HJNO Nov/Dec 2024

HEALTHCARE JOURNAL OF NEW ORLEANS I  NOV / DEC 2024 13 THE PROMPT serious and it seems like something that we need to look into. Abraham It opens up a very potential abuse of power. Rep. Owen And that’s what concerns me. For those listening who have not heard of this, my layman’s understanding of Emer- gency Use Authorization is: The govern- ment comes down and says, “OK, whether it’s this shot or this treatment, not necessar- ily fully authorized, but we’re going to give it under an ‘emergency use’because we think it’s good for the public health.”But then it is incumbent upon the people that are admin- istering health, whether it’s the doctor, or the nurse, or the person at Walgreens, who are sticking a shot in somebody or telling them to use a mask, that this is an emergency use thing, and this is an experimental procedure. We need to know that, I think, as citizens. I think that’s something that we need to pay attention to. I want to thank you, Dr. Abra- ham, Dr. Coleman, for your frankness. Thank you for saying what you’ve said, and thank you for your service and your bravery dur- ing COVID. That was a hard time for physi- cians. I know y’all were exhausted. You were spent every day, and just want to say thank you, and God bless you. Rep. Alonzo L. Knox I have a couple ques- tions, but before I go there, I want to thank you for maintaining some decorum, and not using certain words, I know you have some constraints not to do that. I’m not as good as you, but I will try. And I want to preface by saying yesterday was very enlighten- ing to me because I came here intention- ally to have an open mind. Prior to coming here, I had the notion that there is a bunch of wacky people who are anti-vax and who are anti-government. But I will say, and I will submit, that since yesterday — and I went back and reviewed my notes of those dis- cussions in great detail — I’m very enlight- ened. The people who came before us yes- terday, they didn’t, in my estimation, seem wacky. They seemed to be very articulate, very intelligent, and knew their subject mat- ter. And they didn’t put the political spin on it. They provided, at least in my observation, the facts; and they even put counter facts to what they were presenting. To that switch, I greatly appreciate it. You mentioned early on that you would have done almost everything differently. I am a small-business owner, so one of my questions would be, and you kind of alluded to your opinion about the social distancing, the 6-feet thing … Abraham …and the mask. Rep. Knox … and the mask, can you elaborate a little bit more on why that is?And I appre- ciate you said something to the effect that it was something that was just pulled out of the air — basically it wasn’t based in any real empirical data to come up with 6 feet or any kind of feet, and the mask. In your elaboration, could you answer whether or not you would have been inclined to shut down all businesses, because it was very bizarre to me why some businesses were left to be open and others not. And if this is something that’s so contagious, how, how is that helping or controlling anything? Abraham Well, Rep. Knox, let me preface what I’m going to say. You know, I learned in Congress and certainly knew before, that when there’s something that probably should just be left done, governments, cer- tainly, federal government want to do some- thing to look like they’re doing something, OK, but that doesn’t work in most cases. So, I would not have shut businesses down. I would not have closed schools. I would have let that doctor patient relationship flourish. If that doctor and that patient decided you don’t need to go to work, you don’t need to go to school, that’s a decision they need to make among themselves. Nowwe can look back four years at the history. Did that save lives? I don’t think so. I think it may actu- ally have increased mortality because we did mute, to a point, the virus itself from getting at lower levels in people’s immune system and creating that natural immunity, which we know, compared to the vaccines now, is much better than vaccine immunity because this virus … we’re in an Omicron variant strain now, I think it’s called K 311, they just name these things, I’m sure there’s some rhyme or reason that I don’t know. But we’re into a vaccination push now by the federal government — you see it on your TVs, you see it in your papers, but they’re telling us that in another month, you’re gonna need another vaccine; and then maybe two months from there, another one. So, medicine has its own way of work- ing these problems out, and the body is an amazing organ that can defend itself when it must. Would people have died? Surely. This was a bad, bad virus. But my question, that I asked to the highest levels of our federal government that I’ve yet to get an answer, would the mortality have been less if we would have been more pragmatic, more common-sense approach, more patient- doctor oriented, and go from there? Rep. Knox You mentioned that in 2020, trust in doctors was 70% and now is at 40%. I think I’m kind of somewhere within the 40%, to be quite honest. Abraham And I understand that. I empathize. Rep. Knox I don’t like that feeling. Abraham No, I don’t either. Rep. Knox It concerns me because I heard yesterday pharmacists did not [fill] the pre- scriptions of doctors, and for me, as a lay- person and I consider myself a lay person, that’s very strange and wacky to me. I’m trying to understand — what is the thought process of a pharmacist not [filling] a pre- scription for a doctor? Abraham Well, you know, I love my phar- macist, the local mom and pops. They’re