No, the headline isn’t hyperbolic. If anything it UNDER-states the scope of the suffering and death RFK Jr.’s new vaccine policy will cause. Decades ago he read a bogus study about vaccines and autism and turned it into a “cause” to get attention for himself. He’s rich, has an outsized ego and measured against his father who’s name he’s traded on his whole life, and several other members of his family he’s a lightweight. Vaccine “denial” (HE and HIS have been vaccinated of course!) has made people pay attention to him. That’s all he cares about, attention. If it costs people their health or their very lives he doesn’t care.
Clearly I despise this guy who if he wasn’t from such a prominent family, and named for his deservedly famous and beloved father wouldn’t be jack-sh*t. He knows that’s true. He KNOWS it. It’s not like he’s low intellect. On the contrary. That’s what’s so infuriating about him. Given his family, he could have chosen to devote himself as some in that family including his father to making this country and individuals lives better. However that kind of work is difficult. Rather than put forth that kind of effort, yet craving the fame some of his relatives attained he found a hobbyhorse to ride – the once small Anti-Vax movement.
That was bad as he helped bring enough attention to these idiots for it to become a sustained movement. However he still wasn’t regularly getting the worship he felt was his due, especially after the study he used to launch himself into a leading voice of the anti-vaxxers was debunked. He COULD have stood up and said he was sorry for not having learned more about the issue. And resolved to be a watchdog to ensure we moved forward with vaccine development in as safe a manner as possible.
Therein lies the appalling and deadly tragedy. RFK Jr. has to some degree talked some of that talk but in no way has he walked it! In fact, he’s used his platform to deny and obstruct vaccine development and vaccination programs under the guise of what he calls ‘public safety.’ Did he ever get a medical degree or education/training in public health, infectious disease prevention and treatment? Nope. He just kept spouting LIES that he knew were lies because it got him attention. What he HAS done is get vaccinated himself, as have his loved ones. He’s a ‘Vaccines for me, but not for thee” anal orifice. Now, incredibly this despicable man is a Cabinet official with control over this nation’s health care policy.
As this article from the Associated Press tells us he’s using his authority at HHS to pull $500 million of funding from mRNA vaccine development and use. The AP tells us HHS is cancelling contracts on developing vaccines for even common respiratory viruses/illnesses like COVID and the flu:
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced in a statement Tuesday that 22 projects, totaling $500 million, to develop vaccines using mRNA technology will be halted.
Kennedy’s decision to terminate the projects is the latest in a string of decisions that have put the longtime vaccine critic’s doubts about shots into full effect at the nation’s health department. Kennedy has pulled back recommendations around the COVID-19 shots, fired the panel that makes vaccine recommendations, and refused to offer a vigorous endorsement of vaccinations as a measles outbreak worsened.
Kennedy seems to have a real bug up his waxed a$$ about mRNA vaccines. Trump likes to take credit for the project that used the technology to fight COVID once the pandemic grew to where even he couldn’t deny what was taking place. The technology had actually been around for quite a while. Still, the century old method of using chicken eggs to produce vaccines was pretty much the only game in town when Obama toured a facility and learned so little effort had been made to move to cheaper and more rapidly developed, produced and distributed vaccines that were effective. THAT is when if not enough, mRNA vaccine development got enough steady funding to get to a point where when COVID overwhelmed this country and the world the vaccine to fight it became prevalent.
Rather than keep using antiquated methods Obama fostered a move to use methods that took advantage of all we’ve learned how to do since the early days of vaccines. Groundbreaking as it was back then the options were limited and little was done to improve on the original process for as I said damned near a CENTURY! The mRNA technology is light years better and offers potential vaccines for more than respiratory viruses and other common ones:
Scientists are using mRNA for more than infectious disease vaccines, with researchers around the world exploring its use for cancer immunotherapies. At the White House earlier this year, billionaire tech entrepreneur Larry Ellison praised mRNA for its potential to treat cancer.
Traditionally, vaccines have required growing pieces of viruses, often in chicken eggs or giant vats of cells, then purifying that material. The mRNA approach starts with a snippet of genetic code that carries instructions for making proteins. Scientists pick the protein to target, inject that blueprint and the body makes just enough to trigger immune protection — producing its own vaccine dose.
As I’ve pointed out RFK Jr. is no scientist. No medical education or training, no public health education or training. Just an amateur’s fascination with biology – i.e. his cutting up dead animals. And a little reading of articles on medical stuff but not really the education/training, much less clinical experience to discern what’s credible and what’s not. He IS however in charge of Health and Human Services even though he’s totally unqualified (which is the only qualification that matters to Trump!) and his ego is such he “Knows” he knows more than people with decades of training and experience. He’s by god decided vaccines (at least for most of us) are bad, and if we ARE going to get them they have to be produced the old-fashioned way using chicken eggs. You think egg prices are crazy now? Imagine tens of millions, hell into the hundreds of millions if there’s another pandemic being diverted to vaccine production!
The dude doesn’t understand mRNA research and technology any more than I do. However I’M willing to admit it and trust people who’ve devoted careers to the matter who DO know this stuff. And with COVID when we really needed a magic bullet they were able to step up and provide it. And deal with the mutations (as happens with different strains of flu from year to year) RFK Jr. seems to be so worried about. However like Trump his ego just doesn’t allow him to admit he’s been wrong and especially on something big. If the price is countless suffering and death then so be it. And according to experts that’s exactly what this decision to gut funding for this vaccine technology almost certainly will happen:
“I don’t think I’ve seen a more dangerous decision in public health in my 50 years in the business,” said Mike Osterholm, a University of Minnesota expert on infectious diseases and pandemic preparations.
He noted mRNA technology offers potential advantages of rapid production, crucial in the event of a new pandemic that requires a new vaccine.
The shelving of the mRNA projects is short-sighted as concerns about a bird flu pandemic continue to loom, said Dr. Paul Offit, a vaccine expert at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.
“It’s certainly saved millions of lives,” Offit said of the existing mRNA vaccines.
It wasn’t a laughing matter when during Trump’s first term Wannabe Princess Ivanka (and her equally lightweight hubby) went to DC to ‘play Government.’ Ok, so sometimes her foibles were amusing, especially when she tried to ‘play Diplomat’ with foreign officials and they blew her off. Still, she couldn’t do much actual damage because as I noted other countries ignored her (and made fun of her like we did) and the bulk of our institutional guardrails were strong enough to hold. We are in different times now and unlike Ivanka RFK Jr. is in a position that can do real, terrible damage. DEADLY damage, and he’s been doing it.
Well, we’re getting to the time of year when we will be scheduling flu shots and COVID booster shots. The latter has become like flu shots – scientists look at the data on what strains seem to be prevalent during the first half of the year and produce vaccines for those strains. It’s a system that’s proven largely effective for decades with the flu and seems to have been so with the newer COVID virus strains.
The burning question for me is whether THIS year’s vaccines for Flu and COVID are far enough down the track that for one more year I and everyone else who has common sense, who believes in science can avail ourselves of the proven protection everyone should have. We can only hope political leaders and journalists will dig into the matter and provide an answer. Soon. In the meantime all I can do is fervently wish that there IS a hell, that RFK Jr. was in it AND that he’s suffering the effects of easily preventable diseases. Still too good for the likes of him but I can always dream.
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Dude eats roadkill and swims in raw sewage.
I can’t say that enough.
Your lead photo says it all: check out the Mad-Eye living in his left socket. It doesn’t appear to be in parallel with the other one, which is a pretty good metaphor for his inability to see reality.