Ep16: Is the Coronavirus Reaction an Overreaction?
Episode Summary:
Sarina sits down with surgeon, former Buccaneers team doctor, and attorney, Dr. Dan Diaco. He worked in trauma surgery during the AIDS pandemic. Now listen to his take on the COVID-19 crisis – and how he thinks the response is overblown. If you are a doctor, politician, or expert, we invite you to weigh in with your opinion!
Raw Transcript:
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I'm Sarina Fazan, taking a risk making a difference and changing the course of your life. Remarkable stories from people defying the odds. You're listening to Trailblazer. Hi, everyone. I'm Sarina Fazan. And thank you so much for joining us. Joining me right now is Dr. Dan Diaco. Dr. Diaco, thank you for being here.
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We we talked to you at the very beginning. Well, first of all, for people who may not have watched the video, tell us a little bit about yourself. I'm a 25 year plastic surgeon for your lawyer. I've been in town forever. I have a little bit of a radio show on 8:20am. Six to 10am every week. And I'll obviously you know a man of the town. Yes you are and for people because this goes all over the country and we have people internationally that also listen to the podcast. So we are here in Tampa, Florida, just for the people that may not know and you're also you're also a physician for
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The Buccaneers yes for about six years. got it got it, which is amazing. And your dad who's also a physician in one, I mean, I am such a huge fan of his Dr. Joe diaco. He always brags about you and says, Oh, yeah, I mean, that guy can do anything because you're also you're not only a plastic surgeon, you're a general surgeon as well. Right? Well, I trained in general surgery before plastic surgery. So yes, I did both. I'm not board certified in general surgery because I just never went that path. But you dental class? Yes, of course. So we have so much to talk about. We we did a video about six weeks ago, two months ago about the Coronavirus and the effects you you wait in, tell us what you're thinking. Now we're in in Tampa. Anyway, we're in phase one, which means we're partially open. What's your reaction to that doctor? Well, you know,
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I kind of have to compare today to about 25 years ago, 30 years ago when aids was the crisis.
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crisis at the time. And as a general surgeon, we treated all of the indigent in New Orleans, Louisiana, which was a very aids and tuberculosis riddled population. And you were in, were you there, I was doing trauma surgery. So we were running to the fires, we would have wards that were just filled with AIDS patients, and we get called there every day to do chest tubes and central lines. And those are procedures where blood is flying everywhere. And so we just, you know, we we were the frontline at that time. Right. And we ran, you know, ran into the fire and and graciously helped everyone. And it was a wonderful experience. It was wonderful experience. But
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I contrast that with what's happened over the last two months. And I really think it's been a shameful response. You do okay, so horrible. So okay, so expand on that because this is very interesting to me, because I've had people that have said, including loved ones mine who I won't, I won't call
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HIPPA said, well, we'll doctors go on the record about it. And I've always, I've always, always respected you, as you know, so So tell us about it. Tell us about why you feel this way. Well, you remember two months ago, I thought that this was going to be something that we should just all exercise, patience, prudence and don't panic. Mm hmm. And now two months later, there was nothing to panic about. We were never overwhelmed. There was never people dying on the streets. And if you look at the chronic cases that have been studied, just in the last couple of days was a paper was published said in New York, I think 61% of the cases were people that were staying at home. In that same study 18% were nursing home cases. If you take out that 18% I have 82%. So that means 61 out of 82% were stay at home.
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That's 75% of the cases in New York where people staying at home which shows you that the stay at home policy
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was a complete failure. And I think social distancing may make some sense. I think protecting yourself and being sanitary makes a lot of sense. But how we responded to this Coronavirus at the helm with Dr. falchi. commanding what to do was has been very frustrating for the entire country. I think it's been very toxic for society. And I think we're going to live with the scars of that for another 20 years. So your views right now, maybe controversial, right, would you you know, the controversial if you have to mandate the world narrative, that and what's really frustrating in this country, when someone has an opposing opinion and how they're being censored, that was unfathomable, two years ago, and now they're literally censoring people that have a contrary opinion.
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When, if you want to be intellectually honest, they've contradicted themselves to who has contradicted itself. The CDC has contradicted itself. falchi has contradicted himself. You know, one week masks don't help next week masks are mandatory.
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And you know, one week this medication works one week this medication works one week this medication works. And it makes no sense. The studies that they use to defile a therapy week, the studies they've used to propagate and promote some of the therapies that I think are outlandish, outrageous, are horrific studies that show minimal improvements. And they're touted as the Savior for mankind. So why so much mass hysteria on it, then? Why do you think?
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I think there's probably three things we need to really look at
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Number one is
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a lot of governments were taking advice blindly from the who, which has proven to be wrong on a lot of levels,
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and maybe a little corrupt.
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Number two,
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everyone knew exactly what this virus was once they realized what this virus was because this virus has been around for about five years. And it was tweaked a little bit and manipulated a little bit and all sudden accidentally got out and then spread throughout the entire world rapidly.
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As it was spreading, it looked like was going to be a five or 10% mortality rate. That scared a lot of governments and I understand the fear.
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But the response has been disgusting.
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And once we realized where we were with who's vulnerable, how we can treat how we can help
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Where the resources really need to be. We didn't make that adjustment. And so now we're just saying, Okay, let's just kind of relax everything. And you know, there'll be a little spike and then like I said, two months ago, a couple months as far as who's going to be inconsequential to most people. So what do you think in inconsequential listen people so I, I, if you're old, it's a bad virus. There's no question if you're old if you're 70 years old or older, there's no question it's a different disease for those over 65 that is for most people, and I absolutely two different diseases. And I have to say you have taken many major precautions with your own dad. I mean, do we hurt him? We had him we didn't bury him.
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But we had him Well, my mom I yeah, I check on your dad actually because he says to me why three boys will not let me out of the house. In fact, they'll just drop food off in the driveway and I he said they won't see me so birthday Cray way by right here perform. Yeah. So I think that's important to know.
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show that you are taking this very seriously for the population where you feel that they're vulnerable. Yes, those who aren't vulnerable, vulnerable, I think that there needs to be less of a fear. You know, I finally got my antibody test this week, no exposure, no GMOs, no Gs. And I've been working, I haven't been staying at home, I've been actually trying to, you know, have three, four actually essential businesses medicine, law of a frozen fish delivery and shipping company. Mm hmm. And radio, all of which have been deemed essential businesses. So I've been able to at least keep busy. You know, I haven't made any money in medicine in a couple months because I shut down the elective surgeries. But I was still this has been a very busy couple of months. And and also,
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it's been very frustrating as a scientist and a doctor, reading objective studies and then hearing the narrative about them on TV afterwards and how they're being misled.
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They're being distorted, twisted. And the narrative is just disingenuous. It's so frustrating. And I want you to put modesty aside because I just want people also to know that you are at the very top of your profession. I mean, you graduated valedictorian of your class. You also were in the top percentage correct. As I was first in my class in law school, I was top of the near the top of the class in medical school. And I joined in high school. So yeah, I'm not I'm not just a random guy. And I want to in and that's why I said, let's put modesty aside. I want I want people to know that your opinions that you have studied this.
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You've studied it quite well. It's based on it's based on my education, my training, my experience, and my research. So what do you think should have happened? Taking a look at this, I think do you agree with the state home order then I think the stay at home order for a week or two at the very
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The beginning made sense. And I think it should have been relaxed very fast once they realized that staying at home made no change in the increases of cases, it's just our way this isn't working. We did do something differently. And now New York is still like a ghost town. And some of these towns are just decimated. But what we're not really thinking about is the societal scars that we've created. The scars of relationships, businesses, of finances of there's going to be dead towns. Not only are companies going out of business left and right, people are fighting, they're hurting each other. They're there's suicides. There's divorces all over the place. I'm hearing breakup after divorce after domestic violence. After crime. I'm hearing about all these things and the police aren't responding to anything because they don't wanna do anything with someone's getting killed. They just they're they're hands off right now. So nothing's being reported as a crime. Nothing's being
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Prosecutors are crime, the courts are all backed up. And doctors are backed up. There's a lot of people that have been needing things that aren't in an emergency, but really aren't elective and people are putting off even chemotherapy because they're afraid of going to a hospital or they're afraid to go outside. People aren't eating properly. It's just it's the collateral damage has been just monumental and it's so unnecessary. So when so.
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So right now with 25% you know with restaurants anyway you know 25% capacity of restaurants open up you have to be six feet apart. Do you still feel people should be though social distancing sanitizing always I mean, that doesn't. That doesn't boil down to the Coronavirus. I think that's a great habit for us to always use. And even I'm guilty of touching my face. I'm just touching my face as I talk to you. So you know, I do think hand sanitizer is appropriate. I do think you know, keeping
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A little bit of distance from people is appropriate right now. But you know, when I walked in here, I didn't shake anyone's hands. It's so foreign to me not to do that and to say, Hey, hey, I just don't want society to be like that. Forever. I see 1000 people running on the streets and walking and riding bikes and outside, but they don't talk to you. Right? Two months ago, there was two people walking up the sidewalk say Hi are you doing people have blinders on they just it's like we've we've destroyed socialization it's our is that I mean, at the end, the isolation is so hard to kill is literally killing people. It's killing relationships is killing finances. It's killing businesses is killing towns. The emotional ramifications, I know. But right now, do you think it's more the image or like to shake someone's hand? Do you think? Do you think it's okay to do that? Or do you think there's just too much, you know, the image of shaking someone's hands or the the backlash. It's
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You know, the backlash is interesting because you know, people will actually get shamed or canceled for shaking your hand.
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It's unbelievable. Unbelievable. I mean, it.
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It's without words, it really is without words. From a medical standpoint, though, do you think that we still should practice social distancing from a medical standpoint?
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I think from a medical standpoint, we should still be protective for a little while longer. You know, if I was in charge whenever I would do yes, I do want to do it the whole country on Black Widow. And what is that explain? hydroxychloroquine Okay, I put though because here's why. And that because there's a mosquito, right. The malaria mess, okay. Yes. Everybody on it on a low dose, and then have them all, you know, follow up, and I would let it go. And I would put everybody out there. And if that was
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In a
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inappropriate to the world, then I would say listen as soon as you as soon as you have a centum start taking it because the countries that have a big population on on chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine aren't getting beat up by Corona. It's a prophylaxis. Fauci himself knows
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that the anti malaria medications are prophylactic and are successful in treating. He doesn't want that to be out there because he'd rather there'd be this Magical Vaccine, which, you know, despite the flu vaccine
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20 to 80 million people eat 20 to 80,000 people a year die, despite the fact that we give millions and millions of flu vaccines every year. Hmm. Not to mention vaccine injuries. And I'm not an anti vaxxer at all, I know vaccines are very appropriate if they're if they're done in a measured and scientific way. I think that
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Everybody waiting for a vaccine before we can relax the world's restrictions is again, just
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impossible. Impossible. Now they're saying, oh, there's gonna be a vaccine for doctors in September or late August. And then everybody else gets another vaccine around Christmas time. Well, I mean, do I really want a vaccine? It's been tested for a month, two months. So we know he works with the side effects. If you give it to a million people, how many 10s of thousands are going to have a reaction to it? And then does it really matter? You know, I, I got flu shots every year for 15 years. About 10 years ago, I stopped taking it. I keep Tamiflu with me. I get sick, I take the flu, and I don't get sick. I don't get sick. I didn't take a flu shot this year. Because apparently if you took a flu shot this year, you're even more susceptible to the Coronavirus.
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So what would you say? So speaking of the vaccine, I want to go back to that and we were talking about
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perhaps
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Giving doctors a vaccine in the fall, how long do you feel a vaccine should be, should be tested before it is appropriate to get somebody? I mean, when do you think four seasons a year, maybe a year, just to see make sure everyone gets through a year without a problem, let alone five or 10 years like they really should be. But now that they as soon as they have anything that even looks like a vaccine, it's going to be rushed to the front is going to be mass produced is going to be mandated probably. And it's you're gonna see 10s of thousands of vaccine injuries. I guarantee it. Well, let me say you have some very strong opinions on this. What would you say to the people who sadly have have lost a loved one to the virus? You know, my heart goes out to them. If you look at the numbers are almost all old people. Almost all people that have had other things going on and a big percentage of those people die from Coronavirus. They just happen to
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Have that Coronavirus on board when they may have died from something else. So I don't trust any of the numbers. And I think the numbers been used to be misleading to beef Creek fear to create panic to create compliance. And as soon as the numbers don't match the narrative, then they give you different numbers. And so I just am mesmerized by how America for six of the last eight weeks just talking now you're seeing people that are doing their own research that are reading between the lines are thinking Wait, wait a second, these guys say a a month ago, B two weeks ago and today they're saying C and they're contradictory. Why am I trusting these people to tell me what to do
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when they're not giving a consistent message. You know, when the Surgeon General said don't wear a mask and he says okay, now you can wear a mask. Now I have to wear a mask.
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How do I trust this man? When the CDC or the or the editor who says the same thing about masks? How do I trust that that entity? If they've contradicted themselves? Do you wear a mask? I wear a mask sometimes. You know in this kind of situation we're about six feet apart so we should be good. If I'm working with someone I'm in their face and yes, I do wear a mask but you know, I wear a mask for a living. Right? You know, I don't wear a mask when I'm driving my car.
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nonsensical? Would you do you feel people should wear a mask when they go? grocery shopping? No to the mall? No, no, I think they should wear masks. If they're in a closed, confined area, you're going to be in an elevator, maybe a mass will be helpful, you know, if you're going to be in a in a
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crowded mall or something like that. And there's people like, you know, passing and bumping and think they should probably, you know, mass may make sense. Maybe what really needs to be done is mass disinfecting. And so if we're so sorry.
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Scared, and this virus is so Hardy. And why aren't municipalities disinfecting everything every day? Because if you remember the early video from China, showed them with industrial disinfecting machines, big trucks, big guys with backpacks, spraying down everything multiple times. That hasn't been done. Now let's look at New York, New York squared. The worst cases were the most cases were two things I want to say about new okay. elevators,
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lots of elevators, right. You're talking about 2123 410 people in a five by five box six by four box. That's disgusting. If you want to talk about social distancing, and protecting yourself, and elevators, the dumbest thing in the world, they have their own little air system. So you're breathing everyone's air. People are touching buttons. I mean, it's one guy, second elevator. Everyone's gonna be second elevator. So these six
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deals with a lot of elevators are the ones seeing the biggest problems. You got high rises. You got problems Florida nav elevators, very few buildings in Florida have elevators most story most buildings in Florida are one or two storeys. And we're still in Tampa. Yeah. And we're very good, right. And we're very fortunate to be outside so much as well. Absolutely. And restricting the beach, again nonsensical. But let's look at Miami Dade County's a lot of elevators, a lot of big buildings, a lot of apartments, a lot of condos. So those are those are the bad things is that it should be a study looking about elevator
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and the disease and the disease and how many people are getting it because of that close contact? Absolutely. Another problem with New York was in Florida, as soon as we saw that the old or the most vulnerable, we protected them.
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In New York, they were literally sending people with positive tests back to nursing homes, when they spread like wildfire to a very, very, because that's the popular honorable population. Yeah, right. very violent.
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population and so you know, the other op. The other reason for you know, shutting down elective surgeries and cooling everything off was to make space in the hospitals, which we did. We did, we went from most hospitals being about 85%, filled to most hospitals about 50% filled. So we did forget those beds. I thought that was reasonable at first. And, you know, we want to make sure we had all these resources and I thought that was reasonable at first. But then, as you saw, you know, New York wanted 40,000 ventilators they barely used and the valets already had, let alone needing extras and no one was sharing ventilators. There was never this ventilator shortage. In fact, some doctors think that the ventilator is the worst thing you could possibly do to a patient on Coronavirus. Some people think it's actually contraindicated because it makes the disease even worse. Do you think that or do you have to take a look at it a lot? Why I can't give you I haven't seen that data, but it certainly seems that once you hooked up to ventilator it's a death sentence. You're done. So I so I so we can't get you off. That I know would you take a look
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Maybe we can ask you that, because like when you study that data, and while we do that,
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it's, they're not going to do that study,
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you're not going to see that study, because they don't want that out there. You can have to read between the lines and see the numbers. But you know, when, when a study shows like a 3% improvement on a drug that costs $1,000 a dose, like, Oh, we have an improvement. We have a, we have a potential cure. But then you have a drug that costs $2 that may actually be saving thousands of lives. And some of the states where the death rate has gone down significantly, or states where they've actually been using a hydroxychloroquine. And so it was such a vilified by two studies vilified. I studied in Brazil who was giving high doses, they were causing problems, stupid. We've been using these drugs for 50 years. We know high doses cause problems. So that was a dumb study was cancelled. It was stopped and was oh look at all the side effects.
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high dose dumb. The second study that showed that may cause an increase in death, hmm was a retrospective chart review. Home a VA with a median age was 70 years old, the youngest patient was 59. And over the the majority of the patients were black African Americans.
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And they were using if the pharmacy had a code that the patient bedside received
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any dose of hydroxychloroquine or any of those others information, then that was counted as someone that was on it doesn't talk about it. They got it when they were admitted. If they got it two minutes before they died, or if they even got it at all. Just if it was ordered that was counted as a treated population. How can you study that? You have no idea and most of the people to talk about like hydroxy cork when at the beginning. When you're first getting symptoms, they can help improve help lower
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The amount of viral shedding, shorten the fevers, shorten the sickness and get you better. No, no one is is saying that that should be done the day before you would normally die. And that's gonna make a difference. I mean, you get the best chemotherapy. If you have breast cancer
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and you catch a tumor that this big, you can cure it. If you're a breast cancer and the tumors now this big, you die every time, right? Doesn't matter how good your therapies are. So as this infection is spreading, and your immune response is blowing up out of proportion, there's a window to treat. And if you don't catch that window, then these other secondary treatments may be may be helpful.
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You know, the two big treatments we're talking about are the Ramdas severe, which may be helpful and really, really, really sick patients that are dying on the ventilator, the last resort medication and maybe helpful. I don't see people getting that the first day they get a fever. Is that a medication though that's available to the public or does your doctor have to
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Gotta be from a hospital and on protocol, it's like $1,000. With those. It's a drug that was very expensive to create and found no home. So they're trying to find a home for this new drug. The other thing that people talk about is convalescent antibiotics. And taking someone that's had
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the infection, Mm hmm. taking their antibiotics and treating someone else with them. Well, the Six Day One keeps pounding their chests about including five patients, or patients. Now, that type of therapy has been around since ancient China, China was peeling off scabs and feeding into people are putting it in their nose in their mouth
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1500 years ago, to prevent disease. You know, back in the day, that's how we figured out how to do smallpox. You know, we scraped someone that had smallpox gave some of their blood to someone else and then they wouldn't catch it. So that kind of antibody transfer to a from a healed patient to a sick patients been around for 1500 years. It should
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Work. Well, let me ask you about the I want to go back though to elective surgeries and something that you mentioned about so many people like who may need chemotherapy or who honestly like what about getting your going to the the OB GYN, you know and getting your, your test. I mean, things like that are not happening. And so do you think
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those things have to resume and that could be a huge fallout from this as well. The delay in people getting stuff that they are scheduled to get will cause problems down the road. No question. People putting off mammograms people aren't putting off colonoscopies people not biopsy that suspicious mole. It's got no two three months now. And so if there's a cancer, you're at a disadvantage, period. Cancer is only treated early. And what is and I know our time is almost wrung out but what what constitutes you know what I think of elective surgery. I always think of
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You know, plastic surgery, something that you you want done. But from what I understand now, elective surgery I mean can include hip surgery, absolutely hip replacement, it replaced a gallbladder. A breast biopsy could be elective. They're saying that
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hernias are elective colonoscopies are elective, all those things that we have thought that were important to get done at a certain interval have been deemed elective. It's incredible. It is incredible. It is incredible. Well, there's so much more I want to talk to you about because I want to invite you back to talk about since and you also work with the NFL about you have to come back to talk to us about will there be football?
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Like what is that gonna look like? You know, I don't know and because they
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I can tell you, whatever is the the way. It's going
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Look will not be based on science, it will be based on pressure, political motivations, and and people worried about getting, you know, just just chained. And so it's going to be and I really do think that over the next couple months, there's going to be two categories of people, those with antibodies and those without, I think there's going to be a hierarchy that those with antibody is going to be a higher
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society than those without because now these are the fragile people and these are the strong people. would you suggest On that note, though, when you know, when all these tests become available for people to take the test for their own good?
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antibody test? Hmm, yes, I think that's helpful. But most people that have taken that test, test negative most people have not been exposed to. Well, in closing, Dr. diaco, do you have anything else that you want to hear that you want to add? I know a lot of people are gonna be talking about this podcast because again, you have a lot of strong opinions, which I really appreciate you sharing. Ask with boldness. That's all I have to say.
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Ask with boldness don't just be spoon fed everything. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for joining us. And in closing every one one of my favorite poets I always like to close with this go where there is no path and leave a trail just like yourself.
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Thanks so much for your Trailblazer everyone I'm Sarina Fazan.