LA's Typhus Outbreak (10/01)

0:00This is an I Heart Podcast. Guaranteed Human This is Matt Rogers from Los Cultures, with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang.

1:00This is Matt Rogers from Los Cultures, with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang. This is Matt Rogers from Los Cultures, with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang.

2:00This is Matt Rogers from Los Cultures, with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang. This is Matt Rogers from Los Cultures, with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang.

3:00This is Matt Rogers from Los Cultures, with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang. This is Matt Rogers from Los Cultures, with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang. This is Matt Rogers from Los Cultures, with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang. talking to Dr. Jeffrey Klausner, who's a friend of mine and an infectious disease specialist, USC, Keck School of Medicine, and he's going to explain how the whole process works regarding the spread of typhus. Dr. Klausner, welcome. How are you? All right. Good. Good, John. Glad to be here with you talking about freeborn typhus. Yeah. I was looking up this week in the history of typhus in the modern world. And this was a big deal back in the 1400s and 15 and 1600s. And

4:04we got a mini-cubback here in LA. So explain the process, the whole dynamic of how typhus ends up infecting people. Yeah. So typhus is a disease spread by a bacterium called ricketsia. And these ricketsia bacteria live in small vormins like rats, a possum, actually cats, and people let their cats outside can catch this bacteria. And then the animals get fleece. And then the fleece bite the animal, and then the fleece get infected, and then they land on humans. And then as you correctly mentioned, when the fleece feces kind of contaminates the human by humans scratching the fleebites, they kind of introduce the fleece feces which has the bacteria in there, it gets introduced to the bloodstream. And the challenge is that most doctors and most people don't

5:09know that they've necessarily been exposed. So they won't think about it if they get sick and start to have fever, eggs, or rash. This is really disgusting. And what are the symptoms? Yeah. So I mean, typically anywhere from a few days to a week or two after infection, people develop a high fever, and so if you're a headache, and that's often why people end up in the hospital, because people are concerned that they've had meningitis and go to the emergency room. And they get admitted to the hospital. They may or may not get different kinds of tests. They could also have tests that show that they have hepatitis and may have muscle achors because the good news is that it is very treatable with easy, adabotic, like doxycycline. And as you mentioned, the cases that the Wilshire Center and the cases that occurred in Pico Union, all those were covered because they

6:11got adequately treated. And that's good news. Now, have they been primarily homeless people living among the rats in the fleas, or can one of us walking by on the streets on a shopping trip inadvertently get this? Yeah. I mean, LA County DPH has not been fully inessored transparent with the unhoused status of these cases. They tell us about the geographic area, but I've tried to find out these in unhoused people, housed people. And when I was practicing both at UCLA and elsewhere, I mean, we would see cases among people in Santa Monica who had cats, who had cats that lived outside, came back inside. So you don't only have to be unhoused, living in kind of rat-infested garbage-steroon areas. You can be a person who gets fleas from their cat or other pets. And how, I mean, once you get the treatment, you'll be okay in a matter of

7:14weeks, I guess? Yeah, I mean, actually, I mean, the treatment works pretty quickly. So you have a fever and headache in 24 to 48 hours. You start to feel a lot better. It's a bacterial infection, and that's what antibiotics are good at curing, right? Antibiotic don't really work well for viruses or other things, but they work very well for bacterial infections like this typhus. So, you know, it was dangerous and would kill people in the pre-antibiotic areas. You mentioned the 14, 1500s, when people were living in crowded, unhygienic conditions. It's become a lot more rare, but now we do have good diagnostic tests, blood tests, PCR tests, and we have good antibodies. Right. So, I mean, if we, we apparently are one of the, I think we got a prize from some organization for being the rattiest city in America, or, yeah, Oregon, the pest company ranked L.A. Number one in rats. I mean, is there something in the government ought to be doing here?

8:15Yeah, and I've been, you know, advocating is for a long time. I mean, government has to be doing much better trash pickup, having trash bins, regular, you know, clean up, and equipment areas, also, you know, encouraging people to, you know, not leave bags next to bins. The bins need to be, you know, covered up and make it very difficult for rats or cats or anything to kind of get in there. And as the rat population increases, that's how the fleet population grows as well. So, fewer rats, fewer outdoor cats, fewer fleas, less places. Well, we just can't have people living in the streets, and then of course they leave all their food around. So it's a big buffet for the rats, and that leads to the fleas and the feces and the typhus. All right. Well, thank you very much for giving us a good primer on typhus as we have a medieval disease making a comeback here in L.A. Dr. Jeffrey

9:18Klausner infectious disease specialist at USC Keck School of Medicine. Thank you. I take care. Thanks for coming on. All right. When we come back, you ready? You got your, you should have a bucket with you. You may gag that story that I mentioned at the end of the show yesterday, Vanity Fair had published another one of these, uh, slob fest. What's the, what's the term we have for a tongue bath? The tongue bath. Yes. Gavin Newsom got a bit of a tongue bath from Joe Hagen. It's actually somewhat critical and somewhat of a tongue bath at the same time. But it's about Gavin Newsom being ready for his shot at the White House. And we printed this out. It's 15 pages long. These magazines like Vanity Fair and GQ and Esquire, they just love a guy like him. We'll talk about this. And yeah, you're, uh, this is not to be

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13:31topical corticosteroids. Don't use if you are allergic to eczema. Illurgical reactions can occur that can be severe. Eye problems can occur. Tell your doctor if you have newer, worsening eye problems. You should not receive a live vaccine when treated with eczema. Before starting eczema, tell your doctor if you have a parasitic infection. Pay partnership with Lily. Respect your time. Ask your doctor about eczema and visit eczema.com or call 1-800-LilyRX or 1-800-545-59. You're listening to John Cobalt on Demand from KFI AM640. That's all he kept saying. It was the weakest flimsiest debate performance I've ever seen.

14:33Not that anybody in the left wing media is going to say that, but watch it. Listen to it yourself. Hit nothing. He's an empty can because he thinks that the Democratic voters are so stupid that even though they're unhappy with new sums policies and he's going to extend them, all he has to do is say, Trump, Trump, Trump and they freeze and their eyes go glassy and they pass out and when they wake up they'll vote for him. Maybe he's right. Maybe we're that far gone. There's so many people who seem to be locked to the cult. And then we have Gavin Newsom. I saw this yesterday near the end of the show and I've spent some time reading it and I mean literally some time because 15 pages. 15 pages from Vanity Fair. It was just it was like slavering tongue bath. You know, it's funny. I think Steve Hilton got 15 pages

15:34from Vanity Fair. Now, because he doesn't have hair. That's the biggest issue. I got to do some always gets media attention. Guys with hair. Have it easy. Guys without hair. Yeah, good luck. And it translates to votes or dumb species. So here's the headline. Gavin Newsom is ready for his next act. Well, Democrats ever give him a shot at the White House. Now, you know, this is the worst run state in the Union. Do I have to say that? Do I have to go through the laundry list? We had the highest unemployment rate, the highest inflation rate, the highest taxes in almost every important category. The worst roads, the most fraud in our healthcare system. By far, the most homelessness, the high speed rail debacle. There's a half a

16:34dozen off the top. My head. I'm not even trying. I'm not even looking at cute cards here. And so I'll read you some of the Joe Hagen's writing. Gavin Newsom knows what you're thinking. Slick Newsom says when I ask what he assumes people say when his name comes up in 2028 speculation. Now here's the part with his dazzling white teeth. Open collar and hair, bril cream to a silver sheen. It's not a bad guess. And Hagen writes, I had another association in mind. California itself. I have no idea what that means. California means white teeth, open collar and a lot of bril cream in the hair. Okay. And he visited Newsom at a shopping plaza in Las Vegas.

17:38And he was campaigning for a Nevada gubernatorial candidate. And he brings up Hagen brings up Newsom's biggest impediment to any White House design. Nation leading poverty and income inequality. And that pervasive widespread homelessness you read about. And yes, we do have the worst poverty in the state and worst homelessness. I don't really, I'm so sick of the phrase income inequality. There are some people who are really successful in the world and some people who aren't. And it doesn't, to acknowledge that, it's not a sin to be successful. But the Democrats try to make that a sin that you ought to be punished for. And you can't help it if somebody else can't make it. If there's a guy inventing AI and he makes millions of dollars for inventing AI,

18:41that's had nothing to do with the poor guy laying in the street. Poor guy laying in the street decided to go down the path of drugs and booze. And not get his mental illness treated. No need to take a chunk out of a hide of the person who didn't get into the drugs and booze and actually created a miracle. And everybody, everybody, whoever accomplishes anything ought to resent that. But one of the reasons we have a lot of poverty is everything is so expensive. And things are so expensive because the gas prices here are so high. The cost of housing is so high because there's so much regulation that keeps homes from being built. And he's responsible for this. So when Hagen brings up the nation leading poverty and all the homelessness, new sums reply is I get all that.

19:46And that's it. This is similar to the Sarah. You just blurred out of phrase, I get all that. And then he goes on to say, look, there's a whole industry that's been created to attack our state. And it's pretty ironic. We're the tent pole of the U.S. economy. You see, he doesn't address anything. You're paying 650 for a gallon of gas. And the last 250 is our his taxes. And he just says, yeah, I get all that. And changes the subject. And then he goes, think about where Donald Trump would be today if he didn't have California to attack. And he said, it's the only thing holding up GDP growth, which is false. But you just say things, right? And the writer isn't going to be able to check if there's any truth to that. Actually, the economy here, outside of AI, which new sum has nothing to do with, is not in great shape. Going back to the highest unemployment rate,

20:51highest inflation rate, highest poverty rate. He says both at the same time, he gets that we have high rates of bad economic indexes and then says, oh, look, look, we're the tent pole of the U.S. economy. No, you have concentrated in AI. And he wants to take credit for AI. Now, let's take credit for the tech industry, which was around for decades before he went into office. Obviously, we got more on this nonsense. When we come back, oh, got a little bit about Jennifer, Jennifer Newsman too. You're listening to John Cobalt on demand from KFI AM640. John Cobalt, Joe KFI AM640, more stimulating talk radio. We continue. You want to hear the podcast tonight after six o'clock, anything you missed in the show will be on the podcast. Go to the I heart radio app, John Cobalt show on demand. We are live streaming on X and YouTube.

21:55If you want to watch the video live stream on X and YouTube right now. And to subscribe, become a member YouTube.com slash at John Cobalt show, Steve Tilton will be on the show by phone coming up after five o'clock, just after Debra's news. And we are now slogging through this tongue bath from Joe Hagen of that any fair on Gavin Newsom. All these magazines have to have the same cliched story, every election cycle about whoever their new cover boy is. And now it's newsome. And it's a curious column because Hagen will point out some of the disaster things going on in the state and get news of his response and newsome just dismisses it with something like I get all that. Like Hagen brought up the highest poverty in the nation and the homeless this I get all that. And then he switches subjects and Hagen doesn't follow up. This is like the cancer in in journalism.

23:02Is that like stenographers, they throw out a question, which really requires extensive follow-up and discussion. And instead somebody like do some does what Bakaria did last night. Just blows it off with a few words about her sticker. Yeah, I get all that. Here's some more. Hagen writes that he, all right. So so Newsom's in Nevada and submitting himself to this vanity fair interview under fluorescent lights in an empty back room of a local ministry. He comes across as loose and playful, parrying like a political athlete. Part salesman, part jocular bro with just enough comic self-deprecation to make the whole souffle rise. That's cutting.

24:03The whole souffle. That's the yeah. I guess, I guess Joe Hagen souffle was rising. Earlier he was presented, oh, listen, this he was presented with a baseball jersey by the local politicians and Newsom pretended to unbutton and remove his shirt for a quick change saying I've been working out inspiring squeals and wolf whistles. I know Newsom gets you going. So I just I'll give you a little little. I never said that I just said he's an attractive man. Well, yeah, he is. Does he make your souffle rise? No, he doesn't. Now guess who Newsom's political hero is. In fact, he is taken to imitating this hero's physical quirks. For example, the writer noticed why Newsom talks he has this hand gesture, the thumb resting on a bent forefinger

25:08to emphasize the point. So take your forefinger, put your thumb there, right? And that's Bill Clinton's move. I was going to I knew I was Bill Clinton. I knew what I did. Yes, and I was going to say it, but I didn't want to interrupt you. I was waiting for you to stop. You can I knew it. I I want you to interrupt me. That's why you're here to interrupt me. Well, you were talking. I wasn't going to say something in mid sentence. I was waiting for you to end the sentence. And I was going to say I get it. It's Bill Clinton. Okay, you win the prize. Thank you. I'll give you another 10 bucks. Okay. Okay. You heard that Eric. He's giving me another 10 bucks. Now, here's what Clinton, what Newsom says. I watch videos of Clinton. This is really sad. I seek his counsel, his advice, even in his absence. I do that. I've been a student of his from day one. There is no there there. He's doing a Clinton imitation. And then he says they have an actual relationship that Clinton talked to him late at night about strategy and ideas. You think

26:14they talk about the women they've screwed in their offices? Because I mean, because Newsom is screwing women in the mayor's office. And we know what Clinton did, right? And he says he calls me late at night. This is this is Gavin talking wanting to talk about it. And he goes, I've been thinking not stop about this. I think you represent what they fear. What they, I guess, meaning Republicans, right? Newsom says he's very mindful of that. It's if there's a problem to be solved, there's no greater problem solver than Bill Clinton in my mind, master of his craft next level. Wow. So the writer is slaubering a news. Newsom is slaubering on Clinton. We got a three some going here. By the way, that's a new verbal tick that Newsom has. I count three next level quotes in this story. Everybody is next level.

27:16And then they switched to talking about the DSA. Now listen to this double speak. Newsom claims so much of what the DSA is promoting. Unlike been there, done that. And he's talking about he passed the most progressive rent control in America on the biggest climate champion. But I'm not anti business. Well, yeah, you are. I think you close tens of thousands of businesses during your stupid COVID lockdown. And so and and and then he claims the DSA is just full slogans that there's not much to them. So he simultaneously said he's already passed and embraced DSA policies at the same time saying that the DSA really stands for nothing. He did that all in one paragraph and the writer either didn't catch it or didn't want to pursue it and explain it to the readers. It's like he. Hey, and he I know if he really go line by line, he often is on both sides of the issue at the same time.

28:22And nobody ever calls him on it. Then he's described here as being decked out in six feet three inches of a blue suit as he's signing a bill. I mean, Hagen Souffle was was was about to pop, I think. That's a pretty high Souffle. But then he starts talking about where he breaks with the DSA crowd and that's on taxing billionaires, right? He's not into the billionaire tax. I don't begrudge other people's success. You know, he's worth about 30 billion dollars. He has an annual income of two million. Most of it from his wine operations. Now, you should know is that 10 out of this first 11 business ventures were financed by the billionaire Getty family. He's done very little on his own. But his dad was a close business associate of the Getty's and the Getty's treated him like a son. In fact, they treated him

29:24better than they did the Getty children. And so he got all these free businesses. And then he goes, well, I'm a small businessman. So he doesn't feel like he should begrudge other people's success. I just don't feel that. I'd be faking that. That's inauthentic of me to say. That's what frustrates me about my party party. I'm a small business person. I intimately appreciate the risk taking and contribution to businesses. He never took a risk. How many of us could end up with a net worth of millions of dollars if they had the Getty family backing 10 of our first 11 businesses. Do you know who his hero was growing up? Sylvester Stallone, the first Rocky movie. He set up a boxing ring in his backyard and had neighborhood matches. He was an amateur magician as a kid. He called

30:26himself the great Gavini. Stop that. Making this up. Do you remember this long time ago? You remember a show in the 1980s, Remington Steel? Yes. Pierce, Brazner. Yeah. He bases his clothes and hairstyle. I was going to say his hairstyle. Yes. Yes. That's where it comes from. Okay. That's not right. No, although it was the same era. That's fair. Yeah. It was Pierce, Brazner. We think later became a James Bond. Yes. And Brazner played a charming con man. You see the connections here? And he seems to have kept the look for life. So he's still indulging in his Remington Steel fantasy. And let's say he was born in 67. So he was in his 20s, late teens early 20s. You know, when you kind of develop your fashion sense and your identity.

31:29And so he looked at Pierce, Brazner and he kept it. Divinity, too. Divinity, too. Gavin, Gavin, he loved you. All right. Wasn't he also a fan of Camelot? Remember the Kimberly, what is her name? Oh, Kimberly Girthfoyle. Yeah. That was the spread they did. In Vanity Fair. Yes. In Vanity Fair. That's right. Back in 2004 where they did their, their, their, their, JFK and Jackie Kennedy. Jackie Kennedy. Yeah. They did an imitation of them. And you know, where they did it was in the one of the Getty Family homes. He's such a fraud. He inhabits these different personas. There, there is no real Gavin Newsom in there. Okay. When, when we come back, no beardos, no weirdos, no wimps. Pete Hegseth. We got to play a bit of a speech that he gave on his vision for the military going into the future. No beardos, no weirdos, no wimps.

32:31You're listening to John Cobalt on demand from KFI AM640. KFI AM640 more stimulating talk radio. John Cobalt show Steve Hilton, the Republican candidate for governor against the empty, heavy air Bakaria. They had a debate last night and much of the time Bakaria was reduced to one word. Trump. He had virtually no ideas, no analysis. Other than everything that Newsom has got going, we're just going to keep extending it. Isn't that great? So I, I mean, the gas price in my neighborhood is 650 a gallon. Premium is like almost eight bucks. Remember Michael Mischee from USA predicted that this was going to happen. It's happening and people hate the prices around the country. And that's why the Republicans may get kicked out of

33:34the, kicked out of the house and kicked out of control of the Senate. Now, why is that happening in the rest of the country? Because they're angry with their four dollar gas. But we're embracing Bakaria with his six dollar and 50 cent gas. One of the great mysteries, great unsolved mystery of the planet. Talk more about that with Steve Hilton coming up. All right, Pete Hicksath, River Year ago, he lectured 800 generals and admirals about how they all got to lose weight. They got a little, they got to slim down, become more lethal. Well, this year he's kind of updated the speech. It's his version of the state of the union. It's called the state of the force. And he spoke again to hundreds of generals and admirals, the army and the navy. And listen to this because he had a pretty catchy slogan telling someone to get in shape or shave or fix their uniform or start bust in the air. That's not discrimination. That's leadership. We've

34:39ended the poisonous culture of risk aversion and empowered leaders at every single level to simply enforce standards. The only focus, as you know, in your formations, should be training, readiness, accountability, discipline and lead, and when you pursue those things, you don't have to walk on eggshells. No more social engineering, no more weaponized IG policies. The complainers, the ideologues and the poor performers are no longer in the driver's seat. No more silly PowerPoint trainings or drag queen shows. No more diversity quotas, no more gender pronouns, no more identity months. Only the warrior ethos. And I know you feel it because I've been to your units and met with your troops. It has transformed entire formations as it was intended to do. But it's worth saying again, so that the fake news understands it. We are no longer the woke department or the weak department.

35:43Simple translation of that. No fatties, no trainees, no beardedos, no weirdos, no whims, no radicals. Just warriors. It's just tough, ready, committed troops. The war department, as you know, is colorblind, gender neutral and merit based. Or as the president likes to say, we paint central casting. I want central casting. The ideological clowns are out. The patriotic cowboys are in with testosterone testing on top. Oh, is that it? Testosterone testing. I didn't know that. Yeah, that's something new. No fatties, no trainees, no beardedos, no weirdos, no whims, no radicals. There you go. Can you see that inscribed in the stone above the department of war?

36:48It is kind of exciting to listen to that because he is right. Enough about the diversity and equity and inclusion and the quotas and the all that nonsense. You're just supposed to go out and kill people. That's the purpose. Kill people and break things. That's what the military does. That's their business. So there you go. By the way, he wants to, he wants a trillion and a half dollars to expand the military, a trillion and a half. But he can't, he can't even get all the Republicans to sign onto that because we got 40 trillion in debt. What he wants to do is take all the military people that are a lot of them based overseas and bring them back to this country. And he wants to build a gigantic military base somewhere in America. He wants the states to compete to house it. When we come back, Steve Hilton, Republican candidate for governor.

37:51I wasn't really to be, I tell you the format of the CNN debates is awful. Just terrible. But Hilton and Baccharea had only one word to say over and over again, we will discuss this. Coming up, Debra Mark live, the KFI 24 hour days room. You've been listening to the John Cobalt show podcast. You can always hear the show live on KFI AM640 from 3 to 6 p.m. every Monday through Friday. And of course, anytime on demand on the I heart radio. KFI AM640. More stimulating talk.