Welcome everybody to episode 20 of The Illusion of Consensus podcast.
I'm here today with Dr. Reid Sheftall. Reid and I have got to know each other through the pandemic, mainly through a series of podcasts that Reid hosted. I think we recorded something like 20 to 24 hours of podcast together, where we discussed every aspect exhaustively about the science of the pandemic, how fast the disease spread, how deadly the disease was, the vaccines, etc.
The striking thing about that was we had a really friendly agreement on many things and friendly disagreements on many other things. It was actually kind of like a scientific discussion or debate in many, many cases. I greatly enjoyed that. I've been looking forward to introduce him to The Illusion of Consensus audience.
— Jay Bhattacharya
Spotify:
Apple link: Episode 20
Dr. Reid Sheftall on Substack:
Podcast Transcript Highlights:
(Full Transcript available above in tab under post title)
Dr. Reid Sheftall on performing surgery on burn victims in Cambodia as part of his charity Operation Kids:
And so the spurned woman would get their bodyguards to burn the children of the other woman. That was the common scenario, terrible. And so most of my patients were six years old and younger, very small children. But the thing ended up expanding into an enormous program. We were doing fixing decubitus ulcers for children that are stuck in wheelchairs because of polio. We fixed eyes, there's some horrible cross-eyed problems here and we fixed those. We pinned ears back that were very, very noticeable, 90 degrees to the head almost. We started doing open heart surgery on children that were born with congenital anomalies. I'm leaving about half of the things out that we do. We even tutor children who are having trouble in school. It just got to be an enormous thing. And it was still just me doing all of it, but we started branching out in all other specialties basically. And I would bring a help, like an ophthalmologist, when we were doing something with the extraocular muscles, something like that. But for the most part, it was just me.
Dr. Reid Sheftall on extending free speech rights to those with incorrect views:
I certainly agree that people who are wrong should also be allowed to say what they think. And, you know, believe me, they took down some people that I roll my eyes when I listen to them also, if you know what I mean. They're wrong. You know, I'm talking about like the disinformation dozen. Sometimes they're wrong about things. But to take down someone who was not wrong. And again, right and wrong is not the point. It's just that the people deserve to hear both sides maybe. Let them decide based on the logic presented. No arguing from authority and all that junk. Just you need to make your case and explain. And I showed a graph of why we had reached herd immunity and why no one was fully vaccinated at that point. And it's absolutely unassailable. And they took it down.
Dr. Reid Sheftall on Birx convincing Trump to extend lockdowns:
Dr. Birx pushed lockdowns when there was absolutely no evidence supporting that decision and pushed it to President Trump. And the other thing she did, and she wrote this in her book now, I'm not making something up, she bragged about tricking him into extending the lockdowns after two weeks. Remember two weeks to flatten the curve? It was gonna be over by Easter, all that stuff. Do you remember that, Jay? Okay, well, she tricked him into extending them. So she's number one on the list. Number two is Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the CDC director, that's right. Number three is Leanna Nguyen, Dr. Leanna Nguyen.
Episode 20: Dr. Reid Sheftall On Questioning The Covid Narrative