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Doctors Warn Paxlovid Can Negatively Interact With Common Heart Meds; Doctors Claim Combo "Polypills" Can Help Solve World's Heart Problems; FOX News Reportedly Had To Edit Out Kanye West's Hate Speech; Robert Jordan, Former U.S. Ambassador To Saudi Arabia, Discusses Future U.S./Saudi Relations Following Oil Production Cut. Aired 2:30-3p ET
Aired October 12, 2022 - 14:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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[14:33:52]
VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN HOST: A warning for cardiovascular patients who take Paxlovid to treat COVID-19. Doctors say the drug could create some serious problem when it interacts with common heart medications. We're talking certain statins, blood pressure medications, blood thinners.
CNN medical correspondent and cardiologist, Dr. Tara Narula, is here.
Good to see you.
DR. TARA NARULA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Good to see you.
BLACKWELL: What do heart health patients need to know?
NARULA: They need to know that Paxlovid is effective if you have mild or moderate COVID and are at high risk. The problem is a lot of cardiovascular disease patients are in that high-risk group.
And Paxlovid can have interactions with very common cardiac medications. As you mentioned, blood pressure medicines, cholesterol medicines and even blood thinners.
Really, the important thing is to call the cardiologist, as one of my patients did last week, and say, what should I do?
They will give you a three-pronged approach. Your medication is fine, take your Paxlovid with your blood pressure meds.
The second option would be reduce the dose of your cardiac meds while you're taking the Paxlovid and then resume it after about three days or old your medication and then resume it about three days after you finish the Paxlovid. So Paxlovid is about a five-day course.
[14:35:00]
And the third option is, you know what, you're so high-risk for stopping that cardiac med that you have to continue it and probably not use Paxlovid.
Really important to have that conversation.
BLACKWELL: Yes, someone to help you through that conversation.
NARULA: Yes.
BLACKWELL: OK. So Polypill. Doctors have some advice on a Polypill. I don't know what that is.
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BLACKWELL: So, first, tell me what a Polypill is and what are the advantages and disadvantages?
NARULA: It very sounds cool, I know.
BLACKWELL: Yes, it does.
NARULA: It's been around for 20 years. There's been a lot of debate around the Polypill.
The idea is, is there something that we can put out that would have a major health impact because it's simple and costs cheaper and it could help lower cardiovascular disease and morbidity reality.
It's a fixed dose of combination of three drugs, a blood pressure medicine, a cholesterol medicine and aspirin.
There's advantages and disadvantages. What are the advantages? Adherence? It's easier to tell you, take one pill that has all of the things than to ask you to take three pills. It can be made very cheaply. It can be cost effective for patients.
The benefit is for people that may not see their doctor very often, may have a hard time getting to the doctor, may not afford their medication. So a broad swath of the world, this can be really effective. And it's easy to describe.
Downsides? If you side effects, how do you know which of the three drugs the side effects are coming from, right? If you stop it, you're stopping three drugs instead of one drug.
There's concerns if you need to increase the dose of the medicine, let's say you're blood pressure is not that well controlled, how do I do that with one dose? It's harder.
Also, is it going to dissuade people from making lifestyle changes because they think they're taking a medication that have all of these wonderful effects. We know lifestyle is very important in managing cardiovascular disease.
BLACKWELL: OK. Now I know what a Polypill is. And it's advantages and disadvantages.
Thank you. NARULA: You're welcome.
BLACKWELL: Dr. Tara Narula.
Children as young as 5 can now get the updated COVID booster shots. The boosters by Pfizer and Moderna target the original COVID strain and the new Omicron subvariants.
They can be given to children at least two months after being fully vaccinated. Children 5 to 11 can get Pfizer's booster and children 6 to 17 can get Moderna's booster.
Meanwhile, the White House COVID czar says there will not be enough COVID tests this winter. Dr. Ashish Jha says Congress is responsible for a shortage.
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DR. ASHISH JHA, WHITE HOUSE COVID-19 RESPONSE COORDINATOR: We are going into this fall and winter without adequate tests because of congressional inaction.
We're going to do everything inside the administration to make sure we have testing capability and we can wrap up as quickly as possible.
But all of this is made dramatically harder by congressional inaction. You can't fight a deadly virus without resources.
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BLACKWELL: Kanye is facing growing fallout for his hateful speech and anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. His appearance on a talk show is now being pulled. Details, next.
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[14:42:27]
BLACKWELL: More controversy involving rapper Kanye. There's reports that FOX News edited out anti-Semitic remarks from his recent sit-down with Tucker Carlson.
Within the last week, West was blocked by Instagram and Twitter for posting bigoted messages about Jewish people.
CNN's Oliver Darcy is here now.
He's accused of making even more disturbing comment in another interview?
OLIVER DARCY, CNN SENIOR MEDIA REPORTER: Yes. They are ugly comments, Victor, they're anti-Semitic comments, and, frankly, they're unhinged comments.
This is in a Tucker Carlson FOX News interview that aired last week. Tucker Carlson edited out, it seems, a number of these comments, the anti-Semitic remarks, that West made during the interview.
This says a lot about Kanye West that he's making remarks during interviews.
But it says volumes about FOX News and Tucker Carlson. Because he could have challenged Kanye West during this interview. He could have condemned the remarks he was making on his platform.
But instead, what Tucker Carlson did was he sanitized the interview and went to his audience and vouched for Kanye West's character.
The ADL, the Anti-Defamation League, which has a long history criticizing FOX News, Victor, they came out in a statement and told me, just moments ago, "Tucker giving airtime to Kanye and trying to sanitize or coach him through his anti-Semitism is contemptible."
But here's the key points, Victor. And unfortunately, par for the course for Carlson, because he does have this history on his show.
BLACKWELL: Yes.
DARCY: It stands in direct contrast, by the way, to what happened on "The Shop," which is a talk show produced by LeBron James. Kanye West went on that program and he again made the ugly remarks on that show. They decided not to air that program.
Maverick Carter, one of the producers on that show, put out a statement and he said:
"After talking to Kanye directly, I believed he was capable of a thoughtful discussion about his recent statements and actions. Unfortunately, he used 'The Shop' to reiterate more hate speech and ugly stereotypes."
And then he goes on to say, "We have made this decision not to air this episode or any of Kanye's remarks."
BLACKWELL: Is FOX saying something about Tucker's show, making a decision not to --
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[14:45:00]
DARCY: I reached out to them yesterday and asked why these clips didn't air. They were newsworthy. They were ugly remarks but they were news-worthy, and FOX isn't saying anything.
BLACKWELL: Yes. Maybe it got in the way of the narrative they were trying to push with that interview.
DARCY: Yes.
BLACKWELL: Oliver Darcy, thank you.
DARCY: Thank you. BLACKWELL: Brett Favre is speaking out on the ongoing welfare scandal
that he has himself in the middle of now.
It's a new statement. The NFL Hall of Famer says, "I have been unjustly smeared in the media. I've done nothing wrong. And it's past time to set the record straight. No one ever told me and I did not know that funds designated for welfare recipients were going to the university or me."
A state audit in 2020 found more than $77 million in welfare money was improperly used. Six people have been criminally charged in connection with the scandal. Favre is facing a lawsuit from the state as it tries to recoup the funds.
President Biden vows consequences for Saudi Arabia following the country's decision to slash oil production along with its OPEC allies. What this means for the future of U.S./Saudi relations. That's next.
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JAKE SULLIVAN, CNN ANCHOR & HOST: Do you think it's time for the U.S. to rethink its relationship with Saudi Arabia?
JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Yes. And, by the way, let's get straight why I went. I didn't go about oil. I went about making sure that we made sure that we weren't going to walk away from the Middle East.
We should -- and I am in the process, when the -- this House and Senate gets back, they're going to have to -- there's going to be some consequences for what they've done with Russia.
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BLACKWELL: President Biden, there with Jake Tapper, says that there will be fallout for Saudi Arabia after OPEC's decision to cut oil production.
And today, the president's national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, said the president has put all aspects of the relationship on the table.
Joining us now is former U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Robert Jordan.
Mr. Ambassador, good to see you again.
ROBERT JORDAN, FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR TO SAUDI ARABIA: Thank you.
BLACKWELL: Should there be consequences? What do you think about that promise there should be consequences for the OPEC-Plus and therefore the Saudi decision? JORDAN: It depends on what "consequences" means. I think that, at
minimum, we need to have a frank sit-down with the Saudis about the relationship.
I have been giving speeches for the last several years, several times a year. I talk about, is it time to rethink the relationship with Saudi Arabia?
There's always something that has given us pause, concern, the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, 9/11, the air and oil embargo in the 1970s.
There's always just something that makes this a very difficult relationship to maintain. But we've got to pay some attention to it.
So I would start with appointing the ambAssador there. This administration didn't even nominate an ambassador until April of this year.
The Senate has yet to confirm him. Two Senators have apparently held that up. So I would encourage the Senate, instead of complaining about a lot of what's going on here, to get us an ambassador over there to manage the relationship on a day-to-day basis.
Secondly, I think we've got to find a way, if we increase our own oil production, so that we're not quite at their mercy.
But we need to sit down and talk about the entire relationship. What does it mean? Yes, our need for their oil has diminished greatly over the last decade. Their need for our security probably has not diminished.
We've got to find ways to make it balanced in the relationship and to make sure we understand what we expect of each other.
BLACKWELL: So what do you make of this bill that's been introduced in the Senate? One will be introduced in the House as well to pause arm sales to Saudi Arabia for at least a year?
JORDAN: Well, that'll probably be the greatest gift we could give to Iran. I think it makes no sense at all to pause arm sales that are legitimately needed.
If these were just decorative items, it would be another matter. But obviously we've made some determination. And they have a need for the weapons. We need to maintain their security. They need to be responsible for more of their own security.
But it doesn't help us if they're going off to China or Russia to buy arms if we're not going to sell them to them.
BLACKWELL: The Saudis say they cut oil production to prepare for an economic downturn globally. We heard from Senator Blumenthal, of Connecticut, who says that the Saudis through that cut are causing the recession.
What's your view? JORDAN: I think that's quite glib on his part and I'm disappointed
that he said that.
Many businesses around the world are preparing for recession. The International Monetary Fund is predicting one. Jamie Diamond is predicting one. So we need to take that seriously.
And I'm sure the Saudis take it seriously. They have very sophisticated modeling at Aramco. They know what they're doing in terms of balancing the market, predicting demand. And my guess is this is the basis on which that decision was made.
Now if the relationship were in better shape, they might forego some of their own benefit just to maintain our relationship. They would have done that perhaps right after 9/11 when they offered to make additional oil available to us.
But now it's not in such good shape. And so they're looking after their own interests. And I think we should not be surprised at that.
BLACKWELL: Is there a consequence that could be imposed on Saudi Arabia that they would feel, that wouldn't then come back around and bite the U.S.?
I imagine that pausing those sales could lead to another cut in oil production or something that would be just as detrimental for the U.S. economy.
JORDAN: Exactly. They have means of retaliating against whatever sanctions we would try to impose on them.
[14:55:02]
I think, first, as I said a minute ago, we need to increase our own oil production and make our contribution to the world oil supply. We need to continue to export oil.
But this administration hasn't seen fit to do that quite yet. I would encourage them to do that.
Second, I think there are ways in which we can't diplomatically discuss with them why it is that we have our concerns and why they have their concerns and figure out a way forward.
I'm not sure if "punishment" is exactly the right word, but it would certainly be a discipline on the relationship. But I think it's lacking now because we have not had communication.
BLACKWELL: All right. Ambassador Robert Jordan, former ambassador to Saudi Arabia, thank you, sir.
The January 6th committee is holding another hearing tomorrow. And their focus will be proving that Donald Trump is still a clear and present danger. New reporting on what to expect, ahead.
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