A Q&A with Dr. Peter McCullough, Internist, Cardiologist, and Chief Scientific Officer of the Wellness Company
THE GREAT WAKEUP AND PETER A. MCCULLOUGH, MD, MPH
Dr. Peter McCullough is globally recognized for his leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic, providing expert advice when few other doctors would publicly stand for the truth. Coauthor of The Courage to Face COVID-19, he advocates for patient well-being over governmental, pharmaceutical, or deep state interests.
Note: this is a 4-part series. In Part I, we will get to know Dr. Peter McCullough, learning of his impressive career in medicine, and the importance of his intellectual courage during the COVID-19 pandemic.
MA: I’m so honored to have you here, Dr. McCullough. Could you give us a little background about yourself?
PM: Sure, I'm delighted. It's great to be with you. I'm Dr. Peter McCullough, a practicing internist and cardiologist in the Dallas Fort Worth area. I've been in practice now for decades and am also trained in epidemiology. It turns out that’s an important discipline to have experience in during these pandemic years.
MA: What motivated you to take such an active role in the pandemic response, and how did your experience in epidemiology influence your approach?
PM: For the last five years, I've taken a lead in pandemic response, focusing on what we should do to care for those who have gotten sick with COVID-19 and how we should respond. I've advised both the US House of Representatives and the US Senate and testified multiple times. You know, Michael, it’s interesting—throughout the pandemic, our public health agencies had no Q&A sessions, no town hall meetings, and the medical schools closed their doors. People have had questions they’ve wanted answered for years now.
MA: You displayed tremendous courage as one of the few doctors who did not comply with the sanctioned COVID-19 pandemic responses. How can others, especially those who are fearful, make decisions that exhibit such bravery in these trying times?
PM: We're talking about intellectual courage here. Bullets are not flying; buildings are not crumbling. We're not scrambling for our lives. But we've been in this intellectual struggle, of, can we actually face what's going on? Or do we want to put our heads in the sand? I think many were especially fearful when their jobs were on the line.
MA: Can you share a specific example of a time when you faced significant backlash for your stance?
PM: When it came down to it, many people said, “Something is going on. I don't fully understand it. But boy, if I stand up and say something, I may lose my job.” Suddenly that job became a real tether for them. I'm so envious of people who are self-employed. They didn’t have to abide by their employer’s wishes. Were you self-employed through this yourself?
MA: Thankfully, yes.
PM: So, I'm so envious. You never had the specter of some large corporation trying to force you to do something against your will. You were fortunate. Those who are independent contractors or self-employed had more options. But can you imagine if you were in the Screen Actors Guild?
MA: It would have been very difficult with my livelihood on the line. Considering the importance of public opinion and the potential backlash even self-employed individuals may face for being outspoken, what advice do you have for those wanting to take a public stand now?
PM: Let's just talk about courage. Courage is not the absence of fear. Courage is the ability to overcome that fear. That's what we've learned in this pandemic—the ability to overcome fear or uncertainty is not that common. It's just not.
I never considered myself particularly courageous. I've never gone skydiving or done anything physically amazing. I was an academic, a Professor of Medicine. I did what I was supposed to do throughout my career. Certainly, I made mistakes—we all do. But there was no checkbox for courage in college, medical school, graduate school, residency, or fellowship, like, 'Are you particularly courageous?' No. And I think there are checkboxes for policemen, firemen, or people in the military, where it really does take courage to throw yourself into a burning building to try to rescue somebody, or it takes guts to jump out of an air transport plane. I'm not sure I could do that. I'm a doctor but I think what I've always had in the course of my career is intellectual courage.
MA: How did you navigate the opposition from your peers during your early research and what kept you motivated?
PM: I'll give you an example. When I was trying to find my way in cardiology research, I was making observations that kidney disease was influencing cardiovascular disease, atherosclerosis, and heart failure. And I remember that with my first observations, people would say, "No. Now that's just confounding. They just have more diabetes and hypertension."
I said, "No, I think it's actually related to the kidneys themselves." And they said, "No, that can’t be the case." Finally, I said, "Wait a minute. How do these people know that’s not the case? Let’s investigate." So, I really launched my career going against the mainstream narrative of cardiovascular epidemiology at the time and it led to many discoveries. For instance, the kidneys produce a series of hormones that speak to the heart. A seminal paper I published as a senior author explained exactly that. It was published in the New England Journal of Medicine and other top journals. That was a triumph—it was as good as you can perform in my field in terms of a breakthrough. And it was an in vitro diagnostic breakthrough. Back then the naysayers said, "No, we don't need a test to help us with this." I went lecturing across the globe on this matter. That took intellectual courage.
MA: Did you have any mentors or influences who helped shape your approach to medicine, fostering such intellectual courage?
PM: I do give credit to a mentor: Dr. William O'Neill. When I was a fellow, he was going up against a different narrative. At the time, the most dangerous heart attack was called an ST segment elevation myocardial infarction, and the standard of care was to give an expensive Big Pharma drug called TPA. The company promoting this was Genentech. They were in bed with the Cleveland Clinic, and the Chief of Cardiology, Eric Topol, had a deal where he was getting stock certificates every time doctors prescribed TPA.
MA: What specific lessons from your mentor were most impactful in your approach to handling the COVID-19 pandemic?
PM: Back when I was at another hospital, Dr. William O'Neill, who previously supervised Eric Topol at University of Michigan, recruited me and others. We formed this kind of dream team in cardiology. We set out to successfully demonstrate it was better to get catheters up in the heart and open up the blood vessels. That’s called primary angioplasty. We went up against Genentech as a ragtag team of community hospitals and we prevailed. We published paper after paper.
We changed care in the United States after that because we refused to do what everyone else said. Eventually, the Genentech product died out. Nobody used it. A brand-new revolution began in cardiology. Then sure enough, when COVID started, I proposed we treat patients early to prevent hospitalization and death, something that should be so simple to everyone. But the orthodoxy tried to shut us down. They said, "No. don't touch this illness."
MA: You mentioned being brave doesn't mean proceeding without fear. Rather, it’s being able to summon courage despite feeling fearful. You're essentially pushing through it. Is that correct?
PM: That's true. It also takes confidence. Look at the film Braveheart. Mel Gibson plays the Sottish warrior William Wallace who leads the charge to free his country from English tyranny. He's confident. I've always considered myself a very confident person. It's just in my makeup. Years ago I was blessed to have dinner with Larry King, the famous interviewer, before he died. I asked him, "How could you interview Brezhnev and all these heads of state around the world?"
He said, "Peter, I was born confident. When I was a little kid in New York City, I was always the most confident kid on the block." So, Larry King was also inherently confident. I'd characterize myself as inherently confident in my approach, my analytics, and my principles. In medicine, of course, we rely on scientific principles as well as strong evidence and data. I've made hundreds and hundreds of media appearances over the last five years. People have repeatedly said, "Dr. McCullough always cites his information." That’s because I've had the discipline to commit things to memory.
MA: How did all that confidence and preparation help you in your media appearances and congressional testimonies?
PM: I testified in the US House of Representatives on January 12, 2024, just a few days after Dr. Anthony Fauci was there before the same committee. They grilled me for hours. All along, I cited paper after paper I'd committed to memory. I’d practice beforehand. I’d get up in the morning and I’d practice. I don't have a photographic memory. It's just that I work hard. At one point, I did get a chance to ask the committee something. "Listen,” I said. “I've been at this for hours now, citing dozens and dozens of papers. You just had Dr. Anthony Fauci in this chamber. I bet he didn't cite a single paper." They said, "You’re correct, Dr. McCullough. He couldn't cite a single paper supporting his statements."
MA: That’s so frustrating. Especially since Dr. Fauci was all but deified by the legacy media.
PM: Dr. Scott Atlas wrote the book A Plague Upon Our House, had face-to-face interactions with Fauci for months. Scott said Fauci did not know the studies he should have been citing, nor did he know the data. According to Scott, Fauci was so incompetent, he couldn’t even pronounce long medical words. At times he was almost worse than a medical student.
MA: Again, that’s disheartening, especially since so many people in legacy media and our politicians still revere him as the definitive COVID expert.
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