, not J&J, so the two shot, not one shot.
Dr. James Baker
Right. We’ve looked at all of the data. People have said, well, they’re reports of deaths after these vaccines. Well, yes, we’re immunizing people that are elderly, we’re immunizing people, they’re in hospice. Yeah, I think the real key is that the death rates that are observed in general populations after the vaccine not related to COVID are no different than the general population without the vaccine. So there’s no death signal, and no other illness, serious illness signal that’s come out. And yeah, we’ve now given this vaccine to over 300 million people worldwide. So I mean, it’s not like it’s some type of experimental vaccine and and hopefully, the FDA will get off the snuff and get this fully approved. The one complication that they’ve observed with the MRNA vaccines is inflammation around the heart, or in the heart muscle, this is a very rare thing. And that and this was reinforced in the the JAMA article, it’s between one to two people out of every 100,000 people that get the vaccine. The inflammation around the heart looks to be in a slightly older population, the inflammation in the heart muscles, a slightly younger population, almost none of these people have gotten seriously ill, some of them had been hospitalized, but the average hospitalization has been two days. And no one has had any long term side effects in their heart function, or no one has died from this complication. So it’s a very rare complication, it’s one in 100,000. Most of the people are not getting sick, the few people that have gotten sick, or admitted to the hospital have stayed only two days and have recovered completely. That is literally the only problem that’s come out with the RNA vaccines. And it’s truly remarkable that giving this vaccine to as many people as we have, from every life experience, particularly giving it to elderly people that have lots of other health problems, that it’s proven to be as safe as it has. So in fact, it’s almost a miracle that this vaccine is so effective, you know, it’s much more effective than flu vaccine or anything else. And the risk benefit ratio, given what’s going on, is much better for the vaccine than it is for getting infected with COVID, where you can get long term COVID, you can use your lose your sense of taste, and smell, and you can infect those around.
Richard Helppie
That leads us to actually a couple of things here as we near the end of our time together. And you mentioned a flu and cold and flu. So I’m gonna put several questions out here in case it happens to be kind of all in wrapped in one answer. So for children, is there any greater risk for women of childbearing age, and then all the way through to I’ve seen the sadness in school children have to cover their faces to go to school, and I wonder, Is that necessary? And then, in one of our earlier talks, you made some parallels with polio vaccination, helped children avoid illness as they enter adulthood, and then but Sweden and Florida seem to be doing fine with their kids as normal. So the question I want to ask around, you know, from childbirth through like 19, you know, child, so women of childbearing age through age 19, and then secondarily, I’ve been told by some very knowledgeable people in the health care industry, that we should expect a very severe cold and flu season this winter, because our immune systems are out of practice due to the society shuts down and the masking. So what should people be thinking about for childbirth, children and other things we can get infected by?
Dr. James Baker
So the data at least with the Alpha variant did not suggest that schools were places that became hotspots or or caused the spread of illness. And the best way to ensure that is not having the kids wear masks, but making sure every adult they come in contact with is vaccinated. So in fact, you know, I’m a little disturbed when the teacher’s union said that you should mandate vaccines for teachers, when they say at the same time, you know, if the infection’s still out there, you know, we should stick to virtual classes. You know, the best way to get everybody back to school and protect every teacher is have every teacher and every adult in those schools vaccinated, just like healthcare workers. The good news is most children who get infected do not get sick. So in fact, I think even with the Delta variant that’s proved true, I think eventually, within six months, kids will have the opportunity to be vaccinated. I think at that point, it’s a good thing to do, because as I alluded to, as they get older, their risk from this infection just becomes greater. So in fact, if you immunize them as children, just like we do with polio, or measles, or anything else, you remove that risk from them as they grow old. You know, the, there were a couple other things that that just, I don’t quite understand some of the statements that are being made about, you know, what we’re doing with masking. I mean, masking again, does not protect the children from themselves. So the masking protects the children from infecting people around them. And the people most likely to get infected are the adults in the classroom. So again, if you’re worried about transmission from children, then in fact, the best way to do it is by getting vaccinated not by wearing a mask. So in fact, I think going forward, the best way to protect the schools and do well is to get every adult in those schools, everyone these children come in contact with, be it the cafeteria workers, you know, people that help clean the schools, or teachers, get them all vaccinated. And that’s the best way to protect the kids, just like the best way to protect those children at home, is to have their parents vaccinated, so they aren’t bringing the infection back home to them.
Richard Helppie
And what about cold and flu season? You know, we didn’t have much of a flu season last winter in North America, and we weren’t around each other. Is there any science that says that might give us a forecast into what a cold and flu season is going to look like this time around.
Dr. James Baker
So I think that’s a theoretical concern that we haven’t been exposed. The way to get around that concern is to get your flu shot that’s coming here. Because if anything will activate and educate your your immune system to protect you, it will be influenza vaccine. And I think the flu season will be more defined by what type of flu strains are out there, than it would whether or not that we’re prepared for them. Because basically, if we have, if we have the right vaccine, and we get the right type of protection, we should all be protected during flu season. Yeah, I mean, people are saying, you know, if you don’t get the cold, then I mean, you know, that’s a theoretical issue. And the best way to counter the fact your immune system has not been challenged in the past year is get, to get your flu vaccine.
Richard Helppie
Dr. Baker, you’ve been incredibly generous with your time once again. And is there anything that we didn’t cover today that perhaps we should have?
Dr. James Baker
No, I appreciate this time, because I think it’s important to go into these things in detail, so people understand the issues. You know, I think if people, if people got, you know, the information in a very coherent and direct way, and they got it in great detail, they’d feel much more comfortable about this. Uou know, we’re seeing people that, you know, we’re very concerned that had all kinds of health risks, get these vaccines and get them successfully. So I’m a strong advocate. I think we have good data around us now. And I hope everyone who’s listening to this talk feels more comfortable about getting the vaccine
Richard Helppie
And likewise, and that we can only have good public health, with reliable studies that lead to good policy communicated by those we trust. And those are all topics we will be discussing on the Common Bridge. I’ve got a great guest coming up to talk about why is there such distrust in the media and when he lays out a chronology, you go oh, of course. There it is. And look, for my listeners and viewers at The Common Bridge, Dr. Baker’s learned view helped me get comfortable with my personal decision to accept the vaccine this past winter. And as you’ve heard, he continues to advocate for vaccination, because the real science does support that. So please read and learn and make your decision and keep yourself healthy by staying away from the barrage of partisan news outlets. I can tell you that’s 100% toxic, and I’m sure that those of you that indulge in that understand. Richard Helppie’s Common Bridge is available on most podcast outlets, on YouTube TV, and of course register for free at RichardHelppie.com. So with our special guest, Dr. James Baker of Michigan Medicine, this is Rich Helppie signing off on The Common Bridge.
Brian Kruger
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