Public Health Media Club - NYT is JUst rEpoRTing tHe fActS on Hantavirus

New York Times: When you try to be so objective and unbiased that you no longer have a moral compass. This article needs work. 

Co-produced with Public Health is Dead.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:01

Welcome to Public Health Media Club. I'm Daniela.

SPEAKER_00 0:04

And I'm MJ.

SPEAKER_01 0:05

Hi, how are you?

SPEAKER_00 0:06

I'm not doing well. You know, full transparency, not doing well. At the time of recording, the dumpster fire that is the US has gone to another level. It's now blue hot. It was red hot before, now it's blue hot. And that's background stuff.

SPEAKER_01 0:20

We don't have to worry about the constant fires in the background, yep.

SPEAKER_00 0:23

Yeah. So today we're covering the New York Times.

SPEAKER_01 0:28

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 0:29

I have major beef with the New York Times. How about you?

SPEAKER_01 0:32

Oh yeah. It's a problem.

SPEAKER_00 0:33

Yeah, it is. So we're doing a New York Times article about something that's relatively timely, arguably the most timely we've ever been on this show.

SPEAKER_01 0:41

We'll probably be late, but that's okay.

SPEAKER_00 0:43

Less late than usual. So what is the article we're talking about today?

SPEAKER_01 0:46

Okay, so the New York Times, the United States paper of records.

SPEAKER_00 0:50

Stop! I hate that as the paper of records.

SPEAKER_01 0:54

The prestigious New York Times. No. This article is called Hantavirus Doesn't Spread Easily, but officials may be downplaying risks. It was published on May 14th of 2026.

SPEAKER_00 1:07

Yeah, so peak hentavirus situation published around that time is published by Urperva Mandavilli, I think. If I mispronounce that name, I apologize. For once, not a white person.

SPEAKER_01 1:19

Have all of our pieces?

SPEAKER_00 1:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:21

They have.

SPEAKER_00 1:21

Every single one has been a white man, not even a white woman.

SPEAKER_01 1:24

Interesting.

SPEAKER_00 1:25

Upurva, I have high hopes.

SPEAKER_01 1:27

I don't know if I've high hopes.

SPEAKER_00 1:29

Because you still work at the New York Times, so our hopes are not that high. But the fact that you're not a white man means you cleared at least the bare minimum of representation.

SPEAKER_01 1:37

Maybe you have a different way of approaching this or looking at the world, we hope.

SPEAKER_00 1:42

We hope. So we picked this obviously because it's timely. Not only that, but it's a very public health topic. Another infectious disease that is spreading.

SPEAKER_01 1:51

Of which there will be many as the climate heats up.

SPEAKER_00 1:54

We picked this because of the title. Hentivirus doesn't spread easily, but official may be downplaying the risk. How does that make you feel?

SPEAKER_01 2:01

This one I was interested in because it sounds a bit different from what we typically see. Yes. Where so much of what I saw was should we panic about hantivirus? Should you be worried about hantivirus? All this like framing that I'm sure we'll talk about a lot in the second half. But this one seems a bit different, that it actually highlights that officials may be downplaying the risks, which we saw happen so much with COVID. And I yeah, I wonder what they have to say about this.

SPEAKER_00 2:29

The pessimist in me feels like a replay of COVID, where it's like, no, don't worry. It's fine.

SPEAKER_01 2:35

It doesn't spread in the air. Kids don't get this.

SPEAKER_00 2:38

And it doesn't have long-term consequences. Like mine.

SPEAKER_01 2:41

Don't touch the economy, please.

SPEAKER_00 2:43

We'll see what this article has to offer. We are cautious because while the title is not immediately jarring, it is from the New York Times, which has a terrible track record.

SPEAKER_01 2:53

I'm very wary. But the image that I'm seeing already is people in a bus wearing respirators.

SPEAKER_00 3:00

True.

SPEAKER_01 3:00

So that's like, okay. Are we thinking about things differently, maybe this time?

SPEAKER_00 3:05

Yeah, we'll see.

SPEAKER_01 3:06

Uh skimming, I'm seeing names. Jay Badascharya.

SPEAKER_00 3:10

Oh, no, no, no, no, no. Aprava, you've already fucked up. Why is his name in here?

SPEAKER_01 3:14

She probably has to talk about what he's saying.

SPEAKER_00 3:17

Do you have to? I don't think you have to. I guess we don't know what her purpose of quoting him is. Maybe she's critiquing him.

SPEAKER_01 3:23

Right. We see Tedros Gabrielis, WHO director.

SPEAKER_00 3:28

Tedros of mixed reviews.

SPEAKER_01 3:30

Yes. Oh, I see Joseph G. Allen from Harvard. He's an interesting character.

SPEAKER_00 3:36

He sure is.

SPEAKER_01 3:37

Oh, Lindsay Maher. I love her. Okay. Okay. Oh, Maria Van Kirkhoff. I did an interview with her, surprisingly. The WHO will talk to me, and other people in BC will not talk to me, so that's funny.

SPEAKER_00 3:48

This might be the first one going in, and we truly have no idea where this will swing.

SPEAKER_01 3:53

Yeah, I don't know. I don't know what this is gonna look like.

SPEAKER_00 3:55

This will be fun. Let's see how it goes. So for listeners, it will be a few seconds for you, but it will be a few days for us, and we'll see you on the other side.

SPEAKER_01 4:03

Talk to you soon.

SPEAKER_00 4:10

We're back.

SPEAKER_01 4:11

We are.

SPEAKER_00 4:12

How are we feeling?

SPEAKER_01 4:12

Annoyed.

SPEAKER_00 4:13

On par with reading a New York Times article, I think.

SPEAKER_01 4:16

I think so. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:16

You know what? It could have been worse.

SPEAKER_01 4:18

It could have. You're right. It wasn't the worst thing I've ever read.

SPEAKER_00 4:21

The praise kind of stops there.

SPEAKER_01 4:23

Yeah. I have lots of things to say.

SPEAKER_00 4:25

Oh, so do I.

SPEAKER_01 4:26

What did you think of the title?

SPEAKER_00 4:27

I had just a smidgen of hope when I read the title. Tiny, tiny bit of hope. Because the title is Hantavirus Doesn't Spread Easily, but Official May Be Downplaying Wrists. And I'm like, okay, maybe the New York Times has finally enlightened a little bit about how public health should be more cautious than like not. And maybe they're gonna question the compromise CDC, which is in fact very compromised, the CDC in the US. I had a little bit of hope.

SPEAKER_01 4:54

Yeah, me too. And then slowly, slowly it went downhill.

SPEAKER_00 4:58

The hope just drained out of me like bloodletting in the medieval times.

SPEAKER_01 5:02

I bet that's gonna be RFK Jr.'s next proposal.

SPEAKER_00 5:04

Bloodletting?

SPEAKER_01 5:05

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:06

Honestly, it might be too new for him. It's too advanced. He's gonna think that's like woke science.

SPEAKER_01 5:11

Oh no. The leeches. The leeches are too woke.

SPEAKER_00 5:16

Anyway, I'll let you take point on this. How do you want to approach this?

SPEAKER_01 5:19

Okay, yeah, we can just go through in order, I guess. I have notes all the way down the side. But I think the first thing that stood out to me was the images. They actually chose images of people wearing respirators. And I was like, cool, okay, maybe this is gonna be like useful information. It was not.

SPEAKER_00 5:36

The first image was people wearing mask and respirators. And along with the title, I was like, you know what? Maybe, maybe the New York Times came to its senses. But it was a real bait and switch.

SPEAKER_01 5:46

Yeah, so basically they start off by challenging what a lot of public health leaders were saying that, oh, you have to be symptomatic and be in close contact with people before we would worry about this being spread person to person. And they challenged that, which was like, okay, cool, yes. We don't need to just take what people say at face value without interrogating it, as a journalist should. And Badichary, whatever, we've already talked about how annoying he is. But yeah, it's funny how people who don't have a lot of expertise in an area feel so confident making these declarations about diseases and disease transmission. Um I think we've seen that a lot throughout COVID, especially with public health leaders being so adamant that this is not airborne, and being so adamant about things that, like, if you talk to someone who actually studies aerosol transmission, you wouldn't be so certain. So they do challenge that. I liked that. And I really liked the quote that they lead with from Stephen Bradfut. I don't know if that's how you pronounce his name. And I found myself being like, yes, exactly. This is what public health should be doing.

SPEAKER_00 6:53

Yeah. What's the quote?

SPEAKER_01 6:54

The quote is it's important to be honest scientifically and communicate that, but it's not certain, because otherwise you lose credibility. Like, it's not hard. Yes, you can say that you're unsure. The world isn't gonna fall apart. So I like that. You said you also liked it. What did you like about it?

SPEAKER_00 7:11

I like that quote because that should be the guiding principle for public health communication. That quote is immediately juxtaposed with Dr. Tedros being so confusing. Can you say the last name? I should don't know how to say his last name, nor do I care about him enough to learn. But what is his name?

SPEAKER_01 7:26

It's Gabriasis.

SPEAKER_00 7:28

That guy, the director general of the WHO, immediately chucks the pose with his quote, which is quote, it's very difficult to explain to people, okay, this is the exception, this is the norm, he said. When you say the exception, they might still think that that's something frequently happening as well.

SPEAKER_01 7:42

What does that even mean? It's just nonsense.

SPEAKER_00 7:44

First of all, it makes no sense. And immediately he denies the public health principle of like we should be honest in our communication, we should be clear about where the evidence stands on these things. And he's like, no, no, no, no, no. It's too complicated. People won't get this. We should just lie to them.

SPEAKER_01 7:58

He also seems to focus so much on avoiding panicking people. I've said this a million times before, but it's not public's health job to manage panic. It's public health's job to give clear information so that people don't panic with like half truths and confusion. Yeah, so I also write that. I wrote on the side, does he think people are not able to understand this? What does this even mean? Very confusing. And it's not the first time he's done something like this. At the beginning of COVID, he was sitting next to Dr. Mike O'Ryan giving a press conference. Dr. Gabriel's said that COVID is airborne. And then Dr. Michael Ryan like scribbled something on a note next to him and like pushed it across the table. And then he was like, oh haha, just kidding. That's a military term. It's not airborne. We mean droplet. And it was just this like wild in front of our eyes, what is even going on here thing. And it feels like he's doing a similar thing here of being intentionally confusing.

SPEAKER_00 8:56

We gotta pull up that clip and then share it as like a screenshot or something because that was iconic anti-public health moment.

SPEAKER_01 9:02

I'm like, what are you guys doing?

SPEAKER_00 9:04

The avoiding panic thing also pisses me off. I just want to highlight the avoid panicking people concern is not genuine because what constitutes a panic is when people are inappropriately responding to a risk. That's panic. For example, remember when people started buying toilet paper in the beginning, March 2020? That, in my opinion, that's panic because you are exhibiting an inappropriate response to the risk. But it's not panic if people are like, oh, I'm kind of afraid of being infected with this serious, deadly disease. That's not panic because that is an appropriate response to the risk. Imagine the actual panic that it would cause if you tell a bunch of people that they need close contact to be infected, whatever that means, we'll get into that later. And then someone got infected out of nowhere. That would be a real panic because you tell people that you need close contact. And then when someone gets infected without it, what are you gonna do to tell people then? Right? You've lost the credibility.

SPEAKER_01 9:57

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 9:57

If that happens, there is other expert quoted later that it does happen sometime. We don't know why it happens, but it does happen. So that to me is the real panic you should be preventing. Yeah. Is what happens when you tell people one thing and another thing happens.

SPEAKER_01 10:09

Absolutely. People would not panic if they had appropriate information. Is that has consistently frustrated me in public health communications. Like, if you can tell people how something may be transmitted, then they're far less likely to be hyper-aware of everything. I don't know. It just seems so counterproductive to be like, don't panic, also we're not gonna be clear.

SPEAKER_00 10:30

I fully disagree with the it's too complicated, so we'll lie to the public approach, which is what they're saying.

SPEAKER_01 10:35

But then on the other hand, all they talk about is like, how do we rebuild trust in public health? Stop lying.

SPEAKER_00 10:41

So that was the first thing that flagged my attention, among other things. I'll talk about all of it sort of at the end when I gather my thoughts, but that quote I really like from Dr. Brad Fute. But yeah, like that should be the guiding principle for public health communication. At no point should public health justify misinformation.

SPEAKER_01 10:57

Onto the next. I've made some comments also on like the instructions that this article says people were given to avoid spreading the virus. Take your temperature daily, don't fly commercial, and try to use your own bathroom. These are what? Why are those the instructions?

SPEAKER_00 11:13

Who wrote this?

SPEAKER_01 11:14

How does any of that like avoid spreading the virus? Like, take your temperature daily and then do what? Don't fly commercial. Many of these people are trying to get home. I don't know exactly what happened for all of them.

SPEAKER_00 11:26

So can I take a boat? Is that a message? Can I take a boat?

SPEAKER_01 11:30

You can take public transit home, okay. And try to use your own bathroom. Like, okay. Like, how do people don't often have control over that? One thing that really stood out to me throughout this was the significant lack of any actual like steps people could take or things that people should know about blocking transmission. Those instructions are just an example of how silly this approach was without giving further information.

SPEAKER_00 11:58

If they are actually genuine about this, they would at least give more steps. For example, instead of saying don't share bathrooms, what you should be telling people is hey, these are the modes of transmission. For example, when you share the same toothbrush, I don't know why anyone would do that, but I'm just spitballing here. But if you do X activity, you are increasing exposure. If you share food, you're increasing exposure. Like that's a level of specificity that public health should be aiming for, and not don't share the same thing. What does that mean? Like, can you use the same toilet? Can you shower in the same place? Like, what does that mean?

SPEAKER_01 12:29

Do you want to get into close contact now?

SPEAKER_00 12:31

Yes. My God. I'm pretty sure you have a lot to say about this. So I will let you take point, but I also have a lot to say.

SPEAKER_01 12:37

Yeah, I'm interested in your thoughts because oh my god, how frustrating this has been in public health in general. Like, I remember even being in public health school and having that be presented as a legitimate mode of transmission was so confusing to me because it doesn't tell you anything about what happens in that close contact. And I've been saying this for a long time. People have also been writing about this. There's an opinion piece in the British Medical Journal that was published in response to this ridiculous sort of close contact advice from the WHO called Hantavirus Outbreak Should Reset WHO's default approach to airborne risk. Basically making the point that like close contact encapsulates so many things. It's a subjective measure of distance. It's not even like the nonsense six feet thing, two meters thing people were trying to do around COVID. It's really subjective. Like close contact, what is that? I was listening to Science Versus episode about this too, which uh another thing. We don't have time for that. But they were talking about close contact being deep pissing. As one of the examples that they had because it was so confusing. Like, what does that even mean? Is that breathing close to people? Is that droplets? Is that aerosol? We don't know.

SPEAKER_00 13:56

Is that like intercourse, right? How close are we? Yeah. Like there's STIs. Is that close contact, right?

SPEAKER_01 14:01

Yeah, like it doesn't tell you much at all. And so this opinion piece basically was making the point that, like, that is an outdated and unclear term if you're trying to actually reduce the risk of transmission. Like, we need to think about all of the ways that this could be transmitted, and we'll talk a little bit about that later in the precautionary principle. I feel like a broken record. But their point essentially was we need to intercept this at all possible points of transmission. And that requires being clear about what the hell you mean by close contact, because that means nothing.

SPEAKER_00 14:32

Good communication, folks.

SPEAKER_01 14:34

Oh, imagine.

SPEAKER_00 14:35

This coming from the WHO is very concerning. Like coming from the CDC, I'm not surprised because the CDC is compromised. America's public health infrastructure is fully nuked by RFK Jr. But this coming from the WHO is very frightening because they are supposed to be the last line of defense. Like we already lost CDC.

SPEAKER_01 14:51

I know. Just to interject very briefly, sorry to interrupt, it's so indicative of how we got here. The people who were supposed to prevent the RFKs from happening did not and continue to do the same things that allowed for that to happen in the first place.

SPEAKER_00 15:06

Yeah. So to talk about some actual public health stuff, won't get too much into this, but when we talk about types of transmission, there's only two things that you need to know. One is the mode of transmission, the other one is how contagious. And I understand the how contagious part, that one's hard to define. Like I will grant them that. But mode of transmission and how contagious. So for, for example, for SDIs, the mode of trans transmission is bodily fluids. That's a mode of transmission. Uh skin-to-skin contact is the mode of transmission. Aerosols, that should be the defining term to use when you're describing how infectious something is. And then how contagious it is, that one's harder to define.

SPEAKER_01 15:42

Yeah, and that requires measurements and like experience.

SPEAKER_00 15:45

But even then, you could be like, this is highly contagious. Even that is more clear than close contact, because what does that mean?

SPEAKER_01 15:52

Yeah. And so part of that is the confusion, and you mentioned this earlier, that there hasn't been that much study into like the transmission piece and like the different ways that it can transmit. However, there has been some evidence that the virus can spread without close contact. Again, not being clear about what that means means that that's kind of confusing. But in a published study, people have potentially gotten this through airborne transmission. And then when public health comes anywhere close to airborne transmission, everybody freaks out.

SPEAKER_00 16:30

You're right. There's not a lot of data on this because it's a relatively rare virus, unlike flu, where we have like ample data on flu, for example. However, there are several cases where people got infected seemingly out of nowhere from the source. And this is one of my several critiques of this article, and also mainstream media in general, is how they portray science. There's a difference between uncertainty and unknowing. Science is uncertain. Science is always uncertain. That is just the nature of science. We build evidence piece by piece, and obviously there's a different range of evidence. It's very rare that we know something for certain. It's all building of a body of work. That's how science works. So there's always uncertainty in science. However, science is not unknowing, and mainstream media consistently mixes the two.

SPEAKER_01 17:19

Good point. Yeah, they do.

SPEAKER_00 17:21

In this piece as well, where they would just say, okay, and this scientist said this, and this scientist said this, and this scientist said this, and this scientist said this, and shrug.

SPEAKER_01 17:30

Who knows?

SPEAKER_00 17:31

It gives the reader the impression that science doesn't know anything. It gives the reader the impression that science has no consensus, which is not true. Scientific consensus is not a debate. It's not, let's put all the scientists in a room, we'll throw them a knife, and whoever wins the fight, that person's opinion is correct. No, like science is like here's my evidence, here's my reasoning for why this evidence supports this, here's yours, and then we come together, we discuss together, and then using the evidence that's presented, we form like a new consensus, right? That's how science works, and there is uncertainty. But the way mainstream media, including the New York Times, covers this, is kind of throwing quotes out there and giving the people the impression that ah, science don't know anything. We can't trust science. And that pisses me off.

SPEAKER_01 18:15

Absolutely, you're right. That is so problematic. And then I think an additional layer to that when it comes to public health specifically is for some reason basic science like physics and chemistry seem to not apply. Like, even if we don't have a randomized control trial looking at how things are transmitted, we know from physics and chemistry that this is clearly possible.

SPEAKER_00 18:42

There are cases.

SPEAKER_01 18:43

Why not intervene at all possibilities to avoid a potential further problem? Yeah, so it's confusing that journalists and outlets still have trouble expressing what you've just expressed, because there should be more of an understanding than just scientist A said this, scientist B said this, who knows?

SPEAKER_00 19:04

Science is not a debate. Science is a discussion, but they keep portraying science as a debate, which is very problematic, especially when is my another point that I'll bring up later, especially when you don't bring context to who the scientists are. You can't be like, here's an anti-vaxxer scientist, and here's a vaccine-supporting scientist, here are their points. That is not an honest portrayal of scientific consensus because the anti-vaxx scientist has no credibility in the world of science, but you're presenting them as like here's debate person one and here's debate person two.

SPEAKER_01 19:33

Yeah. So they did then talk to someone who is literally, he's the director of the healthy buildings program at the Harvard School of Public Health, Joseph Allen. And he said, like, it's not close contact, the examples that were in the study. It's also not prolonged contact. But they didn't talk to him or get him to say or didn't include anything about ventilation in this entire thing. They talked to the guy who's known for ventilation and talking about healthy buildings and clean air, and that doesn't come up at all. Like, what?

SPEAKER_00 20:06

If you count the word counts, their word count does not represent the level of expertise that they have in this area. Like everyone got similar word counts, which is again not how you're supposed to report on science. This is not how science works.

SPEAKER_01 20:18

Yeah. What else did I say? Oh, I made a note that he said some weird things about like kids' schools and COVID, just because that's kind of the world that I'm in right now, making a new series about that. But he does say sensible things about ventilation in buildings. So that should have come up as a potential way to interrupt transmission, and it didn't, which I think was a huge failing of this article. Okay, what else do I have here? Oh, okay. And then Dr. Gabriel's WHO director said, You can see how the virus actually is not really as efficient as COVID. Which I have seen various variations of in different articles speaking to public health leaders about the hattivirus. It's been really fascinating to me that now is the time they have been able to talk about how transmissible COVID is. They still stop short of saying airborne. But I found myself in response to that quote that he had, I was like, how is COVID efficient? You know the goose meme?

SPEAKER_00 21:19

Yes. The goose is chasing.

SPEAKER_01 21:22

That's what I feel like. So, like, we can say this now, but he still won't say airborne. Yeah. Did you did you have anything about that in particular?

SPEAKER_00 21:29

I knew you were gonna talk about it, so I was like, okay, I'll let you go off on this. It is interesting how six years after COVID first started, now we can talk about, oh, it's actually very infectious.

SPEAKER_01 21:42

Right. You're like, oh, don't worry. It's not like that other thing we've left.

SPEAKER_00 21:45

Where was this four years ago?

SPEAKER_01 21:46

Right. It's not like that other thing we let run rampant. Don't worry. It's not like that thing.

SPEAKER_00 21:51

Oh, wait, how did that run rampant again?

SPEAKER_01 21:53

Oh, I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 21:54

Don't think about the past.

SPEAKER_01 21:57

And then uh the author told. Talks about how hath virus typically infects people through aerosolized virus particles from rodent droppings, and then says raises the possibility that perhaps it could be spread through the air too. The possibility exists. Okay. And then I was happy to see that they did talk to Lindsay Maher, who is an expert in airborne transmission of viruses. And she makes a point that many of us have been frustrated about. Like, I don't understand why we are so reluctant to acknowledge the inhalation route when we're talking about person-to-person transmission. And it's been this like frustrating piece to the whole COVID conversation to being able to talk about transmission that is not droplet. I wrote that establishment public health people seem to tie themselves into knots to avoid saying airborne or to avoid addressing that. She says it's like the simplest explanation in some of these cases. But it's like we can understand Occam's razor, the simplest explanation is the most likely for anything except airborne transmission.

SPEAKER_00 23:01

Yeah. My current theory is that airborne transmission prevention would require kind of an overhaul of infrastructure, which costs money.

SPEAKER_01 23:12

But that's our job.

SPEAKER_00 23:13

Right, but they're not doing their job. That's the thing. Like, if they were actually about public health, they would see this and be like, well, it's time to overhaul our infrastructure because this is a mode of transmission that we need to account for.

SPEAKER_01 23:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:24

But you know, I hate to do this every episode, but capitalism says no.

SPEAKER_01 23:28

Capitalism says no, we cannot do it. Exactly. I was talking to somebody for my other podcast project that I'm working on right now. Spoilers. About kids and COVID in schools. Yeah. And he was saying that he thinks that the reason that we can't do this is because understanding the air as the commons, as something that we share that everybody needs to access, fundamentally is at odds with public health being able to do anything because of, like you're saying, capitalism and the systems we exist in. That the air as the commons makes it impossible for us to address this. And I think, yeah, you're right. He's right.

SPEAKER_00 24:06

If capitalism could commodify the air, it would. But it's really hard to commodify something that expands to fill the volume of the container, right? And they're commodifying water, which is a really impressive feat of capitalism to commodify water. And air is like the last bastion of the commons. Honestly, I would not be surprised if this is like something that they're working very hard on to commodify the air.

SPEAKER_01 24:29

I know. I feel like that would be a fascinating dystopian horror movie.

SPEAKER_00 24:35

I'm sure someone written it.

SPEAKER_01 24:36

Yeah. Air commodification.

SPEAKER_00 24:37

I think there are some sci-fi novels that tackles it because there's no air in space. So air becomes like water. But it's hard to do, I mean, I do know, knock on wood. Capitalism always finds a way. It's hard to do now. And because it's the commons, you need infrastructure investment. And capitalism hates investing in anything public because that's lost revenue.

SPEAKER_01 24:56

So that's why we are where we are.

SPEAKER_00 24:58

Well, someone check the mention capitalism box.

SPEAKER_01 25:01

Yeah. Okay. What else do I have here? I think there's also a level of men being unable to admit when they are wrong.

SPEAKER_00 25:10

Yeah, it's a very common problem.

SPEAKER_01 25:11

In public health. Like there are some players who have done things like invent a term. Have you ever heard of drop a soul?

SPEAKER_00 25:19

I hadn't until now, and now I hate it. Why did you curse me with that knowledge?

SPEAKER_01 25:24

I'm sorry for cursing you, but it's because men will do anything except go to therapy. Yes. So John Conley, who is a professor at the University of Calgary, I think, he's a longtime sort of WHO collaborator, and he has been one of the like aerosol doesn't exist kind of dudes. And now that the evidence is just so undeniable, he wrote this paper, published this paper about oh, actually I meant like Drop a sol. It's like aerosol and droplet.

SPEAKER_00 25:56

My God.

SPEAKER_01 25:56

I was right the whole time, kind of vibe. Very interesting behavior. But I feel like there's a lot of people who just want to save face, can't figure out how to admit that what they were doing in the past was incorrect. But like that's part of science. It's part of learning and changing. And we're at, I think, a paradigm shift around understanding disease transmission. But yeah, there's so many people in the way who just can't let go because they don't want to be wrong. And that's so sad.

SPEAKER_00 26:28

Science is uncertain, but it's not unknowing. And part of that uncertainty is changing your mind when new evidence comes up. That's a part of science. And I will say this though. These men, I can say this men, right? These men, when they don't want to like admit that they're wrong, and a lot of people will use that as example of like, see, like this is why science doesn't work. And I would just like to say something I've always said on my show, which is every example of bad science is an example of not science. So these men, they're not a representation of science. These men are representation of a departure from science and the scientific process. Because a part of the scientific process is admitting that you're wrong when new evidence comes up. And if you're talking about rebuilding public trust, that's a part of it, right? How do you build trust except like, hey, we were wrong? Here's the new thing, what evidence and data tells us, and we will try to do better in the future, right? That's how you rebuild trust instead of saying, no, no, no, drop a solution is the new thing.

SPEAKER_01 27:24

Come on, please.

SPEAKER_00 27:24

I was always right.

SPEAKER_01 27:26

Come on.

SPEAKER_00 27:26

I hate that I know that.

SPEAKER_01 27:28

I'm sorry for ruining your ruining your afternoon.

SPEAKER_00 27:30

It's okay, it's already ruined.

SPEAKER_01 27:32

What else? I mean, I have a ton of notes and we don't have a billion years, but I have the precautionary principle, like written in huge red letters. We've talked about this, but essentially you don't have to have perfect evidence in order to act to protect people.

SPEAKER_00 27:47

Better safe than sorry.

SPEAKER_01 27:48

Exactly. And so yeah, that's kind of the ultimate thing I have for all of this is we don't need to have this airborne debate when there's an active an active issue. Just fucking put on the respirator. It'll be okay. I promise your world won't end, and it might actually it might actually help.

SPEAKER_00 28:08

It's always better to start cautious and then pull back instead of saying, ah, we won't do anything. We'll see if any disaster happens, which is something that people can't understand, it seems.

SPEAKER_01 28:18

Exactly. In Canada, we had the whole SARS disaster that happened. And the hospital in my city, Vancouver, they definitely don't do this anymore. But there was this whole like legal commission into what happened, how this messed up, and how it didn't happen in Vancouver. And the hospital's response, there's a quote in there from someone, and I really wish that it had been much more widely implemented. But basically, they're like, we start at the highest level of precaution and scale back if warranted.

SPEAKER_00 28:45

As you should.

SPEAKER_01 28:46

Like that is the most sensible thing to me. But public health leaders today are just like, oh no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. We can't ask people to do anything. We're just gonna hope that this doesn't become a big issue.

SPEAKER_00 28:58

The thoughts and prayer strategy of preventing gun violence.

SPEAKER_01 29:00

Mm-hmm. Yeah, that's exactly what public health is doing. And then they're like, oh no, RFK Jr. has destroyed public health himself. Has risen. No, you set this up.

SPEAKER_00 29:12

Fully compromised. Everything's bad now. If we're gonna rebuild public health, we have to like go back to these principles because ultimately this is how you rebuild trust.

SPEAKER_01 29:20

Yep. And then they talk about Dr. Maria Van Kirkhoff, who's the WHO's director of epidemic and pandemic preparedness. And I actually got to talk to her, and it was really it was a weird conversation because she was willing to talk to me for my podcast when she was in Vancouver for um a global health security conference. And what was so weird was her presentation said the title of it was in a post-COVID, post-pandemic something. And I asked her, like, so much framing around COVID is that it's over. Is it over? And she was like, Well, uh, it's hard to say. It's not over. It's not over for like people who have long COVID, like it's still transmitting, it's being spread, and like vaccination rates are so low. Like, no. And then she changed her presentation after I had asked her that question to be post-COVID crisis or like the post-crisis of the pandemic, which was interesting framing. But yeah, it's just like these leaders, if they're pressed, will like kind of say what they mean. But otherwise, there would have been like a presentation at this global health security conference that said that we were post-COVID, which is wild. Anyway, that's just like a side note about her. But she says in here, we're learning and we continue to learn about like different modes of transmission. And I don't think they are because they would have communicated so differently if they had been learning and they had changed. They had so much time to learn from COVID. They literally had an entire six years to be able to be like, okay, we know that modes of transmission are not as cut and dry as we were we were thinking. So let's communicate this differently. And they didn't. So I don't think they are learning. And like the next time some highly transmissible disease comes along, I think we will be screwed. That's why my podcast is named what it's named. Like, we're not ready because leaders refuse to listen and change.

SPEAKER_00 31:20

Public health is still dead.

SPEAKER_01 31:22

Yeah. I was listening to the Vox hantavirus podcast episode.

SPEAKER_00 31:27

Today Explained.

SPEAKER_01 31:27

Yeah, yeah. Today explained. They had like a one about hantavirus. Um and they had this guy come on who he's involved with like a bunch of stuff at the WHO. His name is Lawrence Gostin. And he actually had like bars that have things to say. But they shoved him at the end of the episode, which I found really interesting. But he was basically saying that if this hattivirus issue had been a different virus, not hattivirus, that was much more easy to transmit, he's like, we would be screwed. Like we didn't learn anything from COVID. We should have. And it was just interesting to hear, like, kind of this old white guy who's been involved with the WHO forever basically just be like, no, we're not ready. We didn't learn anything. And like it was just luck that made this not be a huge problem.

SPEAKER_00 32:14

Pretty much. Yeah. It's probably not as contagious as again other viruses. It's luck. It could have been what's a contagious virus. I don't know. It could have been measles.

SPEAKER_01 32:23

Or something new, you know, like yeah, or something new, right?

SPEAKER_00 32:26

God forbid.

SPEAKER_01 32:27

People were off the boat already, just like flying around, and it could have been a problem.

SPEAKER_00 32:31

That was wild to me. We didn't even get into like that process.

SPEAKER_01 32:35

Anyway, do you have anything else you'd like to say before we get to the rating?

SPEAKER_00 32:39

Yeah, so this is a short piece, and I think I want to comment on the pattern of this entire piece because it's not long enough for me to do like a paragraph by paragraph breakdown. This is something that I'm seeing in New York Times and like other similar mainstream media where they have this approach to journalism that some people call it like the just reporting the facts approach or like the show-don't tell approach. Like this article is doing like very dryly, just saying, here's what this person said, here's this is what happened. CDC says something, but it was contradicted by this person. And that is, in my opinion, especially when reporting on public health stuff, one of the most insidious threats in public health communication. Because when Fox News says something crazy, it's very easy to attack them because they're Fox News. They say like the most outlandish, just the most unbased, ridiculous things. So it's very easy to be like, Fox News, you're bad.

SPEAKER_01 33:36

Ridiculous things, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:37

However, what the New York Times is doing, and they have done for years, and other similar mainstream outlets, is that they will report on the contradiction between, for example, what Battachari and the CDC said, and they immediately juxtapose it with like, actually, this scientist doesn't agree. And on the surface, you can read that and interpret that as saying, oh, they're being critical of the CDC. They are doing, quote unquote, the job of journalists of being critical and critiquing the CDC. However, that is, for lack of a better term, a facade, it's plausible deniability, maybe they could hide behind that veneer because what they're doing with this just reporting the facts is that they are not providing the adequate context to these sort of critiques. So, for example, if there's a journalistic term that exists that I'm not using, I apologize I didn't go to journalism school. But to me, the term that I can think of is flattening. So, for example, this paragraph on CNN State of the Union on Saturday, Dr. Battachari could not recall when some passengers were disembarked on April 24th in St. Helen, an island in the Atlantic Ocean had arrived on American soil. None had symptoms at the time of travel, he said. So official had not seen the need to alert the public or trace contacts. The virus doesn't spread unless someone has active symptoms, he said. That too is uncertain, and again, a direct contradiction. When you report something like this, and then you said that is uncertain, you're pointing out a mistake that Battachari is making. However, by refusing to provide additional context, there is no information directed to the reader to describe what level of mistake this is. For example, did he make an honest mistake? Or is this a different perspective that he has? Or is this guy completely incompetent?

SPEAKER_01 35:14

Last one, last one.

SPEAKER_00 35:15

Last one, right? But there's a three-level mistake. And if you don't provide the additional context, the mistake and contradiction gets flattened into an unknown. If I were a journalist writing an article that a lot of people are reading, every time Battacharya's name came up, I would be saying, this guy is a health economist with no public health training whatsoever behind his name every single time. But the author didn't do that here. The author didn't provide any additional context to what the CDC is currently doing, which is compromised. So when they point out that mistake, they could hide behind that facade of like, we did our jobs, we're criticizing this administration, but not really, because if the reader doesn't know, the reader can be like, oh, maybe he made an honest mistake. Maybe it's just a different perspective. Maybe they disagree on like approaches. There are several moments in this article where they do that, where by providing no additional context, you flatten everything into this dry, seemingly critical, but actually not really article. And I think that's very insidious. I think when mainstream media do this, you're not providing the actual information that the readers need to understand the context of this, which is the CDC is fully compromised. Jay Battachari is not a public health person. He has an MD but never completed residency, which, if you ask any doctor, does not make you a doctor. You are a doctor on paper because you never did residency, and he's an health economist by training. Why is he the head of the CDC, right? These are all the things that the reader should have in their brain when they read this, but the readers don't, because the author did not put that in.

SPEAKER_01 36:44

Yeah, I agree that there could have been more of a critique, but I think in an outlet like the New York Times, that perhaps this is the degree of like flexibility that journalists are allowed to. And I think it's a common thing to sort of point out contradictions in this way. But yeah, like if you didn't know much about who this person was or what the hell is going on at the CDC, you're right. I think it could be just an error. But I think with kind of maybe her word count and what she was allowed to say, maybe this is like the only way that they can sort of point out inconsistencies. But like that shouldn't be an excuse to Yeah, I want to be clear.

SPEAKER_00 37:27

I don't know this author, and I don't think it's entirely on her. If anything is on the New York Times editing standards, I do think she's limited by what the New York Times allows her to publish. And at the end of the day, I would rather her point out these contradictions than not.

SPEAKER_01 37:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:42

However, I think my point still stands, which is it's flattening.

SPEAKER_01 37:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:46

When you point out these contradictions, but you don't provide added context, you are essentially giving these people an out. And you can hide behind that, oh, I did my job. I reported the facts. I personally don't think that approach to journalism is correct. I think the truth is not neutral. So when you present something neutrally, you're actually doing a disservice to the truth. Like, can you imagine, hey, I'm gonna neutrally report on this genocide?

SPEAKER_01 38:10

I mean, they do. They do, which is a problem.

SPEAKER_00 38:12

Like, how do you neutrally report on a genocide? You can't. Yeah. There are certain things, obviously, there's a range, right? Sports, you could probably report pretty neutrally and no one's gonna get hurt. But things like public health where people have died, things like war, things like I don't know, fascism, attack on democracy, slavery, racism, where there's like a very clear moral component in there. If you report on it neutrally, that's wrong. Yeah. You can't report on that neutrally. And I would argue the same for public health in this case. When you try to be neutral about Jay Battachary.

SPEAKER_01 38:42

Oh god, I it just doesn't make sense. Yeah, no, I think you're right. There's a piece that I'm just seeing my notes on as well that kind of indicate Battacharya's like leanings because he was involved in that nonsense Great Barrington declaration where they were just like he was a part of the Brownstone Institute or whatever. It's all messy over there. But he sort of betrays what he thinks about old people in this as well. He said that, oh, the the couple who died were in their 80s, and then the journalist points out that that was incorrect. They were 70 and 69. But I think he just has such a history of eugenics. Yeah, like, oh, they're old, they can die. That's okay. They were in their 80s, nobody cares. We already established that through COVID. Most people are really on board with eugenics if you don't call it eugenics.

SPEAKER_00 39:31

Going back to my point, either the author or the New York Times, we don't know, did not provide additional context for why that statement is problematic. Everything is a choice, and by not providing that context, you flatten that statement into an error.

SPEAKER_01 39:43

Into, oh, it's just a mistake.

SPEAKER_00 39:45

That statement is not an error. That statement is eugenics. Like that statement is not like it isn't, oh, he got the facts wrong. Just really sick of these false neutrality. I'm just being objective. And I'm like, no, you're not.

SPEAKER_01 39:56

Just asking questions, man.

SPEAKER_00 39:58

God, your times disappointing.

SPEAKER_01 40:00

What would you give this?

SPEAKER_00 40:01

Uh I don't know. Negative two, three. The bar with journalism is so low.

SPEAKER_01 40:05

Wait, wait, wait, wait. What was our we always forget our It's uh zero to negative ten. Where negative ten is the Alex Jones worst thing you've ever read.

SPEAKER_00 40:14

Maybe ten shouldn't be Alex Jones. Maybe like our scale needs to be a little bit more reasonable.

SPEAKER_01 40:19

We can't do this every episode. We can't re-establish. Okay, what if we give it like a letter grade this time? I I gave it a letter grade because I wasn't thinking.

SPEAKER_00 40:28

Okay, go ahead. What's your letter grade?

SPEAKER_01 40:29

And my letter grade was B minus.

SPEAKER_00 40:31

Okay, I would have said C plus, B minus. Like technically passing, tons of room for uh improvement. And here's the thing: we know that it's possible to report something honestly without being emotional. There are journalists who do this very well. So I know it's possible. And with just a few more lines, the author could really convey like, hey, what this person said contradicts this person, who, by the way, is an expert in aerosol transmission, right? Just very subtle. It could be very subtle, and you can sort of direct a reader to be like, oh, this person has more ethos than that person.

SPEAKER_01 41:04

Yeah, this person has yeah, more gravitas to what they're saying. Yeah, for sure. I gave them C plus slash B minus because it did show if you know. Uh it did show about Acharia being incompetent. There was no mention of interventions though, no cleaning the air or ventilation, even talking to someone who specializes in that as a public health intervention. They did talk to aerosol specialists, so I think that was a point to them. And yeah, overall, I think it does introduce the possibility that public health leaders are not doing their jobs. Competent. There you're as being kinder, but yeah, not competent and are not dealing with this changed landscape of disease transmission in the way that they should, and didn't learn a single thing about how to better communicate.

SPEAKER_00 41:54

The previous pandemic, which just happened. I I'm willing to chalk up the lack of discussion about intervention to word count. I feel like that's like a reasonable explanation, because maybe this is meant to be a shorter piece, but still, yeah, that's a minus point for them by not talking about any intervention. The bar is low, so C. But yeah, lacking a lot of things. Yeah. And has that iconic New York Times dryness, shall we say?

SPEAKER_01 42:19

Can I end with what um Lawrence Gostin said in that today explained? The journalist asked him, Well, do you think we're waking up? And he said, Well, if COVID didn't do it, I don't know what would. So it certainly caught people's attention, but if all the death and suffering of COVID wasn't enough to really wake us up from our lethargy and really prepare to have pandemic preparedness and good response, if it didn't put us all behind a strengthened WHO, if it didn't pull us together as a coordinated global community, I don't know what will. I'm like, damn sir.

SPEAKER_00 42:47

This is what happens when you don't have the burden of appealing to the establishment.

SPEAKER_01 42:52

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 42:52

Good on him for spitting bars.

SPEAKER_01 42:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 42:55

And uh someone please watch out for him and his safety.

SPEAKER_01 42:59

Right, Jesus.

SPEAKER_00 43:00

Because capitalism says no.

SPEAKER_01 43:02

Wow, there we go. Thank you for listening to Public Health Media Club.

SPEAKER_00 43:06

Thank you, and we will see you next time where we will get even matter because we know what's coming up.