I was too young to get the pertussis vaccine when I came down with whooping cough. As an infant at the time, I have no memory of it, but my parents and siblings told me of the terror they experienced when I couldn’t breathe. They would hold me upside down by my feet in case that would help. Mom told me how she couldn’t watch when the doctor gave me injections in needles she described as more sized for a horse than a baby. Every child who had played with my siblings had to get treated. No, you don’t want that.
Johnathan thank you to you and Sam for speaking out and telling everyone hoe terrible RFKjr it. As a Nurse Practitioner of 30 years I am so upset about what is happening at the CDC, with Vaccines, and research to name just a few that I have a hard time expressing myself. I believe we will all have shorter lives because of what is being done to our healthcare system.
We will not know what discoveries are not made because so much research has been stopped already. Not to mention all infrastructure monitoring for Pandemic and Bird Flu has been stopped. Not to mention canceling og funding for mRNA vaccines. Curing cancer Alheimers Heart disease. Did you know there was a trail that was shrinking solid cancerous tumors? Stopped now. all gone for now. It will take a generation to repair the damage to research that has already been done. I keep up with weekly news on Clinical update with Daniel Griffin, and Vincent Raceniello on Microbe TV on You Tube. They also have a video version of Paul Offit’s column that I know you are familiar with. I could go on but won’t.
What is happening at the CDC is emblematic of the entire GOP. The entire Republican Party is complicit in this destruction of our government and making government "small enough to drown in a bathtub" has been their agenda since Reagan. They are incapable of proper governance because they are against governance because they believe in the proven false "market forces" ideology.
Understand that markets have never solved a problem, markets create them. Problems are solved by competent individuals and political will. The GOP reject that fact and must be removed from power if we are to have a functional, liberal society.
I too have some hope that the vaccine issue will become salient. At my annual doctor visit, my doc ran down the list of vaccines she recommended for me, then cautioned that I should check on my insurance coverage before getting them, because vaccines are expensive. She threw out a figure of $450 retail, I believe for the shingles vaccine. She spoke very gently about why they might not be covered, like “because there have been recent changes in some of the advice . . .” Imagine going to get flu, Covid, and shingles shots, and being billed unexpectedly for $1500. Yikes. That said, I have to wonder if insurance companies will see this as a business decision and continue to cover vaccinations regardless of CDC recommendations (or whatever we’re calling what they say now) because often they see the wisdom of paying for relatively inexpensive preventative care versus paying for the ICU and testing and all that’s triggered when the insured gets seriously ill. I’m increasingly appalled at the hypocrisy and overreach of this supposedly “conservative” regime. Whatever happened to “you do you,” or “live and let live.” Increasingly they just want to ruin everything for the rest of us.
This is the 60 Minutes Australia piece about the ridiculous "billionaire bunkers" that are being built in various places around the world in supposed low to no impact areas of any potential worldwide catastrophe (like nuclear war).
31:07 - Sam says he doesn't know if Trump really gives a shit - imo that statement needs to be a little more specific;
Trump doesn't give a shit if anyone dies, with an exception for himself (and he's positively delusional about his own current and future potential health) - there may also be a 'kind of concern' for those in his close immediate family (I highly doubt it).
Other than that, for example - his nephew (Fred Trump III) wrote in his book that he had approached Trump about getting the proper assistance paid for with the complex and around-the-clock care that Fred's son needs because of his disability.
He also advocated for others with costly disability care to his uncle - all this while DJT was President AND while Fred and Donald were physically in the Oval Office - Donald Trump's response was something to the effect of 'your son doesn't even know who you are' and 'why don't you just let him die'.
So no, he doesn't "give a shit", but he's also receiving, to coin a phrase - back-door influence* - from the likes of JD Vance, Peter Thiel and the rest of the billionaires and silicon valley idiots that a reduction in population is how they aim to overcome things like immigration, overpopulation, climate change, and whatever other designs against the common good for humanity they have -
FFS many of them (the billionaires worldwide) are building hardened underground bunkers** in places like New Zealand so they are able to escape whatever global catastrophe(s) they may actually support.
So, for me, "he doesn't give a shit" doesn't quite cover it, or express the literal existential danger of it all.
* - and yes, I'm sarcastically "inserting" the worst possible meaning of that phrase 🤣)
•• - you can search YouTube for "billionaires underground bunkers" - beware, there are a ton of what I consider to be "sketchy people" doing "reporting" on this - below is a link to a 3 year old VICE video
I'm positive that a reputable channel in Australia also did a story on this - maybe 60 Minutes Australia - I'll post that here when I find it again -
Perhaps the original "doomsday plan" for an apocalyptic event such as a nuclear war.
This covers the original US Federal Government plan and explains its continuation through the 2008 financial crisis (hint: it's how the rich will survive and the rest of us - the people surviving - will provide what the rich need afterwards).
Kennedy is using his brain worm to destroy our major protector of the public's health, the CDC. The dismantling of science at the CDC will have an incredible cascading effect at every level of society and in the world. Every US state health department works closely with the CDC and uses their expertise and knowledge (including data) for their own state public health activities. In turn every local health department (county, city) relies on their state health department for the same. Every major medical health organization similarly is part of that network. All of this is based not just on the efficient use of resources but also on cooperation and trust that what comes from the CDC is science based, and as accurate as possible at each moment, but is also transparent - debates about what should or shouldn't happen are readily made available. Furthermore, many nations in the world, especially those with less available resources to do their own research, have relied on the CDC as a gold standard of information and expertise.
To be clear, I never worked at the CDC but in over thirty years heading a state funded-university based public health agency, working at a state health department and then working at a major medical association's public health and research department, I had frequent contact with the CDC as did all of my colleagues at every level. What the Trump/Kennedy team is doing to the CDC and to all of the research funded by the government will have a disastrous impact. We have only a short period of time before the next pandemic hits and rather than the disease control and prevention provided by this entire system, we will have assurance from Trump like the last time that it will go away in a few days. Even his ultimately successful Operation Warp Speed that led to control of COVID won't be possible because the researchers will have left or been fired, the companies that could have produced a new vaccine will have left the country or gone out of business, and we'll have to go begging from our former allies or even China for help - or they may just sit and watch America die.
I am not trying to troll, but the ONLY logical explanation to describe what is going on
with RFK, Trump and this cabinet posts and enablers etc is that the country is experiencing a sort of pandemic-of-mass-mental-illness that has taken hold of this administration.
It boggles my mind what a lack of conscience and consciousness RFK displays.
Not to mention an abysmal lack of humility with regard to his complete lack of understanding of science, and the scientific method
The quacky and wacky notions of RFK jr. should be an embarrassment to this administration and everyone who voted for his confirmation. His placement in a position of influence over health policy is a mind-boggling, national disgrace.
Add Dr. Monarez to the list of female public servants telling the Trump admin “go ahead and try me, fuckers.”
Men aren’t as used to dealing with weak and cowardly men bullying them, so they fold. If they were, they’d know you don’t give in. You expose their weakness.
Phyllis Fong, Dr. Monarez, Lisa Cook, and Danielle Sassoon took the path of defiance. Fong had to literally be dragged out of her office. Monarez and Cook are standing firm under immense pressure. Sassoon only resigned because she knew Emil Bove would be fucked without her, and it worked.
The guy who wrote the letter should have stayed and simply said no to whatever RFK asked for. Let them fire him.
This is just the tip of the iceberg. If people think junior is going to stop at vaccines, they are out of their minds. He’s going after psychiatric meds next, then GLP-1s, and eventually anything else he can get his leathery, UV-damaged mitts on.
The scariest thing to me is that he currently holds the highest approval rating of any of Trump’s cabinet members at 55%. Even a lot of democrats will say things like “Yeah the anti-vac stuff isn’t great, maybe he’ll clean up our food system.”
This is the direct consequence of a failure to address scientific and health literacy in schools. We are still teaching science the same way we did 30 years ago, when people didn’t have access to medical and scientific literature that they are utterly unqualified to interpret and understand. A different approach is needed in the current media environment, where the average person is incapable of distinguishing between retrospective studies, clinical trial phases, mouse models, preliminary research results, correlation vs. causation, etc. They don’t understand that lawsuits are not science.
There are people trying to fight the avalanche of disinformation, but they are drowning. I’m afraid even if a lot of people die and suffer, and overall measures of public health decline, we won’t learn anything. We didn’t learn from Covid, and you know Trump will just fire anyone who reports the data honestly.
Yall need to talk to moms who had babies during covid and had young kids at home. And ones where both parents weren’t working from home and able to travel. Try some that were in red states. Please. Literally begging.
I was too young to get the pertussis vaccine when I came down with whooping cough. As an infant at the time, I have no memory of it, but my parents and siblings told me of the terror they experienced when I couldn’t breathe. They would hold me upside down by my feet in case that would help. Mom told me how she couldn’t watch when the doctor gave me injections in needles she described as more sized for a horse than a baby. Every child who had played with my siblings had to get treated. No, you don’t want that.
Johnathan thank you to you and Sam for speaking out and telling everyone hoe terrible RFKjr it. As a Nurse Practitioner of 30 years I am so upset about what is happening at the CDC, with Vaccines, and research to name just a few that I have a hard time expressing myself. I believe we will all have shorter lives because of what is being done to our healthcare system.
We will not know what discoveries are not made because so much research has been stopped already. Not to mention all infrastructure monitoring for Pandemic and Bird Flu has been stopped. Not to mention canceling og funding for mRNA vaccines. Curing cancer Alheimers Heart disease. Did you know there was a trail that was shrinking solid cancerous tumors? Stopped now. all gone for now. It will take a generation to repair the damage to research that has already been done. I keep up with weekly news on Clinical update with Daniel Griffin, and Vincent Raceniello on Microbe TV on You Tube. They also have a video version of Paul Offit’s column that I know you are familiar with. I could go on but won’t.
Thank you all for your work.
What is happening at the CDC is emblematic of the entire GOP. The entire Republican Party is complicit in this destruction of our government and making government "small enough to drown in a bathtub" has been their agenda since Reagan. They are incapable of proper governance because they are against governance because they believe in the proven false "market forces" ideology.
Understand that markets have never solved a problem, markets create them. Problems are solved by competent individuals and political will. The GOP reject that fact and must be removed from power if we are to have a functional, liberal society.
I too have some hope that the vaccine issue will become salient. At my annual doctor visit, my doc ran down the list of vaccines she recommended for me, then cautioned that I should check on my insurance coverage before getting them, because vaccines are expensive. She threw out a figure of $450 retail, I believe for the shingles vaccine. She spoke very gently about why they might not be covered, like “because there have been recent changes in some of the advice . . .” Imagine going to get flu, Covid, and shingles shots, and being billed unexpectedly for $1500. Yikes. That said, I have to wonder if insurance companies will see this as a business decision and continue to cover vaccinations regardless of CDC recommendations (or whatever we’re calling what they say now) because often they see the wisdom of paying for relatively inexpensive preventative care versus paying for the ICU and testing and all that’s triggered when the insured gets seriously ill. I’m increasingly appalled at the hypocrisy and overreach of this supposedly “conservative” regime. Whatever happened to “you do you,” or “live and let live.” Increasingly they just want to ruin everything for the rest of us.
This is the 60 Minutes Australia piece about the ridiculous "billionaire bunkers" that are being built in various places around the world in supposed low to no impact areas of any potential worldwide catastrophe (like nuclear war).
It's from June of 2024:
https://youtu.be/HIRsJTHhtdo?si=v4QxQVxgr6YOKasl
31:07 - Sam says he doesn't know if Trump really gives a shit - imo that statement needs to be a little more specific;
Trump doesn't give a shit if anyone dies, with an exception for himself (and he's positively delusional about his own current and future potential health) - there may also be a 'kind of concern' for those in his close immediate family (I highly doubt it).
Other than that, for example - his nephew (Fred Trump III) wrote in his book that he had approached Trump about getting the proper assistance paid for with the complex and around-the-clock care that Fred's son needs because of his disability.
He also advocated for others with costly disability care to his uncle - all this while DJT was President AND while Fred and Donald were physically in the Oval Office - Donald Trump's response was something to the effect of 'your son doesn't even know who you are' and 'why don't you just let him die'.
So no, he doesn't "give a shit", but he's also receiving, to coin a phrase - back-door influence* - from the likes of JD Vance, Peter Thiel and the rest of the billionaires and silicon valley idiots that a reduction in population is how they aim to overcome things like immigration, overpopulation, climate change, and whatever other designs against the common good for humanity they have -
FFS many of them (the billionaires worldwide) are building hardened underground bunkers** in places like New Zealand so they are able to escape whatever global catastrophe(s) they may actually support.
So, for me, "he doesn't give a shit" doesn't quite cover it, or express the literal existential danger of it all.
* - and yes, I'm sarcastically "inserting" the worst possible meaning of that phrase 🤣)
•• - you can search YouTube for "billionaires underground bunkers" - beware, there are a ton of what I consider to be "sketchy people" doing "reporting" on this - below is a link to a 3 year old VICE video
I'm positive that a reputable channel in Australia also did a story on this - maybe 60 Minutes Australia - I'll post that here when I find it again -
https://youtu.be/uQin210ZBAQ?si=E_I9_AZ0kPEr2e0e
____________________________
I did finally find the 60 Minutes Australia piece from last year about the "billionaire bunker" insanity -
https://youtu.be/HIRsJTHhtdo?si=v4QxQVxgr6YOKasl
"Trump doesn't give a shit if anyone dies, with an exception for himself"
Remember that he got leading edge treatment that he will allow to be denied to the rest of us:
https://www.science.org/content/article/heres-what-known-about-president-donald-trump-s-covid-19-treatment
The entire GOP is a travesty on top of criminal.
This is another related VICE video:
Perhaps the original "doomsday plan" for an apocalyptic event such as a nuclear war.
This covers the original US Federal Government plan and explains its continuation through the 2008 financial crisis (hint: it's how the rich will survive and the rest of us - the people surviving - will provide what the rich need afterwards).
https://youtu.be/clFlSRxErSY?si=724Z8m100LXGtAsb
Kennedy is using his brain worm to destroy our major protector of the public's health, the CDC. The dismantling of science at the CDC will have an incredible cascading effect at every level of society and in the world. Every US state health department works closely with the CDC and uses their expertise and knowledge (including data) for their own state public health activities. In turn every local health department (county, city) relies on their state health department for the same. Every major medical health organization similarly is part of that network. All of this is based not just on the efficient use of resources but also on cooperation and trust that what comes from the CDC is science based, and as accurate as possible at each moment, but is also transparent - debates about what should or shouldn't happen are readily made available. Furthermore, many nations in the world, especially those with less available resources to do their own research, have relied on the CDC as a gold standard of information and expertise.
To be clear, I never worked at the CDC but in over thirty years heading a state funded-university based public health agency, working at a state health department and then working at a major medical association's public health and research department, I had frequent contact with the CDC as did all of my colleagues at every level. What the Trump/Kennedy team is doing to the CDC and to all of the research funded by the government will have a disastrous impact. We have only a short period of time before the next pandemic hits and rather than the disease control and prevention provided by this entire system, we will have assurance from Trump like the last time that it will go away in a few days. Even his ultimately successful Operation Warp Speed that led to control of COVID won't be possible because the researchers will have left or been fired, the companies that could have produced a new vaccine will have left the country or gone out of business, and we'll have to go begging from our former allies or even China for help - or they may just sit and watch America die.
Why would we be taking any medical advice from brain worm RFKJR he is a liar and con artist but mostly he is not a MD
We wouldn't, but at least those who do will be less able to procreate. It's nature's way of eliminating the ones that fail to recognize danger.
I am not trying to troll, but the ONLY logical explanation to describe what is going on
with RFK, Trump and this cabinet posts and enablers etc is that the country is experiencing a sort of pandemic-of-mass-mental-illness that has taken hold of this administration.
It boggles my mind what a lack of conscience and consciousness RFK displays.
Not to mention an abysmal lack of humility with regard to his complete lack of understanding of science, and the scientific method
The quacky and wacky notions of RFK jr. should be an embarrassment to this administration and everyone who voted for his confirmation. His placement in a position of influence over health policy is a mind-boggling, national disgrace.
Add Dr. Monarez to the list of female public servants telling the Trump admin “go ahead and try me, fuckers.”
Men aren’t as used to dealing with weak and cowardly men bullying them, so they fold. If they were, they’d know you don’t give in. You expose their weakness.
Phyllis Fong, Dr. Monarez, Lisa Cook, and Danielle Sassoon took the path of defiance. Fong had to literally be dragged out of her office. Monarez and Cook are standing firm under immense pressure. Sassoon only resigned because she knew Emil Bove would be fucked without her, and it worked.
The guy who wrote the letter should have stayed and simply said no to whatever RFK asked for. Let them fire him.
Take a lesson, boys.
kennedy is an expert at suing Pharma. Also, the screwworm is here, which is so fitting for him!😆
https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/misc-emerging-topics/usda-suspends-southern-border-livestock-imports-over-new-world-screwworm
Very informative. Intelligent discussion, a rarity in our country these days. Thank you.
Let people know about the Vaccine Integrity Project through CIDRAP! CIDRAP is a great resource for all things public health.
https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/vaccine-integrity-project
This is just the tip of the iceberg. If people think junior is going to stop at vaccines, they are out of their minds. He’s going after psychiatric meds next, then GLP-1s, and eventually anything else he can get his leathery, UV-damaged mitts on.
The scariest thing to me is that he currently holds the highest approval rating of any of Trump’s cabinet members at 55%. Even a lot of democrats will say things like “Yeah the anti-vac stuff isn’t great, maybe he’ll clean up our food system.”
This is the direct consequence of a failure to address scientific and health literacy in schools. We are still teaching science the same way we did 30 years ago, when people didn’t have access to medical and scientific literature that they are utterly unqualified to interpret and understand. A different approach is needed in the current media environment, where the average person is incapable of distinguishing between retrospective studies, clinical trial phases, mouse models, preliminary research results, correlation vs. causation, etc. They don’t understand that lawsuits are not science.
There are people trying to fight the avalanche of disinformation, but they are drowning. I’m afraid even if a lot of people die and suffer, and overall measures of public health decline, we won’t learn anything. We didn’t learn from Covid, and you know Trump will just fire anyone who reports the data honestly.
Yall need to talk to moms who had babies during covid and had young kids at home. And ones where both parents weren’t working from home and able to travel. Try some that were in red states. Please. Literally begging.