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0:54

A third case of H5N1 bird flu

0:56

is diagnosed, this time with more traditional

0:58

flu-like symptoms. New research shows that

1:01

bird flu virus can be found in the muscle

1:03

tissue of infected cows. A study

1:05

of human and canine testicles finds plastic particles

1:07

in all of them. And a

1:09

WHO report found that the pandemic took us

1:11

back a decade in global life expectancy gains.

1:14

This is America Dissected, I'm your host, Dr. Abdul

1:16

Alsahia. To

1:21

say that American politics is broken is almost

1:23

quaint at this point. Our government

1:25

seems at risk of shutting down every budget

1:27

cycle. And instead of getting down

1:29

to the work of legislating, our legislators are

1:31

usually more interested in using whatever news of

1:34

the day has grist to drive a cultural

1:36

war. The gridlock that causes

1:38

is usually what people mean when they say that

1:40

government is quote broken. But there's

1:42

a broader issue at the heart of our

1:44

broken politics that I think gets missed because

1:46

it's hard to pinpoint. And

1:48

it's less about what is said than what

1:50

is not said. See, our

1:53

politicians have, by and large, ceased to

1:55

be big thinkers. Most of

1:57

them spend their careers tinkering on the margins. to

2:00

find marginal wins at the edge of

2:02

outdated ideas to address yesterday's problems. Take

2:05

the challenge of social media. Even

2:07

as big tech makes quantum leaps in

2:10

AI technology, Congress seems forever stuck on

2:12

the cusp of social media regulation, barely

2:14

catching up with major technological challenges of

2:16

the 2010s. It's

2:19

hard not to conclude that by the time

2:21

Congress wraps its head around AI, the technology

2:23

and the incentives driving its creation will have

2:25

already done their worst. That

2:28

intellectual ossification is particularly bad in

2:30

healthcare. It's not just that

2:32

legislators are failing to solve our problems, but

2:34

rather they're aiding and abetting them. The

2:37

most important class of drugs to be

2:39

developed this century, GLP-1 agonists like Ozempic

2:41

and Wogowi, have the risk of bankrupting

2:43

Medicare. Why? Because

2:46

prescription drug companies have so wrapped their

2:48

tentacles around our politics that they can

2:50

continue to gouge the very government that

2:52

funds their research and development. Healthcare

2:55

systems are gobbling each other up at a record

2:57

pace, simply shutting down low

2:59

margin hospitals that just happen to

3:01

be the only healthcare providers for

3:03

miles in rural communities across America.

3:06

Health insurance companies meanwhile are raising

3:08

premiums and deductibles, so much so

3:10

that more than 50% of those who

3:12

incurred bad medical debt in 2023 were insured. were

3:15

insured And these problems, well, they're

3:17

not new. They're just the logical

3:20

endpoints of a set of trends that have been

3:22

ongoing for decades now. Health

3:24

insurance is accelerating, insurers passing on those

3:26

costs to families, hospitals falling into bankruptcy.

3:30

Rather than address these crippling trends at their

3:32

heart, politicians and policymakers seem

3:34

content to debate small time solutions

3:36

that don't fundamentally change any of

3:38

the incentives at play. And

3:40

that's probably because it's in their political

3:43

interests not to. Healthcare

3:45

represents three of the top ten largest

3:47

lobbyists by industry. Coming in at

3:49

number one is pharma, which spent nearly $4.3 billion, yes, with a B,

3:51

on the lobbying

3:54

over the past 20 years. At

3:56

number two comes the insurance industry, spending about

3:58

$2.8 billion. And hospitals

4:00

come in at number eight. With

4:03

so much money spent to shape politicians' opinions,

4:05

it's no wonder that they have the opinions

4:07

they do. And that's not

4:09

to mention all the money they spend through

4:11

their PACs and Super PACs and 527s to

4:13

help get their folks elected. But

4:15

our guest today? Well, he's bucked that trend. No

4:18

stranger to being a maverick, he's leveraged his

4:20

leadership to force conversations that cut to the

4:22

very heart of what's broken in healthcare. Bernie

4:25

Sanders is single-handedly responsible for the movement

4:27

for Medicare for All, holding

4:29

the first-ever hearings about it in the Senate

4:31

in 2022, where yours truly had the opportunity

4:33

to testify. But that's not

4:35

where his leadership ends. He's

4:37

just about the only politician still talking

4:40

about the lagging epidemic of long COVID,

4:42

and one of very few proposing bold ideas

4:45

to tackle the possible impact of AI on

4:47

the future of work. Given

4:49

his leadership, I wanted to have him on to talk about

4:51

some of these ideas and more. We discussed

4:53

the 32-hour workweek, his push for a long

4:55

COVID moonshot, and the price of Ozempic. Here's

4:58

my conversation with chair of the Senate Health Committee,

5:00

Bernie Sanders. All right. Well,

5:03

this is a guest who needs no introduction, but I'm going

5:05

to ask anyway, as is the course of the show. Senator,

5:08

can you introduce yourself for the tape, please? Senator

5:11

Bernie Sanders, Vermont. Senator, thank

5:13

you so much for taking the time. And

5:15

there's a number of things I want to

5:17

talk to you about because you have been

5:19

so active when it comes to our country's

5:21

healthcare policy through your leadership of the

5:24

Senate Health Committee. I want to jump

5:26

in first to the 40-hour workweek. And

5:29

that is a policy that's been enacted in

5:31

this country since 1940. People

5:33

don't realize that we had to fight for that. And

5:36

you've come out recently with proposal

5:38

legislation that would take us to 32 hours. I'd

5:41

love to hear how would that work

5:44

and what is the thinking behind trying

5:46

to reduce those work hours and what

5:48

does it mean for people across the

5:50

country? Well, thanks very much, Agul.

5:53

And what it means is

5:55

that way back in 1944, some 80... years

6:00

ago. Congress

6:02

passed a 40-hour work week within

6:05

the National Labor Relations Act. Said

6:07

if you work more than 40 hours a week, you get time

6:09

and a half. That

6:11

was 80 years ago. Is there

6:14

anybody in America who does not

6:16

believe that the economy has radically

6:18

changed, that worker

6:20

productivity has significantly increased,

6:23

but we have not changed

6:25

the official 40-hour, not

6:27

moved away from the 40-hour work week.

6:30

So the thinking behind what we

6:32

have proposed is not terribly radical.

6:35

It says that if workers today are

6:37

far, far more productive than

6:39

they were 80 years ago, I want

6:42

the increased productivity and the wealth

6:44

that is created from that increased

6:47

productivity to go to the workers and

6:50

not just to the CEOs and the

6:52

corporations. And on top of that, we are

6:54

a nation where our people work some

6:57

of the longest hours of

6:59

any people on earth, any industrialization

7:01

on earth. People in

7:04

many ways are exhausted. They don't have enough

7:06

time for family. They don't have enough time

7:08

for their friends. Impacts, mental

7:10

health impacts our well-way way

7:12

of being as

7:15

a people. So I think for a lot

7:17

of reasons, we should be moving in that direction. I

7:20

really appreciate that point about the mental

7:22

health of workers. And what

7:25

I think people miss when we talk about a

7:27

32-hour work week is all that context that

7:29

you shared about how much more productive workers are

7:31

today, but also the changing

7:33

nature of what it means to do

7:36

thought work. And one of the big impending

7:38

changes that we see coming is AI. And

7:41

I think what a lot of CEOs are

7:43

salivating about when it comes to AI is

7:45

the ability to eliminate jobs. And one

7:48

of the things I love about this legislation is that

7:50

you recognize that it's important for

7:52

us now to recognize that rather than eliminate

7:54

whole swaths of jobs and expect the folks

7:56

who are left over to be working 50,

7:58

60 hours a week. Instead,

8:01

the recognition that rather

8:03

than eliminate whole aspects of your

8:05

labor force, what this should be doing

8:08

is making sure that everybody can work less

8:10

for that same pay and forcing CEOs

8:13

to share what they think is going to be

8:16

money that comes to their bottom lines with

8:19

workers. I think that's context that sometimes people miss.

8:21

I'd love you to reflect on 32 hours in

8:23

the context of AI. But you're

8:25

exactly right. So for a

8:27

start, today, our people are

8:29

far far more productive than they were 80 years

8:33

ago. But what we have seen over the

8:35

last 50 years, and I know you're very familiar with this, is

8:38

a massive transfer of wealth such

8:40

that almost all of the new wealth created has

8:42

gone to the top 1%. The

8:45

average worker today in America, unbelievably,

8:48

has a paycheck in real inflation accounts

8:50

of $4 lower than it was 50

8:52

years ago. So almost all of

8:54

their wealth has gone to the top 1%. And

8:56

then, as you suggest, right now, we're

8:59

looking at another revolution in technology, AI

9:01

and robotics. Who's going to benefit from

9:03

that? Left alone, the

9:06

large corporations will do exactly as you said. Hey,

9:08

it's a great opportunity. I got

9:10

robots. I got AI. I don't

9:12

need writers. I don't need factory workers. Throw them

9:14

all out on the street. We can make more

9:16

money. And that is why

9:18

we have got to fight back right now. It's

9:20

part of what the trade union movement is organizing

9:22

around and say, yep, if technology

9:25

is going to increase productivity, workers are

9:27

going to benefit from that, not just

9:29

the And

9:33

I love that point because I think sometimes we

9:35

miss the fact that all labor

9:38

policy is health policy, is being a

9:40

health podcast. All of the effort that

9:42

has gone into labor organizing has

9:44

always been about the well-being of laborers, whether they've

9:46

got some more money in their pockets to invest

9:48

in their well-being, whether they've got health care that

9:51

they can count on, whether they are being injured

9:53

on the job. And I think

9:55

this is the future of where labor policy

9:58

has to go. of

10:00

exactly this point, I want to ask you, you know,

10:02

one of the things that has been so obvious about

10:04

your leadership and something I really appreciate it is even

10:07

if the bill doesn't pass, what tends to

10:09

happen is you see movement in

10:12

those directions, both because civil

10:14

society picks it up or labor unions pick it

10:16

up. You think about the fight for 15, exactly

10:18

the story where you see a $15 wage has

10:21

become the de facto floor in most contexts,

10:23

even if federal policy hasn't moved. Do you

10:25

see that happening when it comes to a

10:28

32-hour work week? You know, I go

10:30

to airports and I talk to a lot of people, people come up

10:32

to me. I cannot recall

10:34

any issue, any issue. I was

10:36

just at the Newark

10:39

airport, the other day, and some TSA

10:41

guy comes up, 32-hour work week.

10:43

We tried it for a minute. People are

10:46

desperate to spend more time with family

10:48

and friends. They are overwhelmed

10:50

in many respects and COVID obviously

10:53

exacerbated that problem. So

10:56

when we talk about our health,

10:59

you know, you're a physician, you know this better than

11:01

I do. The role

11:03

that stress and anxiety plays in

11:06

a hundred different illnesses, all right?

11:09

People are stressed out, they're worried economically,

11:11

they're worried about the future of their

11:13

kids, they're worried about how they survive, they're

11:16

sick and tired of going to jobs that

11:18

often they really don't enjoy and

11:20

all of that contributes to the

11:22

fact that our life expectancy is much, much lower

11:24

than it should be. So creating

11:27

a healthy society means

11:29

that people should not be exhausted, should

11:31

not be stressed out, should have

11:33

the income that they need so that they

11:35

can spend time with family, friends, enjoy

11:38

leisure, enjoy culture. It's

11:40

a hugely important issue. Yeah,

11:43

you know, I've been talking about

11:45

it with several friends of mine. I was

11:47

like, imagine you had free Fridays for

11:50

the rest of your work existence. I mean, if

11:52

we could free the Friday, like I think life would

11:54

be so much better and those three-day weekends change everything

11:57

and it's exactly that. And the thing that I think

11:59

folks don't appreciate, is that people are more

12:01

productive when they've got their lives in order

12:03

and they're not rushing to try and live

12:05

all of their lives two days a week

12:07

and so we had

12:09

a hearing we had a hearing we had a

12:12

moderate a business owner of a moderate-sized business

12:15

and what he said is

12:17

that he finds that productive

12:19

productivity actually goes up people

12:22

feel better better they are more

12:24

focused they produce more than

12:27

when they are tired and unhappy yeah

12:29

I think the numbers speak for themselves on

12:31

all sides I want to move to another topic

12:34

that you've been a real leader on I think

12:36

a lot of people think that the pandemic is

12:38

over and I worry that

12:40

a lot of the worst consequences of the

12:42

pandemic are just beginning one of the things

12:44

that viruses often do is they find little

12:46

hideouts in our bodies and they persist and

12:48

we're seeing that in the acute sense when

12:51

it comes to long Covid today but we don't really

12:53

know what Covid is going to mean

12:55

over the long term 20-30 years from now you

12:57

think about shingles and what shingles is is just

12:59

recurring tick and pox like 20-30 years later because

13:02

it's coming out of its hiding place as

13:04

your immune system starts to struggle

13:06

and so we don't know what comes later and what

13:08

you're doing is I think bucking a political trend where

13:10

nobody wants to talk about Covid one of the things

13:12

I'm frustrated about is Republicans want to pretend like it

13:15

never happened and Democrats want to pretend like it's over

13:17

and I think you're coming out here and saying actually

13:19

for a lot of people who are struggling with symptoms

13:21

of long Covid it's not and so you've declared a

13:23

Covid a long Covid moonshot can you tell us a

13:26

little bit about that yeah and

13:28

I should back it up and tell you

13:30

that for precisely the reasons you've

13:32

mentioned we held a hearing on it a

13:35

number of months ago and it was really a very

13:37

moving and disturbing hearing

13:39

we had four witnesses all of them very

13:41

very good will not forget

13:44

a young woman from California used

13:46

to run right now she

13:48

has a he's on 12 different

13:51

medications dealing with her symptoms managed

13:53

now to have a job another

13:56

woman maybe 40-45 loved to

13:58

work at a community college has

14:00

a hard time getting out of bed. Mother

14:03

of a teenage girl kid was

14:05

social act of healthy and

14:07

now in really, really difficult shape. Point is

14:09

over 20 million people

14:12

suffer from long COVID. Government

14:15

has spent, I think, 1.2 billion. Up

14:19

to now, it is not enough. We

14:22

have talked to the NIH about improving what

14:24

they're doing and about more

14:26

money in order to address the

14:28

causes, try to come up with

14:31

treatments that are effective. We

14:33

have proposed a 10-year, $10 billion

14:36

moonshot proposal which

14:39

will go a long way to

14:41

coming up with cures to this

14:43

very, very serious illness. And

14:45

that's something we're going to focus on. One

14:48

of the things that I really appreciate about this

14:52

effort is there is

14:54

an implicit curriculum that we've often had in healthcare

14:56

in this country which is healthcare is something that

14:58

you have to pay for. You're a customer when

15:00

it comes to healthcare rather than a person who

15:02

deserves it. And during COVID, just for

15:05

a short time, we had this reality

15:07

where no matter who you were, you

15:10

could go in and get treatment, whether it

15:12

was a vaccine or a test or treatment

15:14

itself for your COVID. And it was a

15:16

small taste of what a world under Medicare

15:19

for All could look like. And

15:21

there's been a huge retrenchment on

15:23

that since then. The CEO has all stepped up and said, no,

15:26

no, no, we got to go back to the old way, less

15:28

people think that they actually deserve healthcare. I

15:30

want to ask you, what's been the industry

15:32

response to the long COVID moonshot?

15:34

And how do you see that playing out over

15:36

time? Well, one of the things,

15:38

before we even get to the industry, one

15:41

of the things that we had to deal with and

15:43

why that hearing was so important is

15:46

that many physicians and many people all over

15:48

the country said, oh, really? You have long

15:50

COVID? Really? You can't get out of bed?

15:52

Give me a break, you know? Go to

15:55

a psychiatrist, get your act together. There

15:57

was a denial about the reality of...

16:00

the disease. I think we

16:02

have come a long way in overcoming that and

16:05

I think one of the things we want

16:07

to do with our legislation is to educate

16:09

physicians about the reality of

16:12

the disease and how they can best treat at

16:14

least the symptoms that their patients

16:16

are experiencing. The point that you made about

16:19

what we try to do during ARPA

16:22

and other legislation during

16:24

COVID is it made obvious

16:26

sense to us and the American people that

16:29

at a time when you know

16:31

hundreds of thousands of people were dying that

16:33

we have to make sure that everybody was

16:35

able to get vaccines everybody was able to

16:37

get the health care that they need. You

16:40

know and I see the book your book on the

16:42

in your book case right behind you. You

16:45

know and I know that

16:48

the insurance companies and the drug companies will

16:52

do everything that they can with their unlimited

16:54

amounts of money. They are lobbyists

16:56

all over Capitol Hill do everything they can

16:58

to tell the American people you think health

17:00

care is a human right? No it's

17:02

not you got to pay for it. It's expensive

17:04

you got to pay you know top

17:07

dollar for it and what you

17:09

and I know is that as a nation we're

17:12

spending twice as much for capital

17:14

on health care as the

17:16

people of any other nation and our outcomes

17:18

in most cases are worse. I

17:21

don't know if you talk about it much

17:23

on the podcast but this issue

17:25

of life expectancy never gets

17:27

the attention that it deserves. So

17:29

here we are spending over thirteen thousand dollars

17:31

every man woman and child we live far

17:33

shorter lives than people in Europe and

17:35

Asia and second of all

17:37

in this country what is beyond belief and

17:40

never discussed if you are wealthy

17:42

and I'm poor on average you're gonna

17:44

live 12 or 15 years more

17:46

than I do. In the United States of

17:48

America how insane how

17:51

cruel is that? So you

17:53

and I know that all over the world

17:56

health care is considered as a human right the

17:58

insurance companies do not want the

18:00

American people to perceive that. They

18:02

got a lot of money preventing us from moving toward Medicare

18:05

for all, but you have been a leader on that. I

18:08

have introduced the legislation here in the Senate.

18:10

We're going to continue to advance. It's what

18:12

the American people want and certainly need. All

18:21

right, y'all, listen, all of us spend a lot

18:24

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20:00

I ask you, as we step off of COVID,

20:02

I want to talk a bit more about your

20:04

leadership on the pharmaceutical industry. But one of the

20:06

things I spend a lot of my time in

20:09

my day job thinking about is this potential for

20:11

bird flu to jump into humans and then continue

20:13

to spread amongst us. And people

20:15

have asked me, do you feel like because

20:17

we've come through COVID, are we better prepared?

20:20

And the answer I keep telling them is no, I actually think we're worse prepared.

20:23

There are very few political leaders who

20:25

talk about pandemic preparedness. In

20:27

this long COVID moonshot, you're one of few who's willing

20:29

to say that COVID is still a rump. And

20:32

I worry that in the haste to

20:34

move past COVID, we have failed to learn the

20:36

lessons from COVID that make us safer

20:38

for the next one. And there is going to be a next

20:40

one. It could be 100 years from now, it could be five

20:42

years from now, it could be tomorrow. I

20:44

want to ask you, what will it take to

20:46

actually get us to be thinking about pandemic preparedness

20:48

and investing in the public health infrastructure we need

20:51

and deserve in this country? Well,

20:53

look, Abdul, it is no great secret.

20:55

And again, you wrote a book that's sitting on

20:57

your bookshelf, which makes this point this system that

21:00

we have now is broken. It's

21:02

dysfunctional. We spend a fortune. Tens

21:04

of millions are uninsured, underinsured.

21:08

And there is not even

21:10

the capability of dealing with

21:12

prevention. I had the heads

21:14

of the CDC and the

21:17

other important agencies who

21:19

are working on the issue of future pandemics,

21:21

because you're quite right. The entire

21:24

scientific community agrees, whether it's next year or

21:26

10 years, there will be another pandemic. It

21:28

could be even worse than COVID. And

21:30

I asked all of them. I said, are we

21:33

prepared? No, are we prepared? No, are we

21:35

prepared? No, we're not prepared. We're not investing

21:37

in research. And

21:39

by the way, what complicates this issue,

21:42

this is an international issue. It ain't going

21:44

to be an American pandemic or a Chinese

21:46

pandemic. The entire world is going to

21:48

be impacted. So you need international cooperation. There are a

21:51

lot of people around the home. We can't work with

21:53

the Chinese. We can't work with this group. We can't

21:55

work with that group. So I

21:57

mean, I think our lack of preparedness. And

22:00

they will, the experts in this country will

22:02

tell you, we are not anywhere

22:04

near as prepared as we should. Some work is

22:06

being done, not enough. But it

22:08

again speaks to a

22:10

broken and dysfunctional healthcare system,

22:13

which is more interested in making money for

22:16

drug companies and insurance companies than

22:19

investing in prevention and

22:21

keeping us healthy and keeping us prepared

22:23

for future pandemics. Now I will say some good news,

22:27

is the Biden administration has appointed some good

22:29

people dealing with the

22:31

high cost of prescription drugs in

22:34

poor countries around the world. Generally

22:36

speaking in the past, the

22:39

drug companies were very clear, their goal was only

22:41

to make money, so what if a poor country,

22:43

nobody could afford a drug to keep them alive

22:46

or to prevent them from becoming sick. In

22:49

that area, we are beginning to make some

22:51

progress. Some progress. I

22:54

wanna ask you because this has been a big goal for you, has

22:57

been holding pharmaceutical companies accountable. We

22:59

talk about this a lot on the podcast, but just to

23:02

review the numbers, every single

23:04

year this industry spends millions

23:07

upon millions of dollars to lobby

23:10

members of Congress, senators like you. And

23:13

in the last 20 years alone, they spent $4.3 billion on lobbying. That's

23:18

not electroneering, that's just lobbying. And

23:21

one of the issues that's come up that's

23:23

become a real touch point has been the

23:26

emergence of these GLP-1 agonists, these

23:28

near miracle drugs that benefit certainly

23:30

when it comes to weight loss,

23:32

but also have cardiovascular and diabetes

23:34

benefits. But the companies that, by

23:36

the way, took NIH funded research

23:39

to turn these into pharmaceuticals

23:41

that they sell are pricing them far higher

23:43

in this country than in almost any other

23:45

country in the world, and that could bankrupt

23:47

Medicare. And you brought that to the

23:49

fore and you've been using your leadership at help to

23:53

talk about this crazy pricing. One of the

23:55

things that we have, right, is this new

23:58

pricing regime, but it wouldn't touch. these drugs

24:00

for like 10 years. So I want to ask

24:02

you how should we be thinking about this and

24:04

both what does this particular drug or

24:06

class of drugs teach us about our current system and

24:08

what can we be done to solve it? Good.

24:11

Very important question. Right

24:15

now, as you know,

24:18

we are paying by far the highest prices in the

24:21

world for prescription drugs. In some cases,

24:23

10 times why, I

24:25

remember during my campaign, I went

24:27

from Michigan across

24:29

the Canadian border and we

24:31

bought insulin for one tenth of the price

24:34

being paid in the Detroit area. And

24:37

that's true of many, many drugs. Here

24:40

is the good news. The good news

24:42

is that for the first time in American

24:44

history, Congress passed

24:46

the provision in the Insatian Reduction

24:49

Act, which will give Medicare the

24:51

ability to start negotiating prices with

24:53

the pharmaceutical industry. Up until now,

24:55

drug companies could charge you any

24:58

price they wanted. Oh, today is a sunny day.

25:00

Let's double prices. Let's triple prices. Hey, I think

25:03

we could get quadruple. What do you think? Let's

25:05

do that. Doesn't matter. There's

25:07

no restrictions on what they can do. We're making a

25:09

little bit of progress. We

25:12

have put a cap on insulin

25:15

for seniors at 35 bucks a

25:17

month. That's a start. I

25:19

have worked very hard with some success in

25:22

dealing with asthma inhalers. You've got millions of

25:24

people dealing with asthma in this country. Inhales

25:26

could cost two or three hundred bucks. We've

25:28

got to put pressure on the major manufacturers.

25:30

As of June 1st, at least two out

25:32

of the three major manufacturers, two out of

25:34

the four, will reduce their price to $35

25:36

at the counter. That's

25:39

a step forward. Biden has

25:41

a proposal that nobody in

25:44

America would have to pay more than $2,000

25:46

out of pocket. Of course, it's talked about

25:48

under the stated union. We're working on legislation

25:50

to do that. That's the good news. The

25:53

bad news is, as you mentioned, these

25:57

weight loss drugs produced by New York,

25:59

New York, and the United States. Novo Nordist and

26:01

Eli Lilly, Ozempic,

26:04

Wagovia, two of the major

26:06

ones, are having

26:08

a significant impact in

26:11

dealing with obesity. They are very important

26:13

and I think positive drugs. The

26:16

bad news is that Wagovia costs us

26:18

this price, $1,300 in this country, I think it's

26:20

$59 or

26:22

so in the United Kingdom, $150 in

26:25

Canada. So we are paying in

26:27

some cases 10 times more than

26:29

other countries. We did a study on

26:32

this and if tomorrow Medicare

26:35

would say that anybody with obesity

26:38

could take these drugs, anybody

26:40

with diabetes could take these drugs, we

26:43

would end up spending more money

26:45

just for those tiny sector of

26:47

drugs, tiny than all other drugs

26:49

in America and with bankrupt Medicare

26:51

and our healthcare system. So

26:54

we are right now in the process of

26:57

talking with Novo Nordist and

26:59

essentially telling them, hey, stop ripping us

27:01

off. We are not going to allow

27:03

you to charge us 10, 20 times more than you're

27:06

charging people in other

27:09

countries. So that's kind of where we are in that.

27:11

We appreciate the leadership and the leadership on

27:15

getting a hold on this sector that

27:17

unfortunately has found ways to fleece the

27:19

American public in

27:21

ways that we see and ways sometimes we don't

27:23

even see. Our guest today is

27:26

someone again who needs no introduction but somebody who's been

27:28

a lion when it comes to healthcare and healthcare policy

27:30

in our country. Senator Bernie Sanders, thank you so

27:32

much for taking the time to join us today for

27:35

sharing your thoughts on COVID, pandemic preparedness,

27:38

a 32-hour workweek and of course how

27:40

you're holding the pharmaceutical companies accountable.

27:43

Well, thank you for your great work on these areas as

27:45

well. Thank you. Take care. As

27:50

usual, here's what I'm watching

27:53

right now. cattle

28:00

H5N1 outbreak in the second case

28:02

in a dairy farm worker in

28:04

Michigan. Again, in my backyard. But

28:07

there was something notably different about this case.

28:10

The patient, another dairy worker heavily

28:12

exposed to infected cattle, had more

28:14

traditional respiratory symptoms. This is

28:16

important because up until now, each of

28:18

the other two cases that resulted from

28:20

cow to human transmission only had one

28:22

symptom, conjunctivitis, or inflammation of the eyes.

28:25

There's still more to learn about the likely pathway

28:27

of transmission. But it does clarify

28:30

an important question. Humans can,

28:32

in fact, get a respiratory form of

28:34

H5N1 influenza from cows. And

28:36

that has important implications for how we think

28:38

about containment. Not only do we

28:40

need to steer clear of raw milk, but

28:43

also, given the spread of this virus among

28:45

cattle, unnecessary and unprotected interaction with cattle right

28:47

now, particularly in communities where there have been

28:49

infected cattle, should be avoided. This

28:51

case, and the other one from Michigan, also

28:54

remind us of how critical proper adherence to

28:56

biosafety protocols and the proper use of PPE

28:58

among dairy workers is right now. Neither

29:01

of these last two cases was using the

29:03

appropriate PPE when they were infected. In

29:06

other H5N1 news, up until

29:08

now, the main focus for potential cow to human

29:10

crossover has been through infected milk. And

29:12

that's because, as our conversation with our veterinary

29:15

virologist guest a few weeks back demonstrated, the

29:17

virus seems to have a predilection for

29:19

cow utters. But this week,

29:21

scientists studying H5N1 bird flu infection in

29:23

dairy cattle found that the virus does,

29:25

in fact, infect muscle tissue. So

29:28

why does that matter? Well, it may

29:30

seem obvious, but when we eat beef, we're

29:32

mainly consuming the muscle tissue of cattle, which

29:34

implies that there may be real risk of

29:36

H5N1 infecting our beef supply. Though

29:39

there has been no evidence of H5N1

29:41

infection in beef cattle just yet, the

29:43

findings do suggest that this is at

29:45

least theoretically possible. I want to

29:47

step back for a minute here, because as anyone tracing

29:49

our knowledge about H5N1 cattle

29:51

can surmise, our understanding of

29:53

this is, at best, nonlinear. But

29:56

It does offer us a great lesson in

29:58

how science makes progress. Blinds draws

30:00

outlines and then fills in the blanks and

30:02

over time we get a more complete picture.

30:05

That happens because we ask in an

30:07

answer questions. As. Answers emergent. More

30:09

data clarify our picture. We adjust our

30:11

knowledge and ask new questions. So far

30:14

there's been no evidence of infection and

30:16

beef cattle, but put it in fact,

30:18

them. Up. Until last week, we didn't really

30:20

know. Now we seek a good,

30:22

but then why doesn't it. Well.

30:24

We need more science. Rinse and repeat.

30:27

For. Now given the fact that we have

30:29

yet to find infection and beef cattle the

30:31

risk for transmission to meet his between zero

30:33

and extremely low. But. We'll keep you posted.

30:36

A sign progress as. A

30:38

new study in the journal Toxicological Sizes

30:40

analyzed: forty seventeen I testicles from neuter

30:42

dogs and twenty three human testicles of

30:44

deceased. Gotta wonder what happened to that

30:46

other one? You'd expect an even number

30:49

you The researchers look for evidence of

30:51

any of twelve types of micro plastics,

30:53

and they found that literally every single

30:55

testicle had micro plastics in it. Every

30:57

single one. For. Contacts testicles have

30:59

two jobs the make testosterone and

31:01

generates per and for the past

31:03

few decades testosterone levels have fallen

31:05

precipitously. Dropping by a third between two

31:08

thousand and twenty sixteen. Sperm. Production

31:10

has dropped by sixty percent since Nineteen

31:12

Seventy Eight. Sides. As chalked it

31:14

up the lower physical activity and higher out a

31:16

paucity or fat levels in men. But.

31:18

This may clarify our understanding. Why?

31:21

Not a smoking gun. The fact that micro

31:23

plastic seem to concentrate it three times the

31:25

rate in testicles as other tissues may help

31:27

us to understand more about what's leading to

31:29

dropping testosterone, sperm, and fertility rates. Plastic.

31:32

Of course is unnatural. We. Make

31:34

it from petroleum and because it's cheap and

31:37

easy to manipulate, we sound all sorts of

31:39

uses for. It. And. Because it's not natural,

31:41

it doesn't really break down. It. Just

31:43

gets grub down into smaller and smaller

31:45

particles that wind up well in people's

31:47

boss. This. And other recent

31:49

findings of both the concentration of micro

31:52

plastics and the health consequences of them

31:54

to be pushing us to be regulating

31:56

single use plastic packaging and other uses.

31:59

This is absurd. We urgent work.

32:01

Finally, a Whr report looking at data from

32:04

Twenty Twenty and Twenty Twenty One laid out

32:06

the broad consequences of covered for global life

32:08

expectancy trance. Life expectancy fell

32:10

by up to three years, and readers

32:12

like North America and Asia levels not

32:14

seen since twenty twelve. Contrary.

32:17

To a shifting proportion of deaths attributable

32:19

to chronic illnesses like cardiovascular disease and

32:21

cancer cove. it also drove a surgeon

32:24

dusty communicable diseases. Of course

32:26

to covert itself, but also to other

32:28

communicable illnesses for which people in lower

32:30

income countries were unable to get care.

32:33

Know we're likely to see a rebound. I

32:35

worry that some of these trends one they're

32:37

going to persist. For. Example: vaccination

32:39

rates for other diseases like measles remain

32:41

far lower and lower income countries than

32:43

they had been prior to the pandemic.

32:46

As pandemic era, miss and disinformation continue

32:48

to shape up, Take. Rates.

32:50

Of dust a mental illness particularly to

32:52

suicide continue to climb as the pandemics

32:54

long lag continues to shape our mental

32:56

health. All of the should

32:58

remind us as Senator Sanders did today, that

33:00

turning our attention away doesn't make the pandemic

33:03

away and we're going to need leadership and

33:05

political will to continue to deal with the

33:07

pandemics. Long Tail. At. It for

33:09

today. Thank. You so much to Bernie

33:11

Sanders for joining us and you have guessed recommendations

33:13

for the show. Share them with us at info

33:15

at Incision media.com. On. Your Way out.

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