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Super Bowl Champ Tells RFK Jr.: 6 Months After Moderna Vaccine, Wife’s Injury ‘Progressively Worse’

The following is a transcript of this podcast. Also see related article.

– ♪ Whoa ohhh ♪ ♪ Whoa ohhh ♪

– Welcome everybody. Today we have an amazing guest. We have a football great: Ken Ruettgers. Green Bay Packers for nine years. Hall of Fame, Super Bowl champion, and now medical fairness advocate. Welcome to the show, Ken.

– Well, thanks. It’s great to be here with you, Robert. It’s been quite a journey.

– It’s unusual to have sports figures on the show. There’s a tremendous, tremendous concern today in the athletic community and professional sports about all of the vaccine stuff. But most sports figures, even retired ones like yourself, are reluctant to come forward. You have come forward. You’re new to this space, but you’ve been really courageous in talking about it. So, tell us what happened to you.

– Well, I don’t even see it as courageous. I just see it as speaking out on behalf of, really advocating for my wife. My wife took the first Moderna shot in January. She’s working on her master’s in counseling, so she was at the top of the list for the rollout. And immediately started within 48 hours, swollen lymph nodes. And eventually, it progressed to numbness and tingling on her face, her scalp, down her arms into her hands, on her legs. And in fact, she just had a doctor’s appointment yesterday with her neurologist. Since her first appointment back in late January/early February over the last six months, it’s gotten progressively worse. Her para… I don’t if it’s paralysis… But her tingling and numbness. She joined a group early on. She’s unable to find answers. So, we’ve both done a lot of research and that’s the beginning of our journey.

– And what date did she get the vaccine?

– She got it January 14th. So it’s interesting you ask that, because I’ve done a lot of interviews and talked to a lot of people in the different groups that have found each other. Many of them on Facebook. Private groups have been canceled by Facebook. But it’s interesting that you ask. And I’m sure you probably hear this with your long work. The people that are… They know the exact date, which is so interesting to me.

– Did you get the vaccine?

– No, no. Currently, I teach at a college, but we were doing all the Zoom teaching for the last year and a half, and so I was way down on the list. And so, quite vaccine hesitant now, at least.

– Yeah. Where you vaccine hasn’t been at the time… If the vaccine had been available to you, would you have taken it?

– I don’t think so, because I don’t feel like I had enough information. I think for me, personally, I’m looking at Covid and the information provided there. Not sure it’s as accurate as… I don’t know how accurate it is. Looking at the vaccine information, definitely, not a lot of information there. Hardly any that would satisfy me. And so it’s like, “Do I roll the dice with Covid? Do I roll the dice with the vaccine?” I can’t even make an informed decision. So definitely from the beginning, I’m like, “Hmm, I don’t know about this stuff.” And my wife was hesitant too, but in early January what was being said, what was being promoted, safe and effective, lots of social pressure, lots of the social construction of reality for what it meant and what the vaccine was. And I think the other thing that bothered me at the time that we talked about was that it was an experimental. It was still an exper… And it was not even a vaccine. They had to redefine definition for vaccine to slide it in there. It had just too many, too many red flags on this thing.

– Have you been a guy who has always taken care of your health, or been interested in kind of functional medicine, or nutrition, those kind of things, so that you would have maybe a skepticism about new vaccine technology? Well, yeah; I mean, as a pro athlete, I mean, nutrition, the body, research, health. Obviously, traditional medicine, orthopedic mostly. Playing football. But with this new technology, especially the speed at which it was rolled out, it’s concerning.

– And where do you live now, Ken?

– I live in Oregon, in Central Oregon, in Bend. I grew up in Bakersfield, California; went to USC. And then, played 12 years with the Packers, and so we were in Green Bay. I was 35 years old. I’d written a book to encourage dads to be role models for their own kids my last couple years in the NFL. And the publishing company was in Sisters, Oregon, near Bend, and so ended up taking a job with the publishing company. So, I did that for a few years and had a great, great experience and journey in publishing, but yeah.

– And that’s how you knew John Stockton, who is kind of like you and I, but the basketball great.

– Yeah, so I just got to know John and talk with him just recently through this process of… And it was interesting, because what took me out of publishing and put me into a different space was advocating for a sport career transition. This is the small world. So, John Stockton’s brother-in-law, I played next to him for a few years in Green Bay. And he ended up in 2000, or maybe it was ’99, while I was in publishing, he ended up in a SWAT standoff and was shot. He was unarmed, shot eight times and died. And a lot of us chalked it up as we talked, guys that played together, chalked it up to challenge, identity, status, challenges with transition. And so, I left publishing and did full-time work in that sport career transition space. And of course, now the NFL in 2015, they kind of took that on. And so, that’s when I got my doctorate in sociology is to do a dissertation on sport career transition, but that was Stockton’s brother-in-law. And so, then we connected recently through Senator Johnson, who has been an amazing advocate for my wife and people in her group, and in her circumstances, that are suffering from these severe reactions to the vaccine.

– We’re getting deluged by calls. In fact, I took two this morning from NFL players who don’t want to take the vaccine, who are trying to figure out because the NFL is very, very tough on them.

– Yeah, so currently kind of the what… Now it’s due to change, ’cause training camp’s coming up and the NFL realizes they’re having a lot of high vaccine hesitancy. They’re at about 30 or 40% vaccinated rate. And what they’re saying, at least what they’re saying kind of quietly, but they’re saying it to the players is if you want to play, when you come to training camp if you haven’t been vaccinated, then be prepared to travel on different flights, be in different hotels, eat in a different setting, and Zoom in to meetings and film sessions. Well, I think back to, you know. I think back and go, “Well, how are you going to make a team?” So, there’s a lot of pressure that is being put on these young men to get vaccinated, and not that much different than what we’re seeing outside of sports either.

– Now, we have one who’s a very well-known quarterback, who is trying to figure out how to do it, ’cause they’re also gonna make them wear masks like during practice and during games which is insane. And then, we have another one who’s a coach who does not want to get vaccinated. Really, really is against it and really is trying to debate, because he’s not being given a choice. He’s being told, you gotta get vaccinated or you’re out. And so, I think they’re even tougher on the coaches than they are on the players, but it’s a-

– I would guess so, yeah.

– Yeah, it’s a dilemma. So, you got censored. That must have pissed you off.

– Yeah. Well, my wife’s group did. Now, when she found this group, and it was really… I mean, the irony is just dripping these days. So my wife, for lack of any medical diagnosis or certainty from many doctors and a couple of different neurologists that she saw within the first couple weeks, she started doing her own research. And this is a very common story that I’m finding as I talk to people in her group. I should say groups. That she started doing her own research. And she found an article in Neurology Today that was online. And the irony is that Fauci was in the article saying, quoted as saying, “This is a safe and effective shot.” And she’s sitting there going, “What the heck? It’s not in my opinion or experience.” And she found a medical doctor that had commented below the article. It was online. And the doctor had left her email address. So, my wife contacted her and then they started this small private Facebook group, mostly nurses and doctors that were early takers of the vaccine, or the shot. And they were trying to figure it out. They individually had contacted the FDA, the CDC, their politicians, looking for help, looking for answers, because the doctors in the medical community didn’t… This is new technology so they weren’t told how. The medical community has not been told how to deal with it, what it is. It doesn’t fit our medical model, at least currently, because the CDC and the people up above in the medical community are not communicating any of this. And so, eventually in May they got together, again, mostly doctors, and they wrote a letter. And it was a well-written letter, kind of asking for help and to be heard, and to be seen and to be helped. And they sent it to Janet Woodcock at the FDA, and Rochelle Walensky at the CDC, and send it to the White House. And nothing. No response. And that was in May, toward the end of May. And of course, I mean, privately, I’m thinking to myself, “You’re trying to be a squeaky wheel, but this is bigger than a bike.” This machine that’s running down, this thing squeaks all the time. You guys are gonna have to like threaten to steal the bike, not just squeak. And so I said, “Well, let’s start a website.” So, my brother and I started a website for them, and a space where they could share their stories. And there’s well over a hundred stories of people that have written in to share their stories on this site. So, they could feel like they’re being heard, like they had a voice, because their voice wasn’t being heard. And then I started doing interviews, so that they could have a video voice and somebody to ask them like a dialogue. I’m sure when you talk to people, there’s a lot of healing power in that. And also getting the word out for those that are also traveling this desert in this space. And was doing some editing and uploading this 12-year-old who was in the youth trial in January, who was in a wheelchair. Paralysis from the waist down, a feeding tube in her. And you do that editing and you’re going over the same stuff. And I mean, I’m heartbroken and I’m tearing up just uploading this. And I’m thinking, “What is going on? This is crazy!” I know I’m a little late to the game. I get that. You know what I mean? You’ve been doing this for a long time. And so I thought, “Man, what a low piece of low-hanging fruit for a politician to jump on this and be a hero, to advocate for these people, to do what representatives in Washington should do.”

– Yeah, that’s not happening.

– And I thought, “Who could I call?” And Ron Johnson’s name came to mind. And I’ve seen some, you know, remember some sound bites. He seemed to me like a good man, like a decent human being. And he was from Wisconsin. And so, I have that Wisconsin connection to my NFL days. So, I called his office and we started talking that night.

– And so then what happened?

– Well, uh…

– That was before they threw you off, right?

– Yes. Yeah, it was. Yeah. Yeah, it was. They were allowing most of those before that. So, he said, “Well, why are you interested in this?” I said, “Well, my wife,” and of course I was so overwhelmed that he would even respond. I mean, I was teared up just because there was somebody that cared to hear the voices of my wife and the people in her group. So, he said, “Well, how about…?” That was a Thursday. He said, “How about on Sunday?” We get on Zoom. And I have her group of people tell me their stories. And so, on a Sunday evening for two hours, he listened, took notes, to more than a half a dozen people tell their stories, just simply their stories. This is how I was before the shot: healthy, active. This is what happened. Then I took the shot on this date, and this is what happened after the shot. And you start to see a pattern. Now, as a sociologist I’m like going, “Hello? There’s a pattern here.” It’s pretty obvious. And it’s like observe, pattern, and then you start asking why. And that’s kind of where the FDA and the CDC has stopped, at least for now. And it’s like, that’s crazy. So then he said, “Well, would you guys be willing to have your voices heard in Wisconsin at a press conference?” And they said, “Yes,” and so we went and did that. Now, it was after that press conference in Milwaukee. Let’s see. On June 28th. Within a week, one of the private Facebook accounts that my wife was on, 300 people, got canceled. And we’re talking this is their lifeline. The doctors aren’t willing to say. Or most, not all, but most aren’t. They can’t give a diagnosis, because it doesn’t fit in our current medical model. So, they’re looking for answers. They’re looking for diagnosis. They want to be healthy. And all they have is each other on this private group, and they get canceled. Another group a week later of 10,000 got canceled. Since I put up the website, which we put up a contact portal, and so I’ve been answering emails that come in, and I see the same patterns. I was healthy before. I took the shot. My life has turned upside down for either lung, neurological, heart issues. And I can’t find any answers. I can’t find any help. Help me. And the best we can do is try to get the word out, and get the CDC and the FDA, and get recognition to study what’s going on.

– Talk a little bit, Ken, about your relationship with people who are your friends. And are they, you know? Are they now writing you off as a nut?

– A few are, yeah. I mean, they’re pretty like, “Well, I don’t know.” They’re a little standoffish right now. Some of them, they’re concerned about my wife. You start talking into that space, and it’s like taboo. It’s like I’m like this deviant outlier. Weird guy. But the research is there. The facts are there. But that’s not our social construction of reality in this country right now. And our government officials, our media… I mean, all these people have also reached out to the media, and even I reached out to a regional radio guy. I thought, this guy, talk about low-hanging fruit. I put the whole, “Hey, this is Ken Ruettgers. Green Bay Packer Hall of Fame, Super Bowl champion. My wife da, da, da.” My wife Sheryl had the day before sent an email. No response. I get a response in 15 minutes. And so, they’re like, “Yeah, well, we’d love to talk to your wife. And then anytime in the future, if we have football.” I said, “Great, I have no problem with that. Here’s her contact information.” Great. We’ll get ahold of her. Two days later still nothing. Three days later nothing. So, I sent another email. No response. No response. So, fear of the cancel culture, which I mean, I’ve talked to some of my colleagues. And they kind of laugh at this idea that there’s this cancel culture even going on. It’s just we’re in the twilight zone as you probably know, Robert.

– Yeah. How about the doctors? Because a lot of people are running into this: a really weird hostility from doctors if you even say I think this is a vaccine injury. You get the doctor who gets it: no, it couldn’t be. It’s like logical. This message, you look through it. It’s a very, very strange thing from people who are in a profession that’s supposed to be about listening. Medicine is about listening to people. It’s not about imposing state dictates on people. It’s about listening and healing. And it’s almost as if people in that profession, so many of them have lost sight of that. And they believe that it’s their job to silence dissent and to enforce state policies.

– Yeah. So, in my dozens of interviews that I’ve done, I’m seeing, again, these patterns. And the typical pattern is I get the shot. I have the reactions. I go to the doctor. Like my wife, “Oh, we’re gonna rule out these things, ’cause that’s what we do in our medicine. We’re gonna rule out MS. We’re gonna rule out Parkinson’s.” So, my wife got an MRI on her brain. She got an MRI on her spine. She did blood work. She did one of those tilt tests for POTS. She did a skin biopsy. And all the… Very typical. What I’m hearing on the ground with dozens and dozens of people is these tests come back negative, without any signs of what they’re looking for. So, I see these symptoms. I think it’s this, I test for this, and it’s not. And so, instead of saying, “Well, maybe it’s the vaccine.” Or I would be saying, “It’s probably the vaccine, and we need to study what it is about this gene therapy that’s releasing these protein spikes in the system.” I mean, I’m not a medical doctor. I’m a social scientist, but I’m not a medical doctor. But I hear, this is what I’m hearing. And I have had also nurses and PAs that I’ve talked to, and what’s going on there. I talked to a PA who is a PA in a hospital. And what they’re seeing, as an example, the rural county that this PA’s hospital was in was about 40% vaccinated. And the patients in the hospital that were suffering from mostly heart and lung, but also some stroke like symptoms, 80% of them, according to this PA, 80% of them had taken the vaccine, the shot. Now, there’s a correlative… I mean, VAERS, what we’re seeing in VAERS, all these things should send up red flags to the people at the top in the medical community. And yet they’re not. And so, they had a Facebook group of about 900 nurses and PAs between two hospitals that were communicating, trying to figure out, how can we help these people? How can we help our patients? And the other conversation that was going on is, what’s going to happen if this thing becomes a mandatory requirement for employment? Facebook shut that group down of 900 people. These are people that are trying to help sick people. That is sick that Facebook would shut something like that down. Sick.

– Ken, tell our listeners how people can support you.

– Well, I mean, we’re trying to figure out how we can support people that, you know. I mean, we’re trying to be advocates to get your voice out. We’re trying to. So if you want to post your story, come on the website and post. There’s a place you can post your story. I mean, I wish we had the magic pill, but what we’re trying to do is work as hard as we can to get as many voices out in the public space and get recognized. And the big battle cry that… And mostly women for the neurological, which is interesting. And a lot like you mentioned earlier, that one of the most common diagnosis is anxiety. Aka you’re hysterical, ladies. I mean, it’s really interesting. Maybe you should try yoga. Things like that. It’s like, no.

– It’s a medical problem.

– Yeah, exactly. And so I mean, we’re doing good. And we know our space since we’re very niched. And mostly, it’s people that are still sick that are doing the work here, which is fine, ’cause we’re trying to tell people in the many, many different groups. And of course, when a group gets canceled, they go, they find areas, they join other groups. They migrate over to WeMe or some other social media group. So, we’re just trying to help. But one of the things that I’m telling the people in the group that’s starting is like, join these other groups. Join Children’s Health Defense. Join. Get involved with the people that have been doing this for a long time, that are organized, that have this long-term perspective and this goal to help people. We’re just trying to be a portal for people to get their stories out for their own healing, but also to get it out so that they get recognition. And hopefully, it’ll change… It’ll change what’s going on, and they’ll be heard and helped.

– Tell us what your website is.

– It’s C as in Covid. C19 VAX, V-A-X, Reactions with an s, dot, com. And the reason that I put that up as a website instead of a Facebook is it’s a lot harder, at least still today, it’s a lot harder to cancel website domains. So, it was kind of an easy decision to help them get the word out without the threat of being canceled by a social media giant.

– Ken Ruettgers, thank you very much for your courage, for your concern, and for your commitment to people who are injured, and to democracy.

– Well, you’re welcome. And I can’t thank you enough for what you and the rest of the folks at the Children’s Health Defense. I mean, thank you for being such an advocate for children in this area. I mean, we need, yeah. Thank you.

– Thanks.

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