Jonathan and Chris speak to Natália Pasternak, PhD, the director of the Question of Science Institute. In trying to come to grips with COVID-19, Brazil was rocked by scandals involving research performed without consent and doctors being forced to prescribe treatment kits full of “miracle cures.” This led Pasternak to state that medicine in Brazil is effectively unregulated and to call for the impeachment of President Bolsonaro. Can science literacy fix these problems? Meanwhile, Chris and Jonathan try to blow each other’s minds and fail miserably. And they mention ICQ, not to be confused with IQC (Pasternak’s institute) or HCQ (a drug that doesn’t work against COVID)!

 

1:55 Natália in the Big Apple

2:50 Brazil’s dual healthcare system

4:42 Brazil and COVID-19: “a total mess”

7:25 Brazil’s COVID kit

16:42 TrateCov, the app that recommended proxalutemide

19:12 Scientific literacy and medical doctors… and homeopathy

30:09 Falling on the deaf ears of the Supreme Court

31:24 Calling for the impeachment of President Bolsonaro

38:04 Medicine in Brazil is essentially unregulated

41:46 Vaccines and the Brazilian paradox

49:04 The Question of Science Institute

53:05 How do we fix these problems?

 

 

* Theme music: “Fall of the Ocean Queen“ by Joseph Hackl.

 

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Links:

1) Natália writing for The Skeptic magazine: https://www.skeptic.org.uk/?s=pasternak

2) Natália writing for Medscape: https://www.medscape.com/index/list_14444_0

3) Natália’s magazine (in Portuguese): https://www.revistaquestaodeciencia.com.br/

4) Natália’s institute (most of the content in Portuguese): https://iqc.org.br/

5) Natália writing for O Globo (in Portuguese): https://blogs.oglobo.globo.com/a-hora-da-ciencia/

6) Natália on the radio (in Portuguese): https://audioglobo.globo.com/cbn/podcast/feed/835/hora-da-ciencia