Wellness Unmasked Weekly Rundown: Push-Ups, Pull-Ups, and Pediatric Vaccines: What’s Really at Stake?

Dr. Nicole Saphier highlights the Pentagon’s “Pete and Bobby Challenge,” commending Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Health Secretary RFK Jr. for promoting physical fitness as part of the administration’s “Make America Healthy Again” initiative. Dr. Saphier also critiques the American Academy of Pediatrics’ push for universal COVID-19 vaccination in young children, supporting the CDC’s more individualized approach. She emphasizes data-driven decisions, parental choice, and transparency, urging listeners to question groupthink and prioritize personal responsibility in health matters. Wellness Unmasked is part of the Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Podcast Network - new episodes debut every Tuesday & Friday.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Wellness on Mass. I'm doctor Nicole Safire and
this is your weekly rundown. This week, the spotlight was
all on the Pentagon Athletic Center, where Defense Secretary Pete
Hegseth and Health Secretary Robert F. K Junior went head
to head in what they call the Pete and Bobby Challenge.
The task one hundred pushups and fifty pull ups. Well

(00:21):
Hegseth clocked in around five minutes and twenty five seconds.
Rfk Junior, at I want to say seventy one years old,
finished close behind him in just under six minutes. Impressive
by any standard, but the real star for me was
marine sergeant who demolished the challenge in two minutes and
forty three seconds. Well done, boys, you all did great.

(00:43):
We know you're strong, we know you have a good core,
you have a good cardiovascular to reserve. This was part
of the administrations Make America Healthy Again initiative, a campaign
to push physical fitness back into the national spotlight. And
I am all for it. And this comes on the
heels of President Trump reinstating the old Presidential Fitness Test
in schools and relaunching the President's Council on sports, fitness

(01:07):
and nutrition, and I fully support this. I will say
that maybe the one hundred push ups and fifty pull
ups are a little exclusionary in the sense that not
everyone's going to be able to do this. I think
this is great for social media and bringing a spotlight
on physical fitness, but maybe we could I don't know,
why don't we get to fifty pushups and ten pull ups.

(01:29):
That's a great place for people to start. Please, if
you are able to do even ten push ups and
five pull ups posted online, I think it is great
to get people involved. The second thing I want to
talk about today is the fact that the American Academy
of Pediatrics has broken with the CDC and offered their
own recommendations when it comes to the COVID vaccine in kids.

(01:50):
Why does this matter? Well, the AAP and the CDC
are usually in lockstep together. The CDC recently updated their
recommendations with the COVID vaccine and essentially said it should
be a conversation between the parents and the doctors with
personal choice, and they're really only recommending the vaccine in
kids who have higher risk or some comorbidities. When it

(02:13):
comes to the COVID vaccine. The American Academy of Pediatrics, however,
are saying essentially all children should be vaccinated from COVID,
whether they're healthy or not. Now, for me, this breaks
with the science. In fact, the AAP is saying all kids,
specifically those six months to two years old, need a

(02:33):
COVID vaccine, and the doctors on TV supporting this are
claiming it's because that's the highest risk age group. Well,
that's wrong. And what I did online was I essentially
I didn't call out the people who were misrepresenting the
data per se. I just decided to post all of
the data so people could check for themselves. The reality

(02:54):
is infants under six months are the kids that are
at highest risk of hospitalization, with prematurity and co infection
with RSV being their biggest risk factors, not the six
months to two years as they're claiming. The reason being
the vaccine isn't approved for those under six months, so
therefore they're often left off the data sets and talking

(03:15):
points supporting the AAP. The AAP's own review of twenty
twenty two to twenty twenty four data in the six
months to two year old age group actually says the
risk of severe COVID was not associated with vaccination status.
Comorbidities like heart, lung, and neurological disease were in fact,

(03:35):
which is why the CDC recommends vaccinating this group or
at least having a conversation about it. But yet the
AAP says to vax all of the kids who haven't
had a COVID vax, despite the fact that there are
higher rates of vaccine side effects and also they're the
lowest risk from the virus themselves. For me, the risk
benefit and healthy kids, especially adolescent boys, is less than

(03:59):
ideal and it just doesn't support the recommendations of universally
vaccinating them. And now this is my opinion of being
a doctor but also a mom of three boys. Bottom line,
the narrative being push is not with the data show.
Parents deserve transparency and not recycle talking points. It should
be up to the parents to decide. I only hope

(04:19):
that they have a pediatrician or a doctor that looks
beyond the group think mentality to help guide them. Thanks
for listening to Wellness on Mass on America's number one
podcast network. iHeart follow Wellness on MASS with doctor Nicole
Saffire and start listening on the free iHeartRadio app wherever
you get your podcasts, and we'll catch you next time.