BHS – 8A – Russia & North Korea | ‘Medical News’ with Dr. Jim Keany

Putin says Russia and North Korea will help each other if attacked, after signing ‘breakthrough’’ partnership with Kim. Many voters get their information from social media, even though they don’t trust it. Dr. Jim Keany, Co-Director of the Emergency Room at Mission Hospital in Mission Viejo, joins The Bill Handel Show for 'Medical News'! Dr. Keany talks with Bill about Japan reporting record spike in deadly bacterial infection, syphilis resurgence, Monkey Pox is Los Angeles, and the funder of ADHD startup being arrested for fraud.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
You're listening to KFI AM six fortythe Bill Handles Show on demand on the
iHeartRadio app. You are listening tothe Bill Handle Show. And this is
KFI Bill Handle here Morning crew ona Juneteenth Wednesday, celebrating in actually on

(00:26):
this day, the emancipation of slavesin the United States back in eighteen sixty
five. And this is where ageneral went to Galvison, Texas at Union
General after the Civil War, monthsafter the Civil doar and told enslaved African
Americans that they weren't slaves anymore.They didn't even know it. So this

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has become national holiday now and that'stoday. Banks are closed, the stock
market is closed. It is anational holiday. Now. A little bit
of history here. Nineteen four fortyeight, NATO was created, the North
Atlantic Treaty Organization with virtually every Balkancountry is desperate to get into. And
it was created as a result ofthe Cold War against Russia, Russia having

(01:12):
been an allied the United States duringWorld War Two and then almost immediately became
an enemy. And this is JosephStalin. I mean, this guy was
a lot smarter and a lot more. On top of Fdr. Well FDR
was dying. And it's that simple, and Stalin took advantage of it and
knew the Cold War was coming injust waiting, waiting for the moment the

(01:36):
war was over. Matter of fact, there's another little historical point. George
Patten, famous general who very controversial. He had said through the last part
of the war, when the warends, we've got to march into Moscow
and take out the government. Andhe was prescient. Everybody thought he was
nuts. Oh he was right.So anyway, now you have nineteen forty

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eight, the start of the ColdWar, and you've got the Western World
and Russia are at odds and soreally frightened of what happened. Russia took
over all of the Eastern Balkans,Lithuania, Estonia, Ukraine. It now

(02:19):
became a buffer and so it gotpretty There was a lot of animosity here
and there was a genuine fear thatRussia was going to invade. And so
NATO was created. And now Iwant to sort of segue into one of
the important parts of NATO Vladimir Putin. I'm gonna put this together. I
think Putin is now in North Koreaand he is having a summit basically a

(02:49):
friends and family gathering with Kim Jonglun. So he arrives in North Korea and
he gets the he gets the redcart treatment, red carpet treatment. As
a matter of fact, Kim Jongun was at the red carpet and was
welcoming Putin as Putin got off theairplane. That never happens. So we're
talking about a very important visit.And I don't know to what extent a

(03:15):
welcome has been to a world leaderthe way Kim Jong un welcomed Putin.
After he got onto the red carpet, they went into the cars and there
was an open car and Putin isbeing driven through Pyongyang and the entire country,
the entire city is out with thelittle flags Korean flag, North Korean

(03:38):
flags and the Russian flags and flowersand screaming Putin's name. And because the
people of North Korea just love VladimirPutin, And why is that? Because
Kim Jong lun told him to loveVladimir Putin. And when you have an
idea of the power Kim Jong unhas when his dad died and the around

(04:01):
pyong Yong Square, the hearse wasgoing around. If people didn't cry loud
enough or hard enough, they werearrested. So that gives you some idea
of how crazy it is. So, without all being said, Putin and
Kim Jong un sign a pledge andit is a strategic partnership, and it

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replaces those that were signed in nineteensixty one, two thousand, two thousand
and one. And the deal encompassesthe political, the trade, the investment,
cultural spheres, and the security sphereas well. Now I'm going to
go back to NATO. Article fiveof NATO. If one country is attacked,
all countries are attacked. One countryis attacked, the other twenty eight

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countries must declare war and will fightagainst the country that attacks. Ukraine is
not in NATO. If it werein NATO, you know what would happen.
You got all of Europe in theUnited States going to war with Russia
if it moves. The only othercountry left is Moldova that Putin can go

(05:16):
against and not have NATO declare warand attack Russia any other country they're members
of NATO. Okay, so youhave Article five says if you attack one,
you attack all. Here's the connection. For the first time, Russia
and North Korea pledged. If oneis attacked. Both of them are attacked

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if any country goes to war,if NATO goes to war against Russia,
NATO has gone to war against NorthKorea. That's new and that's where we
have gone. And by the way, Russia and North Korea are already close.
You know, Russia needs no ammunition, it doesn't need artillery shells,
it needs nothing. You know why, because it's getting it all from North

(06:03):
Korea. Russia is giving North Koreatechnology, particularly missile technology, and North
Korea is giving Russia well ten thousandcontainers full of ammunition, ten thousand containers.
So Russia, I gotta tell you, they're not asking anybody for ammo.

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They're also getting a bunch of stuff, drones, etc. From Iran,
and so it is. We knowthat there already is dissension and a
separation between Russia, Iran, NorthKorea, and the rest of the world.
What's new is the invasion of Ukraine, which has made Russia virtually a

(06:46):
rogue nation almost to the level ofIran and North Korea. Not quite,
but instead of being a member ofthe world community, which it was,
that's gone. So now we haveNATO, and now we have the deal
with Russia and North Korea, andhow much closer are we to the big
one, the big war based onthe politics of where the world is going,

(07:13):
based on climate change, where theworld is going. I got to
tell you I don't envy my kidsand grandkids, not at all all.
Right now, I want to talkabout the information that we get for the
election. There's just a polic cameout, you see, Berkeley's Institute of
Governmental Studies, and it came outabout where we get our information. Fifty

(07:34):
eight percent of voters turned to officialvoter guides. I like that because that
is the official voter guides gives youprobably the fairest argument, particularly the propositions,
in a way that doesn't lean oneway or the other. At least
they try to be right down themiddle and just give you information. So

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I rely on that a lot,and fifty eight percent of vtevoters turn to
those voter guides. Now forty percentnewspapers and magazines more biased. I don't
think not as even steven. Thirtynine percent go to Google, thirty two
percent go to social media sources.Thank you, YouTube the most frequently cited

(08:18):
social media source for election related news, followed by Facebook, Instagram X and
last by TikTok. But they wantyou to jump off a building on the
way to the voter booth, andso that limits the number of voters because
it's the TikTok voter challenge. Sohere's the interesting part of this poll.

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While you had thirty two percent goto social media for their news for election
news, sixty percent of them saythat misinformation is a huge problem. They
recognize that misinformation is there, andat the same time they go to those

(09:07):
sources. Why well, it breaksdown, of course demographically, older people
leave it alone. I mean,I don't trust stuff on the internet for
the most part, social media andyounger people go to the social media platforms.

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And I'm going to tell you something. Social media in a lot of
ways just lies straight out lies.You know, there was a Republican statement
in terms of the Biden and you'vegot the election coming up, and while

(09:48):
Hunter Biden was being investigated, therewas from the far right Republicans proof that
Joe Biden got a five million dollarcheck from Ukraine. It was a bribe.
It was picked up through social media, like you could not believe there
is proof that Joe Biden is beingbribed by Ukraine. We have the proof.

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Former President Trump, in his lossin the New York Stormy Daniel's case,
said that Biden called the judge togive the bias. It was picked
up on social media, like youcannot believe. Biden picked up the phone,
called Judge Meerscham and said, here'sthe way I want you to rule

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now the fact that, of coursethe Department of Justice and Biden has zero
influence. Let me give you anexample which happened to me and social media
was not around. I was fillyin for russe Limbah once until they made
sure I never do that again.It was the time when Jenna and Barbara
Bush, they were young, thedaughters of the president, had gone into

(11:07):
a bar in Texas and they werebelow age. It's I legal, can't
do that, you know. Theywere caught going into a bar under age
and they were picked up, theauthorities arrested them and they were treated like
anybody else, exactly the same asany two young ladies under the same circumstances.

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And there was an underground move.This was not social media, but
it just a buzz. Today itwould go crazy on social media that the
president George W. Bush called thesheriff and had them released on their own
recognisance. As in anybody else,it would happen the same way. And

(11:56):
I was filling in for Rush,and I was saying, you know what,
that's crazy, that's absolutely crazy.If the president, who has no
jurisdiction whatsoever, had called the sheriff, the sheriff would have said, you
know what, you don't have jurisdictionhere, mister president. You're calling the

(12:16):
wrong person. The same thing withRaffisberger in Georgia. When President Trump said
I need to find eleven thousand votesin Rafisberger, the Secretary of State says,
it does not happen. They aren'tthere. What do you think happened
with social media? It exploded andbased on that people get their election information,

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particularly young people. Now, thegood news is young people don't particularly
vote. Older Americans vote like crazy. By the way, the most popular
social media choice for young voters isInstagram. It's how many cats go to
the polls? How many people taketheir cats and go to the polls,

(13:03):
Cats hanging off of people, wow, and then TikTok look at the You
know, millions and millions of people, especially young people, use TikTok for
information. This is the same TikTokwhere the US government looked at it for
its association with the Chinese government.We know the Chinese interfere with elections doesn't

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matter as long as you get thosestupid dog or cat videos. Oh by
the way, here's who you shouldvote for, or here's some information.
It's all in the same breath.That that's really distressing, that really is.
And I hate it when people taketheir that vote, the franchise to
vote and they don't take it seriously. I mean, we were the first

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country on the planet that was arepublic, a democratic republic that was given
the vote to all Americans, andpeople just take that for granted. You
know, we got that's that's oneof the real positives of this country that
a lot of people don't give itcredit for. All right, let's do
some medical news with doctor Jim Katyor er Doc Jim. Good morning,

(14:13):
Good morning Bell. Okay, areyou in town by the way, Yes,
I am, okay, because thismorning I was doing a DA story
with George Gascon. We tried toget Todd Spitzer and he's in Italy and
didn't want to talk to us.He's on vacation, bastard. So I
was hoping and thrilled that you're intown. Sometimes you're not all right.

(14:33):
Well, how's that for a totallydivergent tangent that makes absolutely no sense to
anybody? All Right? Did astory on Japan which you wouldn't think it
would come out of Japan, recordspike in this deadly bacterial infection. What
is that about? And are welooking at another pandemic? Yeah, so

(14:56):
the outbreak is causing toxic shock syndrome. We've heard about that before. You
know, I think all women atthis stage learn about this as a reason
not to keep tampons in because theoutbreaks we've had in the United States were
connected to retained tampons. So thisis they don't know where the sources.

(15:20):
There's people that are just getting ait's called a group based strip infection.
That's the same thing that causes strepthroat. These aren't necessarily people coming in
with a sore throat, but theyare coming in with an overwhelming infection of
the body, and the toxins fromthe group based strip are overwhelming their body,
causing what we call toxic shock SYNDROMEO. That's a serious illness, and

(15:45):
we do see little outbreaks here andthere, but we don't see this isn't
something that causes epidemics or pandemics.It doesn't spread like that. So we're
not at risk here in the UnitedStates with this Japanese outbreak. And I
mean it could always come over herein a case or two, but that
it's not going to cause some hugepandemic like COVID or so let me ask
you. How is it spread.It's spread by contact, so it's or

(16:11):
you know, it's spread by multipleways, contact, aerosol, droplets,
those type of things. It's justthat, but mostly with contact. So
you know, it's not something whereyou get on a bus and somebody sneezes
and five seats down you're going toget it. Okay, So it's not
Contagou's not that contagious. It's notmeasles that is insanely contagious or COVID,

(16:33):
which of course was crazy contagious,right exactly. By the way, just
a quick one and you, asa doctor, I'm sure you have told
patients this tampons are great for nosebleeds. Oh jeez. Yeah, Well,
we have little, tiny, tinyones that we do use for nose

(16:55):
bleeds. Oh with a spring attached. Never mind, we're not going to
go there. Okay, a story, Yeah, I know, here's the
story. What a surprise. I'dbe doing this a syphless resurgence, and
you'd think there wouldn't be that muchcoming back, although it's probably no surprise

(17:17):
because of all the unprotected sex that'sout there. But why all of a
sudden syphlis coming back because I thoughtwe had basically eradicated it. Yeah,
we hadn't really eradicated, but itwas definitely in manageable levels. And now
I think it's primarily This study thatcame out showed that it's primarily because of

(17:37):
the lack of public health during COVID, so people stopped getting tested. As
soon as you stopped getting tested,then you're more likely to spread this disease.
And it's also caught during times likeprenatal care because syphilis during that childbirth
can cause complications with baby, soyou know, and so everyone gets tested

(17:59):
during a normal pregnancy, and prenatalcare kind of went down the drain,
especially for lower socioeconomic groups where theyhad less access during COVID, so they
and I don't know the answer tothis one. But I think I remember
this that when a baby is born, you know, they count the toes
and make sure everything's okay. Andwasn't the test for syphless one of those

(18:22):
required tests? No, they testthe mom that tasically, I don't believe
they test the baby for it,but yeah they I mean that's that's why
if the mom wasn't tested, thenif and she blurves in the hospital,
she would be tested typically. Butit's just an example of you know,
public health. I think most peopledon't think about it. It's it's not

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one of those topics. It's notsuper exciting. We don't talk about it
on the radio much. But butreally you see the significance of it once
it drops away. You pull itaway, and all of a sudden,
diseases like this start popping back up. Yeah. I find talking about the
siphless very but that's not at allsurprising, is it? Uh? And
uh? The interesting Yeah, theinteresting part of syphilis. It's easy to

(19:07):
treat unless it goes into later stages. Am I right on that one scary
part about syphilis? Yeah, ifyou don't catch it early, so you
start off with the sore and it'sa painless source, so you may not
think too much of it because it'snot not causing any pain. It's just
what is this weird thing? Ifyou don't get that checked, then what
happens is it goes into a secondarystage, and then tertiary syphilis is when

(19:30):
it infects brain tissue and nerve tissueand that causes irreversible nerve damage. So
that's why you want to You wantto get tested. You want to know
what these things are and get treated. All right, monkey pocks, people
don't It almost seems like a joke. It seems like a throwaway line you'd

(19:51):
hear on Saturday Night Live. Butwhat is month? A monthly pop?
Monkey pox? And why is itin the news now? So monkey pox
is a pox virus. It's reallysimilar to smallpox. And remember smallpox was
very similar to cowpox. So youknow, I think they named these things
after whatever species they find them infirst, like bird flu or pig flu

(20:15):
or those type of things. Butso people who got smallpox vaccines way back
in the day are partially are maybecompletely immune to monkey pox, where people
who haven't had a smallpox vac sceneare much more at risk. Seems to
spread through populations with men having sexwith men, so they're at a higher

(20:37):
risk at this point. And againit's you know, they had an outbreak
or they're having a small outbreak.In Los Angeles with ten cases in the
last week. Usually since a coupleof years ago we started seeing monkey pox,
they averaged about two cases a week. Suddenly now it's popped up to
ten cases. So they're kind ofalerting the public and reminding people there's testing

(20:59):
available, if you're in a highrisk group, there's vaccines available, so
just keep it in mind. Now, I'm assuming that none of these poxes
are anywhere near as contagious or asdeadly as smallpox. Do I have that
right? Yeah? I mean thishas spread through contact, through direct contact
with the pox, so it's alittle harder to get and then it's definitely

(21:23):
not as deadly. It's more likea bad influenza type reaction, so you
know, you look more like youhave this flu. So people might get
diagnosed even as flu like illness ora viral illness, and then a couple
of days later the pox appear,and that's when you know you have chicken
or you have monkey pox. They'recalling it empox lately, so I don't

(21:45):
know if they've changed the name officiallyor just shortening it to empos because you're
right, monkey pox sounds kind ofsilly. Yeah, it does. I
don't know if I've ever shared thisstory before, but my dad who was
very pocked up. I'm his facewas pretty pock for real, and he
told me that he had smallpox asa kid at five or six years old.

(22:07):
Now, I don't know if it'sapocryphal that he wanted to scare me,
or it really did happen and hecame very close to dying. Now,
this was probably nineteen twenty five,nineteen twenty six. Was that a
problem then, yeah, I meanthat's why we still had vaccines back then.
It's because smallpox still did exist andpeople who got it got very sick

(22:30):
and there was a pretty significant deathrate from it. So but you know,
we it's almost eradicated. Now youdon't see smallpox really, which is
why we don't vaccinate against smallpox inthe United States. I thought it was
eradicated, gone finished, and there'sstill there's still cases. I thought so

(22:52):
too, but apparently, you know, with with what they've retained in labs
in Russia and labs the United States. I thought, didn't we report on
a case, you know that therewere some rare cases? Yeah, And
I thought the what do you callit? The national whatever? The lab
is where it's down at the bottomlevel five. I think it's Fort Dixon.

(23:18):
I think it is back east wherethey keep all these incredibly virulent drugs
that will kill everybody instantly and outpops the case that we talked about.
I think so. But the bottomline is done. Something you have to
worry about, you there's not Therearen't outbreaks of smallpox in the world right
now, So let's go back tosyphliss. So should we worry about that.

(23:41):
It's more fun getting syphless, actually, I would think, Jim,
all right, thank you. Ijust texted you, by the way,
I don't know if you guide itor not. All right, we're done.
We'll catch you again next Wednesday,doctor Jim Kiney, as we always
end our Wednesday show, all right, we start again all over again tomorrow

(24:02):
morning with Amy and wake up calland the resk neil let t shirt it
says cemetery. I didn't notice it, Yes, sir, my shirt says
cemetery. Any particular reason. Doesit have any significance other than dead people?
The show's killing me. Oh okay, very strong. That works tomorrow

(24:25):
five am wake up call. Itstarts with Amy and the rest of us.
That's me and Neil. And that'sme and Neil. That's I and
Neil. It's both of us,Neil and I. And we start at
six o'clock till right about now.This is okay. By the way,
is it I or me? Ialways get confused. It's me and Neil.
It's I and Neil, Neil andI, both of us. Good

(24:48):
night, Gracie. You've been listeningto the Bill Handle Show. Catch My
Show Monday through Friday, six amto nine am, and anytime on demand
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