Alex Jones Show - November 23, 2002


20021123_Brock_Alex


Episode Stats


Length

17 minutes

Words per minute

152.5165

Word count

2,697

Sentence count

174

Harmful content

Misogyny

2

sentences flagged

Toxicity

11

sentences flagged

Hate speech

9

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

The Blind and Disadvantaged society might be better off than a society where all children are born with DNA from their parents. That's the conclusion from an article in a local Rhode Island newspaper. We are joined by Dan W. Brock, a bioethicist at the National Institutes of Health.

Transcript

Transcripts from "Alex Jones Show" are sourced from the Knowledge Fight Interactive Search Tool. Explore them interactively here.
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 Welcome, my friends, to this live Friday edition, already into the second hour.
00:00:10.000 I'm your host, Alex Jones.
00:00:12.000 The websites are InfoWars.com, InfoWars.net, and now PrisonPlanet.com.
00:00:19.000 We have another great guest coming up in the third hour about the way they're keeping our children safe.
00:00:25.000 Well, now all children, they're going to start taking DNA from them in schools.
00:00:32.000 We are now joined by a professor at the University of Rhode Island.
00:00:36.000 I guess when the show rebroadcasts on 50,000 Water there in Providence, he'll be able to hear himself Monday when it rebroadcasts there.
00:00:44.000 Dan W. Brock, and he is a biomedical ethics professor, and the headline from the Hello?
00:00:56.000 local news paper is geneticists abort the blind and disabled society might be 0.98
00:01:02.000 better off than parents prevent the birth of blind and severely disabled children 1.00
00:01:08.000 he goes on to talk about in the article
00:01:10.000 the screening uh... children for this other government service
00:01:16.000 thank you for joining us here on the show professor brock welcome
00:01:22.000 hello yes sir I'm not a professor at the University of Rhode Island.
00:01:26.000 Okay, well then this article is incorrect.
00:01:29.000 You were giving a speech there.
00:01:30.000 I was giving a talk there, yes.
00:01:31.000 You're a professor where?
00:01:33.000 I was a professor until the end of last year at Brown University.
00:01:39.000 I'm now at the National Institutes of Health, though any views that I state to you now are only my own views, not the National Institutes of Health.
00:01:50.000 Oh, so you work with the federal government then?
00:01:53.000 That's correct.
00:01:54.000 Alright, well I'm sorry for my ignorance.
00:01:56.000 I'm aware of Dr. Peter Singer.
00:01:57.000 Is he a colleague of yours?
00:01:59.000 Well, he's someone I know, but he teaches at Princeton University.
00:02:04.000 Yeah, in fact he's from Australia, right?
00:02:06.000 Right.
00:02:07.000 They brought him over here and gave him a fellowship, didn't they?
00:02:10.000 Well, I gave him a chair at the university.
00:02:13.000 Oh, yeah, overall, the whole department.
00:02:15.000 Boy, he's doing quite well.
00:02:17.000 He's written some interesting books.
00:02:18.000 We've read some passages here.
00:02:21.000 Now, what exactly are you calling for here?
00:02:23.000 Because I've got the article, but let me get your take on exactly what you're saying here.
00:02:27.000 Rob?
00:02:28.000 Well, the question was to -- the question I was talking about concerned genetic screening
00:02:35.000 programs to attempt to determine whether parents were at risk of passing on serious genetically-based
00:02:44.000 diseases, conditions like Huntington's disease or a variety of other diseases that we now
00:02:51.000 have genetic tests for.
00:02:53.000 So you can determine whether parents are at risk for passing on those diseases, and then
00:02:57.000 there are steps parents can take to prevent that risk, for example, by using artificial
00:03:05.000 insemination from a donor so that you don't use the genetic material that would create
00:03:11.000 the risk, or using egg donation, or using in vitro fertilization and pre-implantation
00:03:17.000 diagnosis.
00:03:18.000 So there's a number of --
00:03:20.000 Things one can do if one learns that parents are at serious risk for passing on a serious genetic disease.
00:03:26.000 Well, you are a professor, but I guess you basically still are, I would say, a professor.
00:03:31.000 Are you a doctor?
00:03:33.000 What's your title, sir?
00:03:34.000 No, I'm a philosopher by training.
00:03:37.000 When I was at Brown University, where I was for over 30 years, I was half in the philosophy department there and half in the medical school where I directed a center for biomedical ethics.
00:03:49.000 Ah, and now some of the guidelines written there at Brown, aren't those used in a lot of hospitals?
00:03:55.000 No, Brown doesn't write guidelines.
00:03:57.000 I mean, there are hospitals that have guidelines, but the Center at Brown and Brown doesn't write guidelines.
00:04:06.000 I have just read in past articles that Peter Singer has helped write some of the guidelines adopted by many hospitals.
00:04:12.000 I doubt that's the case, frankly, because Peter's views are very controversial.
00:04:18.000 And I imagine that they would not be adopted in guidelines that hospitals would undertake.
00:04:27.000 Alright, we're talking to Dan W. Brock, Biomedical Ethicist.
00:04:33.000 Now, I'm trying to understand something here.
00:04:35.000 Now, I've read some articles on the BBC a few weeks ago where they were saying they're discussing genetic screening by law.
00:04:42.000 Of course, because it costs everybody money having to take care of these people, these blind and disabled and others. 1.00
00:04:49.000 And some of Singer's colleagues, in one of their books, Back to Eden, I believe is the name, I read it about a year ago, said that they need to take control of human evolution.
00:05:00.000 Now, you say these are your views, What are your views?
00:05:06.000 What exactly do you do there in your government office?
00:05:11.000 Well, there's a department of clinical bioethics here which does research on bioethics issues.
00:05:18.000 We have training programs and so forth, but mostly I do research and publish on bioethics issues.
00:05:24.000 I've only been here since this past summer, so I have most of my career been in a university.
00:05:34.000 Well, I'm trying to understand here.
00:05:36.000 I think most Americans find it chilling, kind of Orwellian, or a type of Brave New World, like Huxley wrote about, and of course his brother, the UNESCO head, that are talking about eugenics and how wonderful it was. 0.81
00:05:51.000 It sounds chilling to say, set up programs for people to No, I didn't talk about that at all.
00:06:01.000 What I talked about is a practice that goes on now that I think isn't all that controversial.
00:06:09.000 The idea is that if we can prevent very serious diseases like Tay-Sachs disease or Huntington's disease, then most people think it would be desirable to do so.
00:06:22.000 Forget about any cost to the broader society.
00:06:25.000 These are extremely disabling diseases to the persons who have them.
00:06:29.000 They often involve very severe suffering.
00:06:31.000 Sometimes they involve early death of a child, as with Tay-Sachs disease or Leishnian disease.
00:06:36.000 So these are serious afflictions and some diseases, like the ones I just mentioned, are transmitted genetically, in effect.
00:06:50.000 If you have the gene in question, you'll develop the disease.
00:06:53.000 What we can now do is to do genetic testing for, as I say, whether parents are at risk for passing on this disease, or one can do, again in some cases at least, genetic testing of an embryo or fetus to determine whether it has the genes for the particular disease.
00:07:13.000 Ah, tested in utero?
00:07:16.000 Yes.
00:07:17.000 I want to talk about how that's done, but is this an accurate quote from the Narragasset Times?
00:07:23.000 It says, I want to define genetic testing in a strictly reproductive context.
00:07:27.000 It's uncontroversial that serious disability should be prevented in born persons.
00:07:33.000 Brock asserted, it's considered a misfortune to be born blind or with serious cognitive disability.
00:07:39.000 But if it's a bad thing for a person, then why not prevent these conditions if someone will be born?
00:07:45.000 Who will be born?
00:07:45.000 Did you say that?
00:07:47.000 That's a paraphrase, but that's a reasonably accurate paraphrase.
00:07:51.000 So they misquoted you because they have it in quotes?
00:07:55.000 Yeah, I don't think I, well, I was, I don't know whether I don't know whether it's an accurate quote, but it's a reasonably accurate paraphrase in any event.
00:08:07.000 In any event, it reasonably represents my view.
00:08:11.000 Are you aware of Wesley Smith, Wall Street Journal writer, bestselling author?
00:08:15.000 Right.
00:08:16.000 We've got him on.
00:08:17.000 He's named names.
00:08:18.000 He's named names of bioethics people.
00:08:20.000 He didn't name you here.
00:08:21.000 You're obviously one of the less radical ones, comparatively, on this scale.
00:08:26.000 But he brought out, read the quotes.
00:08:29.000 It's been published.
00:08:30.000 The Wall Street Journal wouldn't let him run it because the liability wasn't true.
00:08:34.000 We've got this creature Singer calling babies mackerels, saying they have the same worth as mackerel fish, calling retarded children subhuman. 0.99
00:08:45.000 I mean, these are chilling statements, and there is a large body moving towards forced screening, and obviously it starts out as a voluntary thing.
00:08:56.000 Aren't you concerned about that?
00:08:57.000 Sure, I'm concerned about that.
00:08:59.000 I mean, I can't be responsible for what somebody else says or for somebody else's account of what somebody else says, so I have no comment on what Leslie Smith says about what Peter Singer says.
00:09:12.000 But, of course, I'm concerned about the shift from doing any of these practices Voluntarily, when it's the parent's decision, and involuntarily.
00:09:24.000 Just as I have been a supporter of patients' rights to make decisions about their own medical treatment, I would be concerned if we moved to forced decisions by someone else about patients' medical treatment.
00:09:39.000 Here's a London Telegraph article today, sir, where it says that if people do not take all the vaccines ordered by the government, though it's not the law, all their health care will be denied, period.
00:09:52.000 It's usually about three years ahead of us.
00:09:55.000 I haven't seen the article, so I don't know whether that's true or not.
00:10:00.000 I wouldn't support that.
00:10:01.000 We do have some vaccines that are in effect compulsory in this country.
00:10:08.000 three dollars a real effect all on the list all over the other one of the
00:10:13.000 all the second brought white man
00:10:16.000 Either it's the law or it's not, and you cannot make someone take a vaccine.
00:10:21.000 They try to create color of law, and now they're trying to make DNA tests from all the kids they have to do it. 0.78
00:10:26.000 There's no law, it's a policy.
00:10:27.000 So that's not, what you just said is not accurate.
00:10:30.000 They cannot make, well I guess under model states that just passed federally, I guess they can forcibly inoculate us.
00:10:35.000 Maybe you're right under martial law.
00:10:37.000 What I was about to say was that In many states, for children to enter school, they have to have certain vaccinations.
00:10:45.000 But there's typically a public health reason for that.
00:10:50.000 Nope.
00:10:50.000 One's getting vaccinations for infectious diseases where there's not just a risk to the child, but there's a risk to others if that child... No, that's a mandate.
00:11:00.000 They have waivers in all 50 states.
00:11:01.000 You didn't know about that?
00:11:03.000 Yes, I know they have waivers, but they have waivers only for certain reasons.
00:11:09.000 I'm intrigued by this discussion.
00:11:11.000 I want to hold you over another segment if you can do it, sir.
00:11:14.000 Mr. Brock, can you tell us about a website where we can read your writings or read some of the text of your speeches?
00:11:20.000 No, I don't have a website that has them.
00:11:23.000 I don't have a website that has them.
00:11:25.000 So you're in the bioethics department of Brown, or what's the name of the department?
00:11:32.000 No, I now work in the Department of Clinical Bioethics at the National Institute of Health.
00:11:37.000 So you're no longer even doing anything with Brown, then?
00:11:40.000 That's correct.
00:11:40.000 Just the National Institutes of Health.
00:11:42.000 Well, stay with us, please, sir.
00:11:44.000 I appreciate you joining us as we talk about the new developments here in the brave new
00:11:50.000 world.
00:11:51.000 All right, welcome back, my friends.
00:12:03.000 We're talking to Dan W. Brock, who is a biomedical ethics, bioethics person in the federal government, and we have the Webster's Dictionary here, and it says eugenics.
00:12:25.000 And the 1883 definition, a science that deals with improvement as by control of human mating of hereditary qualities of race and breed, and the other nine definitions are similar.
00:12:41.000 Why do you guys call it bioethics?
00:12:44.000 I guess eugenics got a bad name, a bad rap, so it's bioethics now? 0.96
00:12:49.000 How do you answer that, Mr. Brock?
00:12:51.000 Since we're coming on after your commercial, I want to repeat that I speak only for myself and not for any branch of the federal government.
00:12:57.000 The term bioethics was coined in the early 1970s.
00:13:04.000 Most of it has not had anything to do with issues about eugenics.
00:13:09.000 It's had to do with, for example, end-of-life care with patients, with issues like the definition of death.
00:13:15.000 But that's exactly, not the eugenics.
00:13:20.000 Hold on, sir.
00:13:21.000 Not the eugenics was exactly that. 0.99
00:13:23.000 Getting rid of the retarded folks, the blind, the old. 1.00
00:13:28.000 When I talk about end-of-life health care, I'm not talking about getting rid of any of those persons.
00:13:33.000 There's been a large movement, as I assume you know, in this country over the last several decades through things like advanced directives whereby people can gain control over their own healthcare.
00:13:47.000 Near the end of life, and that I don't think has anything to do with getting rid of people.
00:13:51.000 Wait a minute, in Norway and other areas, they wear toe tags and carry cards saying, please don't euthanize me, and they're moving for that here.
00:13:59.000 Look, it says, I've got your quote right here, I want to define genetic testing in a strictly reproductive context.
00:14:05.000 What that means is that, that quote is inaccurate.
00:14:08.000 What I said is, I'm going to talk about Reproductive testing in, I'm sorry, about genetic testing only in a reproductive context.
00:14:18.000 What I distinguish that from is testing, for example, of individuals as to whether they have genes for breast cancer and so forth.
00:14:27.000 Well look, abort the blind and disabled, that's the headline here. 1.00
00:14:31.000 They've got your quotes in here which are now saying aren't accurate.
00:14:35.000 I'm trying to understand this.
00:14:36.000 that is the exact definition of eugenics.
00:14:43.000 It is also
00:14:49.000 the so if that
00:14:52.000 if you understand eugenics in that way then if a parent, I suppose,
00:14:59.000 tries to do genetic testing to see if they have the gene for
00:15:05.000 on Tay-Sachs disease which is a devastating disease that causes substantial suffering in the child, and the child
00:15:11.000 typically dies around the age of three or four.
00:15:14.000 And then if parents try to take steps to avoid the birth of a child of that sort, say by using artificial insemination
00:15:25.000 if the father carries the gene for that condition, I
00:15:29.000 I suppose that's eugenics, but that doesn't seem to me an obviously bad thing.
00:15:34.000 Look, here's the thing.
00:15:36.000 If you want to talk with me, then you'll have to let me finish, too.
00:15:39.000 Okay, go ahead.
00:15:41.000 It doesn't seem to me an obviously bad thing to want the children that we give birth to to be healthy as opposed to having devastating diseases.
00:15:50.000 It's what it leads to, though.
00:15:54.000 It's what the other bioethicists are saying.
00:15:57.000 It may or may not lead to the other things.
00:15:59.000 I would oppose many other things that you think it would lead to, and I would make distinctions between them.
00:16:08.000 Okay, let me ask you another question, Mr. Brock, because this is very important.
00:16:12.000 Look, we have this movement, it's out there, the other bioethicists are saying this horrible stuff, calling babies mackerel, the rest of it.
00:16:20.000 In this article, they've got you in this speech before all these people at the University of Rhode Island saying, you know, that abort blind babies.
00:16:29.000 I've got friends that are blind, that were born blind.
00:16:31.000 We've got great scientists, philosophers, people with ideas. 1.00
00:16:35.000 Many times, handicapped people I know are more intelligent, more loving, wonderful people because they didn't become these mindless, satanic yuppies running around, these materialistic idiots. 1.00
00:16:47.000 And this, I mean, come on! 1.00
00:16:49.000 Of course, I made exactly that point in my talk at some length.
00:16:53.000 So, of course, there are many blind people that lead wonderful lives.
00:16:57.000 That wasn't the point.
00:16:59.000 Why abort them then?
00:17:00.000 If you, if you, um, do you have any children?
00:17:03.000 Oh, yes, I do.
00:17:06.000 Would you be sad to learn that one of your children was going blind?
00:17:10.000 I would not.
00:17:12.000 I would not abort a child.
00:17:14.000 They told me that if the child was going to be blind, I would have that child.
00:17:17.000 Okay, but you didn't answer my question.
00:17:19.000 Would you be sad to learn that your child was going blind?
00:17:21.000 Yes, and I certainly wouldn't kill it.
00:17:22.000 Yes, and no, of course, and nor would I.
00:17:26.000 But the point is... We got a break, Professor.
00:17:28.000 Please stay with us.
00:17:29.000 Just one more segment, okay?
00:17:30.000 No, I think this will have to be the last one.
00:17:32.000 No, come on! 0.99
00:17:33.000 Don't be cowardly. 0.99
00:17:34.000 Stay with us. 0.98
00:17:34.000 We got callers we want to talk to. 0.98
00:17:35.000 I'm not cowardly.
00:17:36.000 We're not. 0.99
00:17:36.000 You're evil! 0.99
00:17:37.000 And I know you are, buddy! 0.98
00:17:39.000 You have a nice day in your federal bureau!