With Rick Martin, Brian Kennedy, Dr. Meryl Nass and Grant Newsham
TRANSCRIPT | BROADCAST: February 27, 2024
RICK MARTIN, CEO, MicroGenDx
· What is MicroGenDx?
· The role of microbes in helping cure various diseases
BRIAN KENNEDY
· Chairman, Committee on the Present Danger: China
DR. MERYL NASS, Board-Certified Physician, Epidemic Expert
· Controversy over drugs used to treat COVID-19
· The World Health Organization’s role in the COVID pandemic
GRANT NEWSHAM, Senior Fellow, Center for Security Policy, Senior Research Fellow, Japan Forum for Strategic Studies, Contributor, Asia Times, @NewshamGrant
· How Xi Jinping is trying to “sanction proof” the Chinese economy
· How the upcoming U.S. presidential election will impact China
· Would Xi start a war with Taiwan to detract from issues happening internally in China?
· Potential ways China could attack the U.S. in the event of a Taiwan invasion
TRANSCRIPT
Frank Gaffney: [00:00:16] Welcome to Securing America with me, Frank Gaffney. The program is a kind of owner's manual for protecting the country we love against all enemies, foreign and domestic, to the glory of God and His kingdom. We're here at CPAC, the Conservative Political Action Conference 2024, and the outskirts of Washington, D.C. we're continuing to, well, try to find some of the best, the smartest, the most interesting, the most important individuals in this amazing company. And I'm privileged to be able to present to you for the first time, Rick Martin. I say it's the first time because I only met him yesterday, but he is one of the people who I think is making a real difference in this country, and I'm anxious to see if we can't help him make an even bigger difference at a moment when his help is enormously needed. Rick is the president and the CEO of a company called Microgen DX, based in Lubbock, Texas. And we're going to have a fascinating story about, well, both the work he's doing at the moment and the potential that it could really make a huge contribution to our ability to contend with a whole variety of diseases, viruses and bacteria and fungi that are not being properly and promptly analyzed and therefore not being efficiently treated. And it's a delight to have a chance to say, Welcome to securing America, sir. Good to have you with us, and thank you for what you do.
Rick Martin: [00:01:46] Well, thank you, Frank, for helping us get the word out and the message out about this breakthrough technology that can really make a difference in people's lives. And we need all the help we can get to. May bring awareness that this technology is now available.
Frank Gaffney: [00:02:01] Well, part of what I want to talk with you about is that it's a breakthrough technology, but it's not exactly a new technology. First of all, tell us about the nature of what you do, and then we'll get into the story about how long you've been doing it. And it still isn't getting the attention and use it deserves.
Rick Martin: [00:02:21] We are a high complexity lab that focuses strictly on molecular techniques to identify microorganisms. So bacteria, fungus, viruses, as you stated, and we're able to now identify bacteria and fungus by their DNA. So just like you and I have our own unique DNA, every single microorganism has its own unique DNA. Up to this point, we have relied in medicine on traditional culture techniques. So you have to grow the bacteria. The word culture means to grow. And so when you go to your physician and if it's a woman with a recurrent UTI that won't go away, track infections, or you might have a respiratory tract or a sinus infection, you might have an infected implant in your knee. And your the doctor has to understand what microbes are causing that infection and when they have to in.
Frank Gaffney: [00:03:14] Order to treat it properly, because some antibiotics will have no effect, some may even have a negative effect.
Rick Martin: [00:03:21] Exactly right. I think the general population has an understanding that when they go to the doctor, give me an antibiotic. Well, the doctor needs to know which antibiotic to go to because their mechanisms of how they work are different. It could be what we call a gram negative or a gram positive and aerobic, and they need to know that to be able to put you on the right antibiotic.
Frank Gaffney: [00:03:40] And the trouble with doing cultures is it takes time to grow these things. Is that right?
Rick Martin: [00:03:47] Not only time, but the biggest issue is we now know, because of our the science and DNA evidence, that only 1% of all known microbes can be readily grown in petri dishes or in culture. So medicine is really only seeing the tip of the iceberg in terms of microbes that have been causing these infections, and they have resulted in them having to treat blindly or we call empirically. And so if I've treated a UTI with this medicine and it works eight out of ten times, I'll try that. But what about the 2% that it doesn't work on?
Frank Gaffney: [00:04:21] And what that translates into is impact on people's lives and health, obviously, but also in some cases, survival. Yes. So DNA is a big thing. It seems like a no brainer. If you could do that kind of analysis that you'd prefer to do it, especially if you can get all of the various critters that are out there. Yes, and I understand that you can also do it far faster than you can grow, even the things that grow. So if all of that is true and you've had that on offer now for some time, what's the problem? Why aren't we doing this all over the place?
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