Corey Dion Lewis (00:01.454)
Hello, everybody. Welcome back to the Healthy Project Podcast. I'm your host, Corey Deion Lewis. today we're talking about vaccines, but I want to move past that usual debate over whether vaccines work or whether they are safe. You know, I want to focus on what happens between the science and the people making the decision. When someone is not vaccinated, do we call it hesitancy too quickly? Are we missing barriers involving access, costs?
Trust in the way people have experienced healthcare. My guest is Dr. Mike Myers, a Harvard and Johns Hopkins trained physician with more than 35 years of experience in primary care, pediatrics, healthcare leadership, and public health. He is a former chief of primary care, pediatrics, and practice transformation for Summit Health New Jersey. He is also the author of The Vaccine Bible, a comprehensive common sense guide to what keeps us safe from the flu, measles,
Hepatitis and more. Dr. Myers, welcome to the Healthy Project Podcast. Thank you so much for being here.
Dr Mike Myers (01:05.166)
Corey, thank you so much for having me as a guest. Honored to be here.
Corey Dion Lewis (01:10.284)
Yeah, so thank you so much. So before we get into all everything that you you've been doing, you know, after more than 35 years in medicine, in healthcare leadership, what do you think the healthcare system still misunderstands about why people delay or decline vaccines?
Dr Mike Myers (01:31.319)
It's been accelerated primarily since the pandemic, but this kind of vaccine hesitancy has been building probably since the late 90s when a very irresponsible physician in Great Britain, who's actually been disbarred, published findings somehow linking the MMR, the measles mom's rubella vaccine to autism. and there have been absolutely there's no link. There have been literally
Hundreds of studies among thousands of children and their siblings. There is no link between autism and MMR or any other vaccine. But the damage was done and the myth is propagated. And with the internet and social media, and then the pandemic and everything that happened there, almost as an accelerant, throwing gas on the fire, we are now left with an American population that is.
Corey Dion Lewis (02:26.521)
Right.
Dr Mike Myers (02:30.272)
Utterly confused, mistrusting, and this confusion is heightened by our current administration. And unfortunately, the consequence, one of the consequences, is right now, this does not get enough press. It needs to be discussed more and more. We are still in the middle of a national forest fire called a measles outbreak that began in January 2025 in West Texas.
And between last year and this year has resulted in nearly 6,000 cases. We are seeing more cases of measles in this country than we have seen in 35 years. And most recently, the fire is most evident in Pennsylvania, where four people have died. So this mistrust has real world consequences on people's lives. And that's kind of where we are right now in 2026, coming out of 1998.
Corey Dion Lewis (03:26.574)
Yeah, the the fact that we're talking about measles right now in twenty twenty six is is just mind blowing to me. It's it's astounding.
Dr Mike Myers (03:30.85)
Yes. Yes.
It's astounding. Right. We we have been using the measles vaccine since I was four, which was in nineteen sixty-three. So in nineteen sixty-three, the measles vaccine was developed. It was demonstrated to be safe and effective. In the early seventies, it was combined with Mumps and Rubella to now form the measles, mumps, rubella combination vaccine. It has been given to
Billions of people worldwide when you get this vaccine. Normally you get it in two doses, a two-dose series between the ages of twelve and fifteen months and four to six years. That two-dose series is 97% effective at preventing you from getting measles your entire lifespan. And so today the people getting measles are people that have not been vaccinated.
Have they have no immunity to it, they didn't get a shot, they didn't have a prior infection, and measles, the measles virus is among the most contagious known to humankind. So you are basically, if you have no protection from prior exposure or or vaccination, you're about 90% likely to get this illness if you come in contact, even distant contact, a number of hours away from a person.
Who has the measles. So, you know, we never used to talk about measles or chicken pox or any of these, you know, other vaccines because we just accepted what our doctors and parents and teachers told us, which was and is the truth. We're trying to protect you from getting a terrible infectious disease, which can kill you, which can cause deafness.
Corey Dion Lewis (05:11.13)
Yeah.
Dr Mike Myers (05:29.666)
Which can cause encephalitis or brain infection. So there are real world consequences to like you don't want to play around with so called natural immunity when you are dealing with something like measles, because it it can kill you.
Corey Dion Lewis (05:43.077)
Yeah, and in in you know, in the year twenty twenty six going into twenty twenty seven, the fact that there's so much information out there that we have our hands to ha we can go we can be anywhere in the world and and be able to get evidence based information to provide us with the tools and the inf that we need to make a good decision. But
there is just something about that trust aspect that there are some people that were like, Yeah, I hear it, but, you know, this one person that I know that I've heard about my cousins, grandma's sisters, aunt, this happened. And and they they put it all on this one vaccine. And that's the reason why.
Dr Mike Myers (06:13.099)
Right. Yeah.
Dr Mike Myers (06:26.657)
Yeah, exactly. Well, just maybe two or three comments to that. And you're talking about the power of anecdotal experience, like one thing gets completely blown up out of proportion, and then becomes the rule of thumb, not necessarily the case. One of the one of the challenges with vaccines actually is that they've done such a good job at preventing and ridding the world of smallpox and paralytic polio.
Corey Dion Lewis (06:35.854)
Yeah.
Dr Mike Myers (06:55.829)
measles, diphtheria, all kind of illnesses that used to kill and maim millions of people worldwide, all those diseases are gone. And and at least the way they used to affect human populations. And so most people don't have any lived experience with any of these illnesses. And they think there's no problem, the germs don't exist, you know, and then so the little side effects like muscle pain or
Things that that happen to people get blown out of proportion. The other thing I have to say, I'm not naming names here, is that none of this is helped by a president and a secretary of health and human services who continue to misinform, mislead, lie, and they didn't go to medical school. They didn't have any, they have no prior experience or knowledge of science or clinical medicine or infectious diseases.
They have a lot of other partisan and political aims and goals. And unfortunately, the American public is in the middle here in the crosshairs because people are just trying to get through their day, make the right decisions for their families. And that's why I wrote the book, to be honest. I wanted to come in to say, listen, I'm a doctor. I went to Harvard. You know, my job as a primary care doctor and as a leader is to actually explain and to
understand and to analyze complicated issues in clinical practice. And so I almost felt like a calling or compelled to write this book because no one was talking about this. No one, no, I call it in the preface the Fannie Farmer Cookbook of Vaccines. People just want some basic information, objective information, a recipe, if you will, for what is this germ? What's this vaccine against it?
Corey Dion Lewis (08:32.079)
Right.
Dr Mike Myers (08:47.287)
What's what's the what are the side effects of the vaccine? If you don't get vaccinated, what kind of problems can happen with the disease state? What are some of the controversies associated with the you know, in other words, I just wanted to give people in like four or five pages that they could quickly read, probably in like five or six minutes, the facts. They're called Vax Facts, and they cover everything from anthrax to Zika of every FDA approved vaccine in the United States.
and then I also give people some knowledge in the beginning of the book of kind of biology 101, infectious disease 101, healthcare regulations. So that was the point in writing the book, The Vaccine Bible, was to really step in. I don't want to get into arguments and fights with people, but I do feel like the nerds like me need to stand up, raise their hands, and say, Listen, you got this wrong. And here is, you know, some information.
that can really help you make make a better decision for yourself.
Corey Dion Lewis (09:49.799)
And I and I love that. And this kind of leads into my next question. I would love to he get your thoughts on this. You know, there are doctors like yourself that have their hearts in the right place and they've done they've they've done everything that is necessary to make sure they're getting the appropriate and the right information to the to the public. and then you have those health leaders that will often tell people to hey, you know, trust me, I'm a doctor, or you know, trust the science.
But what is the responsibility to the healthcare institution or to the provider to prove that they are as trustworthy as they say they are? Like is there a responsibility there?
Dr Mike Myers (10:31.661)
So how does the subtext of your question, I think, also is how does a person develop trust during a time when trust and faith has been lost? And then what is the responsibility and the role of doctors and doctor groups like the American Academy of Pediatrics or Family Medicine to instill that trust?
Corey Dion Lewis (10:42.977)
Absolutely.
Dr Mike Myers (10:55.177)
I would say there's a very simple answer to this. And the simple answer is the results and the outcomes of the advice. So I'm gonna go back to the measles epidemic for a moment. The current epidemic that we are seeing is not happening because the measles vaccine is failing, and people that were exposed or prior vaccinated, like you or I when we were kids, are getting the measles. Okay. What's happening in the real world?
With actual facts and experience, is that the people that are getting this illness are not vaccinated. So often the answer is a simple one. Trust is instilled by actually looking at the outcomes. And the outcomes currently of measles is that the people getting sick are people that don't have vaccine protection. Everybody else who has vaccine protection, or maybe, you know, was lucky enough to live through.
Getting the actual measles has natural immunity and has no complications, they're protected as well. Those people are not getting sick. So the trust is based upon the results and the outcomes of what's occurring with medical decisions that people are making. And then I think people have to actually then look at their own individual healthcare providers and team, you know, and and ask themselves like, do I trust my own doctor, my own pediatrician?
my own family medicine provider. I I think the answer should be yes, because if you don't, why are you there? And if you're there in a practice working with people that you're suspicious of, that that's a problem in and of itself. So I would say that this goes really back to the outcomes and results of what we're seeing, the kind of relationship you already have with your healthcare team. And I would just like
Dispense with the noise. Like don't even listen to some of the stuff that's out there because the people that are speaking in social media ways or social influencers or even people in our federal government, frankly, and I'm not trying to like turn the tables, they can't be trusted. They're not speaking from a credible source of objective, scientific, fact-based information, and they have other axes to grind. I have none.
Corey Dion Lewis (13:20.078)
Mm-hmm.
Dr Mike Myers (13:20.126)
I'm retired. I'm a doctor who just cares about the truth. I'm trying to help people survive. And to be honest, we have so many other things to worry about in this world and with our children and families. I don't think vaccines should be one of those things to worry about. It really shouldn't. We have been using these vaccines safely and effectively for decades. The principle of how vaccines work.
was demonstrated in 1796. So we have literally hundreds of years of experience with how this medical technology, which I think is one of the greatest achievements of humankind, how it works and what it does and how to and how to use these tools, you know, safely. So th th th those are my I don't know if that answers your question, but that's kind of what what I feel. Yeah.
Corey Dion Lewis (14:11.658)
Absolutely. No, I I love that. And you know, so in just to kind of our black and brown communities are often described as distrustful of healthcare. And and how can we discuss that distrust without blaming communities, or treating history as the only explanation? And the reason why I ask that is, you know, as someone who is in public health who
Who has worked it with within Safety Net hospitals. And, you know, I would see, I was, individuals that I would serve, they saw a blackface and they'd ask me these questions because they saw me as someone they could trust. And when I would tell them, yes, you know, you should take this vaccine, this, that, this is why, these are the reasons. There was still this feeling of like, I don't, I don't know because of what they've been, what they've seen, what they've heard. And there was like this deep,
Dr Mike Myers (14:54.699)
Right.
Corey Dion Lewis (15:10.74)
rooted mistrust that, you know, we we can't we can deny that there is a a history of why, but how do we get past that, you know, to continue to make sure we're we're getting going in the right direction?
Dr Mike Myers (15:22.508)
This this is such an excellent point. And you know, Corey, to be honest, I don't think we even have enough time on this podcast to cover the history of, but but let me say, I'm gonna pick up on a couple things you said there. For black and brown people, the mistrust and the distrust is warranted. Okay, let me just say that. Let me sp let me begin with that. This country does not have a very good track record when it comes to how it is historically treated.
Corey Dion Lewis (15:30.458)
No.
Corey Dion Lewis (15:43.116)
Right.
Dr Mike Myers (15:51.351)
Black and brown populations. We just do not. It is not a proud history. It is a terrible history from the Tuskegee experiment to all kinds of things that have occurred in our past. The other thing to your point is that there are enough, not enough black and brown healthcare professionals providing care. There are enough health coaches, there are enough nurses, there are not enough doctors, specialists. So the black and brown person looking for someone like them in that world to verify and to add
Credibility to the lived experience, that person is very hard to find. I cannot even tell you the number of times. There's a very tiny minority of people or the numerator of people like me that, you know, are either healthcare leaders or people that are trained or certified internal medicine, very small. Okay. So it's not a lot of us out there. And to be honest, it's getting smaller because anything that our society would have done to rectify some of that through positive, you know.
Corey Dion Lewis (16:30.169)
Right.
Dr Mike Myers (16:45.772)
programs and getting people into medical school. I have nephews that are are graduating from Howard and from University of Pennsylvania. What what W WB Dubois used to call the talented 10th. The talented 10th are not going into healthcare. They're all going into finance. They've decided, you know, we're not going to be doctors and lawyers and we're just going go straight to investment banking and and venture capital and private equity. That's what people are doing. So
Corey Dion Lewis (17:02.69)
Mm.
Dr Mike Myers (17:14.666)
We have a bad history in our country of how we have treated black and brown populations. We don't have enough professionals in those spaces that represent us. And so I think to your point, the distrust and mistrust is warranted. So I'm going to begin with that. So then how do you begin to reclaim and re-establish or just establish for the first time? Some of it is this podcast. Thank you for having me on it. Some of it is people like me who have.
excellent training coming forward as an African American leader and as a person who's a doctor, a father myself, you know, a writer and person who's explained complicated things to people to step forward to add my voice. I can only do so much, or you and I can only do so much through the media and the opportunities that have been afforded us. But we're doing what we can. I mean we are. and and so I think that it is
Corey Dion Lewis (18:06.498)
Right.
Dr Mike Myers (18:11.667)
It's almost I would even call it like retail politics. It's like being out there in the community, gum shoeing door to door, getting people's vote, asking people to vote for me, basically saying, listen, I don't have any skin in this game other than your your well-being and your outcome. And I am telling you the truth. There is no reason why I would mislead you. In my book, there are disclaimers. I'll say it now. I'm not your doctor.
And I'm not giving you healthcare advice. That's why in the book I was careful not to put specifics about dosing or that kind of thing, because those things change. And you need to have those kind of conversations with your physician or your healthcare provider, your healthcare coach, whomever. What I did in the book is give you the concepts, the terms, the language, the con the background. So you can have an intelligent conversation, even form an opinion about.
And then you can go to the internet and you can do your own research. You can go out and explore your you can in med school. The best teachers I had would all always say, examine primary data for yourself. Go look at the x-ray yourself. Go look at the blood smear yourself. How you know the person really has a pneumonia? Did you look at the film? Well, then how do you really know? You know, that kind of thing. So that's the way I'm approaching this. I want your audience and I want people in general to to take.
Corey Dion Lewis (19:34.105)
Yeah.
Dr Mike Myers (19:41.13)
Not just take my word because I'm saying it, but to read my book to get it, and then to test it from what they can find themselves out there, they'll find there is an alignment in the truth. It's easy to tell the truth because it's the truth. When people are kind of bending themselves out of all kinds of making you can tell people that are like not really giving you the straight, the straight story. You know, there's a way their body language, their the way they talk, the speed at which they're using language.
All that kind of stuff. I'm telling you the truth in the book. Use the concepts and basically confirm for yourself. My my my brother-in-law talks about it's not even about trust, then verify. It's about verify, then trust. So take the book and verify, then trust that, this guy seems to know what he's talking about, or you know, let me let me, you know, go in further in this direction or whatever it is. So
So to back to your original question about, you know, our populations and the history of mistrust and distrust that we've had, unfortunately, it's well-earned in this country, hasn't gotten any better with the kind of culture and environment we're now living in, and that we're trying to do what we can to build the trust, like in a retail way, one story at a time, one podcast at a time, one book at a time. And maybe there'll be
kind of groundswell or a building kind of from the grassroots up of a greater degree of peace and calm, you know, that can be passed on to other folks. So so we'll see. I mean that's why I'm here. That's what I'm about.
Corey Dion Lewis (21:20.794)
Absolutely. And and there's there was something to everything you said, especially now, you know, these in just just looking at the the trends from my eyes and just what I'm seeing on social media and it's it's more so it's less the message and more so who the messenger is of of who people put their trust in. If you can Yeah.
Dr Mike Myers (21:38.656)
Yes.
Dr Mike Myers (21:42.102)
Can I say something to that point? I I'm like the I'm like every like look, I'm I'm a baby boomer. I'm an old guy. I I no, I'ma I'ma own all of it, okay? I am proud to be a baby boomer at the age of 67 on Medicare, on Social Security, all of it. But but I do try to keep up with the cool kids. So, you know, I do a little doom scrolling and I s and I stay checked into Instagram and all that. So recently, like I think it was last week, there was a young woman.
Corey Dion Lewis (21:51.738)
I don't know.
Dr Mike Myers (22:12.063)
I want to say she was either Chinese, Japanese, or Korean. She was a social influencer who there was some kind of thing where she would eat large quantities of junk food. Okay. She, do you know what I'm talking about? Do you know the story? So she yes, that's it. That okay. I don't even know the word for that's exactly the word. Okay. She died 24 years old. She was admitted in ventricular.
Corey Dion Lewis (22:23.215)
Mm-hmm.
don't know the story, but I knew a mukbanger, I know it's it's like some yeah.
Dr Mike Myers (22:39.755)
Fibrillation. She had her heart basically stopped because she didn't have enough potassium in her diet. She had low potassium. Now, people that are following her and this diet are putting themselves at great risk because she was not basically consuming a normal, healthy diet that would give you the nutrients that your body needs to, you know, s survive.
Corey Dion Lewis (22:55.609)
Mm-hmm.
Dr Mike Myers (23:08.199)
One of those nutrients happens to be potassium, which is normally found in things like tomatoes and oranges, bananas, fresh fruits, meat sources, dairy. I mean, you have to eat, you know, a balanced diet. She wasn't doing that. Bok choy. I there are a lot of ways in which you can get potassium. She wasn't getting it. And you don't get it, you don't replenish it. Your heart needs it. The heart says, okay, well, I don't have any fuel. I'm gonna stop. And now at 24,
She's not her whole life is done. I mean, she could have lived 80 more years and it's over. And it's over because I would just say, I mean, that's completely avoidable, right? So you gotta be careful with who you listen to, who you take your advice from, and who you trust, because it can literally kill you, as it did this young woman at the age of 24.
Corey Dion Lewis (23:38.65)
Mm-hmm.
Corey Dion Lewis (23:48.047)
Yeah.
Corey Dion Lewis (24:02.008)
Yeah. Absolutely. And and some of the things that that we see are if you know, if someone is is handsome or pretty and they they can be completely wrong about everything, but if they look good or if they're confident in how they're saying it wrong, people will believe it. And then if the truth isn't as appealing or just like, well, no, this you know, this study that I found, you know, you know, no like that's not
Dr Mike Myers (24:19.688)
Yes. Right.
Corey Dion Lewis (24:31.854)
That's not sexy. And and so you're you're fighting a lot of a lot of that. You're fighting the algorithm to find the people you can trust to build that trust around, as especially around vaccines, is how you've already pointed out has been something
Dr Mike Myers (24:33.439)
Right.
Dr Mike Myers (24:46.804)
Well, and the other thing, I hate to say this, this is this I I'm gonna say it. This is definitely old guy generational stuff, but again, studies are showing this. Unfortunately, the future does not look bright for us as a as a race, as a group, because our species, because we're not getting any smarter here in America. It's not our educational system is not improving and making us more analytically adept. We don't have that.
Ability, frankly, sometimes to even weigh evidence correctly. Our our science literacy is going south, right? And so our ability to understand our human bodies, physiology, what is a scientific study that is valid from one that isn't, that kind of insight, that kind of analytic. Now, maybe AI can help, but even in AI, I would say you need to be careful.
Corey Dion Lewis (25:41.614)
Mm-hmm.
Dr Mike Myers (25:41.669)
I use AI myself to help me do and to shortcut analytic reviews and research. I don't use it to create products, but I went to college and med school and I had really good education. So I come at chat or Claude with a degree of skepticism that's based upon lived experience and education. I don't know if all of us are walking around with that. And so we just we just accept things as an article of faith.
Corey Dion Lewis (26:09.978)
Yeah.
Dr Mike Myers (26:11.402)
And we try to apply it and like this young woman and we follow her diet and her lead, that's gonna you get you're gonna die. You'll end up in the hospital because of low potassium levels and ventricular fibrillation. So,
Corey Dion Lewis (26:21.636)
Mm-hmm.
No, it yeah, understandable. So I mean so so true. Dr. Myers, as you were writing the book, The Vaccine Bible, a comprehensive common sense guide to what keeps us safe from the flu, measles, and hepatitis and more, as you were writing that, was there anything in your process and and that you that stood out to you as you were writing this book d about any any of the information or resources that you found?
Dr Mike Myers (26:27.849)
Yeah.
Dr Mike Myers (26:54.388)
So thank you for the full title. And it can be found at www.drmikemyers.com, right? Or any of your booksellers, D-R-M-I-K-E-M-Y-E-R-S, surprised me. Well, first of all, let me say this. I'm a primary, I'm a simple country doctor, a primary care doctor. I'm not an infectious disease specialist. I'm not a vaccine expert, right? There are Paul Offitz and Peter Hotez and Mike O Ulsterholm. These are my heroes, right? From children's hospital.
Philadelphia and all of that. What I am is a person who I think knows how to communicate complicated concepts to people. So I wrote the book, first of all, to be completely accessible to the general public. I did I wanted to take out and strip away all clinical language and jargon. In a way, what surprised me and what I think I brought to the book.
Things I was beginning to learn and relearn about infectious disease, about how comp how complex and sophisticated our immune systems are. So I'm going to stay on that for just a moment because I went to medical school in the 80s. And so when you write a book like this, you are immediately called to get on a new learning curve and to really understand like what's changed in immunology, for instance, since I was in medical school.
When Madonna was just starting out singing, you know, or Janet Jackson was still on TV on some TV show. She hadn't even hit the heights yet. And what I discovered is that there has been immense progress in understanding the sophistication of our immune systems and what vaccines do and the ways in which pharmaceutical companies and scientists have improved protein chemistry, genetics, and a whole host of things.
Corey Dion Lewis (28:21.05)
Right.
Dr Mike Myers (28:48.584)
to make vaccines even safer. In other words, to give only the, I'm gonna use a term here, only the antigen amount needed. The active component of any vaccine is something called an antigen. The antigen is a compound word that comes from antibody generator, A-T-A-N-T-I-G-E-N. That's an antigen. What the antigen is, is a portion
Of the actual germ that will elicit a specific immune response, antibodies and immune cells, that the body remembers forever. And so if you're exposed to that germ in the future, your body now knows and has been trained to recognize that germ and will attack it specifically before the germ has had an opportunity to make you sick. What amazed me was to understand.
How much of this choreography has now been well worked out. We again we knew that that that that what I just explained that was known when the United States was 20 years old in 1796. The basic outline of how a vaccine works is what I described, and it was known at that point. What we know today is a level of
Detail about every single step along the way of those dance steps, which now gives scientists and pharmaceutical companies a greater degree of understanding and how to quickly engineer. This is why, again, this is a wondrous thing. A vaccine normally used to take anywhere from six to ten years to develop. We developed safe and effective.
vaccines against SARS-CoV-2 during the COVID-19 pandemic in 11 months. 11 months. It used to take six to ten years. We did it in less than a year. That's the amazing thing. The advent and benefit of messenger RNA technology, the understanding of how our immune system really works in fighting illness. The
Dr Mike Myers (31:10.191)
sophistication of protein science and chemistry to bring all of that to bear. And it comes to us in the form of a vaccine. And and and to be honest, it's what got us out of that pandemic and prevented millions and millions of people from either contracting the illness or dying. And it was done in less than a year. That's the amazing it's a miracle really that we even did that. Because again, while we were all going through
What was happening in 2020, none of us knew if it would take, like how are we going to survive four or five years? That's why some of the social distancing and all these things that we employed in the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic were brought up to speed in 2020. But to answer your question, yes, thing I was most amazed by are all those developments and the basic science.
Corey Dion Lewis (31:48.929)
Right.
Dr Mike Myers (32:08.148)
that we had to apply during COVID to develop that vaccine in less than a year.
Corey Dion Lewis (32:13.924)
Yeah, well and with that and what's important about that, Dr. Myers, is that some people will will hear is and I heard this a lot, especially in the beginning of the pandemic.
Dr Mike Myers (32:25.001)
This is a conspiracy question that's about to come. Go ahead.
Corey Dion Lewis (32:27.662)
Well, not even conspiracy well, kinda like how did it take how did it happen so fast? It usually takes year, but not even having the context of like, well, this has been started a long like we kinda had a head start to get to be able to make it so fast. And people don't understand that context.
Dr Mike Myers (32:31.687)
Right. Right. Right. Right.
Dr Mike Myers (32:42.035)
Correct. We had a we right. We had a we had a very good head start, again in the understanding of immune immune the immune system, the advent of messenger RNA technology. We had never used mRNA to develop a vaccine. It's been used for cancer research. But to take a a reference from popular culture, I don't know if many of your audience have seen the movie Project Hail Mary, but just to take a a word from that book.
From that great movie by you know Ryan Gosling's in it, essentially, not to give too much away, the earth is literally facing an existential threat. The whole earth is going to be destroyed by a particular kind of problem that it faces, the answer to which lies in a star that's light years away from the Earth. So, so every single person on planet Earth basically.
Gets together and they figure out how to travel at light speed. Okay. They figure this thing out. All right. The same analogy, I think, can be brought to SARS-CoV-2 and the COVID-19 pandemic. You had millions of people, billions of people, people like me. I'm as a little chief medical officer in a primary care practice in March 2020. I have to now become an epidemiologist, an infectious disease expert. All these people are like.
Honing their brain power on solving this problem, that's why we were able to get to where we were in 11 months, just like in Project Hail Mary. They figured out how to travel at light speed because it shows the power of cooperation. When people collaborate and they get together and they put their minds to a problem, great things and tremendous solutions can happen.
But if we keep fighting each other and pointing fingers and blaming one another and being fearful because someone's black or brown or gay or transgender, whatever it is, they have a brain, they have a mind, they can help you solve a problem. Maybe you should listen to what they're telling you, right? That's what Project Hell Mary was about. That's what we did during the pandemic. And that's why we came up with the solutions that seem like it's not a miracle.
Corey Dion Lewis (34:50.265)
Right.
Dr Mike Myers (35:05.531)
It's just the expected outcome when people cooperate based upon a backdrop of all the progress that have been made in science. So that's why I call the conspiracy question, because there's no conspiracy. There's a very good reason why this happened the way it did.
Corey Dion Lewis (35:18.574)
Yeah.
Corey Dion Lewis (35:22.714)
Right. That's awesome. Dr. Myers, thank you so much for coming on and talking about the book and this conversation that has been kind of a hot button topic, you know, for a while now around vaccines and and what you in the book that you've been able to create. For those that wanna connect with you, learn more about what you're doing, where can they connect with you? Where can they find the book?
Dr Mike Myers (35:38.344)
Yes.
Dr Mike Myers (35:44.445)
Yes.
Dr Mike Myers (35:49.704)
Yes, so I would say the easiest way is www.dot drmikemyers dr-m-i-k-e-m-y-e-r-s dot com. Dr mikemyers dot com. My website, it'll be about me. You can contact me there and you can buy the book from any bookseller that you go to normally, bookshop, Barnes and Noble, Amazon, if you will, and all that's explained also in the website.
So that's where you can find it. Or in a local independent bookstore near you.
Corey Dion Lewis (36:21.068)
Awesome. And I'll make sure I have the link all those links in the description of this episode on all audio platforms and on YouTube. again, Dr. Myers, thank you so much for having the super important conversation with me. everybody, thank you for listening to the Healthy Project Podcast. I'll highlight you next time.
Dr Mike Myers (36:31.697)
Yes.
Dr Mike Myers (36:39.348)
Thank you very much.
