The Importance of Informed Consent – with Jeff Barke, M.D.

Today you are hearing from one of the key doctors whose bold voice challenged the narrative during 2020. Dr. Jeff Barke and other physicians represented thousands of doctors around the country when they spoke out about COVID-19, offered other treatment methods, and more.

These brave doctors are also the founders of America’s Frontline Doctors. 

Press play, Freedom Fighters!

I want you to think back. Do you remember the White Coat Summit that took place on the steps of the Supreme Court? I know I do.

On that day, Dr. Barke, Dr. Simone Gold and other physicians represented thousands of doctors around the country when they spoke out about COVID-19 offering other treatment methods like hydroxychloroquine and more. 

All while US truthers were watching and shouting, yes, thank you for saying what we’ve been questioning this whole time. 

Amplifying The Voices of Concerned Physicians and Patients – Formation of America’s Frontline Doctors

These brave doctors were also the founders of America’s Frontline Doctors, which is a group that stands up for every American looking for the best quality health care by empowering doctors working on the front lines of our nation’s most pressing healthcare challenges. 

During the height of all the craziness, it wouldn’t surprise me if you had used them as a resource to get your hands on their treatment methods. I know I did. Their goal is to help amplify the voices of concerned physicians and patients nationwide, to combat those who push political and economic agendas at the expense of science and quality healthcare solutions.

The funny thing is, if you go on Wikipedia’s website and look up America’s Frontline Doctors, you’ll see the agenda we are addressing in full effect. They’ll tell you that the AFLD is a group that, quote, “promotes falsehoods about the COVID-19 pandemic and COVID-19 vaccines”. 

I mean, come on. Seriously. But sadly, that’s why we need to keep speaking out. This significant event at the Supreme Court steps where these brave doctors put their practices and licenses on the line was the catalyst of cancel-culture for medicine. 

Whether you were a physician offering a different perspective on the science or a social media influencer like myself, who began to publicly question and share information online, the powers that be did not, and still don’t, want that information shared, which is why we all saw the power of their shadow banning as a result. I can’t wait for you to hear more from Dr. Barky. 

I already told him this may be his first time on the If You Know, You Know Podcast, but it certainly won’t be the last. Okay, let’s dive in. Okay, Doc, I’m super pumped that you’re here today, and I can’t wait for all the listeners to hear all your nuggets of information. 

But why don’t you first give a background on who you are, your years and years of knowledge in medicine, and we’ll take it from there.

Jeff Barke, M.D. [00:03:03]:

Absolutely. So great to be with you. I really appreciate the opportunity to come on your podcast. Listen, I’ve been practicing medicine for some 25, 30 years. My background is traditional allopathic medicine. 

And for your listeners, that just means I’m an M.D. trained typically like most M.D.s in this country. That, unfortunately, is really a disease model system, if you will. And what I mean by that is… that symptoms and illnesses… we are taught the proper pharmaceutical products to treat those illnesses.

Now listen, I’m exaggerating a little bit, but basically that’s the model that there isn’t a symptom or an illness that doesn’t have a pharmacure. We are rarely taught in medical school. 

At least I wasn’t, and I’m sure it’s less so now of what is the root cause of whatever the problem is. Why is somebody ill? Why does somebody have acne or Eczema or Psoriasis, or an autoimmune disorder or heart disease, or you name it, list it. 

List your symptoms, listeners, as you’re listening, think about what you have going on medically and what’s causing that. Not what is the drug to treat it, but what is the actual cause. Too often, for example, just yesterday I saw a guy, 55 ish and new onset hypertension, high blood pressure. Of course we need to treat it.

[00:04:30]:

It’s not good. His blood pressure was actually quite high, and I talked to him about treating the blood pressure. But I also said it’s not normal for an otherwise healthy person at age 55 to suddenly develop hypertension. 

So while we treat it, of course we should, we also need to ask the question why? What are you doing? What are you putting in your body? What’s going on in your system, in your gut, in your diet, et cetera, stress, whatever it is, what’s going on that’s caused this to happen? 

And then ideally, we fix that, and then this person no longer needs hypertension medicine. So the evolution, for me, I’m just a normal guy. There’s nothing special about me. What happened though, is during COVID we all did this, right? I’m certain everybody did this. The first few weeks, we put our groceries outside the door, we sprayed things down with Lysol.

Dr. Barke’s Advocacy For Alternative COVID-19 Treatments

[00:05:26]:

We were all freaked out. Then after about two weeks, I thought to myself, like, what the actual f are we doing here? This is a viral illness like many others. 

We were even told it was a coronavirus, whatever that means. Coronavirus is one of the most common causes of the common cold. And in my office we have this test. It’s a nasal swab. We send it off to the lab and they can identify one of about 15 or 20 viruses that commonly cause colds, amongst other things. And coronavirus is up there.

[00:05:59]:

There’s several different types. So we’re told this SARS virus, this COVID virus, is a coronavirus of sorts and causes the illness, whatever. And like, okay, we know how to treat this. What are we doing? What are we freaking out about? 

And then I realized we were freaking out because the media, legacy media, mainstream media, government agencies, CDC, FDA, national institutes of health, Dr. Anthony Fauci himself. 

Various directors up high in government were telling us to freak out. They told us that we should be scared. We had death counts on the news about the number of people that were dying and where the virus was spreading.

We’ve never done that before, and we’ve never told healthy people to isolate themselves. We don’t do that in this country. We don’t do that ever. If you’re really healthy and you feel good, stay in your home. 

And super interestingly, for the first time in my career, we told sick people to stay out of the doctor’s offices and not go to the hospital. Isn’t that what the hospitals and doctors offices are for? For sick people?

But we told people, no, you have to stay away. Don’t go to the hospitals. We don’t want you to spread your illness. This, that, and the other. So early on, a few weeks in, I realized something was amiss. Something was not right. We were being lied to. We were being fear mongered.

[00:07:27]:

And right about that time, I was invited out to Riverside. Now, I live in coastal Orange County, literally a ten minute walk from the ocean, and Riverside is 60 or 70 miles inland. And so I was asked to come out to riverside to participate in a rally before the Riverside county board of supervisors. 

They were meeting to decide whether or not they were going to allow Riverside county to open. This was a time where everything was closed, and I was asked to go out there. And initially, I said, no. 

Why would I want to drive to Riverside? Normally, that’s like an hour and a half drive in the middle of the week, and I’m on the coast, and I don’t want to go inland. But the person who was putting on this rally was a friend, and I ultimately agreed to go out.

And the freeways were empty at this time, which is, I guess, one of the cool things about COVID. And it was like a half hour rather than the normal hour and a half to get to Riverside. So, long story short, I spoke at this rally for about five minutes, and this video was posted on Facebook. 

And within a few minutes of that posting on Facebook, I was getting calls from around the world from media outlets that wanted to know why I was speaking out. And I didn’t really think I said anything that remarkable. 

But then, looking back at the video, what I did say was not my line, I stole it from somebody. But I held up a copy of the constitution that I always carry with me, and I said, this document was never designed to restrict we the people. This document was designed to restrict the government. And that resonated with people.

[00:09:03]:

And I realized that my voice was representing hundreds, if not thousands, of physicians across our country. Shortly thereafter, I connected with a name that probably many of your listeners know, and that’s Dr. Simone Gold. 

And she and I founded this organization called America’s Frontline Doctors. We put together a group of like minded doctors. Really, all we wanted to do is speak the truth, and we were perfectly OK if what we were saying wasn’t quite accurate. 

We just wanted to challenge the narrative and have a discussion about what we thought was going on. So Simone organized what she called a White Coat Summit.

Combating Political Agendas and Prioritizing Science: America’s Frontline Doctors Speak Out

We went to Washington, DC. The purpose of this was really to have an educational conference. There’s about a dozen of us, we each spoke about an aspect of COVID that we had some level of expertise. 

And for me, I had founded a charter school. So I was particularly dialed into how COVID was affecting children and what was going on with education. So that was my talk. Then she said, I know, let’s go to the steps of the Supreme Court and have a little mini press conference. 

She chose the Supreme Court because, first of all, it’s beautiful, these columns of granite and so forth.

And it’s open to the public, unlike the Capitol Building, where you can’t actually go up the steps of the Capitol Building unless you’re a congressperson or what have you, the Supreme Court is still open to the public. 

And so it was this grand looking structure. So we stood there. We each talked for about a minute, summarizing what we talked about. We didn’t invite legacy media. We invited alternative media. We invited bloggers and influencers and social media people. And this was the beginning of the cancel-culture for medicine.

So this video that we recorded, the White Coat Summit and was broadcast by social media influencers, got millions and millions of views. And that’s when YouTube and Twitter, then not owned by Elon Musk, Instagram, and Facebook, which are companies owned by the group called Meta. 

They shut this down. They shut the distribution of our White Coat Summit press conference down. 

This was the beginning of the Medical cancel-culture. And so it was game on. We were trying to get the message out. Social media outlets and legacy media were blocking us and not broadcasting what we had to say.

And this is really the beginning of our effort to try to tell the truth as we saw it, to the country and ultimately to the world. So I never sought to be some spokesperson or media person or influential physician. 

I have been practicing medicine for 25 years. I just wanted to do my thing. But I ended up at Riverside. I gave this talk. This talk went viral. I then started to be contacted.

[00:11:58]:

I met up with Simone. We created this organization, and then all of a sudden, here I am now, some activist physician. And I think what’s really important is that I’m not anything special. I’m just an average person, and anybody can do this. 

And I think especially now, it’s really important that you either step out of your comfort zone and start speaking out or support us that are on the front lines and speaking out. So fast forward a little bit. 

A little later in COVID, I needed a medical assistant. Mine went out on maternity leave and decided that she wanted to be a mom.

Good for her. She was a really good medical assistant. So I posted on social media that I wanted a, you know, patriotic, freedom loving medical assistant. Through a series of events and friends of friends, this woman named Stephanie came to work for me. 

She was fired from Kaiser after a 17-year career because she refused to be vaccinated. She didn’t want a religious exemption. She didn’t think she needed a religious exemption. She had body autonomy and just said, no, I don’t want an experimental product being put in my body.

[00:13:10]:

I’m young and healthy. I don’t need this vaccine. And Kaiser basically said, well, okay, then we’re going to need to test you every day to make sure you’re not sick. And she, no, no, we’re not going to do that. 

We don’t test healthy people. When you’re sick we can test you and treat you and so forth, but we don’t just randomly test healthy people. That’s not what we do. And furthermore, the test is this Q-TIP that’s been sterilized with EO, Ethylene Oxide.

And Ethylene Oxide is a cancer causing agent. So it’s one thing to be tested once with this product, but you’re wanting to test me every single day when I come to work, and no, I’m not going to do that. Long story short, she was fired. She didn’t know what she was going to do to pay her bills. 

And I don’t know, I think it was sort of a Godsend thing that we were connected. She came to work for me for about a year, and she taught me to challenge everything. She taught me to challenge the so-called scientific consensus. 

She asked questions about what I was doing with everything I was doing, whether it was the routine vaccination of children, whether it was somebody that cut themselves with a bagel knife and they came in and we would give them a tetanus shot, because that’s sort of what we did.

[00:14:26]:

Whether it was somebody who woke up in the morning with a sore throat and they wanted a ZPAC or an antibiotic or even statin medications. It was just sort of like candy Tic TACs. You have high cholesterol, take a statin. 

So she really started pushing me to read and to research and to look and to rediscover what it was to be a doctor and to basically learn and unlearn much of the things that I learned in medical school. 

So she was very much instrumental in pushing me to learn and to rediscover and at the same time, an allopathic traditional doctor, which meant we were taught that chiropractic care is really sort of hokey and probably not something we should support. 

And naturopaths like, come on, woo woo. Naturopaths are just simply people that couldn’t get into medical school and they shouldn’t be trusted. Well, turns out there’s a natural path in my building across the little walkway, and I became very good friends with several chiropractors.

Probably the most well known is freedom loving chiropractor in Orange County. His name is Billy Damas. He’s sort of a legend. And I discovered, man, these folks actually have important things to offer, and many of them were teaching me things that I hadn’t thought about before. 

Mechanical care for various conditions is a thing. Naturopathic care with supplements, IV therapy, and alternative care is a thing. And I started learning about this and incorporating it into my own practice. 

When I first started speaking out, I lost a bunch of patients, and that was very painful.

I mean, very painful. I got really nervous. My business partner wasn’t happy with my public persona.

Maren [00:16:16]:

That’s what I was going to ask you. Did you have a combined practice with another physician? 

Jeff Barke, M.D. [00:18:01]:

Four doctors in our practice, although politically, we were like minded, right?

Maren [00:18:06]:

Well, I think that that’s normal. I think there’s a lot of conservatives out there that are politically aligned, but it’s the whole trust your doctor trusts the way that things keep following this path. Don’t deviate and go into this holistic method. Were you the oddball out?

Jeff Barke, M.D. [00:18:27]:

It was really even less about that. He didn’t like that I was public. He didn’t like that this potentially could affect our practice, and it did for a while. I lost patients. But not too long after that, the floodgates opened, and there were so many people. 

There’s a hunger out there for like minded holistic integrative physicians. And my practice now is full. I am closed to new patients in my brick and mortar practice because I got so full, and I’m the kind of person that I have trouble saying no to people.

So I’ve got a waiting list now of people to get in. And as a result of that, the timing is a little off. I’m really bad with remembering dates and times, but somewhere along the way, my daughter, who works in digital media said, hey, Pop. She calls me Pop. 

Hey, Pop, you should start an Instagram account. I’m like, okay, cool. What’s Instagram? Oh, you know, it’s like Facebook, but only for pictures. It’s really cool.

I think you’ll kill it if you do that. Like okay. Cool. We set something up, whatever you’re the creative know. Will you do this for me? Sure. What do you want to call it? Go, I don’t know. You figure it out. So she created this name RX For Liberty.

I started broadcasting a morning message. I came up with this idea. There’s this guy on Instagram. Maybe you’ve heard of him. His name is his handle on Instagram if you can outdoors.

His name is Scott. Can’t remember his last name. Older guy, beard, outdoorsy. He’s always walking in nature. His reels are very short, maybe 20, 30 seconds. And his thing is “friendly reminder”. 

And then he has something profound to say, and he’s really good, and something about protecting your peace and honoring yourself and distancing yourself from toxic people and so forth. I’m like, damn, this guy’s good.

[00:20:28]:

And I used to follow him and listen to him and write down what he’d say. And I’m like, wow, this guy’s really good. I should do something like that. Wow. What could I do? He has a “friendly reminder”. I like the tone of his voice and how he did it. I’d drive to work every day. It’d take me 40 minutes.

And I thought I know… Morning Message. And I used to record morning messages while driving to work in my car. And if you don’t know Instagram, they allow only a 90-second reel, a 90-second short clip video.

For me, it’s a blessing because it’s only 90 seconds. And I was given a gift. It’s not me. It’s a gift to be able to be articulate and succinct.

Jeff Barke, M.D. [00:21:14]:

So I would record these 90 second reels morning messages, and people would get really pissed off at me because I’d do this while I was driving. Barke, you’re a doctor. You’re going to crash. You shouldn’t do this while you’re driving. Pay attention to the road. Like, okay, got it. So I stopped doing it in my car, and I started doing it. And you can see my studio here.

It’s just a second bedroom with an American flag background. And I kind of liked it. So I started doing that now instead of in my car here, and it took off. And it’s my way of being able to reach a broader audience because my physical practice is closed. And I started doing telehealth as well. 

I have a medical license in both California and Texas. I’m working in Florida. I can legally do telehealth in Texas and California.

I have a health coach. The nurse who used to work for me who now lives in Texas, she still works with me. So she’s on Instagram with me. On the subscriber side, Instagram allows you to have a private subscriber side. It’s like $5 a month. It’s not a big deal. 

And on the subscriber side, we have like a text chat channel where she participates, provides holistic coaching, nutrition and supplements and kids that are ill and how to take care of this, that, and the other. She’s super crunchy.

[00:22:28]:

That’s the name in the world for people that are holistic. So she’s super crunchy, really bright. She has a vaccine-injured kid when he was young. He’s now 15. And so as a result of his vaccine injury, she went on her own path of discovery and research. And so she’s super smart. So she helps me. She does health coaching.

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I do telemedicine consults. We both work on the chat channels to provide information. It’s been a lot of fun. So it’s my way to reach a broader audience. And I learn from my audience because many people are crunchier than I am. 

I’m not the smartest guy on the block, but I’m always learning. And my goal, I mean, listen, here is sort of the bottom line. You should tag this section.

I think it’s everything. This is what means the most to me. 

I think God created us pretty perfectly. I don’t think he made a mistake. And when we hear about disease, the number one cause of death in the United States is cardiovascular disease, heart disease, and that includes heart attacks and strokes. 

I think number two is cancer. Number three is like type two diabetes and obesity or something. And then number four, and the order may be a little bit off.

Number four is the neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia. When we hear about these diseases, those aren’t on him. Those are on us. 

We’ve done this to ourselves over the generations. And if you look back 150 years, heart disease was rare. Type two diabetes was unheard of. 

We’ve changed the way we eat for a variety of reasons, in part because of big agra, big agriculture and food industries, pharmaceutical industries that produce cures to all these diseases that our poor food supply creates. 

We’re drinking polluted water, our government water, and that’s what we should call it, is polluted.

[00:24:26]:

We’re relying on a government agency to tell us how much fluoride, chlorine, heavy metals, and arsenic is allowed. And I don’t trust them to do that. So I recommend you never ever drink the stuff that comes out of your tap. 

You need to filter it first or buy purified water. We put aluminum under our arms, it’s a neurotoxin. We put fluoride in our mouth, it’s a neurotoxin. We give babies in the hospital hepatitis B be like, boy. And I posted on this, as a matter of fact, just recently.

Every Friday. It’s informed consent Friday. So I pulled out another vaccine package insert. I’m not anti-vax. Let’s be clear. I don’t care if you want to get a vaccine, that should be your right, but only after informed consent.

Three things to look for in the package insert for vaccines

Number one – What were the studies that brought the product to market?

The FDA requires that to be in the package insert, and in many cases, in particular the new hepatitis B vaccine, there’s no control group.

The new hepatitis B, they give it to a group of people. They take the old hepatitis B. That’s the control group. Then they compare the two. There is no placebo control group in the new hepatitis B vaccine. 

That’s the case with many, if not all vaccines. So what are the studies? 

Number two – What are the ingredients in the product? 

Just read it, and many times it’s aluminum. In the new flu vaccine that came out recently, they put Thimerosal.

That’s a mercury derived preservative. Mercury is a neurotoxin that is in the multidose vials. So you should just know that. 

Number three – What are the post marketing studies? 

So the studies that brought the product to market is one thing. And as I said, often you’re not looking at a placebo group, you’re looking at some other control group. 

But it’s not a placebo. So I want to know, once this product has been released, what are the reports of the side effects and injuries? And in every package insert, there’s post marketing studies. 

[00:26:32]:

That’s informed consent. Now that, you know, you decide that’s what should happen, but it’s not happening. If you go into Walgreens, Rite Aid, whatever pharmacy to get a vaccine, they all carry them. Pick your vaccine. The new pneumonia shot, the new shingle shot, I don’t care. 

What they do is they’ll have an advertisement on the wall like for shingles, there’ll be some person with his gnarly shingles rash, and it’ll say, don’t be that guy. 

Get your shingle shot and it’s free. Give us your Medicare card and it’s free.

[00:27:05]:

And people are like, oh, man, I don’t want to get shingles. Okay, I’ll get a shingle shot. I’m 70 years old. I want a shingle shot. They’ll walk up to the counter, hi, I’d like to get a shingle shot. Here’s my Medicare card. Great, no problem. There’s no charge.

Come on back around the side. Sit down. Usually a nurse or a pharmacist will come out. Which arm do you want? Have a nice day. Cool. Peace out. And that’s the process. 

There’s no package insert. There’s no discussion about risk, benefits, side effects and alternatives. Nothing that shouldn’t be. 

I think, you know, if you went into Save On or wherever and bought a pack of cigarettes I don’t even know what they cost these days. $8, $10, whatever.

But on every cigarette pack, there’s a warning label. And appropriately so. This stuff can cause cancer. Caution. Right. 

I think on every vaccine, there should be a label that says something like, Buyer Beware. The manufacturer of this product is immune from all liability. If you are injured from this product, that’s on you. Have a nice day.

I think some sort of label should be put on all vaccines, at least until we overturn the Prep Act. That was the act back in the 1980s that gave all vaccine companies immunity from all liability. 

Why did that happen? 

Oh, there’s a whole story behind it, but the CDC is a paramilitary organization. It was originally created as a result of the Cold War. We were worried that the Soviet Union was going to institute biological warfare on the US. Anthrax and polio and smallpox and whatever.

So this organization was created to try to help protect us and to push solutions, like in the form of vaccines.

That’s why the Surgeon General, for example, wears a uniform, a military uniform. So it’s sort of like a pseudo military outfit. So they have carte blanche to develop things outside of the FDA’s normal regulatory process of requiring certain testing and requiring every vaccine to be placebo tested for safety and efficacy. 

So that’s sort of a little bit of the backstory. If you go to Children’s Health Defense, that’s Bobby Kennedy’s Jr’s. organization. They have a robust search function. I was on the board of his company in California for a while. They have a robust search function.

[00:29:28]:

And you can look up all this stuff very factually based. There’s a vaccine you want to learn about, you can search for it and so forth, and you’ll get the history. 

So my goal is, listen, I may be wrong on some of these things, and that’s okay, but I think I have the right, and I should be given the right to speak my perspective as clearly and accurately as I can. And I’m happy to be corrected when I’m wrong. 

I’m always learning I have no agenda other than the truth.

Maren [00:29:57]:

Right.

Jeff Barke, M.D. [00:29:57]:

But when the government and legacy media tries to silence you, there’s something there. And if you think about it, almost every major medical study in the United States funded by the NIH is supported by Pharma and the researchers, the doctors that actually conduct the study are paid by Pharma to conduct these studies. 

Related Episodes:
Big Pharma Part 1 & Part 2 with Seay Standford

I know years ago, my partner and I, when we were in before, we had a concierge practice. We involved ourselves in a medical study. It had to do with Tylenol and it was sponsored by Johnson and Johnson. And we got paid a little bit of money to do this. And it was sort of fun.

It was interesting. And we enrolled patients. We had this research person who has assigned us to help us, whatever. But we were paid by the company that was sponsoring this. We’re not going to do it for free.

So Pharma sponsors it. The doctors, the researchers are consultants. Then when the study is over, the people that write up the report also are usually the pharmaceutical representatives that are involved in this research that write up the report. 

Then these studies are published in the usual journals. New England Journal of Medicine, Journal of the American Medical Association, JAMA Lancet in Great Britain. 

And they’re published in the journals that are heavily funded and advertised by the pharmaceutical industry. 

So you have this conflict of interest, and I’m not begrudging any doctor that does research, but we are all influenced. We all tend to lean in the direction of the funding that we are involved in.

No matter how altruistic and honest we want to believe we are, we tend to lean in that direction. So we should really not do this. The research funding should come from the National Institutes of Health, but it should come from taxpayer dollars, not Pharma dollars. 

Big Pharma’s Influence on Government: 
“The research funding should come from… taxpayer dollars, not Pharma dollars. And unfortunately, the CDC and the FDA, about 50% of their funding comes from the pharmaceutical industry… We’ve got to stop that.”
— Jeff Barke, M.D.

And I understand why that happened because it’s expensive to oversee these studies and this, that and the other. But nonetheless, you have CDC directors that retire and then go work for Big Pharma. You have Pharma executives that retire and then become lobbyists in the federal government. We’ve got to stop that.

We’ve got to uncouple this.

Maren [00:32:15]:

Right? Especially since those people get residuals.

Jeff Barke, M.D. [00:32:19]:

Totally.

Maren [00:32:21]:

It’s just years and years. Even when they retire, that money is coming in, funding their grandchildren.

Jeff Barke, M.D. [00:32:27]:

You complain about lobbyists. The largest lobby organization in the federal government is the pharmaceutical industry. They outnumber the next largest lobbyist. And I can’t remember whether it’s education or oil companies or whatever, but they like double the number of lobbyists. 

There are more Pharma lobbyists in Washington than there are a combined number of congress people and senators. So we need to do something about this. 

I don’t have all the answers, but it’s obvious that this isn’t working. And Bobby Kennedy talks a lot about  uncoupling these agencies from their funding and bringing in oversight.

They’re not overseen by electeds, they’re overseen by the administrative state. So these are people that just are career bureaucrats that work for the government. These aren’t people that you and I elect to oversee these agencies. 

And that’s part of the problem too. We need electeds to oversee these agencies, not the administrative state. And that’s part of the problem. And that’s why I don’t trust studies now when they come out. 

So let me give you one example.

About a month ago, in the Wall Street Journal, I got that paper, front page, not ad, front page article, not the opinion section, but the news section, front page article that said, and it was something like 25 new weight loss drugs that show a 25% decreased risk in cardiovascular death. 

You’ve heard about these new weight loss Ozempic, Wagovi, Ozempic, manjaro Rebelsis, et cetera. Several of them are made by this company in Sweden. The name of the Swedish drug company is called Novo Novo Disc. Kind of a funny name. 

So the article said, research sponsored by Novo Novo Disc shows a 25% reduction in cardiovascular death. I’m like, okay, well, sponsored by the drug company.

Okay, I’ll keep reading. And it said, this study has not yet been peer reviewed or published.

Maren [00:34:30]:

As why are you putting it out there? Yeah.

Jeff Barke, M.D. [00:34:31]:

If it hasn’t even been peer reviewed or published? I read a little further. 

Swedish Doctor, some unpronounceable name says, and they quote him something like, isn’t this wonderful that this new product now is showing reduction in cardiovascular death? Next line. Dr. Swedish dude. 

A consultant from Novo. Novo Disc. Like, so we’ve got the consultant, we’ve got the drug. It’s not peer reviewed, it’s not even published.

But the Wall Street Journal is putting this as front page news, as if it’s a thing. And what happens in medicine is they tell us about absolute risk, but not relative risk. 

Let me explain what that means. So just imagine for an argument that we do a study and we take, I don’t know, 1000 people in one group that gets the drug and 1000 people in another group and gets an actual placebo, like saline, saltwater. 

And then we follow them over several months and we discover that the group that got the drug, there’s been one death. And the group that got the placebo, there’s been three deaths. Right? 

Thousand people, one death versus three deaths. And the pharma company concludes that this drug reduces cardiovascular death by 25%.

One versus three. Well, technically that’s accurate. But what they don’t tell you is you have to treat 1000 people to save one life, right? And they don’t talk about that. 

The other 999 receive no benefit, only side effects. And that we don’t have the ability to predict who that one person is going to be. 

They don’t tell you what the actual relative risk is and they don’t tell you what the number needed to treat. Number needed to treat. That should be in every package insert.

How many people do you have to inject or treat in order to have the desired outcome of what we’re looking for? They don’t tell you that, right.

Maren [00:36:29]:

They love to skew the data to match their narrative. It’s kind of like when they would say COVID deaths doubled. Well, they went from one to two, but doubled sounds a lot scarier, right?

Jeff Barke, M.D. [00:36:42]:

Right. Absolute relative. So for a listener, it’s statistics. I’m not even good at math. My math may be wrong in the example, but you get the idea. But for your listener, imagine this. You’re sitting in my office and you have some condition. 

And I say, listen, I’ve got a drug that can help your condition, but I need to give this drug to 1000 people in order for one person to be helped and the other 999 aren’t going to be helped and may have some pretty significant side effects.

And I can’t predict who the one is going to be. Do you want this drug? 

That’s the informed consent. 

That’s the conversation we should be required to have. Then that patient can make that determination accurately and I can guide them to whether I think it’s a good idea or bad idea. But we don’t do that now.

Maren [00:37:31]:

Right? The ads, right? They’re curing, I’m using air quotes, curing said disease. And then they go through at the end really fast. But this may cause excessive diarrhea, shingles. 

This is like all of the side effects, right? They totally graze over that. They’re too busy watching the person throwing a beach ball, curing whatever their ailment is. But they don’t talk about, by the way, you may be one of these people that has all of these side effects. 

They don’t give you the actual tried and true number. Now, you mentioned all of this big propaganda machine, which I wholeheartedly support.

And how do you feel? Or what would you tell a listener when it comes to because you and I both believe in faith over fear. 

I laughed when you said that God doesn’t make mistakes because that’s something that I preach all the time. All the time. And I’ve been gaslighted by doctors, especially when I was pregnant, like trying to get me to take the Rhogam shot. And I said, no. God doesn’t make mistakes. I know that this is not what I’m meant to do.

Jeff Barke, M.D. [00:38:38]:

Or give your baby vitamin K.

Maren [00:38:41]:

Listen, I believed in form consent, and I believe that it’s your child, right, in your choice. But in our family, I’m very open to the fact that my baby does not have any vaccines. Yeah.

Jeff Barke, M.D. [00:38:54]:

And I encourage my newly pregnant patients to explore home birth. And there’s a couple midwives that I work with and the experience at some hospitals. I just think I’m not telling people to do this. 

Women Opting for Home Births to Avoid Specific Procedures

I just want them to know that this is an option. Because too often you go into the hospital, you’re put in a position that’s completely unnatural. You’re lying on your back with your feet up in the air. 

Who came up with that idea? That’s not a natural position to give birth. They stick a needle in your spine to make you completely numb from the waist down.

I get it. You don’t want to have pain. But there are ways to mitigate pain. And that’s not healthy for the mom or the baby. They then take your baby, they immediately cut the umbilical cord. 

I don’t think that’s a good thing. I think the placenta and the baby should remain attached for a while so that the baby can get all the healthy nutrients from the placenta. Then they take your baby away to the newborn nursery.

They say, hey, man, this was really traumatic, and you had your spinal anesthesia and you need to recover, and I want you just to relax. 

So you just chill and we’ve got the baby, and we’ll give the baby some formula while you just relax and we’ll bring the baby back to you for a little while. 

And, oh, by the way, we’re going to give the baby vitamin K, and we’re going to give the baby Hepatitis B. Hepatitis B, a sexually transmitted disease. We’re going to give that to a one day old because I don’t know why. 

And the Hepatitis B that they give to babies in the hospital has 200 don’t believe me? Look it up. Newborn Hepatitis B vaccine ingredient. Google that. 

GOOGLE SEARCH RESULTS

Don’t believe me? Do your own research. But it’s got 200 micrograms of aluminum in it. Aluminum is a neurotoxin. Why would we do that to a brand newborn baby? And then eventually they bring the baby back to mom and they say, breastfeeding is cool, but we have this formula. Look up the ingredients. 

Please don’t believe me. Look up the formula for the most common baby formula that’s made either Similac or Infamil. These are made by Abbott Laboratories, one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world. Read the ingredients.

It’s filled with seed oils and artificial ingredients. It’s not a healthy product. By the way, there are some healthier formulas available. I am completely sympathetic to the idea.

Simply can’t breastfeed for a variety of reasons. But there are some healthier formulas out there. There are also recipes that you can make your own formula that’s healthier than the store bought. But breastfeeding is by far the best. 

With the right coaching, with the right lactation consultants, it’s rare that a woman can’t breastfeed, and that’s the healthiest thing. But you’re not taught that generally in many of the hospitals. 

So listen, there are some hospitals that are coming around a more holistic approach. They allow you to labor for a longer period of time, standing up, squatting and water and so forth.

They allow midwives to be in hospitals to help you. There are better alternatives out there, but too many hospitals don’t have those alternatives.

Maren [00:42:00]:

Well, and it depends on your state, too. So, for example, I know in New York State, I had a girlfriend that opted for a home birth in her most recent birth because she knew that if she were to deny, she knew she could get away with denying the Hep B.

She knew that in New York State, it was going to be a fight to deny vitamin K and the Erythromycin, and they would bring in CPS, and they would threaten you. And you really have to hold your ground and know your rights. 

And you do have rights, but a lot of women don’t know them. Like you said, it’s a very emotional time, right? You have all these hormones flowing in at you, happy, sad, like pain, all of these things. 

And now you have people coming at you, basically backing you into a corner. And so a lot of women just, it’s fine, do it.

[00:42:56]:

So she opted for a home birth. Now, I always say hope for the best, plan for the worst, because in my situation, I was planning birthing center. I have my midwife, my doula, yada, yada, yada. 

But I developed Hellp Syndrome, so I had to be induced. But knowing everything that I knew helped me advocate for myself and my baby. So on the whiteboard, it straight up said, no vitamin K, no Hep, B, even down to the father is going to announce the gender of the baby. 

Because I didn’t want the doctor telling me if I had a boy or girl, I wanted my husband to do it. And I was the type of person that one of the nurses, she was really cool, but I was the problem patient, so to speak, because they knew I didn’t want to be there.

And the first doctor I interacted with was gaslighting me up and down the freaking hall. You couldn’t even believe it. I straight up said, I’m going to just check myself out of triage because there’s no way I’m having this woman deliver my baby. 

And she tried to make me feel like I didn’t know or do my own research, that I didn’t know what I was talking about because I wasn’t an MD. And I’m like, actually, I know my body and I know that I can prepare myself. 

So certain things that they suggested fully balloon, I was like, no, I don’t want that. I was like, check me first. And of course they did.

And they said, oh, yeah, you’re too dilated for that, right? So I encourage you all to do your research because every little thing that happens in the hospital is a money grab.

Jeff Barke, M.D. [00:44:38]:

Yeah, I don’t know. I like to give everybody the benefit of the doubt. I don’t think a particular nurse is thinking, how can I make more money and charge patients? They’re just trained that way. 

And they have a belief system that says they know best. And every baby in the United States, unless that’s born in the hospital, gets vitamin K. Why is that? 

Did God create babies deficient in vitamin K? And we need to give that to them. And then we see a lot of cases of jaundice as a result. And so I’m not telling you you should or shouldn’t get vitamin K, but you should do your own research and be able to make your own decision.

Same thing with the vaccines and so forth. I just want informed consent. I’m not going to tell anybody what to do, but I’m going to try to educate them so then they can make their own decision.

Maren [00:45:31]:

Right. And my pediatrician, she’s like, listen, it’s your child. I’m going to support you however I can. Now, when it comes to typical western medicine versus holistic approach, one of the things, because you mentioned how someone will call and say, hey, I need a ZPAC, right? 

So they want this boom, boom, boom, result driven. And you and I both know that these pharmaceuticals actually have these side effects and they’re hurting the gut health and all of that. 

But what would you do to encourage people to approach more of the holistic side as far as a patient level? Because obviously, because it’s a more natural thing it can take. And you and I both know it can take a little longer to see results.

The Importance of Education in Healthcare: 
“Most of these sore throats and colds that you get are viral and are self limiting. And if you give your immune system some time, it will fight this off on its own, and then you won’t have the risk of antibiotic induced side effects destroying your gut bacteria, creating resistant strains of bacteria in your body. So if you ever do need an antibiotic, they won’t be that effective.” — Jeff Barke, M.D.

Jeff Barke, M.D. [00:46:23]:

Yeah, I mean, it’s all about education. I’m very lucky because I have a concierge practice, so I don’t have a high volume. So if you don’t know what that is, we charge an annual membership fee to be part of our practice and we limit the number of patients we take care of so we can provide a very high level of service. 

So rather than a typical primary care doctor who might see 30 patients a day, we’ll see three or four or five patients. So we have a lot of time to spend with them and educate them. 

And I just tell them that most of these sore throats and colds that you get are viral and are self limiting. And if you give your immune system some time, it will fight this off on its own, and then you won’t have the risk of antibiotic induced side effects destroying your gut bacteria, creating resistant strains of bacteria in your body. 

So if you ever do need an antibiotic, they won’t be that effective.

And then just the potential side effects, whether it’s an upset stomach or allergic reaction and so forth. And what I say, you’ve got a God given immune system that works really well when we can support it. 

And then I give them alternatives. I have a whole list of things that they can do to support their natural immune system to try to help them get better and then set up reasonable expectations. 

You’re not going to be better in 24 or 48 hours. Plan on it taking a good week to get better and hang in there. And I also try to teach them not to treat their fever. It doesn’t feel good to have a temperature, I know that.

[00:47:49]:

But your body’s natural defense mechanism against fighting off a virus or a bacteria is fever. And so when we suppress the fever with something like Acetaminophen, brand name Tylenol, we’re counteracting our body’s own immune system. 

So I encourage them to allow the fever to occur and know that that’s your body’s natural mechanism to fight this off. Of course, stay hydrated because fever can make you dehydrated. 

And if you have to take some Advil at night before you go to bed to help you sleep, that’s fine. But for the most part, don’t treat the fever. Use coconut water or other electrolyte solutions to stay hydrated and hang in there. Fever is good.

Studies show that fever will reduce the severity and duration of the illness. When you treat the fever, it lengthens the illness and causes more problems. 

And then I’ve posted multiple times about the ill health effects of Acetaminophen. I don’t think it’s a safe drug that we should be taking. It depletes our body’s glutathione. It’s the number one cause of acute liver failure in the United States. 

It’s responsible for thousands of emergency department visits because of accidental or purposeful overdose. I don’t think it’s a safe product for people to be taking.

So I just try to educate them and then they’re going to do what they’re going to do.

Maren [00:49:12]:

You mentioned Acetaminophen. So there’s a product out there that is really promoted to crunchy moms. And it’s a company called Genexia. And they’ll try to say, this is better than Tylenol. 

But meanwhile, the only thing that’s quote-unquote better is that there’s no red dye in it. But at the end of the day, it still has the same drug that we’re trying to stay away from. Like, don’t get me wrong, red dye is not great for you, but know for sure.

Jeff Barke, M.D. [00:49:42]:

I posted on Acetaminophen recently and then on our subscriber chat channel, we had a discussion and somebody brought up this genesis, what’s it called?

Maren [00:49:51]:

I think it’s Genexia. It has like this little red tiger on the front.

Jeff Barke, M.D. [00:49:55]:

They said, Hey, Barke, what about Genexia? It’s supposed to be a safer product. I’m like, I don’t know what this is, but show me the ingredients. 

So they took a picture of the ingredients and posted it right there. It said Acetaminophen. I said, no, acetaminophen is the chemical generic for Tylenol. I don’t think it’s a safe drug. There are alternatives.

If you have to take something at night to help you sleep or because you have aches and pains and you’re miserable. I’d rather you take ibuprofen than acetaminophen. 

I think it’s a safer product or prefer you taking nothing. There are some homeopathic medications and that’s a whole nother yeah, we’ll have to.

Maren [00:50:34]:

Do a whole nother episode on that.

Jeff Barke, M.D. [00:50:36]:

And my crunchy nurse, not a nurse, my crunchy health coach, Stephanie, she started educating me on homeopathy. So I bought this kit out of the UK, actually, but you can get them here, and if you open it up…

I realize most of your podcasts, you’re listening, not seeing. We’re seeing each other. But it’s this little kit that opens up, and there’s about 30 little tiny bottles of these white. 

They almost look like Tic TAC pills. And each tic TAC pill is infused with a different product. So if you have a fever, they give you a little bit of a smidgen of a product that normally would stimulate your body to have a fever, to wake your body up to whatever is causing the fever for you to treat. 

And there are some homeopathic products for fever, for pain like Arnica, for example, for inflammation.

Benefits of Arnica

Arnica is used topically for a wide range of conditions, including bruises, sprains, muscle aches, wound healing, superficial phlebitis, joint pain, inflammation from insect bites, and swelling from broken bones. More recent studies suggest it may also be helpful in the treatment of burns.

Maren [00:51:35]:

We have so much Arnica in our house. We have it in the pellet form, the homeopath. We have it for the baby in a lotion form.

Jeff Barke, M.D. [00:51:46]:

And then there’s homeopathic stuff that everybody has gotten to know. It’s probably one of the most common for influenza, and that’s called Oscillococcinum. It’s a really funny name. You can buy it at most pharmacies at the checkout aisle, or if you shop at Sprouts or Mother’s Market, they sell Oscillococcinum. 

It’s a funny name, but it’s a homeopathic treatment for influenza, for the flu. And listen, there are allopathic people that say, oh, it’s garbage, it doesn’t work, it’s just placebo, whatever. 

There are a lot of people that believe that it works. I think it works, and it’s perfectly safe. 

Oscillococcinum FAQs

So there are lots of alternative ways to treat acupuncture. For example, it’s been around for thousands of years, chiropractic care, mechanical care, on and on and on. So I’m open to all these different ways. 

I try to integrate what I know from a traditional western allopathic standpoint with what I’m learning about naturopathic treatment and trying to bring the two sides together.

Maren [00:52:54]:

So as we enter flu season, and obviously you turn on the television and you see the TV just talking about all these new strains of COVID and get your booster and blah, blah, blah, right? 

All this propaganda, which we know is crazy, because every year these viruses, yes, that’s what they do, they mutate. It’s not new news here, but how would you encourage the listeners? 

What would you say are your and if you can’t keep it to three, you can go to five, but your top five staples that they should be having supplements. 

Now, side note, obviously I believe that we’re all unique. So certain things like I don’t have a thyroid, so for me, my intake of, say, iodine is going to be different than someone else. 

Right across the board, though, what would you say? Are five things that people should and it doesn’t even have to be a supplement. 

It could just be a habit, something that they’re going to integrate into their life to make sure that they are at their optimal health as we enter this season.

Top 5 Staples for Optimal Health During Flu Season

1. Eat clean – eliminate refined sugar
2. Hydrate more with purified water
3. Get natural sunlight for at least 30 minutes a day
4. Reduce stress
5. SLEEP

Jeff Barke, M.D. [00:54:01]:

It’s a great question. I take a lot of supplements myself. I try to personalize supplements, not just one size fits all. That’s why a lot of these supplement packs that come prepackaged I don’t particularly like because I like to find out about the patient, do blood tests and then individualize from a supplement standpoint. 

But you can’t supplement your way out of poor nutrition and a poor lifestyle. So that’s most important. I always say we need to eat clean. Probably most important.

And what I mean by that is sugar. Most importantly, we need to eliminate refined sugar from our diet cookies, candies, and ice cream. Listen, I love cookies like anybody, but I really minimize refined sugar. 

It’s poison, in my opinion. We also need to hydrate more. Most people don’t drink enough, and if you don’t measure it, you don’t know, right? And so get like a big Yeti or Aqua Flask or what’s the company now that’s popular? What’s that?

Maren [00:55:08]:

Yeah, the Stanley.

Jeff Barke, M.D. [00:55:09]:

Stanley, right. Stanley is really popular. Whatever, I don’t care. Measure it at least 64 oz a day. And if you don’t measure it, you don’t know. And then make sure the water you drink is purified. Never, ever drink tap water. Now, I say that.

Jeff Barke, M.D. [00:55:21]:

And of course there are situations where somebody who’s poor or lives in a particular area or if you’re out there.

So of course you need water. Of course you need water. Don’t not drink water because you don’t have access to purified water. But ideally, most of us can get either filtered water or purified water. 

And I think that’s most important. So eat clean, hydrate sunshine. We’ve been taught now for a generation that the sun is bad for us. And I don’t want anybody to get skin cancer.

[00:55:53]:

Of course I don’t want you to go out and get burnt. But natural sunlight is so important to our life. It resets our circadian rhythm, it stimulates melatonin, it produces vitamin D that too many people are deficient in. So you need sunlight. 

I recommend at least 30 minutes of sunshine every day without sunscreen, without sunglasses on. 

We want that sun to get in the back of our eyes and then ideally, as much body surface area. So I’m blessed to live on the coast and I like to jog, and I do it a couple of times a week and when I jog, if the weather is halfway decent, I take my shirt off because I want a greater body surface area of sun exposure.

Maren [00:56:36]:

Right. Your skin is your largest organ.

Jeff Barke, M.D. [00:56:39]:

Yeah. So we got clean eating, we got sunshine, we got hydration. Stress is up there. So you give me two people, twins. One is super chill. Nothing bothers them like, you know, so low stress. Mr. Meditation Buddha guy, but doesn’t really eat healthy and doesn’t exercise that same twin.

The other twin stresses beyond belief, but exercises every day and eats perfectly. I’ll take the chill guy any day over the other guy. That’s how important I think stress is from an illness standpoint. 

So you need a mechanism to reduce your stress, and there’s a lot of them out there. Exercise, for many of us, meditation. So that’s four and then five is sleep. 

Poor sleep is detrimental. 

And there are a lot of sleep strategies from getting rid of EMF, electromagnetic fields from our bedroom, making sure our bedroom is dark and cold. Sleep hygiene, going to bed at the same time, waking up at the same time.

There are some supplements you can take, like Melatonin and others that I think can be helpful for some people. Measuring your sleep. I started wearing this aura ring. I’m showing it on video, but you.

Even Apple watches can measure your sleep. And if you do that for a while, you’ll learn about what you’re doing and so forth. So those are the five, and we haven’t even talked about any supplements.

[00:58:15]:

So I’m teaching a course starting next month. It’s called mastering your own health. It’s an online course.

It’ll be about ten sessions once a week for about an hour. It’ll be interactive, some sort of zoom-like platform. So subscribers or followers, whatever, can interact with me. And there’s going to be units. 

One is on sleep, one is on female hormones and male testosterone. One is on what exactly do I mean by when I say clean eating? What about water? We’re going to talk a lot about water and why I think government water is not good for you and so forth. So there’s about ten units.

And if you go on my Instagram or my website Rxforliberty.com, you can learn about it through an organization called IPAC. It’s kind of like an online health university, and I think it’ll be a lot of fun. If you miss a lecture, it’s recorded, so you can watch it. And I’m looking forward to doing that starting next month.

Maren [00:59:16]:

That’s great. Well, Doc, I could talk to you for hours, and I’m going to hold you to it that you said that we can do this more than once, because totally, I just think that God gave you this opportunity and this platform to reach so many people, and I’m grateful that you were here today. 

I encourage everyone to follow you every day. You are just giving people nuggets and nuggets of information. And that’s the goal, folks, is to have the information. Because in life, we do the best we can with the information we have. 

And if we don’t have the information, we obviously can’t do our best.

And your decisions don’t have to match mine. They don’t have to match Dr. Barke. It doesn’t matter. But as long as you can go in with a clear conscience and know that, hey, I know the risks, I know the benefits, this is what I’m deciding to do for myself or my family, then that’s all we care about. 

So I appreciate you, Doc. I encourage everyone to follow you. I encourage everyone to make sure that they look at my website because I will have all the show notes so you can have all this to reference back.

And thank you so much for being here today.

Jeff Barke, M.D. [01:00:27]:

Yeah, my pleasure. I appreciate the opportunity. And we’ll have to do this again. We’ll have you on my podcast, which is called Informed Dissent the Intersection of Healthcare and Politics. My co host is Dr. Mark McDonald, who’s a board certified psychiatrist. We have lots of fun, and if you’re on Instagram, we can do an Instagram Live. That would be fun as well.

Maren [01:00:47]:

Fantastic. Well, I appreciate that. We are definitely going to do that too. All right, thanks everyone for listening and I’ll catch you next week.

---

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Covid-19 Second Edition of A Physician’s Take on the Exaggerated Fear of the Coronavirus.

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