 Hi everybody Dr. Nick this malpractice committee has received a few complaints against you That's of course the Simpsons and today's show does dive into What some people see as medical quackery and what other people see as cutting-edge conspiracy science Here's a clip Which in nature three years ago again in 2016 in 2016 he was on this He can give you all the stats on the camels and how many of the camels had the virus and how many camels had the The the antibodies and then you know, so he's been doing that work for ten years. So he just picture Show you the picture is Alex, right Alex right now show me the picture of the isolated virus show Flat flat earth science. That's what the flat earth guys do they say hey, I can't see the rent show me show me Welcome to skeptico where we explore controversial science and spirituality with leading researchers thinkers and their critics today We welcome dr. Tom Cohen to skeptico Tom is the author of Showing it here on the screen a Simon and Schuster book mind you The contagion myth why viruses including coronavirus are not the cause of Disease and this is a book by the way, you know, if you look down in the corner here There's a little click button for Barms enoma on Amazon and if you click Amazon You'll see that The page is not found. This is a book that has been banned on Amazon imagine that I think that's that might be the most interesting part of this story So the central the the central premise of Tom's book the contagion myth is that coronavirus doesn't exist Which I have to say when I first heard it during my interview with David Ike who is someone who I really respect But I know David doesn't always dig into the science or get the science, right? But when I first heard it it had a real flat earth kind of ring to it like You know like a reverse conspiracy over-the-top conspiracy claim So when one of your representatives dr. Cohen pinged me and said hey, would you like to have a chat with this guy I? Jumped at the opportunity because I think this is really an interesting topic to talk about so thanks for joining me Thank you. It's actually Just a few corrections. It's Cowan not Cohen I keep saying that. Yeah, it's Cohen. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. It's Cowan. I'm sorry But you can call me Tom that'll make it easier. I will the other thing just as a note It was that actually published by Simon and Schuster was published by a company called Sky horse And I think Simon and Schuster is technically the distributor not the publisher Okay, well, I just think it's fascinating that Simon and Schuster is Put their name on the book and yet it's a book that's been banned by Amazon I think that's amazing, but I do have to say I mean just kind of right to it The central premise the corona virus hasn't been isolated in a lab is just I mean You're not serious about that. Are you I mean, that's just kind of flutter thing I got so many I can show you some of the so let me let me start that if I would buy If I can just If I can respond to that and I'll tell you how this came about if you want, but let me just read from This was a January 2020 CDC bulletin on Basically make a testing for Sorry, this was a published. Sorry. This was published in European surveillance, which is a major European epidemiology journal and They say quote. This is January 2020 quote the ongoing outbreak of recently emerged novel corona virus poses a challenge to public health laboratories as Virus isolates are unavailable Further they say in the problem of Developing a test because these virologists were tasked with developing a test for this virus and again Let me quote from the actual study. This is in peer-reviewed scientific literature quote We aim to develop and deploy robust diagnostic methodology for use in public health laboratory settings Without having virus material available In other words, they were tasked and they spoke about the challenge of developing a test When they actually didn't have any virus available to make a test for And I can imagine that that was in fact challenging Because if somebody said I want you to make a test for a unicorn, it would be nice to at least see the unicorn now that's not the only one because in the CDC bulletin from 2020 now we're talking July. So this is later This is the CDC and again, I'll quote since no quantified virus isolates of this 2019 SARS-CoV-2 virus are currently available In other words, that's the CDC saying we have no isolates. We have never isolated purified and seen this virus so I could go on because a group of of Of us who've been working on this actually Emailed and communicated with the six top Articles that say they isolated and characterized and purified the virus and in writing all of them Admitted that they never actually isolated and purified the virus in writing so those are simply the facts and I can tell you how We got there if you want, but I'll let you sort of guide the conversation here Okay, well this guy who I thought was interesting because he's from the interstitial Saskatchewan And I like saying Saskatchewan so I use him but he's also one of the top virologist in the world and You know Daryl. What's his name? Thal Zorano. Thal Zorano. He's up there in Saskatchewan. So he isolated the virus But more importantly like in 2016 I doubt that he isolated the virus Okay, he did he should immediately let the CDC know that he did that Because the CDC is under the impression that they actually have never isolated the virus Well, I don't think there he is in his lab. I don't think he's keeping it a secret Well, then I can tell you I Could review his paper and demonstrate that in fact he couldn't possibly have isolated this virus There we go. There we go. I love it. So you realize this is a guy published in nature obviously one of the top science journals in the world in 2016 mind you on his work. He's a virologist and you know Part of the reason I guess why he got pulled into the COVID thing is he did all this work with camels Strangely enough, you know, there's all these viruses and animals that sometimes cross over and there's all these viruses in these camels that are Looked like the SARS. So he was over there studying that for years and years. He's an expert He has a lab like this and he has all these people in his lab and The idea that he is so grossly incompetent, which would really be we would have you know You guys up there in Canada like Matt we could go sue this guy probably make millions if he is falsely claiming That he got the material which he said was very difficult to get at the beginning and then he isolated the virus if he's Falsely making that claim Gosh, let's go at him. But again, it just doesn't seem Likely that this guy in this lab published in nature woke up one day and kissed his wife Goodbye and said, okay, now I'm gonna go falsify a bunch of science That had built my whole reputation and my whole life on so I tell you is Again, we have the six most important papers all of which claim they isolated and purified the SARS-CoV-2 virus some of them were published in nature and New England Journal of Madison and My team actually emailed them because we could tell from the paper that there was no Possible way they isolated the virus All you have to do is actually because I could describe if you want how we Isolate and demonstrate a purified virus. It's very clear that they didn't do that The reason they didn't do it is because they changed the rules So whether he's deliberately doing that or not, I don't know But they all admitted publicly and in writing Which you could tell from the from the papers that they didn't couldn't possibly have isolated and purified the virus Just well, what did what did Daryl say when you when you talk to him? I Don't remember whether we talked to him or not I don't remember what if he was the lead author of one of these six papers, but He's one of the top The idea the idea that there's these virologists professional virologists like I say Because if we're going to be talking about who said what then this conversation is not going to be productive if we want to talk about the science and how a virologist Demonstrates isolation and purification Then your listeners might learn something if you want to try to ask me why he's doing what he's doing I have no idea because I've never talked to the guy Yeah, but the point is he's saying you're full of crap. He's saying I got a sample I isolated the virus. He's even saying that since he does work with animals that he then you know Injected the virus that he isolated into a certain Species of monkeys, which I don't know how I feel about that but these monkeys then demonstrated all the Symptoms of COVID so no, he's he's saying how from just this looking at this highlight that you're putting there That his his way of isolating is using surrogate markers Which are completely invalid as anybody who understands the science would know so this guy doesn't understand the science That's what you're saying He has a misconception So this guy exactly why he has a misconception if you want if you don't want you can Just stay with an argument about who's right and then nobody will get anywhere Well Tom Dr. Tom, that's what this is. It's an argument about who's right and you're claiming You're right and this guy's claiming he's right So I don't know how we would break it down any other way, but this guy No, this is how science is done That's why virologists say we got this Thousands of virologists around the world who study this stuff Why are these people claiming that none of these folks know what they're doing or you're claiming they're all part of some conspiracy which Hey, the the reason I'm concerned about this is there are some really legitimate questions About how this COVID thing has been rolled out the science behind it How it's used to prop it up and I am really really Concerned about the way science has been mishandled on the COVID thing But this idea that they haven't isolated the virus. I mean Flatter stuff I Think we're in an impasse here Okay, probably impasse indeed I'm gonna cut it off there and I do want to thank Dr. Tom Cowan for joining me today on skeptical I think it's great that He was willing to come on and and talk about this stuff and I'm certainly supportive of him having that opportunity I can't believe that Amazon banned his book. You know later. We talked about that He said other best-selling books on Amazon. I don't care what you think of this guy's interpretation of this science We have reached an absolute new level within this cancel culture where people are up in arms that They're banning books Just unbelievable But the other point I guess that I would rant on and I probably will rant on in future episodes Because it's gonna be coming up again and again is this flat earth science thing and one of the advantages I think I have in going through the drill in with skeptical from the beginning from Jump Street with Dean Raiden and that Phony Bologna Yale neurologist skeptic Dr. Steve novella Do you remember one of the very first episodes of skeptical with the him and Dr. Ray Hyman from Oregon since deceased We're laughing about Dean Raiden and laughing about his work Laughing about his published research and I remember I told you at the time and I told you in the first book that I wrote that I'm interviewing these guys and I'm like, oh shit They're right and Dean Raiden must be wrong because no way they'd be laughing at this guy's science The point is if you're not always on that edge of doubting whether or not this Edgy science this frontier science is right or wrong Then I don't think you're really in the game, but the flip side of that in my opinion is this Dr. Tom Cowan, you haven't proven it to me No Tom the job is for you to prove it to us if you believe Against all common sense and logic that this virus hasn't been isolated even though they're spending billions and billions of dollars Developing a vaccine which would be impossible if they hadn't isolated the virus and even though they're competing not only within These multinational big pharma companies, but they're competing with other countries like China has a vaccine Russia has a vaccine They're all trying to get a leg up on the other ones to get a competitive advantage All that is dependent on the idea that they have successfully Isolated the virus at the very minimum. So if you're gonna go against that if you're gonna be Tom Cowan if you're gonna be a quacky Andrew Kauffman and you're gonna stand up and say that you can't do this flat Earth thing where you say, oh well prove it to me prove it to my satisfaction that you've isolated the virus No, you prove it to us. You stand up like Dean Raiden stood up and do 20 30 Experiments publish him in peer-reviewed journals get other labs to replicate it get other people with inside the community To support your work Forget this flat earth. You got to prove it to me because I can't see it this extreme Empiricism it's just a joke and I feel like I need to point it out I did another interview with Matt Belair who was kind of riding shotgun in this one, but didn't say much And I'll kind of point you to that in the notes and you can see it It's just kind of one of my personal little crusades here because I think there's so many interesting real hard conspiratorial questions regarding COVID But this notion that they haven't isolated the virus to me that seems like It just seems like a Psyop to me. It just Unknowingly, I mean Cowan doesn't know it's a Psyop Kauffman doesn't know it's a Psyop, but they're letting that idea out there just to divide the conspiratorial Community if you will into thinking flat earth bullshit. Okay, that's a long rant I never usually do these but I felt it necessary in this case if you have any thoughts on that Let me know I'm dying to hear Otherwise stick around. I got some more good skeptic goes coming up. They won't all be like this one. Take care. Bye for now