02x06 - Pandemic Profiteers

[bunniefuu]

[Sirens]

[Monitor beeping]

When we say, "While the Rest of
Us Die," the last year has

been a great example of how the
rest of us have literally died.

COVID-19 continues to
ravage the country.

And while the government
told us we were

all in this together,
the truth is: we are not.

We've seen a real tale
of two pandemics.

We've seen small businesses
across the United States,

especially those Black owned
and Latino owned businesses

go into shutters.

Meanwhile, we've seen
billionaire wealth skyrocket.

It's an equal
opportunity disease,

but it's disproportionately
impacting certain communities.

Communities that were
once the target

of immoral medical
experimentation...

There have been
studies focused on

Black bodies and
African-Americans.

Very unethical, egregious
experiments were conducted.

...are now wary of modern
efforts to stop the disease.

So, as a result, it is a big
struggle to convince

individuals to take the vaccine.

And even as Americans
continue to get sick and die

from new strains of COVID...

We're all in danger from the
next, even more deadly pandemic.

There are government research
labs around the country that

have hidden in their vaults
some of the most deadly

pathogens known to man.

[Cheering]

For over 70 years, our leaders
have told us one thing

under the bright lights...

The protection of the lives
and property of Americans

is the responsibility of
all public officials.

I care, we're trying.

We have it so well
under control.

Help is here and we will
not stop working for you.

But for decades, America's
shadow government and

its powerful friends have
spent trillions of dollars on

an agenda that serves their
interests, not ours.

You guys paid for all this.

So, when the sh*t really hits
the fan, we're on our own.

This is not science fiction.

This is reality in America
right now.

The truth is, the rich and
powerful will do

whatever it takes to
save themselves...

While The Rest of Us Die.

[Helicopter chuff &
people shouting]

Fire, fire!

July 11th, 2021.

Wealthy Brit Richard Branson
scores an early victory

in the billionaire
space race.

I'm an adult in a spaceship.

With lots of other
wonderful adults,

looking down to our
beautiful, beautiful earth.

Nine days later, Amazon CEO
Jeff Bezos gets his turn.

The price tag:
an estimated $5.5 billion.

After the flight, Bezos
thanks the people who made

his childhood
dream a reality.

I want to thank every Amazon
employee and every

Amazon customer because
you guys paid for all of this.

- So, seriously, for every
- [Laughing]

When I saw Bezos on TV thanking
the customers and the workers

for his for fulfilling his
dream to go into space,

I wanted to scream...

because it was almost like
he was mocking us.

As the pandemic continues
to upend our lives,

one thing is becoming
clearer by the day:

We're not only increasingly
losing friends and family,

but we're seeing an
increasing divide between

the haves and the have-nots.

[Sirens]

It's a fabulous America.

More than 300,000
enterprises of the kind

you see from time to time.

Some are one-man shops,
others corporations

with nearly a half
million employees.

Each was small to begin with,
each grew as America grew.

That's the unparalleled
system that brings Americans

the good things of life.

A lot has changed in
the United States

in the years after
World w*r II.

But small business, and the
entrepreneurial spirit,

remain at the heart of the
American economy,

and the American dream.

More than half of
American workers today

are employed by
small businesses.

And iconic American corporate
giants from Ford to Amazon

all started out
as small ventures.

I'm Jeff Bezos.

[Off-screen]
And what is your claim to fame?

[Laughing] I'm the
founder of Amazon.com.

By the 21st Century, these once
small, now large corporations,

have started to squeeze the
life out of small businesses.

And with them,
entire American communities.

When Wal-Mart comes
to a town, you know,

first what they do
is they bankrupt

all the other businesses
in the town.

They use their huge w*r chest
of money to sell their goods

below cost, so no one else
can compete with them.

Then once everybody else
is out of business,

they can raise their costs
to the right amount.

And they're not only the
sole seller in the community,

they become the sole employer
in the community.

We've seen some companies
that have been able to

consolidate power in
particular sectors.

They've been able to excrete
more and more profits...

before the pandemic, but even
more so during the pandemic.

Local news stations told the
story of one small business

after another going under.

One in six restaurants will not
survive the pandemic.

[Register bell chiming]

Zero. [Laughing]

To support these small
businesses, in March 2020,

the government created the
Paycheck Protection Program,

known as PPP.

This $350 billion relief
program allowed applicants to

apply for a low-interest loan
to cover their payroll.

We tried to stay open.

We used the PPP money we
received from the government.

And, after that was
extinguished,

there's nothing
else we can do.

What we saw, especially at
the beginning, was...

instead of the government
working directly with

small businesses, the government
decided that they would

funnel the money through
big banks and

let the big banks decide...

where that money
would go and why.

The money went out.

The banks were sitting
there waiting on it.

And what did they do?
They did what bankers would do.

They shared that money with
their customers first.

The result?

Well over half of the $350
billion originally allocated

for the PPP went to large or
publicly traded companies

instead of small businesses.

A lot of those companies
that didn't receive support

are out of business.

$10,000, $30,000, $50,000

that could have kept
them afloat and

gotten them to the other side
of this pandemic,

just wasn't there.

It was taken to companies
that don't really need it,

that never really needed it.

And just who owned some of
those companies that

didn't need the money?
Our elected leaders.

Our investigation found that
over 2 dozen members of

Congress received tens of
millions of dollars in

PPP loans, that are likely
to be forgiven.

For their privately
held businesses.

These members of Congress
were often already among

the richest members
of Congress.

David Moore is a journalist
and co-founder of the

investigative news
site Sludge.

In addition to holding stock in
individual companies,

members of Congress are allowed
to hold private companies.

These companies range from
everything from the

pharmaceutical industry,
to the real estate industry,

to fossil fuel investments.

And these members of Congress,
many of them voted against

increasing the stimulus checks
that went to working people.

But many of them received
funding for their

privately held businesses.

We need to put Americans
back to work.

Make America tired again.

Oklahoma Representative
Kevin Hern did just that

making his low waged
employees "tired again"

by keeping his numerous
McDonalds franchises

open during
the pandemic.

Oh, he also received a
million-dollar PPP loan.

Indiana Congressman,
Greg Pence,

the multi-millionaire older
brother of the then

Vice President, received
almost $80,000 for two malls

he and his wife own valued
between $5 and $25 million.

And then went on TV to
complain about other people

getting government money.

Bailing out states that have
been irresponsible and

imprudent with taxpayers'
money doesn't make any sense
to me.

Another recipient of PPP loans
was a company that's affiliated

with the household of former
Senate Majority Leader,

Mitch McConnell.

A company belonging to his
wife's family received

a PPP loan of over
$400,000.

Sludge's investigation
uncovered 28 members of

Congress who received over


for companies in which they or
their family hold positions

while one in three
small businesses

went under due
to the pandemic.

They receive this PPP funding,
which is likely to be

forgivable loans, while many
businesses in lower income

areas struggled to access
the program.

That pot of funding was
vital for businesses.

And they weren't able
to get at it.

If members of Congress could
have been more responsive to

every one of their
constituents,

including the ones who had
trouble accessing the funding,

they might have saved jobs
and recovered more easily

from the pandemic.

If you look at your
main street in most of...

medium-sized towns across
the United States,

a lot of companies
that were there

before the pandemic
are gone now.

Struggling businesses make
headlines across the country.

Many people are thrown into
unemployment, into poverty.

And I think as importantly,
those business owners,

now have been pushed
out of the middle class.

And, instead of owning
businesses are looking for jobs

at the kind of super
profitable companies.

It's like w*r, right?

You have people who are
on the receiving end,

who suffer great harm.

And then you have
people who profit.

What I would call the pandemic
profiteers are affiliated with

companies that have
reaped windfalls

because of the pandemic.

They have benefited from the
adverse tragic situation that

most people have felt.

$100 billion more was made
during the pandemic by the


companies, than before.


companies' earnings or profits

are going to shareholders,
many of those shareholders

being the billionaire class.

And while the wealthy are
making a fortune from the

Pandemic, it came at a
significant cost to workers

at companies like Amazon.

Every day, I come here to JFK 8
in Staten Island for Amazon.

I stand on my feet
for ten hours.

There was a time where I
vomited my lunch because

I didn't have I don't
have enough time

to really digest my food.

It happened quite a
few times actually,

and there was nothing
anybody did.

Instead, warehouse workers like
Rina Cummings say what Amazon

did was leave its employees
dangerously overworked and

under-protected even as the
pandemic led to record profit.

There was no supplies
at my station.

Nobody was social distancing.

While Amazon says it did
everything it could to protect

its workers during this
unprecedented time,

it was reported company
employees were urinating

in bottles and
having miscarriages.

And some even dying of COVID,
all to ensure customers

got their hand sanitizer
shipped on time.

When Amazon workers sought
protection by joining a union

the company allegedly spied
on the organizers,

and spread disinformation.

All designed to crush
the movement.

We are not anti-union, but
we are not neutral either.

We have very good
communications

with our employees.

So, we don't believe we
need a union to be

an intermediary between
us and our employees.

I have a quota.

I have to do 1,800
packages an hour.

It's one package
every two seconds,

in order to make my quota.

We do not believe unions are
in the best interest of

our customers,
our shareholders,

or most importantly,
our associates.

And if I don't make my quota,
I could be written up.

And, after the third write up,
I will be fired.

Of course, at the end
of the day,

it's always the
employees' choice.

Jeff Bezos increased his
wealth during the course

of the pandemic
by $85 billion.

If you split it up amongst that


could have provided a $67,000
bonus to every single

Amazon employee,
and still be just as rich as

he was when the
pandemic began.

The pandemic just really
exposed what I already knew.

That it was all about profit and

they don't give a damn
about the workers.

Jeff Bezos made $80 billion,

retired and went into space,

while the rest of us have to
stay here and work every day

like a sl*ve.

I'm not asking for
a trip to space.

I just want to have better
working conditions.

And I want to get paid for
my work, my fair share.

But Bezos isn't the only
billionaire to profit from the

pandemic at HIS
workers' expense.

[Cheering]

My mom is a 60-year-old
Black woman.

Has a number of different
conditions that

put her in the high
-risk category.

But also, had to show up
to work every day.

Wal-Mart offered a onetime
bonus payment.

It wouldn't have been enough to
allow her to take real time off.

So, she had to put
herself at risk,

like so many other people,

just to be able to survive
during this time.

As thousands of Walmart
workers caught COVID,

the retail giant's owners
made a fortune.

The Walton family are the
descendants of Sam Walton,

the founder of Wal-Mart.
In 1983,

Sam Walton had an
estimated $6 billion

in wealth in
today's dollars.

Today, the Walton family
has over $250 billion.

So, their wealth has gone up
over 4000%.

Since the lockdown
in March 2020,

the wealth of US billionaires
has gone up $1.6 trillion.

These billionaire wealth gains
have happened at the same time

that almost 600,000 people
have lost their lives.

The racial wealth divide
has grown.

People have lost their savings.

They've lost their health,
if they got COVID,

but they're still alive,
they are worse off.

COVID pandemic in and of itself
really does sort of highlight

who's more likely to profit
from a pandemic,

versus those who can't.

So, the ripple effect of the
Black small businesses closing

in this community is
the difference

between life and death.

The COVID-19 pandemic has
upended most lives.

But in some communities, it has
transformed challenges

into something
potentially deadly.

When I heard the title,
"While the Rest of Us Die,"

I immediately thought
to myself, that is

truly analogous to what's
happening here.

That's one small step for man...

One giant leap for mankind.

A RAT DONE BIT
MY SISTER, NELL

WITH WHITEY
ON THE MOON.

In 1970, Gil Scott Heron
sang, "Whitey On The Moon",

which captured the experience
of many Black Americans

oppressed and living
in poverty,

watching the Apollo astronauts
triumphantly plant the

American flag on
the lunar surface.

YOU KNOW, THE MAN JUST
UPPED MY RENT LAST NIGHT

CAUSE WHITEY'S
ON THE MOON.

NO HOT WATER,
NO TOILETS, NO LIGHTS.

The pandemic has shown the
timelessness of the song.

I WONDER WHY
HE'S UPPING ME?

I just two minutes,
there we go.

[Coughing]

I lost 49 friends...

as a result of COVID,
in a short window.

It seemed like every time
the phone rang,

it was someone telling me
about someone who was either

in the hospital,
or who had died.

[Life monitor
sustained beep]

My sister right now is
battling COVID.

Um...

Oh, that was a tough one.
I'm sorry.

I've done more funerals than
what I would ever want

to do in my lifetime,
as a pastor.

[Cheering]

To get a handle on
the pandemic,

the government told people
that staying home

would help save lives.

But for essential workers,
that wasn't an option.

The pandemic revealed
how expansive and vital

"essential workers" are.
Yet, at the same time,

those essential
workers were sent

into harm's way with
crappy wages,

shitty healthcare and
not even enough PPE.

Remember when the
pandemic broke out,

in places like New York,
firefighters and cops who were

going in to get the bodies
of people who died,

couldn't get face masks,
couldn't get PPE.

It's important to understand
during the pandemic,

that the most vulnerable
front line workers were

disproportionately women,
disproportionately

People of Color, who were
kind of dispatched into the

viral line of fire, sometimes
against their own choice,

against their own will.

It's very difficult to
social distance

when you have to go to work.
And then you're coming home.

And African-Americans are more
likely than other racial and

ethnic groups to live in
multigenerational households,

in extended family households.

And so, there's a
higher rate of exposure.

COVID is an equal
opportunity disease,

but it's disproportionately
impacting certain communities.

When it came to
minority communities,

it was catastrophic.

In the first few months
of the pandemic,

Black Americans were
contracting COVID at

three times the rate of
white Americans,

another painful reminder
that America remains

a divided society.

There's an old aphorism:
When America catches a cold,

Black America catches pneumonia.

And if that pneumonia
sends you to the hospital,

you could discover another
way Americans

differ from each other...

Black Americans are more
likely to die there.

It didn't make a difference
to what their ages were.

And it didn't make a difference
what their health issues were.

Many could not figure out,

why are our people
dying in hospitals?

And then when you think
about that, in the hospitals,

they were not put in rooms,
they were in the hallways.

At the height of the pandemic,
health care workers like this

nurse in New York began posting
videos claiming Black COVID

patients were dying as a
result of unequal care.

I am literally telling you that
they're murdering these people.

And, nobody
will listen to me.

They all know what's happening.
They all agree with me.

And they all just
shake their heads.

And I'm like, am I the only
one who is not a sociopath?

COVID has a, has ravaged
our community.

Dennis Talbert is a
community activist in the

Brightmoor neighborhood
of Detroit.

Nicknamed "Blightmoor", the


located 11 miles northwest of
downtown Detroit is one of the

poorest communities in
the United States.

Like many similar communities,
Brightmoor was hit hard by the

COVID related closings of
Black owned, small businesses.

The stress that it put
on the community,

I don't know that we will fully
understand for years to come,

talking about a fragile system
from the beginning.

Most people lost their jobs.

Most of my friends and family
lost their jobs at the

beginning of the pandemic.

My niece,
who has four children,

she struggled to feed
her children.

She didn't have daycare,
child care.

Food was an issue.
And, of course, money.

And then the big things were
unemployment that

people faced as well.

So, the ripple effect of the
black small businesses closing

in this community is the
difference between life and

death, because most of the
families and community here,

they're working in the local
small businesses,

which may be the local
restaurants, the local bars.

My husband actually was laid
off immediately as soon as

the pandemic started.

I was working two jobs and I
was laid off from my second job.

Somewhere around half of the
businesses that went out of

business in the first six
months of the pandemic

were Black owned.

And you see that those
companies in particular were

serving communities that don't
get served otherwise with

products that may not be
available otherwise,

hiring folks that may not be of
interest for others to hire.

This pantry sees over


Normally they would shop and
they would go through the

aisles and leave with between


The pandemic hit, we went
from 9,000 to 48,000 pounds

in one week.
When I heard the title,

"While the Rest of Us Die,"
I immediately thought

to myself, that is
truly analogous to

what's happening here.

I've seen families who've been
fighting and struggling on the

margins for so long, and this
just upended them totally.

It is extremely hard to see
people every day

just trying to make it.

State government, federal
government, they've let us down.

There's been virtually no
help to our communities.

There's been no
assistance whatsoever.

In those low-income communities
where people don't have the

resources, they get the
short end of the stick.

Including not having easy
access to COVID-related

programs, like eviction
moratoriums...

made necessary by the
COVID-forced closings of

many neighborhood
businesses.

An estimated 13.4 million
adults living in

rental housing today,
nearly one in five renters,

were not caught up on rent.

No work, no pay,
no evictions any day!

This community that you're in...

also has one of the highest
population of home evictions.

Landlords filed at least 43,500
evictions in 17 major cities

from March until September.

- What do we want?
- Justice!

- When do we want it?
- Now!

And I need people to
understand,

if they don't get
anything else.

It's always about
removing people and

displacing people
from their homes.

One of my former roles as
chairman of the Brightmoor

Community Center and Chairman
of the Brightmoor Alliance,

I entertain offers to
buy major acreage,

to build million
dollar homes. What?

You want to build million
dollar homes?

Where will the folks
who currently live

in this neighborhood go?

We're about to move
the poor out,

so that the millionaires
can come in.

So, when I hear
people say, "Well,

this country's not r*cist,

there's not a class system,
there's no inequity,

if you just pull yourself up
by the bootstraps".

Well, if you ain't got no boots,
that don't work that way.

There is something that our
young people have learned,

that is, do not trust
government...

with your health.

There have been studies
where very unethical,

egregious types of experiments
were conducted,

and there have been
several since Tuskegee.

In 2020 and 2021, the American
government tested

hydroxy-chloroquine on
American veterans.

Trump's magical cure for the
coronavirus that was found to

have no scientific value was
tested on an unknown number of

dying American veterans.

We still don't know
how many were tested.

We still don't know
how many died,

and we still don't know if any
of them ever even signed off on

allowing themselves to be
used as guinea pigs.

Some wealthy Americans are
maneuvering to get the

COVID vaccine before others.

Taking an appointment away from
someone who lives in a high

transmission area makes the
pandemic harder to fight.

Early on in the vaccination
process here in Los Angeles,

it was very difficult to
get an appointment.

At sites that are located in
African-American neighborhoods,

all the appointments were
taken up by people

who didn't live in
that neighborhood.

The vaccine is not reaching
those who are Black and Brown.

Those neighborhoods are still
going through the higher

infection rates, still dying
at rates that are

disproportionate to
the national numbers.

But low levels of vaccination
in many Black communities

isn't just about access.

The people in the city
were skeptical.

And, the people who were
encouraging them to get

vaccinated didn't
look like them.

And were saying things
that didn't exactly

instill confidence
in the messenger.

And then I see the
disinfectant,

where it knocks it out in
a minute, one minute.

And is there a way we can do
something like that...

by injection inside or almost a
cleaning because you see it

gets in the lungs and it does a
tremendous number on the lungs,

so it'd be interesting
to check that.

Here he was talking about
putting disinfectant

in your veins.

But it sounds, it sounds
interesting to me.

Then when Donald Trump
started talking about...

Lysol, and injecting Lysol you
know, in the Black community,

in the Brown community,
they said, "Hell no!"

You know, "We're out".

"We may not have the PhD
in nuclear physics,

but we know that we're
not taking Lysol".

And so, the African-American
communities said,

"You go first.
We will follow your lead.

So, let's see what happens".

If there is something that our
young people have learned,

that is, do not trust
government...

With your health.

And that education and distrust
dates back to the Fall of 1932.

The U.S. Public
Health Service offered

free blood tests
and treatment

to Black men in Macon County,
Alabama.

What none of the 600 hundred
volunteers knew was that

they had signed up for a
secret experiment.

There was this belief that
African-Americans are

biologically different than,
than whites.

And that the syphilis disease
would manifest very differently

in Black bodies versus
white bodies.

So, that was the
general premise.

The Tuskegee syphilis study

was to see how syphilis would
behave in a Black body.

These African-American men
either had syphilis or

contracted syphilis over the
course of this study,

and they were allowed
to go untreated...

to see how syphilis
would manifest in their bodies.

The idea was to let them die,
and then perform autopsies to

see if syphilis behaved
differently in their bodies.

The Tuskegee Syphilis study
ran for 40 years,

and 128 of the 600 participants
died as a result of

not being properly treated.

But this was not the only
unconscionable study

conducted on
Black Americans.

The Tuskegee study has been
identified as the primary

reason for vaccine hesitancy
among African-Americans.

And why there is a generally
high mistrust in the healthcare

system. And I've argued that
that's not necessarily true.

There have been studies focused
on Black bodies and

African-Americans prior to the
Tuskegee syphilis study,

where very unethical, egregious
types of experiments were

conducted, and there have been
several since Tuskegee.

Throughout much of the 20th
century tens of thousands of

people were forcibly
sterilized as part of

state-run eugenics
boards.

Most of the victims were
Women of Color.

Forced sterilizations of
Black people...

been around forever.

And in Philadelphia's
Holmesburg Prison between


mostly Black prisoners

were used as
human guinea pigs.

Dermatologist Dr. Albert
Kligman exposed inmates to

experimental drugs,
dangerous carcinogens,

and even radioactive isotopes.

The experiments were conducted
with the support of an

ivy league university,
pharmaceutical companies and

the US government.

We certainly have enough
evidence that shows us that

certain bodies are valued
differently than other bodies.

But this dark history of
medical experimentation

on Americans extends
beyond People of Color

to the men and
women in uniform.

The American military has long
used its own soldiers and

service members as guinea pigs.

Every generation, there's an
unlucky or courageous group of

people who end up on the
bad end of this situation,

pushed through almost a
conveyor belt of

biological and
medical testing.

Between the 1920s and 1970s,
US soldiers were used in tests

involving mustard gas,
nerve weapons,

and hallucinogenic drugs
as the US government

tested their impact on
human subjects.

I'd like to say this is
ancient history,

but the history continues to
repeat itself in America.

From 1998 until 2004,
nearly a million members of

the armed forces were forced
to take an Anthrax vaccine.


vaccine suffered adverse

reactions a small number
even dying as a result.

The symptoms that I had,
they had noted in other

service members that had
had Anthrax vaccines.

And, they just didn't know
the remedy, how to fix this.

The ultimate feeling of
expendability on the part of

American service members is
when they sh**t something in

your arm and say, "Don't worry
about it 'til 20 years later".

Well, 20 years later,
you're still fighting the

after effects of
those health issues.

And every generation of
Americans faces a situation

where they feel like their
government doesn't

give a sh*t about them.
It's dark and it's nasty,

and in many ways,
it's basically un-American.

As devastating as COVID has
been for all but the elite,

there are other even more
dangerous viruses out there...

capable of causing another,
even deadlier pandemic.

And some are in labs on
American soil.

Most Americans don't realize
that there are government

research labs around the
country that have,

hidden in their vaults,
some of the most

deadly pathogens
known to man.

Can you move your head a little?
- Oh, yeah.

- [Laughing]
- Hi mom! I love it!

Before billionaires fought over
whose rocket was bigger,

it was the US and the Soviet
Union battling in a space race.

To get an edge
over their rivals,

the US launched
Operation Paperclip

a covert plan to tap the
skills of n*zi scientists,

including the one celebrated in
this Disney film for inventing

the rocket that k*lled
thousands of Londoners

in World w*r II.

Dr. Wernher von Braun, who is
at present the chief of the

guided m*ssile division of
the army's rocket center

at Red Stone Arsenal.

He was also overall director
of the development of

the original V2 rocket.

Now here is a model I
designed for a four-stage

orbital rocket ship.

But the US also tapped the
skills of another enemy

for an even more
sinister purpose.

Not many people are aware of is
that the American biological

weapons program was started
based on a Japanese program

called Unit 731.

The atrocities committed
by Unit 731 are the

types of things that keep
people up at night.

In carrying out their brutal
w*r against the Chinese,

Japanese forces actually
dropped bombs full of plague

infested fleas, in order to
spread disease and pandemics

among the population, leading
to terrible agonizing deaths.

[Sobbing]

In addition to developing and
unleashing biological weapons,

Unit 731 experimented on humans.

Not just by exposing
prisoners...

to chemicals and experimenting
on them, but actually...

cutting them apart while
they were alive in order

to watch them as
they suffered...

these strange, completely
unethical and unproductive

experiments that were
based only on exploiting

human cruelty and fragility.

The unit didn't just have
Chinese victims-

American servicemen
are believed to have

fallen into their hands.

Yet despite this
horrific record,

Unit 731 scientists were seen
as important enough to

America's Cold w*r defenses
to be given immunity

in exchange for
their services.

The use of Japanese research,
while at the time, you know,

some may have justified, really
reveals a very dark and

sinister underbelly of how the
American government and our

national security has often
benefited from really heinous,

terrible acts committed
even by our enemies,

whether it's the Nazis
or the Japanese.

By the 1960s the US government
had spent tens of millions of

dollars building a biological
weapons arsenal that rivaled

the nation's nuclear weapons in
its capacity to k*ll every man,

woman, and child on the planet.

But in 1969, with support for
the w*r in Vietnam falling,

and anti-w*r
sentiment rising,

an embattled President
Richard Nixon

ends America's offensive
biological weapons program.

The United States of America
will renounce the use of any

form of deadly
biological weapons

that either k*ll
or incapacitate.

But while the United States
claims no longer to possess

an offensive biological
weapons program,

the US military still
maintains labs with deadly

biological agents for
defensive purposes.

Most Americans don't realize
that there are government

research labs around the
country that have,

hidden in their vaults,
some of the most

deadly pathogens
known to man.

And frankly, the security and
safety track record of many of

those labs is not as good
as you would want.

The culture of laboratory
safety needs to improve

at some CDC laboratories.

The bio labs for the Centers
for Disease Control actually

in recent years have seen
accidents involving pathogens

like the Avian Flu, Anthrax
and even Ebola.

And the threat of a deadly
pathogen escaping from a secure

US government facility is not
the stuff of science fiction.

In the fall of 2001, letters
containing Anthrax were sent to

the offices of two US Senators
and several major media outlets.

Coming only a week after
September 11th,

the letters were initially
thought to be a second wave

of attacks by Al-Qaeda.

But the attack didn't come
from a foreign t*rror1st.

It was homegrown.

The FBI's top suspect actually
ended up being one of

the US government's own
biological weapons researchers,

Bruce Ivins,
working at a military lab,

researching these most
deadly diseases,

and using that knowledge to
exert terror nationally.

The real threat may be
something far more dangerous

than a single disgruntled
government employee.

One of the ground truths
is that, ultimately,

Mama Nature is the
biggest bio-t*rror1st.

Part of what makes the nation's
response to the COVID-19

pandemic so worrisome to
experts is that this was

supposed to be the easy one.

That, in fact, the next pandemic
might actually be worse.

[Sirens]

This year, the 4th of July,
is a day of special celebration

for we are emerging from
the darkness of years

a year of pandemic and
isolation, a year of pain,

fear and heartbreaking loss.

Today, all across this nation,
we can say with confidence,

America is coming back together.

[Cheering]

I think Independence Day


Maybe it's a lot like
Independence Day for America in


fight the w*r of 1812.

Then we had to fight
a Civil w*r

just under a
hundred years later.

I think the message is, yeah,
celebrate Independence Day,

but understand that there may
be more fights to come,

and the fights to come may
be more devastating,

more divisive and longer and
more costly than this first one.

It feels like the coronavirus
pandemic is starting to recede

and there's certainly hope
on the horizon,

but we still face incredible
dangers in the forms of

variants that might be cooking
up around the world.

Folks in the space that I'm
talking with say if the

Mu variant can evade the
protections from vaccines,

could we see spread among
vaccinated people from Mu?

This is just a question we
don't know the answer to yet.

Right now, the prevalence
is extremely low.

As we are seeing new
variants emerge,

it is entirely possible that a
variant will emerge that the

current vaccinations are
either significantly reduced

in their effectiveness,
or no longer effective.

The truth is, though we feel
that there is a better tomorrow

ahead, we could be looking
at further problems,

the likes of which that we
have yet to really

wrap our heads around.

And even if we might be
seeing the beginning of

the end of COVID, the truth
is we could be in for

another even
costlier pandemic.

One of the ground truths
is that, ultimately,

Mama Nature is the
biggest bioterrorist. And,

the likelihood is that a
naturally occurring

infectious disease will again,
in the future,

result in a global pandemic.

And rising global temperatures
caused by our rapidly

changing climate will put us
at increased risk

from even more
lethal pathogens.

Climate change is driving
the expansion of the areas

that certain infectious
diseases are found in.

And it's also melting
the permafrost.

In 2016, a small village in
Siberia found itself

in the grips of a mysterious
anthrax outbreak.

The disease was eventually
linked to Anthrax-infected

reindeer that had
been buried

in the permafrost
decades earlier.

A sudden heat wave had
exposed the bodies,

and with them the
deadly bacteria.

So, bodies that had been
buried in the permafrost

that have diseases
like Anthrax...

are melting and
causing epidemics.

As the planet warms, more
dangerous viruses and

bacteria buried in the ice
will emerge.

The 1918 Spanish Flu virus has
been discovered in corpses

buried in mass graves in
Alaska's tundra.

And in Siberia, bodies carrying
smallpox and the bubonic plague

are also believed to lay just
beneath the surface.

Part of what makes the nation's
response to the COVID-19

pandemic so worrisome
to experts,

is that this was supposed
to be the easy one.

That this is not one of the
worst-case scenarios that

pandemic planners have been
warning about or plotting and

planning in recent years.

That in fact, the next pandemic
might actually be worse.