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Surgeon General Confirmation Controversy

41:18 recording · AUTO · 2 speakers

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Brief overview

Lies from health officials collide with hard data on polio, measles, flu and pregnancy vaccination.

  1. IPV, not OPV, ends vaccine-derived polioNot a single paralytic case was diagnosed after IPV administration in Pakistan, and Vincent says WHO should stop seeding the environment with OPV.
  2. Vaccination in pregnancy is the safer choiceVaccinated women had lower preeclampsia, less maternal and perinatal morbidity and mortality, and less preterm birth, plus passive protection for the baby.
  3. Unqualified nominees still carry the Surgeon General's pulpitCasey Means dodged Cassidy's hepatitis B question and refused to endorse vaccination, yet people will respect a position once held by qualified people.
Executive Summary AI
  • Vincent Racaniello and Daniel Griffin open TWiV episode 1300, recorded February 26, 2026, and frame the show around the quotation "There are lies, damn lies, and statistics," which Samuel Clemens attributed to Benjamin Disraeli.0:10
  • They cover states suing the federal government over childhood vaccine schedule changes and attack the Surgeon General nomination of Casey Means, who finished medical school in 2013, dropped out of ENT training, sells wellness products through her company Levels, told Bill Cassidy the hepatitis B birth dose was "very complex" without answering, and refused to say she would encourage vaccination.2:58
  • Daniel reads from a CID article on circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus type 2 in Pakistan: 35,724 paralytic cases and 2,804 sewage samples tested between July 2019 and March 2022, cVDPV2 in 0.5% (181 cases) and 11% of sewage, with 14 monovalent OPV2 rounds and five IPV rounds between September 2019 and December 2021 interrupting transmission in about two years, and Vincent calls the 2016 trival8:32
  • On the respiratory season they report 979 confirmed measles cases (CDC says 982, Johns Hopkins over a thousand) with hotspots in Utah, Arizona and Florida, flu plateauing but growing across the Ohio River Valley with 71 confirmed pediatric deaths, RSV rising in most states, and COVID going up nationally, very high in the Midwest.15:19
  • Daniel walks through the Inter-COVID Consortium preeclampsia study in eClinical Medicine — 6,527 pregnant women from 18 countries, 2020 to 2022, 33% diagnosed with COVID-19 — where COVID raised preeclampsia about 45%, the unvaccinated had an adjusted odds ratio of 1.78, any vaccination cut risk about 15%, a booster 0.67 or about 33%, and 58% in women with preexisting morbidities, then answers list21:19
Key Quote
“There are lies, damn lies, and statistics.”
— Daniel Griffin1:32
Key Quote
“I don't understand what happened to telling the truth, Daniel.”
— Vincent Racaniello2:30
Key Quote
“The switch was an unqualified failure.”
— Vincent Racaniello13:33