Russian Plague and Does A.I. Have Feelings?

Charles Camosy (0:00)

The issues that matter most, right here.

Drew Mariani (0:04)

The Drew Mariani Show.

SPEAKER_3 (0:05)

On Relevant Radio.

Marco Rubio (0:10)

We're glad to be aware of it. We're watching it very closely, hour by hour. We have multiple agencies, not just in the United States, but internationally that are watching it. We encourage Russia to be transparent and share more information with the world so that all of us could react accordingly and appropriately. But we'll have to make those decisions on the basis of the information that we're earning and are being provided. And so far, that's still quite limited. But hopefully, that will change in the next few hours and days.

Charles Camosy (0:35)

It's The Drew Mariani Show on Relevant Radio.

Drew Mariani (0:38)

Yeah, that was Secretary Rubio on Iceland Today, responding to, he was in Iceland Today, responding to concerns about the Russian plague. It's weird. I'm telling you, I saw that story. I'm like, what? Are you kidding me? Yeah, a 28-year-old worker at a Russian anti-plague lavatory dies after developing a mysterious and rapidly progressing pneumonia.

And I thought, could it be this close that we might see another plague? Reports have been circulating they could be a mnemonic plague. Nearly 200 contacts have been monitored to the person who would come into proximity. Suddenly, the world is now paying attention. Russia is now saying, hey, there are no confirmed cases. So we're going to explore Dr. Robert Tiballi, who's an infectious disease doc, what happened, how dangerous mnemonic plague is, if it ever begins spreading person to person. And just give you some facts and hopefully vanquish some fear. I'm not as concerned about this. Well, there is a concern. Let me throw this out first, okay? And then we can talk to Dr. Tiballi about it. We can get through the symptoms and all of that.

Here's the thing, it just gives me a little pause.

Transparency. I was thinking about this, right? When a person who works inside an institute specifically designed to study dangerous pathogens and they die suddenly from an unexplained pneumonia, I think the world deserves very clear answers about what happened. Not rumors, not speculation, not political spin. They deserve facts because after what we lived through during COVID, remember what happened in Wuhan? You start to see all these people who worked in the lab, get sick and then died and all the people in that community and soon that thing spread like crazy.

You know, trust is built on transparency. So watch the story carefully, ask questions, demand good science. Now, this is a little bit different than COVID. And again, the thing that concerns me here is, you know, the Russians have been tinkering with this type of, you know, this type of disease to make it more resistant to antibiotics. And, you know, just something that, I don't know, gives me pause. I just think about it. I've seen my wife this morning. I was watching, I was reading about this this morning, and I was watching a couple of different news reports. And it's just pure evil, right? It's evil in this respect that any human being, any nation, any leader would want to create something that is so deadly can wipe out, you know, their fellow humans.

Why would you want to make this type of plague more resistant to antibiotics? Why would you want to do that? Why would you want to turn this into a weapon? I'm joined right now by Dr. Robert Tiballi. We'll explore it with him. He's an adult in pediatric infectious disease doc in the northwest suburb of Chicago, clinical assistant professor of medicine at the University of Illinois and a regular contributor here on this program. Doctor, it's great to have you with us. Good afternoon.

Robert Tiballi (3:57)

Great to be with you, Drew. And the listeners may say, what does he know about plague? Well, I saw one case of bubonic plague out in Arizona when I was a medical student, and I diagnosed a case of mnemonic plague last year in Arizona as well. So I know more about plague than the average infection doctor. I don't know everything, but I also wanted to point out that St. Rocco is a very good friend of mine, and I was privileged to go on pilgrimage this year, self-directed pilgrimage, and visited the church where his mortal remains are. He's the patron saint of pestilence, also known as plague. And I was there at the 600th anniversary of the end of plague in Venice, and there was a big celebration. But that being said, this lady worked in this biological study area, and most likely, it's an offensive bioweapons situation. And it's been well known that they've been trying to make these, what's called Class A bioterrorism agents, which are designed to kill. Class B bioterrorism agents disable society, make it less efficient and make people sick, chronically ill. But Class A kill people.