FDA Commissioner Marty Makary: Tylenol, Vaccines & Autism + Fauci, NIH & COVID-19 | PBD 690
What this video covers
In this nearly two-hour November 2025 episode of the PBD Podcast, host Patrick Bet-David interviews then-FDA Commissioner Marty Makary across a wide and at times contentious agenda: COVID accountability and Anthony Fauci, the origins of the pandemic, vaccine injuries, acetaminophen (Tylenol) and autism, patent law, and whether the drug industry has an incentive to cure disease.
The largest block of the interview is about COVID. Makary says people “have a right to be angry” with Fauci, arguing Fauci misled the public early in the pandemic — on transmissibility and masking — while, in Makary’s account, leading “a massive cover-up” of the lab-origin hypothesis. He cites the 2018 grant proposal from the Wuhan lab to insert furin cleavage sites into a bat coronavirus (“the cookbook for COVID-19,” he says) and the lab’s early vaccine-patent filing as circumstantial evidence, and endorses investigating Fauci if the preemptive pardon issued by the Biden administration’s autopen is ever voided. On the vaccines themselves, Makary says the rollout saved lives when well matched to circulating virus, but alleges the FDA was “sitting on myocarditis data,” the CDC designed “political propaganda” studies, and “we all know” people injured by the vaccines — “I know of three people… who died from the COVID vaccine,” he says — arguing the establishment failed to recognize what he describes as a 10,000-fold risk difference between young and old.
On Tylenol and autism, Makary says he doesn’t know what causes autism but defends the administration’s precautionary-principle advice to minimize acetaminophen use in pregnancy. He quotes the Harvard School of Public Health dean, Andrea Baccarelli, from a 2023 legal proceeding as saying “there is a causal relationship between prenatal acetaminophen use and… ADHD and autism spectrum disorder” — a characterization the dean later softened in a statement to CNN — and notes Tylenol itself tweeted in 2017 that it does not recommend its products during pregnancy. He adds that the FDA was tracking leucovorin, a treatment that bypasses a blocked folate receptor, for some children with autism.
On economics, Makary addresses whether industry profits more from treating than curing: he pushes back on the idea of deliberate suppression, saying pharma companies get “a pot of gold” for breakthroughs, but says patent abuse is real — companies “blitz the patent office” with dozens or hundreds of overlapping patents to keep generics out, and real patent reform is a congressional job, not the FDA’s. He names breakthroughs the agency was fast-tracking: a rectal-cancer drug that he says “melts the tumor away to zero” with no chemo, surgery, or radiation; a gene therapy restoring hearing in congenitally deaf children (3 of 12 got normal hearing in a New England Journal study); and a potential type 1 diabetes treatment. He also discusses the trend of earlier puberty in girls — the age falling roughly a week and a half per year over three decades, he says, pointing at unstudied estrogen-like chemicals — and closes on food, calling nutrition science “one of the most corrupted of all the scientific disciplines.”
Makary’s claims about Fauci, vaccine injuries, Tylenol, and autism are his; the site presents them as his positions, not as verified conclusions. He resigned as FDA commissioner on May 12, 2026.
Key points
- On COVID accountability, Makary says people “have a right to be angry” with Fauci, accusing him of misleading the public and covering up the lab-origin hypothesis — citing the Wuhan lab’s 2018 furin-cleavage-site grant proposal as circumstantial evidence.
- He supports investigating Fauci if the preemptive autopen pardon is voided, and says Fauci got a standing ovation at Johns Hopkins shortly before Makary left for the FDA.
- On vaccines, he credits the rollout with saving lives early but claims the FDA sat on myocarditis data and the CDC ran politically designed studies; he describes a 10,000-fold risk difference between young and old that the establishment ignored.
- On Tylenol and autism, Makary quotes the Harvard dean as saying “there is a causal relationship” with ADHD and autism, notes Tylenol’s own 2017 tweet advising against use in pregnancy, and says he doesn’t know what causes autism.
- On patents, he says branded companies “blitz the patent office” with overlapping patents to block generics, and names Sen. Rand Paul’s reform bill — real reform being Congress’s job.
- He touts fast-tracked breakthroughs: a rectal-cancer drug that “melts the tumor away to zero,” a gene therapy giving normal hearing to 3 of 12 deaf children, and a potential type 1 diabetes treatment.
- On earlier puberty in girls, he cites a decline of about a week and a half per year over 30 years and points at unstudied estrogen-like chemicals, saying “we are messing with God’s creation.”
- On testosterone replacement, Makary says low-dose TRT may have long-term benefits, ties muscle mass to longevity, and notes the FDA had a December forum planned on the topic — while acknowledging exogenous steroids carry long-term harms.
- The episode closes on food and vaping: Makary warns about 7-OH (7-hydroxymitragynine), a synthetic concentrated opioid sold in vape stores that he says binds the mu receptor 13 times more tightly than morphine, with stories of kids found dead with the wrappers at their bedsides.