“Dr. Vivek Murthy”

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Speaker 2 Hi, I'm Will.

Speaker 2 I generally go shampoo and then soap. Huh?

Speaker 3 I'm talking for showering. No, no, we got it, guy.

Speaker 2 Sean,

Speaker 2 what's your loop?

Speaker 1 I go soap first, always, and then shampoo.

Speaker 2 Really? Huh.

Speaker 2 I go bar of soap.

Speaker 3 Yeah. And then I only wash this hair every four or five days.

Speaker 1 You don't have to say that out loud.

Speaker 3 Well, but you know, if you wash your hair, it gets too fluffy.

Speaker 1 You guys use moisturizer in your skin when you get out?

Speaker 4 Do you guys use moisturizer?

Speaker 2 Yeah, I have a whole thing that I go through. This is no fluke.
So, you look like that after all this care, too?

Speaker 4 You need more care.

Speaker 2 That's so depressing.

Speaker 3 Why don't you cheer me up with a fresh episode of Smartless?

Speaker 2 Okay, yeah, let's go. Smart,

Speaker 2 lettuce.

Speaker 2 Smart,

Speaker 2 less.

Speaker 2 Smart,

Speaker 2 less.

Speaker 3 Listener, Sean's got a little cap on and he's got his little glasses on. He's the most positive, sweetest, nicest guy I think I've ever met in my life.

Speaker 2 Will, would you agree? Would you agree? I would agree.

Speaker 3 Do you feel warm and fuzzy when you're around Sean?

Speaker 1 I feel warm and fuzzy when I'm around you too.

Speaker 3 I love hanging out with you. I love Sean.

Speaker 1 I'd like to hug, because we're going to see each other tonight. Tonight.
And I can't wait. i'm going to be all over and we're going to hug each other and we're going to hold each other for an hour

Speaker 2 so he's missed the last couple because sean we've done it a few times in the last week couple weeks we've hung out and jason hasn't been there jason i know you were finishing up oh by the way we haven't said yeah we haven't said you completely wrapped ozark yeah congratulations finished finished ozark thank you very much how do you feel congratulations i feel uh you know obviously a little sad that i'm not going to see those people um as much anyway name one of them quickly name one of them name one of those people well how how about Linda Linney?

Speaker 3 She was an incredible Laura star.

Speaker 2 It's Laura. What is it? It's Laura Linney, dude.

Speaker 2 Laura.

Speaker 3 Oh, Jesus Christ. Five years of my God.

Speaker 2 Why did she never correct me? How about that, Linda Linney?

Speaker 3 But I feel like the audience is going to really dig this last season.

Speaker 3 That's great. We've stitched it all up.

Speaker 1 Well, I love that. It's made a lot of people really entertained.

Speaker 3 Sad and scared.

Speaker 2 No, but do you feel, what is that feeling you feel right now?

Speaker 2 you feel probably relief to a certain degree and also

Speaker 2 maybe you haven't processed all of the, I don't know. I'm speaking for you.
Probably.

Speaker 3 Yeah, probably. Probably stuff will hit me later on, but

Speaker 3 the overwhelming feeling I have is a little bit of relief and some pride that we all didn't screw it up, I don't think.

Speaker 2 We can all use some pride in our life, right?

Speaker 2 But a lot of people don't know.

Speaker 1 A lot of people don't know, Jay, that you shot the final two seasons and now there's no more.

Speaker 3 There is no more. Yeah.
And I feel like we, I hope that we didn't screw it up. There was, there was a chance that we would

Speaker 2 do it. Yeah, you'll let me know.

Speaker 1 Keep your phone on. Thank you.

Speaker 2 You're very honest that way, Sean. I like that about you.
Thank you.

Speaker 2 Jason, how are you? Will you feel dumb four years from now when you're like, I can't believe I'm shooting Return to Ozark

Speaker 2 for

Speaker 2 the new streaming service from Ozark also? Yeah, the new jack-in-the-box streaming service.

Speaker 3 Ozark 2, T-double-O, just Just like the wolf.

Speaker 2 All right, let's get right to it.

Speaker 1 Listen, guys, we all

Speaker 1 listen to how written this is.

Speaker 1 We all go to the doctor at some point in our lives to feel better, right?

Speaker 3 Wait, we're not doing hypochondriac.

Speaker 1 No, we aren't. Hypochondriac is my other podcast.
I do know.

Speaker 2 Oh, God. You can find it where you find your podcast.

Speaker 1 That's right. But today, we have the doctor of all doctors who's going to make us all feel a little better.
I'm super excited to meet him and ask him a bunch of dumb questions because I know nothing.

Speaker 1 I don't even understand his title, to be honest. So that'll be my first question.
But who's this doctor fellow? He's one of the smartest people on the planet. He got his MD from Yale.

Speaker 1 He is among the most trusted voices in America on matters of public health. He's the nation's doctor.
He is the United States Surgeon General. What?

Speaker 2 Dr.

Speaker 1 Vivek H. Murthy.
What?

Speaker 2 Good lord.

Speaker 2 Hello, guys. There he is.
Wow, what an honor. Look at you.
Look at this guy.

Speaker 3 Sean, you have outdone it here.

Speaker 2 By the way, you look like, I know you get this every day.

Speaker 1 You look like you're 19 years old.

Speaker 4 Well, I'll take that as a compliment. Thank you, Sean.

Speaker 2 Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 How old a fellow are you?

Speaker 4 Well, I'm 44 years old.

Speaker 3 Oh, my God. Wow.
How can you be 44?

Speaker 2 There's so much more with your life, Admiral, than I have at 51. It's embarrassing.

Speaker 3 Surgeon General at 44. But this is, I want to say this is the second time? No.

Speaker 2 Yes. Yes.
Yes.

Speaker 4 I'm Surgeon General.

Speaker 2 And you were the 19th, is that correct? He's surprised you knew anything. Did you hear that? No.

Speaker 2 Sorry,

Speaker 2 I don't mean to misquote you.

Speaker 4 Yeah, no, I was the 19th Surgeon General under President Obama back during his second term. And yeah, now I serve as the 21st Sergeant General.

Speaker 2 21st President Byron. Sir, if I may, now, how do we address you? Admiral is okay.
That's okay.

Speaker 4 Well, so, Will, I'm actually incredibly impressed that you know this because most people assume that I'm that general is my title, but technically

Speaker 4 I'm an admiral, actually. So but how did you know that?

Speaker 2 Most people,

Speaker 2 you know, I guessed.

Speaker 2 And you look like you have a, you had an admiral quality.

Speaker 3 He's got a fast internet segment

Speaker 1 well?

Speaker 2 I've got real fast broadband here. Yeah.

Speaker 3 Now, let me ask a dumb question. Admiral is Navy?

Speaker 4 Yeah, so great question. So

Speaker 4 you guys are...

Speaker 2 You didn't graduate high school?

Speaker 3 So Admiral is Navy, yes.

Speaker 4 So Admiral is Navy, but there are also other services that have the title Admiral or the rank system that includes Admiral. And one of them, so we have eight uniformed services in the U.S.

Speaker 4 government, the Army, Navy, Air Force, you're familiar with. One of them is also the United States Public Health Service Commission Corps.

Speaker 4 And that's the service of which I serve as a commanding officer. We have about 6,000 nurses, doctors, pharmacists, physical therapists, and we deploy them around the country during times of emergency.

Speaker 4 You know, Ebola back in the day, hurricanes, tornadoes, and now COVID-19. And so in the public health service, we use a similar rank system as the Navy.

Speaker 4 So Admiral is equivalent, our equivalent of general in the Army or Air Force.

Speaker 2 Wow. Wow, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
Again, sorry,

Speaker 2 what is that department that is uniformed that goes out?

Speaker 4 So it's the United States Public Health Service Commissioned Corps. Okay.

Speaker 2 Wow, amazing. And so there are, you said there are doctors and there are pharmacists.
Yes.

Speaker 4 Yes. Doctors, nurses, physical therapists, pharmacists, public health engineers.
Most people don't even know they exist.

Speaker 2 So you could, so in the middle of an emergency, your doorbell could ring. It's like, hey, listen, we got a massage coming your way.

Speaker 2 I'm a physical therapist, and I've been ordered to give you a massage. Sure.

Speaker 4 Well, we haven't built out that capacity yet for the

Speaker 4 massage needs.

Speaker 2 Let me just tell you, my relaxation is critical to the security of this nation. Yeah, right.

Speaker 3 Now, Admiral, where do we find you today?

Speaker 3 You're not in Los Angeles. You're in Washington, D.C., I'll bet, yes?

Speaker 4 I am, yeah, I'm in Washington, D.C.

Speaker 3 And a typical day for you is

Speaker 3 where is the office? It's not the White House, is it?

Speaker 4 So I split my, when I'm in D.C. itself, I split my time between the White House and the Department of Health and Human Services, which is by the Congress building.

Speaker 4 And, you know, we spend a lot of time also just, there's no actual typical day because some days were, like yesterday, for example, I was visiting a middle school in Washington, D.C.

Speaker 4 and doing sort of a virtual town hall with middle schoolers around the country for Get to Know Your Classmate Day, which is actually a sort of a national designation, which most people don't know about, but which is sort of a fun day to focus on social connection and community in schools.

Speaker 4 And other days, you know, I'm I'm doing sort of press, you know, related engagements, you know, connected to COVID-19.

Speaker 4 Other days, I'm working on our commissioned corps and getting our officers deployed to emergencies. So every day is incredibly different.
And we field a lot of incoming inquiries from the public.

Speaker 4 You know, people will... A lot of people have questions about COVID-19, about their schools and how to keep their kids safe, but a lot of people have non-COVID questions too.

Speaker 4 People sometimes send us their own personal medical questions. It's pretty extraordinary.

Speaker 3 How did this come your way? How did you receive a request from Sean P. Hayes to?

Speaker 2 Why did you say yes? Yeah.

Speaker 2 How did this go through?

Speaker 1 Let me just start out by saying, because I, like, I don't want to speak for most people, but I'm an idiot. And

Speaker 1 I really don't understand what it is you do. And I'm fascinated.
I mean, I know a little bit, but I'm fascinated with what Jason just said. What's the day in the life of someone in your position?

Speaker 1 And how do you delegate? How do you manage what's going on and then deploy the help that's needed? You know, all of those kinds of things.

Speaker 4 Yeah, well, it's well, I'll answer both of your questions.

Speaker 1 That's why I asked you to come on so I could learn.

Speaker 4 Yeah, no, and I and I appreciate it. And I'll tell you when

Speaker 4 my team told me about the invitation from you, Sean, and from your team.

Speaker 2 And I actually was excited to do this because to show you a photo of Sean, like this is the guy. And you're like, I can't

Speaker 2 still is not ringing any bells.

Speaker 3 Promises, promises.

Speaker 2 That's it. No.

Speaker 4 Well, I'll tell you, most of the engagements I do are pretty darn serious.

Speaker 4 I thought it would be fun to actually do something that was laid back where we could talk about important stuff and have fun while we do it. So for sure.

Speaker 2 I have one question. This is a burning question,

Speaker 2 which is this. When I go to school as a four-year-old, when I first, or

Speaker 2 sorry, when I first go to like first grade as a six-year-old, let's say,

Speaker 2 What are the because I remember going through this with my with my two older boys? I'm going to have to do with my youngest son again. And remind me,

Speaker 2 what I have to prepare my son for, what he has to be inoculated against when he goes into school.

Speaker 4 Oh, yeah, great question. Well, there are a whole series of things that kids need to be inoculated for these days.
They include measles, mumps, rubella, polio, and a series of others.

Speaker 4 And the good news is like this has been going on for a while.

Speaker 2 How long, like

Speaker 2 50, 100 years, a lot of these were longer, right?

Speaker 4 Yeah, so it's interesting.

Speaker 4 Like if you look back in our history as a country, the first real requirement around vaccination, around inoculations, was actually George Washington, President George Washington,

Speaker 4 asking the troops actually to get inoculated against smallpox because more

Speaker 4 soldiers were dying from smallpox than anyone would have imagined.

Speaker 4 And after that, though, in the 1800s, Will is when schools started to require various vaccinations and they just increased.

Speaker 4 So now the vast, vast majority of schools in America have these same requirements requirements around vaccination.

Speaker 2 So most adults that I know that you and I know and encounter whether they're friends or we're having dinner or we encounter them at the store or on the subway or in the parks or wherever we go, most of these

Speaker 2 people, like 99% of these people, have been inoculated against all these things that you've just

Speaker 2 received a vaccine against all these things that you just named.

Speaker 3 Is that if they wanted to go to school, they had to.

Speaker 2 I'm just asking about those things, measles and mums rebellion, those things, right?

Speaker 4 Yeah, if they went through the school system, they did.

Speaker 2 So if they went to school at all, then they did that. Okay, that's interesting.
Okay, good to know.

Speaker 4 So in some cases, you know, like there may have been exceptions that people were able to sort of carve out, but the vast majority went through the system and got vaccinated.

Speaker 4 That's actually why, that's frankly the only reason that we were able to get vaccination rates so high for things like measles. Right.
And why we're able to contain it.

Speaker 2 And so everybody, and whether it doesn't matter what vocation you're in, if you're an athlete, you're a podcaster or whatever it is that you did.

Speaker 3 What if you're an airline pilot or something?

Speaker 2 Or an airline pilot too, sure, but let's

Speaker 2 named. A logger, airline pilot.
A gardener. You went to school, you got inoculated against those things, right?

Speaker 4 That's right.

Speaker 2 Thank you, doctor. That's right.
That's interesting.

Speaker 3 Will used to be a lawyer specializing in cross-examination.

Speaker 2 What do you do?

Speaker 2 He'll box you in. I'm just asking about those things that

Speaker 2 we've historically done. That's it.
So,

Speaker 2 sorry, Jason, I cut you off. You were going to ask a question about his day to

Speaker 3 My no, I was done. A full stop.
I think Sean looks like he's got something.

Speaker 1 I have many questions.

Speaker 2 Here, let's have it.

Speaker 1 You were instrumental in preventing the spread of Ebola and Zika viruses.

Speaker 1 And tell us what it's like to get information like that on possibly deadly viruses and how you go about stopping them before they become pandemics. And by the way, have those been eradicated?

Speaker 1 I don't know. And what are the odds that they're coming back?

Speaker 2 It's a three-part.

Speaker 4 Yeah, well, great question.

Speaker 4 So there is still Ebola in the world. In fact, we are still

Speaker 4 working hard to identify and to control cases that have surfaced

Speaker 4 over recent months in Africa. And that's something we're going to have to continue to remain vigilant about.
But to your broader question, like, how do you react when these things come?

Speaker 2 Yeah, what do you do?

Speaker 4 There are always various threats that are run.

Speaker 4 We don't have the luxury of running, unfortunately. But you know, so what we've got to do, first of all, is just very quickly understand what's known known and what's not known.

Speaker 4 And the tough part about a lot of these epidemics and pandemics, when they start, is that you've got enough to know that you have to worry, but there's still a lot of open, unanswered questions.

Speaker 4 COVID-19, perfect example, right?

Speaker 4 When it became clear that this is something that we really needed to worry about, you know, at the end of 2019, beginning of 2020, there were still a lot of open, unanswered questions.

Speaker 4 And so it's this circumstance where you've got to move forward with incomplete information, but recognizing that if you wait to get all the answers to all your questions, it's going to to be too late.

Speaker 4 A lot of damage could potentially be done.

Speaker 4 And that's the difference between sort of working sort of in a theoretical setting and working in applied medicine and science, which is what public health is all about.

Speaker 4 And so it's, you know,

Speaker 4 those are difficult times.

Speaker 4 And you got to quickly convene all of your scientific expertise in government, pull together people outside government who are experts as well, and then make the best judgment call you can about really a few things.

Speaker 4 One, how to communicate to the public about this so people know how alarmed they should be. Right.
But also, what measures to take. Like, you know, do you start rolling out precautions in hospitals?

Speaker 4 Do you ask people to take precautionary measures to reduce spread? So there's a lot of decisions that have to get figured out very, very quickly.

Speaker 2 You know, in World War II, Admiral, in World War II, they used to have this thing where when they were bombing, and both sides, when they were bombing, that people would turn off their lights, right?

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 they'd institute a blackout so that the planes couldn't see. And there were a lot of people who were like, I don't want to turn my lights off because I want to be free to keep my lights on.

Speaker 2 And it wasn't necessarily that your lights specifically were going to,

Speaker 2 then they were going to go, there's London because we see one guy's lights. But if everybody did that, then all the lights would be on.
So it really counted on everybody keeping their lights off.

Speaker 2 And you know what? Most people did it because they didn't want to get bombed, right? Yeah. Bill loves medical.
Seems kind of simple. Again, I'm not drawing any parallels.

Speaker 3 No, I feel like I'm picking up on some kind of a parallel.

Speaker 2 No, no, no, no, no. I'm just trying to remind myself.
I'm asking a doctor if that seems true for a lot of the things he's working with.

Speaker 4 Well, it's a really interesting point you bring up, Will, because it points to a historical tension we've had in our country, right?

Speaker 4 But not just us, but a lot of sort of modern nations and modern cultures, if you will, which is there's a tension between the collective interest and the individual interest, right?

Speaker 4 Like, you know, we all, you know, want to have our individual choices and freedoms to make decisions for ourselves. But then there are circumstances where those decisions tend to affect other people.

Speaker 4 The classic example is driving in the freeway, right?

Speaker 4 So we tell people, look, you got to obey a speed limit because if you drive at 100 miles an hour, your decision potentially can affect somebody else.

Speaker 4 And so, you know, when it comes to things like what the example you shared about turning your lights out, everyone incrementally reduces risk, right?

Speaker 4 You know, when people can't see or planes can't see where a city is and then they potentially won't vomit.

Speaker 4 But also when it comes to health, that is true in so many circumstances.

Speaker 4 So what you mentioned around schools and why we have vaccination requirements in schools, that was done in part because we recognize that if a child comes to school and they're sick, there's a chance that they could spread that to other people.

Speaker 4 Even if those other people are vaccinated, some small portion of people may not respond to vaccines. Vaccines aren't 100%, even though a lot of them are really, really good.

Speaker 4 So it's a step that we take

Speaker 4 to really protect the common good, recognizing that we have shared interests. And that balance has always been a challenge for us as a country.

Speaker 4 It's something we have to negotiate often with every new set of decisions.

Speaker 2 When you were starting to become a doctor, did you see yourself playing a role like this? Or was your intention to be a much more sort of traditional medical doctor? How'd you get the job? Yeah.

Speaker 4 Yeah, it was absolutely not in my

Speaker 4 sort of in my to-do list, dream list, you know, five-year plan.

Speaker 4 I'll tell you this, I actually never,

Speaker 4 I feel slightly embarrassed about this, but I never wanted to serve in government at all because I thought that government was one of the least efficient and effective ways to create change.

Speaker 4 That was my belief as a child, you know, growing up and just thinking about the world and what I wanted to do.

Speaker 4 It wasn't that I didn't think it was important, but it just didn't feel like it was like the right place for me.

Speaker 4 So where I was focusing my time was I was, you know, I was practicing medicine, you know, I was training in medicine.

Speaker 4 I thought I was going to practice and I would maybe do other things like build nonprofit organizations.

Speaker 4 I had started with my sister doing a lot of HIV education work back in the 90s and we built our first nonprofit together.

Speaker 4 And I thought maybe I'd do stuff like that, you know, like sort of all, but all in the private sector.

Speaker 4 But what happened was actually kind of unexpected for me, which is that in 2007, 2008, you may remember like the presidential primaries on both sides were kind of getting up and going.

Speaker 4 And there was a lot of discussion, you know, on both sides of the political aisle about healthcare.

Speaker 4 And one of the things I realized is that a lot of my colleagues in the hospital, they were getting to be pretty cynical and burned out and pessimistic because they felt that this system wasn't really working for patients or for healthcare providers, but it was primarily working for insurance companies.

Speaker 4 And so they were kind of feeling, frankly, pretty bummed out about this and not like, and despondent, and not so hopeful.

Speaker 4 And I just thought, hey, if this is a chance when there's a lot of discussion, maybe some real change could happen.

Speaker 4 Maybe we should organize doctors around the country to have more of a voice advocating for patients to create a better healthcare system.

Speaker 4 So that's actually how I got into this world of advocacy and thinking about healthcare policy. It wasn't because I had any expertise.

Speaker 4 I was probably the least qualified person to build that kind of organization or movement at the time. But what I lacked in experience, I tried to make up for in interest, curiosity, and passion.

Speaker 3 And just straight common sense about what we kind of need, right?

Speaker 4 Well, yeah. And then what I found, Jason, was that like there are a lot of people, like frontline nurses, doctors, physical therapists who were seeing like what the problems were.

Speaker 4 And they had a pretty good sense of some of the things we had to change, but they weren't at the table, right? When decisions were being made about what policies to put in place.

Speaker 4 So I started doing some of that work. But even with all of that, I didn't think I was going to do anything in government.
Then a funny thing happened, actually.

Speaker 4 I was coming back from LA, actually, to Boston.

Speaker 4 I went out on a red-eye flight and I got off the plane and I was like ready to go home and just like, you know, crash in bed because I can't sleep on flights.

Speaker 4 And I remembered I had left my dry cleaning, you know,

Speaker 4 the dry cleaning place. So I was like, oh, God, it's been sitting there for days.
Let me just go get it. So I go pick up my dry cleaning.
My hands are full, right? And my phone rings.

Speaker 4 And I happen to glance at it, and it's a 202 number, which is Washington, D.C. And I didn't recognize the number, so I'm like, I'm not going to pick it up.
I'm going to just keep going.

Speaker 4 Keeps ringing, keeps ringing. Finally, if something tells me, just pick it up.

Speaker 4 So I pick up the phone, and it turns out that call was actually a call from the white house asking me if i would be interested in being considered to serve as surgeon general and i was like where this is like so out of the blue where is this coming from and you put it in your spam folder you put that number back in the spam

Speaker 2 don't ever call me again

Speaker 4 you know what i did is i actually i called my my then girlfriend now wife alice i said alice and who was in la at the time she lived there and um I said, Alice, I just got the weirdest call.

Speaker 4 You'll never, you'll never ever guess like who this was. She's like, was it the White House asking you to be Surgeon General?

Speaker 2 And I was like, whoa, how did you know this?

Speaker 4 This is like crazy. Where did that come from? She's like, I don't know.
I just had this intuition. So that's how I actually ended up coming down this path.

Speaker 4 But I'll tell you the last thing that, and this is the part that I never could have figured out.

Speaker 2 Wait, did she put you up for the job? Is that what happened?

Speaker 4 No, she didn't, actually. In fact, she was far more loved by people in the administration than I was.
If you guys met her, if she was on this podcast, you'd understand why in like about 30 seconds

Speaker 2 a lot more likable. And she's just awesome.
Yeah, because you're a nightmare.

Speaker 2 You're not likable at all. You're super smart and kind and very sweet.
Yeah, yeah, terrible.

Speaker 4 But I'll tell you, the thing I never could have predicted is I, up until then, I had lived a pretty hodgepodge life. Like, I had, you know, been building these nonprofits.

Speaker 4 I had like started a tech company. I was practicing medicine.
I was teaching. And none of them really seemed like they fit together.

Speaker 4 People would sometimes look at my resume and be like, you can't make up your mind what you want to do. Like, that seems to be your problem.
But the funny thing is, in this job as Surgeon General,

Speaker 4 I find that all of those elements actually came together. You know, President Obama at the time and his team really wanted to modernize the role of Surgeon General.

Speaker 4 They wanted to think about, it was just in the middle of the Ebola crisis when I came in, but they wanted to really think about how that office could be effective, you know, as a public health educator using modern day tools.

Speaker 4 And so I found that all of the experience I had built in my sort of tech company days where I was doing a lot of like the UI UX work, you know, in terms of like the front end, you know, the sites we were building, that came in handy.

Speaker 4 The grassroots organizing I had done in building our advocacy organization came in handy to build our public health campaigns. Like all of the clinical medicine work, of course, came in handy.

Speaker 4 My basic research background came in handy. So it was in a funny way.
It was that job that brought together all of these crazy, disparate parts of my experience.

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Speaker 2 And now, back to the show.

Speaker 1 Let me ask you something because, you know, I have a bunch of really depressing questions to ask you.

Speaker 2 So we'll get to those in a minute. Great, can't wait.

Speaker 2 But what is the difference between you? Warn our listeners so they can go fix themselves a beverage.

Speaker 1 So what about, what's the difference between you and Fauci? Because Fauci gets all the airtime and he seems to be the voice of

Speaker 1 has been the voice of this pandemic and all that's been going on with it when it's you that probably is just speaking of job titles above him correct and having to implement all these things well they're at different institutions first of all oh i didn't know i see i don't know this yeah

Speaker 2 the national institute of health right that broadband connection is really working for you i'm not even you saw i'm not even looking at that i mean i just happen to pay attention to stuff and i have to be what they call naturally smart go ahead no but sorry i am i'm naturally stupid uh but truly i didn't know where see i don't know how that works like isn't the surgeon general the top top like that's the guy who runs the whole ship Well, so it's a good question.

Speaker 4 So, and Tony Fauci is an extraordinary guy. He's a, he's a friend of mine from before.
We worked together when I was first SG, first time around, and we work really closely now.

Speaker 4 So there are a number of people actually who sort of work as part of what, as I think of it, a medical leadership team. And they sort of work in parallel, but also collaboratively.

Speaker 4 One is Tony Fauci, who's at the NIH and runs the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Disease. He's been a leader really since HIV on every major infectious disease outbreak we've had.

Speaker 4 The other is a CDC director. The other is myself, you know, a surgeon general.

Speaker 4 And we all have sort of different lanes, and then there are a few others as well, that we all have different lanes that we sort of occupy.

Speaker 4 So the CDC is putting out actual guidance, you know, based on the epidemiological research that they're conducting and data they're gathering. So Dr.

Speaker 4 Fauci and his team are focused a lot on research and sort of basic science questions around the vaccine, around some of the therapies or treatments that you can get, oral treatments and others.

Speaker 4 Myself, I focus a lot on everything from mobilizing our commission corps to respond and support localities and states to doing a lot of public communications.

Speaker 4 So, we do a lot of shared work together when it comes to decision-making, and we certainly split up a lot of the communications work.

Speaker 4 And actually, frankly, I'm grateful for that because this is like too big and too complicated a crisis to like for one person to try to figure out entirely on their own.

Speaker 3 That's what I was going to ask you about. Was it the rollout of all the vaccines,

Speaker 3 all the shots you guys had to move across the country and make sure that they were in all the CVSs and Walgreens and all that stuff.

Speaker 3 I mean, I'm sure you didn't get into the weeds, weeds, weeds on that, but I'm sure you were privy to some of those emails and the apparatus that you guys had to prop up in a week to try to get it out there and catch up for all of the horrifically wasted time.

Speaker 3 Was that an immense thing to oversee, to witness, to affect?

Speaker 3 I'm sure you'll be humble and say that you left it up to a lot of other folks, but that must have been overwhelming to accomplish, which you guys did remarkably well.

Speaker 4 Well, that's kind of you, Jason.

Speaker 4 I mean, you're right that the logistics are just, I mean, it's absolutely extraordinary how complicated they are, because even if you just take something as simple as...

Speaker 4 getting vaccines to a pharmacy, right? They're different types of vaccines. They require different storages.
They have different dosages.

Speaker 4 You, in some cases, have to advise patients differently on them, because some are two doses, some are only one dose.

Speaker 4 It comes to getting them into doctors' offices, that's a whole other kettle of fish, right? Because doctors' offices have very different setups than pharmacies.

Speaker 4 They don't necessarily have big, deep, you know, deep freeze, you know, like, you know, apparatus to like store like in the Pfizer vaccine, which is required early on.

Speaker 4 So it's incredibly complicated.

Speaker 4 And not to mention that each state often wants to approach it a bit differently, how they distribute the vaccines, how much they lean in or lean out, whether they want to do big, large mass vaccination events or a whole bunch of mobile units.

Speaker 4 So, what we had to do early on

Speaker 4 as a federal government is really coordinate and support them with everything from funds to logistics to personnel.

Speaker 4 And we had and with metrics. So, we had to be able to quickly measure

Speaker 4 how we're doing in each state. Because you don't want to wait three months to figure out something's not going well, right? We need to know ASAP so you can fix it.

Speaker 4 So, I'll say from our standpoint, like, you know, I was, while I was not like, you know, calling each of the the CVSs and saying, hey, you know, got the vaccine, we had, thankfully, a team,

Speaker 4 sort of a COVID-19 team that had some really talented, capable people who were working on logistics. And every morning, we would talk and talk through.

Speaker 4 everything from what's the latest on the science, what's the latest on logistics, on distribution, on public education efforts.

Speaker 4 And we would go through all of that because, you know, every day so much happened and so much happened.

Speaker 3 And I would imagine that

Speaker 3 without getting political, but given the last administration um you having already been the surgeon general and watching what was happening slash not happening with that administration did you did you hit redial on that phone number and say hey guys if you're still interested i'd still love to serve again because i see that there's there's a bit of a hole there or uh was it were you or did they call you were you super excited about that must have just been uh a really fraught time for you observing and and being on the sideline and wanting to get back in there.

Speaker 4 It was a really

Speaker 4 complicated and frustrating year in 2020 for me because

Speaker 4 when you've been a part of pandemic responses before and you see

Speaker 4 the next pandemic come up,

Speaker 4 and this is not a political statement, it's just a practical statement. You want to help.
You want to be involved. You want to serve in whatever way you can.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 How frustrating is it when what you want to do, that you're involved in public health and serving and trying and looking out for the best interests of the public health and anytime politics and again all of us want to stay out of politics when anytime somebody is sort of inserts that it's like no no no i'm not here to serve a political agenda i i am and you must you must feel going crazy you have to keep repeating that in in different ways of explaining to people i'm not here to sell you anything other than i'm trying to make you feel better and i want everybody to be healthy that's it and there's a blueprint that we spent time working on and left behind and then it gets ignored ignored and then so you must have been like please call please call please call and then they did

Speaker 4 well so this is actually what what happened is um in or very early in the pandemic early in 2020 um i you know i had i had worked a bit with um then vice president biden and the uh obama administration but he and his team had had reached out uh to see if i i could help just provide some support and advice uh during the early stages of covet uh you know he and and so i did you know and my general philosophy was, look,

Speaker 4 if a decision maker, policymaker wants to understand more about a health-related subject,

Speaker 4 as experts, we should help. That's our job.

Speaker 4 That's what we should do for the public interest. But I also had known him from before, and I knew that

Speaker 4 he's very thoughtful about science expertise,

Speaker 4 really leading with that first and foremost. And so I was like, yeah,

Speaker 4 happy to help. So what happened actually

Speaker 4 starting in March of 2020 is his team asked me and and one other colleague to start doing a series of daily briefings with him on on COVID-19. And so it was a fascinating experience because

Speaker 4 while I had spent some time with him before,

Speaker 4 this was a whole different level of depth of engagement because we were doing these daily briefs.

Speaker 4 The team would sometimes allot, usually in the order of half an hour, for us to talk to him about like the latest status of COVID-19.

Speaker 4 But it was very common that these briefings would go 60 minutes or even 90 minutes because he was asking such interesting, detailed questions.

Speaker 4 And a lot of times I didn't expect him to ask at that level of detail.

Speaker 4 I mean, I was excited by it, but he really wanted to like get his arms around us, understand like not just what's going on, but like what do we need to do now?

Speaker 4 What do we need to be planning for in six months, 12 months? How do we prevent this thing from happening a second time around? Who is most impacted?

Speaker 4 We spent a lot of time, for example, talking about like the disparate impact of COVID-19 on black and brown communities and the impact, for example, the school closures we're having on increasing, for example, food insecurity among for many kids.

Speaker 2 Which has not been talked about enough in this country, frankly.

Speaker 4 That's exactly right.

Speaker 4 And to your point, Will, what COVID has highlighted is that so many of the issues that we're now and have been reading about in the paper, food insecurity, disparities in health, mental health, the mental health crisis that we have, including among our young people, A lot of these are worse now, but they predated the pandemic.

Speaker 4 I mean, they were bad before. You know, we just were not focusing enough attention, energy, and investment on that.

Speaker 1 I want to talk to you about the mental health thing because, you know, and Project Starfish, because I want you to tell everybody what Project Starfish is. It's really cool.

Speaker 1 But the mental health, clearly, it seems like mental health is the next pandemic.

Speaker 1 There is a mass shooting almost every day. And it's almost based on somebody who has had a history of mental health issues.
And it seems to be getting worse and worse and worse.

Speaker 1 So talk a little bit about that and tell them what Project Starfish is.

Speaker 4 Yeah, well, I'm glad you raised mental health. I mean, this was a huge issue.

Speaker 4 We had record rates, really, of depression and anxiety in our country, particularly among young people, incredibly high rates of suicide before COVID-19 came. And then COVID hits.

Speaker 4 And just yesterday, I spent the day at a middle school, or part of the day at a middle school, talking to students about what their experience of the pandemic was like.

Speaker 4 And I can't tell you how many of them said that they just, that they felt cut off from friends, that they felt

Speaker 4 they didn't know how to really engage with the virtual learning and they felt like they were falling behind. Some of them found silver linings during the pandemic.

Speaker 4 They found things that they got were really excited to learn about on their own. They were able to quarantine with family and like really deepen their relationship with them.

Speaker 4 But it was a real struggle for a lot of people. So

Speaker 4 here are

Speaker 4 some thoughts on it.

Speaker 4 I think we have an opportunity now, like as a country, to really rethink how we address mental health, not just from the standpoint of how do we prevent mental illness, but how do we recognize that

Speaker 4 mental health and well-being is more, it's about more than just saying, okay, I don't have clinical depression. I don't have a generalized anxiety disorder.
That's like one half of the spectrum.

Speaker 4 The other half of the spectrum is one where we can be having pretty rotten days, you know, be operating in a funk, you know, with a pretty low level of emotional energy, or we can be operating at the top end of our scale, you know, really bringing our all to our work, to our family, to our community.

Speaker 4 And we never really talk about how to do that, how to train our kids and give them a foundation for enhancing their emotional health and well-being.

Speaker 4 And we've just got to see it as part and parcel of health. So one of the things that we've been working on in our office is something we call Project Starfish.

Speaker 4 And the Starfish, you know, so many of you know, Starfish, it's an organism that regenerates, right?

Speaker 4 And so we think of this as an opportunity, this moment, as hard as it has been over the last 18 months, for us to think, how do we want to remake ourselves as a society into not just what we were in 2019, but something potentially even better.

Speaker 4 A lot of people are thinking about this, you know, on their own. They're kind of having second thoughts maybe about the job that they had.
Like, is that really the right job?

Speaker 4 Or about maybe the balance they had with time with family and work. Maybe they want more time with family.

Speaker 4 A lot of people have moved to be closer to family and friends because they realize this is not worth being far apart.

Speaker 4 But if we don't take a real conscious approach to this and intentionally think, you know, about what kind of society we want to design post-pandemic, how do we want our workplaces to support mental health?

Speaker 4 How do we think we should be giving kids a foundation in schools? for mental health and well-being?

Speaker 4 How do we think as a government we should be investing in these in prevention upfront and in mental health rather than waiting years for problems to arise and then trying to solve them?

Speaker 4 If we don't do that now, I worry we will lose a window of opportunity to act and to fashion a stronger, more equitable, more resilient society.

Speaker 3 Can I ask you in your position, do you have the authority if you wanted to, let's say if you wanted to start a required subject in public schools

Speaker 3 like there's English, math, history, and you have to take

Speaker 3 mental wellness or

Speaker 3 whatever we would call it. Do you have the authority in your job position or is that sort of the head of education or if you could you implement that unilaterally as a policy if you wanted to?

Speaker 4 It's a good question, Jason. The short answer is no.
And because a lot of our policy in schools, education policy, is actually very decentralized. So it's under local control.

Speaker 4 And that's why local school boards are often the ones that make decisions on things like curricula or on other subjects of what's focused on in school.

Speaker 4 But what we can do from our office, and we are actually working on an initiative right now around youth mental health, is we can build a compelling blueprint that we can work with the federal government on supporting, but work with states and localities on implementing so that schools do have

Speaker 4 a sense of how to create this foundation.

Speaker 4 Because here's the thing, Jason, if you talk to parents around the country, increasingly more and more of them recognize that there's a mental health crisis among youth in this country, right?

Speaker 4 So they have questions like, is it because of social media? Is it because of something else? Is it like, you know, whatever the factor of sociological media?

Speaker 1 Might because of this podcast, but yeah.

Speaker 2 You think it's having an effect.

Speaker 3 Some damage is coming from this. Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 2 Social media,

Speaker 2 can we just get rid of it altogether? I think it's the scourge of

Speaker 2 humanity. And I think it's

Speaker 2 annoying,

Speaker 3 granddad.

Speaker 2 Destroying.

Speaker 3 Do you want people to stay off your yard, too?

Speaker 2 Well, no,

Speaker 2 look, I've always wanted to know. And I want to, because

Speaker 2 I'm never going to have this chance to talk to somebody health officials such as yourself, Admiral.

Speaker 2 So I've switched it up, and I now will eat a salad, and then I'll work out like an hour later. And I find that at that, flipping that, I'm burning all those calories that I've got.

Speaker 2 Anyway, just so, yeah, we're part of it. Are you out of your mind? Don't cut me off.
This is important stuff, and people want to know.

Speaker 3 You want to know, workout before eating.

Speaker 2 He talked about remaking yourself. I'm remaking myself, and it's incredible.

Speaker 2 I want to know one thing.

Speaker 1 One thing, Dr. Murthy, because you were talking about, you touched on the mental health, which leads me to the next thing, which is loneliness.

Speaker 1 I know you've done a ton of research on loneliness, which I think is fascinating. Like, who researches loneliness? And I want to, I think it's such a common fear, especially as one gets older.

Speaker 1 And a lot of people are embarrassed to admit it, right? Admit that that's a fear. And I know it's one of mine.

Speaker 2 We couldn't tell because you just spent 10 minutes on this question. Right.
Anyway, wait, where are you all going? Where are you going? Was Is my question too long? Where are you going?

Speaker 4 I see them backing away.

Speaker 4 I kind of know what that's all about.

Speaker 4 But yeah, you know, it's really interesting. I totally didn't think I was going to discuss, think about, research, or work on that issue of loneliness when I started my term as surgeon general.

Speaker 4 But you know what happened to me is I spent a lot of time talking to people around the country.

Speaker 4 And what they would say to me are things like, you know, I feel like I've got to handle all of these struggles in my life by myself. Or I feel if I disappear tomorrow, nobody would even notice.

Speaker 4 Or I walk around just feeling totally invisible.

Speaker 4 And this wasn't just, you know, people who are living alone at the end stages of their life who were saying this.

Speaker 4 I'm talking about college kids on campuses surrounded by thousands of other kids who were saying this.

Speaker 4 I'm talking about people who go to work every day in busy office settings surrounded by lots of people who were saying this.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I've heard, because Sean, you were saying that you had gone to, because of having to wear a mask, you went to Gelson's and nobody recognized you, and you felt like just you're invisible for me.

Speaker 2 That's correct.

Speaker 1 And then at the checkout, I pulled my mask down and I felt better about myself.

Speaker 2 Yeah, and you, and you got back into your Tesla and you said to Scotty, I just feel so invisible.

Speaker 3 Admiral,

Speaker 3 tell me, what is you know so much about how to keep your body right and to stay healthy. What is the least healthy thing you do to yourself

Speaker 3 that you probably should not tell America, but you're going to on the Smartlist podcast?

Speaker 3 What's your guilty damage?

Speaker 2 Is it sugar?

Speaker 3 Is it salt? or is it you smoke three packs a day that's what it is right

Speaker 4 uh no no i'm not gonna i i don't smoke three packs a day i won't but here's where i am actually really falling short your own labels on those things go ahead yes actually there is a surgeon general's warning on cigarettes and on alcohol bottles so um which is actually the primary reason that people know the title surgeon general that they see it on these things and some people think i spend all my day stamping boxes of cigarettes with warnings but that is not the case someone's got to do it so what are you doing that is bad?

Speaker 4 So what I'm doing that's that's where I'm falling short is around sleep, right? So like I'm like what I really should be doing is I should be sleeping

Speaker 4 somewhere around eight hours a night. Seven to nine is what most people need.
I should be sleeping at a consistent time each night.

Speaker 4 And I should be keeping distractions away from me when I sleep, like phones, all the time.

Speaker 1 Sleep hygiene.

Speaker 4 Exactly. Sleep hygiene.

Speaker 4 And that's something I want to do, but I've struggled with that. Like I don't, I haven't prioritized and executed on getting to that.

Speaker 2 And is that because of work? Is that because of family? Is that because of the balance of the two? Or you've always been wired that way.

Speaker 3 It's work. He's got to keep his phone on for

Speaker 3 Biden, for Biden to hit him with a text in case he's, and he's sending you a bunch of kitties on skateboards, right?

Speaker 2 And that's keeping you up late, and it's pissing you off.

Speaker 2 You got to just go on do not disturb on the on the

Speaker 4 no, no, that's definitely not the case for the president. But it's actually a couple things.
I mean, one is like, it's, um, I've never been somebody who's been consistent about sleep across my life.

Speaker 4 So it's been like a lifelong sleep. Yeah, Satan.
So the second thing is I'm generally have operated as a night owl most of my life, but I have to get up very early.

Speaker 4 So that doesn't make for like a good combination. And I third is like, I have kids, right? So I have small kids and they're three and a half and five.
And my five-year-old son, he just refuses to

Speaker 4 sleep if I'm not actually next to him in the bed, right? Like he threatens, like, go on strike, all this kind of stuff. So,

Speaker 4 you know, you know, slightly embarrassing because I'm probably a bad parent for this, but like, I just, you know, we've just like let him sleep with me and my, my, and my daughter sleeps with my wife.

Speaker 4 And like we somehow figure it out, but half the night, he's like punching me, kicking me, like, just like, you know, just making sure I'm still there.

Speaker 3 I know how to construct a pillow wall between me and my kids, uh, like, like no one's business. Because if anything touches me, I'm up.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 So I got to create a little pillow wall there. I, I still, my, my sons are going to hate that I'm saying this out loud.
They're almost 13 next week and 11.

Speaker 2 and I still, at night, I have to lie with them in bed and put them to bed in that way until they fall asleep. That's so great.
And it's just

Speaker 4 what we do for our kids.

Speaker 2 It's just the way it is. But I will say this, Admiral, and I'm sorry, I hate to pull rank on you.

Speaker 2 Nice, nice. Literally.
But I.

Speaker 2 I'm like a field marshal of sleep over here because once I put the kids to bed,

Speaker 2 and these guys know about 9, 9.30, I'm in bed. I read a little bit, old school actual book.
I put my device away and I go to sleep. And it's very important.
My sleep is very, very important to me.

Speaker 2 And I get up super early. So I don't sleep 9 till 9, but I'll sleep sort of 9.30 and I'll get up at 5.30 or 6

Speaker 2 most days. And I'm just saying that because I want to flex that I have better sleep hygiene than the Surgeon General.
And these are things you don't often get to do. No.

Speaker 2 You totally do it.

Speaker 4 You totally do it. And so that's an area I've got to watch.

Speaker 2 Well, listen, and this is the reason I said it because what I'm going to say is

Speaker 2 I'd love to have the opportunity to come over and help you work through it. And I can talk you through it.
And I feel like I could be a real asset. Yeah, there's nothing creepy about that.

Speaker 3 Just lay down next to him, read him a story.

Speaker 2 I'm a sleep asset.

Speaker 4 Sorry.

Speaker 4 I was going to say, like, you know, the last thing I find is really powerful.

Speaker 4 about sleep is actually and this is a bit sounds like a bit of what will does but it's like get yourself in the right place like when you start sleeping so like because our minds are just like going a thousand miles an hour in a thousand directions right and like how to like quieten our mind and calm our mind before we get on that runway.

Speaker 2 It's like getting on the right.

Speaker 2 Listen, I've just had, I think you and I are just having the same idea at the same time. Are you about to appoint me the sleep czar?

Speaker 2 We need a sleep czar, and it should be me.

Speaker 3 You've been putting people to sleep for years. Will this is listening?

Speaker 2 It's unbelievable.

Speaker 2 We've got the last season of Ozark queued up, and everybody will be out. They'll be out.
Believe me. Return to Ozark is the one that I'm doing.

Speaker 4 These are hysterical.

Speaker 3 And we will be right back.

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Speaker 3 All right, back to the show.

Speaker 1 I want to talk about climate change because, look, I prefer to sleep.

Speaker 2 Stop looking out the window. It's not happening like that.
That's weather.

Speaker 2 I just stare at the window.

Speaker 2 I prefer cooler climates.

Speaker 1 I hate when it's hot, so I'm really angry about climate change. But talk to me, like, how does climate change and your position work together? What are you doing?

Speaker 1 What should we, is there any good news about freaking climate change? Or anything? Are we doing anything to make it better?

Speaker 4 Well, so to the first question, like my office actually does work on climate change. We did actually work a lot before when I was Surgeon General.

Speaker 4 We actually had worked on an initiative with the NIH and with President Obama on climate change and health, because it turns out there are some pretty big impacts of climate change on health for a whole bunch of reasons we could talk about.

Speaker 4 And now going forward, actually, in the administration, we recently set up

Speaker 4 in the Department of Health and Human Services an Office of Climate Change and Health Equity.

Speaker 4 And this is part of a much broader push on investing in addressing climate change, not just domestically, but in terms of global action that we're embarking on.

Speaker 4 But look, it can't happen fast enough because these changes are happening in real time. We're starting to see them.

Speaker 4 And sometimes people say, oh, like, you know, it seems like the temperature, global increase in temperature is really mild because they think like a degree or two, what's a big deal?

Speaker 4 But the downstream consequences are really quite extraordinary. So there is a lot of action and investment happening.
The question is, are we going to be able to do enough?

Speaker 4 Are we going to be able to sustain it?

Speaker 4 If this is the kind of thing which, you know, our investment and our attention to it waxes and wanes, depending on who's in office at the time or the politics of the moment, that's not going to serve us and our kids well.

Speaker 4 This is one of those things we've got to recognize: it doesn't matter what your party is, this is a threat to all of us.

Speaker 4 And so we've got to invest in addressing it just like we would any other health issue.

Speaker 2 Right. No, we are in, all sort of jokes aside, we are in an existential crisis right now.

Speaker 2 It is alarming where we're at. And we don't talk a lot about stuff like this on this show, but we are in an alarming place right now

Speaker 2 on this planet. And we are in an absolute climate emergency.

Speaker 2 Unless people come to terms with that end quickly, it's going to be over before we know it. And I know, again, I don't want to sound like a doomsday or something.

Speaker 1 Yeah, but it's one of those things, though, that

Speaker 2 beyond urging.

Speaker 1 So many things like, what can we do, right? It seems to, yes, you can inform us that it's happening, but what can we do?

Speaker 1 Okay, so if we're in the fortunate position of buying a new car, we buy electric rather than gas. If we, you know, there are certain little things you can

Speaker 1 do, but for the most part, it's up to the government and the people to implement.

Speaker 2 Jason, I know you're concerned because you were telling me the other day you were up all night and you went from room to room to room and you kept lighting on and you would turn on the lights and you went to the guest house and you went to the other room and then you went to the other thing you're building.

Speaker 2 You kept going from room to room and you got in the pool and it was warm. You got in the pool and you were just like trying to think, what can we, what can Frank do?

Speaker 2 I don't know.

Speaker 2 Yeah, go ahead.

Speaker 4 Can I ask you guys a question actually? You know, on this theme of, of just trying to rethink what life we want after this pandemic is over.

Speaker 4 I'm curious, when you guys think about your experience over the last 18 months, I'm curious, like, what was tough about it?

Speaker 4 But were there also things that were unexpected and good that you feel like, hey, I want to keep that in my life post-pandemic? I don't want to go back to the way I was in 2019.

Speaker 3 Well, it was that quarantining with everybody.

Speaker 3 You know, being having all that family time together was

Speaker 3 a silver lining, a bit, I think, I hope many people experienced. Sort of that forced gathering we were all into.

Speaker 3 I really gained from that a lot.

Speaker 2 Me too.

Speaker 2 It was incredible.

Speaker 2 Obviously it was

Speaker 2 so many lives were lost

Speaker 2 that it's almost beyond comprehension in such a short amount of time.

Speaker 2 But

Speaker 2 for my immediate family,

Speaker 2 it was a time for us to come together.

Speaker 2 We actually had a lot of healing in our family in that time

Speaker 2 that was incredible that otherwise would not have otherwise happened.

Speaker 2 And that I'm very, very thankful for, if I'm being honest.

Speaker 3 Speaking of that, speaking of the terrible numbers of lives lost,

Speaker 3 do you allow yourself to,

Speaker 3 a pat on the back is not the right term, but do you realize how many lives you've saved by

Speaker 3 being the man

Speaker 3 in charge right now

Speaker 3 as far as rolling out this

Speaker 3 life-saving policies and some of the mandates more recently that have come out. I mean, look at how many lives have been saved from just the mandate of like, you can't smoke in certain places.

Speaker 3 Like that saves a lot of health problems with secondhand smoke.

Speaker 3 But this directly about the mandates of these vaccines, all these lives that are not being wasted because of the courage of some of the policies that have been put forth, that's got to feel

Speaker 2 good.

Speaker 3 Again, is not probably the right word, but it's

Speaker 2 rewarding. Yeah.

Speaker 4 Well, I mean, sir, I do feel grateful, you know, to have the chance to be involved in this kind of work because you're right.

Speaker 4 I mean, this is one of those unusual circumstances in life where you can draw a very straight line between policies around vaccinating people and lives saved.

Speaker 4 And we're seeing that now happen again and again and again.

Speaker 4 But, you know, I'll tell you, like, you know, this is actually one of the reasons why I took this job. You know, after he was elected,

Speaker 4 you know, when

Speaker 4 the president and his team asked, you know me to come back and serve as surgeon general it was not a hard decision and not just because I had been you know advising him you know over that that past year but I remember talking to my wife about it and we said you know our kids are going to be studying this pandemic in school in five years in 10 years in 15 years like people will be looking at this for generations to come and trying to glean lessons from it ask what went wrong what went right and at some point our kids are going to ask us like even on Mars, because this planet's uninhabitable.

Speaker 2 When they're on Mars, they're going to be.

Speaker 4 Well, you know, I think at some point our kids are going to ask us, like, mama and papa, what did you do? Right. You lived through it.
What did you do?

Speaker 4 And I want us to be able to tell them that we did absolutely everything that we could at a time where this pandemic was ravaging our country and the world, where we and our family.

Speaker 4 had lost 10 members of our family to this disease and had seen many others hospitalized.

Speaker 4 Like, we wanted to be able to tell them, look, you know what, we did everything we could, that we didn't sit home and say, you know what, you know, it'll be a lot harder to like go into government, we have a much easier life, you know, here, you know, in the private sector.

Speaker 4 We didn't want to give excuses. We wanted to say that, you know, what we ran toward the fire here.
And so there's still a lot of work to do.

Speaker 2 Well, I think there was a lot of people, though, like you, like, speaking of ran, Sean, you ran towards the fire. By the way, if the fire is the chin shin on sunset, he ran right towards it.

Speaker 3 I wish that was the approach with climate, sort of addressing the immediacy of it, because I feel like if people lived traditionally to be 150 years old instead of, say, 90 years old, then maybe we would enact more sort of strict policies because we would actually be alive enough to reap the benefits of it, or the lack of implementing those policies, we would be exposed to the consequences of not acting.

Speaker 3 In other words, the cynic in me says that the politicians are not putting forth really good policies because they all figure, well, we're going to be dead dead before this planet roasts.

Speaker 3 And they're not thinking about their kids. And they should be because it really is going to,

Speaker 3 things are going to come home to roost after we're all gone. We should be thinking about that, right?

Speaker 4 We should be. And look, if you asked me, what do we need to truly accelerate our work on climate change, I would tell you that we need political courage.

Speaker 4 We need accurate information to be shared with people, not rampant misinformation that you see on social media right now. And the third thing we need is true grassroots mobilization.

Speaker 4 Those are the three things we need in our country and around the world to really address climate change. Because you're right, it's not just about us, right?

Speaker 4 It's, you know, we it's about our kids, it's about future generations.

Speaker 4 It's like, you know, do we really feel that it's okay to say that, yeah, we're not sure that our grandkids will be able to live in a world that's truly hospitable, that they're not going to be able to enjoy the things that we enjoy?

Speaker 4 Like that's, that does not compute, I think, for people across. the political spectrum.

Speaker 4 Yet, if you look at the way that this has been politicized, this issue, if you look also at the way that misinformation has spread rampantly about it, despite how much scientific consensus there is on climate change, you realize there's a disservice being done.

Speaker 4 And look, I got to say that, you know, on this point about the misinformation, we talked about social media earlier, you know, but early in the summer, you know, I issued a Surgeon General's advisory on the harms of health misinformation, just recognizing that not just with COVID, but more broadly.

Speaker 2 It was awesome. I remember that.

Speaker 4 It was fantastic.

Speaker 4 Thank you. But, you know, one of the things that was frustrating me is that

Speaker 4 misinformation is not new. People have been lying for like, you know, generations.
But it's the speed and scale and sophistication with which it's been spreading, aided and embedded by tech platforms.

Speaker 4 It's really made now so different from the past.

Speaker 4 And what I've always said to the platforms and continue to say publicly and privately is it is not okay from a moral standpoint for them to allow the rampant spread of this misinformation, knowing it's causing harm.

Speaker 4 and knowing it's dividing us further and to just sit back and not do enough about it or to tinker around the edges and say, you know what, we're trying to address it or hey, look over here at all the good things that we're doing.

Speaker 4 It's like, imagine if I ran a hospital, right?

Speaker 4 And I was treating people like pretty well for like heart attacks and pneumonias and stuff, but I had a really high rate of line infections and surgical side infections and blood clots because I just wasn't cleaning my procedures and I wasn't taking the precautions I need.

Speaker 4 Would anybody say, you know what, that's okay. We'll forget about all those safety issues because you're treating it.
We would say, no, you got to do the right thing and you got to do it safely.

Speaker 4 And the same moral standard should apply to these platforms.

Speaker 3 There's a very clear health risk and health damage

Speaker 3 with the misinformation. So why not make that as illegal as driving too fast or driving without a seatbelt or smoking in a bar?

Speaker 3 It should be against the law because it's creating health harm.

Speaker 2 What's tough for you is you have to find different ways to try to sell the American public on doing things that are good for them and encouraging them to do that.

Speaker 2 There is a culture in this country of doing things that are against the public interests by by other groups and and it's so

Speaker 3 by just being contrary

Speaker 2 it's insane that nobody does anything about it there's no controversy when it comes to when it comes to the environment

Speaker 2 there's no debate to be had they say well there's these other doctors no there's no debate on it there's no debate when it comes to the virus that's real the fact that we've allowed these things to occur is absurd well look you know it's it is frustrating because i'll tell you as a doctor, even long before I was in government, the most frustrating moments are when you have somebody who's sick and you know what they need,

Speaker 4 but you can't get it to them. Those are the most frustrating moments.
Those are even more frustrating than the moments where we don't have a cure for something.

Speaker 4 It's like you have the cure, you have the preventive tool, but you can't actually get it for somebody because the misinformation or some other reason.

Speaker 3 They don't take the vaccine, but then when they get sick, they do come to you at the hospital to get fixed.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 4 I mean, but I think there are a lot of people, though, who have been misled, you know, in our country.

Speaker 4 And this is why I I don't entirely like fault, you know, folks themselves for some of these decisions, because if you are consuming a huge amount of misinformation in an echo chamber and are being essentially led to believe that that's all accurate, that's coming from trusted sources, then.

Speaker 4 you know, why wouldn't you think that some of these

Speaker 4 COVID's not real or the vaccine's not good for you or something or some of these other fallacies?

Speaker 4 So this is why I think also that we have to, if we don't do something about the information environment in which we're often,

Speaker 4 it's not even just COVID.

Speaker 3 everything else it's climate change it's like health reform everything becomes and is that something that you can that you can drive from your office that sort of that that policy uh um

Speaker 4 uh initiative uh to to sort of try to not regulate the internet but you were saying that you can suggest things but but there's nothing that you can actually you can't mandate it i think that these are things that have to come from a lot of different places and there needs to be a consensus right am i right well so you see yeah so what we can do is like we can certainly draw attention to a draw like national strategies for this, work together with the legislature, which form, you know, creates laws and regulations, and work with other branches of government to use levers to push, you know, folks to do the right thing.

Speaker 4 But ultimately, I'll tell you, government, this is not a problem government alone can solve because people, it's when they speak up with their voices and say, look, we're not tolerating this anymore.

Speaker 4 We don't want to use a platform that's not curbing. you know, harmful information that our kids are being exposed to and others are exposed to.

Speaker 4 Like, it's only when people vote with their feet, ultimately, that you can have the biggest effect.

Speaker 4 So it's not to say government shouldn't do something and can't make an impact, but I'm just saying that, you know, for a lot of these companies, it's when their users start leaving that they worry, right?

Speaker 4 It's when their advertisers start leaving that they worry. And what I think is that this goes, the laws of, as I think of it, like morality and humanity are more important than any other law, right?

Speaker 4 And we have a moral responsibility. to take care of one another, not harm one another,

Speaker 2 to do the right thing, not because we're obligated to by law, but because it's the right thing to do that's right and that and that's that's the cultural difference in this country that does not exist enough in this country that i love a lot and i've never said that but that i really do love living in this country and i've lived here for many years it doesn't exist enough

Speaker 2 and and it's you're only as strong as your weakest link and and people don't seem to understand that they can't get a grasp on it and then there's too much of like yeah but i need to get mine and i know that that's at the heart of how this country was founded it It was about sort of exploring whatever, no ceiling to whatever success you could have

Speaker 2 economically, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, and that nobody was going to hold you back. But you have to understand that

Speaker 2 we are going to sink unless everybody starts bailing at the same rate.

Speaker 1 Right.

Speaker 4 Here's the reason I feel optimistic about this, Will, though, is that I actually think.

Speaker 4 that the majority of people in our country share this sentiment, that they want to do the right thing, that they have a sense of obligation to one another.

Speaker 4 And that when push comes to shove, they actually reach for a better spirit, for a better cause. They seek to serve and help one another.
Because you see that play out in communities day in, day out.

Speaker 4 You saw that a lot during COVID. But I think what happens is that there's a very vocal minority.
There are people who, I think, manipulate folks

Speaker 4 for gain in one way or another.

Speaker 4 And it distorts things. It leads us to believe that we're a country that's more deeply divided than we actually are.

Speaker 4 Whereas there's a large, silent majority of people in our country who, I think, care deeply, want to do the right thing,

Speaker 4 want us all to get through this together. I believe that.
So that's why I think these changes, cultural changes, ultimately are the most powerful forces that drive policy change in the long term.

Speaker 4 And that cultural resurgence

Speaker 4 of care, compassion, kindness, and love, that has to come from a grassroots level. That's why I, you know, sometimes people ask me, like, Surgeon General, why do you like talk about love so much?

Speaker 4 I talk about love because it's the most powerful medicine that we have. It's a force that we need now more than ever,

Speaker 4 than ever.

Speaker 1 Also, it's all exacerbated by the fact that we can't see each other or interact with each other and be connected.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 once you actually see somebody and connect with them and listen to them and hear them, I think everything you're saying is true.

Speaker 1 It makes it more valuable when you can connect and even touch somebody, hug somebody, talk to somebody, listen to somebody.

Speaker 1 It all helps, to your point.

Speaker 3 And you have been very constant and consistent,

Speaker 3 Mr. Surgeon General, in being that comforting, non-emotional, non-political

Speaker 3 sort of center of common sense in our country with this tough, tough time. And so thank you for that.
And please continue.

Speaker 2 And I love that you keep going back onto falling back onto the, you know, using love.

Speaker 2 I think that's awesome.

Speaker 2 I think it's a great position to have. I think that it was the great Joe Elliott of the band, Def Leppard, who said, pour some sugar on me.
I love that song. Oh, God.

Speaker 1 Dr. Murthy, thank you so much for your time today.
We so appreciate you and everything you've done, everything you continue to do to make us safer, to make the world safer.

Speaker 1 Much love to you and much appreciated. Yes.

Speaker 4 Well, thank you so much, guys. Hey, at the risk of taking us along, let me just say one last thing on that point we just raised.

Speaker 2 About Def Leppard? This is so important. Is it about Def Leppard?

Speaker 4 Not about Def Leppard, although that was my sixth grade prom dance song. Sure.

Speaker 4 Pour some sugar on me.

Speaker 4 No, but just to say this, this point about love,

Speaker 4 this to me is a defining question of our time right now.

Speaker 4 Fundamentally, I believe that there are two forces ultimately that drive us in our decision making. There's love and there's fear, and they have different manifestations, right?

Speaker 4 Fear can show up as anger, as insecurity, as jealousy, as rage.

Speaker 1 Yeah, to me, it's the empire and the rebellion from Star Wars. Keep going.

Speaker 4 Right, but love can also show up as kindness and generosity and empathy.

Speaker 4 In every moment in our life, when we're making decisions, whether it's about how we treat a stranger, how we treat the person next to us that we know and our neighbor or family, we have this choice, you know, how we react to the news, whether we choose to turn on the TV or turn off the TV, or we have a choice to make.

Speaker 4 And what strikes me is that because we each have a choice, we each have power, right?

Speaker 4 And so if we are looking to build a culture that is rooted in love and not fear, that is a choice we have to ask ourselves how to make each day in the small decisions and in the big decisions.

Speaker 4 And I started thinking about this five and a half years ago when we found out that we were pregnant with our first child.

Speaker 4 And I still remember coming home and my wife was sitting in the dining room chair, just actually just a few feet away from here. And she just looked really happy.
And I was like, what's going on?

Speaker 4 And she showed me the pregnancy test indicator, which was positive. And we were just so thrilled and so excited to be parents.

Speaker 4 But I remember sitting down on the bed next to her and just pausing for a moment, letting it sink in. And there was a part of me which got anxious.

Speaker 4 I was like, oh my God, like, what kind of world are we bringing our child into? Like, is this going to be a world where people, you know, help our child up when he falls down?

Speaker 4 Or is this going to be a hostile, you know, sort of fearful, angry world?

Speaker 4 And it was in that moment that it really solidified within me that as a parent, like my responsibility now was to make sure that the world for my child and for other children was more likely to be grounded in love rather than fear.

Speaker 4 And that had to be done through the choices that I made in my life, in whatever sphere, my personal life, my work life, et etc.

Speaker 4 And that's why, again, in a time when peace, so many people feel disempowered and feel like the problems that we're facing are so big and too big for them to make a difference in on their own.

Speaker 4 I just want us to never forget that we have the power to choose between love and fear.

Speaker 4 And the ripple effects that we have on other people when we do that, directly, the example we set indirectly for those who may not say anything to us, but are impacted by our example, that is powerful.

Speaker 4 That is how culture changes. That's how our country will change.
That's how we will become better and create a better world for our kids as well.

Speaker 2 Amen.

Speaker 1 That's so great. That's fantastic.
What a wonderful.

Speaker 2 Thank you for

Speaker 3 that. Yeah.
Thank you, Dr.

Speaker 1 Murphy. That's fantastic.
By the way, that's

Speaker 1 we should just air that everywhere, everything you just said.

Speaker 2 That'll be our little teaser clip. Yeah, it'll be our little teaser.

Speaker 1 Thank you so much for being here for giving us so much

Speaker 2 time. Thank you for your service.

Speaker 4 Well, thank you all so much. I really enjoyed talking to you.

Speaker 4 And I got to say, even when I still had the little cover over my lens, just hearing the love and brotherhood between you you guys and the good humor was, it made me feel good.

Speaker 4 And Jason, I got to tell you before you leave that Couples Retreat, watched that movie so many times, loved it, hysterical, kept me laughing. So thank you for that.
Thank you.

Speaker 4 Yeah, that was fun to do.

Speaker 3 All right. Well, thank you so much.
Enjoy the rest of your weekend and we'll see you on the TV.

Speaker 2 All right. Take care.
All right. Bye-bye, guys.
Bye-bye. Bye.

Speaker 3 Sean,

Speaker 3 how'd that come about? What do you just, you have a number on the White House?

Speaker 1 I was talking to our producer, Michael Terry and we were just coming out and I go, you know, I really want to chat. I love stuff like that.
I love jobs that I don't know anything about.

Speaker 1 I want to learn about how do you do that? Why do you do that? All that kind of stuff. I think it's fascinating.

Speaker 3 Oh, yeah. I mean, as much as I love all of our super fancy Hollywood friends, it's so nice to have somebody from science or music or art or anything other than Hollywood.

Speaker 3 And then we get the surgeon general, for God's sakes. Yeah.
I love it. How's it going?

Speaker 1 Super fun.

Speaker 1 There's so many other things i wanted to talk about loneliness i think because he did all these studies on it and i think it's fascinating but uh we can do it next time yeah promise yeah promises promises next next time what no this is your last episode what are you talking about this is it yeah did you check your email okay great let me just check no but how cool is that i mean in a day and an age where people

Speaker 2 i love that he said that he never wanted to do that he never wanted to go to public service never thought he could make any difference that he does it under obama he becomes surgeon general under obama then we go through four years challenging years, and he comes back and he says yes to Joe Baidy.

Speaker 2 Baiden.

Speaker 2 That's a good one, Bait. Great one.
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