EFR 530: COVID Vaccination - What Does the Science Say and Is Natural Immunity Real with Dr. Jonathan Baktari, MD

Chase: All right, all right. All right, we are diving into a conversation today that is probably top of mind for a lot of you something that you are feeling maybe very passionate about or maybe you're avoiding at all costs. But no way you cut it the V word the vaccine is something that we are seeing a lot more of these days as it relates to this continued global pandemic we are going through with COVID-19 with the Delta variant, all these new variants, every time I hear a new variant sounds like COVID, just opening up its own frat party. But you know what, there is a lot of science that I believe in. There's a lot of personal anecdotal experience when it comes to my body and my immune system that I believe in. And all those variables together, I think, really is a safe bet when it comes to deciding what I'm going to do with my body or not. But also I know that science is not exact, every single time science is evolving, and so are humans. And it seems so is this virus. And I for one want to always try, I want to try my best to show up and continue to formulate a non-biased opinion about what I choose to do or what not to do. And I hope that is the same for you. And so that's my hope here today in this conversation with Dr. Jonathan Baktari. He is a medical doctor. He brings over 20 years of clinical, administrative and entrepreneurial experience to lead his current endeavor IE seven health. He has been a triple board certified physician with specialties in internal medicine, Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine. But in this interview, you're going to hear how he actually currently and has for quite some time specialize in vaccines. And he starts his conversation off by explaining what they are, how they have helped us over the last several decades and hundreds of years, what they aren't and just a better understanding a high level kind of breakdown, if you will, of what are vaccines, what do they do, how do they work, and then we get into a nice banter, a nice little rapport. I share very openly and candidly why as of so far September 2021, I have not yet decided to receive any vaccine, any jab anything you want to call it for the COVID-19, sars-CoV-2 or delta or any other variant, anything coming out. And you're going to hear why you're going to hear the personal research I've done you you're going to hear what I have been exposed to. You're going to hear my kind of report of how I think my immune system is responding and by no means This interview me trying to make a stance one way or the other that one way is right one way is wrong. It is just me sharing my experience, it is me sharing my current belief system. And it is me wanting to hear the other side from Dr. Baktari, from someone who believes in vaccines in general and this particular vaccine, and someone who's going to help present the case for the other side. I am not an anti vaxxer, I've been vaccinated many times for many things. But for just for reasons you're gonna hear me talk about, I just have not been swayed yet. That could change tomorrow, it could never change, I don't know. But I always want to stay open to all inputs, all aspects of a problem or conversation. That's just my personal goal. So Dr. Baktari brings it he is so well spoken, so educated, and definitely an authority in this space. And so my goal here for you, is to just hear a conversation that is from both sides of the fence around a very, very particular a very, very timely, and a very, very personal decision and topic that we as humans are facing here, and 2021 and beyond. Thank you so much for tuning in. Welcome to Ever Forward radio. And I think this conversation in your expertise could not be more timely. The conversation we're about to have, I think is going to hopefully give me and my audience new information, perhaps remind them or validate them and us of old information, it's always good to revisit science, revisit known truths, our own truth, and especially when it comes to medicine, but also keep an open mind because medicine and science is a practice that is constantly changing. And as we grow as a society, and as we evolve as human beings. We're not the same person or species, we were just you know, a year ago, 10 years ago, so I'm here with an open mind, and I'm here to kind of just get an education. So with that, sir, my first question is, can you kind of just walk us through this high level experience of vaccinations, a vaccine in general? Why are they so important? What do they do for the human body? And just, you know, give us a brief little high level masterclass on vaccinations?

Dr. Baktari: Yeah, you know, the simplest way and if I can, if I can indulge you and your listeners by giving some kind of straightforward metaphors to it, you know, basically, vaccinations were developed to, in a way deal with germs, whether they were bacterias, or viruses. And the whole idea was that when you get infected with a germ, whether it's a virus or a bacteria, your body, you know, you don't always die, right? If you if you get an infection in your hand, you don't necessarily die. But if you didn’t have an immune system, you would clearly you would, and so every infection would kill you if you really didn't have an immune system to begin with. So we know naturally, the reason why, for 1000s of years people didn't die every time they got an infection is because their immune system killed the bug in the broadest term. Well, so vaccines were developed in a way to kind of take advantage of that natural immune system killing the bug, what we decided to do a long time ago, is say, well, why don't we trick the body? You know, think of it as an alarm system that goes off, after a whole person walks into, you know, your room, but we said, well, how about, you know, we set the alarm off, even when just the hand comes into your house, or an elbow or a toe. So what we metaphorically do with vaccines is we take the bug, we put it in the blender, we chop it up in the 1000s of pieces. And then we inject the toe or the ankle or the nose or ear into you, and your body sees the toe, it sees the ankle, and says, oh, this is a germ that I don't like and let me develop armies of antibodies naturally through your immune system to surrounded kill it. So basically, what we're saying is before you see the whole bug, us by giving you a vaccine, give you a portion of the bug. And we trick your own natural body into creating armies. You know, I'm always amazed by people who say, oh, I only believe in holistic medicine. I never want to take a drug. Those people should be running to get a vaccine, because it is the ultimate holistic medication because that's why it's not even called a drug is called the biologic. So it's not even in the category of a drug. It's simply we're giving you the corpse of the dead bug. And so to speak, there's different versions of vaccines. But in the broadest sense, we're giving you the nose, and then your body is tricked. And then it does this whole thing. That's why most vaccines disappear after a day or two or three. So what the, if you get lifelong immunity from a vaccine, let's say, let's say you get your measles shots, and you have lifelong immunity, while the vaccines weigh gone, what's left, what's left is your immune, natural immune response, that will fight it. You can't say that about a Tylenol, you can't take a Tylenol today, and it will get rid of a headache five years from now. Right? So it speaks to how natural vaccines are.

Chase: And you've been running this in your business and in your practice for a while now. And it's my understanding, you specialize in providing vaccinations for a lot of different people for a lot of different things. In your experience, what is kind of the vaccine protocol you would save, like, let me backtrack here, actually. So I'm always looking for a way to just paint the most holistic, optimized state of mind and being and your mind, body and soul. And there are a lot of different things that kind of go on the offense and defense for me, and I'm sure the audience member can relate. And I have gotten a lot of vaccines I've chosen to I've been, you know, air quote here kind of forced to, during my time in the military for a lot of different things. And I do recognize them as a very great value add for, for human civilization for many years. What are some of these vaccines that, you know, in your opinion, have really just advanced us as humans and probably, you know, have saved so many lives? What does this kind of Gambit?

Dr. Baktari: I mean, you know, we could start off with, you know, you know, just what we've done with all the childhood vaccines and measles, mumps and rubella, and polio, you know, practically eradicate polio, you know, if you go back in the 40s, and 50s, how many children were ravaged by polio? You know, people forget all these diseases that we have not either fully eradicated or, you know, we have saved millions and millions of millions of lives by the advent of vaccines in the last 50 years. And you know, as I joke around if there's any silver lining, in this pandemic, where we've, you know, in the United States lost over 600,000, and of course, millions more worldwide, is that by some of the new vaccine technologies that were you know, at, with a gun to our head were rolled out. I really see the promise of those even saving millions and millions and millions of more lives in the decades to come. So yeah, I mean, we underestimate the impact vaccines have had because, you know, it's so funny, you hire a gardener to get rid of weeds in your backyard. And a year later you walk into your backyard, and there's no weeds your garden looks great. You're like, well, why am I paying that gardener? The garden looks great. What do I need him for? I mean, it is the ultimate, like, if people don't understand what vaccines are doing for their current children, where their current children would be without the world of vaccination. It's really it's uh, I think vaccines have done their jobs so well. Before for the diseases that they're directed at. You know, tetanus, polio, measles, mumps, rubella, chickenpox, that, you know, it's just like, Yeah, why do I need this gardener? I mean, my garden, you know, my garden looks great. Well, what the heck are we paying this guy every month for? And so I think Yeah, I think that's the fallacy that we see with vaccines. But yeah, I don't know if you could ask me about it later. But there is something different about vaccines. Then you know, migraine medications and antibiotics that give people a different spooky, some people a very spooky feeling about it. And that's, you know, because vaccines are the only class of biologics or drugs that often are mandated for school or military, whatever. And generally speaking when something's mandated it. I don't see any Facebook groups of moms against childhood antibiotics or childhood, you know, you know,

Chase: maybe some out there. I don't know.

Dr. Baktari: Yeah, right. But, but clearly, you know, like, you know, I don't see people protesting other classes of drugs shortly see vaccines and I think part of that is just the nature of it being mandated in certain circles.

Chase: And before we get into, like the current life experience here with proposed mandates all over the world for this new vaccine. I mean, there's so much now, especially just have the belief that what about the natural immunity? What about the body's own adaptability to be exposed to something a virus or bacteria and illness and infection and learn how to kind of navigate and he'll on its own aside from a vaccine, how would you kind of navigate that?

Dr. Baktari: Well, I mean, Chase, could I can take it a different direction? Well, you just said sounds like a hypothetical. But it's not a hypothetical. You're like, What about? Well, we don't have to worry about what about we actually no, it's sort of if I told you, you know, what, if you know, you know, let's say we're arguing about the score of Monday Night Football last night, we don't have to argue about it. It actually happened. And there's a score. Right? I mean, there was a game last night and there's a score. I mean, you can't say, you know, just the Raiders lost when they won. I mean, they won I mean that score was the score. So when people tell me that, you know, what if what if I already you know, we already know the score. Let's, let's frame it like this, and then you tell me where I'm going wrong. When this pandemic, let's say with this current pandemic with the Coronavirus started in let's call it even, you know, early 2000. You know, nobody was vaccinated for a whole year. And in that year, even, you know, even by the CDCs, mark, maybe 100 million people got COVID in the United States. Okay. And let's assume that that is the true number 100 million people, you know, got COVID, before the vaccines were rolled out in any meaningful way, in the United States. Let's, let's take that as a fact, we if someone wants to argue that we can talk about later, but let's assume that's a fact 100 million 100 million Americans god COVID naturally, like you're suggesting, okay. And out of those 100 million 500,000 died, whether they were older, younger, whatever, we know that. So that's a score you could put up on a scoreboard the

Chase: numbers are the numbers. Sure, yeah.

Dr. Baktari: Okay, right. I mean, so 100,000 300 million people get COVID in the US 500,000 die, you can argue, okay, the 500,000 die, we're older had pigs fine. But however you get there. 100 million, get COVID 500,000 die. Well, we've now vaccinated 150 million Americans or more now. And out of that, maybe 1000, or two died of COVID. And truthfully, most of them are over 82 and other issues. So we can practically call it zero. Almost that exactly zero. So if you had if you had two teams, one team 100 million people get infected 500,000 die, the other team 150 million, get the vaccine and nobody dies. Is that you? That's not an opinion. And if you want to argue against that now, you could say what about its long term side of it. But let's compartmentalize the arguments. Which is let's just look at the death rate among people who didn't get the vaccine versus people who did. And it was just article published that people who don't get the vaccine are 10 times more likely to die. But you before anyone gives me any blowback, you have to tell me, are my numbers right or wrong? Did I make those up? Or where are those numbers wrong? If you accept the numbers, then you have to explain why you would want to sign up for the team. Remember, there's two teams you can sign up with. You can sign up with the team with 500,000 deaths, or you can sign up with the team with no deaths. Yeah, that's 500,000 people really did die. They're buried six feet under the ground. That's not a myth.

Chase: Yeah, that's a tragedy. Of course. 

Dr. Baktari: That is a tragedy beyond comprehension. So which team do you want to sign up for?

Chase: That's a kind of stirs up for me. I guess my, my main driving force behind this and if for the listener, if I haven't made it clear yet. I have not yet chosen to receive any COVID-19 vaccine. And for me, a vaccine, a medication, supplements, you know, anything of that nature. It all comes down for me personally to the same argument. What is my need for this? Do I need an ibuprofen for my headache? How bad is it? Do I need a brace for my sprained ankle? How bad is it? Do I need fish oil because I'm not getting enough omega threes and stuff in my diet? Do I need a vaccine for something to protect me against severity of illness and potential death from said illness? And for me, it comes down to I and again, I, I over many, many years now 15-16 years, I have just become better at this listening to my body, knowing what it needs, what it wants. I look at my environment, I look at the people that have been around me I look at travel, I look at known infections, I look at unknown infections, I look at severity of infections with people that have gone through this this last year, my wife and someone we were living with for a short period of time. Both had it and I was in their presence. I was in the house, I slept next to my wife for three days, tested positive and on multiple times and was very, very ill. And you know, of course we did the whole you know, let's you know keep our distance wash your hands, all that stuff. And I never ever once I've tested positive, I have had zero symptoms. And I'm not naive enough to know that well I could have could have been exposed to it. I could have been asymptomatic I could have been all these things could have been false negatives. But I always just go back to okay, well if my exposure rate and the probability of me being exposed and infected was that high, and nothing happened, that I'm aware of. And more importantly for me, because I never want to be that that asshole who is you know, walking around and passing a sickness on to anybody, whether that's COVID or something else. And to my knowledge, and I have done a lot of due diligence, reverse engineering this, no one was infected because of me because of exposure, you know, or proximity to me. And so I that is my main driving force here in that, well, they have me personally, if I can withstand that level of exposure in potential and probability, and I am I was fine. asymptomatic. I didn't go to the hospital. I didn't die. I didn't you know, wasn't sick at all. Do I personally need a vaccine? And that is my main argument. Do people that have chronic illnesses and diseases? That's a whole rabbit hole of like, why don't we treat that? What about the elderly? What about the lower? You know, immunocompromised? Of course, I see necessity and validity for vaccine for them for sure. But I just go back to my personal decision there. And that's my rationale. What how do you how do you how do you receive that someone who has kind of just had that experience? And that that's, that's my decision? I'm not, I'm not of the belief that Oh, there's a microchip in it? Or oh, it's, there's no political agenda here with me, it's just I have chosen to not receive this yet. Because of my personal experience in my, my kind of relationship to my body.

Dr. Baktari: Yeah, so yeah, I totally respect that, by the way, and this is the amazing thing about this country, because, you know, everyone is free to make their own personal decisions. And I greatly respect that. So, you know, my response to that is, it's kind of multi fold. And, you know, one is sort of the interesting thing, because, you know, if listeners are hearing to, you know, what you're saying, and, and one of the things that I learned early on in medicine, is that the plural of a lot of anecdotes is not data.

Chase: I like that. I respect that. That's very well said.

Dr. Baktari: And, you know, when I hear these anecdotes, you know, that doesn't really help because, you know, I can anecdotally tell you, I've driven my car without car insurance for a year and nothing's happened.

Chase: Well, okay, so let me let me add this into the mix, if I may, for me, in my data here is I track everything. So I, I have nutritional data, I have biomarker data, I have respiratory heart rate HRV. I have a lot of data from wearables and stuff. And so that that is my contribution to data and there's

Dr. Baktari: when I said data, I'm talking about data on whether, you know, a COVID infection, yes, it's much, much smaller, it's, you know, maybe half of 1% that someone in your health could get severely ill or potentially die from it. So it is meant, you know well, again, that that, that I that that data doesn't exist. So again, when we look at people, I don't think there's any data that you know, the virus, you may have less symptoms, you may be asymptomatic. But the viruses the virus, I mean, it's going to its, its binding ability to cat to go on to someone. I don't think there's any data that says if you're in great, great shell shape, you know, you're less likely to catch it. I think you’re probably more likely to be asymptomatic or have a less severe effect. But anyway, the viruses infectability, I don't think there's any large scale data that, you know, people who are super healthy, you know, can somehow block it just because they're healthy, they may have a lesser infection, they may be asymptomatic. But when I was saying, data, I meant data in terms of a strategy, you know, for a whole population, you know, when, when a country comes out with a strategy to let's say, crush a pandemic, you know, we come up with public health strategy and the public health strategy is, you know, not everyone, you know, has the wherewithal to fully assess their chances of dying, whatever. And then the other from a public health point of view, as long as there's a class of people that are not immunized, it's going to make it harder and harder to you know, squelch this pandemic in terms of herd immunity and, and, and having a population base where it can still run rampant. Like, for example, the current outbreak of the Delta variant. We know for example, it's a pandemic of the unvaccinated right now, yes, there are some breakthrough cases. But when you look at people in the hospital, you know, 90-95% of them are unvaccinated people. And so when you look at that, and that's the data I was referring to. 

Chase: I personally, the only people I know recently, this last six months who have been tested positive and sick because of delta. Actually, were vaccinated personnel. 

Dr. Baktari: But that again, that that does not jive with what the CDC and hospitals are releasing for who's in there? Who's in their ICU? Okay. So again, that's your anecdote, but that's not the data that we're getting from hospitals all across the country. They're saying 90 95% of the people in their ICU are unvaccinated people.

Chase: Interesting, interesting. Data, for me is one of the biggest areas that is personally just so hard to navigate.

Dr. Baktari: Yeah, yeah, I'm more than happy to, you know, share that with you. You can put in the link for your listeners, but yes, 90-95% of hospitalized people, and 95% of people dying. 95% of your again, I could be off to 3% either way. 95% of people are hospitalized. 95% of the people who are dying. 95% of people in ICU are unvaccinated. Now. We if that just for the sake of this conversation, assume that number is true. What do you make of that?

Chase: Well, to that I would be curious as to okay, is the unvaccinated variable is that the is that correlation or causation? When I look at the amount of unvaccinated people that are ill, and then unfortunately dying. My kind of my next question is, well, what are the other? Do they have other chronic illnesses and diseases? Are they right? What are these other things that I know we also have to honor and acknowledge?

Dr. Baktari: Right? Well, I mean, the good news is the vast majority of the elderly and people with morbidities. were vaccinated, you know whether that's 70 80% of them, but yeah, so yes, it's I'm sure within that group, but still, the fact that 95% of them are unvaccinated, you know, tells you that the vaccine works. And, yes, if you're young and healthy, and have no comorbidity, you're a lot less likely to get severe disease and die. But it's not zero. And if we want to get to herd immunity, where we eradicate this sooner, I would make the argument the more people that get vaccinated, the more likely you know, we get we're able to get this under control. You saw this with the measles outbreak a couple years ago, where there were measles outbreaks in certain communities, often very affluent communities. And again, that was an example of, you know, populations where there was a large number of unvaccinated people. And you'd have these outbreaks of measles in Santa Monica or California or in New York, where there were different populations that were under vaccinated. So we know that if you leave a group of unvaccinated people in a very, and you have a highly contagious virus, eventually it will rip through that population. 

Chase: Sure. Yeah. viruses. They don't they don't care. Yeah, they'll attach to any host they can as long as possible

Dr. Baktari: right. So that's but again, at a personal level, I totally accepted I'm just looking from a population point of view. The data says the more people are vaccinated, the better we're all are. And then you know, the other thing you have to think about, which is sort of the others flipside of the benefits of getting vaccinated is, what is the downside of getting vaccinated? You know, like, what is the downside. And that's a whole different discussion. But you know, that's, I think, for more for most people. If they could convince themselves, there was no other than literally getting a jab in your arm. If they could convince themselves there was no downside that might help the discussion.

Chase: Yes, and actually has, you're just saying that it kind of, it kind of stirred up in me an area another area that is an area of struggle for me and all this. And that is the personal decision and the personal empowerment and the personal ability for us to take our health in our control. But then also, you look at the macro level of what is best for, you know, public health, and you know, mass health promotion and mass pandemic control. And I 100%, I mean, how I got my master's in health promotion. So I do see the validity and I know the validity in when looking at a macro level and large population scale, if we have a virus, we have something that is tearing through this camp, right? If that's, you know, airborne illness, if that's food poisoning, that's whatever, if we can lay something down, provide something to on a mass scale, lower that probability of happening or continuing to tear through, you know, improve people's chances of finding it if they get it. Like I do see the validity in that, of course.

Dr. Baktari: Yeah, and to kind of add to what you're saying, we make this decision on a on a societal level all the time. And nobody gives a lot of blowback to it, for example, just, you're just kind of weird examples. Like, if you drive by school zone during school time, speed limits, like 15 miles an hour, right? You've been through that where all of a sudden, you come to this crawl and you're going 15 miles an hour. And you know, there have been times where there's a child within, you know, mile of that, and yet you're still going 15 miles an hour, well, why is the society have we done that? Why are we forcing 1000s of cars, millions of cars to go 15 miles an hour, even when there's no obvious threat of a, you know, child being anywhere near there is because we've decided on balance, we're going to inconvenience millions and millions of people every day to go 15 miles an hour for three minutes of their lives on the off chance, we're going to catch that one guy who wouldn't respect, you know, if it was on an honor system, like if you see children around, go 15 miles an hour? You know that? Why doesn't that work? Because on a societal level, we say, look, we slow everybody down to 15 miles an hour, on the off chance that you know, we have one or two crazies that wouldn't abide by that anyway. And I don't know if that's a good example. But that's like one of example or, or the fact that, you know, you have to let you know, you have to be in a long line at TSA to you know, get there because as a society, we've decided we're going to inconvenience a lot of people for the benefit of everybody. And so maybe vaccine don't exactly fit in those two analogies. But, you know, we as a society, often, you know, put a lot of people through stuff that they personally don't need. But we do it because we see an overall benefit.

Chase: Interesting, that actually is a very good analogy. Yeah. One thing I'll say here to kind of wrap up this point, I want to actually then segue into the public health aspect, if we could, I love what you were bringing up there is that I and again, I just want to remind myself remind you remind the listener here, I am all for you, you have to do and I encourage you to do what you feel is best is in best interest for you and your health in your family in your immediate environment. And just you know, your truth to some degree. I think we all have like a little gut check there. And then for me, just again, the reason why I've not yet chosen to receive any type of COVID-19 vaccine is I just look at, I look at my past experiences, exposure, proximity, known contagion levels, and I just look at Okay, well, maybe me personally, my body's immune system yet has been through the wringer enough and has not been able 

Dr. Baktari: but Chase, I think but let's, let's confirm, like, you're young, you're healthy. Okay. Even if you catch COVID, you're probably going to be asymptomatic. You can't mistake of that. But if that,

Chase: does that warrant needing to get a vaccine? I guess that is my ultimate question.

Dr. Baktari: No, no, no, what I'm trying to say is like, if, if, let me see if I can give you an analogy that would make sense if I had a 99.99% chance of winning the lottery I write, and all of a sudden I win the lottery. And I come to you to say, look, look at this. I mean, the chances are even if you beat anybody, your age and your fitness will have what you think is special to you, statistically, someone as young as you is, like there's less than a half of a percent, that anything serious is going to happen to them. You can't mistake that for something unique to you, anybody in your age group and your fitness category would have the same benefit. The problem is that that would apply to 99.5, whatever, but it wouldn't be 100. So, you know, someone like you, you know, I remember just seeing on Twitter, you know, bodybuilder in Europe just died of it. So it's, it's not, it's not

Chase: bodybuilders notoriously unhealthy. And so there's so many steroids and,

Dr. Baktari: or, or really are rather healthy people. All I'm suggesting is that, when you have that kind of chance of nothing happening to anyway, yes, of course, you know, you know, statistically, if I had a, you know, only one in 200 chance of getting severely ill, and I don't get the vaccine, I say, look, I didn't get the vaccine, and I didn't get ill. So it proves I didn't need the vaccine. No, it just proves that you're in the 99.5 category of getting severely the odds are in your favor to begin with. And you can't mistake that for, oh, there's something unique about my immune system, right? 

Chase: I don't think I'm special, I just think I have done enough over the years to build up a healthy mind and body, right, that increases the chance of it being more likely to fight off any disease or illness. And so my biggest question there, and my again, ultimate reason for not yet choosing to get a vaccine is I have not been proven me personally, me and my body and where I am, I have not been it's not been proven to me that I need it.

Dr. Baktari: Right? Again, but it won't be because 99.5 you don't need it in terms of preventing death or illness. So when you're a 99 point, you know, whatever, it's hard to make the case because you can't almost get any better than 99.9. But again, from a public health point of view, and from the one in 100, or one and 200 that do you get sick that are in your position? That's what we're getting at? So I don't know if that makes sense.

Chase: Yeah, well, let's just say if there was a population of let me just walk through some high level points about myself, if there was a population of 35 year old Caucasian males with a long standing history of good physical, mental, emotional health, no current chronic illness, disease, preexisting conditions, other than just, you know, everyday stressors of life, I guess, would you recommend that population to be vaccinated, regardless of that data in recent exposure?

Dr. Baktari: Right. So the argument I'm going to make is there's no data against that, if we took, you know, 1000 Chases with your profile, my argument is, yes, there will be, you know, 20-30 of those Chases, that will get severely sick, and, you know, potentially need hospitalization and potentially, you know, one or two may die. Now, that's out of 1000 Chases. So you know, that's statistically your, if you do nothing, you're probably won't be in that group. But yes, that there's no data to argue against that. So it will randomly hit very young people, even children, children have died of COVID. And so it's not a lot, it's still a fraction of 1%. But it has happened.

Chase: And I guess that's kind of going to where I wanted to go to next with public health aspect. And please correct me if I'm wrong here. This is why I love talking to experts such as yourself about this. I know what I know, but I know what I don't know. In my studying of a lot of the recent studies and data coming out, like any new vaccine, any new drug, a sample population has to be used ahead of time. And you cannot go into you know, please again, correct me if I'm wrong, a study for the COVID-19 vaccine. You cannot go into it if you knew if the study knew the doctors knew the scientists knew administering it that you had all of these comorbidities that we see people dying from once they get hospitalized to getting COVID. If I was morbidly obese if I was obese, if I had high blood pressure, cardiovascular disease, type two diabetes, no history of exercise or good nutritional habits, I would not be allowed to enter into that study correct and therefore does that not also kind of paint an unclear picture of the validity of such a vaccine Because we see most of the people that are dying from COVID-19, in fact, do have all these things that would exclude them from being tested. And so therefore not getting a proper number of the effectiveness of the dosage of the vaccine. 

Dr. Baktari: not only co morbidity, but age now above at the mortality rate, so the mortality rate for it was like, you know, I think over 15 20%, over 80. So yeah, it was definitely, in terms of killing people, you know, in, in higher percentage. Yeah, if you're over 60, will co morbidities. And over 70, much more and over at much, much more. But the clinical trials that, you know, certainly Pfizer and Moderna did, before they got their emergency use authorization, you know, was roughly about 40,000. Each give or take. And that was a broad range of people, you know, adults and middle aged people, young adults, middle aged people and older adults, I that study initially to get the authorization was to prevent the actual catching the disease. Yes, but the I think there's two issues will the vaccine have effectiveness in preventing you from getting the disease? And if you do get the disease, you know, how severe will it be? And so we know that the vaccine effectiveness is roughly the same no matter what age group you are, but if you get the disease, yes, it's going to be much more severe and a higher percentage, the older you are, and the more comorbidity you have.

Chase: Sure, which kind of brings me to the whole aspect of public health here is, that is a whole other kind of just part of where we are as a society, and where I've seen a lot of people being separated in terms of how they're choosing to publicize their alignment with this. And it's just the lack of, in my opinion, lack of true public health, or I feel like we're missing a big portion here. Again, like I said earlier, I do see the validity and importance of addressing this from a macro level, I do see the validity and importance of looking at, okay, who are the people that are most susceptible? Who do we need to vaccinate? And is this vaccine, you know, going to be effective? But on top of that, should we not also be allocating the same or at least a similar portion of awareness, education budget to hey, yes, these people would benefit most from a vaccine, but also these people, such as chronic illness and disease, obesity, diabetes, poor exercise habits, could we not also help them get better to alleviate that in the first place?

Dr. Baktari: Yeah, I totally, I totally agree with your choice. I couldn't agree with you more, because, you know, just our issues for the past, you know, several decades has been a lack of focus on that level of prevention, and just with pharmaceuticals, and trying to treat things and you know, I think I think that's really a symptom of where our society is, I think, you know, I think about this on a much more bigger level from a public health point of view, the richer we've become as a society and as a country over the last five, six decades you know, the more resources we have the more access we have to things you know, the less important you know these sort of health issues have become for a lot of people so that's a that's a problem because you know, you know, we're really we've gotten really good at creating drugs for stuff but you know, trying to prevent it is probably a lot easier and a lot cheaper. And you know, is that the medical profession and the public health professionals fault maybe is that also a societal issue that we just have a lot of time on our hands and, you know, kids watching, you know, video games all day and developing unhealthy habits as youngsters leads into teenage years and, you know, I mean, you know, so I get giving away my age, but this is just, you know, kind of having this YouTube culture where you sit down in front of a, you know, computer screen and watch YouTube for hours on end or whatever Netflix you know, I don't know, it's Yeah, that's a global public health problem, but much more so in more developed nations, you know, because of that, of the abundant resources people have.

Chase: Yes, sir. Yes, sir. And one thing I'll say on this, and I know well, do you have a couple more minutes we are technically over time here?

Dr. Baktari: yeah, as much time as you need. 

Chase: I just want to give a very recent example. So yesterday as we're recording this, I entered back into the United States. I was in Tulum, Mexico for a friend's wedding for a few days. And, you know, of course, did a COVID test did all that and as I was entering back into the country and negative COVID tests, and I never heard of this before, before we get aboard the plane, the airline attendant came over the intercom and said, we will be exiting in groups of 10. Because there is a CDC official waiting in the walkway before you get back into the terminal, to review your test results to check your passport and to answer a few questions. And I recognize that and I think it's a great thing I think it is a great barrier to protect, protect borders really from you know, viruses coming and going that I think that's a great measure to have in place. But what really aggravated me and I was very, very aggravated was, and I don't know if I'm right or wrong here. But this is just my truth. This is what came up. I thought well, imagine if they also would be handing out pamphlets or information to everybody not to single anybody out here but to everybody on Hey, we know that if you are X amount of pounds overweight, if you have these preexisting conditions, if you have poor diet, if you're obese, if you have family genetics of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, things like this, if you also gave that education and empowered the people leaving the plane to do something to improve their health to lower their risk to lower their all-cause mortality rates for everything else. Aside from COVID. I was just I was very, very frustrated that that is not also where we are right now in the world. And it just it made me angry, it made me sad, because I looked back at so many people on the plane. I mean, who knows I can have a disease right now and I know about it, but I just looked back at so many people in the plane. And I can just tell I watch a lot of these people in their poor eating habits. I watch the lady next to me in the plane, eat an entire bag like a Costco bag of caramel and cheddar popcorn puffs in one flight I shit you not. I was just like, do you know what you just did to your body? Like, do you girl for sure do you I'm not here to judge you. But just Is it the best decision to eat an entire Costco bag on a flight? I don't think so. You know, it just it really got me in my feels?

Dr. Baktari: Yeah, well, you know, I, it is frustrating, because it's when people have access, you know, they're somewhat comfortable financially, that they have what they need, they can get access to whatever they need. You know, it, I think some of this Western culture is, is a symptom of abundance, just a lot of people have a lot of you know, just time and, you know, money and resources. And so, you know, the stuff you're talking about takes a backseat, because of that.

Chase: It does. And that is the unfortunate truth that I have to remind myself of, and so, yeah.

Dr. Baktari: yeah, because, you know, like in this conversation, we're talking about vaccines. But, you know, I'm glad you hit on this point, because, you know, before I was a vaccine expert, I'm also a physician and this idea of, you know, making the right choices and healthy choices. You know, it's not like you if you get vaccines, and then like you say, chow down on a bag of, you know, Carmel popcorn or whatever, that you know that the vaccine is going to help you. There's no vaccine for that.

Chase: Thank you. Thank you that yes, very well said. And I also want to just total transparency here with you, sir, and my audience. And again, I don't know if this is right or wrong, but I only act out of my truth in my body and what I study another variable. I don't know how big but another variable that plays into my decision to not yet receive a vaccine is just my level of trust with external things put into my body. And I don't know if you're aware of this, but I actually lost my father 16-17 years ago, to a terminal illness, Lou Gehrig's disease, ALS. And he was also a veteran. He served in the Persian Gulf. He was a veteran of that era. And what we now know, what the Veterans Affairs Department has come out and said, is that there is a statistically significant very high percentage of adult males that not only contract Well, everyone who contracts ALS dies, but you know, pass away from ALS, they trace it back to about 30%. If you're a male and you'd served in the military, you are 30% statistically higher chance of getting ALS and a lot of them come from that era of the military. And so, you know, call it conspiracy theory, whatever, like I don't buy into any of that. But I do think it's interesting, unfortunate, interesting point that many men, many people who served in that era, like my father had ALS and died from it, and there were just so many new vaccines and inoculations and just things that you get exposed to that I know that he was exposed to. And that I know and anytime that I would travel, you know, we go to the wire, do anything in the military, hell just even getting into the military, you're literally just a human dartboard, and you just line up and you get these things. And so I get out of total honesty and transparency, that is a variable, a fear variable of mine, that right plays into my choice. And so I guess my question out of that, sir, is to what level biochemical, physiological, immunological level does fear have in fortifying our immune system or working against it? If we're living in a constant state of fear, we choose to do or not do something out of fear like it, can that play a role into our body's ability to be fortified, to heal to have a higher immune system to accept or reject a vaccine? Like, the fear mindset here?

Dr. Baktari: You're saying, the, by the way, I'm so sorry, for your loss by the way, I did see that on your other content that you brought it up and how it's impacted you. So I'm, you know, I'm sure. If you don't mind, because, you know, I'm, I'm a father, and when I saw you say that, on your other content, you know, it's probably it is a reflection of the impact your dad had on you that all these years later, it actually kind of shapes how you view the world, you very much have your dad's impact now, you know, from 16 years ago, still is such a core part of your essence, probably, you know, reflects to who he was as a father and what he did for you. You know, you know, whether it was, you know, taking him to the ball games, whatever he did for you, you know, I know that that residue stays when someone's still impacted this far after the they've lost their father. So I know that's more on a tangent, but

Chase: no, thank you for that.

Dr. Baktari: And what a great father, he must have been. But yeah, I mean, well, I mean, the, and this is really, I'm going to give you a medical thing, right? So this is what we were taught in medical school, right? We're talking about, you know, fear and stuff like that, like, you know, when a patient comes to the doctor's office, okay, and they say, I got a headache, right? There is probably, you know, I'm just making this number up one and 1000 chance that they have a brain cancer, okay, right just take that as number. But we are trained as doctors that even though one in 1000 patients that come to your office and say they've got a headache, to first try to give him some Tylenol or treat them, you know, just conservatively because 999 out of 1000 don't have a brain tumor. So but what happens to doctors, because they're human beings is, let's say early on their career, they did that. And they got that one patient that had a brain tumor, and it took them a few months to finally get around getting a CAT scan. And then they found out Oh, yeah, this patient I saw three months ago kept coming in and I finally got a CAT scan. And look, he had a brain tumor. So moving forward, I'm going to get a CAT scan on everybody that comes to my office and complains of a headache. So you know, the question really is that the right move because now what's going to happen because of that one episode is this doctor is going to expose 999 patients to an unnecessary CAT scan because of that one anecdotal experience and so this is even for physicians, you know, things that happen in our lives, alter our decision making because we're human beings and these anecdotes take over like you want to call it fear whatever you want to call it, but they make you make decisions that you know on some level are right but then on some level are probably wrong depending on what we're talking about. And it can work and work for you and against you. So that's the power of these anecdotal things because they color your perspective so much that even when you should be turning left, you turn right. I don't know if that ties into what you were saying. But that's what I thought would be a comparable thing.

Chase: You know, I hear you and that on both sides of the coin, really, the provider the patient, fear it definitely can get in the driver's seat many times and whether that steers us in the quote, right or wrong direction, it still plays a role. And so I just again wanted to say that the reason why another reason why I have not yet chosen to be vaccinated is that and for me, and what I've studied a lot over the years is that when we are living in a heightened state, when we're living more fearful, we are just, we're on edge, our cortisol levels are higher, we probably recover lesser our body's ability to stay well and get well and recover if we're just in a constant state of fear, I believe and what I see to be true is less and so if we can find alignment, to live out of that fear, and to just, you know, make the best decisions, I just, I think of an example of someone if someone is absolutely terrified of getting a medication, or getting a vaccine or taking a supplement anything, if they're terrified of it to their core, they believe that this is harmful for me. I mean, where the mind goes, the body will follow.

Dr. Baktari: Yeah, I totally agree. I totally agree. And you don't want to look at the end of the day, you know, we're not we're not trying to, you know, save, you know, a 35 year old life by giving them a vaccine. So, yeah, I mean, if it's, if it's to that point, I don't think it you know, you don't want to stress anyone out to that level. So yeah, so I agree with that. And yeah, cortisol level living in fear and, you know, your, your, we know from many studies are more likely to get sick and get a lot of bad stuff. If you like you say you're not balancing, you know, this really goes to all the data, for example, most move away from anecdotes, all the data that you know, talks about meditation and prayer, you know, impacting a lot of disease states. And, you know, that ties into what you were saying, the cortisol level and what have you. So whether it's prayer, meditation, or any variation of that, you know, that's it, you we know that impacts health and wellness, because the more you do the you can actually alter the course of some of these diseases.

Chase: Yes, and to that I, I will never be the person to say, oh, yes, I can avoid any illness or disease, if I just meditate long enough, or if I follow this dietary protocol, again, I, I believe that a lot, a lot, a lot of things will work for a lot of different people. If we just follow the science if we follow and pay attention to our own bodies, and just act accordingly act, you know, out of love, honestly, I just I really think that's my biggest point here. And as I want to be mindful of your time, sir, thank you so much for being on here with me longer. And I just really, that's where I want to get to my point in this conversation is that there's so much novelty around where we are in the world right now. But my biggest my biggest struggle that I see, and what makes me the most sad, aside from getting vaccinated or not getting vaccinated, the left or the right is just how far away from love I think a lot of us are getting, I have scenes, unfortunately, a lot of people, a lot of personal friends, or even family members that are in my life, I post things on social media and say things to the extent that and this is almost a direct quote from someone recently that I saw on Facebook, if you're not going to get vaccinated, then you should just go off and die. And that for me, breaks my heart.

Dr. Baktari: Yeah, you know, what, or the other way, you know, where, yeah, you know, you know, both sides of that, I mean, this is really, like, not everybody, you know, chooses to, like, you know, an apple or whatever this is you got it, we got we have to conform we, you know, we put out the signs, we put out the data, but thank God, we live in a society where everyone's free to decide what's best for them. You know, when I see a patient, and I tell him, hey, you need to start on this cholesterol medicine. And they're like, you know, what, I really don't want to, I want to try this, and this and this. And I'm like, you know what, you know, go at it. I mean, here's the data, you know, that, you know, if we don't get it under control, this is what could happen. But, you know, at the end of the day, we're here to provide data, but everyone is free to incorporate everything that they need to in deciding and we shouldn't be judging them. So we shouldn't be judging people who don't get a vaccine. And we shouldn't be judging, you know, people who get vaccines and say, well, you know, you're, you're hurting yourself. I think, you know, we never no one ever has this argument about whether you should take Tylenol for a headache, right? I don't know what it is, other than what I told you earlier about vaccines that generates that's this kind of volatility is this concept that it's got governments involved. But when governments not involved in in yet, you know, potentially telling you what medication they take, it doesn't. It doesn't ignite the extremes like it does with vaccinations for some reason.

Chase: I agree. I agree. With Dr. Baktari getting to the end here. I want to ask you the final question that I ask everybody, and I think just right, right, what you were saying just a moment ago, is really on the nose here of what I mean when I say of living a life ever forward. Those two words, going back to my father. That was the example that he set for me that those were his words, that was his mantra. That's what he instilled in me and my family growing up as children, and just quite literally what he embodied, to his dying breath, of no matter what is we have to look into the eye of adversity and find the advantage, this is just going to be a daily struggle. But if we choose to move forward and choose to pay attention, and collect data, and act out of love, and just find what works best for us. That is what living a life ever Ford means to me. And so I'm curious. So when you hear those two words, what does that mean to you? How do you live a life ever forward?

Dr. Baktari: Well, first of all, I'm going to go off track here, I would have loved to meet your dad. I hope you don't mind me saying that. 

Chase: He was an amazing man. Yeah, he was he would meet anybody and everybody, quite literally, we would pick up homeless people coming home from work and take them wherever. Yeah, he was. He was everybody's guy.

Dr. Baktari: Yeah, well, yeah, he's lucky to have had you to kind of carry his legacy forward. But you know, I want to just echo the sentiment, you know, to, you know, live, I, personally, you know, what I tell my patients and, Mike, my close friends is to, you know, live a life where one you don't judge other people. And, you know, you try to take strides to improve yourself physically, mentally, emotionally, and everyone around you. And, you know, that's when that's what the journey is all about. Right? Their journey is about the impact you can have on others, your family and, and people around you just like your dad did. And I think, you know, we want that we want to impact other people in a way that just like what you're doing for your dad, you know, because of the impression he made, we need to make that impression on others, and help them move forward. That's how I sort of few things with my circle that are close to me.

Chase: There's never a right or wrong answer as what I always say. So I appreciate your insight and your interpretation there, sir. Well, this has been a very appreciative conversation for me, I just want to say thank you for coming on. And thank you for sharing your expertise and sharing the data and just sharing everything and hearing where I am personally, and I had no agenda in this other than to be present, share my experience and learn from you. And that's exactly what had happened.

Dr. Baktari: It was really, it was very fun. I really enjoyed it. Thank you for all the insightful questions, and I really, really enjoyed a lot. Thank you.

Chase: For more information on everything you just heard, make sure to check this episode show notes or head to ever bored radio.com