Masks & Face Coverings: Healthy Choice or Hysteria?

Hello gut check project fans and KBMD health family It is now time for COVID believe it or not episode installment number eight. We can't escape it. It will not go away this this is going to be probably the most controversial episode to date that we've ever done on on COVID. Your co host here, Dr. Kenneth brown along with me, Eric Rieger. Ken, what's happening?

Not much, Eric. I mean, this is this this episode the way that we're getting into some murky waters. Now we're talking about some controversial things here. And, you know, after watching that video of that Scottsdale woman, barge into the target, and tear apart that mass display. She was wearing that $40,000 watch and it really got me wondering, What is she doing shopping at target with a $40,000 watch on I mean isn't that more of a Neiman's thing or she used to be tearing apart the mask station at Neiman's or I don't know.

You'd think you could use that watch to get somebody to go shopping for you.

It's just such an odd world we're living in. All of this stuff is being captured. And it's not like somebody filmed her. She sent out front filmed herself said this is what I'm gonna do. With a $40,000 watch on. I'm gonna go into this target and I'm gonna destroy this mask display because masks. So Eric Rieger this episode is controversial. What are we going to talk about today?

Well, it sounds to me like we're going to be talking about Karens on Reddit. Is that right?

No, not even close we're gonna be talking about.

Honestly you know what I'll get we got some fans out there and I know two friends of mine whose names are Karen and I think that sucks that they always have to be under fire for a good name. 

Oh, your poor Karen friends. They're taking a beating right now. 

Ridiculous. But regardless, so no, Karen's on Reddit, what are we going to be doing?

Well, we're gonna talk about masks, and we're just gonna kick some science like we always do. So this isn't a political thing. This isn't a controversial Well, it's controversial for some people. And I don't really understand why because I just want to go over the science of this. So before we get into that, let's talk about what's going on locally. And certainly one thing happened that you and I could not participate in, and it's our good friend, Nick and Jessica's wedding that happened on Friday. Why? Because big shout out to them. Congratulations. That's awesome. Nick is one of our most valued employees. He started the company with us. Love the fact that he got married and I hate the fact that you and I couldn't go.

Yeah, unfortunately, the procedure center that we do all of the endoscopies at...we had a confirmed at least two cases of people that came through we were advised as healthcare providers that we needed to be diligent for at least five days and make certain that we did not insert our presence into crowds of more than 10 publicly and that was, I mean, not to be able to go and support someone that we care a lot about such as Nick and then his new wife Jessica was no fun at all. But on top of that, it also led to doing next to nothing for five days over the Fourth of July weekend. So our freedom was basically sit at home and just trying to get people sick.

That's exactly it. I've got a great firework display of me with a one of those little sparklers in my backyard alone.

Yeah, that's that's about as far as is it gotta be here. We fortunately I live in the country. So there is a handful of folks who shot off fireworks but that pretty much concluded the Fourth of July weekend for 2020.

A quick shout out to my mom just turned 78 on July 4th, got a bunch of pitches from her love the fact that she's still kicking it staining her own deck staining her own deck, taking care of her own yard. 78 mom Happy birthday.

Happy birthday. Diana Brown. That's awesome.

Um, so this is a really interesting thing. I'm a little bit shocked about the whole way that we're kind of approaching this whole mask situation and all these other things right now. This is July 2020, we're in the middle of a pandemic, we're having a resurgence of everything. Everybody's flipping out again, we had the first flip out, and now we're having flip out number two, and everybody's wondering what the government's gonna do, but I don't blame them because we're six months into this pandemic. And there's so many things that have had misinformation from organizations that we traditionally would say, Oh, they said it, it's perfect. So like the CDC and the who the World Health Organization. Let's just go over a couple quick things. And if you look back at the earlier episodes of gut check project on COVID. We've been ahead of the science the whole time, and we've really just tried to talk science not conjecture, not scary, nothing like that. So this is initially, the who said, there's no evidence that this has human to human transmission. Wrong, learned that very quick, that was very wrong. And then the CDC came out and said masks don't matter. And wrong. Now they're mandatory. And we were told that hydroxychloroquine plaquenil was a panacea, it's gonna fix everything. It's gonna cure everybody. And then this article comes out and it says, no, it's harming people. And then everybody retracted articles from the Lancet and the New England Journal of Medicine and said, what are we doing publishing this, this crap? And really, an article came out last week that said, no a much more refined, well done study actually shows that it saves lives. And then when they looked back and looked at the original study, that it was probably poorly done, and they didn't equate for certain risk factors and stuff. So it's really hard to know what to actually do this is, this is unprecedented times, this is not something that we have ever dealt with before. So it's okay to be wrong. just own it and know that you're wrong.

It is. And I do want to point out something before we get too far if you're watching this and you feel as if something's going to be presented from a political slant, trust me that is the furthest thing from what Ken and I want to do on this topic whatsoever. Science should be agnostic to any political affiliation. And I think what you're going to hear from Ken and I as we move forward, is just utilize data. That's what science is about. And that's how we save lives. It has zero to do with a with a political party whatsoever.

Dude, this totally reminds me This is deja vu for me, though. I mean, you have to understand remember, I take polyphenols every single day. So I remember back in the 1940s and 50s when seatbelts were first proposed Getting in huge arguments with people. Oh, yeah, just like yeah, seat belts. It aroused heated debates, despite increasing scientific research. It was between, I think it was in 1947 I get in a huge argument with somebody that affirming that the this actually saves lives. And among the arguments put forth against the seat belts, there were all these other things. And they were all disputed by researchers. But the opposition to seat belts remained in place and it took all up to the 1980s to actually make it so that you all cars had to have three point seat belts. And I don't even know when the law went into place where basically you get a ticket if you don't so, I've been through this before I've been through arguments for science tries to win. And so I remember 1948, that was tough.

That's it's amazing how young you look for having been around just after the World War Two and old enough to have that kind of conversation. So my hat's off to you for being around in the 40s. And, and and really just kind of keeping it together and passing for a 40 year old yourself now, so that's kind of weird.

You know it. It's odd. It's a little bit odd.

Yeah, it's really, really strange. I mean, like, seriously, you wer...