We're joined now by the director of the National Institutes of Health, Dr. Jay Bhattacharya. Good morning to you, doctor. And we should mention you're also helping to run the CDC until the new director is sworn in as well.
Good morning. Until next Wednesday. Yes.
Until next Wednesday. So let me ask you about a number of things that I think people at home are worried about, particularly around the food supply. The cyclospora outbreak linked to iceberg lettuce from Mexico is now in 15 states. There were two deaths this week due to it. Yesterday, USDA issued an alert for a range of products that may have salmonella, including meat and poultry. 27 states are affected by salmonella, possibly linked to jalapenos, but cilantro, red onion, avocado also listed in a CDC notice. Albertsons, a grocery store, just recalled some items. There's risk of salmonella and eggs in Texas according to the CDC. And then you have the screwworm outbreak affecting beef. This is overwhelming for someone going into a grocery store right now. Why do they seem out of control?
Well, the cyclospora outbreak is larger than in normal years. I mean, normal years actually is cyclospora cases. The two deaths that you mentioned, they happened in late June, early July, before we identified the source. And so folks that are listening, you can rest assured the CDC and the FDA are working hard to track back exactly where these outbreaks are occurring from, intervening with the sort of suppliers to make sure that they don't, and doing recalls to make sure that the disease doesn't, you know, condition doesn't spread. I mean it's tough, you go to a grocery store, you buy lettuce, you say okay, can I buy the lettuce? And what I say to folks listening, we're working hard to make sure that the contaminated sources don't get onto the shelves. And if you're worried, you can buy the lettuce, but make sure you wash it carefully. Don't eat outer leaves. And if you're really worried, just, you know, cook your vegetables.
But we're not hearing from the FDA. I mean, should there be a restriction on imports from central Mexico right now? It seems like a lot of things are tied back.
Yeah. I mean, I think the key thing is that when we find a contaminated source, we intervene. I can't speak for the FDA. Thank God I was just NIH and CDC. But I can say that the folks who I have worked with at the FDA are a great team of folks that are tracking back and finding the source of these outbreaks. And for cyclospora specifically, it's complicated for technical reasons. It's more difficult than if it was just a bacteria to find the exact source. But they've done a great job finding it and they've been cooperating with the CDC team that I've led the last few months to try to identify the source. And what we know now is because of that hard work that's gone on.
Well, there are also a number of other health issues including measles cases now at their highest level in 35 years. The CDC says only 10 US states have measles vaccine coverage rates above the 95% threshold in the prior school year.
That is so key because that is, as you know, a marker for basically a way to stop transmission, herd immunity. Do you believe that the federal government needs to make a really full-throated push to tell parents go get your kids vaccinated with the MMR vaccine? You know, one of the first things I did as CDC director, I think it was back in February of this year, was that there was a big outbreak in South Carolina and I went on camera and I recommended that the best way to end the measles outbreak there was to have parents vaccinate their kids for measles. And the outbreak has now ended in South Carolina in part because of that. There's been a lot of outbreaks, not just in the United States, but around the world. And a lot of that has to do with a collapse in public trust in a lot of science, public health measures that occurred during the pandemic, for reasons we can discuss. For me the most important thing is to try to regain that trust.
Right, but why not, you can have TV ads, you can have something that's more of a national push. It was notable last week that Secretary Kennedy went on television and did say parents should get kids vaccinated for measles because it's effective at preventing infection roughly 97% of the time. That was a change for him. He has not always been that clear as you know. Why not blast that across the airwaves of America?
I mean I think that I've done my best to try to do that. Every time anyone's asked me about vaccinating their kids from measles, I say exactly that. That the best way to protect your kids from measles is to get the vaccine for measles.
This country is going to lose its measles elimination status.
As did Canada, as did Mexico.
But that's not acceptable for gold standard science.
But you know, I think the thing is if you look at what's happened, there's specific states where we've had these outbreaks. Big outbreak in Texas which has now been addressed, big outbreak in Arizona and Utah that's been addressed, South Carolina that's been addressed. What we saw was an outbreak in Virginia, again coming down sharply, and now Pennsylvania. Specific communities of people that are the highest risk that we have to focus on, as well as the broader message that it's important for children to be vaccinated for measles if we want to address the measles outbreak.
Well, that's why I brought up herd immunity because it puts everyone at risk, right? Not just people. But on this issue, you were down in Atlanta this past week. This is one year since that horrific shooting at CDC headquarters. Officer David Rose was honored this past week. He was killed last year, protecting CDC employees from a gunman. And we should note he was a combat veteran, a United States Marine who had just graduated 5 months prior from the police academy. Three kids left behind. The shooter was motivated by misinformation about the COVID vaccine. That is why he shot over a hundred bullets into the windows of the CDC. Is enough being done to counter this kind of misinformation?
I mean, I should start with, I got to talk with Officer Rose's wife a few months back. One of the first things I did is, to honor him and his sacrifice in protecting the people that work at the CDC, the amazing people that work at the CDC, was we renamed the street that leads in at the CDC after him. And it was a really nice event. I'll tell you the thing is, I want to focus my attention on Officer Rose because I think the shooter did was horrific. And I think that, you know, you could talk about why shooters do things, but really fundamentally...
His father said he was brainwashed about the COVID vaccine and thought it was making him suicidal.
That's, I mean the thing is like to talk about the shooter puts the emphasis on somebody who's, I mean I think we shouldn't be putting our emphasis on...
No, I am on misinformation about...
I mean I think the key thing is there's a loss of public trust in public health that happened in part because of a lot of, frankly, even on this network and on other networks, there was a particular single point of view put across during the COVID pandemic that led to things that really did cause harm to people. The school closures is probably the number one thing that...
This is not a productive line of claims. We covered COVID in depth on this program like no other Sunday show did.
I'm not blaming you specifically. What I'm saying is you want to talk about misinformation. The kinds of decisions and the public face of public health during the pandemic led to many people losing trust in public health.
The Trump administration officials.
No, I mean like Biden. So Biden for instance censored me...
Began under the Trump administration.
But during, just so we're clear, the Biden administration censored me. They've sent out direct attacks on people who disagreed on whether the COVID vaccine stopped...
