Episode Transcript
Transcripts are displayed as originally observed. Some content, including advertisements may have changed.
Use Ctrl + F to search
0:00
Tired of ads barging into your favorite
0:02
news podcasts? Good news. Ad-free
0:05
listening on Amazon Music is included with
0:07
your Prime membership. Just head
0:09
to amazon.com/ad-free news podcasts to catch
0:11
up on the latest episodes without
0:14
the ads. Enjoy thousands of 8-cast shows ad-free
0:16
for Prime subscribers. Some shows may have ads. Normally, being
0:18
a little extra might be a bit
0:20
much, but not when it comes to
0:23
healthcare. That's why UnitedHealthcare's Health Protector Guard
0:25
fixed indemnity insurance plans, underwritten by Golden
0:27
Rule Insurance Company, supplement your primary plan.
0:29
So you manage out-of-pocket costs. Learn more
0:31
at uh1.com. BBC
0:37
Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts.
0:41
From BBC Radio 4, this is
0:43
Things Fell Apart, season two. In
0:50
the weeks before George Floyd's murder
0:52
just days into lockdown, a culture
0:54
war was starting to simmer about
0:56
the pandemic itself, whether COVID
0:59
was a deadly threat or a
1:01
plot by governments to control us
1:03
and our bodies. This
1:05
story is about a moment that suddenly
1:07
took this debate to tens of millions
1:10
of people. I
1:13
think it was in early May 2020 and
1:15
a colleague sent me a link to this video
1:18
and I remember thinking, oh no,
1:20
why is she getting involved in this? You
1:23
have to assume that some
1:25
people died as a result of it. But
1:28
the story begins with a chance
1:30
encounter between a bartender and a
1:33
customer at a yacht club in
1:35
Ventura, California in 2006. The
1:42
bartender's name was Judy Mykovich.
1:45
She'd worked for over 20 years as
1:47
a staff scientist at the National Cancer
1:49
Institute in Maryland, where she
1:51
earned a PhD in biochemistry
1:53
and molecular biology. Although
1:57
Judy wasn't widely known in the
1:59
scientific community. She had authored 40
2:01
papers, but when she met her husband-to-be
2:04
David, she gave it all up and
2:06
moved to California So
2:09
you moved for love? Yes, so I moved for
2:11
love. My David was a
2:13
big teddy bear. He just lived pure
2:15
love You couldn't make that man unhappy
2:19
So one thing that you
2:22
did was you started spending quite a lot
2:24
of time at the local Yacht Club Pure
2:29
Ponte Bay Yacht Club and yeah, we joined
2:31
the Yacht Club My David's like, no, I
2:34
don't want anything to do with a yacht
2:36
club and I'm like, no, honey. It's not
2:38
like that They don't wear ties. They're not
2:41
stuffy. They're like us. So we were just
2:43
the friendliest little sailing club Since
2:46
it's a volunteer yacht club everybody
2:48
volunteered to do something I'm
2:51
a chemist so obviously I can
2:54
make a drink So were you like
2:56
Tom Cruise in cocktail like with cocktail
2:58
shakers doing fancy things? Absolutely.
3:00
We were called the Martini sisters
3:02
me my friend Robin and Martha.
3:04
We just had a blast Given
3:10
Judy's background and expertise in
3:12
science, what she tended to was
3:15
she chatted to the customers about
3:17
viruses and lot And
3:19
given her credentials people listened. Oh,
3:22
yes I absolutely talked about not
3:24
just viruses but curing cancer curing
3:26
AIDS Yeah, everybody knew
3:29
who I was and
3:31
something happened one day at
3:33
the Yacht Club You were
3:35
making drinks and a couple
3:37
of people came in and this chance
3:39
encounter just this chance conversation Really
3:42
changed your life. Ah, yes
3:46
The Yacht Club Judy had got chatting to
3:48
an accountant for a very rich woman with
3:50
a very sick daughter The
3:52
woman was friends with another very wealthy
3:54
couple who also had a very sick
3:57
daughter They had a
3:59
similar Age daughter who was
4:01
bed ridden very very ill.
4:04
Simply to very wealthy were
4:06
meant with a passion. To
4:09
heal their children. Couple
4:14
of out a met and half and with them
4:16
off. Half he was a lawyer from
4:18
the far as gaming industry. And
4:20
that daughter was sex with
4:23
Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Cfs. It
4:25
was feeling stopped off at the
4:28
medical establishment who enabling the condition
4:30
yuppie slew. But.
4:32
A network to was convinced
4:34
due. To.
4:38
The have never heard of chronic
4:40
Fatigue syndrome. Had a passion for
4:42
science. Twenty years experience at the
4:44
National Cancer Institutes was it worked
4:46
on treatments for Hiv and so
4:48
she agreed to meet the winter
4:50
most. Flew
4:52
to Reno and it became friends.
4:58
In those early days for the first met
5:00
to Wichita spoke with a like his people
5:02
and what was that lifestyle like they were?
5:04
It's very very. Christians but
5:06
lavish spending like we've never seen.
5:09
it was embarrassing. It times they
5:11
would fly me to a basketball
5:13
game because they knew I loved
5:16
sports. We felt blessed to. We
5:18
felt his home we sell like
5:21
family. All I knew
5:23
is that their child was sick and it
5:25
didn't matter how much money you add they
5:27
would have given it all to get their
5:29
child. Well. This
5:32
poor child was so sick. You
5:34
couldn't brush your teeth and take a shower
5:36
on. The same day, it's just too much
5:38
energy. One. Day in two
5:40
Thousand and Six Two Dates with is
5:43
a golf course at Whitmore Zones on
5:45
a net turn to Husband. And
5:49
she basically said harvey, you can't
5:51
let her leave You know of,
5:53
find a way to cheaper here
5:55
Cells Harvey said well what do
5:57
you want. But is how duty
5:59
when something. Volunteer bartender to the
6:01
research director of a new medical
6:04
institute very well funded by the
6:06
Which Most and tasked with finding
6:08
a cure for Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.
6:13
Back in two thousand and six
6:15
I was a college students and
6:17
looking for work for the summer.
6:19
I salads a job listing on
6:22
Craig's list. This
6:25
is I would ensue job
6:27
listings an intern position working
6:29
under today and Assad is
6:31
brand new with the more
6:33
Peterson Institute. She
6:38
was trying to find a research
6:40
direction with chronic Fatigue Syndrome. We
6:42
didn't have a clear idea of
6:45
what was causing the disease and
6:47
a lot the time it was
6:49
a stance brainstorming, just dousing off
6:52
ideas. It wasn't very structured. Still,
6:55
Live in like two days and a
6:57
husband David. And have good
7:00
memories of the most. Sitting around
7:02
to fire pit of the which
7:04
most lavish homes and the banks
7:06
of Lake Tahoe, I remember that
7:09
David talked for Judy very fondly.
7:11
Davis said that Judy is a
7:13
great mentor to seem to be
7:16
very knowledgeable, very affable and talkative.
7:25
The Instituto de been going for three
7:27
years when and two thousand and nine
7:29
to two at it breaks. She
7:33
discovered something totally unexpected in
7:35
the blood samples or chronic
7:37
Fatigue syndrome. Cfs patients have
7:40
had been studying. Something
7:42
no one had ever noticed before. It
7:45
was so extraordinary at the
7:47
journal Science agreed to publish
7:49
a findings. It
7:52
published Oct eight, two thousand
7:54
and nine in. It really
7:56
was this shot heard around
7:58
the world. I
8:04
first. Heard. Of Duty Mike
8:06
of It's a Two Thousand Nine
8:08
when she and her colleagues published
8:10
a paper in science that linked
8:13
very little known far as schools
8:15
Xmrv to this condition, Chronic Fatigue
8:17
Syndrome or next movie is a
8:19
mouse virus right? Yes, it's a
8:22
very little known mouse related virus.
8:25
This. Is Martin and sent his
8:27
deputy news editor science a slicing
8:29
and infectious Diseases. So what they
8:31
found was that about two thirds
8:34
of the see if a spacious
8:36
of they looked at had Xmrv
8:38
in their blood and among a
8:40
group of healthy controls. stuff says.
8:43
Around three percent. As.
8:46
Three percent up asymptomatic
8:49
carrying around passing around
8:51
and infectious disease. So.
8:55
Even though they didn't say Xmrv
8:58
cause chronic Fatigue syndrome, it's certainly
9:00
looked like a very solid link
9:02
and this was like a major
9:05
breakthrough moment. Fair people with chronic
9:07
steaks and dramatic. Ready
9:10
to understand the threats. It's always
9:12
been a bustling disease to scientists.
9:15
It's very severe, it's debilitating, it
9:17
can ruin people's lives, and it's
9:19
quite a month and yet we
9:22
don't know what causes it. So
9:24
finding that. It. Might be caused
9:26
by a virus My be an infectious disease.
9:28
Really? That was a big deal. Yes, It.
9:31
Would be huge for patients because if
9:33
they had a virus you could start
9:35
thinking about treatments. So very early on
9:38
people began seeing her of us as
9:40
a savior. Harvey
9:48
would introduce needs. As saving his
9:51
daughter's life you know we. Were just
9:53
heroes in a that. So
9:56
how big a deal is it to get
9:58
a paper published in Science? getting published
10:00
in Science can feel like hitting the
10:03
jackpot. It's a big deal. Welcome to
10:05
Nevada Newsmakers on the program today. A
10:07
life-changing discovery from the Whitimore Peterson Institute.
10:10
You will be astounded on the program
10:12
today. Annette Whitimore and Judy Mikovitz. I
10:14
saw an interview that you did around
10:17
the same time that the Science paper
10:19
was published. It was you and Annette.
10:21
And the two of you looked so
10:24
excited. Your eyes were shining. Well, of
10:26
course, it's what you worked since you were 10
10:29
years old. And back on Nevada
10:31
Newsmakers, we are thrilled to welcome the program.
10:33
Annette Whitimore, she's the president and founder of
10:35
the Whitimore Peterson Institute. I can't think of
10:37
a more exciting program I've done because what
10:39
we're about to talk about is world-shattering news.
10:42
I was absolutely thrilled. This is exactly what
10:44
we started out to do. The exciting thing
10:46
is that Judy can tell you how the
10:49
virus works, and every one
10:51
of the symptoms makes sense because of
10:53
that. So, yeah, we were excited.
10:56
We were happy because we knew we
10:58
could heal people who had been sick
11:00
a long time. That was my entire
11:03
life work, and I could pass on
11:05
the knowledge and retire at 55, as
11:08
I'd planned to do with my husband, the day
11:11
we got married. So, yeah, we were excited.
11:13
What has been the result of the medical community? It's
11:16
been phenomenal. The scientific community has
11:18
just been over the top. Yeah,
11:21
we presented these data three times, and
11:24
you could hear a pin drop in
11:26
the audience. It's amazement. The scientists are
11:29
excited. Everyone's working on it. It's an
11:31
entire new field of medicine. Now,
11:37
did you fit into the scientific
11:39
community, Judy and the institute?
11:41
Were they seen as like outliers? I
11:43
think it's fair to say that very
11:45
few people in the biomedical community had
11:47
ever heard of Judy Mike of its
11:50
scientific career and not been very
11:52
remarkable. And the same is
11:55
true for the Withermore Peterson Institute. I had never
11:57
heard of it. I think almost nobody had. It
11:59
was a new... institute
12:01
out in Nevada. I
12:03
mean here these people were not
12:05
scientists to launch a new Institute and
12:08
boom within two or three years they
12:10
have a major finding that looks like
12:12
it can change everything. One
12:17
reason why Judy was being taken seriously was
12:19
because her paper had 13 authors.
12:23
Five were from the Whittemore Peterson
12:25
Institute but others were from the
12:27
National Cancer Institute and the Cleveland
12:29
Clinic. So it was not
12:31
just Judy it was a whole group of
12:33
people even though she spearheaded the effort and
12:36
I think too many scientists that gave the
12:38
paper more credibility. But
12:42
amid the celebration something a little odd
12:44
was going on. Take
12:46
the morning after science published Judy's
12:49
paper. The BBC's Nikki Campbell
12:51
and Sheila Fogarty interviewed her and
12:53
one of her researchers on five
12:55
lives. When you listen it
12:57
all seems quite normal. This affects about a
12:59
quarter of a million people in Britain and
13:02
for decades it has defied
13:04
a rational medical explanation. So
13:07
recognition is one thing and finding the cause
13:09
is another if indeed that is what you
13:11
have done. What about finding a cure? Finding
13:14
cure is of course at the forefront
13:16
of our mind. We're looking for treatment
13:19
and hopefully relieve the symptoms of ME
13:22
and CFS. Thank
13:24
you very much indeed. Both of
13:26
you. It's 7.59. And who's John with the
13:28
weather? Judy
13:30
later wrote in her memoir Plague that
13:33
the presenters mocked and patronized them and
13:35
to retaliate they started talking in a
13:37
faux British accent like a chiding nanny
13:40
and when the BBC realised that they
13:42
were being laughed at they hastily cut
13:44
away to the weather. But
13:47
as he just heard that didn't happen.
13:49
It was strange and Byron
13:52
said he had noticed something else
13:54
small but still a little strange
13:56
about Judy. I remember one
13:58
time I was driving Judy to probably
14:00
in over one hour drive. And the
14:02
whole time she was talking nonstop. I
14:05
don't recall her ever stopping speaking.
14:08
Now I don't want to malign people who never
14:10
stopped talking, but that's a
14:12
little self-involved. Yes, I
14:15
would say it's a person who
14:17
talks endlessly for hours that's
14:20
had a little bit of narcissistic
14:22
tendencies. So
14:25
the paper is published in
14:28
Science. Then what happened?
14:30
Very soon, people started trying to
14:32
replicate this finding. So they took
14:34
another population of CFS patients
14:36
and they started looking for the same virus
14:40
and they all came up empty-handed.
14:43
And people trying to replicate her findings,
14:45
were those like big operations? Yes, it
14:47
was multiple millions of dollars. The scary
14:49
part was that if Judy was right,
14:52
XMRV was also in 3% of
14:54
healthy people, which meant across the United
14:56
States, about 10 million people walking around
14:58
with this virus. The US
15:01
governments decided to spend a lot of
15:03
money on these studies because if XMRV
15:05
was spreading in the community, everybody
15:07
agreed that they needed to get to the bottom of
15:09
this. And
15:13
everyone came up empty-handed. Nobody
15:16
could replicate Judy's findings. It
15:19
became an avalanche, one study after
15:21
another. So what did Judy say about
15:23
that? Well, Judy stuck
15:26
to her guns. After every paper, she
15:29
said, well, they didn't quite do it the
15:31
right way or they didn't use the exact
15:33
same techniques that we did. And that increasingly
15:35
started annoying other scientists. They
15:37
thought she was moving the
15:40
goalposts. It
15:42
wasn't that they couldn't reproduce
15:44
our findings, it's that they
15:46
wouldn't reproduce our findings. Never
15:48
once did they try to
15:50
do our work the
15:53
way it was done in the paper.
15:55
When you replicate a study, you do
15:58
exactly what they do. They
16:00
didn't want to know. What
16:30
did she say? Labs
17:01
all over the world routinely
17:03
acquire for their experiments lab-grown
17:05
cells called cell lines. Maybe
17:08
the XMRV had contaminated the cell lines
17:10
that Judy was using in her lab.
17:13
So the virus infected cell
17:15
lines, and so many labs had
17:18
XMRV sort of floating
17:20
around in their research materials. But
17:22
it's questionable whether it ever infected a
17:25
single human being. So there's
17:27
no suggestion of foul play here. This seems
17:29
to have been like a genuine mistake. I
17:31
think so. I don't think it was foul play, no.
17:34
The lab owners, the Whittemores, were
17:37
growing very worried that nobody could
17:39
stand up Judy's findings. Their
17:42
relationship was deteriorating. They
17:44
argued over a cell line that Annette
17:46
wanted Judy to hand over to a
17:49
former colleague. Annette
17:51
Whittemore calls me. I'm standing in
17:53
shorts and a T-shirt, and she
17:55
said, I Understand you
17:57
have the cell lines. Wind
18:00
and I said i have
18:02
the cell lines but. He's.
18:04
Not getting it. To
18:07
the wasn't quite clear with me why she
18:09
was refusing to hand over the cell line.
18:12
And I got the sense that by
18:14
them cyclone mistrustful have anyone to my
18:17
out her findings. And she
18:19
got desperate and she's screaming I said
18:21
no, he's not getting the cell line.
18:23
Yes, it's in the freezer. Yes, I
18:26
know where it is. Yes, you don't
18:28
get it's, get out loud. Love us
18:30
She said I'm tired of your insubordination.
18:34
Good firing you for your. Insolence
18:36
in insubordination. Of
18:40
to do with foods. Things move
18:42
just. Sort. Of asserts notebooks
18:44
back from the lab says she was
18:46
worried that they would be tampered with.
18:49
Know that she'd been set out
18:51
of reach. Cause
18:53
of search max. Masses
18:56
resourceful young man and he
18:58
got into the less. It's
19:01
about one in the morning.
19:03
I said max, you've got
19:05
to protect that data to
19:07
secure that data. So he
19:09
took the notebooks any killed
19:11
some somewhere home or his
19:13
mother's. House when the with most
19:15
discovered that the notebooks with gone
19:17
be filed a civil lawsuits against
19:20
today the breach of contract. A
19:23
few days later, Reno police
19:25
issued an arrest warrants against
19:27
jews and listing two felony
19:29
charges: possession of stolen property
19:31
and unlawful taking a factor.
19:35
This. Must have been of sorry. Caressing.
19:37
Time see you will show our it
19:40
was very frightening. We.
19:44
Call my friend Rob and who had a boat
19:46
in the harbor and I said robin is your
19:48
boat unlocked and she said yeah Judy it always
19:50
is and I said okay, can I stay on
19:52
it for a few days. So
19:55
now Judy was on the run. hiding
19:57
are when a bunch. So the police.
20:00
The new charge to date
20:02
with. Now a fugitive from
20:04
justice, it was terrifying. The
20:06
playing of the riggings. I didn't know
20:08
who was gonna come down there. stay
20:10
at. This was the most terrifying time
20:12
of my life that. Was the worst
20:15
week and for three days. Science:
20:17
The Journal. Was on the phone saying retract
20:19
her tracks attempt and I said no. Use
20:22
Me Science only be trucks the paper one
20:24
school. The authors agree that it should be.
20:28
At the time the to do was hiding out
20:30
on the bugs must have a couple of this
20:32
had agreed. Not to. There's.
20:35
Still, Science went ahead anyway.
20:38
He retracted. It's definitely not
20:40
the first time.a paper gets retracted. it
20:42
happens to some of the most famous
20:45
scientist. It's not the end of the
20:47
world, it maybe a little things for
20:49
baresi, but it's also the waistlines works.
20:52
People. Get over it and they move on. And
20:54
he could have gone that way for judas papers.
20:56
Well, But instead the
20:58
opposite. And that's right. Everything.
21:01
began to unravel. Are professional
21:03
and her personal life where in grades were
21:05
born. Duty Spent four days
21:07
hiding out on the boats and
21:10
she went home with rest. I.
21:12
Was plenty and neat. suicide watch
21:14
lanes. They do everything they can
21:17
to do their little body cavity
21:19
searches and humiliate you. You have
21:22
nothing but solid cinder block. you
21:24
have no blanket, you know, pillow
21:26
because of course you'll commit suicide.
21:29
I was in his cell with
21:31
a drug addict to spoke no
21:33
English, was vomiting and had diarrhea
21:36
nonstop. So I was essentially in
21:38
solitary confinement for five days. Swimming.
21:42
Days in jail as scientists the bus have
21:44
been a low point in her career and
21:46
in your life. It was a terrible thing.
21:50
You. Honestly, don't say it saying. It.
21:53
Really wasn't until. The last day when
21:55
I was shackled to a lady hands
21:57
and see in the little bus or.
22:00
in a courthouse, she kind of softened
22:02
me up a bit and said, what
22:04
are you really here for? And I told
22:06
her I was a scientist, and she said
22:08
to the guards, she stole her own brain.
22:12
In Judy's memoir, Plague, she writes
22:14
about those days, quote,
22:17
anything which kept patients with chronic
22:19
fatigue syndrome a single day longer
22:22
in their darkened room, or
22:24
they put an honest scientist in jail, could
22:27
only go by a simple name, evil.
22:32
I think it must have been an important development
22:34
in her life that must have shaped her. Also,
22:38
it's very expensive to defend yourself
22:40
in court. So I believe she
22:42
went bankrupt at some point, everything
22:44
collapsed around her. I
22:46
filed bankruptcy, we lost
22:48
everything. Her findings
22:50
were found to be scientifically
22:52
invalid. She stole lab data
22:54
from her former employer. I
22:57
mean, who would want to hire somebody with
22:59
such a track record? I
23:01
believe Judy's ego was shattered
23:03
by the incident. In
23:09
the end, the charges against Judy
23:11
were dropped after the Whittemaws were
23:13
themselves embroiled in scandal. Harvey
23:16
was jailed for two years for
23:18
breaking federal campaign contribution laws. And
23:21
after that, Judy drifted from view.
23:26
But unbeknownst to the medical community, she
23:28
was brooding. Between
23:30
the unreplicatable paper, the scandal over
23:32
the retraction, but
23:35
mostly the unnecessarily cruel arrest
23:37
and jailing, you
23:39
can see how she felt that the world had turned against
23:41
her. I think if
23:44
Judy was narcissistically inclined, these
23:46
were wounds that wouldn't heal. She
23:49
was turning, looking for a new community.
23:56
Cut eight years later, and suddenly... She's
24:01
everywhere. She's viral. Yes, yes, she
24:03
went viral. I think it was
24:05
in early May 2020, and a
24:07
colleague sent me a link to this video, a
24:09
pandemic. And
24:13
I remember thinking, oh no. Dr.
24:17
Judy Mykowitz has been called one of the
24:19
most accomplished scientists of her generation. At
24:22
the height of her career, Dr. Mykowitz published
24:24
a blockbuster article in the journal,
24:26
Science. The controversial article
24:28
sent shockwaves to the scientific community as
24:31
it revealed that the common use of
24:33
animal and human fetal tissues were unleashing
24:35
devastating plagues of chronic diseases. For
24:38
exposing their deadly secrets, the minions of
24:40
Big Pharma waged war on Dr. Mykowitz,
24:43
destroying her good name, career, and
24:45
personal life. Now,
24:48
as the fate of nations hang in the bones, Dr.
24:51
Mykowitz is naming names of those behind the
24:53
plague of corruption that places all human life
24:55
in danger. This is
24:58
filmmaker, Mickey Willis, interviewing Judy
25:00
for his documentary, Plan-demic, The
25:02
Hidden Agenda Behind COVID-19, released
25:05
on May the 4th, 2020. Tens
25:09
of millions of viewers, Plan-demic was
25:11
the first thing to challenge the
25:13
narrative about COVID and lockdown, the
25:16
first major viral moment of somebody
25:18
saying, what you're living through isn't
25:21
what you think. In
25:24
the film, Judy presents herself as
25:27
a martyred truth-teller, jailed by a
25:29
corrupt medical establishment that was now
25:32
turning its evil on us all.
25:35
So you made a discovery that conflicted
25:37
with the agreed upon narrative. Correct.
25:40
And for that, they
25:42
did everything in their powers to destroy
25:44
your life. Correct. You were
25:46
arrested? Correct. And so what did they
25:48
charge you with? Nothing. But
25:51
you were in jail. I was held in
25:53
jail with no charges. That was called a
25:55
fugitive from justice. Apparently their attempt
25:58
to silence you has failed. What
26:02
is the most important thing you've ever seen? The pandemic just
26:04
has so much disinformation on an epic
26:07
scale. She was presented as one
26:09
of the most eminent scientists in
26:11
the country. I think her ending
26:13
up in jail was the result of a
26:15
terrible employment conflict. Essentially, it really got out
26:17
of hand in a way that it never
26:19
should have. But I don't think it was
26:22
the government's way to silence her. The
26:25
timing was impeccable when
26:27
the pandemic really became viral in May of
26:29
2020. Most people
26:31
had only been under lockdown for maybe
26:33
a few months. And many
26:36
people were anxious. Maybe
26:38
the most standout shocking moments
26:41
in the pandemic, the interviewer says,
26:43
if we activate mandatory vaccines globally...
26:45
I imagine these people stand to
26:47
make hundreds of billions of dollars
26:49
that own the vaccines. And
26:51
they'll kill millions, as they
26:53
already have with their vaccines. To
26:56
say that was extraordinary, because vaccines
26:58
have saved hundreds of millions of
27:00
lives. In the pandemic, Judy not
27:02
only claims that her shadowy cabal
27:04
of elites had engineered the virus
27:07
for profit and power, but that
27:09
Anthony Fauci, who was in charge
27:11
of America's COVID response, was responsible
27:13
for the deaths of millions during
27:16
the AIDS epidemic. A
27:18
new viral video spreading on social media
27:20
has many public health experts alarmed. They
27:22
worry the video, which already has more
27:24
than 8 million views, is manipulative. Public
27:26
health experts say it is incredibly dangerous,
27:28
because if people believe what's in this
27:31
video and act on it, hospitals
27:33
like these will be overwhelmed with
27:35
coronavirus patients. YouTube is deleting it for
27:37
violating guidelines on COVID misinformation, but that
27:40
hasn't stopped tens of millions of people
27:42
from sharing it on other platforms. Nothing
27:44
is more insidious than the so-called
27:47
pandemic conspiracy theory now floating about,
27:49
which alleges that coronavirus was engineered
27:51
to increase vaccinations and make people
27:54
rich. is
28:00
to prevent the therapies until
28:02
everyone is infected and push
28:05
the vaccines. Why
28:07
would you close the beach? You've
28:09
got sequences in the soil, in
28:11
the sand, you've got healing microbes
28:13
in the ocean, in the salt
28:15
water. That's insanity. I
28:21
think she was right about one thing, you know, closing
28:23
the beaches probably didn't help much because we now know
28:25
that that was not a place where many people would
28:27
have gotten infected but to say
28:29
that in what people had gone to the
28:31
beach they would have been healed by microbes
28:34
in the sand. There's no evidence for
28:36
that. Judy
28:41
released a book too, Plague of Corruption,
28:43
which ended up on the New York
28:45
Times best seller list selling more than
28:47
100,000 copies. She
28:49
hit the talk show circuit. Judy Mikevitz, welcome
28:52
on to the Thrive Time Show. How are
28:54
you, ma'am? Judy Mikevitz is somebody that never
28:56
gives up. They SWAT team her and set
28:58
her up and put her in prison, ladies
29:00
and gentlemen, but she's been totally vindicated. Our
29:02
next speaker woke me up to medical tyranny
29:04
like you couldn't believe the movie, the pandemic
29:06
series. Ladies and gentlemen, please stand to your
29:09
feet and greet Doctor Judy Mikevitz.
29:18
She's a completely different person now, just
29:21
trying to have revenge
29:23
on the scientific community. These
29:28
days, Judy's old intern Byron works
29:31
as an application scientist for an
29:33
oncology company. When she was discredited,
29:35
I took off my
29:37
experience from my resume and tried
29:39
to forget about her for about
29:42
nine years until 2020. I
29:45
felt a very strong need to
29:48
combat the misinformation in the
29:50
pandemic video. I was briefly
29:53
on the same panel as
29:55
Judy, but it was full
29:57
of anti-vaccine propagandists, but
29:59
I did my best. to stand my ground.
30:01
Byron has seen me on the
30:03
screen. Byron's shoe
30:06
was my student. And he's
30:08
being paid by the Chinese.
30:11
And we're very familiar with disinformation agents. We
30:13
can smell them. This is
30:15
Byron in July 2022, appearing on
30:18
a live stream show, Sudden Truth.
30:21
The woman shouting is Judy. You got
30:23
paid to take Judy might have
30:25
been out and you know everywhere
30:27
I said is true and you
30:29
absolutely do. You're a stupid idiot.
30:31
You didn't do anything. We
30:33
made a lot of money trying
30:35
to take me down. And we're coming
30:37
after you bitch with a lawsuit. Gotcha.
30:40
So where's the lawsuit Judy? Dad, we're gonna get
30:42
it. Wait for it honey. In
30:49
December 2021 tragedy hit
30:51
Judy. Her husband David, the
30:54
man she had moved to California for,
30:56
all those years ago, died. It
30:59
was widely reported that the cause of
31:01
death was Covid. So
31:04
obviously when pandemic came out
31:06
there was a very big
31:08
backlash against it from a
31:10
lot of very well-respected scientists,
31:12
including people who had once
31:14
been your peers. They accuse
31:16
you of spreading dangerous falsehoods
31:18
about Covid and particularly I
31:21
think the safety of vaccines. They're
31:23
not my peers. They're not the honest
31:25
scientists who never did anything wrong.
31:27
Also some of those people do
31:30
point out that David
31:32
wasn't vaccinated. David didn't
31:34
die of Covid. David
31:37
had COPD, the inflammatory
31:39
disease, long before I met
31:41
him. He died of a heart attack
31:43
and I had no idea until middle
31:46
of January that they literally called
31:48
it Covid. So
31:50
they put Covid in the death certificate
31:53
as the cause of his death? Correct. They
31:55
murdered him and called it Covid and
31:58
that's what the fraudulent Certificate
32:00
through retaliation against me and
32:02
they had to call it
32:04
cove it in order to.
32:06
Destroy my voice forever. That's
32:12
a story of to Jamaica. That's.
32:15
What began with a chance
32:17
encounter? any club and that
32:19
that the first tonight and
32:21
Tpp conspiracy theory. And use
32:23
a sense in the coach was. A
32:26
story I think success on
32:28
a great mystery of our
32:30
times. What happens to send
32:33
smart people tumbling down at
32:35
home? Such a
32:37
mystery that experts and radicalization say
32:39
that the people like Jeter it's
32:42
ideology to be so mixed up
32:44
with personal grievance can be difficult
32:46
to know the driving notice. Next
32:55
time I'm things and the
32:57
parts Close Family on lockdown,
32:59
escaping camping trips, found themselves
33:01
in the midst of this
33:03
most terrifying cops on. Unfortunately
33:07
as a going further down this
33:09
very isolated lonely highway they certain
33:11
some folks are flipping them off
33:14
on the road, giving them really
33:16
hard stairs. After that they start
33:18
hearing gunshots. Pigs
33:23
and A Person Written and presented
33:25
by me Jon Ronson and produced
33:27
by Side with Serbia. The
33:30
music is composed by Phil
33:32
Channel, the program with Mix
33:34
I, Tunnels In, the editor
33:37
with Philip Centers and the
33:39
commissioning editor was an clock
33:41
Bbc audio production Bbc Radio
33:44
Four Btc Sounds. From
33:53
Bbc Radio for. lice
33:56
can be unexpected it's big and
33:58
it is this was not The
34:00
wind, this is not a storm, this was
34:02
a tsunami. But when confronted with
34:04
change, humans are remarkably resilient.
34:07
I knew in that moment as
34:09
I fell to the ground that
34:11
I would recover more. I'm
34:13
Dr. Sharn Williams, psychologist and presenter of
34:15
Life Changing, the programme that speaks to
34:17
people whose worlds have been flipped upside
34:20
down and transformed in a moment. If
34:22
I had to live my life again,
34:24
would I ever want to go through
34:26
what I went through? There's
34:29
a very simple answer to that. I
34:31
would go through it again. Subscribe to
34:33
Life Changing on BBC Sounds.
Podchaser is the ultimate destination for podcast data, search, and discovery. Learn More