Transcript of AE 1123 - Interview: Ivermectin & Hydroxychloroquine & the Ethics of Leaders & Influencers with Big Audiences | with Dr Dan Wilson

G'day, you mob. Pete here, from Aussie English. Welcome to this episode of the Aussie English podcast, where I am interviewing Dr Dan Wilson. This is part three of a four-part series, so if you missed the first two episodes, go back and listen to those first. Today we talk about the controversial drugs, ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine, and what the science says about whether or not they are effective in the treatment of COVID 19.

We talk about the ethical and moral responsibility of celebrities with huge audiences hosting controversial figures on their platform who've been shown to spread misinformation about COVID in the past. So, we talk about the recent episode with Robert Malone on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast. We talk about Pierre Kory and Peter McCullough turning up on the Dark Horse podcast with Bret Weinstein as well.

We talk about if there's ever a limit of freedom of speech, particularly when facing something like a pandemic. We talk about the ethics of politicians and other political figures and public figures intentionally lying to the public in order to try and achieve a good outcome. Specifically, the Dr Anthony Fauci claimed that masks didn't work early in the pandemic so that he could save masks and other PPE for medical workers.

And we talk about much more. So, without any further ado, guys, slap the bird and let's get into today's episode. Anyway, so moving on to ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine, do you want to sort of sum up the trajectory of these two COVID treatments and tell us a little bit about what the science says about their efficacy?

Yeah, so it's been so weird to watch honestly, the rise of these two medications. And it's weird because I think they rose to popularity partly- At least in part because it seemed like a really easy solution to a really complicated problem. Because you had two drugs that are cheap, used a lot throughout history and, you know, it just seemed like if it worked, it would be really great.

And there was also a conspiratorial aspect to it that was really attractive to a lot of people where, oh, they're cheap and they're abundant, so Big Pharma can't make money off of them, so it must work against COVID.

Were you constantly referenced a woman called- Her YouTube channel is called "Back to the Science" because she did a really good series. You pointed me there and I went and binge watched her stuff.

Oh, she's great, yeah. But one of her biggest points was like, the pharmaceutical companies can make a lot of money off cheap drugs if they work and they have a use, it's called profit margin. Like they don't need a drug to be, you know, $50,000 a year for them to make money on it. But like, most antidepressants are cheap as chips, but they're ubiquitous throughout populations all over the world, and they're still being made and sold. Right?

Yeah, I mean, imagine it, you know, you- We have this global pandemic, we don't have vaccines available yet. People are going into lockdowns; people are like desperate for solutions. And suddenly hydroxychloroquine comes on the scene, and gear for a big pharmaceutical company with the capabilities to make a ton of hydroxychloroquine really fast and everybody wants it.

You know, if it works, you're going to want to make it, you're going to want to be the sole provider who can meet the demands of that medication. Supply it to everybody and maybe, you know, do some price gouging that Big Pharma has been known to do in the past and reap big profits, you know, that would be a dream for a pharmaceutical company. But Ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine, they don't work against COVID, that's the big issue, you know?

But Merck's- Merck, who is one of the big producers of ivermectin, they still made a lot of money. Ivermectin was hard to get for a while because so many people were buying it, and Merck makes a ton of ivermectin. So, yeah, the conspiratorial aspect doesn't really work, but getting into the science of it- You know, hydroxychloroquine has both been used historically to treat parasitica.

Hydroxychloroquine is a malaria drug, very effective at treating malaria. Not so great at treating COVID. Ivermectin is an antiparasitic, which treats a lot of different parasites, but is most well-known for treating the parasitic disease that causes river blindness.

So, very effective at treating that, not so effective at treating COVID. And you know, there were big efforts early on in the pandemic to try to repurpose drugs, partly for the reasons that pharmaceutical companies would love to do that.

Well, and they're already made, right? So, you have a pathway, the drugs are there you just need to ramp up production, you don't have to worry about investing billions in a vaccine.

Right, right. That's something people also need to understand because the drugs are already made and because it has a safety profile, they don't have to spend the billions of dollars to run clinical trials to make sure that it's safe and effective. They just have to show that it's effective, that it works against COVID, which is a much shorter track for a drug than going through from start to finish, you know, safety and efficacy profile.

So, yeah, people tried. People tried to repurpose lots of different drugs against COVID, but viruses are really tricky to treat traditionally because viruses have typically small genomes, so they only have a few different proteins. And most of the proteins they use to replicate, they hijack from you. Right, they infiltrate cells, they hijack machinery so that they can replicate themselves.

So, if you want to disrupt a virus's replication cycle you have to find a way to target its proteins and not your proteins. And because they have such a small genome, it can be difficult to find a good target, especially if there isn't one, you know, among a small genome, it's- It can be tough. So, that's why it wasn't so easy to repurpose drugs for this, because viruses are just hard to treat.

But, you know, people tried, and people tried hydroxychloroquine and they tried ivermectin, we have clinical trials where these drugs were tested out for among COVID patients. And the best clinical trials that we have, the randomised controlled ones with larger sample sizes show consistently that there is no benefit.

So, what would you be seeing if you were looking at a trial like this where you have a group of people who are being treated with it and a group that aren't, what would you expect to see if it was having no effect?

So- Oh, if it was having no effect?

Yeah, and well, you can talk about having an effect as well.

Oh, well, so in this one ivermectin study that I can think of, they were measuring- They were recruiting patients as they tested positive for COVID and then treating them with ivermectin to see if that kept them out of the hospital. So, they were looking for a difference in people who got ivermectin and people who didn't and who went to the hospital more.

And both groups, the hospitalisations were pretty equal. And in the ivermectin group, the number of people who went on a mechanical ventilator was slightly increased, but not significantly. So, you would- That's the kind of result you would expect to see if there was no effect. If, of course, there is an effect, you would expect that people who got the treatment would be more likely to not go to the hospital, but they didn't see that.

And there are multiple different studies set up to test different aspects, so there are studies to test like, you know, when someone gets hospitalised, does ivermectin or hydroxychloroquine help get them out of the hospital faster? Does it help them- Does it help prevent them from dying? Or going on to- Moving on to the ICU or ventilation?

There have also been studies set up where people try to see like, okay, does it prevent you from getting infected? People take the drugs and they're followed for a period of time to see how likely they are to test positive for COVID. You know, there are all sorts of different aspects that different studies are set up to specifically look at.

And really, at every step, we just see that ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine don't help stop you from getting infected. They don't help stop you from going to the hospital. They don't help stop you from dying. It's just- It just doesn't work.

When, as- As we were talking about earlier about the science, right, there would be a massive incentive for people to be able to do a clean study that showed the efficacy of both these drugs and proved it flat out.

And again, if you were to do the science correctly, and that was the result you found and it was peer reviewed, you'd be published in probably Science now, especially with all of the evidence going against what other studies have done with both of these drugs. Why won't this go away, though? Why does this seem to be constantly touted by people like Pierre Korey and even Bret Weinstein, who's the host of the Dark Horse podcast?

I think...

They should know better as an evolutionary biologist, but they just don't seem to look at the scientific literature as a whole, they pick the studies, right?

Exactly, exactly. Yeah, they don't look at science as a body of literature. They definitely cherry pick. But I mean, I think, one cynical reason that I have when I look at the situation as to why it won't go away is because it's made a lot of people a lot of money. You bring up Bret Weinstein as an example.

He, you know, his subscribers, his followers, they shot up around the time that he became the ivermectin guy, the guy promoting ivermectin. And, you know, that's his livelihood, he makes all of his money off of his podcast and the content he puts out. So, if he is making a lot of money, you know, promoting ivermectin and it's working, that's a big incentive for him to keep doing it, and it's an incentive for copycats to try to do that as well.

I know that's a little bit of a cynical view, but, and there's definitely a lot more to it, as to why...

He's interesting because- We can skip into this section, I wanted to talk to you about sort of authorities and influencers and ethics, but it is one of those things where, like even for me, creating content, I am very conscious of the content that's doing well. And I'm always looking at sort of the morals or the ethics behind, even with English teaching, doing, say, popcorn content.

Right, like the- Setting the bar low and just creating the crap that's going to work on YouTube, but then constantly thinking about; but how do I actually deliver on quality at the end of the day so that I can sleep at night?

And it always blows my mind with people like Bret Weinstein and Joe Rogan and a bunch of other influencers that are very big names, it's like, look, I understand that their defence quite often is, I actually believe this, blah blah blah.

And that it has nothing to do with money or other biases and everything like that. But I'm like, how on earth, like, is Bret Weinstein, who is an evolutionary biologist who understands how to look at scientific literature and worked at a university for, you know, I think, decades as a professor?

How in the case of ivermectin? How have you not, like, when it is so easy to find all of the research and for so many of them to have been pulled from publication because of fraudulence and falsified data? Or just being- Just not finding anything for the people writing the papers to have lied about certain things or have made crazy claims?

How on earth do you not take a step back and look at those things and then think I'm getting a lot of traction from talking about ivermectin, am I leaning into this subconsciously because I know it's going to get views, it's going to grow my income, it's going to grow my audience? And is that a good thing, right?

So, that's- The cynical side of me is always thinking that, especially with someone like Bret Weinstein, where I think his entire audience is tied in with his appearances on Joe Rogan's podcast, and that's effectively been his lift, you know, stratospheric growth in the last few years.

So, yeah, it is one of these things that I find it like, I really like Bret Weinstein, especially when he talks about other things other than ivermectin and his wife. But it just blows my mind where I'm like, yeah, either they're just totally ignorant and really just don't- Haven't thought about these things. Haven't- Don't have the emotional awareness to see their own biases or they're maliciously doing this, which is way worse, obviously.

Yeah, yeah. I- You know, I don't know how- I don't know if I can ascribe maliciousness or ignorance, I don't think I can quite identify what it is. But I think, you know, when I first started my YouTube channel, I- One of my big goals, was actually engaging with people just like how, you know, people back when I was a conspiracy theorist engaged with my comments and took the time. I wanted to do that with my channel.

And so, I took the approach of, you know, anybody who believes that believes in anti-vaccine talking points. I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt and say that they are earnest, but misguided. And I took that approach as well with a lot of the people that I addressed, like debunked in my videos.

But, you know, as time has gone on and I've learnt a little bit more about why exactly these people do this, because I got that question a lot, why would a PhD, why would a professional go down that route and start making these claims? And I always said, well, I don't know, but they're wrong. You know, that's all I really cared about, but I can't not learn more about these people as I do it.

And I've- There have been a few people who have really stood out to me, and it's been Bret Weinstein and Robert Malone as really interesting, like, back stories as to how I think they might have actually gotten to where they are now.

And what they both actually have in common is they both seem to feel like the academic system that they have spent time in hasn't given them the recognition that they feel like they deserve, and they got really bitter about it. So, Bret has his whole story with the... (both talking)

Yeah. And Robert Malone has his whole story with his PhD adviser. His is, I think, more ridiculous than Bret Weinstein's, you know. But not to get into that. Basically, they both are coming from this place where they feel like they were not appreciated or almost cheated in a way. And now that they are saying the thing is that they are and getting the attention that they are, it's kind of what they always wanted. Right?

At least that's kind of how I'm looking at it.

Yeah.

And so, they keep going with it, you know, this...

A big red flag for me has been the lack of counterpoint, the lack of debate, the lack of having other people on that disagree with you and defending your claims in good spirit, but all the same, challenging what you actually believe and having it out with other people.

I've noticed this a lot with the critical race theory stuff in the US, I think it's like Ibram X. Kendi or whatever it is who has, you know- And this is obviously another kettle of fish.

But he published a book, I think it was- I don't know if it was "White Fragility" or it was one of the other ones, but the people who have published a lot of these books effectively are saying that, you know, white people are racist and black people have always been under the boot of the white person. They don't seem to- 1) They don't seem to see nuance, but they also don't ever debate anyone publicly.

They just flat out refuse to ever have a conversation with anyone who disagrees with them. And it's always- That's always a massive red flag to me when- Especially in the scientific community, if you have certain claims or you want to support certain theories or prevent certain things, you have to have question time, right? Like at the end of any presentation, you have to go through the peer review process, you have to be challenged.

And so, that's one of those things that's kind of pissed me off a lot about, say, Bret Weinstein's podcast. He hasn't had someone on who say's a proponent of ivermectin like Pierre Kory, and someone who is not a proponent of it, and to have a open, honest discussion about what the evidence says and the different points.

I guess he- I would imagine he just sees that it's not going to grow my audience, it's probably going to piss people off even more. But whereas with Joe Rogan, Joe Rogan's kind of in this weird position, right, where I think he's a really nice, genuine dude. I don't think he's out there to- I mean, he's richer than God now, so I don't think he gives a shit about making money or getting bigger. He's got the biggest podcast in the world.

I think he follows his curiosity and a lot of the time it ends up having people on who are a bit kooky and have certain things to sell. And I think he's very agreeable, I've sort of seen a breakdown of Joe Rogan. I think he had an interview with someone who was like a CIA operative who worked with, like brainwashing people and everything.

And he was like, man, Joe, you're so, so manipulable. And he's like, yeah, I know. And he's like, see. So, it is interesting that he doesn't- He's not as challenging, right? But I think Joe Rogan's tried to at least have people of opposing points, either on his podcast to talk with him or on with other people to debate it, you know, publicly.

But what do you think the responsibility of people once you get sort of- I mean, I don't know what the threshold is in terms of your audience size. But what is the responsibility of people who have, say, 11 million downloads an episode of their podcast having people on like Pierre Korey or Peter McCullough and you know, Robert Malone on and not having challenged?

Yeah, I mean, I think it's a huge responsibility, especially for Joe Rogan and you know, I can definitely appreciate his efforts to bring just so many different people on his show. Because he has had people like Peter Hotez, who is a vaccinologist and exotic infectious disease specialist down in Houston, Texas. He's a smart guy.

Joe's had him on the show and has talked to him, which is great, and I think at the end of that episode, he said I might go get vaccinated now. But then it's just crushing when you see, like two weeks later, he has some total nut on there and being really agreeable with him. It's so- It's very confusing to watch. It's really hard to know what's going on in his head. I don't know- I don't really get it.

But his responsibility to do at least some vetting, I think, is huge.

I think especially once you're at this size, right, with this amount of funding and money, it's like, dude, surely you can hire someone who's full time it is to just fact check people before they come on, right?

Yeah. I mean, even in the Robert Malone podcast, I think he introduced him as a virologist. Robert Malone is not a virologist. He doesn't even have a PhD. He's a- He got his MD.

Yeah.

You know, that was- It's just really- It's so strange to watch and, I think that Joe Rogan is in this weird space where. You know, he does have a lot of different people on and he does seem to be genuine sometimes. But I think that just, you know, with the ones I've seen with Robert Malone and Peter McCullough and Pierre Korey and Bret Weinstein, people like that where he's so agreeable to them even though their ideas are so out there.

It's really hard for me to have a lot of sympathy for him at this point, honestly. But I hope that he can change, I really do because I think he can...

Well, at what point, though, do you have that excuse not work anymore? If I never asked for this, you know, I have always just followed my curiosity, I'm just enjoying conversations and...

No, I don't think those excuses work at all.

Yeah. At what point does that sort of wear off, right? And it become, look- You still look at the stats and see you're being downloaded billions of times a year, right, like billions of times a year. You're- If you were to get on there and interview someone about, you know, the benefits of getting your children to drink bleach, a significant amount of your listeners, you know, when you've got that many are going to give bleach to their kids.

Right. And so, there's sort of that, you've got to realise that now that you have such a huge audience, what you say, especially in terms of health and safety, is going to trickle down to either really, really positive effects at a population level or very, very detrimental effects at a population level.

And you can- I don't think you can any longer say I'm just, you know, following my curiosity. I didn't ask for this. People just listen because they want to listen, they can make their own decisions. And it's like, they listen to you because they trust you.

They do. Yes. And it's become a pattern at this point where, you know, he will have someone on who spouts all this anti-vaccine stuff, and he gets a lot of backlash and always, it's happened before, it's- The backlash is probably the biggest it's been recently, but it's happened before. And every single time he will say, well, I'm just a big dummy, you know, I don't know. I'm not an expert. People don't take medical advice from me.

But they but they do when you have people who claim to be experts on your show and they're saying these things that you will sit there and agree with.

And they seem to make sense.

They seem to make sense. Yeah. I mean, you brought up the bleach example, like he could- There are definitely people with actual MDS in America. I've watched their videos, it's painful. But there are definitely doctors in America that he could have on his show who will- Who would sit there and talk about what is essentially a bleach treatment and make it sound convincing.

And if he agrees with them that's going to cause a lot of calls to poison control, like it's just- He has that power, he has that influence, you know, he has to have some responsibility. And I don't quite know what the solution is, right. If you ban him, he's so influential that you're probably going to make a dent in his listeners per episode, but the outrage that comes with that is probably not going to help. Right?

So, what do you do? I don't know. I mean...

I don't think silencing- Silencing people never works, right? Even- What you need to do is address their ideas and their claims in good faith and, you know, better evidence and discussion is what gets rid of bad ideas, right. You don't get rid of racism by just banning racists from using the internet. They just go underground, right, so.

Yeah. I mean, yeah, I think it definitely depends. I think there are definitely multiple ways to look at it. Like, for example, Alex Jones was banned completely from a lot of platforms, and that did really hurt his viewership.

But, you know, he is just totally batshit weird. I mean, he's totally like on the fringes, right? But Joe Rogan will present a much more, like, believable conversation instead of, you know, a red-faced midlife crisis guy screaming and pounding on his desk.

Were some of his claims, like, the women taking the pill and then urinating and flushing that down the toilet is turning the frogs gay, you know, those sorts of things. And you're just like...

Turning the frogs gay. Turning the fricking frogs gay, yeah.

Yeah.

So... But so- But like, you know, banning him, I think, was ultimately good if the goal was to reduce his influence. But then at the same time, you know, a lot of other people popped up who kind of took Alex Jones's place, and some of them had the more reasonable approach.

Yeah, which is almost more nefarious, right? Almost more dangerous, when you're not just a complete fruit loop who's 50% of the reason you would watch Alex Jones is just because of the entertainment, right?

Yeah, yeah, pretty much.

And he clearly just leant into that and was just like, I'm going to just go full whack. I probably don't believe 90% of what I say, but it's getting the views.

Yeah. I mean, that's why I- My channel started off covering Del Bigtree so much because he really is the Alex Jones of anti-vaccine world. Like, he'll like- He'll just- He'll do stunts, like he'll take a sack of rice and pour it all out on his desk and just start screaming about like, look at all these pathogens, they want to vaccinate us against all these. And it's like, oh my God, what is this guy doing?

It's funny and sad at the same time, but. Anyway, back to like these people like Joe Rogan, who invite experts on who sound reasonable, and he will come off as a very down to earth dude, you know, an MMA bro. It's something that obviously millions of people can listen to, can feel like they relate to his conversations. Yeah, he has a ton of responsibility. He really needs to start taking more ownership for his mistakes, I think.

And- I mean, better people need to go on a show, I think that...

That's what always blows my mind. I'm like, he's in America, mate. You guys have got 300 million people there, how many of you guys are geniuses? And you also probably have the intellects of the world constantly travelling to the US, like as if their first stop assuming the invitation was there would not be Joe Rogan's podcast. They're going to meet more people than... (both talking) ...You know?

Yeah, but the other thing that's really difficult, I think, too, is that people have lost faith in the mainstream media, both sides and our politicians, right? I wanted to ask you about Fauci Gate, right. So, Dr Anthony Fauci is the- What is he, like the head of the medical response in the US? I don't know his exact position.

But he was controversial because he came...

Yeah, he's head of the...

Sorry, you go.

...He's head of the NIAID, the National Institutes of Allergies and infectious disease, it's a branch of the NIH, the National Institutes of Health.

Yeah. So, he, I think originally, early on in the pandemic was saying, masks don't work, don't worry about them, don't get them.

And it came out later that he flipped and said that they did, but the reason that he was saying they weren't working was because he was worried that nurses and doctors and medical professionals wouldn't have access to PPE, right, the protective gear, which- And this is an argument I have with my sister quite a bit because she works for the government, is quite often like, the average person is a moron.

You can't tell them the truth when you want them to do the right thing. And I'll be like, I'm much more of that libertarian side of things where I'm like, I think that your responsibility, if you can't tell someone the truth and have them act on it, you obviously need to work on how you're telling the truth and delivering that information, right? So, how did you feel about that situation?

Right. Yeah, I mean, looking back, the way I would tell the story is that, you know, at the beginning, Anthony Fauci was arguably right, you know, you could- In hindsight, you could argue, oh, we should have been wearing masks the whole time, but, you know, we didn't know it was going to turn out to be this bad, so- You could definitely make a reasonable argument that he was absolutely right at that time.

Because at the time community transmission wasn't widespread, but, you know, people were mass buying toilet paper, right? So, you can imagine what...

We had that happen here, too.

...To wear a mask, right? Yeah. So, if people are stripping the shelves of toilet paper and they're also told you need to wear a mask, they're going to be buying up all the masks, too. And then you really might have a situation where there's not enough PPE for the hospital staff. And if the hospital staff all get sick, then we're in deep trouble, you know?

So, that was all well and good, but then I think his mistake and the mistake of public health communicators, and it's easy to say this in hindsight, of course.

But I think the mistake was not making it clear that, you know, this is the messaging right now, but it very could easily change, and if it gets to this point, if we start to see COVID spreading really quickly, really fast, then we'll be at a point where everyone should be wearing masks so that we can slow that spread.

If that- I think if that was made clearer at the beginning, then we might not have had so many people freak out about Fauci flipping, you know? Because otherwise they're going to have this very high bar for science, right? It's actually a common characteristic of science deniers, they have this unreasonably high bar where in this case, science should have had it right at the beginning.

They should have known exactly what to do right away. But we didn't know what the right thing to do was for every moment in the pandemic. And because science changed its messaging when new information came out, that was seen as it being wrong. And so, then they lose trust.

Do you want to quickly point out the importance of science being able to adjust, right? I think- I can't remember who tells this story, I think it might be Richard Dawkins or something. But there's a guy who gets up on stage and presents something, and someone in the audience puts his hand up at the end of his lecture and says, what would you say if evidence came out tomorrow completely proving everything you've said is incorrect?

And he'd be like, well, I'd shake your hand and be like, thank you for the new knowledge, sir. You know, I'll change my mind, you know?

Yeah. I mean, learning new things and changing your views is a really integral part of becoming a science, actually. If I could just like- If I could just document like a supercut of all the times during my PhD, you know, during lab meetings, during meetings with my advisor, or talks that I gave.

How many times we were wrong in the course of working through that PhD project and eventually getting to the final answer, which we end up publishing. I mean, it would be like a movie.

It would be so long because really, I mean, you're just like, when you're starting from scratch on a scientific problem, you're trying to figure out how things are working, you hit so many dead ends, you hit so many wrong turns, so many different rabbit holes that you go down that lead nowhere until you finally do the one set of experiments that make you go, oh, that's what's going on.

I mean, that's at least the way it went for my project and- But that happens with so many projects, and now with the pandemic, you know, that's all public, right. We're starting from scratch with a new virus, we need to figure out so many different things about it and we're going to get things wrong along the way.

And that's totally normal for science, that's what science is supposed to do, we're supposed to make predictions and figure out whether or not they are- We're able to falsify them.

But I think communicating that uncertainty is really something that scientists could do better in, and we, including myself, have to figure out how to do that better, how to say this is what we know right now, this is what we're figuring out and this is what it might look like when we have the answers.

I think, too, a lot of it, you would need...

I think that could go a long way.

This is what we would need to know to reject what we currently believe, too, right? So, this is how we would determine if we were wrong. A big issue, I find, is that you end up with public figures like, say, Anthony Fauci or, you know, even Trump or whatever politician you want. Once they get into that position, I think they have the unreasonable expectation that they need to be right all the time.

And if they're wrong, they have to save face and be right. And the public also have the unrealistic expectation of our politicians and leaders always must be right, and if they get anything wrong or change their minds, they're out. They're done. They're cooked. And it's kind of like...

Yeah, right.

...It's just unforgivable, right, in terms of there's no- You can't come forward as a politician and say, you know what? I changed my mind. I was wrong about this. I apologise. I'm sorry. You know, those two things. I changed my mind, and I'm sorry are almost career killers.

I can't remember hearing that in recent history from any- From, yeah, any politician honestly.

It's the same here. And I think that's the biggest thing, in order to get better politicians and better leaders, you need to- The public needs to be able to forgive people, and also you want to select for people who can change their minds and can show contrition and apologise for things. Like everyone's always like, the politicians we have are bigger dickheads than they've ever been.

And you're like, mate, if it's bullshit in, it's bullshit out, right? Like if the public suck, the politicians we get are going to suck.

Exactly. It really is a feedback loop, right. Because, I mean, with everything being so polarised, at least in the US, it's like- I can totally imagine if Fauci is a leader and he's doing his best to try to communicate and run things and keep people safe.

And then there are all these pieces going around, not just in the public, but through the halls of Congress, where they're just trashing him and- You know, that's got to be really frustrating to be that much in the public eye. I don't envy his job.

It must be really hard to have that balance, because I can sit here right now, being a practical nobody and say like, oh, you know, I think he should be more able to communicate the uncertainties and be... (Inaudible/Static)

But in that position, when you're feeling the pressure and feeling all the hatred that people are giving you for, you know, sometimes not even making mistakes, sometimes just people taking words out of context, that's got to be- It's got to be tough.

Well, I think too, they must get stuck with the whole, if I get voted out or they get turfed, someone else is going to come in and do a shitter job. So, even if I have to lie, even if I have to manipulate the truth or, you know, sometimes speak out of both sides of my mouth, ultimately, I believe that what I'm doing is in the best interest of the public.

And so, that's how I justify doing what I need to do to stay in power at all costs, right? I think that's- That must be a big part of how they end up behaving that way and ending up playing a game that I bet when they entered, they're like, I'm never going to do that. That's fucked. And then they realise the only way for me to be able to get here is to keep playing this game, right.

Right.

Where can people find out more about you and what you're doing if they want to check out your channel and everything like that?

Yeah. So, I'm on YouTube. My YouTube channel is "Debunk the Funk with Dr Wilson". I'm on Twitter "@Debunk_the_Funk". My Facebook page is "Doc Wilson debunks", and I'm on Instagram as well. I think that's also at "debunk.the.funk". But if you want to get in touch with me, I have my contact information for the accounts that I check regularly in the description of all my videos.