RESOURCES

• Visit Dr. Mark Bailey’s and Dr. Sam Bailey’s website “drsambailey.com“
• Subscribe to Dr. Sam Bailey on YouTube
• Visit Autumn McLees website AutumnMcLees.com
• Watch this episode on YouTube
• Subscribe to Autumn McLees Podcast “Know Better | Do Better“
• Listen to this episode on iTunes

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Introduction

What if the way we understand viruses—and how they are used to explain illness—is incomplete or misunderstood?

In this episode of the Dr. Haley Show, Dr. Michael Haley sits down with Dr. Mark Bailey, a former clinical research physician and author of A Farewell to Virology, and Autumn McLees, a holistic health advocate who began questioning conventional medicine after receiving a hepatitis C diagnosis despite having no symptoms or risk factors.

Together, they explore how the virus model, PCR testing, antibody testing, and the concept of “viral isolation” are used in modern medicine—and why some experts believe these methods deserve closer scrutiny.

This conversation covers:

• The difference between bacteria and viruses
• How viral diagnoses are made using indirect testing methods
• Why some diagnoses can lead to high-cost treatment paths
• The role of environment, lifestyle, and internal health in disease
• Why symptoms may be misunderstood rather than indicators of “infection”

Whether you agree or disagree, this discussion challenges conventional assumptions and encourages deeper thinking about how health, illness, and diagnosis are defined.

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Why This Matters

Understanding how disease is explained—and how diagnoses are made—can impact your medical decisions, financial choices, and overall health strategy.

Rather than relying solely on external explanations like viruses, this episode encourages you to consider a broader view of health that includes:

• Nutrition and gut health
• Environmental exposures
• Stress and emotional well-being
• Personal responsibility in health decisions

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Who This Is For

This episode is for you if you:

• Want to better understand how viral illnesses are defined and diagnosed
• Are interested in alternative or root-cause approaches to health
• Have received a diagnosis that didn’t fully make sense
• Are exploring medical freedom, functional health, or holistic wellness

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Important Note

This content is for informational and educational purposes only. It is not medical advice. Always consult a qualified healthcare professional before making medical decisions.

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Full Podcast Transcription

Below is the complete, edited transcript of the episode for those who prefer to read, reference, or research the discussion in detail.

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TIMESTAMPS

00:00 Health Doesn’t Come in a Prescription Bottle
00:00:16 Welcome to The Dr. Haley Show
00:00:43 Meet Autumn McLees and Dr. Mark Bailey
00:02:25 Why This Conversation Is So Controversial
00:05:04 Why the Virus Model Matters So Much
00:06:21 Autumn’s Hepatitis C Diagnosis Story
00:09:23 The Financial Engine Behind Medical Narratives
00:11:54 What Dr. Mark Bailey Saw in Clinical Research
00:15:46 Are Medications Helping or Just Buying Time?
00:17:22 Autumn’s Wake-Up Call and Turning Point
00:20:15 Bacteria vs. Viruses: What’s the Difference?
00:25:16 Has the Virus Hypothesis Actually Been Disproven?
00:29:56 Why Cell Culture Testing Is So Problematic
00:31:25 What “Virus Isolation” Really Means
00:37:07 How Virus Narratives Distract from Real Health Causes
00:38:44 What Causes Symptoms People Call “Contagious”?
00:42:16 How COVID Was Defined by Tests, Not Symptoms
00:45:03 Autumn’s Practical Advice for Taking Back Your Health
00:47:25 Dr. Mark Bailey’s Call to Action
00:49:19 Final Thoughts on Health and Medical Freedom
00:49:53 Outro

Chapter 1: Health Doesn’t Come in a Prescription Bottle

00:00:00 – 00:00:16

Health doesn’t come in a prescription bottle. We’re under the illusion that they have our best interests at heart, that they’re truly looking out for our health. I’m here to challenge that.

Chapter 2: Podcast Introduction

00:00:16 – 00:00:43

You are listening to The Dr. Haley Show, the podcast dedicated to helping you optimize your health. Each episode features either an interview or a message to help you discover better health. We’ll be bringing health radicals to the show to introduce new ideas, while also doubling down on key fundamentals to support you in living your best life.

Your host is none other than the founder of Haley Nutrition, Dr. Michael Haley.

Chapter 3: Meet the Guests

00:00:43 – 00:02:25

This is The Dr. Haley Show podcast, and today I’ve got two stellar guests.

An unexpected diagnosis led Autumn McLees to question medical science. She is not a doctor, but she has become a holistic health expert known as The Alternative Rebel. She helps women break free from conventional norms and reclaim wellness through root-cause solutions.

Visit autumnmclees.com and download her free guide, Eight Key Areas to Naturally Take Back Your Health. Also subscribe to her podcast, Know Better, Do Better. I checked it out today, and it is awesome.

Dr. Mark Bailey has a lot of initials after his name, a lot more than me. He worked in many specialties as a resident doctor and also as a clinical research trials physician for several years.

In 2016, he left clinical practice due to dissatisfaction with the allopathic medical system. Imagine that.

He is the author of A Farewell to Virology Expert Edition, co-author of The COVID-19 Fraud and War on Humanity, and co-author of The Final Pandemic. I went to drsambailey.com, Dr. Sam Bailey is his wife, and I downloaded a free copy of A Farewell to Virology. I see the other books are available there for purchase as well, so check that out.

Welcome to the show.

Chapter 4: Setting the Stage

00:02:25 – 00:05:04

Thank you so much for having us.

I need to set some ground rules here. First: Autumn, Mark, am I even going to still exist after this discussion? Are we going to be banned from the internet forever? We’re going to be talking about some pretty controversial things.

And this is kind of funny because we just got hit with a virus that I think only happens in the United States. It created an hour delay. It’s called DST, also known as Daylight Saving Time.

Mark, I think you’re far from here and don’t experience that virus where you are. Is that correct?

Unfortunately, we have a different variant down here. Our government likes to meddle with the time zone too.

So where are you right now?

I’m in New Zealand, down in the South Pacific. It’s early morning here. We’ve just had sunrise.

Autumn?

I’m in Southern California.

I’m in Florida, so we’re all in completely different time zones. It’s great that we can all be together here.

One thing I wanted to mention: you both have worked together before. I might be the host of The Dr. Haley Show, but feel free to hand the mic off to each other. You know where each other needs to chime in; I don’t. In this episode, have your way with it. I’m okay if I don’t say another word and just sit back and let you two go.

Also, Mark, I saw you on a podcast with Dr. Tom, and he is a brilliant mind. Then I heard some of your content and read your book, and I thought, wow, you have a very similar mind. We’re going to be talking about viruses. What would you say the benefit is for the person listening to this podcast?

Chapter 5: Why the Virus Model Matters

00:05:04 – 00:06:21

The virus model is so pervasive. Everyone saw that during the COVID-19 era. It got to the point where this model was apparently able to shut down the world. It created restrictions on freedom and generated a fear narrative that caused people to behave in dramatic ways, whether that meant wearing face masks, accepting extremely risky pharmaceutical products, or reorganizing society and the economy in destructive ways.

I think it’s important that people realize this is a model. Once upon a time, it had very little impact, but in our lifetimes and in the present era, it has spun out of control. It brought the world to its knees in 2020. That’s why it matters.

As Dr. Sam Bailey says, the viral narrative is basically a cover story for many other reasons people get sick.

Chapter 6: Autumn’s Diagnosis Story

00:06:21 – 00:08:58

Autumn, you had a diagnosis that, if I didn’t know better, I might assume came with some high-risk lifestyle. Why don’t you tell us about that?

I’m just your average girl. I was somewhat aware of the holistic lifestyle because I had previously reversed a so-called autoimmune condition, so I had already started reshaping my health.

I went to the doctor for routine blood work and had no symptoms. The doctors told me they needed to check for hepatitis C because my liver enzymes were elevated. Then they came back and said that yes, indeed, there was a virus in my blood called hepatitis C.

Like you said, I’ve never been a drug user. I’ve never done drugs in my life, never had a blood transfusion, and don’t have any tattoos. My husband and I have only been with each other, and he doesn’t have this. I even had him tested when I still believed the diagnosis.

So here I was, with no symptoms, just routine blood work, and suddenly I was labeled with a deadly viral disease that was supposedly attacking my liver.

I tried many holistic approaches and explored a long list of possibilities. Then I found the work of the Baileys and some other doctors like Tom Cowan and Andy Kaufman. I realized they were using indirect lab tests involving antibodies, PCR tests, and genetic sequencing, but none of it was actually detecting a virus.

I dug into the research and came to the conclusion that there is no deadly virus in my blood. That doesn’t mean my liver couldn’t be going through something, but as far as them finding a virus in my blood, no.

I decided not to take the prescription drugs they recommended. The medication was around $80,000. Since then, I’ve been on a journey and now feel strongly that more people need to understand the truth about viruses.

Chapter 7: The Business Behind the Diagnosis

00:08:58 – 00:11:54

How much did you say that medication was?

Around $80,000. Sometimes a bit more, sometimes a bit less, but on average, around $80,000.

That is crazy. I hate to say it, but was there some kind of incentive in prescribing it? How does that fit into the system, Mark?

That raises some really important points. The medical-pharmaceutical industry relies heavily on the virus model and the broader false germ theory model to generate revenue and influence.

First, it gives institutions the authority to say there are deadly microbes and viruses out there, and that only experts and agencies can deal with them. That brings huge control and false prestige.

Then there’s the financial side. Autumn gets what I would call a false diagnosis, and that diagnosis becomes $80,000 of revenue for the medical-pharmaceutical industry. And that’s not the end of it. There are follow-up appointments, lab tests costing hundreds of dollars each, and everything else that goes along with it.

This industry is so large that most people don’t realize just how large it is. The medical, pharmaceutical, and associated insurance industry is the biggest in the world. Bigger than IT, bigger than energy. So you can see why these narratives are so important, and why the system gets extremely upset when people challenge them, especially when that challenge comes from doctors.

Chapter 8: What Mark Saw in Clinical Trials

00:11:54 – 00:14:11

What was your experience as a clinical research physician?

One thing became very apparent. I was involved for several years, as was my wife Sam, in testing new drugs on volunteers and patients with various diseases. What became clear to us was that none of these new drugs were of any real use.

That made us think more deeply about the medications already on the market, and when we looked into those, we were horrified.

The pharmaceutical and clinical trials industries are highly selective with data. They are very good at massaging it to produce a summary that can sell the drug to medical professionals. But when you look deeper, you find that many unfavorable studies were never published because the pharmaceutical companies own the data.

A drug might be tested in ten trials around the world. Seven may be unfavorable, two may be neutral, and one may appear favorable. Then they highlight the favorable one and maybe one neutral one, and people conclude there might be something there when there really isn’t.

That’s just how the industry works. It was an eye-opening experience, but my impression now is that the entire system should be shut down. There are no useful drugs coming out of that industry.

Chapter 9: A Quick Note on Medications

00:14:11 – 00:16:55

There was a chiropractor years ago who said that if you took all the medications known to mankind and threw them into the ocean, it would be good for mankind and bad for the fish. We’re even seeing environmental issues from people flushing medications down the toilet. Some drinking water sources now contain traces of pharmaceuticals.

For anyone listening, please don’t flush them. Dispose of them safely.

It’s obvious we’re not simply telling everyone to stop taking all medications immediately. Hopefully medication is being used to buy time while you fix the underlying problem.

I’d use slightly stronger language. For most people, they could stop most of their medications fairly quickly, with some important caveats. Psychiatric medications and hormonal medications often need careful supervision and should not be stopped abruptly. There are also a very small number of diseases, such as type 1 diabetes, where we currently do not have a complete cure and people may need things like injectable insulin.

But those are a tiny minority of cases. With what we’re talking about today, such as virology and the false germ theory model, those medications are based on a false premise, so it’s easier to get people off those.

Chapter 10: Autumn’s Wake-Up Call

00:16:55 – 00:20:15

Autumn, what was it like to realize you were being directed down a medical path and then start asking whether the thing even existed? What first made you step back?

To relate to listeners, I think many people in the allopathic model feel like victims when they’re diagnosed. I felt like something had happened to me. Something had gotten me, and I had no idea how. That leaves you feeling very disempowered.

The allopathic medicine model often leaves people with a hopeless path, where the only hope at the end of the tunnel is a medication that may come with more side effects and further health consequences.

In my opinion, that’s a real problem. It’s almost like a marketing funnel. You have a set of symptoms, then there’s a test that goes with them, then a medication that goes with the test.

Health doesn’t come in a prescription bottle. We’re under the illusion that they have our best interests at heart and are truly looking out for our health. I’m here to challenge that.

As for how I woke up to this, it was a slow process. One of the first suspicious things I found was in looking at HIV because I couldn’t find much specific information on hepatitis C. I learned that a person could test negative for HIV in one country and positive in the U.S. I thought, hold on, that’s a serious problem.

Hepatitis C and HIV are not the same virus, but they’re similar in that they’re considered bloodborne. That was enough of a red flag for me that I kept digging.

Eventually I invited Dr. Sam Bailey onto my podcast to talk specifically about hepatitis C, and that was a major eye-opener. She is a co-author of Virus Mania.

Learning from the Baileys, Tom Cowan, Andy Kaufman, and others who came to similar conclusions independently, I could no longer ignore what was hidden in plain sight.

Chapter 11: Bacteria vs. Viruses

00:20:15 – 00:25:16

Dr. Mark, here’s a question that sounds a little simplistic, but I know you’ll make sense of it: what is the difference between bacteria and viruses?

They’re both often classified under the umbrella of microbes or germs. In the case of bacteria, they are real. In the case of viruses, they are a model invented in the late 1800s.

Bacteria are self-sufficient living cells. They contain the blueprints for life. They can replicate, carry out life processes, and live all over us and around us. We find bacteria in nature, on our skin, inside our bodies, in soil, water, and everywhere else. They are part of our ecosystem.

Viruses, on the other hand, have had so many shifting definitions that I had to write an entire paper about the problem. Even many doctors don’t really know how to define one.

The current definition is that a virus is a tiny nanoscale particle, too small to see with a light microscope, with a protein shell and genetic material inside. It supposedly cannot reproduce on its own but can hijack a host cell to make more copies of itself. It is also supposed to cause disease and be transmissible.

But the crucial distinction is this: bacteria and fungi are real living entities found in nature. Viruses are hypothetical entities that have never actually been found in nature. People assume they are being directly found in blood or bodily fluids, but that has never been the case.

One thing I often say is that virology invented itself before establishing whether viruses existed. Since the late 1800s, the field has simply run away with itself. Every avenue has been refuted: electron microscopy, molecular tests, genomics, animal studies, human studies, all of it. Yet the model continues to be propped up.

Chapter 12: Has the Virus Hypothesis Been Disproven?

00:25:16 – 00:29:56

I have a question. I like the term “hypothetical entity” because it suggests there is no real proof of existence. But I didn’t realize its existence had been disproven. Has it actually been disproven, and if so, how?

Every time they do one of their so-called viral studies, if you look closely at the methodology, it often disproves itself.

Take electron microscopy. When the electron microscope was invented in the 1930s, virologists thought they would finally be able to directly see viruses. So they examined blood, sputum, and secretions from people said to have viral illnesses like measles, smallpox, or chickenpox.

The problem was they couldn’t tell the difference between samples from supposedly sick people and supposedly healthy people. There was no clear distinction.

Then there are antibodies. We’re told that if you have antibodies, you had the disease and are protected. But people with high antibody levels still go on to get the same alleged viral disease again. That contradicts what many doctors were taught.

And then there’s what may be the most embarrassing issue for virologists: cell culture. Because they cannot find viruses directly in nature, they use a roundabout lab procedure developed in the mid-20th century. They take cell lines, often abnormal ones that are already prone to breaking down, such as Vero green monkey kidney cells, and say that when those cells break down, the virus caused it.

But Vero cells can break down on their own. They don’t even need a human specimen added. Researchers like Stefan Lanka have shown that simply using the same lab techniques, nutrient deprivation, passaging, and so forth, can produce the same effects.

So if the same breakdown happens without the supposed viral sample, how can that be evidence of a virus?

Chapter 13: The Cell Culture Problem

00:29:56 – 00:31:25

Are you saying that if you ran the same culturing procedure side by side, and in one of them you didn’t even add the supposed pathogenic material, you could still get the same result?

Correct. You can break those cells down anyway.

Virologists invented excuses for this. If the cells break down when they don’t want them to, they say there was a hidden or latent virus. But that’s not falsifiable, so it’s not scientific.

Likewise, if they say there is a virus in the sample but the cells don’t break down, they claim the virus is persisting silently, and then they switch to genetic studies like PCR or genomics.

But you can’t claim the genetic material came from a virus unless you first show that the virus exists. You can’t start with the genetic material and then assume the particle.

Chapter 14: What “Isolation” Really Means in Virology

00:31:25 – 00:37:07

I want to drive this point home. With bacteria, you can isolate them. You can see them under a microscope and grow them on a petri dish in a relatively pure culture. What does it actually mean to say a virus has been isolated?

That’s an important question. You can isolate bacteria. You can obtain them in a pure form and test their proteins and genetic material because you know what is in the sample.

But when virologists say they isolated a virus, even the textbooks struggle to define what that means. Some definitions are circular, like saying “a viral isolate is a virus that has been isolated.” That’s not science.

Take Ebola. In some studies, they drew blood from a sick person and injected it into animals like mice. Then they claimed they had isolated the virus inside the mouse. But that adds more variables, not fewer. That isn’t isolation.

Another example comes from the Common Cold Unit in the U.K. David Tyrrell reportedly took nasal mucus from a boy in a boarding school and said he had isolated an important virus in a vial. He carried it around for years, and later an electron microscopist looked at the sample, saw a few circular structures, and called it a coronavirus. That became a significant moment in virology history.

Then there’s the modern cell culture method. They show an electron micrograph full of cellular debris, point an arrow at some tiny particle that could just as easily be a vesicle or lab artifact, and declare they’ve isolated the virus.

That is not meaningful isolation.

And in databases like GISAID, millions of uploaded genetic sequences are called isolates. Someone could sample sewer water, run genomics, have a computer stitch sequences together, and then call that a viral isolate. It’s really just a computer-generated construct.

So in summary, “isolation” in virology has no meaningful scientific consistency.

Chapter 15: Why This Matters for Real Health

00:37:07 – 00:38:44

Autumn, what are your thoughts?

My biggest problem with all of this is that it distracts us from actually being good stewards of our health. Instead of looking at what could really be going on, we put blind trust in men in white coats and in “science.”

I did that. I almost let them proclaim death over my life.

I want people to challenge the narrative. Your body is not broken. Symptoms are not your enemy. They are often your body trying to adapt, respond, and overcome something. Symptoms are telling a story. Get curious.

When I realized they were taking my blood, mixing it with chemicals and dyes, dehydrating it, adding antibiotics, and then calling the resulting cytopathic effects proof of a virus, I could not believe we all accepted that.

It’s hidden in plain sight. For anyone who wants the scientific detail, I highly recommend Dr. Mark Bailey’s A Farewell to Virology.

Chapter 16: What Causes “Contagious” Illness?

00:38:44 – 00:45:03

Now the name SARS-CoV-2 is interesting. Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome is really a label for a group of symptoms. Dr. Mark, what is causing those symptoms that seem contagious?

That’s a very important point. SARS was originally supposed to refer to people with severe respiratory difficulty, often those ending up in hospitals needing oxygen or ventilatory support.

The marketers had a problem, though, because coronaviruses were previously associated with the common cold, not something dramatic. So they used the term SARS to make it sound serious. Back in 2003, we had SARS-1, another staged epidemic that disappeared after about 18 months.

At that time, severe respiratory symptoms, fever, and significant X-ray changes were part of the classification. PCR existed then but was not widely available.

By 2020, they had more tools for the marketing campaign. We saw fake footage, alarming media, and dramatic narratives. But in most places around the world, nothing unusually different was actually happening.

People get sick for many reasons: pollution, psychological stress, malnourishment, overeating, obesity, and countless other contributors to poor health.

With COVID-19, these ordinary patterns of illness were repackaged and reclassified. According to the WHO, a confirmed case of COVID-19 was based on a molecular detection test like PCR or a rapid antigen test, irrespective of symptoms.

That is madness. You cannot define an illness by a test. That is not scientific.

Nothing fundamentally new was happening in most places. And where people claim there were spikes, we should ask what else was going on. Was there air pollution? Chemical exposure? Other environmental causes?

The scam was in reclassifying many different kinds of illness into one category using fraudulent testing.

What should have woken people up was that in June 2020, the Cochrane Collaboration published a systematic review stating there were no symptoms or signs specific to COVID-19. That should have told the world there was no unique new disease.

Autumn added that in her own hepatitis C case, you can have no actual liver problem at all and still get labeled with a virus and pushed toward an $80,000 medication. Most people are far too trusting of those diagnoses.

Chapter 17: Practical Takeaways from Autumn

00:45:03 – 00:47:25

Autumn, give us some practical take-home advice. What should people do for their health?

I would encourage people not to outsource their health through blind trust. Use my story as an example. Challenge the narrative. Challenge what you are being told. Look into things for yourself, and don’t let others proclaim things over your life.

It’s important that we become the ones in charge of our health and good stewards of it. We need to wake up to what makes us healthy and what makes us sick: our food supply, our water, our emotions, and more.

We didn’t have time to get into contagion in depth, but the book Can You Catch a Cold? by Daniel Roytas is incredible. It reviews over 200 experiments and contagion studies and explores many reasons why contagion may appear to happen, without requiring the idea of an invisible particle passing between people.

The mind is powerful, and the book goes deep into that. I definitely recommend checking it out.

Chapter 18: Dr. Mark Bailey’s Call to Action

00:47:25 – 00:49:19

Dr. Mark, what would be a good call to action? Where should people go to learn more?

We have a huge amount of resources at drsambailey.com. People can use the search bar to look up almost any topic. After hearing this for the first time, people often ask, “What about rabies?” or “What about chickenpox parties?” We have presentations on all of that.

We have public-facing videos from Sam that are easy to follow and have introduced millions of people to these ideas, along with more technical papers like A Farewell to Virology for those who want to dig into the details.

I would echo what Autumn said: do not outsource your health. Every decision you make each day determines your health. What are you putting in your mouth? What are you drinking? What kind of air are you breathing? What kind of work environment are you in? Is it fulfilling, or is it harmful?

These are the real determinants of health. The idea that you can go see an allopathic physician for 12 minutes and have them fix your health through tests, pharmaceuticals, or surgery is pure fantasy.

Chapter 19: Final Thoughts

00:49:19 – 00:49:53

What a fantastic summary. Even in this short conversation, I think we gave people a lot to think about in the direction of health and medical freedom. Thank you both so much for joining us today.

Thank you so much for having us and for being willing to shine light on this topic.

Thank you so much, Michael. I hope a few ideas have been introduced and people can begin a journey toward greater health and wisdom.

Chapter 20: Outro

00:49:53 – 00:50:30

I hope you enjoyed that episode today on The Dr. Haley Show. Make sure to hit subscribe on whichever platform you are listening on.

If this episode made you think of someone, take a screenshot and share this exact episode with them.

You can catch the show notes for this episode at drhaley.com. If you want to geek out with Dr. Michael Haley on other radical health topics, be sure to check out his YouTube channel where he posts exclusive video content.

All the details are at drhaley.com, and we can’t wait to hang out with you on the next episode.