00:00:01
Speaker 1: It's night Side with Dan Ray. I'm telling you Boston's news Radio.
00:00:06
Speaker 2: Well, good evening, everybody, welcoming into a Thursday night edition of Nightside. And as good as last night's show was, and it was a really good show, tonight is even going to be better. First of all, we have four great guests in the eight o'clock hour. I'm going to get to them in just a moment. I'll introduce myself as Dan Ray, the host of Nightside. Thank you very much, Madison, appreciate that checking in with us here. Rob Brooks is back in the control room. He's all set to take your phone calls beginning at nine o'clock. At nine o'clock, we're going to take a look at this local story that has gone national. The town of Rutland here in Massachusetts has canceled their Fourth of July celebrations this year. Their their parade, their fireworks, and their concert, and a lot of people are upset about that. We're gonna be talking with the Sheriff of Worcester County, lou Evnge light Us and we're going to break some news at nine o'clock on that story. At ten o'clock, the interview that Joe Biden has done with sixty or rather with CBS to publicize her new book is really interesting, really interesting. We're going to get into all of that. Her new book is called View from the East Wing Memoir. Well, this we're going to have fun with that tonight, trust me, okay, because this is a woman who said she thought Joe Biden as he dissembled during the debate of twenty twenty four might have been having some form of a medical intervention or some mild stroke. And yet after the debate she was there saying what a great job he had done, and the Trump had lied. So we got we have wats to talk about tonight, and the first hour we're going to talk about a megabut Jackpot, going to talk about the government Bailout Prevention Act. We're going to talk about a very courageous Boston area mom who has turned stage four breast cancer a diagnosis into a national nonprofit supporting thousands. And we're also gonna talk about the ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and what it could mean for us here halfway around the world. But first I want to welcome back to Nightside, the executive director of the Massachusetts State Lottery, the most successful lottery of all the lotteries in the country. And I forget how many there are, but Aventure Mark Bracken knows that number. Hey, Mark, welcome back to nightside.
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Speaker 3: Hello Dan, good evening.
00:02:40
Speaker 2: How many lotteries are there around? There must be a few states that don't have a lottery. At this point, I assume, yeah, well.
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Speaker 3: This states this five states set.
00:02:48
Speaker 2: Down, Utah being one.
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Speaker 4: I assume, yeah, Utah, Hawaii, Alaska, that's okay, that's one of the southern states, Alabama again, and then one of them.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, well they have the Bible Belt down there wouldn't be a bit surprised that there's a couple of southern states. But Massachusetts has been around Massachusetts Lottery over fifty years, and no state lottery is as successful as Massachusetts. Under the tutelage of the former treasurer of the person who founded the lottery, Robert Quinton Crane, the state treasurer then and the state treasurer now Deb Goldberg, who has been there and has done a great job in the office and a great job with the lottery, and with you at the helm of the lottery, and you got a huge jackpot coming up eighteen point nine to five million. That's a big one.
00:03:44
Speaker 3: It's our third largest Megabox jackpot ever in the history of Megabox, so it's close to being record breaking here.
00:03:53
Speaker 2: Okay, now let me ask you this is that I'm not an expert lottery player. I'm kind of a rookie lottery player. Okay, when the jackpots get up, I probably will go in and risk a dollar or two. Is Megabucks just Massachusetts, so the winner's going to come from Massachusetts. Or can anybody play Megabucks across the country.
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Speaker 3: No, So it's a Massachusetts only game. So that's why the jackpot doesn't get to the level of say Powerball and Mega millions.
00:04:24
Speaker 2: No, I get, Okay, but look, eighteen millions nothing to sneeze at.
00:04:29
Speaker 3: Listen, it's all right, but we're just shying nineteen million. But the thing you got to remember, right that differentiates this game from those two National Games is and I know people are still going to say, well, the odds are crazy. Those National Games, the odds are one in two hundred and ninety million and one in three hundred million, because that's how many combinations they're at. There's like two hundred and ninety two million combinations in.
00:04:51
Speaker 1: The powerball game.
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Speaker 3: There's only seven million, six hundred sixty thousand combinations in megabus so the combinations. But but the odds of winning are just so much better.
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Speaker 2: I just did the mathematics. The odds. The odds of winning are twenty eight to thirty times better in Massachusetts. All you got to do is divide the the Yeah. No, that's what it comes down to. I just did it mathematically in my head.
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Speaker 3: I mean, you still have to be lucky, but it's it's much better odd So for two bocks just to get in the race for a chance to win that eighteen point ninety five, which is you know, there is a cash option and cash options, it's just over twelve and a quarter millions.
00:05:33
Speaker 2: That's okay, that's good too, I believe it is. That would work.
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Speaker 3: That would work. And then our friends, our friends on the other side of the government, they'll take their taxes.
00:05:42
Speaker 5: But still it's.
00:05:43
Speaker 3: Life changing money. No, no, no, no, life changing money.
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Speaker 2: No question about it. Now, let me ask you, ken our neighbors in Rhode Island, Connecticut, Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, and I'm going to add New York because people forget that New York borders western Massachusetts. Do they have to physically come into Massachusetts and find a lottery outlet in order to play?
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Speaker 3: Absolutely, and trust me they do. Our border agents are, with the exception of a couple agents in the Boston area, are our highest grossing agents. It's because of that, It's because of the cross border sale, and they will come over and play. And what draws them here really is not necessarily our drag games, but our scratch tickets. I think we've talked about this before. We have the highest payout and the highest prizes on all of our scratch tickets. So if you live in New Hampshire and you're playing a ten dollar ticket in Massachusetts, almost the majority of our ten dollar tickets is the top prize of say four million. In New Hampshire, majority of their ten dollar tickets the top prizes maybe five hundred thousand dollars, maybe a million on a specialty ticket. So those players cross the border all the time. And you'll notice if you go to Mathuin. We have two agents that sit right on the intersection line, and one of those is Ted's Mobile, and they are our second busiest agent in the state.
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Speaker 2: Well, well, that's good for people from New Hampster come down and contribute to the mess. I'm all in. I'm all in favor of that. A lot to be doing this, a lot more competition now with all these these betting games. You know, COO can bet on sports betting and draft kings and whatever the other the other names are, and then you now have these, uh these the opportunity to do what they call prop bets. Oh yeah, well, I know, god, they can be kind of crazy. I mean I think I think we picked those up from England if I'm not mistaken, which you know, I read one that whatever the the the prop bet was that this was the year that Jesus was going to come back in his glory. No, and it was like it was like a four percent chance. Now I don't know, I guess four percent of the betters were figuring. Okay. My feeling is that if this was the year that that Jesus the Lord would come back and all his glory, how are you going to spend that money that fast? I mean, do you know what I'm saying?
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Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, he is. It's really an unregulated market. I know, it's something that the attorney generals from across the country looking at you know, we don't necessarily take a stance. We just want to be able to be treated equally, which as you know, we got the legislation past two years ago. We were going to be launching online lottery this summer, so we just also wanted to be able to offer our products online. So you know, we welcome competition. It's tough. It hasn't necessarily treated us well. I'm not saying we're losing a lot, but it's definitely a vent diagram. You know, money goes both ways into different gambling pools, so you know, but we're doing our best. We are down a little bit this fiscal year, but we're right on targets where we estimated. We didn't overestimate, so we're kind of right on target. But we're down about a percent in sales, and you're kind of seen that across the nation. You know, I hate to say the cliche, cost the gases up, cost the livings up. There's less, you know, entertainment money. You know, there's a lot of factors.
00:09:05
Speaker 2: That's a huge factor really is people. People have to marshal their funds and their resources, and obviously all of us are trying to be a little smarter. Instead of going out and doing three errands during the day, you go out one time and you do all the three errands and you going away, which he eventually brings you back to your house. So, but okay, when when is the winning ticket drawn? This for the Megamuck megabucks jackpot of nearly nineteen million.
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Speaker 3: Dollars, It's going to be drawn Saturday nights, and we do our drawings at nine pm.
00:09:41
Speaker 2: Okay, And then the last question is what's the latest someone can buy a lottery ticket.
00:09:48
Speaker 3: On megabox.
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Speaker 5: They can purchase.
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Speaker 3: Oh jesus, I'm gonna go on the record here. I'm gonna say up to eight fifty pm.
00:09:56
Speaker 2: Okay, enough, so you got a pretend about it. No, no, no, I'm not going to put you on the spot here. So it's it's not like it's cut off at noontime or anything like that. They can no virtually. How about we'll put it like this, mark virtually to the moment up to a few minutes before the ticket the winning ticket is drawn, or the winning ticket is generated, the winning combination is generated. People have a chance to put put a couple of dollars down and and hope I'm hoping everybody wins, but that's impossible.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, no, it is impossible. But listen, you know when we had these jackpots before, right, the largest jackpop we ever had was twenty one point seven million, and that was split amongst eight people one that time, great, great eight people and it was twenty one million. So that's that's a good example of a jackpot where a lot of people got to share in it. So and guess what happened.
00:10:52
Speaker 2: That makes more people happy, which is which is a good thing. So if you're at work, pull some money to buy a few more tickets, it only increases the chances you might win. Mark Bracken, always enjoy talking with you, doing a great job. Thank you so much for your time tonight, and we will talk soon.
00:11:08
Speaker 3: Thank you very much.
00:11:09
Speaker 2: Dan, all right, thanks Mark Bracken, the executive director of the Massachusetts State Lottery. When we get back, I'm going to talk with Thomas Iyello. He's the vice president of government affairs with the National Taxpayers Union, and he's going to talk about a piece of legislation, the Government Bailout Prevention Act. I think I know what that means. I'm certain he knows what that means, and we'll talk about it right after this break here on Nightside on a Thursday night. Weather this weekend not good on Saturday, So buckled up, buckle down on Saturday, go bowling, whatever, do anything you want, as long as it's indoors. We'll be back on Nightside after this.
00:11:47
Speaker 1: You're on night Side with Dan Ray on w b Z, Boston's news radio.
00:11:54
Speaker 2: My guest is Thomas I Yello, Tom I Yello. Welcome to Knightside. How are you, sir?
00:11:59
Speaker 5: Good you thanks for having me.
00:12:01
Speaker 2: You're more than welcome. You're the vice president of government affairs for the National Taxpayers Union. Before we talk about the Government Bailout Prevention Act, let's talk about the National Taxpayers Union. How long has that been around? And I'm a taxpayer? Am I a member of the of your union? So not, but tell us about the.
00:12:21
Speaker 5: Organization, you know, But you don't have to be a member for us to represent to you. We always look after taxpayer and trades. It's on Capitol Hill, in the administration and in state capitals that are pushing good and bad tax policies. So we're always looking out for your interest. We've been around.
00:12:36
Speaker 2: I live, we live in Massachusetts. There were no good tax policies in Massachusetts period. Okay, they only tax two things in Massachusetts, doom. Despite what people do say, anything that moves and anything that doesn't move, those are the only two things that are tax go right ahead.
00:12:53
Speaker 5: And if they move, they moved to New Hampshire or Florida. That true taxpayers better yes, go right So you know, we are always looking out for taxpayer interests. It really is more than just tax policy. It's spending. It's housing policy, energy policy, healthcare, anything that has an impact on federal budgets and taxpayers and limited governments. We're in the fights and you know, we're up there on Capitol Hill every day trying to make this country run more efficiently and more effectively and saved taxpayer dollars along the way.
00:13:29
Speaker 2: Okay, so let's talk about this Government Bailout Prevention Act. Governments bailout other governments, I guess, or maybe they also bail out companies as well. What is this act designed to do and where is it in the legislative process.
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Speaker 5: You know, this is a bill that was introduced just last week actually by Senator Todd Young from Indiana and Senator Tom Cotton from Arkansas, two really strong conservative champions in the United States Senate. And what their Government Bailout Prevention Act does is it takes federal bailouts for state and local governments off the table. What we've seen over the past few years is a rush by liberal governments, blue states, blue localities to spend money that they don't have. What they're doing is racking up a tab and they want taxpayers to fit the bill for it. But when we see the data, we see that these states can barely manage themselves. Taxpayers are moving to other states and it's going to leave them with a big bill when the debt comes due, and they're going to rely on Washington to bail them out. So what this bill does it takes that completely off the table at these safeguards and it means that taxpayers in other states don't bail out poorly run states.
00:14:46
Speaker 2: Well, in terms of states, Massachusetts is probably in the lead. My particular favorite no big contract here in Massachusetts was a six million dollars no bid tax scab contract that was given to a taxi cab company on Cape Cord. Now Cape cards are a really nice place, but it's not all that big, and so there were a lot of folks who had been settled there when the immigration eptich occurred, maybe in part because of COVID, but also in part because the fact that our southern border was wide open. So this company got a no bid contract to basically provide taxicabs to people who were not here legally, but we were giving them shelter in Massachusetts. And if they had to go to doctor's appointments or dentist appointment, so to go to the store, that that six million dollars was used to pay for their fares. But here was the catch in the contract, and this is when you may want to put in the back of your mind. When the person summoned this company and they were told who they could get taxi fares with. When the company arrived and they through the meter, the meter, all we started at forty dollars. So if somebody was driving one mile, let us say, to a doctor's appointment, which they needed, they weren't going to walk a mile. Instead of costing a fare of maybe two bucks or three bucks or maybe five dollars, it was immediately forty plus the distance. So it was insane that's where the when they flipped the meter, it went directly, did not stop, going directly to forty dollars. So keep that one in the back of your mind. That's that's a beauty from Massachusetts.
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Speaker 5: You know. I think that's what frustrates people so much about government, is they have these things in place that it really makes you scratch your head and say, why is this happening? And I like to saying, if there's one cock broach, there's many more. In this case, that's just one thing that we know about. What about the dozens or hundreds of other policies that are in place that are not getting the public's attack. And I think that's why we've seen these blue states rack up such a tab about six trillion dollars. They're in debt between state and local governments. That's you know, things like school districts, cities, and states of course, and you know in your commonwealth of Massachusetts, the taxpayer leaves every eighteen minutes. That's a lot of taxpayers. When you add up every eighteen minutes the taxpayer leaves, and by the way, it's every two minutes and thirty seconds. So it really is a problem.
00:17:27
Speaker 2: We have a state constitution with mandates a ballot but a balanced budget, so you cannot have deficit spending here in Massachusetts. What they do is they pass during the year supplemental budgets, and of course all that does is that sets us up here in Massachusetts for a bigger budget next year. The budget always goes up, never goes down. And I think when deval Patrick was governed here in the early two thousands, our annual state budget somewhere around twenty twenty two billion dollars a year, which is a lot of money. It's now about sixty four billion dollars in the last twenty years, so it's it just triples. It's like a runaway freight train going downhill. It picks up speed.
00:18:09
Speaker 5: No, it's a real problem. And you have that skyrocketing in state and local spending. Yet you have this such a significant outbound migration going to places like Florida, Texas, North Carolina that are much better run, states that are more efficient with taxpayer dollars. And you know, it goes beyond just Massachusetts. Right If a state wants to rack up a big tab and spend money on silly things, I guess they're within their right to do it. What's not right is you have a place like Illinois and Chicago, the City of Chicago, which have junk bond ratings and they're going to need a federal bailout sometime in the next ten to fifteen years, the City of Chicago, probably earlier than that. So it's going to fall on every taxpayer around the country to fut that bill, and I just don't think that's right. There's a basic fairness aspect to these things, where why should a person in Florida have to use their tax dollars to bail out a state that has been so poorly run for so long that refuses to change. So I think that's where we have this bairness problem that people are sick of.
00:19:15
Speaker 2: The one thing that Boston and Chicago and that Illinois and Massachusetts have in common, it is for the most part, the one party states. So when you don't have competition competition of ideas, things get out of control because people can pretty much do as they want. We have a democratic state auditor who is trying desperately to audit the state legislature of the state Senate and the State House of Representatives that was mandated by a ballot initiative in twenty twenty four. Seventy two percent of the public who voted in that election voted for this audit, and our legislative leaders up until even as late as today are still fighting against the audit tooth and nail.
00:19:59
Speaker 5: No frustrating I can tell.
00:20:01
Speaker 2: How can folks either support or get in touch with the National Taxpayers Union. I'm sure you got a handy dandy website.
00:20:07
Speaker 5: Yes we do. You can go to NTU dot org, follow us on social media at NTU, and then, of course, continue to stay in the fight. Urge your member of Congress to support the Government Bailout Prevention Act, sponsored by Senator Young and Senator Cotton. It's a good bill and hopefully we can get it to the floor or through markup in due time.
00:20:27
Speaker 2: Yep, I appreciate it, Tom, Thank you so much. Love to have you back here on nightside. Appreciate you great, Thank you for having me here. Comes to news, we come back and I talk to a really courageous woman. Her name is Alissa Calver. She was diagnosed with stage four medic metastatic breast cancer. She's a survivor. She's foundered of She's founder of a nonprofit call we got this we got this dot org. And it's been five years since her diagnosis.
00:20:54
Speaker 5: They get a big.
00:20:54
Speaker 2: Golf tournament coming up in about ten days down at the up at the Indians Golf Club up in the Andover. We're going to talk with my guest, Alyssa Calvert, right after the news at the bottom of the hour.
00:21:07
Speaker 1: You're on Night Side with Dan Ray on you Bzy, Boston's news Radio.
00:21:12
Speaker 2: I won't extend the really warm welcome to Elisa Alyssa. Excuse me, Alyssa Calver, Alyssa, welcome to night Side.
00:21:20
Speaker 6: Thank you so much, excited to be here. Thanks for having me.
00:21:24
Speaker 2: Well, you're an amazing person. From what I read, you're a stage four metastatic breast cancer survivor. It's been five years since you were diagnosed, So just to put it in perspective, I'm assuming you would diagnose sometime in twenty twenty one.
00:21:42
Speaker 6: Yeah, so it was diagnosed July of twenty twenty one, and I'm about to hit five years this July, which is wild. At the time of diagnosis, there was if you googled it, which I don't recommend, but if you googled it, there was a twenty percent chance making it past five years, and so it's a huge milestone and to be able to continue to live and thrive with it is really amazing.
00:22:05
Speaker 2: How are you doing? I mean you sound great, but obviously how are you feeling these days?
00:22:12
Speaker 6: Thanks for asking. I balance a lot of different reality So, you know, I had a PETSYT scan earlier today. I just got back last night from doing a fundraiser in New York on Broadway, and I'm heading to Boston, you know, next week for fundraiser. We're doing my hometown of Andover. And so I balance in between a lot of these cancer realities with still living life fully. And that's been the part that I've tried to make a non negotiable or else I don't know how else I would have gone through it and continue to.
00:22:42
Speaker 2: And you're also a mom. How many children do you have?
00:22:47
Speaker 1: Yeah?
00:22:47
Speaker 6: So I was diagnosed just a few days before my daughter, Ellie's first birthday, and we're about to celebrate her fifth birthday coming up. So that's definitely good motivation to stay happy.
00:23:00
Speaker 2: You're six, It will be wastecond if she's If she's coming up your sixth birthday.
00:23:05
Speaker 6: Don't tell her. I just I just five on the brain.
00:23:10
Speaker 2: I'm a July baby. I'm July eighth. Is she July eighth?
00:23:13
Speaker 6: Biney chance July sixth? So close?
00:23:16
Speaker 2: Pretty close? Pretty close? Yeah? Okay, Well she was born in the same day that president, former president George Bush. She's a July he's a July sixth baby. You always know the people who have been born around your birthday. July July seventh baby, O J. Simpson. Anyway, let's come back. Let's come back. I got your laugh, which is good. Okay. So you guys have the fifth annual golf tournament coming up at Indian Ridge Golf Club. I'm not a golfer. I play maybe once a year, but this is on Monday, June eighth. So you have a you have a a program website. It's called we got This dot org. Tell us about that. Obviously, I assume it represents what exactly. It says that, yeah, this is a problem, there's something to deal with, but you got this.
00:24:12
Speaker 6: Yeah, And it's really about the idea that like, we all got this, and community is so important when it comes to cancer and hard times. And I realized that very quickly when being diagnosed, right before Ellie's first birthday, in that when I was pregnant or getting married. We make it really easy in the good times to give and receive and how we support each other, and I realized that that was a lot harder in the hard times. Everyone's kind of scrambling and asking how they can help, and it's this unintentional burden. So I came up with this idea for We got this in my fifth round of my original chemo, and I started GoFundMe for the idea to raise money and we had this first fundraiser and andover my hometown at Indian Ridge, And that's what really, you know, I took this to the next level of realizing the level of support that we have and that everyone is affected by cancer. I don't know anyone not affected by it, and so it's really important to me. Even though I lived with stage four breast cancer, it was really important to me that this was a solution for everyone, for all ages, every type of cancer. It's not only the first nonprofit gift registry for cancer patients, but there's a resource directory of other nonprofits that can help. There's recommendations of what products and services you might need or want a gift and we've continued to fund it through so many avenues, but one of the biggest being this golf tournament. And it was crazy because the first year that we did this, I had never done a fundraiser before at all, let alone a full on golf tournament. And since I grew up around the corner from Indian Ridge, they had a last minute date open and decided, you know, let's do it. You know, even we'll get some people out. A few weeks before it, I found out that my cancer had had come back in my left breast. I also had it spread to my brain. This was, you know, several years ago when we did the first annual golf tournament and everyone was like, you don't need to come out, we can reschedule, we can cancel it. And I asked myncologists and she's like, technically, between the week of radiation I had to do on my brain and my new chemo, She's like, you have to take a week off, so it's really up to you. So, you know, long story, Sure headed out on that plane. We ended up breaking six figures raised all this money to continue to keep this growing. We went last year from fifteen hundred users of the website to over fifteen thousand in just less than a year. So this fifth annual is like so special for so many reasons because it's like, you know, statistically might not have even been here, and as you can hear, like I'm living and thriving with this alongside it, not waiting for it to be over because it might never be over, and trying to make sure that we get to do that together. And that's really the wee part of it all.
00:27:00
Speaker 2: Well, the other thing that's interesting is that when you were diagnosed in twenty twenty one, we as a nation, we were at the depth of COVID. We were all wearing masks, we were all looking forward to our next set of shots. And on top of all of those worries and apprehensions that all of us were living with, you were living with an even more personal and a more deadly set of circumstances. It had to be an incredible journey for you and to have emerged at this point five years out. How can people are there still spots open on the tournament? People can get a forceome or just looking for individual golfers. What do you need for next? For Monday, June eighth.
00:27:47
Speaker 6: Yeah, we still have a few foursomes left. Would love for people to come out. If you're not a golfer or you can't make it for golf earlier in the day, the dinner banquet at night, you know, we have probably over one hundred people who just come for that too, because that's a party in itself. So if you can come out at all, getting a dinner ticket or golf includes dinner and all that. Also, if you go to we goot this dot org on our community page, you can see the event there. You just head right to we got This dot org slash events. I would love to get to meet you, get to tell you more about everything that we're doing.
00:28:21
Speaker 2: And I assume that this has grown every year a little bit.
00:28:25
Speaker 6: I hope yes. And you know what's really special about these opportunities to get together in person is it continues to grow with more stories, more people who you know, are positively affected by the things that we're trying to enhance, you know, for support in the community, and it's more opportunities to spread this message which is really at the root of it, about prioritizing joy and living. Because you know, I'm so grateful and lucky that there are treatments that have kept me alive and surviving. But I learned, you know, early on in this process that like, we also deserve to live our lives, and the survival to me is not enough, and I don't think it should be, you know, the bare minimum for anyone. So coming together, celebrating life and all the things that go with it and honoring people, I just it's been so special every year and I'm really excited for this year. So don't miss a Fit Annual. It's going to be a blowout.
00:29:20
Speaker 2: Okay, it's it's June eighth, Indian Ridge Golf Club and over mass. Every once in a while when I promote these things, someone will say, oh, we got so and so from the Patriots and so and so from the Celtics or the Bruins or whatever. Do you have any extra headliners up there? Or is everybody equally important to join you in this fight?
00:29:42
Speaker 4: Yeah?
00:29:42
Speaker 6: Well, I mean everyone's definitely equally important. We're working on a few names I can't I can't officially announce yet, but my buddy, the Boston Dad, if anyone follows him, he's so much fun and on a Boston staple, he'll be there. Again this year, and so many of our friends in the cancer to media as well. So yeah, everyone is so special to me that that comes and I appreciate it so much.
00:30:09
Speaker 2: Alissa, you got this. The website is we got this dot org Alyssa. Your your upbeat spirit is contagious. Thanks so much for being you, and thanks so much for fighting as hard as you have on behalf of yourself, your family and all of us.
00:30:26
Speaker 6: Thank you very much, Thank you so much. Thank you.
00:30:29
Speaker 2: You're very welcome. Will we get back. We're going to talk about another big medical problem, and that's the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It's fast outpacing containment efforts in that region. Questions concerns are mounting in the US. And we're going to talk with an infection prevention specialist and founder, a CEO of a company called arrow Clean, and we'll learn a lot more about ebola. But it's better to be prepared than to than to your ahead in the sand, that's for sure. Rainy Guest will join us, right, I think that's where're pronouncing the name. Will find out Rainy Guests coming back after this quick break on night.
00:31:09
Speaker 1: Side night Side with Dan Ray on WBZ Boston's news radio.
00:31:16
Speaker 2: Well, I think all of us have heard about the ebola outbreak in Africa, particularly in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. With us is Rainy Guest, who's an infection prevention specialist. Rainy, I remember a bola about ten years ago and it panicked people. We had a bola cases here. What did we learn from ten years ago that's going to help us hopefully prevent a repeat of a Bola coming to these shores.
00:31:49
Speaker 7: Yeah, Unfortunately, I don't think that we've learned a lot. There are just some basic lessons in infection prevention one oh one that nobody is following anymore. It's almost like we're wanting some panic with it.
00:32:03
Speaker 5: Now.
00:32:03
Speaker 7: I'll tell you one of the basic themes that we can all do to help protect ourselves against a bullet is just really hype up our hygiene. To make sure we're washing our hands frequently, make sure that we're you know, not rubbing our faces with our hands. Make sure that we're actually using disinfectants properly so that we're so that we can actually kill the germs before they infect us. Okay, So there's just some really simple.
00:32:28
Speaker 2: Beings Okay, So obviously at this time, just as when when COVID came, you just got to be a little bit more more careful and cautious. What about the idea of maybe reintroducing masks into our lives that I know was controversial, particularly masks. Masks controversial in the sense that when they were mandated, a lot of people said, well, I want to wear a mask, but I don't want the government to mandate that. Do you think we're getting close to that with the bowler or is that quite a ways off?
00:33:03
Speaker 7: Well, well, a bullet really isn't spread that way, right. It's not an aerolized pathogen, so that wouldn't be. It is spread by coming in contact with contaminated fluid and then touching yourself, giving it a portal under your body, your eyes, your nose, your mouth. So that is how e bullet is spread. The issue with and even with an aerosolized pathogen like COVID, COVID lives on surfaces for extended periods of time, so without the guidance of how to actually disinfect surfaces, those masks actually became an extra chain in the infection process because now what you had is you had people setting their masks on contaminated surfaces because they weren't disinfected properly, and then they were putting them up to their face for twenty four hours a day, so it actually became an issue. So we just don't have any proper guidance. So I don't see masks right now, but I'm sure that fear will will happen and people will want to revert back to some of the methodology that they were using during the COVID.
00:34:12
Speaker 2: Yeah. The reason I asked that is just in my own travels the last few days, you're going to the store or whatever, I've noticed it seems to be more more people, for better or worse, who were wearing masks. I don't know if it's coincidence or if it's concerned about abola, but obviously that has been in the news. It is a pretty tough, tough disease. Put it in context, though, if you would, you know more about this than I put it in context of where we are today. As to where we were, I think it was just about ten years ago. I could be wrong on that, but it was about a decade ago when when it came to America, there were people who were impacted in America. I don't think anyone has been actually, you know, I'm just found to have a bola at least as of this moment in America.
00:35:11
Speaker 4: Yeah.
00:35:12
Speaker 7: Correct, So we could be at a much better place today. So, but we're again, we're not because we're not educating people properly on actually how to kill the pathogens. We're focused on contact tracing, We're focused on giving a screening to somebody at an airport. We're focused on isolating people once they have the infection. So being in the world of infection prevention, uh, those are very reactive versus proactive measures. So let me ask you. Let's say you probably have products. Let's do a little education one on one for folks at home. So you probably have products that you use in your house right when you when people are sick and you want to, let's just say, disinfect your home or so and to tie your home. How do you go about doing that?
00:36:03
Speaker 2: Well? Simple, whatever products I have, I'm I'm kind of a bit of a clean freak. I make sure that my counters are always you know, washed down a couple of times a day with hot water. I'm not you know, doing it on every surface. But wherever food is, I want to make sure that is always clean, so that anything is what do you use, what you use whatever problem? Yeah, you know product names which I don't need to mention, but the typical products that people would have, I assume we get them at the grocery store like everyone else. There's these products, you know, cleaners. Obviously you're leading, you're leading the witness here and there's a lawyer. I know how you lead a witness. So you're doing a good job. Tell me, let's cut to the chase there and tell me what what you, as the CEO of aarrowclean want us to do. What are the products that what are the products that we should be using.
00:37:00
Speaker 7: Well, here's what you should be using my products because it kills germs.
00:37:05
Speaker 2: I'm with you under tell me about that.
00:37:08
Speaker 3: You're here.
00:37:10
Speaker 7: And it's safe. It kills germs really fast. So let's talk about what what is generally out there in the public. What is being used in airports, what's being used in hotels? Are products that actually they're quantinary ammonia based products and they have to sit wet on a surface for ten minutes in order to actually kill the germs. Okay, nobody did you ever hear about that during COVID Did anybody ever talk to you about that?
00:37:35
Speaker 2: Nope, you're telling me I explained to you that I've washed down you know, I will basically, we have a big island in the kitchen, and I'll take some paper towels, put hot water on them and rub them. Rub it down.
00:37:50
Speaker 7: And I want people to go under your kitchen sink and take out that bottle of whatever product you have under there that you're using to disinfect in your home.
00:38:00
Speaker 5: And if you read the.
00:38:01
Speaker 7: Little six point font on the back, what you're probably going to see is that in order to disinfect, you have to spray it on the surface and you have to let it sit for ten minutes. And what you find is if you actually try to do that, you're going to have to reapply that product three times in order for it to stay wet for ten minutes. So here's a huge gap in infection prevention that we have all these disinfectants that people are using in public facilities, in airports, in hotels, everywhere ten minutes and nobody lets it sit that long. And during COVID, it would have been prime time for somebody to come up and say, look, these products are safe. What they were saying is these products are safe and effective if you use them, according to the manufacturers.
00:38:46
Speaker 2: Any like any products. So tell me, because I'm running out of time here your product. You represent a company called arrow Clean.
00:38:54
Speaker 7: Yes, you go to aeroclean dot com. One hundred percent kill of pathogens and under a minute, which sounds like a long time, but when you compare it to the ten minutes of other projects, it's not allergenic.
00:39:06
Speaker 2: Yes, you have made the case. You've made it effectively as well. Arrowclean dot com. Where are you located.
00:39:15
Speaker 7: We're located in Texas, where the world couple be.
00:39:18
Speaker 2: Okay, we'll see about that. I guess I don't know.
00:39:22
Speaker 1: I'm not a big I'm not.
00:39:24
Speaker 2: A big FIFA soccer person. I'm a baseball guy. I'm a hopeless Red Sox fan. Okay, so cut me some slack here so arrow Clean people can can get did I what?
00:39:35
Speaker 5: Oh? I said?
00:39:36
Speaker 7: Did you play baseball?
00:39:37
Speaker 2: Yes? I did in high school and college. Yeah that's about as far as I went though. So I'm not criticizing anybody, trust me, repeat, A lot of people better than me. So arrow Clean products, I'm trying.
00:39:46
Speaker 7: To work with you here so go Aeroclean A R R O W C L e A N dot com. Go to aeroclean dot com. You can read about it and buy it online.
00:39:57
Speaker 2: Perfect, and you guys should help you out. You guys ship it. Absolutely don't have to go through Amazon. We can go directly to you.
00:40:04
Speaker 7: Just send us an email and we'll get you some product.
00:40:06
Speaker 2: All right, I'm gonna send you an email, gonna send to your attention, and I'm gonna you're gonna help me out here and guide me a little bit.
00:40:12
Speaker 7: Okay, I'm gonna guide you in the right direction.
00:40:15
Speaker 2: That's that's the only direction I want to ever be. Got to trust me on that. Rady guest, thank you so much, Arrowclean dot Calm. Thanks Rady, great, great, thanks a fun interview. Absolutely, okay, thanks so much. All Right, we're done with the nine. When we come back, we're going to talk about the town of Rutland, Massachusetts. It will never have gotten as much publicity as they're gonna get today or tonight here on Night Side, and it is not necessarily going to be good publicity. We'll be back after the nine o'clock news
Speaker 1: It's night Side with Dan Ray. I'm telling you Boston's news Radio.
00:00:06
Speaker 2: Well, good evening, everybody, welcoming into a Thursday night edition of Nightside. And as good as last night's show was, and it was a really good show, tonight is even going to be better. First of all, we have four great guests in the eight o'clock hour. I'm going to get to them in just a moment. I'll introduce myself as Dan Ray, the host of Nightside. Thank you very much, Madison, appreciate that checking in with us here. Rob Brooks is back in the control room. He's all set to take your phone calls beginning at nine o'clock. At nine o'clock, we're going to take a look at this local story that has gone national. The town of Rutland here in Massachusetts has canceled their Fourth of July celebrations this year. Their their parade, their fireworks, and their concert, and a lot of people are upset about that. We're gonna be talking with the Sheriff of Worcester County, lou Evnge light Us and we're going to break some news at nine o'clock on that story. At ten o'clock, the interview that Joe Biden has done with sixty or rather with CBS to publicize her new book is really interesting, really interesting. We're going to get into all of that. Her new book is called View from the East Wing Memoir. Well, this we're going to have fun with that tonight, trust me, okay, because this is a woman who said she thought Joe Biden as he dissembled during the debate of twenty twenty four might have been having some form of a medical intervention or some mild stroke. And yet after the debate she was there saying what a great job he had done, and the Trump had lied. So we got we have wats to talk about tonight, and the first hour we're going to talk about a megabut Jackpot, going to talk about the government Bailout Prevention Act. We're going to talk about a very courageous Boston area mom who has turned stage four breast cancer a diagnosis into a national nonprofit supporting thousands. And we're also gonna talk about the ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and what it could mean for us here halfway around the world. But first I want to welcome back to Nightside, the executive director of the Massachusetts State Lottery, the most successful lottery of all the lotteries in the country. And I forget how many there are, but Aventure Mark Bracken knows that number. Hey, Mark, welcome back to nightside.
00:02:39
Speaker 3: Hello Dan, good evening.
00:02:40
Speaker 2: How many lotteries are there around? There must be a few states that don't have a lottery. At this point, I assume, yeah, well.
00:02:45
Speaker 3: This states this five states set.
00:02:48
Speaker 2: Down, Utah being one.
00:02:50
Speaker 4: I assume, yeah, Utah, Hawaii, Alaska, that's okay, that's one of the southern states, Alabama again, and then one of them.
00:03:04
Speaker 2: Yeah, well they have the Bible Belt down there wouldn't be a bit surprised that there's a couple of southern states. But Massachusetts has been around Massachusetts Lottery over fifty years, and no state lottery is as successful as Massachusetts. Under the tutelage of the former treasurer of the person who founded the lottery, Robert Quinton Crane, the state treasurer then and the state treasurer now Deb Goldberg, who has been there and has done a great job in the office and a great job with the lottery, and with you at the helm of the lottery, and you got a huge jackpot coming up eighteen point nine to five million. That's a big one.
00:03:44
Speaker 3: It's our third largest Megabox jackpot ever in the history of Megabox, so it's close to being record breaking here.
00:03:53
Speaker 2: Okay, now let me ask you this is that I'm not an expert lottery player. I'm kind of a rookie lottery player. Okay, when the jackpots get up, I probably will go in and risk a dollar or two. Is Megabucks just Massachusetts, so the winner's going to come from Massachusetts. Or can anybody play Megabucks across the country.
00:04:18
Speaker 3: No, So it's a Massachusetts only game. So that's why the jackpot doesn't get to the level of say Powerball and Mega millions.
00:04:24
Speaker 2: No, I get, Okay, but look, eighteen millions nothing to sneeze at.
00:04:29
Speaker 3: Listen, it's all right, but we're just shying nineteen million. But the thing you got to remember, right that differentiates this game from those two National Games is and I know people are still going to say, well, the odds are crazy. Those National Games, the odds are one in two hundred and ninety million and one in three hundred million, because that's how many combinations they're at. There's like two hundred and ninety two million combinations in.
00:04:51
Speaker 1: The powerball game.
00:04:52
Speaker 3: There's only seven million, six hundred sixty thousand combinations in megabus so the combinations. But but the odds of winning are just so much better.
00:05:03
Speaker 2: I just did the mathematics. The odds. The odds of winning are twenty eight to thirty times better in Massachusetts. All you got to do is divide the the Yeah. No, that's what it comes down to. I just did it mathematically in my head.
00:05:16
Speaker 3: I mean, you still have to be lucky, but it's it's much better odd So for two bocks just to get in the race for a chance to win that eighteen point ninety five, which is you know, there is a cash option and cash options, it's just over twelve and a quarter millions.
00:05:33
Speaker 2: That's okay, that's good too, I believe it is. That would work.
00:05:37
Speaker 3: That would work. And then our friends, our friends on the other side of the government, they'll take their taxes.
00:05:42
Speaker 5: But still it's.
00:05:43
Speaker 3: Life changing money. No, no, no, no, life changing money.
00:05:46
Speaker 2: No question about it. Now, let me ask you, ken our neighbors in Rhode Island, Connecticut, Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, and I'm going to add New York because people forget that New York borders western Massachusetts. Do they have to physically come into Massachusetts and find a lottery outlet in order to play?
00:06:07
Speaker 3: Absolutely, and trust me they do. Our border agents are, with the exception of a couple agents in the Boston area, are our highest grossing agents. It's because of that, It's because of the cross border sale, and they will come over and play. And what draws them here really is not necessarily our drag games, but our scratch tickets. I think we've talked about this before. We have the highest payout and the highest prizes on all of our scratch tickets. So if you live in New Hampshire and you're playing a ten dollar ticket in Massachusetts, almost the majority of our ten dollar tickets is the top prize of say four million. In New Hampshire, majority of their ten dollar tickets the top prizes maybe five hundred thousand dollars, maybe a million on a specialty ticket. So those players cross the border all the time. And you'll notice if you go to Mathuin. We have two agents that sit right on the intersection line, and one of those is Ted's Mobile, and they are our second busiest agent in the state.
00:07:02
Speaker 2: Well, well, that's good for people from New Hampster come down and contribute to the mess. I'm all in. I'm all in favor of that. A lot to be doing this, a lot more competition now with all these these betting games. You know, COO can bet on sports betting and draft kings and whatever the other the other names are, and then you now have these, uh these the opportunity to do what they call prop bets. Oh yeah, well, I know, god, they can be kind of crazy. I mean I think I think we picked those up from England if I'm not mistaken, which you know, I read one that whatever the the the prop bet was that this was the year that Jesus was going to come back in his glory. No, and it was like it was like a four percent chance. Now I don't know, I guess four percent of the betters were figuring. Okay. My feeling is that if this was the year that that Jesus the Lord would come back and all his glory, how are you going to spend that money that fast? I mean, do you know what I'm saying?
00:08:07
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, he is. It's really an unregulated market. I know, it's something that the attorney generals from across the country looking at you know, we don't necessarily take a stance. We just want to be able to be treated equally, which as you know, we got the legislation past two years ago. We were going to be launching online lottery this summer, so we just also wanted to be able to offer our products online. So you know, we welcome competition. It's tough. It hasn't necessarily treated us well. I'm not saying we're losing a lot, but it's definitely a vent diagram. You know, money goes both ways into different gambling pools, so you know, but we're doing our best. We are down a little bit this fiscal year, but we're right on targets where we estimated. We didn't overestimate, so we're kind of right on target. But we're down about a percent in sales, and you're kind of seen that across the nation. You know, I hate to say the cliche, cost the gases up, cost the livings up. There's less, you know, entertainment money. You know, there's a lot of factors.
00:09:05
Speaker 2: That's a huge factor really is people. People have to marshal their funds and their resources, and obviously all of us are trying to be a little smarter. Instead of going out and doing three errands during the day, you go out one time and you do all the three errands and you going away, which he eventually brings you back to your house. So, but okay, when when is the winning ticket drawn? This for the Megamuck megabucks jackpot of nearly nineteen million.
00:09:35
Speaker 3: Dollars, It's going to be drawn Saturday nights, and we do our drawings at nine pm.
00:09:41
Speaker 2: Okay, And then the last question is what's the latest someone can buy a lottery ticket.
00:09:48
Speaker 3: On megabox.
00:09:49
Speaker 5: They can purchase.
00:09:51
Speaker 3: Oh jesus, I'm gonna go on the record here. I'm gonna say up to eight fifty pm.
00:09:56
Speaker 2: Okay, enough, so you got a pretend about it. No, no, no, I'm not going to put you on the spot here. So it's it's not like it's cut off at noontime or anything like that. They can no virtually. How about we'll put it like this, mark virtually to the moment up to a few minutes before the ticket the winning ticket is drawn, or the winning ticket is generated, the winning combination is generated. People have a chance to put put a couple of dollars down and and hope I'm hoping everybody wins, but that's impossible.
00:10:32
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, it is impossible. But listen, you know when we had these jackpots before, right, the largest jackpop we ever had was twenty one point seven million, and that was split amongst eight people one that time, great, great eight people and it was twenty one million. So that's that's a good example of a jackpot where a lot of people got to share in it. So and guess what happened.
00:10:52
Speaker 2: That makes more people happy, which is which is a good thing. So if you're at work, pull some money to buy a few more tickets, it only increases the chances you might win. Mark Bracken, always enjoy talking with you, doing a great job. Thank you so much for your time tonight, and we will talk soon.
00:11:08
Speaker 3: Thank you very much.
00:11:09
Speaker 2: Dan, all right, thanks Mark Bracken, the executive director of the Massachusetts State Lottery. When we get back, I'm going to talk with Thomas Iyello. He's the vice president of government affairs with the National Taxpayers Union, and he's going to talk about a piece of legislation, the Government Bailout Prevention Act. I think I know what that means. I'm certain he knows what that means, and we'll talk about it right after this break here on Nightside on a Thursday night. Weather this weekend not good on Saturday, So buckled up, buckle down on Saturday, go bowling, whatever, do anything you want, as long as it's indoors. We'll be back on Nightside after this.
00:11:47
Speaker 1: You're on night Side with Dan Ray on w b Z, Boston's news radio.
00:11:54
Speaker 2: My guest is Thomas I Yello, Tom I Yello. Welcome to Knightside. How are you, sir?
00:11:59
Speaker 5: Good you thanks for having me.
00:12:01
Speaker 2: You're more than welcome. You're the vice president of government affairs for the National Taxpayers Union. Before we talk about the Government Bailout Prevention Act, let's talk about the National Taxpayers Union. How long has that been around? And I'm a taxpayer? Am I a member of the of your union? So not, but tell us about the.
00:12:21
Speaker 5: Organization, you know, But you don't have to be a member for us to represent to you. We always look after taxpayer and trades. It's on Capitol Hill, in the administration and in state capitals that are pushing good and bad tax policies. So we're always looking out for your interest. We've been around.
00:12:36
Speaker 2: I live, we live in Massachusetts. There were no good tax policies in Massachusetts period. Okay, they only tax two things in Massachusetts, doom. Despite what people do say, anything that moves and anything that doesn't move, those are the only two things that are tax go right ahead.
00:12:53
Speaker 5: And if they move, they moved to New Hampshire or Florida. That true taxpayers better yes, go right So you know, we are always looking out for taxpayer interests. It really is more than just tax policy. It's spending. It's housing policy, energy policy, healthcare, anything that has an impact on federal budgets and taxpayers and limited governments. We're in the fights and you know, we're up there on Capitol Hill every day trying to make this country run more efficiently and more effectively and saved taxpayer dollars along the way.
00:13:29
Speaker 2: Okay, so let's talk about this Government Bailout Prevention Act. Governments bailout other governments, I guess, or maybe they also bail out companies as well. What is this act designed to do and where is it in the legislative process.
00:13:48
Speaker 5: You know, this is a bill that was introduced just last week actually by Senator Todd Young from Indiana and Senator Tom Cotton from Arkansas, two really strong conservative champions in the United States Senate. And what their Government Bailout Prevention Act does is it takes federal bailouts for state and local governments off the table. What we've seen over the past few years is a rush by liberal governments, blue states, blue localities to spend money that they don't have. What they're doing is racking up a tab and they want taxpayers to fit the bill for it. But when we see the data, we see that these states can barely manage themselves. Taxpayers are moving to other states and it's going to leave them with a big bill when the debt comes due, and they're going to rely on Washington to bail them out. So what this bill does it takes that completely off the table at these safeguards and it means that taxpayers in other states don't bail out poorly run states.
00:14:46
Speaker 2: Well, in terms of states, Massachusetts is probably in the lead. My particular favorite no big contract here in Massachusetts was a six million dollars no bid tax scab contract that was given to a taxi cab company on Cape Cord. Now Cape cards are a really nice place, but it's not all that big, and so there were a lot of folks who had been settled there when the immigration eptich occurred, maybe in part because of COVID, but also in part because the fact that our southern border was wide open. So this company got a no bid contract to basically provide taxicabs to people who were not here legally, but we were giving them shelter in Massachusetts. And if they had to go to doctor's appointments or dentist appointment, so to go to the store, that that six million dollars was used to pay for their fares. But here was the catch in the contract, and this is when you may want to put in the back of your mind. When the person summoned this company and they were told who they could get taxi fares with. When the company arrived and they through the meter, the meter, all we started at forty dollars. So if somebody was driving one mile, let us say, to a doctor's appointment, which they needed, they weren't going to walk a mile. Instead of costing a fare of maybe two bucks or three bucks or maybe five dollars, it was immediately forty plus the distance. So it was insane that's where the when they flipped the meter, it went directly, did not stop, going directly to forty dollars. So keep that one in the back of your mind. That's that's a beauty from Massachusetts.
00:16:38
Speaker 5: You know. I think that's what frustrates people so much about government, is they have these things in place that it really makes you scratch your head and say, why is this happening? And I like to saying, if there's one cock broach, there's many more. In this case, that's just one thing that we know about. What about the dozens or hundreds of other policies that are in place that are not getting the public's attack. And I think that's why we've seen these blue states rack up such a tab about six trillion dollars. They're in debt between state and local governments. That's you know, things like school districts, cities, and states of course, and you know in your commonwealth of Massachusetts, the taxpayer leaves every eighteen minutes. That's a lot of taxpayers. When you add up every eighteen minutes the taxpayer leaves, and by the way, it's every two minutes and thirty seconds. So it really is a problem.
00:17:27
Speaker 2: We have a state constitution with mandates a ballot but a balanced budget, so you cannot have deficit spending here in Massachusetts. What they do is they pass during the year supplemental budgets, and of course all that does is that sets us up here in Massachusetts for a bigger budget next year. The budget always goes up, never goes down. And I think when deval Patrick was governed here in the early two thousands, our annual state budget somewhere around twenty twenty two billion dollars a year, which is a lot of money. It's now about sixty four billion dollars in the last twenty years, so it's it just triples. It's like a runaway freight train going downhill. It picks up speed.
00:18:09
Speaker 5: No, it's a real problem. And you have that skyrocketing in state and local spending. Yet you have this such a significant outbound migration going to places like Florida, Texas, North Carolina that are much better run, states that are more efficient with taxpayer dollars. And you know, it goes beyond just Massachusetts. Right If a state wants to rack up a big tab and spend money on silly things, I guess they're within their right to do it. What's not right is you have a place like Illinois and Chicago, the City of Chicago, which have junk bond ratings and they're going to need a federal bailout sometime in the next ten to fifteen years, the City of Chicago, probably earlier than that. So it's going to fall on every taxpayer around the country to fut that bill, and I just don't think that's right. There's a basic fairness aspect to these things, where why should a person in Florida have to use their tax dollars to bail out a state that has been so poorly run for so long that refuses to change. So I think that's where we have this bairness problem that people are sick of.
00:19:15
Speaker 2: The one thing that Boston and Chicago and that Illinois and Massachusetts have in common, it is for the most part, the one party states. So when you don't have competition competition of ideas, things get out of control because people can pretty much do as they want. We have a democratic state auditor who is trying desperately to audit the state legislature of the state Senate and the State House of Representatives that was mandated by a ballot initiative in twenty twenty four. Seventy two percent of the public who voted in that election voted for this audit, and our legislative leaders up until even as late as today are still fighting against the audit tooth and nail.
00:19:59
Speaker 5: No frustrating I can tell.
00:20:01
Speaker 2: How can folks either support or get in touch with the National Taxpayers Union. I'm sure you got a handy dandy website.
00:20:07
Speaker 5: Yes we do. You can go to NTU dot org, follow us on social media at NTU, and then, of course, continue to stay in the fight. Urge your member of Congress to support the Government Bailout Prevention Act, sponsored by Senator Young and Senator Cotton. It's a good bill and hopefully we can get it to the floor or through markup in due time.
00:20:27
Speaker 2: Yep, I appreciate it, Tom, Thank you so much. Love to have you back here on nightside. Appreciate you great, Thank you for having me here. Comes to news, we come back and I talk to a really courageous woman. Her name is Alissa Calver. She was diagnosed with stage four medic metastatic breast cancer. She's a survivor. She's foundered of She's founder of a nonprofit call we got this we got this dot org. And it's been five years since her diagnosis.
00:20:54
Speaker 5: They get a big.
00:20:54
Speaker 2: Golf tournament coming up in about ten days down at the up at the Indians Golf Club up in the Andover. We're going to talk with my guest, Alyssa Calvert, right after the news at the bottom of the hour.
00:21:07
Speaker 1: You're on Night Side with Dan Ray on you Bzy, Boston's news Radio.
00:21:12
Speaker 2: I won't extend the really warm welcome to Elisa Alyssa. Excuse me, Alyssa Calver, Alyssa, welcome to night Side.
00:21:20
Speaker 6: Thank you so much, excited to be here. Thanks for having me.
00:21:24
Speaker 2: Well, you're an amazing person. From what I read, you're a stage four metastatic breast cancer survivor. It's been five years since you were diagnosed, So just to put it in perspective, I'm assuming you would diagnose sometime in twenty twenty one.
00:21:42
Speaker 6: Yeah, so it was diagnosed July of twenty twenty one, and I'm about to hit five years this July, which is wild. At the time of diagnosis, there was if you googled it, which I don't recommend, but if you googled it, there was a twenty percent chance making it past five years, and so it's a huge milestone and to be able to continue to live and thrive with it is really amazing.
00:22:05
Speaker 2: How are you doing? I mean you sound great, but obviously how are you feeling these days?
00:22:12
Speaker 6: Thanks for asking. I balance a lot of different reality So, you know, I had a PETSYT scan earlier today. I just got back last night from doing a fundraiser in New York on Broadway, and I'm heading to Boston, you know, next week for fundraiser. We're doing my hometown of Andover. And so I balance in between a lot of these cancer realities with still living life fully. And that's been the part that I've tried to make a non negotiable or else I don't know how else I would have gone through it and continue to.
00:22:42
Speaker 2: And you're also a mom. How many children do you have?
00:22:47
Speaker 1: Yeah?
00:22:47
Speaker 6: So I was diagnosed just a few days before my daughter, Ellie's first birthday, and we're about to celebrate her fifth birthday coming up. So that's definitely good motivation to stay happy.
00:23:00
Speaker 2: You're six, It will be wastecond if she's If she's coming up your sixth birthday.
00:23:05
Speaker 6: Don't tell her. I just I just five on the brain.
00:23:10
Speaker 2: I'm a July baby. I'm July eighth. Is she July eighth?
00:23:13
Speaker 6: Biney chance July sixth? So close?
00:23:16
Speaker 2: Pretty close? Pretty close? Yeah? Okay, Well she was born in the same day that president, former president George Bush. She's a July he's a July sixth baby. You always know the people who have been born around your birthday. July July seventh baby, O J. Simpson. Anyway, let's come back. Let's come back. I got your laugh, which is good. Okay. So you guys have the fifth annual golf tournament coming up at Indian Ridge Golf Club. I'm not a golfer. I play maybe once a year, but this is on Monday, June eighth. So you have a you have a a program website. It's called we got This dot org. Tell us about that. Obviously, I assume it represents what exactly. It says that, yeah, this is a problem, there's something to deal with, but you got this.
00:24:12
Speaker 6: Yeah, And it's really about the idea that like, we all got this, and community is so important when it comes to cancer and hard times. And I realized that very quickly when being diagnosed, right before Ellie's first birthday, in that when I was pregnant or getting married. We make it really easy in the good times to give and receive and how we support each other, and I realized that that was a lot harder in the hard times. Everyone's kind of scrambling and asking how they can help, and it's this unintentional burden. So I came up with this idea for We got this in my fifth round of my original chemo, and I started GoFundMe for the idea to raise money and we had this first fundraiser and andover my hometown at Indian Ridge, And that's what really, you know, I took this to the next level of realizing the level of support that we have and that everyone is affected by cancer. I don't know anyone not affected by it, and so it's really important to me. Even though I lived with stage four breast cancer, it was really important to me that this was a solution for everyone, for all ages, every type of cancer. It's not only the first nonprofit gift registry for cancer patients, but there's a resource directory of other nonprofits that can help. There's recommendations of what products and services you might need or want a gift and we've continued to fund it through so many avenues, but one of the biggest being this golf tournament. And it was crazy because the first year that we did this, I had never done a fundraiser before at all, let alone a full on golf tournament. And since I grew up around the corner from Indian Ridge, they had a last minute date open and decided, you know, let's do it. You know, even we'll get some people out. A few weeks before it, I found out that my cancer had had come back in my left breast. I also had it spread to my brain. This was, you know, several years ago when we did the first annual golf tournament and everyone was like, you don't need to come out, we can reschedule, we can cancel it. And I asked myncologists and she's like, technically, between the week of radiation I had to do on my brain and my new chemo, She's like, you have to take a week off, so it's really up to you. So, you know, long story, Sure headed out on that plane. We ended up breaking six figures raised all this money to continue to keep this growing. We went last year from fifteen hundred users of the website to over fifteen thousand in just less than a year. So this fifth annual is like so special for so many reasons because it's like, you know, statistically might not have even been here, and as you can hear, like I'm living and thriving with this alongside it, not waiting for it to be over because it might never be over, and trying to make sure that we get to do that together. And that's really the wee part of it all.
00:27:00
Speaker 2: Well, the other thing that's interesting is that when you were diagnosed in twenty twenty one, we as a nation, we were at the depth of COVID. We were all wearing masks, we were all looking forward to our next set of shots. And on top of all of those worries and apprehensions that all of us were living with, you were living with an even more personal and a more deadly set of circumstances. It had to be an incredible journey for you and to have emerged at this point five years out. How can people are there still spots open on the tournament? People can get a forceome or just looking for individual golfers. What do you need for next? For Monday, June eighth.
00:27:47
Speaker 6: Yeah, we still have a few foursomes left. Would love for people to come out. If you're not a golfer or you can't make it for golf earlier in the day, the dinner banquet at night, you know, we have probably over one hundred people who just come for that too, because that's a party in itself. So if you can come out at all, getting a dinner ticket or golf includes dinner and all that. Also, if you go to we goot this dot org on our community page, you can see the event there. You just head right to we got This dot org slash events. I would love to get to meet you, get to tell you more about everything that we're doing.
00:28:21
Speaker 2: And I assume that this has grown every year a little bit.
00:28:25
Speaker 6: I hope yes. And you know what's really special about these opportunities to get together in person is it continues to grow with more stories, more people who you know, are positively affected by the things that we're trying to enhance, you know, for support in the community, and it's more opportunities to spread this message which is really at the root of it, about prioritizing joy and living. Because you know, I'm so grateful and lucky that there are treatments that have kept me alive and surviving. But I learned, you know, early on in this process that like, we also deserve to live our lives, and the survival to me is not enough, and I don't think it should be, you know, the bare minimum for anyone. So coming together, celebrating life and all the things that go with it and honoring people, I just it's been so special every year and I'm really excited for this year. So don't miss a Fit Annual. It's going to be a blowout.
00:29:20
Speaker 2: Okay, it's it's June eighth, Indian Ridge Golf Club and over mass. Every once in a while when I promote these things, someone will say, oh, we got so and so from the Patriots and so and so from the Celtics or the Bruins or whatever. Do you have any extra headliners up there? Or is everybody equally important to join you in this fight?
00:29:42
Speaker 4: Yeah?
00:29:42
Speaker 6: Well, I mean everyone's definitely equally important. We're working on a few names I can't I can't officially announce yet, but my buddy, the Boston Dad, if anyone follows him, he's so much fun and on a Boston staple, he'll be there. Again this year, and so many of our friends in the cancer to media as well. So yeah, everyone is so special to me that that comes and I appreciate it so much.
00:30:09
Speaker 2: Alissa, you got this. The website is we got this dot org Alyssa. Your your upbeat spirit is contagious. Thanks so much for being you, and thanks so much for fighting as hard as you have on behalf of yourself, your family and all of us.
00:30:26
Speaker 6: Thank you very much, Thank you so much. Thank you.
00:30:29
Speaker 2: You're very welcome. Will we get back. We're going to talk about another big medical problem, and that's the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It's fast outpacing containment efforts in that region. Questions concerns are mounting in the US. And we're going to talk with an infection prevention specialist and founder, a CEO of a company called arrow Clean, and we'll learn a lot more about ebola. But it's better to be prepared than to than to your ahead in the sand, that's for sure. Rainy Guest will join us, right, I think that's where're pronouncing the name. Will find out Rainy Guests coming back after this quick break on night.
00:31:09
Speaker 1: Side night Side with Dan Ray on WBZ Boston's news radio.
00:31:16
Speaker 2: Well, I think all of us have heard about the ebola outbreak in Africa, particularly in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. With us is Rainy Guest, who's an infection prevention specialist. Rainy, I remember a bola about ten years ago and it panicked people. We had a bola cases here. What did we learn from ten years ago that's going to help us hopefully prevent a repeat of a Bola coming to these shores.
00:31:49
Speaker 7: Yeah, Unfortunately, I don't think that we've learned a lot. There are just some basic lessons in infection prevention one oh one that nobody is following anymore. It's almost like we're wanting some panic with it.
00:32:03
Speaker 5: Now.
00:32:03
Speaker 7: I'll tell you one of the basic themes that we can all do to help protect ourselves against a bullet is just really hype up our hygiene. To make sure we're washing our hands frequently, make sure that we're you know, not rubbing our faces with our hands. Make sure that we're actually using disinfectants properly so that we're so that we can actually kill the germs before they infect us. Okay, So there's just some really simple.
00:32:28
Speaker 2: Beings Okay, So obviously at this time, just as when when COVID came, you just got to be a little bit more more careful and cautious. What about the idea of maybe reintroducing masks into our lives that I know was controversial, particularly masks. Masks controversial in the sense that when they were mandated, a lot of people said, well, I want to wear a mask, but I don't want the government to mandate that. Do you think we're getting close to that with the bowler or is that quite a ways off?
00:33:03
Speaker 7: Well, well, a bullet really isn't spread that way, right. It's not an aerolized pathogen, so that wouldn't be. It is spread by coming in contact with contaminated fluid and then touching yourself, giving it a portal under your body, your eyes, your nose, your mouth. So that is how e bullet is spread. The issue with and even with an aerosolized pathogen like COVID, COVID lives on surfaces for extended periods of time, so without the guidance of how to actually disinfect surfaces, those masks actually became an extra chain in the infection process because now what you had is you had people setting their masks on contaminated surfaces because they weren't disinfected properly, and then they were putting them up to their face for twenty four hours a day, so it actually became an issue. So we just don't have any proper guidance. So I don't see masks right now, but I'm sure that fear will will happen and people will want to revert back to some of the methodology that they were using during the COVID.
00:34:12
Speaker 2: Yeah. The reason I asked that is just in my own travels the last few days, you're going to the store or whatever, I've noticed it seems to be more more people, for better or worse, who were wearing masks. I don't know if it's coincidence or if it's concerned about abola, but obviously that has been in the news. It is a pretty tough, tough disease. Put it in context, though, if you would, you know more about this than I put it in context of where we are today. As to where we were, I think it was just about ten years ago. I could be wrong on that, but it was about a decade ago when when it came to America, there were people who were impacted in America. I don't think anyone has been actually, you know, I'm just found to have a bola at least as of this moment in America.
00:35:11
Speaker 4: Yeah.
00:35:12
Speaker 7: Correct, So we could be at a much better place today. So, but we're again, we're not because we're not educating people properly on actually how to kill the pathogens. We're focused on contact tracing, We're focused on giving a screening to somebody at an airport. We're focused on isolating people once they have the infection. So being in the world of infection prevention, uh, those are very reactive versus proactive measures. So let me ask you. Let's say you probably have products. Let's do a little education one on one for folks at home. So you probably have products that you use in your house right when you when people are sick and you want to, let's just say, disinfect your home or so and to tie your home. How do you go about doing that?
00:36:03
Speaker 2: Well? Simple, whatever products I have, I'm I'm kind of a bit of a clean freak. I make sure that my counters are always you know, washed down a couple of times a day with hot water. I'm not you know, doing it on every surface. But wherever food is, I want to make sure that is always clean, so that anything is what do you use, what you use whatever problem? Yeah, you know product names which I don't need to mention, but the typical products that people would have, I assume we get them at the grocery store like everyone else. There's these products, you know, cleaners. Obviously you're leading, you're leading the witness here and there's a lawyer. I know how you lead a witness. So you're doing a good job. Tell me, let's cut to the chase there and tell me what what you, as the CEO of aarrowclean want us to do. What are the products that what are the products that we should be using.
00:37:00
Speaker 7: Well, here's what you should be using my products because it kills germs.
00:37:05
Speaker 2: I'm with you under tell me about that.
00:37:08
Speaker 3: You're here.
00:37:10
Speaker 7: And it's safe. It kills germs really fast. So let's talk about what what is generally out there in the public. What is being used in airports, what's being used in hotels? Are products that actually they're quantinary ammonia based products and they have to sit wet on a surface for ten minutes in order to actually kill the germs. Okay, nobody did you ever hear about that during COVID Did anybody ever talk to you about that?
00:37:35
Speaker 2: Nope, you're telling me I explained to you that I've washed down you know, I will basically, we have a big island in the kitchen, and I'll take some paper towels, put hot water on them and rub them. Rub it down.
00:37:50
Speaker 7: And I want people to go under your kitchen sink and take out that bottle of whatever product you have under there that you're using to disinfect in your home.
00:38:00
Speaker 5: And if you read the.
00:38:01
Speaker 7: Little six point font on the back, what you're probably going to see is that in order to disinfect, you have to spray it on the surface and you have to let it sit for ten minutes. And what you find is if you actually try to do that, you're going to have to reapply that product three times in order for it to stay wet for ten minutes. So here's a huge gap in infection prevention that we have all these disinfectants that people are using in public facilities, in airports, in hotels, everywhere ten minutes and nobody lets it sit that long. And during COVID, it would have been prime time for somebody to come up and say, look, these products are safe. What they were saying is these products are safe and effective if you use them, according to the manufacturers.
00:38:46
Speaker 2: Any like any products. So tell me, because I'm running out of time here your product. You represent a company called arrow Clean.
00:38:54
Speaker 7: Yes, you go to aeroclean dot com. One hundred percent kill of pathogens and under a minute, which sounds like a long time, but when you compare it to the ten minutes of other projects, it's not allergenic.
00:39:06
Speaker 2: Yes, you have made the case. You've made it effectively as well. Arrowclean dot com. Where are you located.
00:39:15
Speaker 7: We're located in Texas, where the world couple be.
00:39:18
Speaker 2: Okay, we'll see about that. I guess I don't know.
00:39:22
Speaker 1: I'm not a big I'm not.
00:39:24
Speaker 2: A big FIFA soccer person. I'm a baseball guy. I'm a hopeless Red Sox fan. Okay, so cut me some slack here so arrow Clean people can can get did I what?
00:39:35
Speaker 5: Oh? I said?
00:39:36
Speaker 7: Did you play baseball?
00:39:37
Speaker 2: Yes? I did in high school and college. Yeah that's about as far as I went though. So I'm not criticizing anybody, trust me, repeat, A lot of people better than me. So arrow Clean products, I'm trying.
00:39:46
Speaker 7: To work with you here so go Aeroclean A R R O W C L e A N dot com. Go to aeroclean dot com. You can read about it and buy it online.
00:39:57
Speaker 2: Perfect, and you guys should help you out. You guys ship it. Absolutely don't have to go through Amazon. We can go directly to you.
00:40:04
Speaker 7: Just send us an email and we'll get you some product.
00:40:06
Speaker 2: All right, I'm gonna send you an email, gonna send to your attention, and I'm gonna you're gonna help me out here and guide me a little bit.
00:40:12
Speaker 7: Okay, I'm gonna guide you in the right direction.
00:40:15
Speaker 2: That's that's the only direction I want to ever be. Got to trust me on that. Rady guest, thank you so much, Arrowclean dot Calm. Thanks Rady, great, great, thanks a fun interview. Absolutely, okay, thanks so much. All Right, we're done with the nine. When we come back, we're going to talk about the town of Rutland, Massachusetts. It will never have gotten as much publicity as they're gonna get today or tonight here on Night Side, and it is not necessarily going to be good publicity. We'll be back after the nine o'clock news
