If the Democrats are able to get back to power, I'm realizing that it will be insufficient to have a wholesale purge of RFK appointees and the hiring back of experts (at necessarily greatly increased salaries, because of the tremendous unreliability of the American people as employers).
What we'll need to have is the immediate, strict, regulation of the supplements industry. No supplement whose safety and efficacy can't be proven goes to market--period. MAHA influencers will be a lot less likely to continue their disinformation campaigns if their profit motive is suddenly and completely wiped from the face of the earth.
agree with Joe Murphy, " immediate, strict, regulation of the supplements industry" will take profit-motive away from MAHA influencers who ignore science to make money off of people using supplements instead of getting vaccinated. (Re Jonathan Cohn, on RFK)
Another contributor- functional illiteracy. Voters with it still get to vote. See how serious functional illiteracy is. https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZP8B7Yrfv/
No worries, just remember that nature always wins regardless of conspiracy theories and slanted statistics. The unfortunate fact is that we now have to independently confirm anything that CDC puts out and that cannot be done by reference to the internet which has no peer review.
My guess is that we are returning to roughly the same public health climate which obtained in this country after the flu epidemic in 1919. As vaccination rates decline we will probably be treated to a concomitant rise in infectious disease, particularly among the elderly, compromised, and children. Nature always wins.
My elders taught me that we are all related to every living thing. Now it seems that the true situation is exactly that. I am just a dumb old traditional Cherokee Indian so you can safely ignore anything I say.
Indigenous people have always respected and honored nature and human existence in, on, and with it. As a Buddhist, i share that relationship with all living things.
Being in right relation is important, many of our old stories tell of what happens when this situation does not obtain. Spoiler alert - it does not end well.
Thanks for the deep dive into this. Tragically for us this whole country is now run by conspiracy theorists and their "alternative facts". How can half of the Congress go along with this? They must realize the cost it will have starting with CDC and on to the DOJ, Defense, Intelligence, etc - it's beyond nuts! We are being set up for disaster - a new war, a new pandemic and on...
“You need to say, ‘This is what we think we know, but this may change tomorrow,’ and just be really clear about risk communication,” Daskalakis said. “You need to approach everything with less confidence and hubris, and more transparency.”
It's a Catch-22, because the science-illiterate masses can't grasp that, and see it as a weakness, instead of the counterintuitive strength that it is. Scientists want to learn, and find the answers that help everyone, even if it means occasionally having to admit being wrong. Whereas the masses crave the cocky confidence of snake oil salesmen, even when they have zero evidence to back up their sales pitch. As JVL put it: “If you’re an expert who gets one thing wrong, it damns you. If you’re a total lunatic crank who gets one thing right, it makes you bulletproof.”
"well-known vaccine critics"? These are cranks, charlatans and grifters. "critics" makes it sound like they could be part of a rational discussion, where the only correct approach is to shun and shame wherever possible. These are vile people and the very worst that can happen to them is not remotely as bad as they deserve.
Yes! It also makes me cringe when they're called "skeptics." As you know, a skeptic means someone who requires evidence. Technically those who accept that vaccination works are the skeptics, while the deniers, and liars who peddle irrational denial, are the very opposite of skeptics.
All of this just proves the ignorance of RFK, Jr. He has no business in this position. I think of how so many more people could have lived if they had received the Covid vaccine. It’s really disheartening. I was just told the other day that funding for research for pancreatic cancer has been pretty much eliminated. My mother died of pancreatic cancer -at that time I had read that pancreatic cancer was the 4th leading cause of deaths by cancer and that it was the one for which the least amount of money for research was being spent. It is so devastating that these qualified professionals are being replaced by a bunch of medical conspiracy theorists. People’s lives and well being are at stake. RFK needs to find another job. Maybe he could start his own restaurant serving road kill he’s apparently so fond of eating.
This is a travesty!Kennedy has no business directing a tea party let alone an organization as vital as CDC. Daskalakis is a hero and I hope someone will recognize his contributions and fire Kennedy before he can do any more dismantling.
Unfortunately, that will never happen in this administration. Hopefully he’ll land somewhere in a university where his skills and knowledge will be use teaching new physicians.
Multiply this story by 100 and you have a just part of the loss at one agency. Decent caring people who dedicated their careers to helping others. I truly do not understand the kind of people who want this.
Daskalakis is truly a hero I am so grateful for the work that he and others have done to make and keep us healthy. And that he is using his voice to speak out about the dangers we are facing with the destruction of the CDC. I hope he will continue working in whatever way he can to continue his work.
I think it would be interesting for Jonathan Cohn to do a deep dive into some of the lower-level Trump appointees at DHHS, like Makary, Prasad, and Battacharya. They have large social media followings that came about during Covid, and seem to get good coverage from the right-wing media while flying under the left’s radar. I’d be interested to hear Jonathan’s thoughts on their roles on MAHA, if he hasn’t given them already.
He is seen as the second coming by his lost and blinded sheep when in reality he is the antichrist and will take them all straight to hell….no get out of jail free cards
I pray this does not come to pass and that we are not collateral damage
About the inclusion of pronouns and "pregnant person" - one of the first diktats that came down across the entire federal government in January was the forbidding of the use of pronouns in certain ways on websites, in email signatures, in Teams identification, etc, and also the forbidding of the use of a whole slew of other terms including things like "pregnant person". Using these in the resignation letter was a pushback against these decrees.
A huge amount of taxpayer money was used to enforce these decrees because it sucked up a ton of time especially at the high paid senior staff level. Similarly, changing to Gulf of America probably wasted millions of dollars.
That there is so much emotional energy and disproportionate anger around these terms demonstrates what great and distracting weapons were given to Kennedy.
If the Democrats are able to get back to power, I'm realizing that it will be insufficient to have a wholesale purge of RFK appointees and the hiring back of experts (at necessarily greatly increased salaries, because of the tremendous unreliability of the American people as employers).
What we'll need to have is the immediate, strict, regulation of the supplements industry. No supplement whose safety and efficacy can't be proven goes to market--period. MAHA influencers will be a lot less likely to continue their disinformation campaigns if their profit motive is suddenly and completely wiped from the face of the earth.
agree with Joe Murphy, " immediate, strict, regulation of the supplements industry" will take profit-motive away from MAHA influencers who ignore science to make money off of people using supplements instead of getting vaccinated. (Re Jonathan Cohn, on RFK)
Retribution and disinformation are brain-numbing bedfellows. Each feeds on the other, crowding out critical thinking and compassion.
Another contributor- functional illiteracy. Voters with it still get to vote. See how serious functional illiteracy is. https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZP8B7Yrfv/
No worries, just remember that nature always wins regardless of conspiracy theories and slanted statistics. The unfortunate fact is that we now have to independently confirm anything that CDC puts out and that cannot be done by reference to the internet which has no peer review.
My guess is that we are returning to roughly the same public health climate which obtained in this country after the flu epidemic in 1919. As vaccination rates decline we will probably be treated to a concomitant rise in infectious disease, particularly among the elderly, compromised, and children. Nature always wins.
For confirmation, see the 2009 TV series Life After People, an eye-opening look at how Nature lives on without human intervention.
My elders taught me that we are all related to every living thing. Now it seems that the true situation is exactly that. I am just a dumb old traditional Cherokee Indian so you can safely ignore anything I say.
Indigenous people have always respected and honored nature and human existence in, on, and with it. As a Buddhist, i share that relationship with all living things.
Being in right relation is important, many of our old stories tell of what happens when this situation does not obtain. Spoiler alert - it does not end well.
Thanks for the deep dive into this. Tragically for us this whole country is now run by conspiracy theorists and their "alternative facts". How can half of the Congress go along with this? They must realize the cost it will have starting with CDC and on to the DOJ, Defense, Intelligence, etc - it's beyond nuts! We are being set up for disaster - a new war, a new pandemic and on...
“You need to say, ‘This is what we think we know, but this may change tomorrow,’ and just be really clear about risk communication,” Daskalakis said. “You need to approach everything with less confidence and hubris, and more transparency.”
It's a Catch-22, because the science-illiterate masses can't grasp that, and see it as a weakness, instead of the counterintuitive strength that it is. Scientists want to learn, and find the answers that help everyone, even if it means occasionally having to admit being wrong. Whereas the masses crave the cocky confidence of snake oil salesmen, even when they have zero evidence to back up their sales pitch. As JVL put it: “If you’re an expert who gets one thing wrong, it damns you. If you’re a total lunatic crank who gets one thing right, it makes you bulletproof.”
"well-known vaccine critics"? These are cranks, charlatans and grifters. "critics" makes it sound like they could be part of a rational discussion, where the only correct approach is to shun and shame wherever possible. These are vile people and the very worst that can happen to them is not remotely as bad as they deserve.
Yes! It also makes me cringe when they're called "skeptics." As you know, a skeptic means someone who requires evidence. Technically those who accept that vaccination works are the skeptics, while the deniers, and liars who peddle irrational denial, are the very opposite of skeptics.
All of this just proves the ignorance of RFK, Jr. He has no business in this position. I think of how so many more people could have lived if they had received the Covid vaccine. It’s really disheartening. I was just told the other day that funding for research for pancreatic cancer has been pretty much eliminated. My mother died of pancreatic cancer -at that time I had read that pancreatic cancer was the 4th leading cause of deaths by cancer and that it was the one for which the least amount of money for research was being spent. It is so devastating that these qualified professionals are being replaced by a bunch of medical conspiracy theorists. People’s lives and well being are at stake. RFK needs to find another job. Maybe he could start his own restaurant serving road kill he’s apparently so fond of eating.
It's beyond mere ignorance. By now he knows he's lying.
This is a travesty!Kennedy has no business directing a tea party let alone an organization as vital as CDC. Daskalakis is a hero and I hope someone will recognize his contributions and fire Kennedy before he can do any more dismantling.
Unfortunately, that will never happen in this administration. Hopefully he’ll land somewhere in a university where his skills and knowledge will be use teaching new physicians.
Multiply this story by 100 and you have a just part of the loss at one agency. Decent caring people who dedicated their careers to helping others. I truly do not understand the kind of people who want this.
Daskalakis is truly a hero I am so grateful for the work that he and others have done to make and keep us healthy. And that he is using his voice to speak out about the dangers we are facing with the destruction of the CDC. I hope he will continue working in whatever way he can to continue his work.
I think it would be interesting for Jonathan Cohn to do a deep dive into some of the lower-level Trump appointees at DHHS, like Makary, Prasad, and Battacharya. They have large social media followings that came about during Covid, and seem to get good coverage from the right-wing media while flying under the left’s radar. I’d be interested to hear Jonathan’s thoughts on their roles on MAHA, if he hasn’t given them already.
Decent Google search with useful special syntax explained,
https://www.google.com/search?q=-ai+site:.edu+proposal+2025+Makary+OR+Prasad+OR+Battacharya&num=100
Looks without google's artificial intelligence (-ai)
for statements from universities (site:.edu)
including two words: proposal 2025
AND naming any of Rebecca's three "low-level" researchers (OR must be in caps)
VARIATIONS
replace .edu with .gov
replace .edu with .org
replace proposal 2025
with research 2025
with controversy 2025
with policy 2025
with journal 2025
&num=100 means put all of the first 100 results on the very first page
"Send in the clowns? Don't bother, they're here!" Stephen Sondheim
"Such a bundle of imbecility never disgraced a nation." c 1778 Dr Samuel Johnson when England was losing America
We're so fucked.
He is seen as the second coming by his lost and blinded sheep when in reality he is the antichrist and will take them all straight to hell….no get out of jail free cards
I pray this does not come to pass and that we are not collateral damage
I almost just posted something about wondering how surprised these assholes are going to be when they end up in hell.
The CDC and Americans are the losers here, thanks to Trump and WormBrain.
I will say that the phrase "birthing people" ought to be retired. WOMEN give birth. "Birthing people" was progressive overreach.
About the inclusion of pronouns and "pregnant person" - one of the first diktats that came down across the entire federal government in January was the forbidding of the use of pronouns in certain ways on websites, in email signatures, in Teams identification, etc, and also the forbidding of the use of a whole slew of other terms including things like "pregnant person". Using these in the resignation letter was a pushback against these decrees.
A huge amount of taxpayer money was used to enforce these decrees because it sucked up a ton of time especially at the high paid senior staff level. Similarly, changing to Gulf of America probably wasted millions of dollars.
I dislike the term “pregnant people” but it doesn’t seem that important in the face of Trumpism. Once it’s defeated we’ll talk again.
That there is so much emotional energy and disproportionate anger around these terms demonstrates what great and distracting weapons were given to Kennedy.