Oh, mercy. This is not a good change. This is edging towards a bad change. Is nothing sacred? Apparently not. What’s going to happen to your people? Oh, right, you don’t care, you just want to look good, but this isn’t helping. We haven’t even *seen* anything for HHS yet. After the shocks of this past week, I suppose we now have to be cynical and look for more garbage.
The Orange Baby Balloon has told multiple federal agencies under HHS to go dark. No more external communications. This has unnerved outside experts about the direction of HHS under the Mango Mandarin. The order was given by Stefanie Spear, a newly hired deputy chief of staff for HHS. It gave no details, no reasons, nothing, just don’t “communicate with the outside world until we say so”. Erk.
This affects a lot of things that it’s not good to just … shut off. The CDC staff were planning to publish updates on the H5N1 avian influenza which has started to affect cattle, other mammals, and *humans*. I also happen to know there is a vaccine for bird flu that was going through approvals and now who knows when those will be Available? This is highly contagious and I don’t want to go through “Covid Lite” because someone is an idiot. (This is also going to affect the price of eggs since there are fewer birds available to lay them. Duh.) I know I’m sidetracked onto eggs instead of the CDC but it continues to amuse me far more than it should.
Anyhow, back to business, I promise. For now. Research has submitted information in the MMWR, which often serves as a look into important health trends and crises – like, say, bird flu. This is just one example of the multiple agencies that can no longer provide updates on health issues at this time. That loses a lot of trust in our health agencies who are unable to get needed information out there, drugs approved, or trials of different drugs or other products. Trust is built on transparency and reliability. A lack of communication makes it harder to re-establish credibility if/when communications ever resume.
Now it’s not unusual for a new administration to ask for a pause on communications, website updates, etc, in order for new leadership to review the information, see how it flows, and then work to continue communications. However, the tRump White House has a history of muzzling its federal agencies and scientists. So if communication ever resumes, who knows how much will be fact and how much will be fiction in order to slant public opinion to see the new regime (ha) in a more positive light? I’m not sure there’s actually an answer to that.
Then we get into RFK Jr’s plans for the HHS and I don’t think they’re good. He’s a known anti-vaxxer. He’s going to suspend research on government-led research on infectious diseases if he can. He’s not a good choice for the position and may get put in there anyhow because he’s on the Orangutan’s “allies” list, especially after what he did for the election. He’s regularly made false or misleading statements about not only vaccines but other health-related issues.
So here we are, making a mess again, with the administration apparently trying to hide things and show the world that we are no longer leaders in health. Public health information must remain a non-partisan priority. Yet we seem to be withdrawing from everything, such as WHO, and this is only smearing our reputation further. The view of the United States is sliding downhill fast and tRump v2.0 is something we may never recover from. We are a mess.
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