Frances Martel, Breitbart International Editor Joins!

Nigel (0:00)

My name is Nigel, Jason Hammer is here. It is The Hammer and Nigel Show. About a week or so ago, I saw this Russian lab leak plague thing in Siberia, Hammer, and I thought, oh boy, here we go again.

Did you, were you ever concerned at all that this thing was going to like be a thing?

Jason Hammer (0:22)

Well, no, Fauci told me give it two weeks, that I've been taking that advice, Nigel. Just wait two weeks.

Nigel (0:27)

Let's go to somebody who's been covering this, and exactly what are the updates. Breitbart News International Editor, Frances Martel, one of our favorites. Ms. Frances, it's been too long. Welcome to the show.

Frances Martel (0:40)

Thanks so much for having me back. Sorry, it's for another disease, but I could be here either way.

Jason Hammer (0:46)

Put that on a T-shirt, by the way. Frances Martel, I only go on the Hammer and Nigel Show to talk disease.

Frances Martel (0:53)

Either diseases or bombings.

Nigel (0:55)

Either diseases or bombings. Yes, we're going to have to, like we want to have you on like a long form of podcast to really drill down and get to know you because it's all, every time Frances comes on, it's literally, it's bombings, it's drones, it's Ukraine, it's Iran. But this, I feel like, did this go under the radar a little bit, this Russian plague thing, or I feel like it was a thing for a minute and now we're kind of past it. What happened?

Frances Martel (1:23)

Well, from a journalist perspective, it's just very, very difficult to report on this case. We know that one person died, a 28-year-old woman, in Siberia, in Irkutsk, Siberia. I don't even know if I pronounced that right.

So we're talking about a very remote part of Russia. We're not even talking, you know, any urban center. And we're talking the Russian government, which is very good at shutting down media, shutting down information, and silencing anything coming out of there. So the only thing we know for sure is that this woman died. She did work at a facility known as an anti-plague lab. And the reason there's an anti-plague lab in Siberia is that there is actually an endemic strain of pneumonic plague that is just, it's something that exists in Siberia. People get it. You get on antibiotics. It's not a big deal. But that's indigenous to Siberia. So there's a lab there to study these germs. There were rumors that before she died, she broke a test tube with some live pathogen in it. And we don't know what pathogen that is. We don't even know if that really happened. And then the Russian government comes out and they say, they've identified 200 contacts of this woman. They've secured them. Some people tested positive for COVID. And they came out and they were like, oh, relax, it's just COVID.

No big deal.

And then today, they came out and said, we finished the contact tracing. Everybody's clean, shows over, go home. And the most interesting part of the story to me is that the World Health Organization actually came out and said, you're not giving us enough information. We're not comfortable with the way that Russia is dealing with this, which is just like, hmm, like if only you had this attitude in 2019, you know?

Jason Hammer (3:10)

Right, no kidding.

Frances Martel (3:11)

100 million people. But yeah, the World Health Organization is treating this like there's much more information that we need to know.

Jason Hammer (3:19)

Well, Frances, I think multiple things can be true here, right? I believe the World Health Organization does indeed feel like they're not getting the whole story. And also, I think we can all see Pootie Tang and the fine folks in the Russian government doing their damnedest to kind of sweep this under the rug. Like, when you think about transparency, the Russian government isn't normally the first thing that comes to your mind, right?

Frances Martel (3:46)

Absolutely, that's exactly what's happening. And the other element to this that I find fascinating is the head of the World Health Organization, Dr. Tedros, who's not a medical doctor, first time in history, by the way, that we don't have a medical doctor in charge of The Who.

Jason Hammer (4:01)

Strange.

Frances Martel (4:02)

He's a lame duck. His term is over next May, I believe. So, and he can't run again. So his entire legacy right now is he botched COVID and multiple Ebola outbreaks.

So, possibly worst Who Director General in history. So he's got a few months to kind of clean this up before that's it for him.