Straight Talk Md: Health | Medicine | Healthcare Policy | Health Education | Anesthesiology

Every October, the American Society of Anesthesiologists [the ASA] hosts the largest medical specialty meeting of its kind for thousands and thousands of anesthesiologists from around the world. This year’s meeting is being held in San Francisco from October 13th to 17th. To recognize the importance of anesthesia in the evolution of surgery, and to commemorate the first public demonstration of surgical anesthesia administered to a patient undergoing surgery [by William Morton on October 16th, 1846], called “World Anesthesia Day”, I present a different episode of the Strange Daze podcast each day of the meeting. Today’s Episode is On Pins and Needles. It’s a true story about trying to master spinal anesthesia. While spinal anesthesia can be a beautiful and elegant alternative to general anesthesia, every anesthetic technique has limitations, and dealing with the limitations of spinal anesthesia can be a terrifying experience for the anesthesia resident.

Every October, the American Society of Anesthesiologists [the ASA] hosts the largest medical specialty meeting of its kind for thousands and thousands of anesthesiologists from around the world. This year’s meeting is being held in San Francisco from October 13th to 17th. To recognize the importance of anesthesia in the evolution of surgery, and to commemorate the first public demonstration of surgical anesthesia administered to a patient undergoing surgery [by William Morton on October 16th, 1846], called “World Anesthesia Day”, I present a different episode of the Strange Daze podcast each day of the meeting. Today’s episode is: Fragile: Handle with Care. It’s a true story about administering my first anesthetic to a baby having a routine hernia repair that devolved into one of the most terrifying cases of my early career. How can a routine anesthetic go so wrong? Truth be told, in about a million and a half different ways.

Every October, the American Society of Anesthesiologists [the ASA] hosts the largest medical specialty meeting of its kind for thousands and thousands of anesthesiologists from around the world. This year’s meeting is being held in San Francisco from October 13th to 17th. To recognize the importance of anesthesia in the evolution of surgery, and to commemorate the first public demonstration of surgical anesthesia administered to a patient undergoing surgery [by William Morton on October 16th, 1846], called “World Anesthesia Day”, I present a different episode of the Strange Daze podcast each day of the meeting. Todays Episode is Production Pressure. It’s a true story about how in our haste to get a surgery case started we sometimes do things that we shouldn’t do, and at other times, we fail to do the things we should…  In anesthesiology, either error can have serious consequences.

Every October, the American Society of Anesthesiologists [the ASA] hosts the largest medical specialty meeting of its kind for thousands and thousands of anesthesiologists from around the world. This year’s meeting is being held in San Francisco from October 13th to 17th. To recognize the importance of anesthesia in the evolution of surgery, and to commemorate the first public demonstration of surgical anesthesia administered to a patient undergoing surgery [by William Morton on October 16th, 1846], called “World Anesthesia Day”, I present a different episode of the Strange Daze podcast each day of the meeting. Today’s Episode is Crepitus. It’s a true story about how incompletely understood and improperly conducted laser surgery can turn a routine knee arthroscopy into a life-threatening disaster.

Every October, the American Society of Anesthesiologists [the ASA] hosts the largest medical specialty meeting of its kind for thousands and thousands of anesthesiologists from around the world. This year’s meeting is being held in San Francisco from October 13th to 17th. To recognize the importance of anesthesia in the evolution of surgery, and to commemorate the first public demonstration of surgical anesthesia administered to a patient undergoing surgery [by William Morton on October 16th, 1846], called “World Anesthesia Day”, I present a different episode of the Strange Daze podcast each day of the meeting. Today’s Episode is Wrong Assumptions. It’s a true story about a healthy, 37-year-old woman who comes into the hospital expecting a routine delivery of her third baby and ends up in a coma. How can a routine case to go so wrong? In about a million and a half different way. This is just one of them.

In February, Kevin McKernan, CSO of Medicinal Genomics, was deep sequencing Pfizer mRNA vaccines when he discovered that every sample he tested was contaminated with large quantities of plasmid DNA. A plasmid is a circular piece of DNA integral in the manufacturing process of mRNA vaccines, but it doesn’t belong in the final shot going into arms, nor is it a listed component of either the Moderna or Pfizer mRNA vaccines. McKernan re-tested multiple different vaccine samples from multiple different lots using multiple different methods, but consistently got the same result: substantial plasmid DNA contamination in every Pfizer vaccine sample tested. McKernan published his findings but received no coverage by the MSM, nor was he contacted by Pfizer, the CDC, or the FDA. When I interviewed Kevin in April, no other lab in the US had confirmed McKernan’s results. Now they have. McKernan’s findings have been repeated and confirmed by Dr. Phillip Buckhaults, a cancer genomics expert from the University of South Car

Many experts believe the preponderance of circumstantial and molecular evidence suggests SARS-CoV-2 was genetically manipulated in a lab and accidentally released into the human population in Wuhan. Jim Haslam, who has written seven essays on the origin of COVID-19, believes that SARS-CoV-2 was created in the US as a “self-spreading” vaccine intended for bats that are a reservoir for SARS-related coronaviruses, that accidentally leaked during in vivo testing of bats at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Today we discuss the evidence supporting his theory.

Joe Biden is already the most cognitively and physically impaired President we’ve seen in our lifetime. If re-elected in 2024, Biden would begin his second term at the age of 82. Only one-third of Americans think he has the physical stamina to be POTUS today; even fewer believe he has the mental capacity for the job. While Biden’s obvious physical and mental decline at age 80 is not unusual or something to be criticized, it’s absurd to ignore it and pretend it doesn’t impact his ability to competently execute the duties of POTUS. For this reason, it’s a matter of public concern and worthy of close examination. Biden refuses formal cognitive testing and has followed a prudent strategy: it is better to not take a cognitive exam and be suspected of having dementia than to fail the test and remove all doubt. In lieu of cognitive testing, Biden has instructed Americans to observe his performance and draw their own conclusions as to his mental and physical fitness to serve a second term as POTUS. In today’s epis

My guest is HealthCare Economist Ron Howrigon. In 2017, Ron wrote Flatlining: How Healthcare Could Kill the US Economy and had some dire predictions for our healthcare system and our economy if substantial changes weren’t implemented. Today, Ron discusses his sequel to Flatlining called: CLEAR! Reforming Healthcare to Save the US Economy. In the movie “Don’t Look Up”, an asteroid the size of Mount Everest is headed toward earth. A group of astronomers warn the President that unless something is done urgently to alter the asteroid’s course, earth will be destroyed. The strategy of the President and her government is, “Don’t look up.” That is, if you don’t look up you won’t see the asteroid on collision course with earth, and somehow everything will be okay. Similarly, as the National Debt continues to soar, an ever-increasing Healthcare Cost is like an economy-destroying asteroid that’s largely being ignored right now. In effect we’re following the “Don’t Look Up” strategy. How do we reign in the cost of US He

Molecular biologist and immunologist Valentin Bruttel discusses what he believes is compelling molecular evidence indicating SARS-CoV-2 was engineered in a lab. He is the co-author, along with Alex Washburne, and Tony VanDongen of the preprint entitled: Endonuclease fingerprint indicates a synthetic origin of SARS-CoV-2. He recently published a comprehensive analysis of the molecular evidence pointing to a lab origin of COVID-19 in a YouTube presentation entitled: SARS-CoV-2 Origin: How we were misled and how molecular evidence proves it came from a lab.

On 3/17/23, the MSM news cycle was dominated by an incredible claim by a group of international scientists: “new data” from early 2020 linked raccoon dogs at the Wuhan Seafood Market to the origin of COVID-19. When “Raccoon Dog Mediapalooza” commenced, journalists and science reporters had no data, no preprint, and no peer reviewed paper to validate the claims of these scientists. Now we have all three. Independent analysis of the “new data” shows that the international scientists, largely comprised of “the usual suspects,” have once again misrepresented the evidence to support their preferred narrative [a natural spillover at the Huanan Seafood Market] and have co-opted the mainstream media to amplify it. Today, I interview Dr. Steven Massey to discuss #raccoondoggate, the data, what it shows—and more importantly, what it does not show. Spoiler alert: No credible evidence links raccoon dogs to the origin of COVID-19. Period. After interviewing Steve, one conclusion is clear: it is absurd to conclude from the

In early February, Kevin McKernan, Chief Science Officer of Medicinal Genomics, was deep sequencing Moderna and Pfizer bivalent booster vaccines to help solve a technical problem with his sequencing process when he made an entirely unexpected discovery: the Pfizer and Moderna bivalent booster samples were contaminated with DNA that contained the Spike protein gene within it. Self-replicating DNA plasmids containing the spike protein gene are an integral part of the manufacturing process to make the Pfizer and Moderna COVID vaccines; they are not supposed to be in the final product injected into humans. Kevin repeated the analysis on Pfizer’s monovalent vaccine [the original COVID-19 vaccine requiring 3 jabs] using multiple different measuring tools and arrived at the same result: Plasmid DNA with the Spike gene contaminating the vaccine. When he measured the quantity of DNA it was an order of magnitude higher than the acceptable limit specified by the European Medicines Agency [EMA] in some lots. Today, I hav

On March 17th, at least 17 major news outlets published a story claiming a group of scientists had analyzed new genetic data from Chinese and that data linked raccoon dogs at the Huanan Seafood Market to the origin of COVID-19. At best, it was journalistic misfeasance, at worst it was willful misdirection. At the time “raccoon dog mediapalooza” dominated the news cycle, there was no data, no preprint, nor peer reviewed paper available for independent examination of the scientist’s claims. “Raccoon dog mediapalooza” was based on “quotes” from “the usual suspects”; a cabal of virologists that have misstated, distorted, and/or overstated the evidence pointing to a natural spillover since the beginning of the pandemic. Today, I interview veteran journalist Mike Balter for the insider’s perspective of the mainstream media coverage of the investigation of the origin of COVID-19 since the beginning. Their over-reliance on “the usual suspects” a small group of virologists with clear self interest in the outcome of an

On March 17th, 2023, the news cycle was dominated by the announcement of an “international team of virologists and evolutionary biologists”  that claimed to have analyzed data from China that showed raccoon dogs at the Wuhan Seafood Market were linked to the origin of COVID-19. Unfortunately, the scientists were unable to provide the data they had analyzed for independent examination. Baffling to many was that the data used to implicate raccoon dogs as the reservoir animal for SARS-2, was the same data that had previously been analyzed in a preprint last year. Using the same data, the authors of the preprint concluded that the Wuhan Seafood market was a super spreader location not the location of the origin of COVID-19... The evolutionary virologists implicating the raccoon dog were the usual suspects. A cabal of virologists that Jonathan Latham refers to as “Fauci’s COVID-19 Origins SWAT Team...” A small group of virologists who’ve tried to maintain the false narrative that science shows that COVID-19 was

On March 8th the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic convened their investigation into the origins of COVID-19. Dr Jonathan Latham, “a card-carrying virologist” joins me to perform a warm autopsy on this first Subcommittee hearing on “Investigating the origin of COVID-19.” Dr Latham is the Editor of Independent Science news and the co-founder and executive director of the Bioscience Resource Project. While much of the proceeding was political theater, former CDC Director Robert Redfield continues to unravel the false narrative promoted by Drs Fauci, Farrar, Collins, and a cabal of scientists funded by them. While every scientist testifying at the hearing agreed that it was no conspiracy theory that COVID-19 might have come from a lab, it has becoming increasingly evident there was a conspiracy to mislead and deceive the public that the “science showed” that COVID-19 was the result of a natural spillover and that this was the consensus of scientists. We discuss the preponderance of evidence that po

Last week, journalists from the WSJ reported that the US Department of Energy [DOE] had joined the FBI in concluding that the COVID-19 pandemic most likely arose from a lab leak in Wuhan. While the DOE assessment is supported by a growing body of circumstantial evidence in the public domain, the cloak and dagger manner in which it was leaked to the Press raises more questions than it answers. Today Sam Husseini and I discuss the DOE assessment—what we know and what we don’t know, the “limited hangout” post 9/11 that manipulated US public opinion to believe Iraq had WMDs, the WHO role in the ongoing investigation of the origin of SARS-CoV-2 and their appointment of Jeremy Farrar as Chief Scientist, and the rapidly evolving “official narrative” on the origin of COVID-19. Sam Husseini is an independent reporter covering WMDs and biowarfare since 9/11.

Last week, Adrian Jones, Daoyu Zhang, Steven Massey, Yuri Deigin, Louis Nemzer, and Steven Quay reported out on an ingenious analysis of genomic datasets from NCBI that indicate a lab in Wuhan was performing potentially risky genetic engineering manipulations on a novel coronavirus that was previously unreported. The manipulation? Inserting a MERS spike protein into a previously unreported coronavirus. MERS has a case fatality rate of over 30%. What is clear from the analysis is that at least one lab in Wuhan was performing risky gain-of-function research on unreported coronaviruses before the pandemic started, the kind that could have created SARS-CoV-2. It also shows that risky GOF research is being conducted in Wuhan that has no identifiable medical benefit, but has the potential to create a pandemic level pathogen. Today I interview Steven Massey, a professor of bioinformatics that has been actively researching the origin of SARS-CoV-2 since the pandemic began and one of the authors of this significant di

Jonathan R Latham PhD is a “card-carrying” virologist, the co-founder and Executive Director of the Bioscience Resource Project, and the Editor of Independent Science News. In the first half of today’s interview, we discuss several theories of the origin of COVID-19, Fauci’s COVID Origin SWAT Team, the significance of RaTG-13 and those Mojang Miners, accelerated viral evolution in immunocompromised hosts, and much more. In the second half, we discuss the many unusual features of the 2014 Ebola Outbreak in West Africa that point to an “unnatural” origin, and the many similarities to the COVID-19 outbreak in Wuhan.

Today, I interview independent reporter Jimmy Tobias. Jimmy successfully challenged the NIH to have the redactions removed from Dr Fauci’s emails surrounding his secret deliberations with NIH Director Francis Collins, Jeremy Farrar, and several renown virologists regarding the possible lab origin of COVID-19. We discuss the content of those unredacted emails between Drs. Fauci, Collins, Farrar and a cabal of internationally recognized virologists in the first nine days of February 2020.  These emails followed the now notorious February 1st, 2020, secret teleconference arranged by Jeremy Farrar and Anthony Fauci to discuss the unanimous opinion of four renown virologists that the virus responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic had genetic features that looked “potentially engineered” and was “inconsistent with expectations from evolutionary theory.” Within days of that secret teleconference, these virologists made a 180-degree about-face and wrote a highly influential correspondence in Nature Medicine entitled: Th

My guest is epidemiologist and biosecurity expert, Raina MacIntyre. Dr MacIntyre is Head of the Biosecurity Program at the Kirby Institute, and Professor of Global Biosecurity at UNSW. Today we discuss her latest book DARK WINTER: An insider’s guide to Pandemics and biosecurity. We discuss a series of unnatural outbreaks [lab leaks or deliberate misuse] that have occurred over the past 70 years: Sverdlovsk anthrax release, Rajneeshee bioterror attacks, Amerithrax attacks, and others... Raina breaks down the patterns and features they have in common.  We discuss the highly unusual features of the 2014 Ebola outbreak in West Africa and the 2019 COVID-19 outbreak that raise questions about a possible unnatural origin of these outbreaks. In every case, the outbreak was initially deemed a natural occurrence by scientists, but later [often many years later] were determined to have had an unnatural origin.  Common features in these cases are denial, a cover-up, silence, and often an “information war” led by scient