Feb. 16, 2023 - Viva & Barnes
16:48
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| Time | Text |
|---|---|
| Okay, I know I'm talking to every parent out there. | |
| Life with little kids can be a juggling act. | |
| Luna's got dance, Miles has basketball, plus they both have school and their own personalities. | |
| And now we've got a little baby in the house. | |
| But I wouldn't trade being a dad for anything in the world. | |
| I love being there for my special moments with my kids. | |
| That's why my health is such a priority to me and why I got an updated COVID-19 booster. | |
| My family did too. | |
| I encourage you to talk to your healthcare provider and go to... | |
| I just want to... | |
| Where is it? | |
| There you go. | |
| These are the eyes of a compromised soul. | |
| I know what people are thinking. | |
| Hashtag confession through projection. | |
| Maybe I'm projecting. | |
| The eyes are the window to the soul, and these are the windows to a compromised soul. | |
| Now, some people are saying, how much should Pfizer pay you for this ad? | |
| There are various ways of compromising an individual. | |
| Bribery, threats, promises, whatever. | |
| John Legend, in as much as I've never listened to his music, I haven't. | |
| Is compromised. | |
| That's my personal belief because these are the eyes of someone who does not believe what they are saying. | |
| Now, get this out of here. | |
| There could not have been any more of a... | |
| What's the word? | |
| Apropos? | |
| Intro for today's stream. | |
| John Legend has been bought through hook or crook by Pfizer and he's pitching the jibby jab on adults. | |
| Children. | |
| Oh, by the way. | |
| They're not even calling it an updated vaccine anymore, as if that ever made sense. | |
| They're calling it an updated booster. | |
| An updated booster. | |
| He and his family have gotten it, and I've got questions. | |
| Now, speaking of sponsors, I would not accept a sponsor from Pfizer. | |
| I would only accept sponsors from companies that I feel good about. | |
| And you may have noticed that this stream does contain a sponsorship. | |
| Now, I started five minutes early because Dr. Gu might have to duck out at a hard one hour, and I don't want the intro to eat into the time of the stream. | |
| This is going to be interesting. | |
| But before we even get to there, let me just do my sponsors. | |
| There's two of them tonight. | |
| We're going to start with Birch Gold, people. | |
| And let me just make sure that we're seeing this properly so I don't screw it up. | |
| Ah, Birch Gold. | |
| Okay. | |
| There are things that I don't mind endorsing. | |
| Gold is one of them. | |
| Birch gold. | |
| Are the Biden administration's New Year's goals of tax and spend? | |
| Turn a blind eye to inflation. | |
| But the bottom line is, I'm going to skip the details of inflation. | |
| It's hard to make money. | |
| It's easy to lose it. | |
| And when you make money, and even if you stick it in the bank, you're losing money based on inflation. | |
| What are a dozen eggs costing these days? | |
| Gold has been a time-tested true investment for... | |
| 5,000 years worth its weight in gold, yada, yada, yada. | |
| We know the expressions. | |
| It has proven the test of time over and over again. | |
| When you buy gold from a company like Birch Gold, you're getting good gold, 99.99 and whatever. | |
| You're getting precious metals. | |
| You're not buying better precious metals from certain companies. | |
| You're buying better service from certain companies. | |
| Birch Gold, thousands and thousands of positive ratings, A triple plus or A plus rating with the Bureau of Better Businesses, yada, yada. | |
| Five-star reviews. | |
| They will roll over your 401k into precious metals. | |
| You can buy beautiful little gold coins that you can sit on. | |
| You'll not 10x your investments, but you will not, you know, overnight, but you won't 10x loss overnight like you would with FTX. | |
| Birchgold.com. | |
| Promo code VIVA. | |
| Get a free intro kit and you'll learn how to buy gold, how to invest, how to make sure that you don't lose the hard-earned money that you've worked so hard to earn. | |
| And... | |
| Speaking of worth its weight in gold, people, the second sponsor for tonight, for Patriots. | |
| And this was a little more interesting, a little more pressing. | |
| We have spy balloons flying over America. | |
| We got people sabotaging grids, power grids. | |
| National security experts are warning our aging power grid is more vulnerable than ever. | |
| There were three attacks on power grids in January. | |
| Imagine, I mean, I just moved to Florida. | |
| We just had Hurricane Ian, Hurricane Nicole. | |
| I picked up a diesel generator. | |
| Didn't open the box, and thank goodness I didn't because I returned it because my parents were like, David, you're going to kill yourself with that generator. | |
| For Patriot, they have generators, portable generators, solar paneled generators that you can... | |
| Power up with the sun. | |
| You don't need diesel. | |
| They're easy to use. | |
| They're portable. | |
| They're reliable. | |
| You need nothing more than the power of the sun so that you can charge your generator, have it be good for a year. | |
| Fantastic. | |
| They have small panels, big panels, all sorts of stuff for Patriots.com. | |
| Let me just see if I want to make sure that I'm not missing out on anything. | |
| Yes, that's right. | |
| Promo code VIVA. | |
| You get 10% off your first purchase. | |
| Anything that they have at the store on the online site. | |
| They're on Fox News. | |
| It's fantastic stuff and it's stuff that you're going to probably need, probably want to use regardless. | |
| Especially if you go camping, especially if you live in hurricane-prone areas, and especially if you live in areas where people just, you know, go on random shooting sprees of power grids. | |
| PatriotGold.com, promo code Viva, BirchGold.com. | |
| Thank you very much to both of those companies. | |
| The links are in the description. | |
| 35 seconds into the one hour that I have with Dr. Gu. | |
| Now, I'm going to say this before Dr. Gu comes in. | |
| I was listening to Dr. Gu on the Twitter spaces. | |
| I've been following him indirectly on Twitter for a little while. | |
| And I like the fact that Dr. Gu was not shy to jump into what could only be described as a hostile environment because in some of these Twitter spaces, the majority of the people who are engaged on Twitter, engaged online, are not ideologically aligned necessarily with the prevailing narrative, safe and effective, yada, yada, yada. | |
| I like the fact that Dr. Gu was not scared to be in an environment where the majority of the people listening were not on his side ideologically, politically, medically. | |
| And I reached out and he said he's going to come on and talk about it because I've got some questions. | |
| I've got lots of questions. | |
| What is safe? | |
| What is effective? | |
| And does Dr. Gu feel betrayed by the community, the medical community of which he's been a part for a while? | |
| Because in these Twitter spaces, I'm listening to Dr. Gu and I think I'm seeing an evolution, but I might be projecting. | |
| I think I'm seeing someone who's starting to ask questions that other people were asking long ago. | |
| Not me. | |
| People were asking these questions before me. | |
| I think I see a transition. | |
| I might just be projecting. | |
| Maybe there isn't, and we'll see. | |
| But he agreed to come on, and I'll give him full credit for agreeing, because I don't know if his brethren are going to judge him now for having fraternized with the Viva. | |
| Dr. Gu, I see you in the background. | |
| I'm going to bring you in. | |
| In three, two, one. | |
| Booyah. | |
| Sir, how goes the battle? | |
| Hey, Viva. | |
| Thanks for having me. | |
| Appreciate it. | |
| Thank you for coming. | |
| And it's a sincere thank you, because I know you're going to say a lot of things which I'm probably going to vehemently disagree with and find maybe even very objectionable. | |
| But you seem open for discussion, which is rare, in my experience, rarer on one side of the aisle than the other. | |
| I reach out to a lot of people and I know who says yes, I know who says no or doesn't respond. | |
| And I don't like embarrassing people who I reach out to, but you're one of a very rare few from that side, as people would see it, who agreed to come on. | |
| And I got questions. | |
| So... | |
| I never liked echo chambers, and I can tell from a lot of the comments and everything, it's a hostile crowd towards me. | |
| You can even tell on the stream and the comments you see on the side. | |
| But, you know, I just don't like the fact that a lot of people, either on the right or the left, they only like to talk to their crowd, who just echoes whatever they say, and there's no critical thinking. | |
| So I think, you know, it keeps me on my toes to talk to people who are against me. | |
| Hopefully we can do it in a civil way, with respect on both sides. | |
| I know we can't control the comments of everybody, and people are free to say whatever they wish to say. | |
| But I just want to have an open conversation that is civil and respectful. | |
| Don't read the chat, Dr. Gu. | |
| People don't appreciate it. | |
| My Twitter persona might be a little harsher than me in reality. | |
| I'm always respectful, especially with people who are open for discussion. | |
| So just don't read the chat because the internet's... | |
| You probably get some flack for having me on, too, from your people. | |
| I had people say they're not going to watch it. | |
| I said, if you don't watch it, it's your loss. | |
| But I'm not going to bring up any abusive or hostile comments. | |
| I'm not trying to make you feel uncomfortable. | |
| I'm happy you're here. | |
| The 30,000-foot overview, who you are, by the way, because you have an interesting... | |
| You have an interesting past. | |
| If I had more time, I'd go into childhood. | |
| But if you could, like childhood to now and credentials, because whether or not people agree or disagree with you, love you or hate you, you still have credentials. | |
| So if you could give us the brief overview of your childhood, where you're from, how you ended up where you are, and your credentials. | |
| Yeah, I would love to. | |
| Thank you. | |
| So, you know, I was born and raised in San Francisco. | |
| My mom is, you know, came here from Seoul, Korea. | |
| My dad came here from Nanjing, China. | |
| They met at San Francisco State University, and that's kind of like how I was born. | |
| I don't speak either Chinese or Korean, so only American, because that's how my parents talk to each other at home. | |
| Went to, you know, all the public schools in the San Francisco County. | |
| Then, you said childhood all the way to where I am, so I'm going to go from the beginning. | |
| Then went to Stanford University, where I majored in biology. | |
| At Stanford, I actually did research, undergraduate research, for a rare genetic syndrome called Velocardiofacial Syndrome. | |
| It's also known as 22Q11.2 Deletion Syndrome or DeGeorge Syndrome. | |
| That's where I got a chance to actually do research with the leading doctors at Stanford and then have patient interactions as well. | |
| And that's when I knew I wanted to do medicine. | |
| So I applied for med school, studied as hard as I could for all my classes and the MCATs. | |
| I went to Duke University School of Medicine, where Duke had a really interesting curriculum where their third year was actually not in the classes, not on the wards or in the clinics, but they dedicated towards research. | |
| So for that one research year, I applied for a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Research Fellowship to go back to Stanford and do stem cell research. | |
| This is very, you know, pivotal for my career because with that stem cell research, It involved embryonic stem cells, which is a controversial topic, but also fetal tissue-derived stem cells. | |
| I still think it has a lot of potential for regenerative medicine. | |
| I'm sure your crowd doesn't like that very much. | |
| But because it's a controversial topic, what ended up happening is after I completed my fellowship years at Stanford, finished medical school, and started a surgical residency at Vanderbilt. | |
| I was actually subpoenaed by Congress for that fetal tissue research and stem cell embryonic research I did at Stanford. | |
| I still remember I was an intern in general surgery at Vanderbilt. | |
| I was spending overnight on the trauma surgery awards, just helping gunshot victims, helping stabbing victims, just exhausted from overnight call. | |
| When I came back home to sleep, I heard this, you know, knocking on my door and just pounding. | |
| And it said, this is the police. | |
| Open up. | |
| And I was like, oh, what's this? | |
| You know, I'm basically a nerd. | |
| You know, like, I don't do anything illegal. | |
| Very boring life. | |
| They must have the wrong, you know, address. | |
| Maybe there's a drug dealer next door and they got the wrong place. | |
| Turns out it was for me. | |
| And it was two armed U.S. Marshals who said, you know, this is a subpoena from Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn, who was the representative in that area. | |
| She's like, you know, come report to Congress. | |
| This kind of set me up for a lot of bad things in my residency program. | |
| Because as you can imagine, residency is almost like being part of a military, especially a surgical residency. | |
| You have to fit the mold. | |
| You don't want to stand out. | |
| There's a saying, the nail that sticks up, you have to pound it down with a hammer. | |
| So that's like what... | |
| Militant surgical residency is. | |
| And, like, you don't want to have another surgical resident who, like, what's this? | |
| Like, the congressperson in your area is sending U.S. Marshals to this guy's apartment. | |
| It was a big deal. | |
| It was in the press. | |
| It kind of got me unable to finish my surgical residency. | |
| It was just too difficult to do under those political circumstances, under all of that pressure, all of that, like... | |
| Things that you get accused of. | |
| But it really came to a head when Donald Trump Jr., because of all this political, I would say, I don't know, notoriety that I had achieved from the research I had done, the congressional subpoena, going on NPR, making these media interviews. | |
| I also became active on Twitter at that time because I was like, how do I defend myself? | |
| Tell my version of the story when I'm always in, like, the news headlines for these things. | |
| And then so, because I became an outspoken activist against Donald Trump, Donald Trump Jr. actually went on Twitter and said, like, this is a wife beater, you know, go find him at his hospital, get him fired. | |
| It was just, it blew up to such a, you know, extent that it was just impossible for me to finish that residency. | |
| So I was like, you know, what do I do with the rest of my life? | |
| You know, like, I've dedicated my life. | |
| And career to medicine. | |
| Medicine is what I'm passionate about. | |
| Where do I go on from here? | |
| It was a difficult decision. | |
| Had some soul searching. | |
| If I stop you there, though, so if you don't finish your residency, technically you don't get your MD, so you have... | |
| No, no. | |
| So you get your MD when you finish medical school. | |
| And after you finish... | |
| I finished three years of surgical residency. | |
| So that allowed me to be licensed in multiple states. | |
| So I'm licensed in, I think, six or seven different states across the nation. | |
| And with a medical license, you can actually hire doctors. | |
| So you can hire doctors. | |
| You can hire nurse practitioners. | |
| You can own clinics. | |
| Actually, I think there's a saying, you don't get rich by being just a doctor. | |
| You get rich by hiring other doctors. | |
| And so actually, the way that this country is structured, right? | |
| If you own businesses and if your businesses hire other doctors, you end up actually being more successful than just being a doctor practicing by yourself. | |
| So while I do see patients with myself as well, I also am honored to have other doctors who work with me and alongside me and own several clinics across the country. | |
| So that's kind of how I've made my career in medicine and how I continue to build my career in medicine. | |
| But for a lot of people... | |
| If you don't finish residency in surgery and you can't do the appendectomies and laparoscopic cholecystectomies and all these things in the operating room and don't work for someone, if you can't find a way to become an employer and you're stuck with being an employee that can't be a useful employee, you're kind of screwed in America. | |
| So I guess I find myself fortunate that I found a way to be an employer. | |
| There's a lot of other surgical residents who don't find their way in life, and that's pretty unfortunate. | |
| Let me back you up here, because there's certain accusations I'm less interested in, like salacious stuff, but there's some subject matter that's very interesting. | |
| The company that you started, Ganagen, because the subpoena that you got from Blackburn was because potentially, you say you're a nerd and you haven't done anything illegal, and I'm not saying there's no but to that. | |
| The argument, and by all accounts, what you were doing, Was legal, but some people find it very, very morally objectionable. | |
| The company was acquiring fetal tissue from aborted fetuses for the purposes of research, not for profit, which I think is where the legality is drawn in law. | |
| Explain that because my learning curve on certain subject matter has been radical. | |
| The idea that there's a market for fetal tissue was one of the more eye-opening, mind-blowing things for me. | |
| What does that look like? | |
| Ganagen does research and acquires fetal tissue. | |
| What's the mechanism through which a company acquires fetal tissue? | |
| It was a non-profit and we were focused on research. | |
| Fetal tissue, believe it or not, it's in almost every medical product you can think of. | |
| The cell cultures are derived from fetal tissue. | |
| It's in pretty much... |
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