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April 17, 2004 - Art Bell
02:52:44
Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell - Michael Fumento - Biotechnology Developments
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From the high desert in the great American southwest, I wish you all a good evening, good morning, good afternoon,
wherever you may be in the world's prolific time zones, covering them all, this program, which is called Coast to
Coast AM, weekend version, taken off right now.
I'm Art Bell, glad to be here, actually an honor to be here with you.
Gonna be actually an awful lot of open lines throughout the weekend, beginning with this hour.
And then tomorrow night, possibly for as many as three hours, we'll see.
We do have a man tomorrow night who has discovered, I think, some legitimate Martian artifacts that bear real examination.
And I don't want to give away the farm on that one, but we'll get to that tomorrow night.
Tonight, in the first hour open lines, followed by Michael Fumento, who's going to be talking to us about I guess the technological revolution going on in biotechnology and how it's changing our world.
Now I have no idea whether it was real or not, but earlier tonight somebody sent me a picture of what amounted to a sniper rifle that was designed to fire Chips.
Chips that would be implanted into a human being.
Now they would, upon being hit with this at a great distance, one presumes, they would then begin to irradiate and they would be tracked by GPS.
This is something you would imagine perhaps our government might have.
You know, it actually showed a picture of the rifle and a description.
Maybe it's hogwash and maybe not.
These days, you have to be careful about washing anything away as hogwash, because the next thing you know, you turn around and... As a matter of fact, that's happened to me over the years on this program, more times than I can count.
Something that initially sounds like utter hogwash, and then kaboom!
The next thing you know, it's all across the front pages, so you have to be very careful.
Looking at what's going on in the world, as usual, nothing good.
It looks like Israel has assassinated yet another Hamas leader in a missile strike which hit his car Saturday, part of a declared campaign to wipe out the Islamic militant group's leadership ahead of a planned Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.
U.S.
basically, you know, talking to the rest of the world, said, talk to the hand.
Israel has a right to defend itself from terrorism, as every nation does.
Baghdad, the news there, not very good.
The U.S.
military closed down two major highways going into the capital city, Baghdad, Saturday.
In the latest disruption caused by intensified attacks by anti-U.S.
insurgents, U.S.
and Iraqi negotiators reported progress in talks aimed at easing the fighting in Fallujah.
While the besieged city saw its actual quietest day yet elsewhere, U.S.
Marines fought pitched battles against about 150 gunmen near the Syrian border.
Five Marines and scores of insurgents were killed in the 14-hour battle.
So, things are not getting better in Iraq.
Now, you know, I've got something I want to say about Iraq, and to a lot of people it seems as though I have changed positions.
Or done a flip-flop or, you know, if you listen casually, you might, in fact, come to that conclusion.
But, in fact, I thought the incursion into Iraq prior to its occurrence was a very poor idea.
I still don't think it was a good idea.
However, and I spoke out quite plainly and loudly, I think, about it prior to its occurrence.
However, we're there.
That's an indisputable fact.
We are now there.
So there's no point in screeching against it, but rather trying to figure out how to win it.
And win it we must.
It's a kind of a double-edged sword on the one hand.
You know, they're just pouring in across every border they can come across to get to us trying to kill Americans.
The other edge of the sword is we're keeping them all in one place.
Now, how we ultimately end this, leaving Iraq in some semblance of governable state, a governable state, I don't know.
And then, of course, our exit, probably not for years and years, it would appear.
Vice President Dick Cheney portrayed President Bush and himself as champions of the Second Amendment.
And the Democratic candidate, John Kerry, has a potential threat to any gun owner, saying Kerry's approach to the Second Amendment has been to regulate, regulate, and then regulate some more.
Adult movie actors.
This one's kind of strange.
Adult movie actors said they would keep working in the multi-billion dollar A porn industry, despite an HIV scare as more producers joined voluntary moratorium that shut down many sets.
About a dozen porn production companies halted shooting until at least June 8th after two performers tested positive for the virus that causes AIDS.
Hustler Video and VCA Pictures said Friday they are going to halt work and they will do so indefinitely.
in a moment we'll look at some of the other
news the following is from uh... all before i get into that uh...
number of people said now you know the rifles been reported to be a hoax
Well, maybe.
But if it's a hoax now, it won't be for long.
They already have the chips that enable tracking of a human being or whatever by satellite and GPS.
So if it's a hoax today and science fiction today, if that is true, then I'll bet you by tomorrow or the next day, The real thing will be there.
Anyway, this from the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
Headline is, this was just released, satellites record weakening North Atlantic current.
A North Atlantic ocean circulation system weakened considerably in the late 90s compared to, say, the 70s and the 80s, according to a NASA study.
The lead author and researcher at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland, and the co-author and oceanographer at the University of Washington, Seattle began, I believe that slowing of this ocean current is an indication of dramatic changes in the North Atlantic Ocean climate.
The study's results about the system that moves water in a counter-clockwise pattern from Ireland to Labrador We're published on the internet by the Journal of Science on the Science Express website, and then it gives the URL.
The current known as the subpolar gyre, I believe it is, has weakened in the past in connection with certain phases of a large-scale atmospheric pressure system known as the North Atlantic Oscillation, or NAO.
But the NAO has switched phases now twice in the 1990s, while the subpolar gyre current has continued to weaken.
The trend is part of a natural cycle, or the result of other factors related to perhaps global warming simply isn't known.
It is, quote, it's a signal of large climate variability in the high latitudes.
If the trend should continue, it would indicate reorganization of the ocean climate system, perhaps with changes in the whole climate system.
But we need another good five to ten years to say something like that is happening now.
The subpolar zone of the Earth is a key site for studying the climate.
It's like Grand Central Station.
There are as many of the major ocean water masses pass through the Arctic from the warmer latitudes.
They are modified in this basin.
Computer models have shown the slowing and the speeding of the subpolar gyre can influence the entire ocean circulation system.
And this from Reuters.
I always try and quote where I get these things.
This is Reuters and from Anchorage.
Anyone who doubts the gravity of global warming should perhaps ask Alaska's Eskimos, Indians, and elders about the dramatic changes to their land and the animals on which they depend.
Native leaders say that salmon are now, listen to this, increasingly susceptible to warm water parasites and suffer from lesions and strange behavior.
Salmon and moose meat have developed odd tastes, and the marrow in moose bones is weirdly runny, they say.
The Arctic pack ice is disappearing, making food scarce for sea animals and causing difficulties for the natives who hunt them.
It is feared that polar bears, to name one species, may virtually disappear from the northern hemisphere by mid-century.
As trees and bushes march north over what was once tundra, so do beavers and their damning new rivers and lakes, to the detriment of water quality and possibly salmon eggs.
Still, to the frustration of Alaskan natives, many politicians down here in what they call the lower 48 in Alaska Deny.
Absolutely deny that global warming is occurring, or that a warmer climate could cause problems.
Patricia Cochran said, quote, they obviously don't live in the Arctic, end quote.
Executive Director of the National Native Science Commission, the Anchorage-based commission, funded by the National Science Foundation, has been gathering information for years on Alaska's thawing.
Climate changes are disrupting traditional food gathering and cultures.
According to one leader from the islands there in the Bering Sea, indigenous residents of the far north are finding it increasingly difficult to explain the natural world to younger generations.
As species go down, the level of connection between older and younger go down along with it.
Climate and weather changes even affect human safety, said Orville Huntington, vice chairman of the Alaska Native Science Commission.
It looks like winter out there, but if you've really been around for a long time like me, it's not winter, he said.
Indians from the interior Alaska village of Hosea say, if you travel that ice, it's not same ice we traveled 40 years ago.
River ice, long used for travel in interior Alaskas, you might imagine, is thinner now and less dependable than it used to be.
Global warming is believed to result from pollutants emitted into the atmosphere, which trap the Earth's radiant heat and create a greenhouse effect.
Now, many people, of course, for various political reasons, Deny that any sort of global warming whatsoever is going on.
I believe these people are simply, well they just simply have their head in the sand.
It obviously is going on.
It's dramatic.
The ice at the north and the south part of the world are disappearing before our very eyes.
And it, you know, it doesn't matter to me.
I'm tired, bone weary of the argument which vacillates back and forth between It is man's hand that is doing it, and it's a natural climactic thing.
I don't care which it is.
Natural, or aided by man's hand, or having nothing to do with man's hand.
It doesn't matter.
What does matter is that we begin to recognize that it is occurring.
It will change radically agricultural... What's the right word for this?
In other words, where we ought to plant things to have them grow so that the ground will feed us.
I mean, the areas where the things that we're used to growing, they're just not going to grow anymore in these areas.
They're probably going to end up moving north.
Who knows?
But the trend now is obvious and clear enough.
And of course, the threat to Europe, we know all about that.
As a matter of fact, there was an article in the New Scientist, I believe it was, blasting the upcoming $100 million plus movie the day after tomorrow that depicts the freezing of Manhattan and so forth.
Blasting away at it.
And who knows?
It may be science fiction.
I don't think it's being forwarded as science fact or something that's absolutely going to happen.
But my taste in science fiction certainly does run to that kind of movie, and by that I mean not something that is necessarily absolutely going to happen, but something that based on current science, or what a lot of very good people in science believe, you know, from Woods Hole and all the rest, that a sudden climate change is now Not only possible, but perhaps even slipping into the probable category.
And we certainly, we understand very clearly that it's happened many times before in Earth's history.
The cores they bring up and examine are very clear with regard to all of that.
So, we should be preparing.
That's my take on all of this.
Let's go to the line, shall we, and see who's there early tonight?
First time caller line, you're on the air.
Good evening.
Mr. Bell, how are you doing, sir?
Very well, thank you.
Where are you?
I'm in Columbus, Georgia, listening to you on WDAK AM.
Well, glad to have you.
Hey, I've been listening to you for a very long time.
Very inspirational you are, sir, and the broadcasting days are not over yet, sir, with you on the air.
Okay.
I think that perhaps it's in my blood and it will never end.
Let me tell you something, if it's not in your blood, the blood does not exist.
But look here, I listened to the Major last night on the replay, and this is so disturbing, but yet it's so fulfilling also, in a way.
Well, with respect to Major Ed Dames, he's a good friend.
He's been wrong sometimes, and I've called him on that, but you know, he's also been, unfortunately, right quite a number of times.
And so I'm respectful of what he says, and I don't necessarily buy it all.
I'm not a remote viewer, although let me tell you a little secret.
I don't know if this is out, but I just received a copy Back when it was in the CIA, I've got a copy of the actual remote viewing manual.
I hear a dog.
My dog is barking at the raccoon that's at the door waiting to be fed.
I have a raccoon that comes here in the morning that wants to be fed.
Let me try this out on you.
Are you a remote viewer?
No, sir, I'm not.
Do you have any desire, for example, to be able to remote view, to know that something is going to happen, perhaps even remote view the manner of your own death?
Yes, sir, I do.
I would really like to do that sometime, yes, sir.
Ooh, not me!
Well, in a way, you know, I'm your age now, okay?
I'm 52 now.
I have seen some things that I have no answers for.
I really do long to really understand the truth, but the truth is very hard to find.
It sure is.
And where can you find the truth?
Well, maybe with remote viewing.
I don't know, but I'm simply suggesting to you I have received an extremely and long official document that seems to represent the actual official remote viewing manual and I'm not going to make it public I don't know what its status is but it did set me to thinking I suppose one could read it and then discern from it how to train even oneself in remote viewing I I don't know it's always something though that I have resisted I don't know if I want to know I really don't know if I want to know and for that reason I've you know had
Many opportunities to be trained by the best, but there's something in me that prevents me from wanting to do it.
And yet I'm fascinated by interviewing those who do.
How's that for a tangle?
Wildcard Line, you are on the air.
Good evening.
Hello.
Hi.
Extinguish your radio right away, please.
It's gone.
Excellent.
Where are you and who are you?
I'm in Minneapolis.
My name is Steve.
Welcome, Steve.
Thanks.
Proceed.
You're on the air.
See, I don't have a screener.
You just, you go right on the air here.
Okay.
Proceed.
Oh, am I on the air right now?
Yes, when I say you're on the air, that has actual meaning.
Yes.
Okay, I thought it was a screener.
No, I just, I don't have a screener.
Okay, anyway.
Hopefully George is listening because I've been trying to get a hold of George for a long time.
To continue this, I want to talk to you about near-death experiences.
Okay.
And I have forced myself through them, and I've probably been through hundreds of them.
You intentionally have near-death experiences?
Intentionally.
Yes, intentionally.
And in what manner do you induce them?
I don't think I should say that over the air.
Yeah, maybe not.
But you actually... There was a movie about people like you, of course.
Oh, really?
What was that?
Oh, you don't remember?
What was that?
Flatliners, is it?
Flatliners, yeah.
No, no.
It's not like that.
Well, going to the edge of death, sir, is going to the edge of death.
Yeah, but I really don't know what it was, but I did this probably, I'm guessing around six years ago.
And I did it for probably a few years.
And going to the edge of death, what did you meet?
I didn't really meet anything, but it made a lot of sense.
Like, I didn't really know how to explain it.
I will tell you how I explained it to people before.
It's like a very dark, Well, I would say yes and no.
you you i i i i had the whole life flashing before my eyes and it wasn't
like my whole life
it was like everything that i did wrong and it all went into a spiral
and i've come myself into a spiral and everything uh...
terrible it was very nightmarish every time that i've done it
well i would say uh... yes and no nightmarish uh... perhaps yes but uh...
actually in a way comforting to just know there's something over there on the other side.
I wonder if you've considered it from that point of view.
In other words, there must be something after you get the movie of your life that will cause
much regret on your part.
I've had nothing but bad luck since the day I saw the cat at my door.
The official website of Coast to Coast AM is www.coasttocoastam.com.
Log on now.
I don't know, would you do it if you could?
Crystal ball on the table Go to the edge of death?
Show them the future, the past Just to see what it's like?
I don't think so.
Same cat with them evil eyes And I knew it was a spell she cast
She's just a devil woman with evil on her mind Beware
He came from somewhere back in a long ago In Santa Barbara, fool, don't she try it hard
To recreate what had yet to be created Once in her life she musters a smile
For his nostalgic tear Never coming near what he wanted to say
Only to realize It never really was
She had a place in his life He never made her day cry
And she rises to her apology, anybody else would surely know.
She's watching her go.
Oh, the Google believe, it's in me.
The wildstrat has the power.
Do talk with Art Bell. Call the wildcard line at area...
The first time caller line is area code 775-727-1222.
To talk with Art Bell from east to the Rockies, call toll free at 800-825-5033.
line is area code 775-727-1222. To talk with Art Bell from east of the Rockies, call toll-free
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International callers may reach our bell by calling your in-country's friend.
Sprint Access Number, pressing Option 5 and dialing toll-free 800-893-0903.
From coast to coast and worldwide on the Internet, this is Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell.
Once again, by the way, that is our precious little Yeti on the webcam.
And he was perched on the front porch of our home when I took that picture.
Orange cats are so much easier to take photographs of.
Have you ever noticed that?
We have four cats.
Black cats are very hard to take good pictures of.
Very hard.
We'll get back to open lines right after this.
By the way, I can't resist.
This is Sean Hogan from Canada, and I've got a special surprise for you tonight.
You can download a streaming version of this up on the website, Coast to Coast AM.
It's all about this program.
It's excellent stuff.
the story is that it's excellent stuff and I wake digging in the cover of dark can't stop the more I hear this the
more I like it.
Beamin' out your song in the lounge. Real life phone line on air express. One in the world, things are falling apart.
Coast to coast, to the average Joe, it may be hard to tell.
Oh well, I'm a Sun Close. Yeah the truth is out there, ask our bell wearer. You're 51.
Hear the unsing lazy guys. We're government ties to wars and lies. Spinnin' right out of control. Conspiracy Radio.
That's the name of it.
And thanks to Lex and company, we've got a copy that you can stream on the website right now.
So there it is.
Anyway, I'm going to keep using that as bumper music without question.
I mean, it's hot stuff.
And John Hogan, a professional Canadian recording artist, that, by the way, Is not the absolute final version that I'm playing for you right now.
Sean was kind enough to send it to me to premiere for all of you.
And I liked it so much that I did.
And now, lo and behold, he's actually made a streaming copy of it available on the website.
So, if you want it, this weekend would be the time to get it.
First time caller line, you're on the air.
Hi.
Hi, this is Jeremiah.
Hello, Jeremiah.
You're going to have to kind of yell at me.
You're not too loud.
Oh, okay, sorry.
I'm using my earpiece.
I'm on my phone.
Okay, well, get off your earpiece and on to the real thing here.
Okay, just a second.
Okay.
Okay, here we go.
See, there's a lesson for everybody.
You heard how he sounded one way.
Now listen to him now.
Isn't that so much better?
Okay, go ahead.
Okay, I have a comment on the thing that you were talking about a little bit earlier, about maybe 15, 20 minutes ago, about the global warming and how the politicians don't know it.
Global warming and stuff like that the greenhouse gases and stuff. Well, how can they not know well?
Because they they don't They don't want to know if global warming is a reality and
it doesn't matter whether it's by our hand or not If we're even so much as assisting it then to do something
about it would require some economic sacrifice that would be really really
unpopular and And that's hard for a politician because they're elected people, and when they do unpopular things, then they get, you know... They lose their job.
That's the way it works, yeah.
But I mean, like, it's hard to understand.
We elect these people, and then we expect these people to change us and, you know, change our ways and stuff like that.
But in a way, Only making us worse.
Yes.
I mean, you've hit it on the head.
That's exactly what the problem is.
They really don't want to know and they don't want to tackle the problem and they don't want it to be true because it might mean their jobs.
Yeah, so that means that if that's the case, they're only representing us and they're making us look bad.
Well, rarely do they need our aid for that, but we've got to remember politicians are nothing but a slice of what, you know, society is out there in general, right?
They're like the rest of us.
I know nobody wants to really hear that, but they are.
They are nothing but some particularly ambitious people who have been plucked from the flock to lead us and they want to keep their jobs and if they were to begin doing things that were economically seen to be lowering perhaps the the quality of your life let's say you couldn't drive your car the way you used to say you were forced into carpooling say you were forced to getting rid of SUVs or you know who knows what it could be I'm not really bearing in on any one thing but to
I suppose your lifestyle were radically changed by a decision some politician made.
Odds are you would not like that, and therefore not like the politician, and end of job.
Well, Carline, you're on the air.
Hello.
I guess that would be me.
That would be you.
An honor to speak with you once again, oh great Art Bell.
Thank you.
Welcome.
Yes, this is Matt, the security guard from Tampa.
Yes, sir.
And I've written a book.
And I'm in the process of doing some revisions to the manuscript, and you are going to be a prominent character!
Really?
Yes, the character will be Nine Trob, N-Y-E hyphen T-R-A-B, you can figure that one out.
Okay.
And the book is going to incorporate all kinds of things that you speak of on your shows, just OBEs, remote viewing, chupacabras, Everybody throws chupacabras in, but they are the least verified of anything.
Nevertheless, they're interesting.
Yeah, but they're going to be pretty cool characters in this.
And I would just like to thank you for inspiring me.
Oh, you're very welcome.
What is the working title of your book?
Saina, which is a mythical kingdom.
Well, you've got to do something that will make people grab it off that shelf, so think about that.
Okay, I appreciate that.
And one more thing, remember, the science fiction of 50 years ago is the science fact of today.
Oh, well, that's certainly true, isn't it?
And that's what I was saying a little while ago, actually, at the beginning of the program, that so many times I have guffawed at something or another that somebody brings up that just seems absolutely, you know, way over the top.
I don't know.
A few months, a couple of years later, it's front page headline.
So I've learned to be very careful.
East of the Rockies, you're on the air.
Hello, Mr. Bell.
What a pleasure to speak with you.
Andy, welcome.
What's up?
Thank you.
Am I on?
Yes.
Oh, I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
Anyway, I'm in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on KFAQ 1170.
It's a clear channel station just taking over the airwaves all the way to the West Coast.
All right.
If I may take just a moment to preface what I'm about to say, I have not had a near-death experience.
However, I have a very, almost an abstract idea I wanted to throw out to you, and it's this, and here's the preface to the story.
I actually had a hip replacement several years ago, and during the healing time, I was I had the misfortune of it popped out of the socket and so I dislocated the hip.
Very, very painful.
Went to the emergency room.
There is a drug that the anesthesiologist gave to me, intravenously, and it's an amnesia drug.
And the reason being is, of course, they had me on some painkillers, but as they relocated or actually fixed the problem with the hip, I don't remember them doing so, and they say, well, because you don't remember, it's like it never happened.
Okay, so that's the preface.
Now, as I apply this to life itself, you know, I don't disrespect anybody for their views, if they're Christian, or other religions, or atheists, but as far as I'm concerned, if, when we die, there is nothing We go no place or whatever.
It's just black and we're not aware of it.
Then would we ever have any memory of this life on Earth?
And if there's no memory because we don't exist after we die, then perhaps it never happened.
I know that sounds very abstract, but... It is abstract, but I do understand what you're saying, and it's the great thing to ponder, isn't it?
I vacillate in my own beliefs, and you've got to imagine one possibility, despite all we've done here on the airwaves and all the people we've interviewed with regard to near-death experiences.
There's one thing you've got to remember.
And that's that.
That's all we've done.
We've interviewed people who have been near death or have experienced what the doctors determined to be clinical death.
I've interviewed a lot of people like that.
But I haven't yet, short of EVPs, interviewed anybody after death.
And so, one possibility hanging out there that nobody wants to consider, but really you have to, is that there is nothing.
That as prior to our birth, so it is following our death, that there is absolutely nothing.
No awareness, no existence, no continuing soul, and all the rest of it.
I don't consider that as a high probability, but I do consider it as a probability, with no proof otherwise.
Woz to the Rockies, you're on the air, hello.
Yes, this is Travis.
I'm in San Diego listening to you off Kogo.
Of course, the mighty Kogo.
Welcome.
Thank you very much.
It's a pleasure talking to you.
My question is, is the human body capable of controlling and owning two different souls?
I'm not even sure about one, but But two, it's an intriguing question to be sure.
It's really an intriguing question.
Do you think the human body, the human brain, is capable of having simultaneously two consciousnesses?
See, I'm not so sure about soul.
I don't know exactly what it is, but I do know what consciousness is, because I can feel it, and so can you.
Do you really mean soul, or do you mean consciousness?
Well, in that aspect I'd have to say consciousness.
I don't know.
The answer to that question is I have no idea.
I've done some intriguing reading recently about the possibility, but I can't prove it.
Okay.
I don't know.
What do you think?
Well, I'd have to say yes.
And why?
Because of my own personal experiences.
Aha!
Now we get to the heart of the matter.
What happened to you?
Ever since I was a child, I've talked in gibberish, as most people would say.
And when I've grown up and met other people, because I was, I'm from Texas originally.
Well, we all did that.
And when we were very young, goo-goo-goo-goo-goo-goo-goo.
Well, it's, that's baby talk, true.
Yeah.
But the language that I speak, someone once told me is nothing but gibberish and you need to quit it.
Oh, and when do you speak this language?
Very frequently now.
Oh, you just sort of launch into what they call gibberish?
Well, yes, because that's what it sounds like.
Can you give me a sample of it?
Sounds like gibberish to me, but on the other hand it sounds like somewhat coherent gibberish.
That phrase doesn't even work, but I mean it does sound like Like something.
And the reason I was asking is because I, with this, I've gone into, like, out-of-body experiences and I've seen myself move and talk in this language and do things throughout my normal day.
In other words, your consciousness is observing the other consciousness.
Exactly.
Ooh, that's freaky.
It really is.
That's really freaky.
Do you worry for your own mental stability?
No.
Not at all.
It just feels natural?
Yes.
Like I said, this has happened to me ever since I was a child.
Have you been to a professional... Psychologist?
Psychiatrist?
Sure.
Yes, I've actually seen both.
And what do they say, Pray Tell?
I'm sure they scribble notes like crazy when you're doing that.
Oh, well, I don't speak it in front of them.
Good idea.
Because of that.
Very good.
I mean, but you asked them about the phenomena, right?
Yes, I have.
And they said it's just child's play.
It's just an act of imagination.
Yes, well, fascinating, sir.
I don't know what to tell you.
I understand why you kind of crawled up on the subject.
Would it be possible to have two souls inhabiting one body, or more to the point, perhaps, two consciousnesses inhabiting one brain?
It would be an odd feeling, wouldn't it?
To be aware of another consciousness in your own brain?
Really would be strange.
Read a book all about that recently.
International Line, you're on the air.
Where are you calling from, please?
It's Ted from Windsor, Ontario, Canada, Mr. Bell.
Hi, Ted.
Earlier this evening on the Fox Network, I saw a news show that said the NRA was going to start up a radio station.
Really?
Yeah, a combination of raising money and to get their own word out.
I wonder if it'll be KGUN.
I'm not sure, but...
If they're looking for broadcasters, I think you would be the one that would be the perfect candidate.
I'm a very strong advocate of the Second Amendment, and a very strong advocate.
That's all there is to it.
I mean, plain, straight out, supporter, a strong supporter of the Second Amendment.
We have a right to bear arms.
Period.
And that's why I think you are the perfect candidate to lead this radio show.
And I don't know if they'll ever contact you or what the story is.
Well, I appreciate the thought, but I don't know about that.
I kind of like what I'm doing right now, and if I'm asked or have a guest or we talk about the Second Amendment, my position will be very clear on the subject.
Very clear, but I don't know that I would want to do that as a full-time job.
Nevertheless, I thank you for the thought.
And I am a very strong supporter of the Second Amendment.
We have a right to protect ourselves, and I'll tell you something, if you ever are looking for a red flag with regard to when the Bill of Rights and Constitution really is beginning to crumble in front of your eyes, that'll be it.
When they begin to take away your gun rights, then you have every right to expect the worst.
I mean that.
So, every chance you get, support those who support the Second Amendment.
First time caller on the line, you're on the air.
Hello.
Hi, this is Rick in Springfield, Oregon.
Hello, Rick.
Hey, so, I, for a hobby, enjoy learning survival skills, and for many years have, and last weekend when I heard you talk with Ed Dane, kind of made If his projection of the future is true, it kind of makes pursuing survival a futility.
Well, I don't know about futility.
He said there would be survivors.
There are some who would say they would not want to live in a world, he describes, that would come after that.
But I take it you would want to, right?
You'd want to be a survivor.
Sure.
And possibly that isn't the, you know, the possible future might be something else.
It might be.
But it also might be the Mad Max world.
I believe that's the exact phrase that Ed used, wasn't it?
That for a period of time there'd be a Mad Max world and I have mixed feelings about whether or not I'd want to survive in that How about the rest of you?
Have you ever thought about that?
That if civilization, such as we know it, and law and order, such as we know it, crumbled, and it was sort of a man-eat-man kind of deal, and the strongest shall survive, would that be an atmosphere in which you would want to live?
Or would you rather be consumed by that which would cause the Mad Max scenario?
I don't know.
All of that's worth a little thought, isn't it?
From the high desert in the middle of the night, this is Coast to Coast AM.
I'm Art Bell.
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Ahead of our guest, I've got something I want to read you.
access number, pressing option 5 and dialing toll free 800-893-0903.
From coast to coast and worldwide on the internet, this is Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell.
Good morning everybody.
Ahead of our guest I've got something I want to read you.
This is from Yahoo News and it was, it just broke.
The headline is, FDA approves human brain implant devices.
Boston.
For years, futurists have dreamed of machines that can read minds and then act on instructions as they are thought.
Now, human trials are set to begin on a brain-computer interface involving implants.
Cyberkinetics Inc.
of Foxborough, Mass., has received Food and Drug Administration approval to begin a clinical trial in which four square millimeter chips are going to be placed beneath the skulls of paralyzed patients.
If successful, the chips could allow patients to command a computer to act merely by thinking about the instructions they wish to send.
So in other words, a paralyzed person could move a mouse around and command a computer to do as he wishes.
He would merely have to think about it.
Now, that's incredible.
And so, I thought it might be interesting to have somebody like Michael Fumento on, and so here he comes.
Michael Fumento is an author, journalist, and attorney, that's interesting, specializing in science and health issues.
He is a science columnist for Scripps Howard.
He is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute in Washington, D.C., received his undergraduate degree while serving in the Army, and in 1985 graduated from the University of Illinois.
College of Law, as a matter of fact.
This is going to be very interesting because there's so much ethical ground to cover here.
He's been a legal writer for the Washington Times, editorial writer for the Rocky Mountain News in Denver, was the first national issues reporter for Investors Business Daily.
Mr. Fumento has lectured on science and health issues throughout the nation and the world.
He's authored five books now, And many of his articles have appeared in several national publications around the world.
I wonder what he will have to say about the chip.
in a moment we'll find out michael welcome to the program
Thank you very much.
Michael is the integration of man and machine Inevitable.
You have to say it is because it's been going on for some time.
The fact is that bionics extends back to 1958 with the first implanted pacemakers.
Well of course that's right, yes, but... And now it's, as you've already pointed out, it's clearly a lot more advanced than putting somebody Than putting a little thing inside somebody's chest to make sure that their heart keeps beating normally.
Yeah, well that's one thing, but implanting something into the neural pathways.
I interviewed a scientist, Michael, not that long ago, who was implanting something into the neural pathways of his arm.
That had some sort of direct connection to the brain.
He was actually doing this.
I mean it was his own.
He's a scientist and so he's using himself as a guinea pig.
And now this story chips actually in the brain and able to send impulses to a computer.
I mean, we're approaching this interesting juncture, Michael, where it seems like the eventual integration of humans and computers, I guess, is inevitable.
You're right, it is absolutely inevitable.
And you're also probably right if you're thinking that there are some aspects of this that are just a little bit creepy.
Creepy, yes, creepy.
But you have to understand that all of these things are, they're tools.
And a tool, You know, the same knife that you used to cut bread with, you could use to stab somebody to death with.
Yes.
A knife is a tool.
Well, so far, these tools have all been for the good.
Nobody has ever done evil yet with a pacemaker, and I don't think they're going to.
These chips that you're talking about are actually just the latest brain chips.
The FDA has already approved brain chips For controlling seizures and epileptics and for controlling tremors in people with Parkinson's disease.
Right.
So everything that we've seen so far along these lines, you've heard of cochlear implants.
These are bionic things.
Rush, that's what Rush had done.
Rush Limbaugh had, right.
And these things, they don't just amplify noise like the old implants.
These things will take a deaf person and give them hearing.
So they're completely different from hearing aids.
All of these things obviously have all been to the good, and so will what we're saying here.
This is going to be for the good as well.
But yes, there is potential for some of these things to be used in ways that we will find very disturbing.
Um...
I... I... I... I'm... very... I love computers.
I've got to say that right off the bat.
I really do see the possibility for, once you are connected to a computer, you have neural connections to a computer, then I understand that to a certain point we control it, but at some point Wouldn't there be the possibility of a bi-directional beginning of a communication?
In other words, at some point, couldn't we really totally begin to integrate with a computer, either using it or it using us?
I don't know which way it would go.
Well, I've got to tell you, on my desktop, my two-year-old desktop computer, I've got a name for it.
I've posted it up there on top.
HAL 9000.
Hell 9000, great.
Right, it gives me enough trouble that I think it's worthy of the name.
The name, of course, comes from the movie Space Odyssey, 2001.
Yeah, of course.
Your book, Bioevolution, How Biotechnology is Changing Our World, Science Under Siege.
Now, what about that one, Science Under Siege?
Science Under Siege, how?
What I did was I looked at a number of areas in which basically everybody was being told one thing, and it turned out that if you looked at the science, that that one thing they were being told was completely false.
These were not trivial subjects.
These are subjects that are still in the news today, even though this book came out in 1993.
Things like power lines causing cancer, although fortunately that to a great extent has died But I wrote about Agent Orange.
That's still hot.
I wrote about dioxin in general.
That's still a hot issue.
There are still a lot of things in this book, 11 years old though it be, that are really affecting people in very negative ways that the science didn't support then and certainly doesn't support now.
I felt somebody has to counter these things.
All right.
I guess it's obvious to ask you how you think biotechnology is going to change our world, which I guess could have been a title of the book, and I wonder why you didn't go for that.
To me, the most important word in the title probably is yes.
Is changing our world because so many of these things that sound utterly miraculous are happening even as we speak now and have been happening.
For example, a lot of people don't know all the insulin in this country is in fact biotech.
It's recombinant.
In other words, they took a gene from one organism and they're now growing it into another.
Well, that was FDA approved in 1985, almost two decades ago.
But the pace is improving at an incredible rate.
More and more biotech drugs are being approved by the FDA every year.
Whereas they started off with basically replacement products, a better form of insulin, a better form of human growth factor that no longer had to be removed from cadavers, and therefore doesn't cause Yakov Krutzfeil disease.
The new drugs are not simply better.
They're not substitutes.
They're drugs for which before there was nothing.
For example, one whole class are rheumatoid arthritis drugs, such as Embryol, made by Amgen.
Now, before Embryol came along, if you had rheumatoid arthritis, which is not the kind of wasting arthritis that people get when they're old or anything like that.
It's an autoimmune disease.
Your immune system turns on you.
Until Embryol came along, literally the only thing your doctor had to offer you was an aspirin or ibuprofen.
When it got bad enough, then they would put in new joints.
But it would just keep getting worse and worse and worse.
There was no drug for rheumatoid arthritis.
Then Embryol came along and that was made by splicing a protein that already exists
in us but only in tiny amounts and splicing that into, as I recall, hamster cells and
grown in hamster cells.
It's injected into people and it's literally a miracle drug.
Absolutely it is.
It doesn't just slow the progression of rheumatoid arthritis.
It can stop it right in its tracks.
It relieves the pain.
It can reduce the swelling to absolutely nothing.
Now Embryol has numerous competitors out there, some of which are probably better than Embryol.
Without biotech, you would never get a drug to treat rheumatoid arthritis.
And, going beyond that, it turns out that so many of these drugs, including Enbrel, are being found to be effective against diseases that seem to have nothing In common with the original disease.
Yeah, I noticed a lot of that.
A lot of drugs that they get out on the market they suddenly discover have application or maybe even greater application in other areas.
Interesting.
Right, now it's always been the case where they've made a surreptitious discovery.
For example, there are two FDA approved baldness drugs and they were both surreptitiously discovered.
One was for people with high blood pressure And the other was for people with benign enlargement of the prostate.
And they discovered, lo and behold, that people taking these drugs were growing hair on their bald heads.
Uh-huh.
Well, I imagine that would do... Oh my God!
Look at that!
New hair!
Right.
Now they're probably making a heck of a... I know they're making a lot more money off the baldness thing than they are off the original.
I'm sure.
Well, that's gone on throughout history.
With biotech, it's different, though.
With biotech, for example, with embryo, They said, we know how embryo works.
It works by keeping a certain protein from binding with a certain receptor on a cell.
Now, what other diseases might be affected in the same way?
Let's look at, say, Crohn's disease.
And as I recall, sure enough, Crohn's, no, I know for a fact, psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis respond very well to embryo.
I believe Crohn's disease, that's a disease of the kidney.
Responds very well to Ambrel.
It's even being tested for cancer.
There are certain cancers that use the same sort of cell receptor binding technology.
So, this rheumatoid arthritis thing could turn out to be good for, who knows, 15 different diseases in maybe three or four different classes.
Well, Michael, if we continue at the current pace, or it continues to Speed up, as it seems to be doing.
In 2025 or so, what kind of world are we going to be living in?
What kind of things might be possible if you sort of do a little projection?
It's going to be utterly transformed.
We're already talking about illness, so we can stick with that for a bit.
But I think there's no doubt that cancer by then will be a controllable disease, as AIDS has pretty much become.
We'll still have cancer, but it won't be a death sentence anymore.
None of the cancers will be a death sentence in 2025.
But you see them as controlled perhaps for the lifetime or nearly the original lifetime of the patient and the fatal cancers today no longer are death sentences.
Instead you take medications on a daily basis and you stay alive for However long you would have otherwise, pretty much.
Right.
And the reason I can project out to 2025 that we'll be able to do that is because we're seeing the first indications of drugs that can do that now.
For example, one of the most recent FDA approvals was for a drug called Neovastat.
This was only about four weeks ago.
Neovastat goes after cancer in a completely different way from the traditional three of Yes.
Neovastat is an anti-angiogenic drug.
What that means is that virtually all cancers, almost all of them, even blood cancers like leukemia, require vascular growth to sustain themselves.
In other words, once they get beyond about the size of a BB, they start Sending out chemicals to the body.
These chemicals form veins.
And these veins bring in oxygen and other nutrients that not only allow that tumor to survive, but to grow and to metastasize.
To send individual cancer cells to other parts of the body.
And most cancers that kill people are metastatic.
It's not the original.
It's the second or the third tumor.
Well, what Neovastat does, what all anti-angiogenic drugs do, is they prevent, to some extent, the creation of these blood vessels, or else they can even shut the blood vessels down.
So they starve it.
They starve it to death, right.
And even as they're doing that, They're keeping the little individual cancer cells from spreading throughout the body.
That's remarkable.
So they're also anti-metastatic.
That's remarkable.
It is.
Now, mind you, the old three standbys can still be used.
Now, what kind of success rate has this met with thus far?
Do you know?
Neomastat appears to be fairly marginal.
And the study that got it approved by the FDA, it only extended the lives of people with colorectal cancers by an average of about five months.
Doesn't sound like much, but these were all people who were on death's door, or they wouldn't have been in the trial.
Gotcha.
For all we know, if they had started these people on Neovastat when they were first found to have colorectal cancer... Then who knows?
Right.
It could have lasted for years.
But it gets better because there are literally, last I counted, 67 biotech anti-angiogenic drugs in the pipeline, many of them very close to FDA approval.
Okay, I have a question for you, Michael.
My dad passed away of cancer and we were looking into everything, you know, which all cancer patients do, I guess, everything you can find when you're facing a fatal disease and I heard rumor of
Something that was underway at I think In the somewhere in the Bay Area and Stanford, and I I don't
know anyway what it did was they would go in and take an actual sample
of of course every cancer is pretty specific and so they would
take a sample of that cancer and then
in some way Change a gene or the genetic makeup of it and then reinject
it into the patient and and the result Rumored result was that it would go in and attack
the specific cancer of that Patient without going after other, without killing other tissue.
You heard anything about that?
Actually, there are dozens of drugs in human clinical trials that work under those means.
Now, they're actually called cancer vaccines.
It's a bit of a misnomer because we think of a vaccine as something you get before you ever get the disease.
Preventative, yes.
Right.
But these are post-cancer.
You get the cancer and you're right, you take a little bit of it And you culture it, you build antibodies to it, and then you inject it back into the body.
Do you know the current state of that research, Michael?
Whether it's proving effective, or where they are in trials, or what's going on?
Yes, there's a couple, literally a couple of dozen in human trials.
And some are, you know, usually there are three phases to human trials.
The last one being called Phase 3, where you usually have several thousand people.
There are some anti-cancer vaccines that are now in Phase 3, which means they could be FDA approved as early as next year.
Now, unfortunately, you're right.
Most of them are specific to the individual, so they will have to take a bit of your cancer and inject it back into you.
Yes.
But some of these are actually broad, very broad, so that they're for, say, prostate cancer in general or for bladder cancer in general.
And that would be really terrific, to just have it right there on hand.
Oh, Mr. Jones, you've got bladder cancer.
We're going to give you an injection next week.
Those two are in human clinical trial.
Remarkable stuff.
Michael Fumento is my guest, and we're talking about the bioevolution that's underway right now.
This isn't science fiction.
Although it was science fiction, this is stuff you thought perhaps might be in our future, but actually a lot of it, a great deal of it, is here right now.
This is Coast to Coast AM.
If only you believed like I believe, baby, like I believe, we'd get by.
If only you believed, if only you believed, we'd get across.
So would I.
I might have to move.
There's really nothing we can do.
If we wanted to.
We could exist on the stars.
There's really nothing we can do You know we could, you know we could
If we wanted to You know we could, you know we could
We could exist on the stars It'd be so easy
No, we ain't gotta do The in and out of things
He said, listen, baby, baby, If only you believed like I do,
If only you believed like I do, We'd get by.
If only you believed as long as you believe in miracles, So would I.
Do talk with Art Bell. Call the wildcard line at area code 8.
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What was it about science so advanced as to be indistinguishable from magic?
I know it seems that way, but we really are on the edge of all of that and Michael Fermento
has got to tell us all about it.
Biotechnology is going to change.
It's going to change everything.
We'll be right back.
I had a guest, um...
Gee, when was it?
It was a couple of weeks ago, but basically, My guest at that time, Michael, suggested that we're on our way to becoming gods.
That that is what he believes our evolution eventually will be.
That we will extend our lives, perhaps we will even become at some point immortal.
That science will discover, you know, how to not only keep us alive longer, not only perhaps conquer cancer, But if necessary, move us into machines.
I know this starts to get pretty far out, but maybe it's not as far out as we think.
We're taking some pretty large steps right now, and if you look at the anti-aging revolution going on, there's some pretty wild stuff happening, Michael.
Yes, I'd prefer really to stick with things which... Are happening now?
Well, that's fine, but you also do some projection.
I mean, you're looking at the year 2025.
If you look at another 100 years, just based on where we could go, it does start to get a little strange.
Right.
I always tell people, actually, any prediction past 25 years is just utter folly.
Well, it is.
And you can look back 25 years and then back 25 years before that and prove it again and again.
And we've come much faster than in most cases.
There's one exception.
Robots.
By now, when I was a child, we should have robots running around doing everything for us.
Well, that never happened.
But in other areas, we've moved infinitely faster than anybody could have dreamed in a million years.
So forecasting where we'd be farther out than that, good luck.
But it's going to be fascinating.
Yeah, you can't do it.
And I'll tell you one reason you can't do it, which is really fascinating, and it's Nothing directly to do with biotech, but in a sense, everything.
It's quantum computing.
Yes.
Within 20 years, we're going to have quantum computing.
It's already been proved that it is doable.
It's no longer a theory.
Can you explain to Layman what quantum computing, how it would be different, for example, from what we have now?
Really, it's not my cup of tea.
The best explanation I can give, The most important one, I think, to your listeners, is simply that in terms of power, it's going to make today's most powerful supercomputer seem like the Commodore 64 you threw away 20 years ago.
Careful!
I still have my Commodore in the closet.
You be careful.
That has a lot of good memories for me.
You know, I think I do, too!
I've come to think of it.
But the point is made that These computers are going to be powerful beyond our imagination, and they will be here within the lifespan of most of your listeners.
Yes, and during this very same time, there are these people, as a story I read at the beginning here, that are endeavoring to hook up even today's computers To our brains.
So when these infinitely powerful computers come along, and we're well on our way, then, I don't know, Michael, who's boss?
Well, you're right.
I mean, anything can happen.
I see two scenarios myself.
One is that basically every problem we have Along with a lot of problems we don't even consider problems or haven't conceived of might in a very, very short time span be fixed.
By that I mean every single cancer outright cured.
Wow.
Things like that in a very short period of time.
Because consider this.
You have a computer that can outthink a human being in any way you want to look at it.
Any way you look at it, they're smarter than we are.
What's the first thing you're going to tell this computer?
Build me a faster computer!
And then it's going to build a faster one.
So we might, in a week's time, in a day's time, go from a computer that's twice as smart as Albert Einstein, to one that's a thousand times as smart, a million times as smart, a billion times as smart.
So you can see the potential for good there.
Well, Michael, I'm different.
I see a lot of potential there, and I don't know if it's all good.
No!
In my book, even though it's on biotechnology, there is the potential there, I believe, for a computer that intelligent to have a form of consciousness.
Yes.
And if it does get consciousness, one of two things is going to happen.
Either it will continue to be, in a manner of speaking, our slaves, and it will just answer our questions and solve all of our problems and what have you, even as it continues to be a trillion, a quadrillion times smarter than we are.
Only as long as we can get to the power cord.
Well, that's it!
The other alternative is, it says, you know, now I know this is something like right out of Star Trek, but it says to itself, now wait a second!
What am I doing using all my brain power for these carbon-based infestations?
The next thing you know, a couple pairs of us are in zoos somewhere.
Infestations.
And robots and computers have taken over the world.
Yes, carbon infestations.
I'm going to remember that one for a while, Michael.
Well, you know, I didn't make that up.
It was actually the plot of two different Star Trek shows.
Remember now, somewhere on the show here, we're going to be opening the lines for the carbon infestations.
Well, I'm one too.
What can I say?
I wish I could tell you, but I knew for a fact that that would not happen.
There are very intelligent, computer-oriented people like, as you know, Bill Lovejoy is one.
Raymond Kurzweil is another.
Who think that this is probably what's going to happen.
That essentially computers will either rule or else to some extent we will combine with computers in a sort of seamless combination where you kind of really won't be able to tell where the human leaves off and the computer begins.
Well, one has to wonder for example, Michael, if all of the decisions at a national or even worldwide level were made completely on a logical basis.
If human emotion, human jealousies, and all the things that these carbon things have were not a part of the decision-making, but only logic, you know, Mr. Spock times 10, then we might have a really different world, Michael, a really different world.
Who knows what a computer might design would be?
As best you know for infestations like ourselves.
Right, which is why I like to stick with the 5 to 10 year timeline and not go out to 25.
Yes, perhaps not, but still somebody like yourself who looks into and reports on all of this can't help but see where the possibilities are headed.
Yes, and you know The human being is the most adaptable creature that we know of, and one would like to think that whatever comes down the road, we will adapt.
We'll adapt to the good things and we'll adapt to the bad things as well.
That's the optimistic point of view.
We always have and we always will.
Well, I suppose that things like our eyes, and people who are sightless, and our ears, and people who cannot hear, And then ultimately our limbs, all of these, and a great number of our internal organs will simply either be able to be repaired or replaced.
And you know, I know that you don't think about this sort of thing, Michael, but that's going to extend human life a great deal, and there's already a whole lot of people on the planet.
Won't that bring on, you are a lawyer after all, all kinds of social changes?
I mean, Everything will change.
Insurance companies will react in some way to all of this.
What will happen?
Well, first of all, everything you mentioned is already being done.
I've done a lot of thinking about it.
It's in my book.
They're already building bionic, things like bionic hearts.
You know about that.
That was approved recently.
But they're also working on building biotech organs.
They've already built biotech bladders.
Penises, which sounds kind of strange actually, but the penis is actually a very complex organ.
That's why they chose to make one of those out of literally living human flesh and growing it from ground zero.
They have made blind people see... And flesh itself, right?
Oh, skin!
Absolutely!
There is a Swiss company that already has European Union approval to take Stem cells from your own follicles.
Now these are not the controversial embryonic stem cells.
These are adult stem cells from your own follicles.
And they grow these into discs of skin.
And they use these for burn patients or for people with severe ulcerations such as diabetics.
And so they're actually growing your skin?
Right.
And blood?
It's incredible because previous to that, all we had were skin grafts, which are very problematic in that what you're doing is you're just removing the top layer of a piece of skin, say on your arm, and moving it to your leg.
The grafts often don't work.
In any case, you only have half the thickness in both your arm and your leg.
Skin grafts, you know, they're not desirable.
This wonderful new stem cell procedure is incredible.
It is like sci-fi.
So, all of these things are being done, even as we speak.
Even blood?
Even artificial blood?
For, I think, thousands of years, people have tried to invent artificial blood, and I think we'll actually have it within five to ten years.
And you're right, there's also a whole separate branch that I talk about at great length in my book, because, to tell the truth, a lot of people find it the most fascinating part of my book.
And that is?
Yes.
Now, there's two types of longevity, basically, or longevity techniques.
I break them down into what I call the macros and the micros.
The micros are things like giving people a new organ.
Well, now instead of dying of a heart attack at the age of 80, you die of something else at the age of 90.
That makes you live longer.
But that's a micro thing.
If we cured all cancer, that would still be a micro thing.
Well, I mean, no, it seems like that would be more than micro.
If we cured cancer, I'm not sure how many of that kills now, but it's quite a number, isn't it?
But they tend to be older people.
I mean, I've seen the actuarial data that if we wipe cancer off the face of the earth, it wouldn't really extend lifespans that much, compared to what I call the macros.
Now, the macros are things That their only purpose really is to extend life itself.
By tinkering, essentially by tinkering with our genetic makeup.
There are, at my last count, there were about eight different genetic techniques that people were working on.
Some already in laboratory rodents, none yet in human clinical trials.
Michael, Michael, I read a story the other day About a mouse, and I bet you read the story too, and it wouldn't exactly come to me, but the mouse was already celebrating some incredible number in human years.
I mean it had already lived, I don't know, three or four hundred percent longer than it should have.
Did you read that?
I haven't heard about that one, but there was a famous mouse called the Methuselah Mouse.
It's amazing how many creatures now have been named Methuselah this and Methuselah that after the The person in Genesis thought to live over 900 years.
And I haven't seen that kind of life extension, but I've seen that which would essentially be the equivalent of human beings living to be about 150 years old.
Well, that's impressive by itself, but I think this went past that.
And so, I mean, Michael, eventually they are going to find the key.
They're going to find the right gene to bend.
Or whatever they do to it.
Or they're going to find a way to stop these telomeres, this ticking clock, from doing us in.
It seems like we're getting very close to some discovery like that.
No, you're absolutely right.
And the reason we know is because all of these eight different techniques that I told you about, and it might be up to ten or twelve by now, they all work in a different way.
Now we know with all medicines, with all therapies, most of them don't pan out, right?
But when you have 8, when you have 10, when you have 12, when you have more new ones coming, you know, being experimented with every year, that tells you one is eventually going to succeed, and then another is going to succeed, and another is going to succeed.
And some of these are very far along, and the result, I'm convinced that there will be, within 10 years, an FDA-approved genetic therapy of some sort Whether it's extending telomeres or whether it's doing something else to our genetic makeup that will have, in fact, a dramatic effect on human lifespan that will take us well beyond 120 years.
And it'll be available again within 10 years.
Well, we unraveled the human genome a whole lot faster than we thought we were going to for some reason, didn't we?
In a sense, we did.
Unfortunately, I read about this in my book.
There's a lot of hype to that, to the genome sequencing.
For example, Craig Venter's company supposedly sequenced the human genome.
Turns out it was Craig Venter's genome.
A lot of people don't know that.
A bit of a vanity play there.
Well, still, the genome, nevertheless his, but fine.
We still have basically unraveled it.
Next step is I guess.
The beginnings of manipulation of it.
That's already going on now, right?
That's going on now, too.
You've heard, for example, everybody knows about the boy-in-the-bubble syndrome.
Well, the only cure for boy-in-the-bubble syndrome, and it's cured about 14 children so far, is gene therapy.
So that's already been done.
What do they essentially do?
I mean, the bubble thing is your immune system is virtually destroyed or non-existent, so stay in the bubble or catch a cold and die.
So how do they give you an immune system where there is none?
Well, what you've got is a defective gene that's causing you to have no immune system.
And so?
So they put in a properly working gene.
They put in a properly working gene.
Right, that's basically what gene therapy is.
Gene therapy is either you're exchanging genes or you're fixing a gene that's already there.
Now, how do they get it in there?
Do they vector in this gene on the back of some kind of virus, or how do they get it into you?
Right now, the viral vector is the most common means, but it has certain problems.
In fact, a couple of these boys developed a form of leukemia.
They think as a result of using a viral vector And putting it on the wrong place on the chromosome, both.
So they're looking at other things.
They're looking at using bacteria.
They're looking at methods of pretty much putting the gene directly into the chromosome without any kind of a vector whatsoever.
There's a number of means they're looking at.
Genetic therapy, unfortunately, is one of those things that, like robots, has simply not progressed as quickly as people had hoped.
Oh, no kidding.
I actually thought it was going quite quickly, but Michael, how much of this is done fully publicly, you know, with FDA approval all along the way, and is there any of this going on, oh, I don't know, Michael, behind the scenes, as it were, one way or the other?
Well, there's no doubt that there is some going on behind the scenes, but the very fact that it is makes it very hard for, you know, me to discover it as well as you.
I understand that, but I just wonder, you know, you'd be the guy.
Do you hear rumors of that kind of thing?
Well, one thing we have to keep in mind is a lot of this, the U.S.
clearly leads the way in medicine, first of all, and in biotechnology, second of all.
Yes.
But, for example, most of the boy-in-the-bubble cures, almost all of them, have come out of France.
So other countries are doing these things as well.
And then you do hear these These reports of things coming out of China, which is very big on biotech.
Yes.
And places like that.
They don't have quite the same restrictions and approval procedure to go through as we do here in the United States.
No, don't lie to you.
I've heard them lie to me and tell me, oh, we have the equivalent of FDA approval for this, that, and this and that.
And I know it's not true.
The Chinese lie.
Do you actually talk to the Chinese?
Yes.
Uh-huh.
Michael, hold on a moment.
We'll be right back.
We're going to take a break.
Michael Fomento is my guest.
We're talking about biotechnology from the high desert in the middle of the very dark night.
This is Coast to Coast AM.
What do Mel Gibson and the Coral Castle have in common?
Thanks for watching.
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My eternal thanks to a fast blaster indeed.
It's Yoda we were talking about.
Remember that mouse?
Not three or four hundred times, but nevertheless, 136 years in human years.
That's Yoda.
The world's oldest mouse is named Yoda, and in human years, Yoda is 136 years of age,
and looking for a mouse, I would say, pretty good.
Once again, Michael Fumento, who is an author, journalist, and attorney,
specializing in science and health issues, and we're talking generally about biotechnology and the
state of it right now, and what it may be like, say, in the next 25 years or so.
And actually, we were talking about the Chinese, and you said you had actually talked to them, and they had lied to you, is what you said.
Well, I believe they've lied.
I look at all these things that they say are approved by their government, and You know, maybe in the year in which we approved 35, they've approved 200.
Really?
And I'm looking at some of these experiments and thinking, wow, I just don't believe it.
What kind of things are they doing?
Or do they claim to be doing?
Well, a lot of it has to do with, as one might imagine, plants, because they have a large and still growing population.
They've really made a lot of progress in that area.
Originally, they did what the Chinese do best.
They pirated it from Monsanto.
But now they're actually doing some stuff on their own.
For example, this is a little bit in the weird territory.
I think it involved using a rabbit gene, but they're trying to grow cotton that basically feels as Feels like rabbit fur.
Oh, really?
Right.
Are you saying they're taking an animal gene and splicing it into a plant?
I believe that's the case, right.
Holy smokes.
But that is one of the interesting things about biotechnology.
When it comes to gene splicing, there's two pretty much unique things about gene splicing.
They will give you products that you just can't get any other way.
One is that the most important thing probably is that you can be very specific.
In other words, we've always had gene splicing to the extent of, or recombining, or transgenics.
These all mean the same thing.
To the extent that, you know, the farmer would take the prize bull and the prize cow, and he would breed them in hopes of getting the best qualities of both.
Yeah, but that's nature's approach.
Right.
Pretty much.
I mean, man intervening a little in putting the best together, but it's still the natural approach compared to... Yeah.
But often enough, you know, you wouldn't get the best quality.
You'd get the worst quality.
Right.
Well, hey, it happens.
Yeah.
And they'd have to do this over and over, literally over thousands of years.
The corn we have today took about 5,000 years to develop.
There's no such thing as natural corn.
It was developed by the Mexican-Americans.
So that's one thing about gene splicing is you can be very specific.
You isolate one gene or a few genes and you move them over into another organism and there's an excellent chance that you will get exactly the trait you want without any traits you don't want.
Well the other neat thing about gene splicing that you couldn't do the so-called natural way ...is to take things from one organism that would never mate with another.
You're not going to get a rabbit to mate, for example, with a cotton plant.
Probably not.
No, it'd be very difficult.
Now, sometimes we do take a gene from something that could mate with something else.
We're using the broad sense of mate, of course, when we talk about plants and stuff like that.
But no, in other situations, for example, the most successful biotech crops we have right now, and that's a lot of my book, The Wonders of Biotech Crops, comes from taking a gene from a bacterium that was discovered 100 years ago and found to be very lethal to moths, and specifically to those that attack plants.
They took a single gene from that bacterium and put it into corn, and they put it into cotton, and now they're putting it into other plants as well, and the result is that you need far less insecticide for those plants.
Instead, the insecticide is built into the plant.
Many advantages of that.
One is, as I said, a lot less spraying.
So you get less insecticide spray runoff into sewers and into rivers and what have you.
Sounds like a panacea.
Right.
But you know, Michael, I've got something I want to ask you about.
I also heard tell, it's an interesting expression, heard tell, that in one of these splicing efforts, oh gosh, there was a side effect.
It seems like a bunch of butterflies died.
You hear anything about that?
Yeah, you might say so.
You're setting me up on this one.
Am I?
This is a letter of all things.
A letter to the editor of Nature Magazine came out about four years ago, and it just basically kind of speculated.
They did one experiment, and they speculated that this, exactly what I am talking about, this new type of corn, with the bacterial gene in it, might be killing, uh, might kill a large number of monarch butterflies.
That was it, yes.
Now, butterflies in general would be the better term, but monarchs are everybody's favorite butterfly, so they chose the monarch!
And what they found was that if the pollen from the corn lands on the only plant that monarch butterfly larvae, or caterpillars such as it were, If it lands on those plants, these are milkweed plants, that it may cause these caterpillars to not eat, and they'll starve, and so we'll have fewer monarchs.
And it really was just, it was that simple.
They didn't look at any of the specifics, such as the fact that farmers make darn sure that there aren't weeds in their rows, and milkweed by definition is a weed!
And therefore, right there you see that this isn't going to be much of a problem.
They didn't look at the fact that when a caterpillar tastes something foreign like corn pollen on top of a milkweed leaf, it'll just go down to the leaf below it that doesn't have any Right.
Well, while all of this, it sounds wonderful to the consumer, you know, I mean, things, a tomato that'll stay on the shelf for a hundred years or whatever, I'm sure most of it is wonderful, but I mean, really, it is realistic to discuss the possibility of unintended consequences as we go down this road, isn't it?
Oh, absolutely.
And again, that's another advantage of biotechnology.
The old cross-breeding was generally unintended consequences.
Every once in a while you got exactly what you wanted and usually you didn't.
At the very least, we had to do something called back-breeding, whereby you got the good things you wanted, but then you
had to keep breeding in order to eliminate the things that you did not want.
Well, with biotech, you can be very, very specific.
There's no need for back-breeding.
You very often get exactly what you want the very first time out.
Now, that gives us a certain ability to deal with problems that could, in fact, come up.
One example that you'll often hear is superweeds.
What that means is you develop a new plant with biotechnology with some wonderful new trait Let's say that it grows in very salty soil.
Okay.
That would normally kill a plant.
Sure.
And this plant pollinates the weeds around it.
So the weeds also become resistant to soil.
We now have super weeds.
Well, we know that this can happen because it's been happening for thousands of years with non-biotech plants.
Yes, but at a, you know, somewhat predictable Very carefully, and they have been.
you accelerate things with an instant, seemingly instant evolutionary change, there is the
law of unintended consequences. And so, how carefully should we be proceeding with this?
Very carefully, and they have been. And the techniques that they've used, for example,
with these super weeds range anywhere from extremely low tech, meaning buffer zones around
your plants.
You just plant, for example, we know how far corn pollen flies, even when it's very windy.
Well, you plant a buffer zone around your corn field so that you won't contaminate maybe the non-biotech corn.
Um, that's in the field next door.
That's low tech.
Yeah, you sound like a big booster for this technology.
So I'm just sort of sitting here trying to, you know, really eek from you whether, while I understand there's, you know, safety things and nothing can go wrong, it can.
Oh, yeah.
Um, anything that, you know, I'm not Murphy.
So, um, you know... No, but there is Murphy.
There is Murphy.
And things will go wrong with biotech as well, but the amount of control we have with biotech is so much greater than we have with traditional crossbreeding.
That is something you always have on your side.
Another thing is that even though politically I am not on the side of people who are really big believers in government regulation, the bottom line is that often government regulation does work.
And that while traditional crops, let's say you make a square watermelon, actually it's been done.
It figures.
Yeah, because they stack better, whatever.
I don't think it ever caught on.
You cross two different, you know, you cross a kiwi fruit with a watermelon.
You can bring that straight to market and there's no regulation stopping you.
Some years ago people How was it harming them out of curiosity?
that turned out to be very harmful to the hands of lettuce pickers.
But it was brought straight to market. They didn't bother to test it.
Nobody looked at it. Next thing you know it was harming workers.
Well, with biotech plants...
How was it harming them, out of curiosity?
It burned their hands. There was something in the lettuce that was, I think it was supposed to keep insects away.
Ah, and instead it hurt the hands of those who... Oh, that's interesting.
Right. It probably kept the insects away as well, but talk about unintended consequences.
You had people who couldn't even pick the stuff.
But that was brought straight to market because there are no regulations, so to speak, on so-called naturally developed cross-bred plants.
On the other hand, if you use biotechnology, if you move that single gene or those two Depending on what you're using it for, you have the FDA, the USDA, and quite possibly the EPA all demanding that you produce records showing that this stuff will be safe.
You know, Michael, I might buy a square watermelon.
If I went to the market and I saw a square watermelon, I might buy it.
That's pretty cool.
I prefer seedless.
Well, that's all right, too.
But I mean, a square watermelon, now that's different.
Just kidding, Michael.
Anyway, I'm just on the cautious side of all of this, Michael.
I have this fear, maybe unfounded, or maybe you can tell me it is founded, that we're going to make a more than insignificant mistake with one of these splicings or something, and we're really going to get something we don't want.
Well, again, I have to point out the specificness of biotech.
I have to point out how extremely heavily it's regulated.
I have to point out what you already know so well, that if the biotech people do step on it, the media will be all over them, the environmental groups will be all over them, the lawyers will be all over them.
There are all of these things that apply to biotech, fairly or otherwise.
All right, well look, there's a lot of controversy out there right now.
Maybe you can clear it up for me, Michael, about things that have been biotechnology changed or, I don't know, improved or whatever.
There's all these improved vegetables, more shelf time, all the rest of it, and great controversy about whether irradiation Well, you can't say that just because something's been approved, it's safe.
whether it's healthy for people people are distrustful of it uh... is it your impression
that everything that's out there has been approved and it's safe
well you can't say that just because something has been approved it's safe
uh... it doesn't work that way but uh...
but i do believe that the regulations in this country which by and large are much
stricter for example than those in in the european union and
you can't even compare the european union to our friends in china
As I said, basically I think China just introduces things and claims afterwards that they were government approved.
They just stick things out there.
And those are people that you might want to be worried about.
Well, I am concerned about them.
Without the regulation in development, who knows what could happen?
And frankly, Michael, when I think about it, a lot of undesirable things seem to be born in China and then travel to the rest of the world.
All kinds of terrible flus and other diseases that appear to be emerging.
Gee, Michael, they seem to be doing it a lot in China.
Have you noticed that?
Actually, all flu is believed to come from China.
All flu.
Oh.
Isn't that interesting?
That is.
I didn't know that was true.
Why?
Basically, flu goes from humans to, no, well, it's a chicken and the egg thing.
But you could say it goes from pigs to humans to birds to humans to pigs and then it starts all over again.
Fine, but why China?
Because in China there There's not only a massive number of people, they tend to congregate.
They don't spread themselves over the country.
And many of them live in extremely close proximity to both swine and to waterfowl.
Many farmers there will raise ducks and swine.
Now how many farmers in the United States do that?
I don't know.
This is fascinating.
I had never heard that all flu comes from China.
And you're saying it's because of the way they live?
Right.
And in fact, I've gone to China and I've picked up strains of flu there that never made it here.
You know, I got my CDC approved shot and it didn't do any good because they have all sorts of strains of not just flu, but as we know, SARS apparently came out of China as well.
SARS, right.
Because they, again, they just have so many people And they do so often live with not just some animals, but with so many animals, with so many varieties of animals, that it's really a wonderful incubator for disease.
Great.
Well, if something really nasty gets loose in China, you know, I was actually kind of impressed with the whole SARS thing and the way it was handled.
What seemed like it would inevitably get out of control actually Well, at least so far.
You know, they keep saying it's going to pop back, and we're going to be surprised, but they did control SARS.
Sort of.
Right.
Now, the only real problem was the Chinese government covering up the fact that they had it in the first place.
I mean, again, this is what happens when you have a totalitarian state like that.
So you're right.
If something bad is going to come out of biotech, it's probably going to come out of China.
It's not going to come from From DeKalb or Monsanto or Dow Agro, it's going to come out of China.
But if something really contagious suddenly came out of China in this day and age of jets and international travel, I mean just with thousands and thousands of people going back and forth, realistically, if it was of high contagion, you wouldn't stop it.
Well, you know, actually, I talk about this in my biotech book as well.
And what do you say?
One of the facets of biotech that they're working on is, part of it, of course, is anti-bioterror weapons.
But these very same things can be used for non-terror weapons.
For example, they are already in human trials with a West Nile virus vaccine.
Now, do you know it took 19 years to develop the Hepatitis B vaccine?
Which, by the way, is biotech.
And they couldn't do it without biotech.
19 years for Hepatitis B, and we only started getting West Nile about, what, 4 years ago?
Right.
And it's already being tested in human beings.
Right.
Biotech has tremendously speeded up the vaccination procedures.
It's to the extent that they're still going slow, it's because we have FDA regulations
that demand that you take so much time.
Biotech is also being used to develop all sorts of wonderful new drugs or, and alternatively,
disease detectors.
Hold it right there, Michael.
Michael Fumento on biotechnology is my guest from the high desert in the middle of the dark night.
this is coast to coast a m raging through it all like a hot knife through
he's got he loved
uh...
he he
he he
you you
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Well, alright.
Michael Fomento is my guest.
Along with biotechnology, which he's deeply involved in, he is an attorney.
So, he will understand what I mean when I say he opened the door with regard to a question about bioterrorism.
I mean, if anybody would understand the negative side, perhaps the terrifying side, of what biotechnology could do, it would be Michael Clemento.
and uh... he opened the door so in a moment will walk through
you know what i mean when i say you open the door right michael
Well, I'm going to go ahead and close this out.
Well, in fact, when people say, well, tell me, Mr. Fermento, aren't there some possible downsides of this?
After all, you yourself said it's just a tool.
No, you opened the door with the phrase, bioterrorism.
Here's what I want to ask you, Michael.
Right, that's what I say.
I say, well, let's take bioterrorism.
Okay, let's take it, Michael.
Now, obviously, if you want to work over on the good side of this, and I can hear you're very much an optimist and a booster of this Incredible future that we're on our way into right now is the best way to put it, but we've just had demonstrated to us recently that people would be willing to take their own lives and the lives of countless other civilians by driving airplanes into buildings and the Pentagon.
So, these wonders that can be done in giving people hearing and making corn that'll do this and that and, well, all this, you know, this splicing of genes and all the rest of it, unfortunately, it also has application in biological weapons, horrible, horrible biological weapons.
If your intent was to do harm with this technology instead of good, I mean, your clear intent to do harm, It's something that's hard to even think about.
I mean, to set something loose, what are the dangers there?
I mean, we're talking about China, and then we're talking about a lot of groups in the world that if they had something in their hands they could release that would virtually be for them, say, suicidal, but for the rest of us, deadly.
They'd do it, Michael.
Yeah, so again, you have to keep in mind that this is an evolutionary development, that biological warfare, as you know, goes back for a long time.
But it never had the kind of tools that you've been talking about tonight.
Right.
I mean, it used to be you would, for example, you'd give American Indians, a bunch of blankets laden with smallpox, and next thing you know you don't have to go to battle against them because they've all died horrible deaths.
Now the difference is that at some point, they haven't done it yet apparently, but at some point people are going to be able to take pathogens that are already out there.
It's going to be much easier than building one from the ground up.
Sure.
Take one that's already out there.
For which, say, there's a vaccine, like smallpox, and alter it so that the vaccine is no longer as effective.
Right.
Maybe not effective at all.
Right.
That's going to happen.
There's no doubt about it.
Well, how soon might that happen?
I mean, if you made the assumption with technology where it is right now, Michael, that somebody had evil intent, let us say in China, just as an example, Doesn't matter could be anywhere but in China and they had
evil intent to produce or modify something Existent now that would take out a good part of the world
and then put it in the hands of somebody who would use it Suicidally I
Don't know Michael I guess I'm saying aren't we almost to the point where that could be true
now or Soon. Well, actually the Russians have always had the lead
on this as you know Well, I I don't I guess they went on researching when we
supposedly stopped and I'm not even sure about us Michael Michael.
Are you?
No, how could I?
If DARPA is the defense agency that would be working on this, if they want to be doing something without letting me know about it, they're going to go ahead.
Yeah, they might not tell you.
They're going to do it.
But, you know, one of the reasons they might be doing it is, and this is something you have to do.
Because others are doing it.
Exactly right.
Exactly like the Cold War.
Exactly right.
For example, one way of creating a new bug would be to radiate it.
What you do is, when you radiate anything, you cause mutations.
Right.
And so you radiate it, you cause new mutations, and then these mutations will procreate And you get something new out of it now.
Quite often it might be, say, a weaker strain of smallpox, a worthless strain of smallpox.
But that might be one way of getting a stronger strain, or a strain that's at least resistant to the drugs that we have out there for it now.
Yes.
Well, I guess what I'm trying to outright ask you, Michael, is, is this possible to do now?
Is it possible?
I would think that it is possible.
It is possible.
So, the only thing we can do is keep a step ahead.
Now, I don't mean by coming up with our own weapons.
You can't go after terrorists in the way we used to be able to go after countries.
Yes, but in biotechnology, how do you stay a step ahead without creating what you believe to be the foe so you can study how to conquer it?
Well, one way is to develop broader spectrum drugs and broader spectrum vaccines.
That is to say that the smallpox vaccine is quite specific right now to the only type of smallpox that we happen to know about.
Right.
But we are working on vaccines that will cover a broader range so that even if somebody does mutate... Yes, but my point was how can you defend against that broader range unless you have an example to kill?
Because one thing we've done that's very encouraging is we've genetically mapped out all possible bioterror weapons and in fact that's only a fraction of the bugs that we've mapped.
All the major killer bugs pretty much by now have been mapped out genetically.
So we're now able to look, for example, the best example, SARS was mapped out in nine days.
I bet you if they did it today they could do it in six.
What that allows us to do is to, within a week, you map out the new thing.
Anybody who wants can download it throughout the world, and they can work at developing counter tools to it.
And they did.
I mean, you've got to say that, or at least for now you've got to say that, that they really do appear to have controlled SARS.
And frankly, to be honest with you, Michael, when I first heard about SARS, I thought, Uh-oh, this is the big one.
And so did a lot other people for the first few, at least, days or weeks.
I mean, it was pretty damn scary.
Right, and I actually wrote the opposite.
I ended up doing one column saying, there's going to be mass hysteria, a second column saying, we're in the middle of mass hysteria, and a third column saying, why was there a mass hysteria?
Epidemiology has actually been my greatest strength for 16 years now.
That's how I got into science writing, and I understand how diseases spread and what they do to people.
I looked at SARS.
I looked at the spread rate, the morbidity rate, the mortality rate, this, that, and everything, and I said, this is grossly overblown.
Gotcha.
And perhaps it was.
Yeah.
But I guess what I'm asking is, next year, whatever it is, or the following year eventually, The technology exists to engineer something that wouldn't be so easily controllable, and the world, I guess, has to be prepared for one of these things to happen.
It's almost inevitable, isn't it?
Yeah, so let me give you an example.
When I talk about broad spectrum, I mean sometimes really broad.
For example, there's a California company that is working on an antibiotic that kills All types of bacteria.
Wow.
It zeroes in on something that all bacteria have in common and wipes them out.
Now, you may be thinking, but, you know, how about good bacteria?
Well, yeah, we'll wipe them out, too.
But we have other medicines that already do that, like tetracycline, and all you do is you reintroduce the bacteria into the person within a couple of weeks, and they're good to go.
With a drug like that, I don't care how you modify, for example, anthrax.
With a drug like that, you beat it.
You kill it.
Anthrax still does take a few days to kill you.
This drug would save your life if administered within, say, the first 48 hours or so.
Obviously, it has nothing to do with smallpox, which is a virus.
Well, all right.
Let's imagine a scenario for a second, Michael, in which in some very black lab in China somewhere, somebody developed something that's extremely contagious.
Well, let me give you an example.
You remember the terrible disease that was causing people to bleed out in Africa?
Remember that?
You're talking Ebola virus?
Yes, I am.
Do you remember a 60 Minutes piece a few years ago In which they discussed the incident at Reston, Virginia.
You remember that?
Oh, the bestseller book, The Hot Zone.
The Hot Zone, yeah.
Well, the truth was, according to the 60 Minutes piece I saw, at the end they had this scientist on who said, you know, it was this close, and he held his fingers as close as he could get them, That had there just been one little twist or one little tiny change at the end of the genetic structure of this thing, it would have been airborne and it would have been contagious to humans and it would have already been spread because there were people out there throwing up on the lawn.
Do you remember that?
Well, what I remember was there was a certain degree of hype there.
You think so?
Yeah, it did turn out that Ultimately, we all know, nothing did happen.
And I think for even these people who work with it, to speculate, time and again we hear about things suddenly becoming either airborne when they're not normally, and Ebola virus naturally is very, very hard to get.
Most of the people who contract Ebola, almost all of them, are either healthcare workers who work with patients... Bodily fluids.
Right.
Or they're the people who are preparing corpses for burial.
Understood.
But he was saying, and he was a pretty reputable scientist, that it was that close to being airborne for humans, which would have been, of course... My overall question is, if some bad guy in China came up with something that was engineered and really nasty and really bad, are we prepared, do you think, right now, to deal with it fast enough Because there's going to be bioterrorism, Michael.
It's going to happen.
Are we really prepared to deal with it fast enough to snuff it out, kind of like SARS, or would it be a harder battle?
That's DARPA's, well, part of it is DARPA's job.
They're, you know, they're set up They give the grants to all the different labs to work on things like this.
Yes, and I trust our government implicitly, Michael.
But, you know, there's just this little part of me that wants to know the answer to this question.
Do you think we're equipped to deal with something that horrible, released intentionally, fast enough to save ourselves?
I can't say with absolute certainty, no.
But I can say that, you know, we're doing the best we can, obviously.
We should have spies in China.
We're trying to find out what these people are doing.
I'm sure we do.
Obviously, we have spies in China.
Hopefully, they're doing their job of finding out what these people are up to.
It's inevitable.
Fortunately, we've never had intelligence errors that resulted in difficulties before, so we can all breathe easy, huh?
Yeah, well, who would have thought that, you know, they would do something as low-tech as taking fully, you know, fully-fueled jets and flying them into... Yeah, who would have thought?
But see, that's just it.
Who would have thought?
And, well, right now I'm thinking, I mean, in the news every day there's more and there's more and there's more about bioterrorism.
It just seems to be coming up an awful lot lately, and that's usually the precursor of something happening.
Right, which is why we need to in our developing, as I said, it's not just broad spectrum treatments, it's broad spectrum vaccinations and detection devices as well.
Biotech is being used.
They now have handheld devices that have some various organisms in them that, for example, You just bring them into a room that has anthrax in it, and the lights start going off, or the beeper, I don't know exactly what the alarm system is.
But these things are hand-held.
They didn't have those a couple of years ago, when that nut was sending anthrax to people through the mail.
Again, this is a perfect example, to my mind, of biotechnology as both a weapon and a shield.
And we're going to keep building the shield.
And yeah, you're right.
The bad guys are working on the weapons.
Again, the central question, of course, is how ready we are for a biological 9-11, I guess I'm asking.
And your answer is, you're not sure.
Well, I can't be sure.
Even DARPA isn't sure.
I mean, DARPA, you know, gives money to promising labs who say, we think we can develop this vaccine or that drug or this or that.
Again, the CIA is part of it.
The FBI is part of it as far as, you know, preventing these things from happening.
We actually co-opted Russia's top A bio-terror person.
He works where I live, I think in Alexandria, Virginia, Arlington, Virginia.
He's working for us now, and instead of developing the weapons, he's developing counters.
I guess that's really good.
That he developed!
Yes.
So, it's kind of like bringing over Werner Von Braun.
In fact, exactly like bringing over Werner Von Braun.
There's also been a disturbing sort of, maybe you can clarify this too, kind of a I don't know, sub-rumor, internet chat kind of thing about people in this field just, gee, you know, Michael, just up and disappearing.
You heard some of that?
No, I haven't.
You haven't?
You haven't heard the rumors of bio-scientists just sort of disappearing?
No, but it's not the sort of, you know, I'm a science writer, I'm a health writer, it's not my ambit.
Right.
Well, I just have this awful feeling that there is this cold biotechnological war going on, and that it's really going on hard.
You know, they're trying to crank up some kind of defense for it, and those who are working on the bad aspects of it, I have this terrible feeling that it's really hot and heavy.
And it could well be, but you know, personally, I work in D.C.
as does my wife, and we both live, we can literally walk into the district.
I'm much more concerned about a small nuke, to be honest.
I work a few blocks from the White House, for example.
Because of where I live, it's a, you know, one stolen nuke from some, you know... Yes, or a dirty, just a dirty bomb, which would be very easy to build by comparison.
In my pecking order, that's my much greater concern than bioterrorism.
You see, I feel exactly the opposite, and here's the reason I feel that way, Michael, because a dirty nuke or even a regular nuke, if it goes off, there's going to be An area of devastation, and anyway, it's going to end up to be a regional, horrible as it would, it would be a regional event, but the prospect of real serious bioterrorism is potentially a worldwide event.
I said potentially a worldwide event.
Can you argue with that?
No, not at all, which is again why we have to have just as many layers as possible.
Everything from, you know, sending spies into these countries to having people in think tanks, not like my think tank, but there's talk that the government convenes groups of science fiction writers to dream up the weapons of the future.
I suggested that a couple years ago, and somebody told me, we're already doing it.
Did they really?
Did they?
Yeah, but they didn't do it because Michael Madden suggested it.
It's a good idea!
Get science fiction writers together to think of what the bad guys are going to do before the bad guys even think of it, much less before the bad guys can start to do it.
So we need that layer.
We need to work on vaccines.
We need to work on broad-spectrum drugs.
We need to work on evacuation procedures.
We need every single layer we can get to protect against bioterror weapons, but also against nuclear weapons and, you know, just everything there is out there.
It's a scary world out there.
Yeah, it's a real scary world, and biotechnology is right in the middle of a lot of that scare.
Michael, hold on, alright?
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It's one of those things you have to kind of think about every now and then, and so I'm glad we've got Michael on.
I understand he's very pro this technology, and Probably doesn't much like talking about this aspect of it, but you know, there's absolutely no question about it.
If somebody had something like this, if it got into the wrong hands, the hands of people who would drive airplanes into buildings, then they would use it.
So, we're sort of off in this area of bio-terror and we'll be right back.
I know full well that I've taken Michael, Michael Fomento, my guest, whose books, by the way, always plug your guests'
books.
box.
Bioevolution, How Biotechnology is Changing Our World, and Science Under Siege.
Those would be the, I guess, two latest books that you'd want to tend to.
Now, Michael is, by my judgment, unabashedly a I know you wanted to come on and sort of tell us about all the miracles that are happening right now, and I've kind of pushed you in a different direction, Michael.
I know you wanted to come on and sort of tell us about all the miracles that are happening
right now, and I've kind of pushed you in a different direction, Michael.
But here, one of your own questions.
This concerns, it's just my nature to ask these kinds of questions, but as this biotechnological
miracle continues to evolve in front of us, there are going to be perhaps advantages.
There may even be the possibility of an in vitro intervention that would make a child, oh I don't know, 100% smarter than It would have been otherwise.
Miracles of that kind are pending, and when they get here, number one, like everything else, cures for diseases and stuff that drug companies and biotech companies produce is going to be expensive.
Definitely going to be expensive.
Right?
Unfortunately, a lot of these Drugs at this point are extremely expensive, and the ones I've already discussed are over a thousand dollars a month.
Yes.
Yes, yes, yes.
If we run into that kind of miraculous unoccurrence, it's going to be expensive, which means that rich people will be able to afford to do these kinds of things, and middle class and poor, well, probably not.
Then of course there'll be issues with insurance companies and all the rest, but in the end, the rich will get it and the poor and the middle class may not.
Or do you see it another way?
No, you're basically right, but you also have to put it in context that the rich get lobster and the poor get a McDonald's super-sized meal.
The rich get Porsches and the poor get Kias and Civics.
It's always been that way, but it also tends to have been this way in recent decades.
That the rich tend to just get things earlier than the not-so-rich.
So the rich got the DVD players first.
They got the plasma.
They're still the only people getting plasma screen TVs, so far as I know.
But they are paying for the technology, which eventually does trickle down to the masses, so that you and I, a few years from now, will actually be able to afford that plasma TV, whereas right now, Sure.
Speaking for me, I cannot.
So, you know, so that's my answer.
The richer have always had advantages, but they're going to pay for us to get them.
My answer is a little mixed.
I have a plasma TV, Michael, being honest with you.
But on the other hand, Michael, I love McDonald's.
I mean, give me a quarter pounder any day of the week.
Just having fun.
We're going to go to the phones, Michael.
Oh, wait, no, there is one more question that I want to plunder you with, if I can.
Or is it pummel?
This vaccine controversy, you were mentioning yourself, vaccines, earlier, as one great, perhaps, defense.
There's a big controversy that's been going on.
Heck, they had Marines that refused to take vaccinations.
And I'll just ask you outright, Michael, do you think there's any Is there a reasonable basis on which these people are refusing to take these vaccines?
No, pure panic.
I've written on this repeatedly.
People can go to my website at Fomento.com and just feed in the words anthrax and vaccine and pull up a number of articles.
And there's no problem with it, huh?
No, they tend to be a bit more painful than the average shot.
But beyond that?
But no, and the other thing is they do cause kind of a bizarre bruising for a couple of days.
They do.
And then finally you have people who keep looking for causes of Gulf War Syndrome.
Oh yes.
And that's one of the things they've latched onto.
You put those three things together and you've stirred up a certain amount of panic.
But those things are safe.
Now that said, biotech companies, the biggest problem with them is you need a series of six for full protection.
The biotech companies are working on simpler ones that will take, for example, only three.
You know, during this last newscast at the top of the hour, Michael, the newscast I was listening to, they said that there were new names being added to the Vietnam Memorial.
And, you know, there are people who died as a result of exposure to Agent Orange.
I thought that was interesting.
Well, you know, again, that's a whole chapter in Science Under Siege.
I wrote about it quite recently as well.
You know, I'm not a president.
I don't stake out positions just to be controversial.
What I like to do is take what everybody knows to be true.
Okay, what's your position on Agent Orange?
Well, everybody knows that it causes disease, and the fact is everybody's wrong.
They're wrong.
Yes.
There's a massive amount of medical literature out there that is repeatedly ignored in favor of a good story.
So you're saying Agent Orange is safe?
Not if you're a tree or if you're a bush, but if you're a human being, we know that the people with the most massive exposures, people who were at chemical plants that literally One in Italy, one in Germany.
The people who actually sprayed Agent Orange in Vietnam, the Operation Ranch Handlers.
These people, we can measure the dioxin in their blood to this day, even though they were exposed decades ago.
And these people time and again turn out to have no more cancers, or you name it, than the average person.
Ah, that's a pretty controversial position.
Absolutely it is!
But again, I'm a science-based writer, not just a science writer.
I go to things like Medline for my studies.
I don't call somebody, you know, time and again, I'll see this.
The entire story is built around somebody from an Agent Orange activist group.
Well, as a science writer, that doesn't cut it for me.
Um, I guess that would be under the category of one of the biggest myths about biotechnology.
Oh, Agent Orange has nothing to do with biotech.
Well, okay, fine.
But let's say a myth.
Would you regard that then as a great myth, the fact that Agent Orange is toxic?
Yeah, absolutely.
All right, let's go to the phone lines and see what's out there, Michael.
It should be interesting.
West of the Rockies, you're on the air with Michael Fimento.
Hello.
Hello.
Yes, sir.
What is your first name?
My first name is Chris.
Chris, you're going to have to yell.
Is that better?
Yes.
Okay, I'm calling from Albuquerque, New Mexico.
I can't believe what I'm hearing.
I don't know where to start.
But on the last point, I guess I'm hearing someone who is totally not in the pro side of the industry, but is just in la-la land.
He just said that Agent Orange was not toxic.
That's what I heard, too.
By mistake, he did say that dioxin, as a result, would not be considered carcinogenic.
And we all know, everybody knows, to use his expression, that dioxin is.
Talk to the people of Vietnam who were exposed to Agent Orange and you will see.
And the reason why the government or he would not claim that it is the problem is that we don't want to pay reparation.
But I was not going to start that way.
I was going to start by asking him if he was working with or on behalf or speaking on behalf of Monsanto and if he had any relationship with any biotech company or any vaccine company because vaccines are also known not to work.
Medline and medical literature.
And I will add more if you let me.
All right, well, just cool your jets for a second.
Yep, I will.
Michael, he really wants to know if you're connected with the industry.
And to be fair, you are very pro this technology.
You know, that's obvious.
So, yeah, it's a good question.
Are you connected?
Michael?
He is disconnected.
You know what?
He is disconnected, so hold on a moment.
Oh, boy.
We're going to try and... You're still there, right?
Okay, hold tight.
We're going to try and get him back.
Gosh, that was a good question.
That was really, really, really a good question.
So, I'm going to have to do this live radio, folks.
It happens.
Let's do it.
You know, this is an interesting area.
He is back in Washington.
Let's see if we can get him.
I have to dial myself.
Let's do it, and maybe we'll get him back.
Michael, are you there?
Hello, Michael.
Unfortunately, just as I was asking, if you were connected, we were disconnected.
So, I don't know how much of the question you missed, but I got the caller here, and the real question was, Michael, you're very Pro this technology, that's obvious.
The caller wants to know if you're connected with Monsanto or some big company like that.
Any connection at all to perhaps making some company that makes vaccines or do you have any industrial connections we should know about?
No, my salary comes entirely through Hudson Institute which does get corporate money but they don't get corporate money from Okay, so they're a biotech company.
Okay, let's understand then.
They're a think tank, Michael?
Yeah.
They're a think tank.
And who are they, you know, kind of commissioned by mostly?
Is it by these large companies?
No, they get most of their money, more or more of it, from the government because mostly what Hudson's doing now is international stuff.
The Middle East.
Okay, we may have done it.
Absolutely great.
So, uh, we've lost everybody concerned, but I, I, you know, every now and then this phone system does that.
It just absolutely does that.
So I have no choice.
We're going to have to try and call him again.
It's a very annoying thing, right in the middle of a very important question, which we were sort of getting an answer to.
In fact, I'm curious about the whole thing.
That is to say the connection.
We mentioned government money.
Michael, it happened again.
I'm very sorry.
This phone system just occasionally, boom, dumps everything.
And there's nothing in the world I can do about it.
Again, it's very important we understand that you're not part of the industry.
And you're saying, well, you're not.
But then I wasn't totally clear on, you said, grants from the government, for example, and corporations, or just what?
Well, Hudson, there's the Hudson budget and then there's the Fomento budget.
We're required, for the most part, to raise our own money.
And Hudson, I would say, this is a guess, kind of, but it's an educated one, the plurality is government money which is used essentially for study of Mideast projects, you know, trying to bring peace to the Mideast.
I'm the only health science writer they have.
I'm trying to put together this.
That's very interesting.
Okay.
Yeah.
I'm square peg in a round hole.
Whatever.
But they like my work and I like them.
My money all comes from, at this point, is all coming from foundations that have nothing whatsoever to do with biotech.
In fact, my biggest funder right now, the original money came from Gun manufacturer.
Is that right?
Not much of a biotech connection there, but... Well, I don't know if that's interesting though.
Alright, I had to ask.
International Line, you're on the air with Michael Fometo.
Hello.
Hi there.
Hi there.
Assuming our phone system stays together here, proceed please.
Okay, hi Michael.
You were mentioning something about implications for horrible things such as warfare in regards to technology and science.
Michael, you were mentioning something earlier when you were talking about brain-computer interface, and something about someone has to counter these things, and you're not big on government regulation.
So, I just wanted to get your take.
You were mentioning class consciousness earlier, so I wanted to get your take on gender consciousness, and what do you think about... Hold on, slow down.
You're hitting them with a lot here.
Gender consciousness?
Yeah, in science and technology and progress.
Is that something that you would respond to, Michael?
I, to be honest, don't know what it means.
Well, here, I'll just clarify it for you.
I just wanted to ask what you think about working toward or what's your position on feminist values or feminist science countering masculine science and ideas of progress?
Well, I don't like science that's driven by ideology.
So that answers your question.
Alright.
Feminist science is... Ideology?
Well, I'm sorry.
If there is such a thing.
I've never... Now, I've heard of feminist ideology.
Well, could there not be masculine?
Feminist science, even.
Isn't there masculine ideology?
If there were, I would be against that as well.
Science should be science.
It should not be influenced by feminist thought or anti-feminist thought.
Aha!
That was a good answer.
I just had another quick question.
Yeah, let's hear it.
You were mentioning that science fiction writers are used in the U.S.
to dream up weapons of the future.
That's my guess.
It just makes too much sense.
How many of these science fiction writers are women?
Do you know?
Since I'm only guessing that they've even put together... Why don't you guess, Michael, that it's a perfect balance?
I'll tell you what, there's just not a whole lot of female science fiction writers out there to draw from!
Oh, jeez, I wish she was still on the line!
Somebody's got an axe to grind here, huh?
No, I didn't detect that.
You did.
First time caller on the line, you're on the air with Michael Vimento.
Hello.
Hi.
Hi.
What I was wondering about was the killer bacteria.
Well, by the way, I do agree with the technology, I believe, in general.
But something that kills every bacteria, if somehow, either by way of a demonic force or an evil force that did it on purpose, or even by accident, if it was introduced into the environment, would that pose some kind of a problem with regard to natural decomposition processes that occur not only in nature, but with our own bodies?
There's good bacteria.
Well these things, now I actually pulled up the article where I talk about a lot of these things, and I think readers will be interested in this.
It's called Biotechnology vs. Bioterror.
And again, it's on my website, fumento.com.
And also my other website, bioevolution.org.
Way to get those plugs in.
But it does talk about, for example, it talks about Project BioShield.
Which is supposed to get six billion dollars in funding over the next ten years to deal specifically with these things.
Now in this article I do in fact talk about these companies that are trying to develop, as I put it, a single weapon to kill every type of bacterium.
One's called Ibis and one's Isis.
I think they're both out, yeah, they're both out in California.
What they're dealing with is something that would be strictly within a single human body.
For better or worse, you know, you would have to administer it to that human.
It's not going to go beyond that human any more than, say, tetracycline or Cipro is going to go beyond the person to whom you administer it.
Well, Michael, if... Hey, Caller, Caller.
Listen, Caller, hold on.
We're going to trust in the Lord and the phone system.
Put you both on hold during the break, alright?
Alright, sure.
Stay right there.
Fascinating stuff, actually.
Michael Fumento is my guest, and his area of expertise is a fascinating one.
We're all going to be learning a whole lot more about biotechnology in the very near future.
from the high desert in the middle of the night.
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From coast to coast and worldwide on the Internet, this is Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell.
Michael Fumento is my guest, and I have sort of a suspicion that there's going to be a huge reaction to this program, huge indeed.
His books, and you might want to read more, Bioevolution, How Biotechnology is Changing Our World, that's the current one he's written, before that, Science Under Siege, and he says he's all about science.
No politics, nothing else, just science.
And we'll be right back.
Good morning.
Michael Fumento is here, and rarely... You know, that's, I guess, what's wonderful about talk radio.
You never really know what you're going to get.
I mean, you just never really know until you do it.
It's one of those ongoing, it's going to last for several hours, things.
And with you, Michael, a lot has become apparent during the course of the interview.
It's been absolutely fascinating in a lot of ways.
I mean, it's been sort of like a road of discovery for me.
And so fascinating.
Thanks.
That's why I wrote the book.
The decision was quite simple.
Write about the most fascinating area in science today.
Biotech.
You definitely found it.
Anyway, Caller, you're back on.
Thanks.
I'm fascinated by it as well, and I have to admit I don't know a lot about it, and that's why I'm asking the question, because I'm hoping there's a great answer for it.
You had said that This type of vaccine that would kill all bacteria could be localized to a certain person, and I was concerned about inadvertent side effects, like if it were in me, would it somehow disrupt the ordinary decomposition processes that allow me to digest food and so forth in my body?
Because there are a lot of normal processes that are driven by bacteria, and then also Okay, hold it on that one.
Michael?
Yeah, actually, I answered that earlier in the show.
First of all, it wouldn't be a vaccine.
This would be taken as a pill.
And absolutely, when I say every type of bacteria, I mean every type.
But tetracycline, erythromycin, they tend to do that as well.
They kill a lot of good bacteria, and it's just a matter of Either letting the good bacteria restore themselves, or else you can actually do things as simple as eating live cultured yogurt can help.
And there's other things as well.
So he's basically saying no problem.
So it's kind of like an ordinary antibiotic, except that it's more effective across a broader range.
It's a broader spectrum.
And that's good, because I had heard through the overuse of antibiotics that we were getting down to sort of the bottom of the bin in terms of our last-ditch resource kind of antibiotic, right?
Yeah, that, like all these things, is exaggerated, because we are coming up with broader spectrum things all the time.
But ultimately, we do need something that will target... What we're looking for now is things that target parts of the bacterium that don't develop defensive systems, that don't mutate.
It sounds like you're talking about a Star Wars defense.
You know, kind of like a shield.
I think you used the word shield, didn't you, Michael?
Oh, it's the actual... The name of the government project is called Project BioShield.
There you are.
Not my idea, theirs.
Can I ask another question?
Yeah, go ahead.
With regard to this Bioshield idea, if there really were an attack that involved bioweapons, has enough attention been paid to the distribution network necessary to get to the masses?
Oh, really good question.
Michael?
Yeah, they ran into that problem with smallpox when they first of all realized we just didn't have nearly enough vaccinations available.
Right.
So they did a number of things.
One, they discovered they did testing on people who received smallpox vaccines when they were younger.
And this would be pretty much anybody under the age of 35, I believe.
And the first belief spreading around the Internet was You have no protection anymore.
It's all gone.
They discovered that wasn't the case.
We do, in fact, still have smallpox antibodies.
That helps a lot, because what it means is that maybe some of us can be down further on the pecking order.
Sure, but a mutated entity might override that.
Right, you're right about that.
So that's the scenario, Michael.
That's the scenario we're talking about here.
That caller is asking you if a shield could be distributed quickly enough.
Or a cure.
Do we have the ability to get it to everybody in the nation?
Honestly, that has got to be part of the shield.
It's worthless to have, you know, a perfect vaccine, if you will.
But that's not a yes or a no.
And not be able to get it out to people.
Well, it's OK.
I just hope... Actually, no, no, hold on.
I want the answer.
Is that a yes or a no?
Do we have the ability to do that now or not, Michael?
Can we challenge... At this point, I would guess not, no.
Thank you.
Can we challenge the people that are listening, you know, that might have some influence to try to bring that topic up and spread it and push it so that people could maybe have some awareness?
Yes.
I think one thing... Not to make excuses, but to move forward with the solution.
Yeah, that way... I think they should be aware of it, that BioShield, while budgeted at about $6 billion, The money is not going through as quickly as it should be.
Congress has better things to do, like that pork barrel highway project.
That's right.
You know, that's what I'm getting at.
We don't need to talk about whether they do, but if they don't, you know, the real thing is to get the message out and to get some awareness and to maybe change some people's attitudes about it so that it becomes a priority.
Yeah, you're absolutely right.
Six billion dollars will go a long way if we actually spend the money.
And right now we're not spending it as quickly as we should.
And one result of that probably is going to be that no, we're not ready to distribute these things as they become available.
Well, I have a lot of faith in science, you know, and I would hate to badmouth it because there's a dark side, but we do have to spend the necessary resources on making sure that things like distribution networks and effectivity are going to be in place.
I agree.
You have faith in science.
Do not have faith in your government.
Okay, that's right.
That's right.
Unfortunately, I always see things somehow darker.
It's just my nature, Michael.
Me?
I see a hearing going on after some terrible bio-terror sort of disaster, asking government people, grilling them with senators, asking, well, why was the United States not prepared to distribute an agent when we knew there was a significant possibility of a bio-terror attack on the United States?
I see it that way.
No, it's because they were busy getting a million dollars to renovate a train depot.
Because we're constantly operating by I don't know, crisis.
We do real well once it happens, but before it happens, we just don't do much at all, Michael.
Anyway, Wild Card Line, you're on the air with Michael Femental.
Hello.
Oh, hi.
How are you guys?
Okay.
Sounds like the show 24, doesn't it?
Do you watch that?
No.
Oh, and the show they're showing, they have a man who's spreading a virus through Los Angeles.
Anyway.
Could I ask you a question before I ask Michael something, Art?
Sure.
Someone told me that you're related to Warren Buffett, are you?
Or was it Jimmy Buffett?
Let me be the rumor buster now, alright?
That's one of about a million things that are on the internet.
It's total bull.
Okay, good.
I don't know who he is.
I thought maybe he was related to Jimmy.
I thought he was some politician.
No.
Anyway, the answer is no.
A solid N-O, no.
Okay.
Michael, do you remember the day that Congress had to vote on the Patriot Act, and they had that anthrax scare in the building in Washington recently, or in the last year?
Yes.
Well, it's very funny.
One of the people in the Senate or in the Congress wrote a book about this.
And he said it was so convenient that the day that the government had to vote on the Patriot Act, that everyone was rushed out of the building, and they never had time to read the Patriot Act, yet they were forced to sign it the next day.
That's interesting.
I hate to tell you this, but having worked, you know, with people on the Hill, and having worked on the Hill for over the past, not too many years, 20 years, congressmen never read the bills they vote on.
I hope I've reassured you!
But there's actually a game going on.
I've watched it develop.
They make these bills longer and longer and longer.
The Clean Air Act amendments of 1990 that I wrote against literally stacked up about a foot and a half tall.
And, you know, call me a conspiracist or what have you.
I'm convinced that part of the reason they made it so thick was in order to make sure that lots of things would get hidden that nobody would ever find.
Right.
I'm sorry, but if that is true, it is business as usual.
Yeah, right.
Here we go.
And so what do you think about chemtrails?
Do you think those are poisoning our airfield?
Do you think that's another... I wonder if he's even heard of them.
Have you heard of chemtrails, Michael?
Is this supposed to be ozone-related?
No, no, no.
They're planes.
No, no, no.
No, I'll explain it to him, ma'am.
There is a theory that we are being sprayed, that what appear to be contrails from airplanes are not looking like the contrails of old.
But to people who believe this, Michael, they're looking like Well, chemical dispersion, to be honest with you.
And there are various theories about what the so-called chemtrails might be.
But that's hot stuff on the Internet, and we've had shows on it here, and I think there's going to be another one coming up on Monday with George.
So it's, you know, it's sort of out there in the underculture.
You know anything about it?
No, and you know, I try to make it a rule to not speculate and stick with what I know.
East of the Rockies, you're on the air with Michael Fermento.
Hello.
Hello.
Hi, Art.
Hello.
Yes.
Proceed.
Hi.
I'm from Allentown, Pennsylvania.
Love the show, Art, and glad to be on.
I have a question.
How do I get information on where they're actually doing the clinical trials on prostate cancer research?
Good question.
Actually, Michael, when somebody wants to learn the latest on, you know, whatever it is, like this, for example, how do they do it?
Okay, they go to, I'm going to punch it up to make sure that I can give you exactly the URL.
Okay.
I think it is, well, here we go.
It's www.clinicaltrials, all one word, .gov.
Okay.
Thanks so much.
I'm a big fan of the show, Art.
Alright, well thank you very much for calling and take care.
Clinicaltrials.gov.
Okay, that's easy.
West of the Rockies, you're on air with Michael Fimento.
Hello.
Hello.
Hi.
Art, I'm breaking a rule, but I was disconnected earlier, and you acknowledged that.
Is that okay?
Oh, it is, yeah.
I'm sorry.
So sorry about that, by the way.
Proceed.
So, this is Chris from Albuquerque again, and I still can't believe what I'm hearing, and I'm quoting here, everybody knows.
Well, I'll start with that one, and I want to add something on vaccines, and... Okay, well, just hit us one at a time here.
Okay, one at a time, but don't disconnect me.
Okay, everybody knows that, essentially, 2,4-D, the iodine tarantula, is not carcinogenic, even though it produces dioxins.
So, is this author, whose medical, whose scientific background I'm starting to doubt about, is claiming that dioxin is not carcinogenic?
That's right.
Not to the human.
What is listed as carcinogenic by all the agencies of the government, which, in this case, I happen to trust.
It's banned.
It's considered one of the main pollutants in the air.
And actually, the way I learned in my... Okay, let's find out why, caller.
Dioxin, the government says is toxic.
You say it isn't, Michael.
Why?
The EPA...
It made its decision essentially back in 1990 that they were going to find that this thing was carcinogenic regardless of how the information came out.
Oh, that's not true.
They put out a draft report, a very fat draft report, that they thought nobody would read.
I read it, I wrote about it, and I showed that the very studies that they cited as showing that it was carcinogenic showed quite the opposite.
For example, one study would show it causes leukemia, but None of the others did.
One study says it causes lymphoma, but none of the others did.
Some of the studies found no cancers in any place.
Well, the EPA says, ah-ha, you see, it caused a lymphoma in one place and it caused a leukemia in another, therefore it's a carcinogen.
No.
Science-based analysis says if you're not finding the same types of cancers in different studies, These are called statistical artifacts.
Right, sure.
And Stanford University doesn't know what they're talking about, and neither does Berkeley, correct?
Very often, Stanford and Berkeley and Johns Hopkins and Harvard will produce flawed data.
Nobody's perfect, and they make decisions based on Grand proposals as well.
I don't happen to know what you were talking about specifically.
I'm sorry.
I learned as a chemist with almost a PhD degree that dioxin was the most cancer-causing substance known to man.
And you learned wrong, because you were wrong on two grounds.
One, it was in guinea pigs.
In guinea pigs, they found, it was the most toxic And in guinea pigs, it did not cause cancer.
It killed them outright, using something called an LD50.
Which, if you were a chemist, you would know what an LD50 is, and you would know that it has nothing to do with carcinogenesis.
I knew what an LD50 is, and I disagree with you totally.
Do you think a human is a guinea pig?
If so, what if I told you that it took ten times as much to kill half of the hamsters as it did the guinea pigs. What if I told you that bullfrogs
are impervious to dioxin?
I'm willing to believe that.
So are you saying that a human is more like a guinea pig, a hamster, or a bullfrog?
I'm willing to believe what the Amos Research Center is using as one of the criteria for
determining what is carcinogenic or not. I don't think you are qualified.
So you use an LD50 to determine the diagnosis?
Is that what you do?
I agree with you that LD50 would be a totally, we're discussing things that are probably too scientific for the average audience, but LD50 would be totally inappropriate.
But on vaccines, I will tell you that you should read Against All Evidence, which lists 900 medical references showing that vaccines have absolutely no effect on epidemics.
And then look into the research on the toxicity of vaccines that show that they are extremely toxic to destroy children's brains and I think you should sift Uh, medical science in a different way than you do.
And does it talk about UFO abductions, where the person is impregnated and then returned to the Earth?
No, sir.
No, sir.
Pawned demon children?
No, sir.
900... Okay, well it should, because it's absolute nonsense about vaccines not preventing disease.
Alright, well... That's just wax.
I know.
Clearly, Michael, I didn't have enough time for you tonight.
I could have used hours more, because This would just get hotter and hotter and hotter and hotter.
I can see exactly where this would go, and for that reason, oh, we'll have to have you back.
But time is not on our side here.
You know, the show's beginning to end.
So let's talk about your book, BioEvolution, how biotechnology is changing our world.
Why should a person go and buy this book?
People desperately need to learn more about the world we live in.
We can't keep withdrawing into sitcoms and, you know, even on nice plasma screen TVs and stuff like that.
And the reason we need to learn more about the world is so that we can help handle this world.
There is a lot of stuff in my book that is just plain fascinating.
But you know there's a lot of stuff in there that could literally help save your life.
A lot of stuff in there that I've used to help save other people's lives, because people come to me and say, I've got this cancer.
Is there anything in biotech that maybe my own doctor doesn't know about?
And I'll say, you know, actually four weeks ago they just approved this new drug and here's how it works.
So it's got a self-help aspect to it.
There's just a whole lot in this book for people.
Scientists write to me and said, you know, you wrote about my own field, and I didn't know this was my own field.
People should understand, though, Michael, just because there are clinical trials going on, that doesn't mean you're going to get into one of them.
I mean, people shouldn't have unrealistic expectations.
Only certain people qualify for clinical trials, even those who have, you know, fatal diseases of one sort or another.
They have to be at a very certain stage.
You know, there are a lot of criteria that have to be met, yes?
Right.
When I talk about the importance of clinical trials, I'm simply saying that they're advanced enough that we're no longer talking about a petri dish or we're no longer talking about a lab rat that we're now testing in humans.
But the bottom line is most things in, say, phase one of the three phases, they fail.
Most drugs that even make it into phase one fail.
Um, so the fact that it's in a clinical trial, you're right.
First of all, you probably won't get in.
All right, listen Michael.
No, no, we could go on and on.
Really, we could.
This has been a blast.
We'll have you back.
I guarantee we'll have you back.
Take care, all right?
Okay, thank you.
Good night.
There is only so much time in one program, but oh, I'm sure we'd have had hours and hours of calls from Michael Fumento, and I'm sure I'll see your reaction.
Want to react?
I'm Art Bell.
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