0:02

Hey folks, welcome to the Dark

0:05

Horse podcast. I am thrilled and

0:07

honored to be sitting this morning

0:09

with Forrest Moretti, who is an

0:11

independent researcher whose books I have

0:13

been grappling with. My

0:15

suggestion to you at home is that you

0:18

find a chair and sit in it so

0:20

you don't fall over when you hear some

0:22

of what Forrest has to tell us. Forrest,

0:24

welcome to Dark Horse. Hey,

0:26

Brett. Thanks for having me. I'm

0:28

honored to sit in this chair across the

0:30

screen from you. I'm looking forward to an

0:32

interesting conversation. Yes,

0:34

I have zero doubt it's going to be

0:36

an interesting conversation. Let's start

0:39

with some basics. You are an independent

0:41

researcher who has, through

0:43

some mechanism that you will

0:46

tell me, become

0:49

deeply involved in

0:52

questions surrounding eatrogenic harm,

0:54

that is harm done

0:57

by doctors and

0:59

medicine, and then

1:01

the larger question of

1:03

industrial society and its impact on human

1:05

health. Is that a fair

1:07

summary of your interest? Yeah,

1:11

I, through some medical

1:14

journeys and frustrations with

1:16

my family and some things

1:19

they've gone through, like

1:21

a lot of people finally got to the

1:23

point where I felt like not

1:27

only did the doctors not have answers

1:30

in some cases, their

1:32

recommendations were at

1:35

best misguided and at worst harmful.

1:38

And through that frustration, as is

1:42

the case with any sort of loving

1:44

human being, you start doing

1:46

research. You start looking for answers. And

1:49

me and my wife both got very curious

1:51

and started doing some reading and were,

1:55

I suppose, progressively horrified by what we

1:57

started to find as we went down

1:59

the proverbial

2:02

rabbit hole. And yeah,

2:04

it ended up at

2:06

the point where I became convinced that

2:08

a lot of disease as we now

2:10

describe it was in fact manmade. And

2:14

this is not new to probably many of your

2:16

listeners, but at the time, seven, eight years ago,

2:18

when I first started reading this, I was

2:21

absolutely flummoxed by

2:23

how much of modern

2:25

disease appeared to have manmade

2:27

origins. So that was essentially

2:29

the beginning was frustration in

2:31

our own journey. And

2:33

like a lot of people, it led

2:35

to a lot of answers and

2:38

a lot more questions. But here I am,

2:40

still writing books, still trying to find the answers to

2:42

things, but I think we've got a few. So

2:46

maybe we can talk about those at some point. Yeah,

2:49

so let's just sort of set the

2:52

stage for the conversation here. My viewers

2:55

know, I'm not a journalist, and

2:57

this is not an interview, it's a discussion. I don't

3:00

know how much you know about

3:02

my background, Forrest, but my

3:05

wife and I, Heather, have written a

3:07

book. The title of the book

3:09

is A Hunter Gather's Guide to the 21st

3:11

Century, but there's a part of me that

3:13

wishes that it had been named hyper novelty.

3:17

And the idea

3:19

of hyper novelty is

3:21

that humans, though we are

3:24

the most rapidly evolving species

3:26

that has ever existed on

3:28

this planet, are

3:31

unable to keep pace with the

3:34

rate of technological change. And so

3:36

we are constantly effectively a fish

3:38

out of water. And this

3:40

hyper novel environment in

3:42

which we don't even get to be adults

3:45

in the same world that we were children

3:47

in, is making

3:49

us sick, physically, psychologically,

3:51

socially. So

3:55

I was shocked

3:57

and fascinated when I read

4:00

the first book of yours that I encountered

4:03

to discover that what I thought

4:05

I understood of polio

4:08

was just simply wrong.

4:11

And further, what

4:14

I loved about your book,

4:17

The Moth and the Iron

4:19

Lung, about polio myelitis, is

4:22

that you did not find

4:25

yourself defaulting into a

4:27

simplified alternative story. The

4:30

full complexity of polio is represented there,

4:33

so that the parts of polio that

4:35

we all think we understand

4:38

are better explained by

4:40

the model that you put forward,

4:43

and then your model also explains a good

4:45

many things that are not present in what

4:47

most of us have come to believe about

4:49

it. So this

4:53

is fabulous from my perspective

4:55

in multiple regards. One, you're a true

4:57

dark horse. You're not a professional biologist.

4:59

You're somebody who has been driven

5:02

to research these questions

5:05

for some reasons that are personal and

5:07

some clearly deep

5:10

intellectual fascination with important topics.

5:12

And it has led you

5:15

to models

5:17

that obviously have a high

5:20

degree of predictive power. I've

5:24

got more to say, but I'd love to hear your reaction

5:26

to that so far. Well,

5:28

let me just preface anything I say

5:30

over the next hour, two or three,

5:33

in that the

5:35

things I propose in

5:37

these books, I don't know if they're

5:39

true. I can't be certain of them.

5:42

I wish I could. So

5:45

rather, I mentioned this in the

5:47

Crooked book at the beginning, rather than put a

5:49

giant footnote at the end of every sentence I

5:52

say, I want your listeners to understand I

5:54

think what I say to be true. I

5:57

do. I'm fairly convinced of it, but I

5:59

don't know. until we

6:01

have the technology or

6:03

the faculties of human reason that go

6:05

beyond what's currently possible, we don't

6:08

know for sure. So I'll just

6:10

preface it with, this is my understanding of the

6:13

way things work. I

6:15

think what I'm saying is true, and

6:18

sort of ironically, I hope what I'm

6:20

saying is not true, because unfortunately,

6:23

if what I'm proposing is true,

6:26

then it's horrible, and it's a

6:28

very dark reality that humans are going

6:30

to have to come to terms with at some point. So

6:33

regarding the model – go ahead. Oh, go

6:35

ahead. No. Well, I just wanted

6:37

to say a couple things with regard to that.

6:39

For one thing, dark horse viewers

6:42

and listeners are well

6:44

familiar with the distinction

6:46

between hypothesis and theory, which I

6:48

was happy to see you actually

6:50

covered in your book. You know,

6:56

if I had – I've got the most minor critiques

6:58

of your book. I thought it was excellent. I'm

7:01

talking now about The Moss and the Iron Lung, which

7:03

is the only one that I have finished. I'm still

7:05

involved in reading. Well, let me have it. Give it

7:08

to me. Well,

7:10

no, I was just going to

7:12

suggest that you allude to the

7:14

distinction of hypothesis from theory,

7:18

and I just – you

7:20

know, I

7:22

wished you would lean on it more heavily, because

7:25

what I say is that it actually is

7:28

very important that we

7:31

monitor that distinction and know exactly where we

7:34

are relative to it when we speak, because

7:36

it tells you the rules of engagement. And

7:39

you don't need to footnote anything. Once you've said,

7:41

here is a hypothesis, and then you can say,

7:43

this is why I believe it to be true.

7:46

It has predictive power over these three

7:48

things which aren't predicted by any other

7:51

hypothesis, that sort of thing. So the

7:53

fact that the ancients delivered us a

7:55

tool that tells us exactly at what

7:57

level to – It's

8:00

a pity we've forgotten the distinction, but I

8:02

was glad you used it to some extent. I

8:06

appreciate that. Yeah, so

8:08

with moth in the iron lung and polio,

8:10

polio is sort of, as I've described

8:12

it, the foundational myth or tale, depending

8:14

on whether you believe it or not,

8:25

that undergirds nearly

8:27

all of modern scientific recognition,

8:34

all of modern scientific laud

8:36

and honor that's bestowed upon it. And

8:41

there were often rumors

8:45

of things about polio

8:47

that sounded

8:51

odd to me, that sounded strange. There

8:54

were rumors that the pesticide

8:56

DDT had something to do with

8:58

polio. And? So

9:33

a tiny bit of research with a

9:35

tiny bit of an open mind will

9:37

quickly lead you to the fact that

9:40

that outbreak of polio included animals. So

9:43

anyone who's done cursory research

9:45

on polio will quickly

9:47

relate to you that, wait a minute,

9:49

polio doesn't strike animals. In fact,

9:52

there's only one type of animal on the planet

9:54

you can do meaningful polio research on, and it's a

9:56

monkey. And so – That

10:00

was a not an old

10:03

world monkey. Yeah, and that's

10:05

important because it does

10:07

suggest This would be

10:09

a classic virus That

10:13

was limited phylogenetically It's

10:15

a human virus that can only infect

10:17

something closely related to us like An

10:21

old world monkey that affected new world

10:23

monkeys are too distant that would fit

10:25

with a classic model Go

10:28

ahead. That's right The

10:30

fact that the earliest outbreak of polio

10:33

included so many different types of animals

10:35

among its victims made

10:37

me question Immediately,

10:40

I'm sure Brett you've developed a little sixth

10:42

sense a little spidey sense that goes off

10:44

immediately and says now Wait a minute something

10:46

doesn't add up here The

10:48

first epidemic of polio in the United

10:51

States and animals are being stricken Something

10:53

is going on So

10:55

that was an immediate red flag to me Something

10:59

that that sense that something is

11:01

wrong. In fact, it fits with

11:03

what I believe Isaac Asimov Said

11:07

that the most important phrase

11:09

in science is not aha. It's

11:11

that's funny That's

11:14

and I've never heard that Yeah,

11:16

it's it's it's an important one I

11:18

would also just point out to you just since I

11:20

know where you're headed having read the moth in the

11:22

iron lung a A

11:25

tremendous amount of what the public

11:27

understands about Its

11:30

own viral jeopardy comes

11:33

from a small number of stories. One

11:35

of them is polio One

11:39

of them is the Spanish flu and

11:42

then there's the question of SARS MERS

11:44

and Zika, you know these

11:47

sort of recent outbreaks

11:50

and We reverse

11:53

engineer a great

11:56

deal from the idea that

12:00

We understand the cause

12:02

of poliomyelitis was discovered

12:04

and the truly terrifying

12:09

epidemic was finally brought under

12:11

control by the polio

12:14

vaccine, the Salk vaccine, and

12:18

that polio is now tantalizingly

12:20

close to having been driven

12:22

from the earth because

12:25

of our diligence with that

12:27

mechanism. Likewise, the

12:29

Spanish flu tells us just

12:32

how dangerous an epidemic

12:34

can be and

12:37

therefore how serious our

12:41

behavior relative to something

12:43

that is beginning to spread might be and SARS

12:45

and MERS tell us something about how likely a

12:48

virus is to jump from

12:50

a zoonotic source to people leading,

12:55

you know, Tedros, the UN head to tell

12:58

us it's not a matter of if but when the next

13:01

terrifying pandemic is

13:03

going to leap

13:06

to humans. And I think

13:09

it's perfectly fair if you if you did

13:12

if you use deductive logic and you take

13:14

those cases to be your your

13:17

assumptions that these cases are

13:19

what we've come to understand

13:21

them to be, then

13:23

you can extrapolate a lot about

13:25

how likely a deadly pandemic is

13:27

to spread what the

13:29

best tactics are likely to be

13:32

for preventing harm to humans, etc.

13:35

But if those stories aren't what

13:37

we think they are, everything about

13:39

that picture changes. And so this

13:43

is why, you

13:46

know, in a moment where polio might

13:49

arguably be close to elimination, we

13:51

should be very focused on

13:53

that story because it's not just

13:55

about the danger of getting

13:57

polio, it's about what

14:00

the actual implications of the polio

14:02

story might be. And I

14:05

don't think they are what I was taught in school. Yeah,

14:10

whether my hypothesis is true or not, we can

14:12

all, I think, safely agree that the story we

14:14

were taught is at least

14:16

wrong. Again, if not worse,

14:20

horribly, horribly misguided and in such

14:22

a way that it's called the

14:24

suffering of probably millions more than

14:26

it otherwise would have. Had

14:28

us humans been able to have had some candor,

14:31

some humility and transparency

14:33

along the way, I

14:35

mentioned in a conversation we had that

14:38

I approach these things historically

14:40

more than scientifically. And one

14:43

of the reasons, a historical overview of

14:45

things like this is useful and

14:47

in such a way that perhaps COVID can't be

14:49

yet because we don't sort of have the history

14:51

of COVID. The

14:54

lore around medicine, particularly vaccines,

14:59

had not reached a fever pitch.

15:02

Even in the 50s and 60s, when

15:04

the polio vaccines started to come out

15:06

and then others at once were added

15:09

such as measles and mumps, it hadn't

15:11

reached the savior complex

15:13

level of lore within

15:16

science. And so when

15:18

you read about it, you feel that

15:20

you're getting an honest look into

15:22

what was actually going on. So if

15:25

I may, polio, just

15:28

so your listeners sort of

15:30

understand the story, polio follows

15:32

the life cycle of a

15:34

lot of disease in that,

15:37

and when I say life cycle, I don't mean microbial

15:39

life cycle, I mean epidemiological

15:41

life cycle, in that a

15:45

pattern is noticed, they're

15:47

suffering, let's say, a pattern is

15:49

noticed and the

15:53

description of said disease begins to

15:55

form. Other

15:57

patterns may begin and perhaps.

16:00

the disease explanation gets a

16:02

little wider. Now,

16:04

as scientific research begins

16:06

to form, descriptions

16:08

of the disease actually get narrower,

16:11

and the focus on things

16:13

gets narrower so that the

16:16

nomenclature grows like a

16:18

tree and it starts to get more specific.

16:22

When you do historical research on

16:24

any sort of scientific inquiry, you

16:26

need to keep in mind that

16:29

as you go back further in time, you're

16:31

likely to come

16:35

across more generic descriptions of things.

16:37

Because when we say polio today,

16:39

when you or I mention that

16:41

word, we instinctively think of paralysis

16:45

caused by the polio virus.

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20:41

And if you trace the history of that word

20:43

all the way back to the beginning that there's

20:45

all the way down the tree at the

20:47

very beginning polio myelitis was a symptom it

20:50

was purely describing inflammation of the

20:52

gray matter the spinal cord and

20:55

you literally would see people use it as like

20:57

I mentioned the book you have

20:59

a headache or they might

21:01

say you have a polio myelitis which is you

21:03

have a lesion in your spinal cord and that's

21:05

why you were experiencing paralysis. So

21:08

it's important to understand as

21:11

we speak about polio keep

21:13

in mind the clock on the

21:15

side of the screen the year because

21:17

as you go back in time it didn't

21:19

mean what you and I think

21:22

of it as. So the

21:25

reality of polio is it's

21:28

really a description of

21:30

paralysis neuronal or paralysis

21:33

of the the neurons that

21:35

cause weakness in your muscles and

21:38

we don't know why you

21:41

and I think of it as oh the

21:43

poliovirus caused it the reality as we'll see

21:45

if we continue this discussion far enough is

21:47

there were many many different things that could

21:49

cause this most of

21:51

which can be attributed to a man-made

21:53

change that happened it's easy to

21:56

document. Is

22:00

a classic example and in fact all of

22:03

your work that I've encountered so far Falls

22:06

under the heading of what we say welcome

22:08

to complex systems and

22:11

we have discussed

22:13

extensively on dark horse the

22:16

fact that those who would apply

22:19

the rules of complicated systems

22:21

to complex systems create

22:24

hazard after hazard that

22:27

complex systems have

22:29

a Distinct

22:31

toolkit for engaging them and what you're saying

22:33

is a perfect example We

22:36

have something Phenomenological

22:39

you've got inflammation of the gray

22:41

matter of the spine that is

22:44

associated with paralysis That's

22:47

an observation It

22:49

would be strange if only one thing caused

22:51

that Inflammation is a very general

22:54

condition and the fact that the inflammation can

22:56

lead to paralysis Suggest there ought to

22:58

be at least a short list of

23:00

things that could cause this and the idea that

23:03

Poliomyelitis is the

23:05

observation of that inflammation which we

23:07

understand from you can only

23:09

be positively IDed

23:11

after That

23:14

you need to actually Look

23:16

at the spine across section. Is that right? Well,

23:20

yeah, it's the only way you could Trust

23:22

the usual origin of what the inflammation is

23:25

coming from right But

23:28

the idea that okay you what you

23:30

would expect a number of things to

23:33

be able to cause what was once

23:35

upon a time Called poliomyelitis, but that

23:37

a historical process has caused Scientists

23:40

and doctors to

23:43

hone in on a cause which

23:45

already is suspect and then to

23:47

shorten the name as if the

23:50

polio virus is synonymous with

23:52

the inflammation that causes the

23:55

paralysis and One

23:59

of the great strengths. In severe book

24:01

is that. It's. Not that

24:03

the polio virus. Doesn't

24:05

exist or isn't involved. Because.

24:08

Involved in a much

24:10

more complex story. And

24:12

that story explains what

24:14

matter what dad medical

24:17

professionals am, it explains

24:19

their error. As. Well

24:21

as the phenomenology of the disease.

24:23

It's. Yeah.

24:26

That was. You know this

24:28

thing called coax Postulates which is essentially

24:30

the. I. Would say at

24:32

the time of a fairly. Right.

24:35

A good step in the right

24:38

direction is to assume that infection.

24:40

You. Know had one source that there was

24:42

one source of of disease. if we

24:45

could find it, And. Injected

24:47

into a nother healthy specimen and confirmed

24:49

that it it affected that specimen in

24:51

the same way than we had isolated

24:54

the cause. Of the disease. That.

24:56

Shirt Make sense Probably has either advance

24:58

the cause of science quite a bit.

25:01

And I'm that we as a

25:04

know if it's his advanced it

25:06

in a way, but it's a

25:08

classic example of a rule from

25:10

complicated system supplied to complex system.

25:12

See the idea that yes. Ah,

25:15

this virus and this disease are

25:17

really related. That nobody who's got

25:19

the virus should have failed to

25:21

have the disease. And nobody's got

25:23

the disease and failed to have

25:25

the virus. Now that's just simply

25:27

not going to be true. So

25:29

that the. Has. It done

25:31

some good. Probably. Has done

25:34

more good than harm. That.

25:36

Is a much more difficult question? Yeah. Yeah.

25:39

we'll keep in mind the the state

25:41

of things in which it was born

25:43

from it at the time you might

25:45

consider it an advance given the insane

25:48

medical theories that were circulating at the

25:50

types of yes you're absolutely right it's

25:52

not great but it was an improvement

25:54

on on some things that the time

25:56

and did advance the cause of microbiology

25:59

of sides and in

26:01

some way. But

26:03

unfortunately, the when

26:05

I say polio without me having to air quote it every

26:07

time, I speak

26:09

of polio generically in the

26:13

context of paralysis

26:16

from something. And

26:18

unfortunately, they focused

26:21

on a single virus

26:23

as the cause, even

26:25

when they knew there were multiple viruses,

26:29

bacteria and other environmental factors that

26:31

could cause nearly the same thing.

26:34

So as

26:36

I was mentioning

26:38

going back to the

26:40

original. That's

26:43

funny. Discovery

26:46

was 1894. Rutland, Vermont, go

26:51

to any website and they'll tell you that was the original

26:55

polio outbreak in the United

26:57

States. Horses died, dogs died,

26:59

chickens died. Okay. Strange. Why

27:02

did that happen? Well, you know,

27:04

beyond, beyond,

27:06

sorry, I don't mean to interrupt

27:08

you, but beyond strange because the

27:11

there's a this is exactly

27:14

why it's so important to think

27:16

in terms of complex systems. A

27:18

virus is going to have difficulty.

27:22

Infecting the ability to

27:24

infect one creature effectively comes at the

27:27

cost of infecting other

27:29

creatures. So they tend to be specific.

27:31

The idea that this virus emerges out

27:33

of nowhere and is capable

27:36

of infecting and

27:39

apparently spreading between animals

27:41

from many different clades is

27:44

suspect on its face

27:47

and suggests a different kind of

27:49

cause. And so if you're

27:53

looking at this from a complicated

27:56

Systems perspective, you say? well, okay,

27:58

virus has spread between animals. creatures.

28:00

These are creatures. they're all you

28:02

know. I'm vertebrate as it. Rights.

28:07

And so anyway, you can talk

28:09

yourself into believing that yes, this

28:11

mandate. Okay, the viruses just very

28:14

capable of spreading between these these

28:16

many creatures. But the places where

28:18

viruses spread between many creatures, there's

28:21

a story to be discovered evolutionarily

28:23

enough. For example, I'm. Oh.

28:27

Viruses. That spread between. Humans.

28:31

And domesticated animals. Obviously, there's

28:33

an advantage to being able

28:36

to hop that particular gaps.

28:38

Something that is capable of

28:40

speaking swine and human am

28:42

has an advantage. Birds have

28:44

a disproportionate capacity to distribute

28:46

something across barriers because they

28:48

fly. So anyway, there's always

28:51

an evolutionary story. In this

28:53

case, a disease comes out

28:55

of nowhere. Shortly after

28:57

the Civil War and

29:00

is spreading. Sort

29:02

of incoherently between many different

29:04

species that that's a that's

29:06

a mega that's funny. It

29:10

is A Is this actually the same? That's

29:12

funny, that Smallpox? As if you've ever read

29:14

anything about smallpox, you know, a disease that

29:16

seems to, In fact, A cow

29:18

maids three scratches on their hand from

29:20

milking cows and and the. Vaccine.

29:24

Which is really an inoculation. It's not a

29:26

true vaccine In the modern understanding of it

29:28

though, it was, didn't arrive. In

29:31

a way of a a animal

29:33

specific. An infection that

29:35

could somehow grant humans to a.

29:38

To immunity it's a. It's.

29:41

a strange strange story you should

29:43

definitely say that's funny if you

29:45

start reading very much about the

29:47

smallpox are now for yeah you're

29:49

not going to mess up my

29:51

understanding of smallpox i'm sorry i

29:53

that's that's number three in the

29:55

hopper i am working out please

29:57

please please leave that one intact

30:00

Okay, well, we will we will leave

30:02

that one alone. Your your,

30:04

you know, epidemiological history of the world

30:06

is is safe. So

30:09

back to the matter at hand Rutland, Vermont,

30:11

1894 animals horses, they

30:14

even sent these animals mind you to

30:16

forensics where they would do cross sections

30:18

of their spinal cords and they confirmed

30:20

hey, polio myelitis, they called

30:23

it because remember, this is

30:26

130, 40 years ago, and they

30:28

said what they saw, which is gray

30:30

lesions of the spinal cord. So they

30:33

called it polio myelitis. They

30:35

were being truthful, they were being accurate, according to

30:37

the definition of the term at the time. So

30:40

with a minor bit of curiosity, such

30:43

as I had, I started going through

30:45

what was the most prevalent medical

30:47

journal at the time, which is the Boston Medical

30:50

Journal. At that time, Boston was

30:52

the epicenter of all science and medicine in

30:54

the world. It had been Paris for quite

30:56

a while, and it was slowly moving to

30:58

Boston. They have an

31:01

incredible history

31:04

of documenting science and

31:06

medical progress in the

31:08

in that journal, you can get it online for free.

31:11

So what is a curious person like me

31:13

to do, I start reading through it saying

31:15

odd, what did they have to say about

31:17

this outbreak? They didn't

31:19

know that polio only infected animals at the

31:22

time. They were years, they were decades away

31:24

from understanding that. So

31:26

in my research, I discovered that there

31:28

was an outbreak the year earlier, something

31:31

that I had never seen covered before.

31:33

It was a tiny article that mentioned,

31:36

I think 24, 25, 26 people had, I

31:40

can't remember if they had died or had become

31:43

infected. And it was interesting in that it was

31:45

a year earlier, I had never heard of it.

31:48

And it was fairly in

31:51

the same region of the country, it was

31:53

just outside of Boston, which Vermont's fairly

31:55

close. So that was enough

31:58

of a vast that's funny and

32:01

then oh, that's really funny that

32:03

made me start thinking, wait

32:05

a minute, something's going on here perhaps

32:08

regionally at this time that

32:11

may have had

32:13

some impact on

32:16

what they were calling the first epidemic

32:18

of polio. So with

32:20

the DDT story hanging over my

32:22

head, which at the time I

32:24

thought was pure folly, I laughed

32:26

at people who said that DDT had something

32:28

to do with polio. With

32:31

that in mind, I said, okay, let's pretend

32:34

maybe there's some truth to it. And I started

32:36

researching DDT and discovered

32:38

it wasn't put into civilian

32:41

use until after World War II. It had been

32:43

invented decades earlier but was

32:45

never discovered to really have the

32:47

incredible pesticide

32:51

use case that it did, and it

32:53

really was first used in World War II

32:56

at scale. So hold on

32:58

a second. DDT, even

33:01

if we back it up to its

33:03

invention rather than it being

33:06

deployed in a civilian

33:08

context, it's still way

33:10

too late to account for the

33:13

earliest outbreaks of polio myelitis,

33:15

right? Correct. Nowhere near.

33:17

It doesn't make sense at all. If

33:21

DDT is the cause of polio, it

33:23

doesn't make sense. There's no way

33:25

because we clearly, clearly had a

33:28

problem decades earlier, 50

33:30

years earlier. It made

33:32

no sense at all. But as

33:35

I mentioned, I said, okay, if

33:37

there is some truth to this, perhaps

33:41

there was some other environmental

33:43

agent that was introduced into that

33:45

area at the time that perhaps

33:47

had some effect. So

33:51

that's actually the story of the

33:53

entire book, is me researching

33:56

a profound invention.

34:01

which is never told. We

34:03

don't know the story of

34:05

this, and I'm trying to keep your viewers

34:07

in suspense. And

34:11

it was something that was so profoundly

34:15

shocking to me that I had never heard this

34:17

story, and the correlation

34:21

of space and time

34:23

was so intense. I

34:27

just couldn't believe no one had ever

34:29

stumbled across this story, and

34:32

that's sort of the excitement with which I wrote the

34:34

book. Yeah, so

34:36

I can sort of cut to the

34:38

chase here if you like. Yeah,

34:41

let's put it this way. The book is

34:43

so well done. I don't think it really

34:46

removes – there is a spoiler here, and

34:48

I guess for those who want

34:50

to do it, maybe they should put this

34:52

on pause. Go read your book, and

34:54

then come back and hit play.

34:57

But I think we're going to end up having to

34:59

get into this for those who

35:02

are willing to accept the spoiler so

35:05

that you have some idea why

35:07

this is a compelling

35:09

hypothesis. Again, I'm not

35:11

saying it's true either, but the question is, in

35:15

light of the mainstream hypothesis

35:17

and your competing hypothesis, which

35:20

explains more and assumes less.

35:22

That's the scientific question. And

35:25

so anyway, yeah, you want to forge ahead

35:28

here? Sure. Yeah, the only

35:30

reason there – you even mentioned spoiler alert

35:32

is because the book is written in

35:35

a way. There is a narrative to it. There

35:38

is a story there that hopefully people find

35:40

entertaining while also being informative.

35:43

But I discovered

35:45

that in New England,

35:47

at that very time, there was an

35:50

invasive species of moth that had begun

35:53

destroying nearly every

35:55

flora and fauna across

35:58

the region. It's called the

36:00

Gypsy Moth. And it

36:03

was an incredible, horrible

36:06

event. If you've

36:08

ever seen pictures of it, and

36:11

maybe I'll send you a couple of pictures you can put up on

36:13

your screen for those who are watching, of

36:15

the devastation this insect caused. I

36:17

mean, it was mind

36:19

blowing. It looks apocalyptic to

36:21

see these enormous heirloom, 150

36:24

year old trees being absolutely destroyed by

36:28

this creature. Completely denuded.

36:31

Yes, exactly. Completely

36:33

denuded. And I don't know if you're gonna

36:35

tell this part of the story, but I

36:38

don't wanna miss the fact that if

36:42

we zoom out from the

36:44

eatrogenic harm, Dr. Koss' harm,

36:46

and we zoom even past

36:49

industrial society, there's

36:52

a question about just human

36:54

error and the

36:58

story of the gypsy moth is

37:02

also in this very list. This is

37:04

not the usual story of an invasive

37:06

species where we don't know who,

37:09

you know, what sack of whatever it,

37:12

you know, rode in on. And

37:14

all we know is the rough date at

37:16

which people first noticed that it exists somewhere.

37:18

You've got this story historically

37:20

nailed to a fairly well. You wanna describe

37:22

where the gypsy moth came from? Yeah,

37:25

as you mentioned, it's not typical that

37:28

an invasive species such as kudzu or

37:30

something can be traced to a single

37:32

person on a single trip. For

37:35

whatever reason, a

37:38

Frenchman who had moved to the United States in

37:41

hopes of a better life had begun

37:44

to cultivate more hardy

37:47

caterpillars because the

37:49

silk producing caterpillars were prone to disease, the

37:51

domesticated ones that all silk is created from.

37:53

And so he was

37:55

studying them and crossbreeding them and trying different

37:57

varieties. And at the time, I suppose... the

38:00

danger of invasive species was poorly

38:02

understood. And he brought

38:04

a boatload of different insects

38:07

over in his attempt to try and breed

38:09

a more hardy version of something

38:11

that could produce silk. So

38:13

just to connect this up, one, we've

38:15

got the civil war, which interrupts the

38:18

flow of cotton from the South. So

38:21

there was desire for a hardy silk

38:23

moth caterpillar

38:25

was greater because the value of

38:28

silk was greater since its competing

38:30

product wasn't widely available. The

38:33

knowledge of the hazard

38:35

of invasive species was not well-developed

38:37

at the time. And

38:40

the folly of attempting

38:42

to crossbreed distantly related

38:45

moths was not evident

38:47

yet because the

38:50

understanding of what would make

38:52

crossbreeding likely to work was

38:55

not well understood either. So

38:57

these are all instances of,

39:01

there's the historical connection to cotton and

39:03

the civil war, which just grounds the

39:05

story so beautifully in history, but

39:08

also the crudeness of our

39:10

biological understanding resulting

39:14

in an error that has

39:17

effectively permanent

39:19

ecological implications and much beyond as

39:21

your book explores. So yeah,

39:24

pick up the story of what

39:26

happened to that Frenchman's gypsy moths.

39:28

Yeah, I'm waiting

39:30

for all first-year

39:32

students who intend on

39:34

studying science to be given a plaque that

39:38

says what could possibly go wrong and

39:40

to make them hang it in every

39:43

lab, every classroom they teach in every

39:45

lab, they conduct experiments in, they need

39:47

to be reminded that humans are,

39:49

in fact, very powerful. They

39:52

do have the ability to affect things

39:55

in a way that they

39:57

don't understand. And we have

39:59

the power. to screw things up at a

40:01

level we cannot appreciate our ability to make

40:03

them better. You know, we're pretty good at

40:06

it as species go, but wow, does it

40:08

lag behind our ability to mess up something

40:10

that works. Yeah. The

40:13

law of unintended consequences has, has yet

40:15

to lose a single battle. Unfortunately, um,

40:18

I worry about that with antibiotics. I

40:20

I'm very concerned that antibiotics, um,

40:23

are, will one day we will have been

40:25

proven to have been wrong to ever use

40:27

them in the first place, uh, due to

40:29

really creation, um, you know, due

40:32

to intracellular bacteria and other things that

40:34

we may cause and, and there are

40:36

no more bacteria, no more antibiotics left

40:38

that may control them now. Currently from

40:40

our current perspective, they appear to be

40:42

a win-win. I'm concerned one

40:44

day, um, evolutionary speaking

40:47

from a micro microbial perspective,

40:49

we may in fact be

40:51

setting the setting the grounds

40:53

for a superbug that can't be

40:55

controlled. Well, I don't know that. Yeah.

40:59

I appreciate that you're saying this, you know,

41:01

you're being very careful. You're saying what, you

41:04

know, and what you suspect and that's, that's

41:06

exactly how it should be done, but I

41:08

do think it makes sense. Um,

41:12

I should just tell you in the book that Heather and I

41:15

wrote in the hunter gatherers guide to

41:17

the 21st century, we said that the

41:19

three greatest, uh, medical

41:23

advancements in human history

41:25

were vaccines,

41:28

antibiotics, and surgery. We

41:31

wrote that before COVID, which has

41:34

caused us to rethink

41:37

the vaccine question. Sure.

41:40

Um, we are also and

41:42

have been very skeptical of the way

41:45

antibiotics are used. Um,

41:49

and so far, um, my

41:52

illusions are intact with respect to surgery, but let me just

41:54

say, and you, I want you to put your position on

41:56

the table here too. My

42:00

position is in the end we

42:02

are very likely to discover that

42:06

vaccines have a place, but

42:08

that the technology

42:10

by which they are produced is

42:13

very important and we've made wrong

42:15

turns. Adjuvants

42:17

in particular are a devastating

42:19

error in vaccine technology history.

42:21

We've also made an error

42:25

thinking that we should be vaccinating

42:27

against any disease

42:29

for which we can come up with

42:31

a useful inoculation. And we've also had

42:34

our mechanisms for testing safety

42:36

and effectiveness gained by people with a

42:38

perverse incentive because they're

42:40

making money. My guess

42:42

would be where we ultimately get if

42:45

humanity survives long enough to figure out

42:47

what we've actually done to ourselves, we

42:49

will discover that antibiotics and

42:52

vaccines are a

42:55

precious technology that must

42:57

be deployed very

42:59

carefully for benefit to

43:02

exceed harm and

43:04

that the willy-nilly use of antibiotics

43:06

and vaccines has created

43:09

huge self-inflicted wounds over

43:12

numerous generations and

43:16

will be recorded as a great error of medicine.

43:20

Well, I would respond

43:22

by saying don't

43:25

read any more of my books. Enjoy

43:27

your life. You've got a

43:30

great life. You're a happy guy. You're a smart

43:32

guy. Your vision of

43:34

the world is very, very good and very

43:36

rosy compared to mine. And I would say

43:38

just enjoy yourself. Don't read anymore. It's

43:41

not like that for us. And I have a

43:43

feeling based on your, first of all, I want

43:45

to know what's true. And the

43:47

reason I want to know what's true is

43:50

because it allows me, I can't do anything

43:52

about the harm I've done to myself or

43:54

my family already, but I can certainly

43:56

reduce harm going forward the better I

43:59

understand things. as there

44:01

is a part of me that does

44:03

not want my bubbles burst. If

44:06

they need to be burst because

44:08

they're incorrect, that's where I am

44:10

obligated to go and where I

44:12

ultimately know I will be better

44:16

for having done it. But

44:18

I should also point out, you probably don't know

44:20

my history

44:23

with telomeres,

44:25

senescence, and cancer. Is that

44:27

a story that has not crossed your path? I apologize.

44:30

No, there's nothing to apologize for you. There's no reason

44:32

you should know it. But

44:35

when I was a graduate student, I

44:37

was chasing down an evolutionary hypothesis

44:39

about why we grow feeble and

44:42

inefficient with age. And I was

44:44

doing this. I had no eye

44:46

on medicine or treatment or reversing aging or

44:49

anything like that. I was just interested in

44:51

the evolutionary puzzle. And

44:54

I ran up against an

44:56

obstacle to my research. There was something that

44:58

just didn't add up. And

45:01

it was something that I knew if I could figure

45:04

out what was wrong with what I knew, that

45:06

I could get all the way to an important

45:08

answer. And so

45:11

anyway, I spent a lot of time working on it. What

45:13

it ultimately turned out to be was

45:15

that the mice that we use for

45:18

model organisms in laboratories, including

45:20

for drug safety testing, had

45:24

evolved in captivity in

45:27

response to conditions

45:30

in the breeding colony. Now,

45:33

this is where that much we can say.

45:36

I was able, with the help

45:39

of a, now I

45:41

understand, terrible colleague, to

45:44

establish that wild mice do not have

45:46

long telomeres, even though science had decided

45:48

that all mice have long telomeres, telomeres

45:50

being the genetic sequences, the repetitive genetic

45:52

sequences at the ends of chromosomes, which

45:56

appear to control how many times a cell can

45:59

divide before it stops. So

46:01

obviously, it has a relation potentially

46:03

to why

46:06

we grow inefficient with age. If your cells

46:08

can't divide anymore, they can't repair damage and

46:11

maintain the body. But

46:13

in any case, in captivity, mice

46:16

had evolved

46:18

ultra-long telomeres. That

46:21

part is now certain. The

46:24

hypothesis that I advanced, which is

46:26

actually now the only hypothesis left

46:29

standing, so the probable explanation for

46:31

that has to do with the

46:33

breeding cutoff, that for economic reasons,

46:35

in order to produce laboratory mice

46:37

at the most

46:41

economically efficient rate, you

46:44

only breed animals up until something

46:46

like eight or nine months, and then you throw them

46:49

out and replace them with young mice because young mice

46:51

breed faster. That

46:53

caused the elongation of the telomeres. And

46:56

the elongation of the telomeres looks poised

47:00

to allow these animals to

47:02

repair any damage that

47:05

does not outright kill them at

47:08

the cost of making them incredibly prone

47:10

to cancer. I see. Interesting.

47:13

Now, I think, I have no way of knowing what

47:15

actually goes on inside a pharma. I

47:17

think pharma did not know that the mice

47:19

were rigged in a way that would make

47:21

toxic things look safe when I

47:25

discovered the elongation

47:27

of the telomeres as

47:29

a consequence of evolution in the breeding colonies. But

47:32

once I did publish that result,

47:34

I believe they understood that actually

47:36

their profits were dependent on maintaining

47:38

those broken mice. And

47:41

we have seen numerous drugs, Viox,

47:45

Eldane, Fenfen, erythromycin, all

47:47

the NSAIDs that

47:49

do, quote-unquote, heart damage. I

47:52

don't think it is heart damage. I think it's

47:54

body-wide damage that we notice in the heart because

47:56

the heart is a special organ. But

48:00

in any case, believe

48:02

me, I'm under no illusions about the

48:05

goodness of medical research

48:07

or the publicly

48:12

minded nature of

48:14

our policies. I know that 20 years

48:17

after I figured out that

48:19

the breeding colonies had

48:21

resulted in the elongation of mouse telomeres,

48:24

there is no official record that

48:26

we fixed anything. So presumably the

48:28

mice are still broken. Anyway,

48:30

so that's where I'm coming from. I'm actually interested

48:32

to hear more about that if I

48:35

can locate it somehow. In that, I

48:38

know that scientific studies

48:40

often are rigged ahead

48:42

of time in that if you want to

48:44

maximize the effect, you use mice. If you

48:47

want to minimize the effect, you use primates.

48:49

And there's all sorts of tricks you

48:52

can use to game the system

48:54

to get an outcome that your

48:56

donors and granters are

48:59

going to be happy with. And unfortunately,

49:01

human beings are not the rational creatures we

49:03

think ourselves to be. We are as prone

49:05

to putting our thumb on the

49:07

scale as anyone else. And

49:10

that has served the

49:12

cause of humanity very poorly. In

49:15

this, you know, complete faith

49:17

that humans are completely rational and are

49:19

not prone to bias

49:21

and exaggeration and your grant money coming

49:23

in and your PhD being reviewed favorably.

49:25

I would

49:28

say it a little differently. I would

49:30

say we are rational

49:35

pending a definition of rational. But

49:37

the problem is we have competing

49:39

interests. So if

49:42

you want science to work, your

49:45

interests, you can't

49:47

have a financial interest in

49:49

finding x if

49:51

ultimately it will turn out that y

49:54

is the right answer, right? But

49:56

what we have now is a system in which

50:00

all of the proxies that should flow to

50:02

those who have the most

50:05

far-sighted view of scientific

50:07

phenomena, those proxies are

50:10

all broken. And so we've got

50:12

lots of people making careers misleading

50:14

us in ways they may not

50:16

think of it in that way, but as you point

50:18

out, it's very easy to rig a study. You

50:21

could do that intentionally,

50:24

and some do. You could

50:27

do it inadvertently, and you could do

50:29

it structurally. The system could be built.

50:31

Like I said, many of the people

50:34

who use mice that are

50:37

broken such that they will make toxic drugs

50:39

look safe presumably don't

50:41

know that they are using

50:44

rigged animals. They

50:47

just do it. And the point is the

50:50

whole system is built to spit out answers

50:52

that are financially

50:55

useful, not medically.

50:59

So oddly, you and

51:01

I have – and I desperately

51:04

hope that you've reached a conclusion

51:06

that is a bit too strong,

51:10

but you and I have

51:12

both found jaw-dropping failures of

51:17

scientific inquiry that have led,

51:19

I believe, to

51:21

substantial human harm about which

51:23

we are unwilling to go

51:28

back and look. Yeah.

51:32

The question that you posed to me

51:35

about whether antibiotics are, in fact, on

51:37

the whole – will they be in the positive

51:39

column or the negative column for humanity? Obviously, you

51:41

can't answer that for a long time. My

51:45

overarching belief is that nothing

51:47

is free. There is

51:49

nothing in nature that is free. Everything

51:52

has a cost. We

51:54

may hide the cost. We may

51:56

delay the cost. We may disperse

51:58

the cost. in such a way it's spread out

52:01

over a bigger population and we don't

52:03

notice the effects as much. But

52:05

regardless, the entropy of nature will always win

52:07

in such a way that there is a

52:09

cost, you may not be able to see

52:11

it, but it's there. So

52:14

with antibiotics, I've yet to

52:16

find any technical or scientific

52:18

invention that has been able

52:20

to break that rule.

52:23

And with antibiotics, my fear is

52:25

that it's a chronological delay that

52:28

we may one day pay the price.

52:30

It has certainly been a benefit for

52:32

us now, no question about it. 50

52:35

years from now, we will see. I hope that it

52:37

holds up. Well, but you

52:39

have to ask that question in two different ways.

52:43

Obviously, we are behaving very stupidly

52:45

with antibiotics. Right,

52:47

we're using, we're giving them to animals that

52:49

aren't sick in order to slightly increase the

52:51

rate at which they put

52:54

on mass prior

52:56

to slaughter. That's

52:58

an insane waste of a

53:00

precious technology. On the

53:03

other hand, you

53:05

don't die from gangrene. And

53:09

so the question is, let's say that the

53:12

only thing we did with antibiotics

53:15

was make surgery, make

53:23

it tolerably risky by

53:26

hedging out the risk of

53:29

a serious runaway infection. Would

53:34

that have, would it have negative consequences? I have

53:36

no doubt that it does. In fact, the other

53:38

thing you probably don't know about me is that

53:40

my dissertation was on

53:43

the logic of trade-offs, which

53:45

I'm, my claim is every

53:47

biological paradox, things

53:49

that we can't resolve, gets

53:52

resolved once you realize that not only

53:54

are trade-offs ubiquitous, but that there are

53:56

rules that govern them and you can

53:58

begin to understand. Why the

54:01

particular trade-offs that you see function the

54:03

way they do, for example, why would

54:05

you expect a, you

54:08

know, a highly contagious virus

54:11

not to be able to infect

54:14

numerous different species? Right.

54:17

That's a trade-off and there are rules that govern

54:19

them. So anyway, I agree with you. There's a

54:21

cost to be paid for antibiotics and anybody who

54:23

thinks there isn't is kidding themselves. And

54:25

that is, if they were

54:27

used with wisdom, would that

54:29

cost exceed the benefit? And that's

54:31

where I guess you and I

54:33

differ. I suspect that

54:36

wise use of antibiotics would

54:38

leave them well in the positive

54:40

column. Will the

54:42

abuse of antibiotics the way we abuse them

54:45

now result in a net negative? Yeah, probably.

54:48

Mm-hmm. Yeah, it's

54:52

going to be interesting to see how it plays out. But

54:56

surgery for sure, to me,

54:58

the mechanics of surgery of

55:01

fixing people's car engines and

55:03

all of that, certainly, I would easily

55:06

place that in the clear winner category.

55:08

We have benefited from surgeons and surgery

55:10

and improvements in that, no doubt about

55:12

it. Yeah, but we also

55:15

see the same pattern. Sorry, again, I don't mean

55:17

to interrupt you, but we also find the same

55:19

pattern. A precious technology,

55:22

the ability to straighten

55:25

a bone that's been horrifyingly broken

55:27

and won't restore

55:30

itself. Right. The

55:32

ability to cut a tumor out

55:35

of you that would otherwise crowd out a vital

55:37

organ. These are obviously

55:39

highly valuable. On the other hand, some

55:42

of what has to be corrected

55:45

is also the result of harm

55:48

that industrial civilization is doing

55:50

to us. And

55:52

we see the absolute abuse of

55:54

this technology in ways that are

55:56

purely harmful. For

56:00

example, what do you mean, for example? Well,

56:04

I would say, you know, let's just take,

56:06

you know, the low bar. The

56:11

surgical destruction of

56:14

the functional reproductive

56:16

anatomy of a

56:18

child. I

56:21

would say that that is, you

56:24

know, a despicable crime

56:26

against humanity, you

56:29

know, and the fact that the person doing it,

56:31

or one of the people involved, is a surgeon,

56:34

doesn't, makes it worse in my book

56:36

rather than better. So

56:39

anyway, we see the abuse of surgery the same

56:41

way we see the abuse of antibiotics and

56:44

vaccines. And, you know, I think

56:46

your framing of the question is

56:49

right. What is, in the

56:51

end, will more good have been done by this

56:53

technology than harm? And I would

56:56

just add the question, were we wise

56:59

about these things? Would the

57:01

net value be positive

57:04

in the end? Yeah, I hope so.

57:08

Yeah, in the same way

57:10

I question antibiotics, I certainly question vaccines, whether

57:12

the net result is, is it possible? The

57:15

net result is a benefit to humanity. I

57:17

happen to have fallen on the negative

57:19

side, but I'm happy

57:22

and certainly willing to admit that I'm wrong.

57:24

I mean, this is something I talk about

57:26

all the time, is humble curiosity. I wish

57:28

everyone approached the world with curiosity

57:30

in that they want to understand how

57:32

things work and, at the same time,

57:35

bring humility with you to admit – to

57:37

be perfectly willing to admit you may have been wrong about something.

57:41

So if everyone approached science

57:43

and everything beyond with that mindset, I think

57:45

we'd be a whole lot better off.

57:48

But regardless, back to the polio story,

57:50

the initial realization

57:53

that the gypsy moth

57:55

had been released by

57:57

this Frenchman didn't do

57:59

anything. It didn't concern him

58:01

greatly because, like

58:03

I said, the nature of invasive species weren't

58:05

truly or fully understood. It

58:08

did concern him evidently. There was

58:10

concern. He left the house

58:13

that he was living in, and

58:15

within a few years, throngs of

58:17

these creatures started to appear. And

58:20

because of, from what we understand,

58:23

the prickly nature of their backs,

58:25

the birds, the local birds, weren't

58:28

properly designed or evolved to

58:31

consume them. So they thrived, and they

58:33

grew to millions and millions and millions

58:35

and began to decimate the northeastern countryside.

58:39

The only pesticide they had available to them

58:41

to use at the time was something called

58:43

Paris Green, which was, strangely

58:46

enough, actually a dye used

58:48

to color wallpaper and children's

58:51

toys. But

58:53

it was also known to kill animals,

58:56

such was its toxicity, and they used it,

58:58

and it didn't work. It just essentially had

59:00

no effect. So

59:02

a giant search was launched

59:04

in an attempt to figure out some

59:06

way to stem the tide of

59:09

the gypsy moth, which was essentially destroying

59:11

the entire northeast of the United States.

59:14

And that's when they

59:16

happened to cross a new pesticide, which

59:19

they called lead arsenate, which was essentially

59:21

the combination of lead and arsenic together.

59:25

The two of them, when mixed properly, it

59:27

was extremely viscous, and it wouldn't

59:29

wash off of things like Paris

59:31

Greenwood. Now, at that time, most

59:34

people didn't use pesticides at all.

59:36

It just wasn't popular enough to

59:38

use. Because the gypsy

59:40

moth was so prevalent and was

59:42

decimating the countryside, there were massive

59:44

campaigns to essentially

59:47

coat every living surface with

59:49

this pesticide. They didn't

59:51

realize its toxicity, but

59:54

it became apparent very quickly because

59:57

the very year, the summer

59:59

after the break, pesticide was invented was the

1:00:01

summer that first giant

1:00:04

outbreak of poliomyelitis was discovered

1:00:06

in Boston, a

1:00:09

coincidence of time and space that I just

1:00:11

found too impossible,

1:00:13

too strange to

1:00:17

ignore. And that's really when I thought,

1:00:19

aha, maybe there's a connection here. Maybe

1:00:22

there was another pesticide which had

1:00:24

something to do with the polio

1:00:26

epidemics. And keep in mind, when

1:00:28

I say polio, at this stage

1:00:30

in time, I mean paralysis. Paralysis.

1:00:35

And if I understand the story correctly,

1:00:38

you can see in

1:00:40

the fact of the gypsy

1:00:42

moth spreading a

1:00:44

human response to it,

1:00:46

the toxicity of which

1:00:49

is underappreciated, that this

1:00:51

would also mirror the

1:00:54

phenomenology of an epidemic, right?

1:00:57

If you have the spreading of a moth

1:00:59

from the place of its introduction and its

1:01:01

decimating people's

1:01:04

trees and their

1:01:06

crops spreading out

1:01:08

from where it was first introduced,

1:01:10

it would leave the impression, the

1:01:12

same impression or a similar one,

1:01:14

to something that was spreading person

1:01:17

to person, right? It would

1:01:19

give the impression on the map of

1:01:21

something moving across the landscape when the core

1:01:24

system off moving across the landscape. And

1:01:26

human behavior potentially

1:01:29

compounding the –

1:01:33

or potentially causing the medical response

1:01:36

to it when the two things are in fact

1:01:38

not connected. Yeah. In

1:01:41

fact, you can trace

1:01:44

the spread of polio

1:01:47

in the beginning – this is, mind you, late 1800s, early 1900s. You

1:01:50

can trace its spread by tracing the

1:01:54

migration of the gypsy moth because

1:01:56

as they moved, so too

1:01:59

did the pesticide. And

1:02:01

it's remarkable if this

1:02:03

is, again, this is some

1:02:05

napkin math here of me sort

1:02:08

of looking at numbers and counts

1:02:10

of things and doing

1:02:13

it very roughly. But it was

1:02:15

remarkable. The correlation was fairly strong.

1:02:17

At this point – Go

1:02:19

ahead. I'm taking a turn here, so

1:02:22

let's stay here. Yeah,

1:02:25

you mentioned parescreen, and

1:02:28

mind you, I never heard of parescreen until I read

1:02:30

your book. Parescreen was

1:02:34

an effective pesticide in

1:02:36

one regard but not effective

1:02:38

because you didn't know

1:02:40

where you'd sprayed it and it washed

1:02:42

off, so it required constant respraying. Is

1:02:44

that correct? That's

1:02:47

right. Yeah. Yeah, let us – it was white

1:02:49

and sticky, and you could tell where you'd sprayed

1:02:51

it, and it couldn't be washed off, which should

1:02:54

be a little harbinger of things to come. White

1:02:56

and sticky. And so you

1:02:59

have – yeah, I guess

1:03:01

I will let you get to your turn

1:03:03

in the story here. But before

1:03:06

we leave parescreen, what made it

1:03:09

toxic? It

1:03:11

was arsenic. It was

1:03:13

– arsenic was essentially, unfortunately, a

1:03:15

popular medicinal treatment at the time.

1:03:19

People who haven't read this chapter

1:03:21

in medical history should know

1:03:23

that metals were

1:03:25

thought to have essentially

1:03:28

far greater positive effects on

1:03:30

human anatomy than negative. They

1:03:34

understood that there was toxicity related to metal ingestion. Of course,

1:03:36

they knew that. This has been going on for thousands of

1:03:38

years. They thought,

1:03:40

as we've just discussed, the positives

1:03:42

outweighed the negatives. And?

1:03:46

Children were given mercury powders

1:03:50

to deal with teething or dentition, as they

1:03:52

called it. They assumed that the

1:03:54

eruption of teeth provided a pathway into the immune

1:03:56

system, which may actually be true, and they thought

1:03:58

that it was a good thing. Okay, well give

1:04:01

them some mercury. It'll clean out their

1:04:03

bowels because it made you have massive

1:04:05

GI problems and then disease will leave

1:04:07

the body And that

1:04:09

was the beginning there were multiple other Medicinal

1:04:12

treatments that involved arsenic and

1:04:15

other metals. It was a horrible chapter in medical

1:04:17

history right, so this

1:04:20

is fascinating to me because The

1:04:23

extent to I mean, okay Why

1:04:25

was mercury being given by doctors

1:04:27

to people he was being given

1:04:29

by doctors for a number of

1:04:32

reasons Because

1:04:34

it was an effective by a

1:04:36

side and because it

1:04:38

caused the Abrupt

1:04:42

purging of the bowels

1:04:45

right, so Doctors

1:04:47

knew something they had a crude

1:04:50

understanding about how to influence the

1:04:52

body There's a

1:04:54

degree of truth here if you had something in

1:04:57

your bowels, you know if you had a microbe

1:04:59

had gotten in and was causing German

1:05:02

warfare to unfold in your bowels making

1:05:04

you sick Mercury would likely

1:05:06

cause the purging of whatever was

1:05:08

present. So it's not like there's not

1:05:10

an everything else along with it Everything

1:05:12

else along with it. But why is

1:05:15

that the response of the body to mercury?

1:05:18

Because it's a horrifying toxin and the

1:05:20

point is the body gets rid of

1:05:23

horrifying toxins, right if it if the body Has

1:05:26

reason to think that you have

1:05:28

ingested something that's putting out a toxin

1:05:31

that's causing your mind to

1:05:33

become Cloudy it causes you to vomit.

1:05:35

This is why

1:05:39

You know alcohol poisoning causes people

1:05:41

to throw up the body is trying to

1:05:43

purge something that's Toxifying it

1:05:45

you can get the same effect if

1:05:47

you make yourself sufficiently dizzy

1:05:49

because the body has this Mechanism

1:05:52

for you know It

1:05:55

doesn't know why you can't stand up.

1:05:57

Maybe you've eaten a toxin. So it

1:05:59

causes causes you to vomit, in that case it's useless.

1:06:03

But the point is doctors trying to

1:06:05

operate the small number of levers that

1:06:08

they have that cause the body to

1:06:10

do anything that might be useful in

1:06:12

the context of some disease are doing

1:06:14

something as insane as giving patients mercury.

1:06:18

Not only patients but infants.

1:06:21

I mean it's hard to imagine anything

1:06:23

that crazy. It was as

1:06:26

common as you might give a

1:06:28

teething child Tylenol today. It was

1:06:30

that common. It was not a

1:06:33

fringe treatment. It was not a

1:06:35

tinfoil hat treatment like of some

1:06:37

weirdo essential oil crazy mom. I'm

1:06:40

saying that facetiously for your listeners who

1:06:42

use essential oils. But it

1:06:44

was so common that everyone did

1:06:46

it. It was expected your children

1:06:48

would teethe. It was expected they

1:06:50

might get sick and you needed

1:06:53

to prevent this by completely nuking

1:06:55

every possible bacteria that lived

1:06:57

in their intestines to

1:06:59

prevent it. Now interesting that you

1:07:02

mentioned Tylenol right? Because

1:07:04

Tylenol isn't safe either. But

1:07:07

this is a great way for people to

1:07:09

understand how insane this mindset was and how

1:07:11

normal it seemed at the time. The

1:07:14

idea that we treat Tylenol as a

1:07:16

no big whoop. You

1:07:18

know Tylenol is a tremendously

1:07:21

dangerous drug. The

1:07:23

idea that we think of it as

1:07:25

safe enough to give to children is

1:07:28

preposterous. Frankly I don't think it's safe enough to

1:07:30

give to anybody. I certainly don't take this stuff.

1:07:34

I do take aspirin. I'm hoping you won't tell me

1:07:36

that's an error. But

1:07:39

in any case, yes, we

1:07:41

did give infants mercury. We

1:07:45

still, I remember

1:07:48

as a kid getting quite spooked by a

1:07:50

60 Minutes report

1:07:53

about mercury amalgam in

1:07:55

dentistry which was at the time the common

1:07:58

way of filling. cavities,

1:08:00

maybe it was the only way. Yeah,

1:08:03

irony upon ironies, the

1:08:06

dentist who prescribed mercury amalgam

1:08:09

for cavities evidently

1:08:11

didn't understand that

1:08:13

cavities can

1:08:16

fix themselves. Your body can heal itself and

1:08:18

they are not ratchet

1:08:20

strap holes forming in your teeth that

1:08:22

never go back. So again,

1:08:25

the body's ability to heal itself with

1:08:27

patience and with some suffering will

1:08:30

stupefy the modern listener because essentially

1:08:32

we've been taught that all infection

1:08:34

is bad, all disease is bad, all

1:08:37

suffering is bad. Imagine if

1:08:39

I were to tell you that your

1:08:41

child needn't ever exercise because we have

1:08:43

an injection of steroids that will build their

1:08:45

muscles for them. Somehow we

1:08:47

might laugh at the suggestion of that.

1:08:50

But if I were to say your child

1:08:52

needn't ever get an infection, they'll be better

1:08:54

off just getting a slew of vaccines, their

1:08:56

whole childhood, that's perfectly fine and acceptable. The

1:08:59

reality is they're better off, their immune system

1:09:01

will function better. They will have

1:09:03

a lifetime of immunity rather than a

1:09:05

booster addiction for the rest of their

1:09:07

life if they just get the infection

1:09:09

naturally. This is certainly the case with

1:09:11

measles, chicken pox, mops, all

1:09:14

sorts of all sorts of infections. Your

1:09:16

children were better off if they just got it

1:09:18

naturally. They would never need another booster again. And

1:09:20

there was essentially no risk, particularly

1:09:23

in healthy populations. Yeah,

1:09:26

we know enough at this point to

1:09:30

say that the

1:09:33

best thing you could conceivably do from the

1:09:35

point of view of health is to provide

1:09:39

an environment with as

1:09:41

little evolutionary novelty in

1:09:44

it as possible. Exactly.

1:09:46

Right. And that

1:09:49

if you provided that environment, then

1:09:51

the body is in a great position

1:09:53

to take care of itself and

1:09:55

that what we are doing,

1:09:58

what we have now seen. with

1:10:00

COVID and what you reveal in the case

1:10:02

of polio

1:10:04

is likely the case is

1:10:07

we are taking unintended

1:10:09

consequences of technological advancement

1:10:12

and compounding the damage

1:10:15

with a complicated

1:10:18

systems view of medicine so

1:10:22

we're just you know it's the

1:10:25

old lady who swallowed the

1:10:27

fly for symptoms caused by

1:10:30

cures caused by

1:10:32

other cures if

1:10:35

there's any success to be mentioned

1:10:37

about the smallpox vaccine apologize for

1:10:39

this but now it

1:10:42

is the timing it was the

1:10:44

recognition that a healthy person

1:10:47

could battle infection more

1:10:49

easily and rattly than an unhealthy

1:10:51

person so the inoculation

1:10:53

of smallpox which again I

1:10:55

was stressed it was not really

1:10:57

a vaccine at all you were

1:10:59

simply giving people the smallpox infection

1:11:02

itself it

1:11:04

was the timing of it that if there

1:11:07

was success to be had it was because

1:11:09

they recognized healthy people can suffer through this

1:11:11

infection with very few ill effects so if

1:11:14

you're at a point of optimum health let's

1:11:16

go ahead and get it over with you're gonna

1:11:19

catch it anyway so back

1:11:21

to the the purging of the bowels and the metal and

1:11:23

mercury powder the if you really go

1:11:26

back in time you will

1:11:28

find in a 40 hold on hold

1:11:30

on sorry I'm my mind

1:11:32

is trying to correct

1:11:35

for the upheaval

1:11:38

but let me let me push back them

1:11:47

tell me what I have wrong in the story

1:11:49

all right smallpox was

1:11:52

not present in the

1:11:54

new world until Europeans

1:11:57

arrived in 1492.

1:12:01

Is that right? As

1:12:06

far as I think that's true. Yes.

1:12:08

Okay. It

1:12:10

devastated the New

1:12:13

World population which at the

1:12:15

time is estimated to have

1:12:17

been between 50 million and

1:12:20

a hundred million people between North and

1:12:22

South America. I'm

1:12:27

not asking you to go through this with a fine-toothed comb. I'm

1:12:29

just trying to figure out where the story I understand is in

1:12:31

error. Okay. I

1:12:33

think there were native populations that were particularly

1:12:36

susceptible to the effects of the smallpox

1:12:39

infection. Smallpox

1:12:42

infection which came with the Spaniards.

1:12:49

The native populations

1:12:52

were disproportionately

1:12:54

healthy because,

1:13:01

well, because they lived in the environment

1:13:03

that their ancestors lived in for the

1:13:05

most part and technology had not begun

1:13:07

to introduce the

1:13:11

various influences

1:13:13

that degrade health.

1:13:16

So they were recognized by the

1:13:18

Europeans certainly to be healthy and

1:13:20

robust people. So the

1:13:22

question then, I can

1:13:26

see a couple of ways to go here, but the

1:13:28

model that you've just put on the table is

1:13:31

that smallpox vaccine

1:13:34

mostly what it did was give people

1:13:36

smallpox when they were in good health

1:13:39

such that they were more likely to

1:13:41

fend it off and then they develop

1:13:43

natural immunity rather than the textbook version

1:13:46

in which the

1:13:50

attenuated virus provides

1:13:54

the immune system with a trial

1:13:56

run that isn't highly virulent and

1:13:59

then when they counter actual smallpox,

1:14:01

they fend it off without

1:14:03

even knowing that it has gotten

1:14:05

into their system. So

1:14:08

the question then is why, if that

1:14:10

model is correct, was

1:14:13

the native population in the

1:14:15

Americas susceptible to smallpox when

1:14:17

it arrived? Well

1:14:22

let me just mention something

1:14:24

as a lead into

1:14:26

the answer to that. The

1:14:29

smallpox vaccine, as I'm

1:14:31

labeling it an inoculation,

1:14:33

there is no idea what is in that

1:14:37

inoculation. Even today, scientists don't know what's in

1:14:39

it. And the reason that is, is because

1:14:41

it was grown in the tissue

1:14:43

of different animals constantly.

1:14:46

They might lacerate the belly of

1:14:48

a calf or a cow, you

1:14:50

know, put some of the

1:14:52

solution in there and grow it.

1:14:55

And they did it with goats and with rabbits

1:14:57

and with pigs and all kinds of different animals.

1:15:00

So when we talk about

1:15:03

smallpox, we don't really know

1:15:05

what it was. We

1:15:08

don't know conclusively

1:15:11

what the Indians died of. Sure,

1:15:14

maybe they developed postules on their skin

1:15:16

from an infection that the Europeans brought

1:15:18

over. We don't know what that was.

1:15:21

Zoonotically or, you know, because of

1:15:23

all the animals the vaccine had

1:15:26

been passaged through over 100

1:15:29

or so years, we

1:15:31

don't know what it is. So I can't

1:15:33

sit here and say conclusively I know

1:15:35

what North American Natives

1:15:38

died of because there's no telling what it

1:15:40

was. There's no telling what they brought over.

1:15:43

Given the rampant,

1:15:47

irresponsible development of that vaccine,

1:15:50

and the vaccine itself was so

1:15:52

inherently dangerous that people

1:15:55

were terrified of it, and

1:15:57

it was – The

1:16:00

vaccine itself was rolled out in the

1:16:02

1970s, not because smallpox was

1:16:04

eradicated, but because people just still were having

1:16:06

too many horrible reactions to it. And

1:16:09

so it's difficult for

1:16:11

me to conclusively say what Native

1:16:14

Americans were dying of, given

1:16:16

the Frankenstein nature of

1:16:18

whatever is in that syringe. And

1:16:20

you can go look at it

1:16:22

today and scientists will not be able to tell you

1:16:24

what's in the smallpox vaccine. They have no idea. Now,

1:16:27

I'm sure if there was enough money they could

1:16:29

sequence it, and perhaps they have, but were too

1:16:31

horrified to publish the results. But

1:16:34

it's not anything,

1:16:36

I think, naturally occurring. I think

1:16:38

it is sort of the antiquated

1:16:40

equivalent of the coronavirus. All

1:16:47

right, well, I'm going to have to chew on

1:16:49

that. I was not expecting the concern

1:16:51

to be over the content

1:16:54

of the vaccine.

1:16:58

Well, and now

1:17:00

keep in mind, whatever was in the

1:17:02

vaccine was perfectly capable

1:17:04

of replicating. You know, you mentioned

1:17:06

attenuated virus. There was nothing. They

1:17:09

couldn't do that. They had no

1:17:11

clue that passaging viruses over multiple

1:17:14

generations of life would sometimes

1:17:16

attenuate the virulence of the

1:17:18

virus. They had no understanding of that at

1:17:20

the time. They were just trying to

1:17:22

keep it alive. They thought there was a cowpox

1:17:24

virus, vaccinia as they called it, that

1:17:27

if they could just keep it alive like

1:17:29

a sourdough starter, they could just scratch the

1:17:31

skin of people, and hey, they would get

1:17:33

a very mild infection compared to smallpox. Now,

1:17:36

the reality is it was probably the same

1:17:38

thing. They didn't know

1:17:40

the difference. Do you

1:17:42

doubt the Jenner

1:17:44

story of Jenner

1:17:47

having noted the immunity

1:17:49

of milkmaids to smallpox?

1:17:51

Certainly. I'm sorry, Brett. I

1:17:54

told you to stop. I told you to stop.

1:17:56

It's lore. It's absolute lore. But no, no, let me

1:17:58

look at the floor. A fraud. He

1:18:01

was a scientific fraud who paid for

1:18:03

his PhD or doctors at

1:18:05

a fake university. He was laughed

1:18:07

at by all his peers. Don't

1:18:10

do this. Don't go down the rabbit hole. It's

1:18:12

horrible. You don't want to do this. Wait, wait.

1:18:14

No, no. I mean, look, we have no choice

1:18:16

here. I'm

1:18:21

just trying to under—look, I'm not—I'm going

1:18:24

to follow the evidence on it. I'm

1:18:26

going to figure out what I believe.

1:18:28

But at the moment, you're telling me

1:18:30

something that I have not heard before.

1:18:32

All right. Just

1:18:36

for the listeners trying to keep up. The

1:18:40

story is that Jenner

1:18:42

and apparently this story, this is

1:18:45

the effect of

1:18:47

a European version of the story.

1:18:49

There are several discoveries of the

1:18:51

same phenomenon from different cultures. But

1:18:54

the European version is that Jenner

1:18:56

notes milkmaids

1:18:59

are immune to

1:19:01

smallpox and

1:19:04

comes to understand that they have

1:19:06

picked up a closely related disease,

1:19:08

cowpox, which

1:19:10

is sufficiently close that

1:19:12

it results in the immune

1:19:14

system developing natural immunity that

1:19:17

causes it to manage smallpox

1:19:19

without incident. That's

1:19:22

funny. Have we ever heard

1:19:24

of that story in any other research

1:19:26

paper ever published? Have you ever heard

1:19:28

a similar story to that? I haven't.

1:19:30

That's funny. What do you

1:19:32

mean? You would expect it

1:19:35

to show up in the story in

1:19:37

which the pattern was clearest, just exactly

1:19:39

the way you expect

1:19:41

our understanding of genetics to

1:19:44

emerge from Mendel's

1:19:47

messing with peas at loci

1:19:49

that just happened to work in

1:19:51

a simple fashion if he'd

1:19:53

worked with any complex

1:19:56

trait. He wouldn't have seen the pattern

1:19:58

that he saw, but it happened. that

1:20:00

we had, you know, so

1:20:02

who knows how many people did an experiment

1:20:04

with some trait that

1:20:07

is multigenic where

1:20:10

you couldn't get a clear pattern but Mendel

1:20:12

happened to be messing with the wrinkling of

1:20:14

the seeds, etc. which were

1:20:17

inherited in a simple fashion that we now

1:20:20

call Mendelian. But anyway

1:20:22

the point is you would expect the

1:20:24

story to show up where the story

1:20:26

was simple enough for us

1:20:29

to grasp it. So I still like

1:20:31

the idea even if

1:20:33

this is the only case where we have

1:20:35

two diseases closely enough related that you get

1:20:39

cross-reactivity sufficient for one disease

1:20:41

to function as a vaccine

1:20:44

against the other. Mm-hmm. You don't

1:20:46

believe that story. Well I have

1:20:49

never heard of another case of

1:20:51

a similar virus

1:20:53

being used in its pure form as

1:20:56

an inoculated agent against its

1:20:58

sister virus. I mean think about the

1:21:01

genetics technology we have at our disposal

1:21:04

right now and we still cannot

1:21:06

find anything similar enough to substitute,

1:21:08

you know, for its more virulent cousin. You

1:21:10

know we have to create things from scratch

1:21:13

or you know old-school vaccine production we passage

1:21:15

it and hope that it becomes less virulent

1:21:17

or we nuke it with formaldehyde

1:21:19

and hope that we inactivate it. But the

1:21:21

notion that there was a cousin virus

1:21:24

that just happened to be found on you

1:21:26

know the udders of cows and

1:21:28

it inoculated people safely for

1:21:31

a closely related virus I've

1:21:33

never seen it happen anywhere else and given

1:21:35

the technology available at the time to know

1:21:38

these things and to accurately document what

1:21:40

was happening it

1:21:43

rings as implausible to me particularly given

1:21:46

the horrific nature of the smallpox

1:21:48

vaccine itself. It was

1:21:50

it does not have the shining diamond

1:21:53

story wrapped around it that the

1:21:55

polio vaccines do even

1:21:57

amongst people you know who would

1:22:00

different with me on general vaccine opinions

1:22:02

that they would probably admit,

1:22:04

you know, small box vaccine, it was

1:22:06

it was horrible. It was not something

1:22:08

you really wanted your children to get

1:22:11

because it caused a lot of

1:22:13

problems a lot of death. I mean,

1:22:15

this is vaccinia. This is they had a name for

1:22:17

dying of the vaccine. It was called vaccinia. So anyway,

1:22:20

all right. Well, I mean, you know, no,

1:22:23

no, you don't need to apologize. Let's

1:22:25

put it this way. I am left

1:22:27

with two questions. One of them is

1:22:31

the generous story

1:22:33

itself as separate

1:22:35

from the question of the

1:22:40

utility and

1:22:44

safety of the smallpox

1:22:47

vaccine. And I now

1:22:49

know from having watched

1:22:51

the covid shenanigans up close

1:22:53

and having read about polio,

1:22:58

that there's always the possibility of a

1:23:01

pattern of disease,

1:23:03

amelioration being credited to

1:23:06

a vaccine that was

1:23:08

actually not involved

1:23:10

or involved in a way that

1:23:12

was not obvious, not what it

1:23:14

says in the textbook. So anyway,

1:23:16

I'm, I don't, I don't

1:23:18

know what to think about these things. I am definitely

1:23:20

like many people in the process of discovering that much

1:23:23

of what I thought about medicine

1:23:26

and disease is not entirely

1:23:30

true. And in some cases not

1:23:33

true at all. You know,

1:23:35

which is why at the top of this, I

1:23:37

raised the issue of Spanish flu, which is a

1:23:39

story I thought I understood. And

1:23:42

it turns out until

1:23:44

you know about bacterial

1:23:48

pneumonia and about

1:23:50

aspirin toxicity, you don't understand

1:23:54

the Spanish flu either. Right. So all

1:23:56

of these stories have a a

1:24:00

valid polarization and an

1:24:02

oversimplification that causes

1:24:05

us to rethink the whole picture

1:24:07

when we begin to see how

1:24:09

unlikely it is for diseases to

1:24:11

jump from nature into people, how

1:24:13

the examples of epidemics that are

1:24:15

used to frighten us aren't

1:24:17

what we were led to believe they were,

1:24:21

and how the technologies that we

1:24:23

were told addressed these

1:24:27

may not have been involved at all in

1:24:29

some cases and may not have been involved

1:24:31

in the way we've been told in other

1:24:34

cases. So maybe we should get back to

1:24:36

the story of polio so we can see

1:24:39

how that plays out. I will

1:24:41

say, you used the word valorization, that's a

1:24:43

really great word, because that is the problem.

1:24:46

Humans want the hero. We

1:24:48

want the heroic story of

1:24:50

science over evil, the evil

1:24:52

microbe. And even if the

1:24:54

scientists themselves have conducted all

1:24:56

trials and research and vaccine

1:24:58

development, everything else with absolute

1:25:00

precision and rationality, humans who

1:25:02

don't have that same amount

1:25:04

of reasoning will swoop in

1:25:06

and distort the story. They

1:25:09

will turn it into a myth

1:25:11

and to lore of something that

1:25:13

absolutely didn't happen. And that's

1:25:15

essentially what happened later on

1:25:17

with the polio vaccine, unfortunately. The

1:25:20

valorization of the vaccine was written in stone

1:25:22

before it had even begun to be distributed.

1:25:27

Back to the matter at hand, as

1:25:29

I mentioned, in 1841 there was actually a, I'm quoting in

1:25:33

the air, epidemic of polio. Some 12

1:25:35

or 13 children were either sickened or

1:25:37

killed. And it was –

1:25:41

all the children, evidently, it had been mentioned

1:25:43

in passing in the article where we're going

1:25:45

through dentition or have recently done it, and

1:25:47

we know they were likely being given metallic

1:25:50

medicine as treatment for whatever.

1:25:54

But the cluster, the

1:25:57

cluster was enough that it makes –

1:26:00

you think there's something going on.

1:26:02

There is a vector here that

1:26:04

is not purely environmental toxicity. There's

1:26:06

something else going on. And you start

1:26:08

to see that as you trace through

1:26:10

the earliest polio epidemics, you

1:26:13

have to start understanding that

1:26:15

this is not purely poisoning

1:26:19

from pesticide. There is something

1:26:21

else to it that gives

1:26:23

it the telltale sign

1:26:25

of the vector of

1:26:27

an advancing disease because of the clusters

1:26:29

of the way things happened.

1:26:33

And you see that, and

1:26:36

early on the earliest polio

1:26:38

outbreaks were all rural because,

1:26:42

in my opinion, this is where pesticides

1:26:44

were being used most aggressively. But

1:26:48

there was something to the

1:26:50

fact that there was a viral

1:26:52

component at work here. It

1:26:54

wasn't just a pesticide. So

1:26:59

one of the telltale signs of polio,

1:27:02

as they called it back then,

1:27:04

was the full name of polio

1:27:06

at that time was acute polio

1:27:08

myelitis of the anterior horn. And

1:27:10

the anterior horn, if you're looking

1:27:12

down on your spinal column, the

1:27:14

anterior is the front half of

1:27:16

your spinal cord. That's the part

1:27:18

where the neurons that run through

1:27:20

their controlled movement, neurons on

1:27:22

the back side of your spinal cord control taste

1:27:25

and sensitivity. And

1:27:28

polio, for whatever reason, would

1:27:30

only cause paralysis. It didn't

1:27:32

affect your sense

1:27:34

of touch. It

1:27:37

didn't cause pain, which is what lesions on

1:27:39

the back of your spinal cord could do.

1:27:42

Now, here's a major that's

1:27:44

funny, right? Because

1:27:46

you're talking about something

1:27:49

where a virus is

1:27:52

ostensibly causing inflammation

1:27:55

on the front of the spinal cord,

1:27:58

but not the back. And this

1:28:00

same virus is apparently indifferent

1:28:02

to whether it's infecting

1:28:05

people or chickens. Right?

1:28:08

So you're, this does not add up

1:28:10

at some level because

1:28:13

the specificity,

1:28:15

right? And there's probably

1:28:18

no chemical

1:28:21

distinction between the neurons

1:28:23

on the front side of your spine and

1:28:25

the back side of your spine. If there

1:28:27

is anything, it's tiny. It's at the level

1:28:30

of, you know, tiny

1:28:34

modifications of receptors potentially.

1:28:36

But the idea that the

1:28:38

virus is so specific that

1:28:41

it infects the front part of

1:28:43

your spine, but

1:28:46

it doesn't care if you're a chicken or a person. That's

1:28:49

so that's funny to me. Right? Exactly. Yeah.

1:28:52

So anyway, as you read through the early

1:28:54

case reports of polo, you will, you will

1:28:56

start to pick apart the differences. You

1:28:59

will see people that had seizures. Okay.

1:29:01

This is not, this is

1:29:03

not a hallmark of a polio infection, a

1:29:05

polio infection. For those of you don't know,

1:29:08

it's an enteroviral infection. It's a virus that

1:29:10

thrives in your gut. Causes

1:29:12

you to have diarrhea, all kinds of other

1:29:14

problems, anything, you know, associated

1:29:16

with gut, poor gut health. So

1:29:19

that is again, that's funny. Yes.

1:29:24

Right. An enterovirus

1:29:27

that is at home in your gut

1:29:30

that is causing inflammation

1:29:33

of the front side of

1:29:35

the spine. First

1:29:37

of all, that's again, a kind

1:29:40

of an incoherent picture, right? The point

1:29:42

is it's adapted to the gut. Right.

1:29:45

Yet it finds itself

1:29:47

in the spine where it does a whole different

1:29:49

kind of damage. It's only in

1:29:51

the front side of the spine or generally.

1:29:54

So, so,

1:29:56

and then why again, is it in the

1:29:58

spine? Does the spine. provided some mechanism

1:30:01

to leap from one individual

1:30:03

to the next? Well, you're begging

1:30:05

the question here, but yes. Interestingly

1:30:09

enough, if your listeners don't

1:30:12

know this, the disease was

1:30:14

often called infantile paralysis, just so

1:30:16

you know. Why infantile paralysis?

1:30:18

Well, because it struck children, it

1:30:20

struck babies, infants. It

1:30:23

was very, very rare for

1:30:25

a true enteroviral polio infection

1:30:28

to even infect an adult, most likely

1:30:30

because they already had immunity to it.

1:30:32

Immunity, by the way, gained without any

1:30:34

sort of paralysis and without any knowledge

1:30:36

of themselves even having the infection themselves.

1:30:40

But something happened around that time in

1:30:43

human history where suddenly these

1:30:45

enteroviral infections appeared capable of

1:30:47

paralyzing people, which is very,

1:30:50

very odd that that would

1:30:52

start happening. And particularly children.

1:30:55

Now, one of the odd things, if I

1:30:57

know one more that's funny, is

1:31:01

the infection, the paralysis almost always started

1:31:03

in their legs. This was the hallmark

1:31:05

understanding of polio. You remember, we start

1:31:07

very generic and say people have lesions

1:31:10

in their spinal cord and they're kind

1:31:12

of paralyzed and then we start getting

1:31:14

more specific in that it's children, it's

1:31:16

infants, and hey, it's only the front

1:31:18

of their spinal cord. It's not the

1:31:20

back. They don't have sensitivity and pain,

1:31:23

which are commonly associated with poisoning, with

1:31:25

metallic poisoning or pesticide poisoning. They

1:31:27

get paralysis in the front side

1:31:29

of their spinal cord. And if you've ever, you

1:31:31

remember the Tyco racetracks, the little slot car racetrack

1:31:34

she had as a kid, and you put your

1:31:36

car and it just races off. This

1:31:38

is how neuronal tissue grows and how

1:31:40

viruses that thrive

1:31:42

within neuronal tissue, this is how they

1:31:45

propagate. When they hit a neuronal channel,

1:31:47

they can just shoot up. They

1:31:50

don't replicate at random, just sort

1:31:52

of crossing organs here and there.

1:31:54

When they hit that slot of

1:31:56

neuronal tissue, they start going up. So if you

1:31:58

can imagine your cord infants

1:32:02

where the intestines rest directly

1:32:04

against the bottom of

1:32:06

the spinal cord. It's

1:32:09

kind of cutting to the end of the book, sort of my

1:32:12

hypotheses, but essentially, the

1:32:14

paralysis starts in the bottom of the

1:32:17

spinal cord, the part of the

1:32:20

nervous system that rests directly against

1:32:22

the intestines, a geographical proximity that

1:32:24

just feels too significant to overlook.

1:32:27

And as soon as a virus hits the

1:32:29

neural tissue, it doesn't move backwards, it moves

1:32:31

up, because again, it's a highway that

1:32:33

these interviruses, certain

1:32:36

interviruses propagate along and it would

1:32:38

start going up the spinal cord.

1:32:41

And so you might start with a limpness

1:32:44

in the legs and then it might move

1:32:46

itself up and your spine might start having

1:32:49

problems and then eventually it would paralyze

1:32:51

the muscles that allow you to expand

1:32:53

your diaphragm and fill your

1:32:55

lungs with air. And that's essentially, that

1:32:57

was the real danger with polio in

1:32:59

terms of death in that it could

1:33:01

prevent you from inhaling and exhaling because

1:33:03

the paralysis would start in your legs

1:33:06

and work its way up. So

1:33:08

yet the, that's funny about

1:33:10

all the cases you read

1:33:12

about polio, especially early on,

1:33:14

are sometimes people developed seizures,

1:33:17

okay? It's not polio, it's not

1:33:19

the way we define polio nowadays. Some

1:33:21

people would develop extreme pain

1:33:23

sensitivity, extreme, like you couldn't

1:33:25

touch their leg without extreme

1:33:27

pain. This is FDR,

1:33:30

you know, the American president famously had

1:33:32

polio, as we describe it, now

1:33:35

had extreme pain sensitivity, a

1:33:37

very odd side effect of

1:33:40

something that's decidedly not polio.

1:33:43

But anyway, as

1:33:46

these cases started to grow and

1:33:48

more and more information came in,

1:33:50

they started thinking that perhaps

1:33:54

there are multiple viruses and bacteria

1:33:56

that can cause this problem. right.

1:34:00

They would infect experimental

1:34:04

primates. Once again, they had

1:34:06

sort of discovered, I think it's the macaque that

1:34:08

they could infect readily. They could

1:34:10

infect them with a poliovirus,

1:34:12

with something called coxacu virus, with something

1:34:15

called echovirus, certain

1:34:17

bacteria. They discovered there

1:34:19

was a plurality of

1:34:22

microbes that would do this exact

1:34:24

same thing if injected

1:34:26

directly into the nervous tissue. That

1:34:29

was the problem, was they

1:34:31

couldn't understand how do these

1:34:34

viruses and bacteria get into the nervous

1:34:36

system in the first place because your

1:34:39

mucosal immune system is incredibly robust and

1:34:41

can protect your body from nearly anything.

1:34:43

I mean, think about what your dog

1:34:46

eats from day

1:34:48

to day and suffers no real ill

1:34:51

effects from it. But their real

1:34:53

conundrum was, how does this virus

1:34:55

get into your nervous system? They

1:34:57

just couldn't understand it. So,

1:35:00

okay, a couple things. One, the

1:35:03

virus in the nervous system is

1:35:08

a red flag for me. How

1:35:10

so? Because I'm an evolu- no,

1:35:12

I'm an evolutionary biologist. I think

1:35:14

in terms of the ecology of

1:35:17

creatures, and although viruses aren't technically

1:35:19

creatures, we have to think of

1:35:21

them in the same terms. They've still got to reproduce and

1:35:23

get into new hosts to do it. There

1:35:27

are viruses that utilize the nervous system

1:35:29

as a way of getting from one

1:35:31

person to another. Herpes

1:35:34

viruses, for example, use the nervous

1:35:36

system so we can describe their

1:35:38

life history and see why

1:35:40

neurons are at chosen location. They can

1:35:42

hide from the immune system there. They

1:35:45

can travel to

1:35:47

places where they then jump in ways that we

1:35:49

understand from one person to another. It's

1:35:53

not obvious why an

1:35:55

enterovirus is inhabiting the nervous

1:35:57

system at all. I've never heard a description of

1:35:59

how- how it gets from one person's nervous system

1:36:01

to the next. Um,

1:36:04

maybe that description exists somewhere, but I don't know it.

1:36:07

Um, but it

1:36:10

is also fascinating that if

1:36:12

you solve the problem of

1:36:14

the virus getting

1:36:16

into the nervous tissue, you

1:36:19

can basically use nervous tissue as a, an

1:36:23

environment, a growth medium, and

1:36:26

you can cause the paralysis. So

1:36:28

the point is what this is pointing

1:36:32

to, which your book addresses beautifully is

1:36:35

the idea that effectively this

1:36:37

virus may be perfectly capable

1:36:39

of infecting your nervous

1:36:42

tissue, and it may not have any reason

1:36:44

to go there under normal circumstances and

1:36:47

no tendency to go there under normal

1:36:49

circumstances, but something about human behavior is

1:36:51

altering its likelihood of ending up there.

1:36:55

And in our monkey model, what

1:36:57

we find out is that by

1:36:59

introducing things, by preaching barriers that

1:37:01

are very well protected, we can

1:37:03

actually induce the symptoms of

1:37:06

polio just simply by getting,

1:37:08

um, a pathogen

1:37:10

to, uh, replicate in an environment that

1:37:12

it wouldn't be finding itself in ordinarily.

1:37:15

Right. That's a very conspicuous pattern to me.

1:37:19

Um, and you

1:37:21

mentioned briefly in passing here,

1:37:23

the proximity of the intestine

1:37:27

to the spinal cord, and

1:37:29

this is a place where your

1:37:31

book caused the dime to drop for me. Um,

1:37:35

you want to describe the pattern of

1:37:37

development and how it alters that relationship

1:37:40

and how it therefore, uh, is

1:37:43

a match for your hypothesis. Sure.

1:37:47

Uh, yeah, this was also

1:37:49

a sort of, uh, profound

1:37:51

revelation as I, a

1:37:54

curious person, as I mentioned, and it was just

1:37:56

reading and trying to understand the anatomy of the

1:37:58

human body and how things grow. If

1:38:01

you look at a diagram

1:38:03

of an adult human being, the

1:38:06

bottom of their spinal

1:38:08

cord ends well short

1:38:10

of their intestines. It's inches

1:38:13

away, maybe more, depending on the

1:38:15

human. If you look at

1:38:17

the anatomy of an infant or child, their

1:38:21

spinal cord reaches all

1:38:23

the way to the top of their

1:38:26

intestines. It sits

1:38:28

directly behind their intestines. So

1:38:31

as you grow from a child to a human, your

1:38:34

body grows larger at a much

1:38:36

higher rate than your spinal cord itself does.

1:38:38

In such a way that your spinal cord,

1:38:40

the bottom of it ends up in a

1:38:42

much different location for adults. So

1:38:46

if, in fact, there is

1:38:49

something going on with the

1:38:51

combination of pesticide abuse and

1:38:54

introviral health in your gut,

1:38:58

the geographical proximity of

1:39:00

your spinal cord to your

1:39:03

intestines is different in such

1:39:05

a way for children than it is for adults, that

1:39:07

it would certainly make sense that

1:39:10

the virus could make the hop,

1:39:12

as you described, very easily when

1:39:15

your intestines, those things teeming

1:39:17

with millions of enterovirus, the

1:39:19

viruses, rest directly

1:39:22

against the spinal cord itself. In

1:39:25

an adult, even with

1:39:27

their gut integrity completely ruined by

1:39:29

rampant pesticide ingestion, the

1:39:32

distance from their intestines to their spinal cord

1:39:34

is so great that it's not likely to

1:39:36

ever make the hop. This is, again, I

1:39:38

will stress my hypothesis. We

1:39:42

know that pesticides affect the

1:39:45

cellular membrane health. We

1:39:48

know that it does strange things other

1:39:52

than, let's say, killing your microbiome, which

1:39:54

is essentially normally in charge of protecting your

1:39:56

body from the ravages of enterovirus. And

1:40:00

there's not a lot of studies about this,

1:40:02

but they did study DDT and realized these things were

1:40:04

starting to happen. So my

1:40:06

hypothesis is, if I may just summarize it, pesticides

1:40:08

caused rampant problems during the lead-arsen era. They

1:40:17

certainly caused rampant problems during

1:40:19

the DDT era, which is polio as we know it

1:40:21

from the 1940s to the mid-1950s. The

1:40:27

real problem was the way in which they

1:40:29

wrecked the gut integrity of people's health and

1:40:31

allowed what were normally innocuous enteroviruses

1:40:41

to flourish and to migrate

1:40:44

into the nervous system somehow. We

1:40:46

don't know that, but

1:40:48

it feels like the best solution I've been able

1:40:50

to come up with. Yeah,

1:40:54

it's a very parsimonious hypothesis, and

1:40:56

if I can just rephrase it,

1:40:58

it's so crucial. I want people

1:41:00

to understand it maybe from two

1:41:02

perspectives. What

1:41:04

you're arguing, and there's

1:41:06

a lot of interesting detail in the book. For

1:41:08

example, there's a shift in

1:41:11

the insect, the targeted

1:41:13

insect, to one that eats fruit

1:41:17

from one that eats leaves. What

1:41:19

was the second moth

1:41:22

that was being targeted in your book? Oh, gosh,

1:41:25

I can't remember. I'm sorry.

1:41:27

I can't remember either. But

1:41:30

in any case, there's a move to an

1:41:32

animal that eats fruit. Coddling moth. Coddling moth.

1:41:35

So because crops

1:41:37

are now being directly

1:41:40

targeted, and you've got this

1:41:42

new pesticide that's been formulated

1:41:46

so that it doesn't wash off. Washing off

1:41:48

is a problem because every time it rains, you have to

1:41:50

reapply. So a pesticide that doesn't

1:41:52

wash off Is advantageous, And

1:41:55

then it's being sprayed directly onto fruit

1:41:57

because they're being attacked by the coddling

1:41:59

moth. And then the point

1:42:01

is, even if people are washing that for

1:42:04

it, which they will have done much less

1:42:06

than they once whatever because they would be

1:42:08

used to eating fruits without washing it because

1:42:10

there were no pesticides. Ah, on the fruit

1:42:12

to begin with. You know originally. You

1:42:15

got people. Even if they go

1:42:17

to wash the pesticide off, the

1:42:19

pesticide is resistant to being washed

1:42:21

off because it's rain tower and

1:42:23

so they're ingesting large amounts of

1:42:25

it on the fruit. I'm and.

1:42:28

You've. Got. So they'd kids

1:42:30

going to me, no, medals are not well tolerated

1:42:32

by the body because our ancestors would not have

1:42:34

had. High

1:42:37

exposures regularly enough money

1:42:39

to learn that track

1:42:41

evolutionarily. Zone

1:42:43

your hypothesis is it is

1:42:45

damaging the guts integrity that

1:42:48

in. Instance. And

1:42:50

children, the proximity of the

1:42:52

got to the spine is

1:42:55

ah. Quite. Close that

1:42:57

that closeness the breach in the

1:42:59

intestines from me. Ingestion of pesticides

1:43:02

is facilitating the migration of viruses

1:43:04

that are fundamentally nut viruses that

1:43:06

you know that are not highly

1:43:08

virulent. That

1:43:11

they are migrating through this path,

1:43:13

Not because they have any ecological

1:43:15

reason to do so, but because

1:43:17

the pathway is now open, migrating

1:43:19

into tissue where their demonstrated to

1:43:22

have the capacity to reproduce. In.

1:43:25

Their reproductive cycle. Once they've gotten

1:43:27

into the spine, they are producing

1:43:29

inflammation. Polio my ally. This. And

1:43:32

that this matches the pattern. Of

1:43:35

polio it's afflicting. Children.

1:43:39

It is. Afflicting the neurons

1:43:42

that are in the front

1:43:44

spine closest physically to the

1:43:46

got em, sparing the neurons

1:43:48

in the back of the

1:43:50

spine which is farther from

1:43:52

the guts and sparing adults.

1:43:55

because the spare the spinal

1:43:57

cord has moved physically away

1:44:00

the process of growth from the intestines. So

1:44:02

even if the gut in an adult is

1:44:05

damaged, the pathway for the enterovirus

1:44:08

to make it into the neuronal

1:44:10

tissue is not

1:44:12

available. So you know,

1:44:16

that is at the very least an

1:44:19

elegant hypothesis to explain a

1:44:21

highly complex phenomenon. It

1:44:24

also has the attribute

1:44:28

of explaining why

1:44:30

addressing the enterovirus

1:44:32

might have positive effects on

1:44:35

polio. Point

1:44:38

is, if there were no virus

1:44:40

in that story, if metals were

1:44:42

simply migrating from the

1:44:44

gut into the spine

1:44:47

and damaging tissue, then

1:44:50

you would expect that no vaccine could

1:44:52

possibly have any impact on that story.

1:44:55

But because an enterovirus is finding

1:44:57

its way into

1:45:00

the spinal cord,

1:45:03

vaccinating against that enterovirus will actually

1:45:05

potentially have a positive effect. But

1:45:09

it's not the place where you would naturally intervene

1:45:11

in the story. It's a very risky place to

1:45:13

intervene in the story. And there's a much more

1:45:15

obvious place to intervene, which is at

1:45:19

the level of not using

1:45:21

pesticides with this effect, never putting

1:45:23

them on anything anybody's ever going

1:45:25

to eat. Protecting

1:45:29

people from the metals would be the key way to do it. And

1:45:32

so how's that so far? Is that the

1:45:35

first one? It's a beautiful rendition. I

1:45:37

wish I could summarize as elegantly as

1:45:39

you did. Let me

1:45:41

add to that. There is

1:45:43

another interesting bullet point

1:45:45

that bolsters this hypothesis, which is

1:45:47

the ineffectiveness of the Salk vaccine.

1:45:51

The Salk vaccine was essentially the

1:45:53

first approved treatment for

1:45:55

polio infections, and it differed in that

1:45:58

it was a very difficult process. It

1:46:00

was injected, and

1:46:02

people will think, well, there was a

1:46:04

live virus and there was an attenuated

1:46:07

virus. And that doesn't really matter in

1:46:09

this story. The real difference between the

1:46:11

Salk vaccine, which was first introduced in 1954, pulled

1:46:15

from the shelves in 1955 due to

1:46:17

a manufacturing problem that killed a few people, it

1:46:20

did not work. It flat