S3E1 - The Herd (Vaccine Science & History)

0:02 Chris: Well, we are recording. Kayla: I did not prepare anything. Sorry. Chris: Well, it's. Cause it's my episode. You're not supposed to. Kayla: But we're also, like, we're back. Chris: Yeah. Well, yeah. Okay. Back. Yay. Kayla: We're at season three. We're still in the pandemic. Everything sucks. Chris: Oh, yeah. This time last year, were like, I guess in a couple weeks when we're done with this lockdown. Kayla: Oh, God. We're still here. Chris: Well, welcome back to our listeners. Let's say that. Welcome back. Kayla: We love you guys. Chris: Our last few episodes of last season were about QAnon and tried to give you some thoughts of resilience there. At the end of 2020, hopefully your 2021 is going better.

0:47 Kayla: Fingers crossed. Chris: Fingers crossed. But, yes, welcome back. We're all just, like, a thin, emotional paced at this point, but, yeah, so we have some new stuff this season that we're gonna be doing. So we are gonna beefing up our patreon just a little bit. We're gonna try to be more consistent with the bonus content that we put onto Patreon, and we're gonna try to be a little more consistent with some of the other stuff we put there. We're also gonna be doing some other stuff, like, we're definitely gonna start a YouTube channel at some point soon. I'll be doing. We won't necessarily be filming ourselves yet because that's a whole nother step because we're uggos, and we don't want to subject you guys to that.

1:27 Chris: But what we will do is put the audio on YouTube, and I guess you guys don't really care about that if you're already listening. That's more of, like, an onboarding thing for new fans of cult are just weird. Kayla: Some people, I don't know, like to use YouTube. Maybe they've got YouTube premium, and they need to justify it like I do. Chris: Okay, well, I don't think we need to justify YouTube premium with as much fucking YouTube as we watched. Kayla: And it's pretty expensive. Chris: Wait, how expensive is it? Kayla: Like $13 a month or, like, $16 a month or something? Chris: All right, that's relatively expensive. But on a per minute of YouTube watched basis, that's actually pretty good.

2:07 Kayla: It's true. Chris: It's probably better than most things we spend money on anyway. We are also going to be starting up a discord channel this season, so stay tuned for both of those things. I will announce them on the show when they happen. We also have some other cool ideas up our sleeve as well that we will get to that. At some point in 2021, it's shirts. Kayla: That say, we'll get to that. Chris: T shirts don't say that, because people would want that. Kayla: Oh, no. Chris: Okay. No, no. Kayla: Oh, no demands. Chris: No, no. I mean, then I'll have to start an online store, and I'm not ready for that. Give me, like, a couple weeks. Kayla: We could start dropshipping.

2:48 Chris: Is drop shipping a cult? Kayla: It's definitely on my list of things to maybe do an episode about. Chris: All right, well, anyway, I would totally love to do t shirts. Just one thing at a time is all. The number one thing is that we want to bring you guys great content. That's the number one thing. And then t shirts are secondary to that. Anyway, yeah. Any business for you, Kayla? Kayla: I feel like we should probably introduce ourselves and this show just in case anyone is listening for the first time. Maybe they haven't been following us since the very first episode. Chris: Did just talk about getting new listeners. Kayla: Just saying so. I'm Kate. Chris: We are nobodies. Oh, sorry. Kayla: Our names interrupting me all the time. Chris: Yeah, it's a podcast.

3:28 Kayla: It's a podcast. What are you? Who are you? Chris: What am I? I'm a Chris. Kayla: And I'm Mikayla. Chris: And this is cult or just weird? Kayla: It's our podcast, and we can do what we want with it. Chris: We talk about cults or just weirds. Usually that's all you need to know. Sometimes we talk about Jurassic Park, Star Trek, or magic the gathering. Kayla: What do you mean sometimes? Chris: Every episode, we talk about those three things. So you said, no business for you. Nothing you want to just chit chat about or rant? Kayla: I'm sure I can dig up a rant. Chris: If this were the QAnon episodes, we had a lot of people that started listening to us via those episodes, which, if you're back, welcome back, and thank you for joining our audience. But we're not usually a current events type podcast, so we don't really have current events here. Although today's topic is actually kind of current events.

4:20 Kayla: I'm literally. Okay, so here's all rant about this. Chris: So I just lied. Kayla: We did how many Q and on episodes? Four? Chris: Five. Kayla: We did five. Chris: Yeah, bruh. Kayla: Geez. Okay. We did five Q and on episodes. By the time were done, were like, please, we never want to do a topic like this again. This is so overwhelming. This was so difficult and distressing, and then you told me what you were doing. Chris: Okay, all right, we'll get to that. Kayla: Missing. You told me what you were doing, and I went, what is wrong with you? Why are you doing this to us? Chris: I literally have a whole section dedicated to that exact question. But we will get to it. Before we do, though, since there's no more business and no more banter or discussions about Jurassic park or whatever, there's one more bit of, like, what do you call it? Admin. I don't know. Look.

5:11 Kayla: Housekeeping. Chris: Housekeeping. Stuff that's not related to the topic. Is that new season, new music? Kayla: Oh, yeah. Pretty cool. Oh, did you want me to not interrupt you?

5:57 Chris: No, that's fine. I was just gonna. I was just gonna do the. That's where we're gonna do the cold open. Kayla: I get it now, right? I didn't before. Chris: So what did you think about the new music? Kayla: Are you talking to me now, or are you talking to the. What are you talking about? Chris: Well, seeing as how the audience can't reply to me in real time, I've. Kayla: Already heard the music. Chris: I know, but we've heard it again. Kayla: I think it's great. Chris: Allegedly. Kayla: Allegedly great or allegedly. I heard it. Chris: Allegedly. We heard it. Kayla: I think that we have some of the best music in the biz, personally. Chris: I know, I know. And I thank you to our music producer for the show. We were total divas. About, like, I want it this way.

6:39 Kayla: Excuse me. We? Chris: Yeah, the royal we. Kayla: Yeah, the royal we. Chris: Yeah. I'm very much a diva producer when it comes to that kind of thing. I say I wanted to sound like this, but not like this. And also, it has to do this impossible thing and totally delivered. The only bummer that we sort of pointed, or maybe this is not a bummer. I don't know. Is that now that it's the third season, we have our third different intro and outro music. It's kind of a thing now. So now we have a fourth season. We have to have, like, just think. Kayla: That we've locked our friends into, like, perpetually delivering new music for us on a yearly basis. Chris: Right, right. Kayla: Thank you for still being friends with us. Chris: You know, that makes us job creators.

7:21 Kayla: I think you have to pay. Chris: Whoa, whoa, hold on, Kayla. We're totally. We're paying in. Would he pay millennials now? Yeah, he's. He's getting paid an exposure. Kayla: Jesus Christ. Chris: Literally. Oh, God. We're part of the problem. Kayla: Yes, we are. Maybe you should just hurry up and do the show before everybody realizes what frauds we are. Chris: Oh, God, that's. Oh, geez. Kayla: All right, so what's the topic today, sir? Chris: Well, before we get to the topic, which I'm actually getting to the topic very quickly this time. I normally, like, you know, pussyfoot around for, like, 35 minutes before I finally say what it is. And mercifully, I'm not gonna do that this time. However, I have to pussyfoot a little bit.

8:04 Kayla: You got to. Chris: Cause that's just me. Kayla: No, you got to. You can't just be like, here's. It's like. Chris: It's about this. Kayla: Yeah, I was gonna say something really vulgar. I won't. Chris: What were you gonna say? Kayla: No. Chris: Was it about Pussyfoot? Was it the George Carlin pussy? Kayla: Promise me you'll cut this out. No, but I'm not saying it. Chris: Okay, fine. I'll put it on Patreon. Kayla: It's like, you can't just go in dry. Chris: I am not cutting that out. Cause it's hilarious. Kayla: You gotta lube up first. Chris: That's the foreplay. Oh, boy. Well, our foreplay here is a bit of a gimmick this time. Kayla, have you been wondering what these two cups are right here that I have on the table? Oh, wait. Kayla: You put two red solo cups on our podcast table, which, first of all, why do we have red solo cups? We are.

8:50 Chris: We have a ton of red solo cups. Kayla: I know we haven't been in college for many years now. Yeah, but we haven't been in our twenties for many years now. Chris: We've been in our thirties, which is the new twenties, and also, we've been in a pandemic for a year. So, like, what have we used red solo cups on our own? They're fundamentally, they are party objects. Kayla: That's true. Well, why do you have. Chris: But today, they're not for party objects. Kayla: What are they for? Chris: So, just to describe to our listeners, two red solo cups upside down on the podcast recording table, lips down, I am going to ask my illustrious co host here a few questions about them. Kayla: I can't see them. Chris: That's okay. They're really just an object lesson. If you need to. You want me to move here? I'll move them. God.

9:32 Kayla: Thank you. Chris: All right, now they're over here. Caleb, if I said to you had the option of picking up one cup, smashing your hand down, and I also told you that one cup contains hot coals and another one contains a dollar bill, would you do it? Kayla: Which he's saying I have to smash my hand down onto a cup, and one of them has hot coals, and one of them has dollar bill. Chris: Yeah, well, I mean, not on the cup, because that wouldn't really do anything but like, lift the cup, smash your hand down, and you don't know which is which. Kayla: See, if it was just smashing the cup, I think I would do it. But if I have to lift it. Chris: Up, this is a very typical kayla answer where you're just, like, totally skirting around the point of the question, like, well, I could break the game this way. If I, like, bent the rules slightly and was able to find an exploit.

10:20 Kayla: I thought, okay, well, what I thought, okay, what I thought you were doing. Chris: Was you ruined the podcast. Kayla: I always do that. A call back to, like, the Yuri Geller tricks of, like, the seventies and eighties, where there's a knife under one of the cups and you just smash your hand down. And it's not the cup with the knife. I thought I would just smash it. Chris: No, no. Kayla: But you're saying lift up the cup, and whatever one you lift up, you gotta put your hand on whatever's underneath it. And one of them's a hot coal. Chris: This is a decision making object lesson. Kayla: Not a. I would not smash my hand down on a 50 hot coal chain for a dollar. Chris: No, you wouldn't do that. Okay. Kayla: If I were to just. If I got to just smash my hand on the cup, then I would do it. If I have to lift the cup. Chris: Up, you have to lift. Kayla: If I have to lift the cup up. No, I will not do it for a dollar. No. Thank you. Chris: What about $1 million?

11:02 Kayla: Yes. Chris: Assuming we could fit a million dollars. Kayla: I just smash my hand and I can pick it right back up. Chris: Let's say you have to hold it down there for, like, a few seconds or something. Kayla: Yeah, yeah. Absolutely. Chris: For a million dollars. Okay, so your answer changes depending on how much money. Kayla: Oh, baby. Chris: Right. Kayla: I can be bought. Chris: What if instead of a million dollars back to a dollar, but instead of the hot coals, it was an egg? Kayla: I wouldn't do it for a dollar. Chris: You would do an egg for a dollar? Kayla: No, I would not. Chris: I'd find $10. Kayla: It's so much. Chris: $10 for an egg. Kayla: Okay, where are we? Do I have to clean it up? Chris: Pretend that the clean there's. You don't have to worry about the cleanup at all. Kayla: Oh, then I wouldn't do it for a dollar. Cause it's just annoying. Chris: Yes. Yes. Okay. Yeah, that sounds about right. Kayla: I don't like touch an egg.

11:43 Chris: What if there was an egg in one of the cups and nothing at all in the other cup? Kayla: Then I don't have any incentive to potentially smash an egg? I'd prefer to not. Chris: Even though the inconvenience is minor and probabilistic, you still don't want to do it, just in case. Kayla: I don't want to have a random 50 chance of smashing an egg and touching the gross egg bits on my hand. Chris: Right. So if your perception is that one choice, is that the choice you make may not actually yield any benefit at all, but you are unsure, and maybe there'll be some drawback to doing it, you won't do it. Kayla: I guess I don't really understand what you said, but yes, I trust you. Well, I just want to snatch the egg with my hand.

12:25 Chris: This is all going to come back later in this and the next episode. Oh. Kayla: What did you just say? Chris: Oh, the next. Yeah, it's a two parter. Don't worry. We'll get to that, too. But what I'm trying to illustrate here is that you'll make different decisions based on what your perceived costs and benefit is of your choice. Even in a case where you're, like, you're not sure what the outcome will be. Right? Like, you don't know what thing. Like, if you. Obviously, if you knew where the coals were or where the egg was, then that would change things. But if it's in this, like, you're in a state of uncertainty, it depends on the things like whether the thing that is going to happen to you is be positive or negative, and then what the percentage of those likelihoods are. So here's its cups. So it's 50, right? But it depends.

13:06 Chris: If I said, well, there's actually 100 cups and 99 of them contain x and one of them contains y, then that changes things. And then also the magnitude of the positive or negative effect changed your decision, too. Right? Whether it was an egg or coles changed your decision, whether it was $1 million dollars changed your decision. Right? Kayla: Right. Chris: So we are constantly making decisions like this, and we have more information, good, bad, and ugly information, than we have ever had in human history, guiding that decision making evaluation. Oh, unless you thought this was already too complicated. That's just individual decision making. We live in a society, not a small one at that, where our choices impact others, sometimes less, sometimes more. So this adds another massive layer of complexity to decision making. In fact, it's so complex that there's a robust field of mathematics dedicated to it that we've talked about on the program before called game theory. Do we need a quick primer on the prisoner's dilemma?

14:10 Kayla: Yeah, because I remember how I totally won it the other day. Chris: No, you didn't. What you did the other day had nothing to do with the prisoner's dilemma. Oh, my God. Kayla: I did it. But go ahead. I solved a work dilemma by solving the prisoner's dilemma. Chris: That's not what you did. Kayla: It absolutely is nothing to do with the prisoner. Chris: The actual prisoner's dilemma is. It's not really about prisoners. It's just they're prisoners in the thought experiment, just to make a point, just for the example. So the idea is that, like, okay, you have these two prisoners, and if they both don't confess to the cops, then they both only get a light sentence. If they both confess to the cops, then they get a relatively heavy sentence. And if one confesses and the other doesn't, then the one that confesses gets an even lighter sentence, but the one that. That got ratted out gets a really heavy sentence. The point is, of this whole thing, you can illustrate it with a little matrix and numbers and math and whatnot. You can do all this stuff, and you can change however many years of prison time they get. Depends.

15:11 Chris: You know, that'll change maybe what their optimal strategy is. But what the prisoner's dilemma is used for is to illustrate is that there can be situations where individual optimal strategies. So, like, you can make the individually most optimal decision. Prisoner B, the other person in this game, can make an optimal decision for him or her, and then that actually leads to a worse outcome for you both than if you made the decision that was actually less optimal for you individually, but as a whole, for the group was better. So the prisoner's dilemma is really useful for illustrating that fact. Chris: So, we'll get back to the prisoner's dilemma and decision making stuff in a little bit, and I'll mention here, but I won't necessarily get into all sorts of other things that impact our decision making and our information consumption, like how our identities and our values affect what information we choose to accept. Certainly we talk enough about motivated reasoning on cult or just weird already or myriad other influences on how we navigate our lives and make decisions in it. So, why am I opening this episode, the first of our new season, with a random discussion and object lesson about human decision making and game theory?

16:24 Kayla: Yeah. Why is that? Chris: Well, Kayla, you already know the answer to this because we discussed what our first episode of the season should be like back in December. Kayla: Yeah, you told me what you were gonna do. Chris: Yeah, it was, like, already when our second season was winding down and when Covid vaccines were just starting to roll out, seeing as how our third season would start right about when Covid vaccination efforts were in full swing. It felt like the right time to ask. Anti vaxx cult or just weird cult? Okay, done. Right. That would have been. Kayla: I have a preconceived notion on this. Chris: Thanks. Great. So anybody that is vaccine hesitant, that's like, listening to this episode right now has just already turned it off and. Good. Good job. Way to go.

17:13 Kayla: Sorry. Chris: That would have been a good place for a cold open. I maybe should put the cold open. No, we already talked about the music. Yeah, whatever. Kayla: You can edit it however you want when you get there, like you might. Chris: That was mostly just a joke. Kayla: Oh. Oh, sorry. I thought you were talking to me. Chris: Anyway. Yes, today's topic. Well, actually, this next two episodes topic is going to be the anti vaccination movement, which is funny, because as I was sitting here writing this very script, both Kayla and I just had gotten our first dose of the Pfizer Covid vaccination and Pfizer team rise up before we get started. It was actually kind of emotional when that needle went into my arm. It's been a long fucking year so far. Verklempt is the only side effect I've really had from this one. I guess my shoulder was, like, a little sore the next day. There are also a few other things I need to say before we really get started. First, and most importantly, props to Krispy Kreme, because they're giving out free donuts all fucking year long. If you present your Covid vaccination card.

18:19 Kayla: I can't wait to get that sweet hell yeah. Glaze. Mmm. Chris: Hot donuts now. Kayla: But I'll get it one time and then I'll be done. Chris: Kale is all year. You can go on every day. I was actually discussing this with a friend of mine who's also a fan of Krispy Kremever. And we sort of worked it out that, like, you could just go from one Krispy Kreme to the next in, like, an rv all year long. I mean, it would cost you a lot in gas, but you wouldn't have to pay for food the whole year. Kayla: The whole rest of the year, you might die. I'm not gonna lie. Chris: What are you talking about? Kayla: Eat a vegetable. Chris: It's a vegetable. It's a donut. It has flour and it's a donut flour. It comes from wheat, which is a plant, which is a vegetable.

19:01 Kayla: Donuts are plant based. You heard it here first. Chris: Yep. Anyway, we have to add that whole thing for Krispy Kreme. To the great human achievements list, along with the moonshot and something else we'll talk about later this episode. Secondly, and while this is definitely not as important as donuts, it's probably the next most important thing, which is why. Why are we even doing this topic on the show? Why are we doing anti vax on the show? Kayla: Why do we even do the show at all? Chris: Why does the world exist? How many things are there? Kayla: How many things are there? Chris: I mean, but yes, that is a question that obviously that any podcaster should always ask about any episode they do. But it's just that the stakes are a little higher this time because this isn't just us going like, hey, Caleb, you heard this neat thing about how Cargill cults are actually good and cool, or tulpas are awesome. Listen to me tell you about them. The information we distribute on the episodes here today and in two weeks actually have the potential for real harm if we get it wrong. So even before we.

20:03 Kayla: That's the royal we again, to not implicate myself in this. Chris: Oh, yeah, you're totally innocent. Kayla: I'm a passive listener here, just like all the rest of our other listeners. Chris: Right? So if we actually, if we kill people with this episode, then it's on me only for the lawyers to hear that. Okay. Kayla: Do you think it's possible we kill people? Chris: No. But, but it's, what I'm trying to say here is that we're talking about public health and vaccines. Like, that's, that's not small potatoes. Like, it's not. It's not innocent stuff. It's stuff that we need to make sure that we really try and get right. And even before we say make sure we don't get this wrong, it's incumbent upon us to say, can we justify doing this as a topic at all? Right, so I'm not going to go into all the different convoluted thought processes that I went through when thinking about this question. But ultimately, I decided it was worthwhile for us to do based on a few things. The first is trust. I trust myself to seek out and sift good information from bad and ugly information.

21:09 Chris: I trust you, Kayla, as a QA person, if I go astray with said information, I also trust my interview subject. I trust my B's detector, my own personal one. I trust my science background. And generally speaking, I think I have a pretty good trust network just around me. Also, as important as any of that, I trust our audience. I've interacted with enough of you guys, by this point that I feel comfortable with presenting potential information hazards and knowing that your own critical thinking, your own trust networks and B's detectors are pretty on point. If I say something wrong or bad, I feel comfortable that I'll be called out on it and I can issue a future correction.

21:52 Kayla: Call us out is what we're saying. Chris: Yes. I also can present the ugly information and not worry that you will become radicalized by it. So all that is to say, I trust the participants in this conversation. Kayla: Don't go proving us wrong on that one, though. Chris: Yeah, please don't become radicalized by our show. And on top of that, my curiosity led me to some new and interesting information about vaccines and vaccine science that I did not know before. And that is ultimately what this podcast is all about. I definitely went into the research thinking, well, whatever. I know everything there is to know about vaccines and anti vax already. What more can I really learn? What's the point? And actually, that question was answered for me several times in the research. I did learn some things. Speaking of curiosity, I think another big why that drove this episode was, I feel like I kept wondering, why anti vaxxers? Why do they exist? Like, Kayla, I'm not sure if you feel this way, but the answer to that question isn't immediately obvious to me. Like, why they exist?

22:51 Kayla: Well, it's like, yeah, it's like, why this? Why don't we think of there being other groups of anti. Other forms of medication? Obviously there are, but we don't. Chris: Why is this such a thing? Yeah. And my trust network has me fully and completely comfortable in the knowledge that vaccines are not only safe, but also they're like kind of this incredible human achievement. And there's a decent chance that neither of us would be alive without them. Kayla: Oh, yeah. Chris: So to be anti such a thing is actually a pretty foreign concept to me, and I have a desire to understand it. You and I talked about this a few months ago, but if this episode was just another excuse for us to dunk on anti vaxxers for 2 hours and hit publish, then there's really no point. Twitter already exists for that. So I hope that this is in the show's DNA by now. But this is a quest to understand. I hope that comes through in these episodes.

23:40 Kayla: Now proceed with the dunking. Chris: Now it's time to dunk on anti vaxxers. Anti vaxxers be so dumb. Kayla: How dumb are they? Chris: Nah, sorry. No, no. That's. That's not what we're doing. And finally, to put a bow on the whole, like, is it safe for us to do this topic? Question. Have to add, Kayla and I are very much not experts on the topic of vaccines and infectious disease or anything, thanks to this podcast. Well, I was gonna say we are gaining some expertise on the topic of online radicalization and misinformation. Kayla: That's true. Chris: But we are not epidemiologists or doctors. So if you are one of those things and we need to be corrected, please let us know. Kayla: Is it epidemiologists?

24:21 Chris: Epidemiologists. Epidemio. Kayla: Is it epidemiol? You said epidemiologists. Epidemiologist. Chris: Okay, so Kayla and I just checked on YouTube, and it is epidemiologist. I pronounced it wrong. So there's our first correction right there. I can't even pronounce the goddamn word in real time. Wow. I hope that really instills some of that trust I was just talking about in our listeners. Oh. Kayla: At least have trust that I will use every opportunity I can find to, like, call you out on something. Chris: That's the thing, right? Like, I know that you are going to try to make me look like an absolute dumbass charlatan whenever you possibly can. So I feel pretty safe that by the time the final product is out, it'll be good. All right, so I've used the word episodes plural here a couple times, and you sort of called it out, and that's because this topic is absolutely enormous.

25:15 Kayla: Of course it is. Chris: So this is going to be a two parter. If you have been listening to us for a while, then, first of all, you're a good person. And also you'll be familiar with the format that we're going to do, which is this first episode is gonna set them up with context and explaining the facts and the science and the history to the best of our ability. And then the second episode is gonna knock them down with us explaining the movement, the cult are just weird around the thing. In this case, the thing is infectious disease and combating it with vaccines. Oh. And if you haven't been listening to us for a while, then you are a bad person and you should feel bad. Kayla: Yep. Chris: All right, one more thing, actually, longtime listeners will be familiar with this part first as well, but as always, sources. Oh, boy.

26:00 Kayla: Oh, no. Is there a lot? Chris: Oh, there's a lot. There's a lot. Kayla: That's good. Chris: This was probably the most intense research I've done on a per episode basis. I think QAnon was probably more than this, but that was spread out over five episodes. So I will link as much of this as I can in the show notes, but here is a list. It's not comprehensive, but I try to get most of it in this list. A lot of times I won't even say the like, individual article names. I'll just mush a bunch of articles together and say, I got it from this place. But this list will also be for both this and the next episode. So you don't have to listen to me rattle off a long fucking list two times in a row. That's good. Kayla: I'm glad.

26:41 Chris: Ready? Kayla: Yes. Chris: Yeah. Okay. Wikipedia, a bunch of stuff there. Obviously, we always start there. The Lancet, a bunch of articles from the Lancet, a few articles from Nature, a whole bunch of stuff from nIH.org dot and NIH stands for the National Institute of Health, of Course, CDC Dot Gov, Comma, the Oxford University Press, something called Medical news Today, the New Yorker, the BMJ, which stands for the British Medical Journal, the New York Times, historyofvaccines.org, thinkglobalhealth.org, comma, Duke Universityuke.edu, harvard Business Review, Discover magazine, Scientific American, Market Watch, Buzzfeed, Publichealth.org, comma, healthline.com, comma, npr. Several articles there, CNN, the Atlantic, Jezebel, Huffington Post. I know some of my sources here are lower quality than others. I think that's okay.

27:40 Kayla: You best not be citing Jezebel. Chris: No, I'm saying Huffpo and Buzzfeed. Yeah, no offense if you write for one of those places, but I mean, like some of my sources are the Lancet and nature and then some of them are like Buzzfeed. Although the Lancet is not perfect as we will talk about next episode. Kayla: I don't even know what the Lancet is. Chris: I don't have it in my script to describe what all of these sources are. Kayla: No, no, please don't. Chris: So that we'll have to leave to the listener. Oh yeah, I almost forgot the who's website. I used a bunch in various areas. Sciencedirect.com, comma, obgproject.com, chop.org, comma, which stands for children's Hospital of Philadelphia.

28:27 Kayla: Oh, so not chopped the television show? Chris: No, no, we did watch chopped a bunch when were on our cross country trip, but I guess we could call that research. The reason for Children's Hospital Philadelphia is that is where doctor Paul Offit works. And doctor offit is one of the leading vaccine advocate voices in this country, in America. I also wrote a book that I highly recommend and it gave me a ton of insight and material for this show, and it's simply called anti vaxxers. It's by Jonathan Berman. If you on Twitter, I'll see if I can figure out how to lend it to you from my audible account. I think that's possible. But is that possible? I don't know. At me? At me. I'll give it a shot. It's definitely well worth a read. I copied a lot of his homework for this.

29:11 Chris: So it's basically just like this podcast, but like way better. So just go listen to that instead. We're crap. And I'm still leaving some stuff out. I shit you not, actually. Wait, I'm not done. I wanted to mention these next few separately because they are what I would consider bad or ugly information. But I did spend a bunch of time looking at anti vaccine information propaganda outlets. And again, if you are listening to this as a vaccine hesitant person, my purpose is not to belittle or dunk on you, but I have to characterize these sources in a way that I feel is accurate and honest. Believe me, during this research, I did gain a lot of sympathy for a portion of the vaccine hesitant community, which I will be talking about a lot next episode. So this is not to slight anyone.

29:58 Chris: I just need to characterize the sources the way I need to. Kayla: Good to know. Chris: Anyway, these include a few different websites from a few different chiropractors, subluxations, anti vaxx Twitter, which was like honestly the worst. Like it was far worse than any of the other anti vaxx stuff. I looked at the anti vaxx Twitter folks are just because there's like a bunch that interact with a person who I'm about to mention. Oh God. Just like I go on, I just need like eye bleach after I look at some of these guys twitters. It's really bad. Anyway, I took a look at RFK junior s website, childrenshealthdefense.org, took a look at the National Vaccine Information center, nvic.org dot. And again I thought, should I hide these sources? Should I not talk about these? And it comes back to trusting our audience.

30:55 Chris: I trust our audience can dip into the muck, as it were, the way that I did, and still come out clean. And I don't think that for the people that I know that listen to this show, I don't think need to be protected from information. So. Yeah, but, so the National Vaccine Information center, by the way, is the name is just like really misleading. Yeah, it's actually disinformation that they are pushing. Although, again, I will still give them the benefit of the doubt and just assume that the purveyors of the site don't think that way. They probably think that they are giving out information, so I will at least give them the intent benefit of the doubt. I also watched the propaganda documentary vaxxed.

31:38 Kayla: When did you have time to do. Chris: That in its entirety? Kayla: Literally, though, wait for me. When did you watch that? Chris: It was like a couple weeks ago. Like, after we got back from the trip. Kayla: When? Chris: Mmm, when you were working? You've been working, dude. Kayla: Oh, yeah, I guess I have been. Chris: Anyway, it wasn't quite as bad as that time that I spent looking at the creativity website. Kayla: Oh, God. Chris: But it was still not. It was still not great. So you're fucking welcome, you ingrates. Kayla: Is that to me or to our listeners? Chris: Both, obviously. I also read some studies that at first blush seemed to support some anti vaxxer claims. When I say at first blush, what.

32:19 Kayla: Happened at second blush? Chris: At second blush, I was like, why am I blushing so much? And then I needed to put some makeup on. Kayla: Why would you need to put makeup on if you were a natural? Chris: Oh, blush is good. Oh, sorry. I mean, if you had second blush, that's when I was hit on by the person. I don't know. Kayla: Wow, you are failing. Chris: Listen, guys, it's been a few months, and I'm actually not very clever to begin with, so these are the best I can do for jokes right now. Kayla: So when it didn't pass your smell test, what happened? Chris: Well, that is actually a whole story we'll get into in the next episode where we talk about anti vax. This episode is more about the vax. All right, so there we go. Oh, shit. Actually, I'm still not done. There are two more. Now. We're going back to the good information sources, okay? Which I strategically forgot until just now, because it helps the narrative of the podcast, and that is respectfulinsolence.com and sciencebasedmedicine.org. Dot our old pals. And if those ring a bell to you, it's because, friend of the show doctor David Gorski, that first blog I mentioned, the respectful insolence, that's his. And he is a managing editor on the second one on science based medicine.

33:31 Chris: He stopped by, if you may recall again, longtime listeners in season one, to help us understand what was going on with real epigenetic science, and then also the pseudoscience craze around it. Kayla: Thanks, Doctor Gorski. Chris: Which brings me to Doctor Gorski is back. I spoke with him at length about vaccines and the anti vax movement, and he's actually the person I was referencing a minute ago. And I was saying that he interacts a lot on twitter with anti vaxxers, and I don't know how he has the patience for it because I wanted to bleach my eyes after, like, ten minutes. Kayla: He's doing the Lord's work. Chris: But, yeah, he came back on the show, which was very awesome and gracious of him, and it's super efficient because since he's been on the show before, I don't have to send him a second thank you gift, so maybe you should, though. That's called synergy, baby. That's what we're all about here. She beIN cheap now. Most of our interview actually will end up being in the next episode, since the bulk of our conversation was about anti vax. Not the history and science of vaccines, but the first bit of it. Well, actually, I'm gonna start it up right now. So, to reiterate, before we can understand anti vax, we need to understand vaccines. And before we understand vaccines, we need to understand human contagious diseases.

34:45 Chris: Without further ado, for those listeners of ours that don't recall or haven't heard our interview with you in the episode we did on Ben lynch in epigenetic pseudoscience, which was season one, episode 19. Could you introduce yourself again real briefly, please? Dr Gorski: David Gorski. I'm a surgical oncologist and scientist at Wayne State University in Michigan, and I'm also a blogger, including managing editor of Science based Medicine. And I have my own personal blog@respectfulinsolence.com. Chris: And I really enjoy your twitter.

35:25 Dr Gorski: Oh, why, thank you. Yeah, son. G o r s k o n. Yeah. Chris: Yeah. So we're talking about the anti vaxx movement today on the show. So my first question is sort of just some context. My first couple questions are going to be context. Okay. What exits? Since we have a doctor here, we have an actual expertise. What exactly is a vaccine? And can you walk us through how a vaccine actually works? Dr Gorski: The overall simple concept behind a vaccine is to try to give you immunity to a disease without you actually having to have the disease. So what vaccines do is they expose you to proteins from the organism that causes the disease that can provoke an immune response. And these are generally called antigens. They can be proteins, they can be fragments of proteins. They can be killed organism. They can even be live organism in the form of what's called a live attenuated virus vaccine, which basically is a weakened form of the vaccine that doesn't cause disease, but does provoke an immune response that cross reacts, or that can also cover the real wild type disease that's out in nature.

36:47 Chris: Alright, so I want to stop here and talk a little bit about the science. And by a bit, I mean a lot. Let's talk a lot about the science. Why am I stopping here? Well, because he just mentioned attenuated virus, and that's like one of the cool things that I learned about. So I wanted to talk to you guys about that, but we'll get to that before we can talk about complicated things like that. First things first, we have to talk about disease at both the individual level of immunology and also the aggregate level of epidemio. Epidemiology, which I will never be able to pronounce. Kayla: You got it. Chris: The science is extremely complicated. The human immune system is probably the most complex system in the body outside of your nervous system. And even then, there's probably like a good debate to be had.

37:33 Kayla: Wait, you're telling me it's possible that your immune system is more complex than in your brain? Chris: It depends on what you. Look, man, this is why I said debate. I don't know. I'm not a biologist. Kayla: That is debate right now. Chris: I'm not a human anatomist. All I'm saying is that your brain is. Your nervous system is just a bunch of neurons at the end of the day. Now, the stuff you think about, like human consciousness and all that stuff, that's complicated. But with the immune system, you have like dozens of different cells and different ways that they all have different jobs, and then they remember different proteins. Well, we're getting into this now, but the short answer is yes.

38:17 Kayla: How does your brain make memories? Chris: All right, we have to move on. You're not even high. Why are you asking me these questions? So think of your immune system as like, it's like the military for your body. There are multiple branches of it. They communicate with each other. There are many specialized cells that are vastly different from one another. Chemicals are involved, they commit war crimes. Intel is involved. And there are some scary ass microorganisms that live inside you that are just, like, itching for a fight and would be happy to kill the rest of you if other parts of your immune system weren't keeping them on a leash. But anyway, I digress. Chris: Your immune system, it is extremely complex, but we can simplify it a little bit for the purposes of a podcast and just say, look, you've got a whole slew of cells and chemicals and whatnot that live inside you, and they are extremely deadly to invaders. Your immune system is constantly fighting off pathogens, and the vast majority are dealt with and do not cause a disease. However, if you've ever had a cold or the chicken pox rip. Chicken pox. We didn't have a vaccine for you when I was a kid.

39:22 Kayla: I got it. I got the vaccine, not the pox. Chris: Yeah, when I was growing up, we didn't have chicken pox vaccine. You know that some. If you've ever had one of these, you know that sometimes a pathogen comes along that overcomes your defenses. Now, I say pathogen because there are multiple types of things that can cause disease and create negative symptoms in humans. So that includes things like bacteria, viruses like Covid. Covid is a virus. Fungus like athlete's foot. Kayla: Ew. Chris: Even sometimes disease can be caused by simple proteins, like just a protein, just a naked protein. And we call those prions or prions. P r I o n, which, by the way, that's what causes mad cow disease.

40:04 Kayla: So do bodybuilders get these a lot? Chris: No, because it's. Kayla: They eat a lot of protein. Chris: Yes, yes. Yeah, exactly. It's the. It's the swole disease. Kayla: I solved it. Chris: Yeah, it's the swole disease, and it is definitely contagious. Anyway, for the purposes of our discussion, we can mostly just skip over talking about what these different pathogens actually are and how they work, and just focus on the fact that if one or more of them can successfully sneak past your body's immune defenses, it can multiply in its nice new home, your body, and then depending on what the pathogen is, can cause different kinds of symptoms. And that's basically what having a disease comes down to. And if it helps, just pretend every time I try to say pathogen in most of the script here, but you can just think of it as a virus. Like it would be a whole other podcast to talk about the differences between the different types of organisms that are microscopic and can cause disease.

41:04 Kayla: But are you going to settle here if a virus is alive or nothing? Chris: Seeing as how that is not settled science and is actually firmly in the realm of ambiguity, I doubt it. If you forced me to put it in a category, I would say yes, but see, I would say no. Really? Oh, wow. Wow. Controversy at cult are just weird. Kayla: Teach the controversy. Chris: What makes you say no? Kayla: Because I just feel like they're all robots, but not like replicant robots, just. Chris: Little bots, like nanobots? Kayla: Yeah, they're just kind of like little nanobots. Chris: Yeah, but they replicate, man, like a nanobot. And they interact with other biologies, so like. Kayla: Like a nanobot.

41:45 Chris: I mean, at the end of the day, it's. The question of which category they're in I think is bunk, because it's. Kayla: When they're. Chris: It's. It's. Life is more of a spectrum than a binary, and they're somewhere in the middle. So bots rocks one side and kittens on the other side, and viruses are somewhere in the middle. Anyway, that's how disease basically kind of works. So if it's like influenza, it'll give you symptoms like coughing. Is that on purpose? Oh, my God. Or things like fever. Kayla: Oh, no, I'm so sweaty. Chris: Yeah, this is really. This is like old timey radio now. Awesome. Can I, can I asmr the sweat off of my forehead here? And if it's chicken pox, you got your itchy sores.

42:35 Kayla: I got nothing. Chris: You're not gonna. Here. You can't go like, ew. Kayla: But I hate that sound. Horrible. Chris: But all is not lost. The best trick your immune system has up its sleeve, that's subjectively best. I don't know if there's a best trick, is that it has a quote unquote memory. Kayla: What? Chris: So this isn't exactly stored the way that, like, your brain memories are. It's like a complex dance of chemical and cellular, quote, memory, which, again, we won't get into, but the effect is that, generally speaking, if your immune system remembers air quotes a pathogen, it will now recognize it the next time around and do what it does best, target and destroy. So when you get a disease, your immune system essentially records what it is, and then in the future, it just checks its little database, and it's like, we've seen this before. It made Kayla feel bad. Let's fuck it up.

43:33 Kayla: Yeah, I guess that makes sense. Chris: Yeah. So I'm glossing over, like, just an insane amount of biology here to describe this whole process. By the way, that's my best shot at talking quickly and succinctly about how your immune system develops immunity, two diseases, experiences them, takes notes, recognizes them later. It's an extremely powerful and effective system. It just seems like it only has this one tiny little flaw, that you actually have to experience these diseases before you gain your immunity. Kayla: You see, that part sucks. Chris: Yeah. And then occasionally, there's some other tiny flaws, like sometimes your immune system, for whatever reason, like, screws up its note taking, and you don't actually gain immunity, things like that.

44:17 Kayla: The really big shit part about it is sometimes it can just attack you. Chris: Oh, yeah, people can have autoimmune illnesses. Yes. You can have autoimmune illnesses, which are really shitty. Well, that's what I was saying before. Like, if your immune system doesn't work right, then it can actually be pretty dangerous to yourself. Yeah, but what we're talking about here is infectious disease, and your immune system is very good at protecting you from infectious disease. And even when it fails and you get sick, it has a way of compensating for that and adapting for the future. It's really quite powerful. Kayla: Thanks, immune system. But you can't keep me from catching the common cold twice.

45:02 Chris: So this tiny flaw that you have to experience the disease before you gain your immunity, that can range from, like, kind of a big deal when you're talking about something like Covid or measles, both of which have low mortality rates, but high rates of chronic or semi chronic health issues as a result of having a disease all the way over to big fucking deal when you're talking about something like polio or smallpox, both of which get a huge. We'll get to that later in the episode. Kayla: We're gonna get polio and smallpox. Chris: We'll get to that. Oh, yeah, no, it's. I stopped short with the object lesson. It was just the solo cups.

45:43 Kayla: You're not actually. Chris: Yeah, I'm not going to give you polio. Although, man, that would have made for some really compelling listening, though. So wouldn't it be nice if we could eat our cake and have it, too? Kayla: Yes. Chris: If we could get the immunity without the disease? Kayla: Yes. Chris: Wouldn't it be great if we could let our immune systems cheat on our homework? Kayla: Yes. Chris: Well, this, as Doctor Gorski just said in the interview clip we listened to, is the fundamental definition of a vaccine. Kayla: Hell, yeah. Vaccines are about cheating. Chris: Yeah, they're. Yeah. Literally about that. It is a method for conferring immunity to a disease, leveraging mechanisms that exist in our own immune systems without actually experiencing the shitty shittiness of the disease itself.

46:24 Kayla: That's pretty sweet. Chris: Speaking of clumsily glossing over complex immunological science. Time to do that with epidemiology. Kayla: Cool. Chris: So, broadly speaking, a given pathogen can be categorized by two things. What kind of symptoms it gives you and how much it spreads from person to person. When we talk about negative or maladaptive symptoms, it's referred to as the virulence of the pathogen. So the worse those things are, the more virulent the pathogen is said to be. Smallpox is more virulent than Covid-19. For example. How much it spreads is referred to. Well, there are actually a whole lot of terms for spreading, but I'll probably just use the term infectivity or transmission.

47:07 Kayla: Infectivity does not sound like a real world infectivity. Use transmission. Chris: I'm probably going to use both. The higher the infectivity, the higher the rate of transmission, which, as of 2020, suddenly, everybody knows what the rate of transition means. But just in case you've been in a cave, a given pathogen has a natural rate of transmission, which we call r sub zero. Everybody's familiar with r sub zero from COVID obsessive online research, right? Kayla: I have not heard of that. Chris: No. Kayla: No. I haven't read anything about COVID on the Internet. Chris: Wait, so you really don't know? I don't know what RC Zero is perfect. Because that means I can tell you.

47:49 Kayla: I just have left it up to you to do, because I know that you're obsessively researching the COVID stuff. So I just ask you. And I want to know about COVID stuff, and you have the answers. Chris: I hope you trust me. Kayla: I do. Chris: R sub zero is simply the number of humans we expect an infected person to spread the virus to, given zero population immunity. So, for example, the r sub zero for influenza ranges between 0.9 and 2.1, according to the googles. So what that means is, on average, we expect some person with the flu to spread it to between 0.9 and 2.1. Other people on average. Does that make sense? Kayla: Yes. And I feel like I've seen that. I just don't know if I've seen it referred to as. Chris: Okay, so, you know. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe I should have led with what it is before I said the. The variable name that epidemiologists use. God, I'll never pronounce it right.

48:38 Kayla: Nope. Chris: Epidemi dibdom them. Kayla: Smart guys. No. Chris: Smart dudes. All right, so here's a key point. If your r sub zero reals, if your rate of transmission equals one, then the pathogen sort of sticks around, slowly hopping from one person to the next. If your r sub zero is less than one, it will eventually die out because it's spreading from one person to one other person at less than a one to one rate. So, for example, if your r sub zero is 0.9 and 100 people currently have the disease, then they will spread it to 90 other people on average, who, on average, will spread it to 81 other people, and so on until it dies out.

49:19 Kayla: Gotcha. Chris: And then the opposite of that is also true. So if your r sub zero is greater than one, so, like, let's say it's two, then 100 people will spread it to 200, who will spread it to 400, who will spread it to 800, and so on, and then it will spread a lot of. Well, yes, that's the thing with disease. And we've also learned this during COVID It spreads exponentially because each person interacts with x number of other people. And depending on that, there'll be some rate of transmission that, you know, doubles or triple or whatever it is. Whatever your r is, this is your exponent, right? Sorry. Your base. I don't know. Whatever. It spreads exponentially. Chris: Quick aside, about Covid-19 it was actually really hard for me to pin down an r sub zero number for it because it was a novel virus as of 2019. And r sub zero reals depends on so many factors above and beyond, even something like the flu. So, like, for example, the r sub zero of the new UK COVID variant is much higher than other variants that were with us for most of 2020. So since everything is, like, changing so much and our reactions, who is changing and different places have different strategies for dealing with it, there's no, like. There's just a wild range of what people will cite for Covid's r sub zero right now, and it changes all the time.

50:38 Chris: I do recall back in March of 2020 that there are estimates ranging around, like, two for those initial populations in China and Italy. But it's just, like, wildly different now depending on all those different factors. Hey, Kayla, you want to guess what the r sub zero reals is for. Kayla: The measles r tendin? I don't know. Chris: Ten reals? That's your final answer? Kayla: Ten reals? Chris: It's just a number. Kayla: Ten. It's ten. Chris: Good guess. According to the University of Michigan, the r sub zero for measles ranges anywhere from twelve to 18. Kayla: Oh, my. Mine wasn't crazy. Chris: Depending on factors like population density and life expectancy.

51:22 Kayla: Don't get me. Chris: This is a very large r sub zero, mainly because the measles virus is highly infectious. Kayla: Do we have. We all have. I got a. We all got a measles vaccine. Chris: That's your mmr. Kayla: Mmr. Measles. Chris: Mom's rubella. Yeah, exactly. So measles is like, basically like a match hovering above a tank of gasoline. That level of r sub zero is absolutely explosive. And as we'll talk about later. It also impacts herd immunity. We're going to get real. We're going to get back to vaccine science here. But keep in mind these two key concepts of virulence, how dangerous it is and how spready it is, because they will come back in a big way later on in this episode a little bit, but also a lot more once we start talking about herd immunity and vaccination choices.

52:10 Kayla: Gotcha. Chris: Okay, so like I said, back to the vaccine science. We talked about vaccines creating immunity in the human body without actually giving you the disease. That's the definition. But how exactly do they do that? What is the mechanism? So Doctor Gorsey talked about this a little bit in the clip we played, but basically what a vaccine does is it presents your body with some material that will trigger an immune response, but the material is itself safe to you. Vaccines are not the same as inoculating you with the disease itself. There's actually another term for that which we will get to. Kayla: Oh, what's the term? Because I feel like that's what we, when we're growing up, we're like little kids. Like, that's what we think it is. It's like.

52:51 Chris: So vaccines cannot give you the disease itself, which is a common misconception. Kayla: Thank you. Please put to rest. All the people are like, oh, I will never get my flu vaccine. I will never get my flu shot again because it gave me the flu. Chris: I got it. No, it doesn't do that. Kayla: It gave me the flu. I'll never get it again. The only time I've had the flu was when I got the flu shot. No, no. Chris: Yeah. So vaccines can't actually give you the disease that they're vaccinating you for. And I. And I have this note here that I even bought into this myth at one point, like, when I was a kid, because that's kind of like how you first think of. It's like, oh, they give you the thing a little bit. They give you a little bit of it, and then you're immune. Kayla: Yeah. Chris: Not how it works. So over the years, there's actually been a wide variety of techniques to accomplish this goal. And these include, and I think doctor Gorsy mentioned a couple of these, but they include introducing dead or pathogens or inactive viruses, which cannot give you the disease because they are dead or they're inactive. So that might be where the give you a little bit myth comes from, is because, like, they give you a little bit. They give you a little bit. It's like, no, if it's bacteria, they're giving you like actual dead bacteria or viruses that are inactive. It could also be from introducing pieces of the pathogen. So like, instead of here's whole dead bacterias or whole inactive viruses, and I say inactive viruses instead of dead because of that whole debate we just had.

54:08 Kayla: A second ago, you're trying to accommodate to my beliefs. I appreciate it. Chris: Yeah, exactly. I'm trying to use the virus preferred pronouns. So pieces of pathogens. Yeah. Might be just like chunks of the bacteria, or like protein chunks from the viruses. Another method is introducing live attenuated viruses. Kayla: What does that mean? Chris: So Doctor Gorski mentioned that, and that's actually where we cut the clip off, because that was where I was like, ooh. I want to talk about attenuated viruses, which we will still get to. Wait, you're not 1 second. I want to finish my list. I want to finish my list. And then this one is brand new. Is a vaccine using messenger RNA or mRNA for short, to basically do some magic. Kayla: That's the one that's saving us all. Chris: From COVID the Moderna and the Pfizer vaccines both use mRNA technology. I'm not sure about the AstraZeneca one. I know the J and J one does not. I'm not sure which one. I don't know what J and J uses. It's one of those other three things that I said. So I feel like I basically kind of understood the first two things on my list, which is like dead pathogens or like pieces of them.

55:05 Kayla: Yeah, that makes sense. Chris: And it makes sense that your immune system could see those and be like, hey, these are bad. Let's remember these for the future. But I actually had no idea what attenuated live virus meant. Kayla: As I said, what explain. Chris: Or how mRNA vaccines actually work. Alright, fine. It is time to explain. So there may be other, like, again, not an expert here. So there might be other ways to attenuate a virus. But what I read virus attenuation is they actually take, I don't know, piccadilly measles. I don't know if they do this for measles. There's only certain vaccines that work this way. There's all kinds of different vaccines for different diseases, only some of them work this way. Kayla: Do mumps. Because we already talked about measles. Chris: Okay, do mumps. I mean, it's a placeholder word, because I don't know how these actual vaccines work. So please don't say like, that's not how the mumps vaccine works, but sure, let's pretend it's mumps.

55:57 Kayla: Give you big balls, does it? I think the mumps, one of the things. Chris: Oh, no, that's not a disease. That's good, I think. Kayla: Is it? You know, like, makes your cheeks swell or whatever? Chris: Yeah, actually, I think it can sterilize you, so it's really. It's not good. Kayla: Well, I think. Cause I think it can make your balls swell. Chris: Yeah, no, I actually don't want that. Kayla: Don't get mumps, guys. Get your MMR. Chris: That was a joke. If you've gotten mumps and been harmed by it, I apologize. Pretend mumps for this example. So what an attenuated virus is the lab person, scientist will actually introduce the actual mumps virus into some other animals into, like, fruit flies or. I don't know what they do it with.

56:37 Kayla: Okay. Chris: And they will essentially, they'll allow this virus. Kayla: They give a fruit fly the virus. Chris: Yeah. Probably monkeys, too, if I had to guess. Kayla: Oh, no, I don't like this. Chris: I mean, they probably just use rats. To be honest, I'm not sure I get rats. I don't know. They use animals, Kayla. The point is, they use animals, and they will allow the virus to multiply in these animals until the virus becomes evolved enough to really only present the symptoms in these animals and no longer present the symptoms in humans. But as we'll find out more in a minute, a lot of these. So a virus that can infect more than one type of species is called zoonotic. So a lot of these zoonotic viruses, even if they don't really present you with any symptoms, can still actually give you immunity to the original disease. So, again, I don't know if this is mumps still just using as an example.

57:31 Chris: But in the example, let's say we take this mumps virus and we let it multiply across all these different rats, and then, you know, generation, whatever, 5742 of the mumps virus, all of a sudden now is more targeted to rats, right? You can give it to a person. It won't give them mumps, but it will give them immunity to mumps, and. Kayla: It will give them rat powers. Chris: That's it. Will give you rat powers. You are not the first one to make a comment like that. Kayla: Are you cheating on me with another podcast host? Chris: You're not the first one to make that comment about vaccines. That is a very common. Kayla: Are people worried they're gonna get rat powers? Chris: Not rat powers, but dead baby powers, but like. Yeah, no. What people? I mean, people get worried about the animals that these vaccines are developed within. So anyway, that's what attenuated virus means. I thought that was fascinating.

58:24 Kayla: Dope. Yeah, I feel bad for the monkeys and rats though. Chris: They're getting human mumps, so they're probably fine. I don't know, don't quote me on that. I don't know, if they use monkeys. Kayla: It'S safe to go like, eh, they're. Chris: Fine, they use animals. I don't know which ones. But when they do this, they create a life saving vaccine that makes millions of. Kayla: That's great. And you should absolutely do, I'm not saying not to do it. It can still make me sad. I feel bad for the animals. Chris: Okay, fair enough. I'm probably still gonna keep eating bacon. Kayla: What about monkeys? Chris: I'm not gonna eat monkeys. No eating monkeys. All right, so that's attenuated virus. I thought that was very interesting. I also thought the way that the mRNA worked was very interesting.

59:07 Kayla: Yeah, you gotta talk about that one because that's timely. Chris: That's like in the zeitgeist, right? Kayla: Wait, should we tell what brand of the vax we got? Chris: What? Click. Kayla: We're in. This is a Pfizer podcast, you guys. Chris: This is like Pokemon go. When you hit it, I feel like we're, you know, like we're team blue. Kayla: We are team pfizer. Chris: We're team pfizer. And then like Moderna's the red team, I forgot team courage or whatever, I don't. And then Johnson and Johnson is team insight. Kayla: I was the one that nobody wanted. Chris: Sorry. Please don't sue us. Johnson and Johnson. Actually, if you have the opportunity to get a Johnson and Johnson vaccine, you absolutely should do it. Please do it. But if you're on team Pfizer, then woo sup?

59:50 Kayla: Then you're allowed to listen to this podcast. Chris: All right? So for the mRNA vaccine, this is actually a good callback to our season one episode. The last time we talked to Doctor Gorski, our 18th episode of the season was called the blueprints, and we explained how DNA and mRNA work together to control cell function. Kayla: I remember that. Chris: I will now wait while everyone goes and listens to that whole episode. Great. Are you back? Kayla: I love how you're laughing at your own joke. Chris: I bet you like a non zero number of people go do it though. Kayla: You think you have so much power. Chris: Yes, I'm manipulating the masses. No, I'll tell you how. I will give you a refresher on how DNA and RNA work. So DNA are like the hard copy, hard drive, whatever of your cell's protein information. Your DNA knows how to make all these different proteins. Your DNA lives in your nucleus. It does not exit your nucleus. It does not get edited or changed ever. It just does its thing. The only time your DNA changes is when you bang somebody and then your DNA combines in the new person. But like what your DNA does and.

1:01:07 Kayla: Regular cells, why did you feel the need to add that part? It was like unnecessarily graphic. Chris: We're getting back in the swing of things, Kayla, I'm telling you. Besides, you gotta have a little spiciness in the podcast here. Kayla: When a mommy DNA and a daddy. Chris: DNA, but in your everyday sort of like cell function, your cells need a lot of proteins to do what they're supposed to do. Sometimes they need this protein, sometimes they need that protein. And only the DNA, which is the hard copy living in the cell's nucleus, knows how to make the proteins. But it's not coming out and doing that because it's way too cool and it's way too stable. So instead it sends a little messenger. It basically makes like a little photocopy blueprint of the protein. And that photocopy that it sends out to the factory to say, hey, here's how you make it is called mRNA messenger RNA because it's a messenger for the DNA.

1:01:59 Kayla: Mister RNA. Chris: Mister RNA. And it goes out to these little factories, and then it feeds its little blueprint thing into the factory. It's called a ribosome, and the ribosome spits out a protein and then the RNA is dissolved. It's done. Kayla: I want everyone to know that he's literally doing this from memory. He's not reading from a script right now. Chris: I didn't want to write this part. Kayla: I'm really impressed though. Chris: It's too much writing. There's already 17 pages of script. So that's how your cells make proteins. So what the mRNA vaccine does is I'm not even going to deliver any virus chunks or live attenuated, I'm not even going to deliver any virus at all. What I am going to do is I'm going to have this little payload thing, this little like, you know, I don't know what it is. I think it's like a, I don't know what it is. It's a little delivery device that delivers messenger RNA to your cells. So when we got our Pfizer vaccines on Monday, what was actually in that thing that got injected to our arm was a bunch of little delivery devices to deliver messenger RNA into our cells.

1:03:05 Chris: The messenger RNA goes to our own ribosomes, our own little factories, and tells them to produce Covid protein bits. Kayla: Covid protein bits. Chris: Covid protein bits. Kayla: Protein bits. Chris: So our own cells, after we got that vaccine, were producing bits. I believe it's the spike protein that they produce. Kayla: I'm sorry, what? Chris: Yes. Your own cells spike. Oh, yes. Kayla: You know, like, what does that mean? Chris: The coronavirus. You know how the coronavirus looks like a spiky ball? Kayla: Oh, yeah. Chris: The spike proteins are the little spikes. Kayla: Oh, okay. Chris: So your own cells are producing coronavirus spike proteins. Kayla: Okay. Chris: Isn't that dope as hell?

1:03:45 Kayla: Yeah, it's really dope. Chris: Yeah. And it's perfectly safe because then the mRNA. So, as I just explained, the mRNA, once it delivers its instructions to the ribosome, to the factory, it dissolves, it's gone. So there's no residual anything for that. So there's there has been some, like, talk in the anti vaxx community about, like, oh, it's gonna rewrite your DNA. It's a one way street. DNA cannot be rewritten by RNA. DNA is a one way photocopy to RNA. But your DNA isn't even involved in this process, because your ribosome doesn't even. It has no idea where the rna came from. It's just like, oh, there's some rna. I guess I need to make this protein now. It doesn't know whether it was from your cell nucleus or what.

1:04:28 Kayla: So you're telling me that an mRNA that has the mark of the beast on it cannot alter my DNA? I don't know. Chris: That is exactly what I'm telling you. And not only am I saying that could be what happens, it did happen, inside your own shoulder the other day. Kayla: I'd be okay with getting the mark of the beast. Well, if it gave me not Covid. Chris: Yeah, yeah, for sure. Kayla: Gimme, gimme, gimme. Chris: Anyway, I didn't know how the mRNA vaccine worked, and now I do. And I thought it was really interesting. And by the way, that's also why it's so. I don't know if you've heard it talked about, but, like, once you have a piece of genetic code for something that you want to give a vaccine for, you can just swap whatever. Once the payload works, once the actual delivery device works, you can put whatever you want into it, and it'll tell your cell to make those proteins.

1:05:17 Kayla: That's cool. Chris: So it's very flexible. So that's one of the nice things about this technology, is that if a variant of COVID arose, well, I guess it has arisen. Kayla: What are you talking about? Chris: COVID variants that arise that need to be addressed by a vaccine could theoretically be addressed fairly quickly, at least compared to other vaccine technologies. Kayla: Gotcha. Chris: All right, so it was when I learned about the attenuated virus vaccines and the mRNA vaccines that I was like, okay, this is pretty cool. And I didn't know that stuff before, so it's worth doing this episode for sure. Kayla: Right. Chris: We'll talk more about the science side of things as we go, but that's the primer. Real quick, though, there are other aspects of vaccines other than their actual functionality, which are interesting and highly pertinent to this topic. One is vaccine storage. So like anything else, biological vaccines have a shelf life. As you may know, the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines currently have a very low temperature requirement. To preserve their effectiveness, they have to be kept refrigerated. That's a huge challenge when you're trying to get billions of people protected from COVID Some vaccines which have been around much longer use preservative compounds to aid in this whole shelf life thing. And we will get to those preservative compounds.

1:06:36 Kayla: I know that those are a problem for some people. Chris: We'll get to that next episode. Vaccines also sometimes contain non active compounds called adjuvants, which are basically like a power up for the active vaccine material. It makes them more effective. The adjuvants aren't generating the immunity, they are making the thing that is generating the immunity much more effective, which means we can do things like deliver smaller doses. For example, the gold standard for vaccine adjuvants currently is aluminum. Like literally just the metal aluminum. And it's been used for nearly 100 years now. Aluminum is added to some vaccines, and the general idea is that it triggers your snowflake hippie immune system to react super strongly to just some like, tiny little sissy vaccine material.

1:07:24 Kayla: I know, again, that this is not for this episode, but man, even just hearing aluminum, I'm like, I don't want aluminum injected into me. I don't want aluminum. I like, I get being scared of it because like, it's like, I use hippie s deodorant. Even though I know that the aluminum doesn't hurt you, I'm still like, oh, I'm scared to put the aluminum there. Chris: Yeah, well, that's, there's some overlap there with the, like, makes sense deodorant fearing community and the vaccine hesitant communicate so scientists don't have a complete picture of exactly how the aluminum works, but they do have a ton of evidence that it does work, and they have, like, a bunch of puzzle pieces as to how it works. Like, they know that, like, aluminum does this and it does that and it does this. But as I mentioned a while back, the immune system is complicated, and there are a lot of interlocking moving parts. Hence my saying they have pieces of the puzzle, but not, like, the full picture of why it works the way it does. Anyway, remember preservatives and adjuvants for next episode, because these are things, as you mentioned, that are heavily related to the topic at hand.

1:08:25 Kayla: I'm gonna forget them, so you'll have to just tell us again. Chris: God damn it. Well, listener, don't forget preservatives and adjuncts. Kayla: Listener, it's okay if you forget. Cause I'm gonna make him tell us it again. So, like, please, like, forget extra hard. Chris: Oh, mandy, I hate you so much. Kayla: That's fine. Chris: I mean, it's actually terrible of me if I didn't mention it again. That'd be very bad practice. But it just felt. It felt more relevant to talk about those in the, like, factual science part than the anti vax part. But we'll talk about them in the anti vax part, since it's something that anti vaxxers like to talk about. Kayla: Gotcha. Chris: All right, so if you're currently as sick of hearing my voice as I am, let's get back to Doctor Gorski for just a hot minute in order to switch gears into my other favorite thing. Other than history.

1:09:14 Kayla: There's always too much history. Chris: You ready for. So, you like science, but you hate history. Kayla: No, I don't like anything. Chris: Oh, you like nothing and hate everything. Kayla: Yes. Chris: Got it. Okay. Here. Uncultured is weird. We are huge fans of history, but I guess that's only me. Kayla: No, I like things. Chris: Yeah, I mean, like, you did a whole episode on QAnon where all you talked about was the history of nocturnal ritual fantasy. You went back, like, 700 years. Kayla: Yeah, it was awesome. Chris: What you just described was basically exploiting the body's own mechanisms. Dr Gorski: Oh, yeah. Chris: To create immunity. Yeah, right. Dr Gorski: The idea is to create immunity, but without. Without having to go through the disease. I mean, you get immunity. Certain many diseases, you know, after you have them, you're immune to them. Like, you know, measles is a classic example. However, some diseases, after you have them, you may not be immune to them, or you may be only partially immune to them. And the other thing is about natural immunity. Is contrary to what anti vaxxers say claim, which is that natural immunity is superior to vaccine immunity because natural immunity is lifelong. Natural immunity is not always lifelong. Depending on the organism, it can fade, too.

1:10:29 Chris: Why do anti vaxxers talk about natural immunity as if that's, like the beyond end all, when actually, it seems to me that's what the vaccines are doing anyway, is they're using your body's natural immunity. Dr Gorski: The thing about vaccines, though, what's the price of natural immunity? You have to have the disease with all the suffering, the potential complications, and in some cases, depending on the disease, even death. So price for natural immunity is very high. Chris: Actually, can I pick a bone here real quick? I don't know if this came across as much in the interview question, but just like, I don't like the idea. I don't like the use of the terminology natural immunity because your body's natural immunity is what the vaccines use.

1:11:17 Kayla: The word natural. Chris: I just hate it. Kayla: It's the worst and dumbest word. It's like, when it's all natural ingredients. No shit. All ingredients are natural. Like, what are you talking about? Chris: Yeah. And with vaccines, it seems even, because it's like, it's not like I'm taking antibiotic to, like, kill the thing that's hurting me. It's like it's making. I'm literally leveraging my own natural immunity. So it's just that word always, like, kind of bugged me, and I prefer to say, like, get the disease rather than getting natural immunity. Kayla: Yeah. Chris: Like, it's, do you want to gain immunity from getting the disease or from not getting the disease? Like, that's what the choice is. Anyway, off my soapbox again, for me to get on my other soapbox. If you recall, earlier in the episode, I mentioned that there is a different name for giving someone a disease to confer immunity. And actually, this technique was for a specific disease, and the technique was known as variolation.

1:12:15 Kayla: Variolation. Chris: Have you heard that word? Kayla: I haven't heard any word. Chris: That word is new to me. Kayla: I've heard of no. Chris: That name is derived from the name of the disease that it was used for, which had two forms. There was the really bad form called variola minor, and then the really, really bad form called variola major. Kayla: Are you gonna tell us some symptoms? Chris: I'm gonna make you look at some symptoms. Kayla: I don't want to see any symptoms. Chris: So variolation was the name given to the practice of purposely infecting someone with variola minor. So that they wouldn't contract variola major. Kayla: Is this where you'd scratch your skin a little bit? Chris: It was. There was actually a bunch of different ways to do it. It was pretty fucking risky, but it was actually still much better than letting yourself be susceptible to variola major, which you may know better as smallpox.

1:13:07 Kayla: Oh, no. Smallpox is problematic. Chris: Smallpox was not good. Kayla: No, it was not. Chris: You were not having a good time if you got smallpox. Variola minor had a mortality rate of about 1%, which, to my understanding, is, like, roughly your mortality rate for getting Covid. But if you had the for realsies smallpox, 30%. Kayla: Good gravy. Chris: And if you were part of the, quote, lucky 70% that survived. I don't want to go into all the symptoms here or the lifelong complications, but they were very bad. I'm just going to show you some pictures real quick right now.

1:13:48 Kayla: Why don't you just tell me the symptoms? Chris: Dear listener. Yes, I will be putting these on the culture. Just weird instagram, but I'm just going to show Kayla a couple quick photos here from the smallpox Wikipedia page. Kayla: Oh, I feel bad for these. This child. Chris: So this is a child that I believe has recur. No, this is a child with smallpox in 1973. The caption says that all those bumps you see are filled with a thick fluid. Kayla: Why does it have to be all children? Why is it all child pictures? Chris: Well, here's a man. Oh, God, he doesn't look so good. Kayla: No big bump. Chris: Here's an italian female smallpox patient. Kayla: This is like, literal body horror.

1:14:29 Chris: Yeah. Here's a man with facial scarring and blindness due to smallpox. Here's this guy from the US. He doesn't look so good. Here are some well sourced stats from said Wikipedia page. In 18th century Europe, it is estimated that 400,000 people died from the disease per year. Kayla: Good lord. Chris: And that one third of all cases of blindness were due to smallpox. So even if you survived, you had the chance to go blind. And that one third of all blindness cases that existed in the world were from smallpox. Smallpox is estimated to have killed up to 300 million people in the 20th century and around 500 million people in the last 100 years of his existence, including six reigning monarchs.

1:15:20 Kayla: See, that's a problem, you guys. Chris: And this is a different stat that I just gave because they're giving a range between 20 and 60% of those infected, and over 80% of infected children died from the disease. Kayla: See, that's. We don't want that. Chris: It's very bad. Smallpox is about as bad as it gets. Kayla: I am so enraged right now because I'm just enraged. I'm enraged. I'm enraged. Chris: Well. Kayla: Cause this is what happens if we just let it do what it wants. This is what happens if we just let it run its course. This is what happens. Chris: And smallpox pretty much like smokes the bubonic plague, from what I was able to see, which killed a maximum estimate I saw of 200 million people during the black death during the middle ages.

1:16:06 Kayla: Right? Chris: So if you live in 1700 and this smallpox specter is part of your everyday life, it is one of your top threats to survival. And you might actually kind of dig that trade off of, like, 1% chance of death versus 30%. Kayla: I dig that. I dig that currently. Chris: Right? So remember, this is what we talked about at the top of the show is like, now we're starting to see, like, decisions that people have to make. Sometimes they're hard, sometimes they're easy. Back when people were living with smallpox, they were dealing with decision making like, well, I will purposely infect myself with this 1% version of smallpox so that I won't get the 30% version. Cause it was a. It was a looming specter. It wasn't like, I probably won't get it. It was like, I might get it. And, of course, if it's your child, that's 1% versus 80%. There was no herd immunity to the disease, which, again, we still have yet to talk about her immunity today. We'll get to that. As we say, get your shirts at.

1:17:05 Kayla: Cold or just weird@shirts.com. Chris: Oh, we can put, like, a little picture of, like, smallpox infection on it that'll sell like hot cakes. So the disease was uncontrolled. You were likely to encounter it. And this technique of variolation actually wound up becoming pretty popular. The oldest documents describing variolation are from the 14 hundreds in China. And only slightly later, it was noted as having been practiced india. Interestingly, it was a very highly ritualized, in many cases religionized process. So it would be like a spiritual leader administering this thing. And if that sounds puzzling to you, remember, this was long before modern scientific medicine. So healing arts were just like a natural part of these practices. It wasn't a totally separate field like we're used today. So you mentioned one of the techniques I'm not sure about, the scratch in the arm thing.

1:17:55 Kayla: I learned it somewhere, could be totally fake, but I thought it was going to scratch it and, like, scratch a little bit the disease into it. Chris: You might be thinking of vaccination not variolation, perhaps. But anyway, the techniques, like I said, there was a bunch, but basically involved taking gross shit from someone that had variola minor, the less severe form of smallpox. And usually this was actually powdered scabs. They would like to take scabs from somebody that had variola minor, and they would give it to a healthy person. Like, literally, the administer person would, like, blow the scab powder up their nose. Kayla: Ew. Chris: No.

1:18:37 Kayla: Is this what you want, anti vaxxers? I don't want to get dried scab powder blown up my nose. Stick it in my arm. Fine. I don't want to know. Chris: So these people would then get variola minor smallpox. They would have a super shitty few days or weeks or whatever. Roll the dice, maybe, but probably not die. And then, bam, they have immunity to very old major smallpox. Bada bing. It's great. Kayla: I feel like that's a no brainer. Get the scab powder shoved. Chris: Oh, I would totally get the scab powder. Kayla: I would snort it. Chris: Like smallpox. Kayla: Like, yeah, give it to me. Chris: Yeah. So variolation actually wasn't practiced in Europe. I remember I said 1400 was the first documented use of it in China. Wasn't practiced in Europe until, like, the early 17 hundreds. And that's partially from just, like, the geography of getting that far. But it was also, like, it was from a non white culture, so there was some trust issue there. And it was also highly ritualized. So it was, like, actually viewed as pretty superstitiously, which I kind of understand, because, again, remember, this is pre scientific method. So literally, all you have to go on is, like, some anecdotal evidence and some weird religious ritual that involves purposely infecting someone with smallpox. Like, I kind of actually get that skepticism.

1:19:52 Kayla: Yeah. If you did, no idea of, like, I mean, these people didn't even have germ theory. So it's like, if you don't know how things work and someone's like, shove the scab powder up your nose, you won't get it. Like. Chris: And it's like, in this weird ritual, you know, what are you doing? And so, yeah, there was a lot of. Kayla: Plus, you're, like, already afraid to even take a bath. So it's like, what do you do? Chris: Yeah, right? Yeah. The germ theory is still, like, hundreds of years away. So, I mean, and that's the thing. Like, for us, it's like, oh, yeah, you blow the virus up their nose, and they get it. Kayla: Right. Chris: They didn't have germ theory. They didn't know how viruses work. So for them, it was like, we tried this thing, and it worked. Okay. Sure. Anyway, there's this whole history of how it migrated from the east to the west and, like, via turkey, and then, like, different people brought it into England first. There's a whole history behind that. And actually, the book that I listened to on audible has a pretty good chapter about it, but I'm gonna skip to that now because basically, I just wanted to go over, like, what variolation was and just as, like, a precursor to vaccination. Any questions so far?

1:21:01 Kayla: What? Chris: Good one. I don't know. I don't know what. Kayla: Sorry. It was really funny. Chris: Any other questions? All right, now it's time to talk about cows. Kayla: Wait, why are we. Wait, why are we talking about cows? Chris: Cows. Kayla: Wait, are cows. Do we give them cows? Are they attenuate the viruses? Please tell me we're not injecting cows. Chris: We're not injecting cows. Kayla: Okay. Chris: It's actually kind of the other way around. Kayla: Cows are injecting us. Chris: You really should thank cows, Kayla, because they have given us humans many beautiful gifts. They have given us wagyu, a five steak.

1:21:49 Kayla: I thank them every day. Chris: They have given us ribs, milk, cheese. Oh, and also, they saved us from the ravages of one of, if not the most unimaginably horrifying disease in human history, which is smallpox. Wait, you see, cows have their own little pox party. Cowpox. Kayla: What? Chris: If you recall from our chat about virus attenuation or when the whole world was talking about the bat that gave us the coronavirus, viruses can sometimes infect more than one species. Now, cowpox isn't exactly the same as smallpox, but it's close. Now, if you're a cow, you obviously don't really want cowpox, but if you're a human, you can get cowpox. And let's compare the numbers. Smallpox killed 500 million humans, as we said, in only the last century of its existence.

1:22:45 Kayla: Can we just for a second? That's more than the population. By a lot of the entire United States. Chris: Yes. Kayla: That's insane. Chris: Yes. Cowpox has killed a recorded two, oh, not 2,000,002 people. Kayla: That's such a cute little disease. Chris: But, Chris, you might say, why would I even want cowpox? Do I even look like a delicious cow? Kayla: I kind of do. Chris: Oh. No reason. I mean, unless you wanted a safe, if somewhat uncomfortable way to prevent yourself from contracting smallpox. I would like these deadliest killers. Kayla: Yes, that sounds nice. Chris: Did you want that? You wanted that immunity.

1:23:26 Kayla: Yes, please. Chris: In that case, you should probably get yourself some cowpox. And as the 18th century drew to a close, I was gonna say, you're. Kayla: Telling me that these old timey people figured out attenuated virus? Chris: I don't think that was their name for it at the time. I think they did, but it's kind of sort of what they did. Kayla: Oh, my God. Chris: They did it, like, from an already existing attenuated virus. Whereas now we'd do that on purpose. Kayla: Right. Chris: So as the 18th century drew to a close, that's exactly what people did. They gave themselves cow pox. Now, some folks leading up to that period. Kayla: I'm sorry, pardon me.

1:24:07 Chris: Yes. Kayla: How did they figure this out? Chris: That's literally the exact next sentence I was going to say. Up to this point, some folks were starting to take notice, and by folks, I specifically meand cow farmers and milkmaids of this funny thing that was happening. They would contract cowpox accidentally, just as, like, a risk of their professions. And then. Oh, shit. After that, they'd come into known contact with a person or an object infected with smallpox. And then the next thing they noticed was that they didn't get smallpox. Kayla: Oh, shit. Chris: So as more and more of these anecdotes started rolling in, a man by the name Edward Jenner noticed this, and he said, maybe there's something to this. And so his innovation was actually to bring some very early version of what we'd call the scientific method, recording all these anecdotes and turning them into analyzable data. By doing this, he found that these farmers and milkmaids were actually very much onto something. So much so that he started purposely infecting healthy people with cowpox as a much safer and less discomforting alternative to variolation. He called his new technique vaccination, which is Latin for of the cow.

1:25:20 Kayla: Oh, man. We all know that. But we didn't know we knew it. Chris: I know. Doesn't that tickle your brain? Kayla: It really does. Chris: And the rest, they say, is history. Over the next 200 years, his technique, which, again, basically amounted to taking pus from a cowpox infected person. That's disgusting. Kayla: That's disgusting. Chris: And then repeatedly pricking the skin of the vaccination target with a metal tool. Kayla: Sick. Chris: This technique was improved and refined radically until, in one of the most incredible triumphs that science and cows have given us, on par, I think, with the moonshot, as of 1980, smallpox has actually been eradicated in the wild. Kayla: Fuck yeah, people. Good job, humans. We did it.

1:26:02 Chris: The smallpox vaccine was such a success and radical advancement in medicine that the overall technique producing immunity without getting the disease was replicated. The next vaccine developed was the rabies vaccine by Louis Pasteur. Kayla: Good job. Chris: Shout out to the value tales book about this. And over the years, we developed vaccines against a variety of other diseases. Bubonic plague, measles, the famous polio vaccine by Jonas Salk. And more personally, I would say that vaccines are probably the second most important development in medicine. And the only thing I'd stack rank over it is the transformation of medicine to become science based.

1:26:42 Kayla: I was gonna ask, what is it? And you said it, so that makes sense. It makes sense that you think the transition from ceremonially blowing scabby bits off someone's nose into. Chris: I mean, that was pretty good, though, first time. Don't I want to knock it? Kayla: I just go from that to germ theory. Yes, you're correct. It's probably the bigger achievement, but good job. Vaccines. You did it. Chris: I don't know if I'm gonna talk about this in the next episode. I probably will. But remember you asked me offline earlier about if we ever seen our parents smallpox vaccines? Kayla: Well, if you'd seen them, because I know both my parents have a small little divot in their arm.

1:27:25 Chris: I haven't seen it. They might. I have no idea. Kayla: Cause it's like, I would go, I'm. Chris: Definitely gonna ask your mom, what's this. Kayla: Thing on your arm? Chris: And the reason they have it and we don't is because they don't vaccinate for smallpox anymore. Kayla: You know why? Chris: Because it's gone. Kayla: Because it's gone. Chris: Oh, actually, sorry. They do still vaccinate for smallpox in very limited cases. Do you know where. Do you know who they vaccinate for smallpox? The answer will only make sense after you hear it. Kayla: But I want to think about it. Chris: I don't think you'll get it. Kayla: Cow farmers? Chris: No. Kayla: Give me a hint. Chris: Soldiers. Kayla: Why couldn't I get a hint? Chris: Oh, sorry. Kayla: That's not a hint. You just told me it. Why? Chris: I should have given you. I thought you said. You said, give me a hint. In my brain heard. Just tell me. Why do you think they vaccinate soldiers with smallpox? Well, the only place smallpox still exists is in labs that we know of.

1:28:24 Kayla: Okay. Chris: So the fear is that it could be used as a biological weapon on the battlefield, which would be super bad. Actually, it would be extra super bad, because now that nobody's been vaccinated against smallpox, it would be not great if it got out. Kayla: Yeah, it would be really not great, but it's just, it's so fucked up that like we have to worry about, like somebody might think of that and do it. Chris: Yeah, I know. Give you blankets covered in smallpox, they might blow. I mean, that's the thing. Like, isn't that crazy that like, we've weaponized smallpox before, so it's been done. Kayla: Yeah, it's not great. Chris: It's not awesome. History. Doubt. No, no. Oh, okay. Because I was gonna go talk about a little more science.

1:29:11 Kayla: Oh, they're the same. Chris: I gotta talk about the same thing. What? Kayla: Did science happen in history? Yes, it did. Chris: Did history happen in science? Kayla: Yeah. Chris: Okay, fine. Science, history. That's the name of our new podcast. So we gotta talk about herd immunity, man. Kayla: Wait, you didn't hear my joke? Chris: What'd you say? Kayla: Hyance. Chris: Hyants? Kayla: Yeah, history. Science. Chris: That's not a funny joke. Kayla: I can get it. Chris: Why not? Kayla: Sisterye, cuz you would have made a scissoring joke. Chris: Yes. No, sistery. It could just be a place where sisters live. It's like a nunnery.

1:29:52 Kayla: It's where the sisters live and they scissor each other. Chris: Oh God. You're the one saying it, not me. Kayla: Go. Chris: I'm leaving all this in. Kayla: Huh. Chris: All right, time to talk about herd immunity. And. Oh man, that word has been thrown around willy nilly in this last year and a half. Kayla: I honestly, I've decided that I don't have know what it means anymore because it's just been used over and over. I'm just like, I don't know what it means anymore. So I. I don't know what you're talking about. I will take my mask off when I'm allowed to by the doctors and scientists that say so. Chris: Yeah, it's been mad overused during the pandemic, really by both sides of the political spectrum and by amateur epidemiologists of all stripes. And we're probably hearing it more now that it's April and we're in the middle of the vaccination war effort. So actually, the thing that you just said. Maybe I shouldn't ask you this question anymore. Then ask me, because I was going to ask you out of curiosity. When I say herd immunity, what do you think it means?

1:30:53 Kayla: Well, when you say herd immunity, it. Chris: Sounded like I said heard immunity. Kayla: When you say heard immunity, when you say herd immunity, the only thing I think about is I will be able to relax when the powers that be that I trust state that we have reached herd immunity. Chris: That's probably the right answer, because even though I'm about to explain to you what it means, I used to know. Kayla: What it meant, but then it's been, like, over you so much. Yeah, I think. I don't actually know what it means. Chris: Yeah, but I didn't, like, I had a good idea. I think were close enough, in a colloquial sense, that we, like, we're using it correctly.

1:31:35 Kayla: Right. Chris: But there's actually a more precise definition that epidemiologists have. Seriously, I'm going to not ever pronounce that right. Oh, man. All right, so remember, r sub zero, the basic reproduction rate of a pathogen. Kayla: Yeah. Chris: And it's equivalent to the average number of people the pathogen will spread to from a given infected person. Kayla: Yes. Chris: Herd immunity is what you get when there are enough people in a population that cannot transmit the disease, such that the zero reals gets below one. Kayla: Can you say that again? Chris: Herd immunity is what you get when there are enough people in a population that cannot transmit the disease that the r zero, the basic reproduction rate, goes below one.

1:32:17 Kayla: And I'm pretty sure you said earlier that when it goes below one, it dies. Right. Chris: It will eventually peter out. Exactly. So, herd immunity, or more properly, the herd immunity threshold, actually a number you can calculate, and it's expressed in terms of what fraction of a given population needs to be transmission immune. And the result of reaching this threshold is that any potential future outbreaks of the pathogen fizzle, or in the case of an existing pandemic, like Covid, the existing pandemic fizzles. Now, the world has many humans in it, and pathogens evolve. And so that's why it's still hard to completely eradicate something like we've done with smallpox and why it took so long. But we are getting very close with polio, for example. Like, we think that might be something that's, like, in the cards in, like, the next five or ten years.

1:33:04 Kayla: That's cool. Chris: And in case you are wondering, like, what's the deal with the flu shot? Why can't we eradicate flu? The problem is the flu evolves too quickly, which is why you need a new shot for it every year. Anyway, back to the math. I'm going to do a couple little drawings for you so you understand how herd immunity threshold works. Listener, I will describe what I'm drawing here so you can visualize. All right, so we're gonna ASMr. Click the pen here, and then we're gonna. Kayla: You would be ruffle the worst asmrtist. Chris: Alright, so let's say you have this person, and let's say that they are infected, and this person is not infected. And we have an r sub zero equal to two. So what I've drawn on the paper here for the listener is a little dot representing a person with a disease. I've drawn r sub zero equals two, which means the person with the disease. I'm going to draw two little arrows to these empty circles representing the two people that this guy infects. And now we're going to color them in. And then these people each infect two other people, and then these infect two other people, and so on and so forth. Are you with me so far?

1:34:16 Kayla: Yeah. Chris: So it looks kind of like a, I don't know, Christmas tree, I guess. I don't know, it looks like a pyramid scheme. Basically. It's an MLM. Kayla: It is an MLM. Chris: The disease is an MLM. Kayla: Covid is an MLM. Chris: So what happens, though, if this person's infected and they want to spread it to two people? Because the r sub zero is equal to two, but this person is immune, so it can't spread to that one. Kayla: Doesn'T, they don't get it. Chris: So it just spreads to this one. Kayla: And that whole left tree. Chris: And now this side of the tree over here is safe. And then this person wants to spread it to two people. But again, on average, let's say on or. Sorry, I left this part out, let's say on average, we have vaccinated half the population. So on average, one out of these two people will also be immune. And so this part of the tree gets canceled out. And basically what that means happens is that based on the math we just talked about, one half of the people being vaccinated or being immune from transmission, combining with the fact that the r sub zero is equal to two. You combine those together and you get an r sub zero now of one. Okay, so I won't go into the math exactly, but if you work it out, what you arrive at is a formula.

1:35:30 Chris: And the formula is the herd immunity, which is the fraction of the population that needs to be not transmissible, is equal to one minus one over r sub zero. So let's plug that in here. And we say one minus, we use r sub zero is equal to two, right? So we do one minus one over two equals one over two. Kayla: Okay? Chris: It's just simple math. Kayla: You're talking to me, though, baby. Chris: I know, and I'm trying to do this on like a podcast and I'm, like, writing on this graph paper, and people are probably tuning out, like, what the fuck is he talking about? Kayla: I just don't know. Math makes me hot inside. I believe you. Give me my pen back.

1:36:11 Chris: Look, I will post the equation on our instagram so you can actually see it. But bottom line is there's just a number that you can plug into this equation for the reproductive rate, reproduction rate, r sub zero that we've talked about, and that will yield another number. That is the herd immunity. So it might be in the case of r sub zero equals two. That means we have to have half the population immune to the disease transmission before we reach herd immunity. Kayla: Got it. Chris: If r sub zero equals three, then we have to have two thirds of the population be immune. If it equals four, then we have to have three fourths and so on. It's just different numbers going into the formula. Kayla: What is it for Covid? Chris: Does that make sense?

1:36:51 Kayla: Yes. Tell me the COVID number. Chris: I mean, the problem is we don't know the exact r sub zero for Covid, which is why when you said the thing a few minutes ago about just, like, listening to the experts, I said, yes, you should probably do that. Kayla: That's what I want to do. Chris: Because they know what the r sub zero reals is for whatever community they are in charge of public health for. And I do not. Kayla: I mean, just read today, Los Angeles area. It's going to be by the end of June, baby. Chris: So what that means they're doing is they're doing some calculation where they're saying, like, okay, we know what the r sub zero reals is. We know. So that tells us what the herd immunity percentage needs to be, which allows us to know how many people need to be vaccinated, because we know how many people live in Los Angeles. And then if we have a certain rate of vaccination, then that means that if we keep up that same rate of vaccination, it will happen on x date.

1:37:41 Kayla: It has to do with the rate of vaccination and also how many people have already gotten it. Chris: Right, right, exactly. Kayla: Because there's been a lot of. Chris: Right. Well, yeah, I get to that point here in a minute. Kayla: It's like 30% to 40% or something. Chris: So, geez, that's quite a bit. So what you get at these? So this is a threshold, right? So let's say. Let's go back to the r. The reproductive rate equal to that means, again, one half the population needs to be immune to transmission. If it's less than one half of the population that's immune to transition, then the disease will actually continue to spread. If more than one half of the population becomes immune to transition, then the disease will fizzle out. More and more people have the immunity. The faster and faster it fizzles out. All right, so you're with me so far.

1:38:31 Kayla: Yes. Chris: Sweet. Let's go back to measles. If you recall, the r sub zero for that disease we mentioned earlier in the show is extremely high. The range was in the high teens. It was like twelve to 18. So in a susceptible population, you would expect one person to spread it to between twelve and 18 people. Let's just. Let's just take sort of in the middle there and say, like, you expect one person to spread it to 15 other people, there's a fuck ton. Kayla: It's a lot of people. Chris: So if we use 15 as our example number here and we plug it into that formula I just talked about, that means that your herd immunity threshold for measles is actually around 94% of the population needs to be vaccinated or needs to be immune to measles for us to have herd immunity. And actually, that is roughly the number that epidemiologists give for measles. That's, like, roughly the threshold that populations need to be at. Okay, this simple equation is about as simple as epidemiology can actually get. The real world complexity is far beyond what we can cover here. But I will dig into one or two little layers of complexity because it will actually help us with the context here.

1:39:38 Kayla: We love context at the show. Chris: The first thing to note is, actually you were just talking about. I keep saying, transmission immune population, because that's what's important to calculating herd immunity. Kayla: Right. Chris: This can be the result of a variety of factors. It could because the given person has already contracted a disease and developed what we said earlier, whatever natural immunity, I call it just having had the disease immunity, just getting it. Getting it. Or it could because of a vaccine. One thing I want to talk about here, a big reason why we want to target a pathogen with a vaccine and not just let it run rampant through the population, which, if you recall, was a topic of some. I don't want to call it a debate, because that suggests, like, two viable sides arguing in good faith. There was a lot of chatter last year about, let's just let the virus run wild, and we'll get to the herd immunity threshold in no time.

1:40:29 Chris: Sure, we'll break a few eggs to make that omelet, but the benefit is worth the cost. Kayla: Oh, that worked out so well for the populations that attempted. Chris: Yeah. So here's the thing. You might be able to make a good faith argument based on some sort of cost benefit analysis. You might be able to sit there and justify x numbers of deaths from COVID because of why. Good reasons. If it weren't for the fact that allowing the virus to tear through your population weren't also allowing it to mutate. Literally, every time a virus replicates, you are giving it one more move. In the great pandemic game, the vast majority of times a virus replicates, it either will not mutate or it'll mutate and become shittier at being a virus. But every so often, the mutation will be adaptive, because that is literally how evolution works. And then you get a dangerous new variant.

1:41:19 Chris: Now, this has, of course, already happened with COVID a bunch, because it's had many millions of chances to replicate within many millions of people. And so we do have a bunch of variants. Now, it actually seems like we are in a best case scenario with these variants because they are merely massively more infectious. That is, they spread easier. But viruses can also mutate to become more virulent, that is, more deadly, or God forbid, like the flu virus does every year. Mutates to get around your body's immunity, rendering not only vaccines worthless, but also that, quote, natural immunity that you spent all those lives to achieve, doing your, like, let it run rampant strategy. Kayla: Yeah, dummies. Chris: So that's just an aside about COVID being a novel virus in the population. If we had let it run rampant, which we kind of did here in America, but if we had just, like, done the, you know, the complete, like, don't do any lockdowns. No, Matt. Whatever strategy, we might have found ourselves in a situation where the vaccines we developed weren't actually effective in time. And I don't even want to start going down that road thinking about that, because it's not very happy.

1:42:23 Kayla: No, it's like, it's all. No, it's bad. It's bad. Don't think about it, guys. Chris: With as much as we've allowed the virus to spread here in America, we're lucky that we're not going down that road already. But that's a big reason why we want to solve these problems with vaccines. Because that way you can annihilate the virus, you can annihilate Covid without giving it a chance to mutate millions of times as it spreads from person to person. Kayla: And that's what you should do. And I feel like when we have the technology. Technology. Once you have the technology, it also brings with it, like, an ethical imperative. An ethical obligation. Chris: We'll get to that. Kayla: If you got it, you gotta use it.

1:43:03 Chris: All right, back to herd immunity math. I explained that the key factor that affects herd immunity is what percentage of the population, on average, must be incapable of transmitting the pathogen. In other words, what percentage of people are immune. A vaccine accomplishes this, however, owing to mostly to the complexity of the human immune system and the variability of all human beings, no vaccine is 100% effective. So, for example, the Pfizer vaccine that you and I just got has been said to be around 70% effective after the first shot. And then after the booster shot, it eventually rises up to about 95%, which is still not 100% true. All that is to say, that actually changes slightly how the equation I showed you works. Now, it's actually not that bad. It just introduces another variable for vaccine effectiveness into the equations.

1:43:54 Chris: It doesn't complexify it that much. We don't need to look at that. The takeaway here is that the lower the vaccine effectiveness, the harder it actually is to reach herd immunity threshold. Now, luckily, all the vaccines we have are extraordinarily effective, which is part of their development process. And I'd say we lucked out on how incredibly effective the COVID vaccines are because the emphasis was on speed. But I also suspect that it had a lot more to do with the science heroes that developed it than it did with luck. Kayla: So, yeah, I feel like luck is not dismissive that it's not right either. Chris: It's better lucky than good. Kayla. Kayla: Good job. Chris: Science heroes, famous magic the gathering player.

1:44:37 Kayla: That said that there is no such thing as a famous magic, the gathering. Chris: Player within the community, he was nerd famous. Now, I said 95%. That other 5%, if we do get Covid after having the shot, then is a much milder version. Kayla: Thank God. Chris: But that being said, what I'm talking about here is not the symptoms. I'm talking about the transmission. Kayla: Right? Chris: Right. As far as the transmission goes, if we still get Covid despite having the vaccine, then that's what's important to this equation for calculating herd immunity, because the herd immunity depends entirely on the transmission. Does that make sense? Kayla: Yes.

1:45:18 Chris: So here it's time to bring up something that will come up next episode a lot. And we mentioned real quick earlier in this episode, and that's the fact that there are two co op competitive systems at play here. Is that a word? Kayla: Coopetitive? Chris: Coopetitive cooperative, competitive. Like Frenemy, you know? Can I make that up? Kayla: Yes, you just did. Chris: All right. Sweet. There are two systems here that aren't necessarily goal aligned, is what I'm trying to say, which generates conflict, and in this case, in the form of anti vaxxers. And that is the tension between individual choice and public health. So think of our society as one giant prisoner's dilemma. I guess in the United States, where we just, like, love incarceration, that's basically true already, but each individual is a prisoner in the dilemma, and then you have public health officials looking at the overall outcome. That's a wild oversimplification, of course, but I find it instructive to think about, because, as always, the prisoner's dilemma helps us understand when a system that has improperly designed individual incentives, people can rationally make choices that actually make everyone worse off.

1:46:25 Chris: That's a key thing to consider when we talk about things like vaccination, these public health initiatives. Kayla: Right. Chris: This is one of the riskier things I think I'm gonna say in this for the next episode. Kayla: But get ready. Chris: Human beings, even ones we like to think of as dumb, backwards, idiot dummies. How could you make these choices? What is wrong with you? Ultimately, are decision making machines that do use cost benefit analysis and arrive at conclusions that they think are optimal. We need to remember that about anti vaxxers and the vaccine. Hesitant. They are making choices that they believe, based on the evidence that they've assimilated, are best. Now that's sunk in, here are the caveats. And remember, these caveats are true for all of us, not just people that we like to dunk on in a sick tweet. The first is simply, what I'm saying here applies in aggregate, not at the micro level. So what I mean is, like, human beings are rational decision makers on average. That doesn't mean that an individual human doesn't sometimes make wildly poor decisions.

1:47:28 Kayla: Jerry Bunch of numbers on Twitter might have bad decision making. Chris: Jerry Bunche number. Kayla: I stole that from it. Chris: I did not make that love. It. Is that the I'm Jerry bunch of numbers and I have some incredibly shitty opinions? Kayla: I think so. Chris: But one of the things that you can see statistically with vaccine hesitancy is that as it goes up, outbreaks happen, such as the measles outbreak that happened in Disney or in Minnesota, and then policy changes happen, such as the SR 277 bill in California. Kayla: What the hell is that? Chris: Which we will talk about next episode. Kayla: We're talking about too much stuff next episode. Let's just power through. Let's just do it all. I want to know it all. I want to know it all.

1:48:10 Chris: And then vaccine hesitancy goes back down. More people in the population get vaccinated. You reach herd immunity. Again, this has happened multiple times throughout the history of vaccines, as we will learn. Again, this all happens in aggregate. I'm leaving out the details, but the point stands is that in aggregate, people are making decisions in this sort of, like, oddly rational, cost benefit analysis sort of way. The next caveat about this rational decision making thing is that human beings, even when rational, are biased decision makers. Even under the best informational circumstances, we are highly risk averse. Which goes back to the whole, like, on the savannah argument, right? Like, even if the rustle and the bushes might be food, it's better to assume that it might kill you.

1:48:55 Chris: Even if the chance it might kill you is only, like one to a thousand, because it's better to just, like, not eat for another hour than it is to get bitten by a deadly snake and die. So, as a result of our built in biology, studies have shown again and again that people place way more value on what if something bad happens? Than what if something good happens. Kayla: That makes sense. Chris: I think there's even, like, an average ratio that they've calculated. I think it might be close to two to one. Kayla: I believe that. Chris: So, like, in the red solo cup example, the average person wouldn't pay a dollar unless their expected value from winning was $2. They wouldn't part with a dollar unless they expected to win two to one. And we actually talked about this at Blizzard a couple times with Hearthstone. On average, a player cares about one loss about as much as they do about two wins, really. I think it's about two to one. That's totally, like, from memory, so I'm not sure. But the point is, people are risk averse, just fundamentally, right? So why does this matter for vaccines? Well, it's a decision like any other medical intervention, and especially with vaccines, since they are preventative, the decision isn't, I need healing from this thing that is presently hurting me.

1:50:04 Chris: It is necessarily future looking and involves probabilities and understanding all these risks and whatever, which humans, including us, are very bad at processing. Not only bad at processing risk, we're bad at processing probabilities. So all of that, everything I just said would be true, even in the world where all of the information that people consume was perfect and true and rigorously supported. If you've been listening to our show for a while or like, been existing in the society that we live in for the past five or six years. You know that sadly, the opposite is kind of true right now. Yeah, misinformation, disinformation, poor context, bad faith arguments, grifters and the like are all rampant in the world right now. But I digress. Like I said, I'll get more into some of this stuff in the next episode.

1:50:54 Chris: I mainly just wanted to bring up the public health prisoner's dilemma thing because it helps illustrate the fundamental tension that undergirds much of the anti vaccine movement and always has. Now, the prisoner's dilemma is obviously way too tidy of an example. And the good news is that in reality, there isn't, like a vaccine out there. That's really a good analogy for the prisoner's dilemma, because, like, the fundamental thing with prisoner's dilemma is that each prisoner is incentivized individually to do the thing that will cause a worse outcome for them overall, for them both. But that's not true for vaccines, right? Vaccines pretty much universally are both good for the individual and for society. The incentives are almost entirely aligned. For example, you want to get the polio vaccine as an individual because it would be really shitty to get polio.

1:51:41 Chris: And public health officials, as overseers of this particular prisoner's islamic game, want you to get the polio vaccine because they want to keep the herd immunity threshold. So those incentives are actually aligned from pretty much all vaccines right now. The thing about fighting disease, because of that nasty little detail about how it spreads, is that it's a team sport. We cannot bring down Covid just by protecting ourselves. I mean, obviously I'm as rationally selfish as we all are. And I wanted the COVID vaccine to protect myself and my family from COVID But I also don't want Covid spreading in places where I don't have any friends and family. And that's not just because I'm a humanitarian. Kayla: I can tell y'all, he is not.

1:52:22 Chris: I'm definitely not. I'm a shithead. I don't want Covid to get any more moves in the COVID game. I don't want it to replicate more and have more chances to mutate and evolve. So this is why you may have read about this, like, thing recently. That's being a problem called vaccine nationalism. What? Where the US and other wealthy countries are stockpiling vaccines and getting more people vaccinated while poorer nations are lagging behind. Kayla: Oh, God. Chris: That's not just a problem for them, that's a problem for us. Sure. Like, it sucks for the poorer countries to still have to deal with the scourge of the pandemic while we are skipping merrily along to herd immunity here in the US and Europe. But what if a new variant comes along out of one of those places that's lagging behind? What if that variant is immune to the vaccines that we've been stockpiling here in wealthy countryland? Now, all of a sudden, that really sucks for us again, doesn't it?

1:53:13 Kayla: Cool. Chris: So I'll say it again, human diseases are the ultimate team sport. I probably sound a little repetitive at this point, but yes, we'll talk about this as well next episode. We'll get to that. Kayla: So now I have to feel bad and scared again. Chris: I'm not saying any of this to worry you. Kayla: Yes, you are. Chris: I'm saying this because I want to illustrate that pandemics, that disease is a team sport. Speaking of fighting disease being a team sport, here's one more thing about herd immunity that you may have been wondering, and if you weren't wondering it, you should have been, you bad listener. Why? Why herd immunity? Who gives a shit about herd immunity?

1:53:54 Kayla: Yeah, tell me why. Chris: I mean, especially for you and me, Kayla, right? We already got our vaccines, so we're safe. Why do we care? Kayla: Yeah, fuck everyone else. Chris: Yeah, fuck you guys. Well, I've already answered this question twice. The first is that it's the whole, it's a team sport, don't give Covid any more moves thing. As long as the virus can hang out in the population, it has a chance to mutate into something we won't like very much. That's an extremely strong reason for herd immunity, and it's one of the two purely selfish reasons, which is part of why I already brought it up. I also already brought up the other purely selfish reason, which is because of the variance in human bodies and complexity of the immune system, vaccines aren't 100% effective on an individual basis. Kayla: Right.

1:54:34 Chris: Our Pfizer vaccine sounds like, again, it's going top out at around 95% effective. And even though that 5% is not super risky, because it's like the, you know, once you have the vaccine and the symptoms are much milder, I'd still like rather that not happen because we eradicated the disease. Right, right. So that's the other selfish reason. Now, for those of us that don't have any of the following people in our lives, there are other non selfish reasons. So if nobody has any, like babies, elderly, immunocompromised people who can't get vaccines. People who are allergic to vaccines and can't get them. Actually, I don't know if there's anybody that doesn't have at least one of those types of people in their lives.

1:55:17 Kayla: Yeah, go more friends. Chris: This is a selfish reason, too, because everyone knows one of those people in one of those categories. So those categories of folks actually cannot get vaccines for those medically important reasons, and therefore, herd immunity is the only protection that they have, by the way. This is why we, as vaccine advocates, need to be very careful about how we throw around our judgment. And calling vaccine hesitant people like morons and dunking on them on social media is because there are actually some very legitimate reasons for people not to get vaccines. Kayla: Right, of course. Chris: And we want to be careful that we're not being shitheads and alienating those folks. Like, I don't want to, like, say, like, ugh, you don't like vaccines, you idiot. Who's allergic to them? Because then that turns them into anti vaxxer, when in fact, there are actually people who are allergic to vaccines or cannot get them for legitimate medical reasons. Anyway, there are probably other good reasons that team humanity should want to have herd immunity over team pathogen, but these are the main ones. So, to summarize, first of all, herd immunity snuffs out the pathogen, reducing or removing its ability to evolve and beat you in the next step of the game. It protects even vaccinated people because vaccines aren't 100% effective, and it protects people who cannot receive vaccines for medical reasons.

1:56:35 Chris: And if you've been hearing a lot of debate about the COVID vaccines, like, prioritization and like, oh, people skipping line or whatever, versus just, like, getting the vaccine out to more people. I think there's a bit of a balance in terms of, like, do we just want more people to get it, or do we want to prioritize certain people? Kayla: Right. Chris: I think when were just giving it to healthcare workers and frontline workers and vulnerable people, that was good to prioritize them. But, like, after that, it's kind of like, just try to get it to as many people as possible, in my opinion. So, like, don't worry if you're listening to this, don't worry about your fair place in line, quote, unquote. If you're getting vaccinated, you're actually helping the team win, and you're protecting the vulnerable people along with yourself. So don't be like, well, I shouldn't have gotten it before, so just get.

1:57:22 Kayla: It if you have the opportunity to get it. Don't play the, like, waiting game of it's not for me yet. Just go get it. If you're eligible, go get it. Chris: All right. Cause herd immunity helps everyone, including yourself. All right. That was a lot of science today. Is that it's history. A lot of hyance. Kayla: We done with anti vax? We like done with anti. Chris: Well, we didn't actually talk that much about anti vaxx, mostly just about vaccines. But the science is my favorite part. Do we even have to do the next episode? Kayla: No. Chris: Can we just present the science and call it a day? Kayla: Yes. Chris: Pretend like people like Andrew Wakefield and RFK Junior don't exist. Kayla: Don't talk about them.

1:58:04 Chris: So we're agreed. This is it. Kayla: Vaccines. Not a cult. Go get vaccines. Chris: We're supposed to push back on that. You're supposed to be like, actually, yeah. Kayla: We're doing the episode because it's important that I have more time to work on my episode. Chris: Also, we have like 90% of the Doctor Gorski interview to listen to. Kayla: That is also true. Chris: There's some pretty good stuff in there, so I definitely want to make sure that we get that out. And there's a lot more stuff to talk about. I actually do have some good stuff lined up for next episode. Kayla: Of course you do. Chris: Now that we know more about the history of vaccines, we can talk more about the history of the anti vaccine movement. We're going to talk some more about the current ecosystem of vaccine denialists. And of course, we're going to dig more into the whole public health versus private choice dichotomy. And of course, I have a whole list of vaccine myths to talk about, like that factually false myth that we already mentioned earlier about vaccines being able to give you the disease they cannot. And we're even going to chat about when vaccine hesitancy may be good.

1:59:08 Kayla: Oh. What? Chris: Oh, I know. Crazy. You'll have to listen to the next episode. Kayla: I actually don't have any idea when it might be good, so that'll be really fascinating to hear. Chris: Plus, I have a personal tale of me getting pretty lost in the research for these episodes at one point that I think will be very helpful to share because I got pretty lost in some science that looked fairly legitimate that I needed some additional help from my trust network to figure out. And I think that talking about my journey along that path might actually be helpful to others who sometimes get confused about this stuff. Because it can get confusing out there. Kayla: Yes, it can.

1:59:49 Chris: Oh, right. And then, of course, the criteria. So we can call it a cult or just weird, since we still have our gimmick to do? Maybe this is a three parter. Kayla: Oh, no, no. Chris: Ignore me. Ignore me. Kayla: Five parts. Chris: No, no. I can do it in two. I can do it in two. I promise. I think. I'm pretty sure. All right, Kayla and I just want to say to you, welcome back to the show. We missed your ears, and I hope your 2021 is looking up. And if you haven't had a chance to receive a COVID vaccine yet, hopefully you're able to get one very soon. It felt very relieving. It felt like a thousand pounds being lifted off our shoulder. At least off mine. Kayla: When I got mine, it was like 999 pounds.

2:00:29 Chris: Oh, yeah. Sorry. I appreciate the precision. Kayla: Yeah. Chris: Anything you got for the end of the show here before we wrap it up, b? Kayla: No. Chris: Great. Fantastic. Kayla: Just spring it on me at 11:15 p.m. At night. Chris: I'm not springing it on you. Haven't talking. Kayla: I don't know when it's gonna end. No. Chris: Okay. Kayla: Stay safe. Follow us on Twitter. Send us an email. Culture's weird. We're out there. You know where to find us. Chris: Actually, I was gonna say is this is something I've been meaning to say for a while on the show. Oh, no, here is. And I just keep forgetting to do it. But it's at this point in the episode where I think, like, most podcasts do the whole, like, share and subscribe, rate us on iTunes, support us on Patreon, blah, blah.

2:01:23 Kayla: And I hate doing it every single time. Chris: Yeah, and we've half assedly done that before, so, you know, it's the call to action part, right, as it were. So here is cult or just weird's call to action for you. Enjoy the show. That's all I want you to do. Don't do anything else. Don't, like, share and subscribe. I'm not going to say that. All I'm going to say during our call to action from here on out, don't do anything else except listen to the show and enjoy it. I'm Chris. Kayla: And I'm Kayla. Chris: And this will be cult or just weird season three. Kayla: Dun dun bum bum da. Chris: No, Kayla, the new song. No, that's law and order.