From the March 5, 2021, edition of Fox News' The Ingraham Angle

LAURA INGRAHAM (HOST): Dr. Alexander, what's really frustrating, and I'm not a medical expert, but I happen to have the great privilege and a great blessing of knowing really smart people who are not going to be waving their hands around if something's not important. We were interviewing Dr. Steven Smith -- I think it was in March of last year. And this was at the very beginning of the pandemic, he was treating all of these COVID patients. And he kept talking about metabolic syndrome.

DR. PAUL ELIAS ALEXANDER (FORMER HHS ADVISER): Yes.

INGRAHAM: And the problem with people with high BMI, body mass index, that is such a huge problem. It was in Italy early on, it was one of the main comorbidities along with hypertension, pre-hypertension, diabetes, so forth. So, he said — I think at the time — America needs to go on a diet.

ALEXANDER: Absolutely.

INGRAHAM: That's one of the things we can do. And you never hear Fauci talk about that, or D3 or ivermectin, because they haven't even given emergency use authorization for ivermectin, haven't even put out anything about that. They're way behind all these other countries.

ALEXANDER: Definitely. And we have a lot of good science now — and this early treatment you just mentioned for elderly high-risk people. But back to that point, the issue is that the metabolic syndrome, excess weight, and this stomach area, high blood pressure, high sugar, et cetera. We know this is a serious risk factor, especially for the minority population. And I think that CDC and people like Dr. Fauci should use the podium to come to the people and have this very serious, important conversation. It will dramatically reduce your risk. And your medicine cabinet — I've been looking at your medicine cabinet have dealt with this for over a year. This is not new to them. This data has always been there, they've actually squandered and failed this opportunity.