Make America Healthy Again - Trump populism comes to health regulation (2 Viewers)

[superchuck500]

This is going to need a thread as we move forward - there are now clear signs that Trump supports a new, critical if not dubious approach on vaccination, and his HHS nominee RFK Jr. regularly espouses eating raw milk and raw meat . . . dietary components most experts agree are more dangerous than their heated counterparts.

Health is certainly one of those areas were anti-institutionalism and turning to popular influencers over medical science comes with genuine risk of harm.

Today Trump provided his most clear indication that he is a vaccine skeptic - claiming (falsely of course) that the USA doesn't "do as well" as other nations that use no vaccines at all.

 

[MT15]

And here’s RFK, Jr saying “only very sick kids should die of measles”. JFC, I can’t with this guy. He’s obviously a monster. First of all, the complications from measles kill healthy kids. And most importantly, NOBODY should die of measles. Very sick kids are real people who should not die of measles.

 

[Optimus Prime]

 

[Optimus Prime]

Could have gone in a number of threads

And I agree, Trump's Covid response by itself should have been disqualifying from any office ever again
===================================================================

Let’s suppose someone decides it would be a good idea to drive 80 miles per hour through a school zone while the amber lights are flashing. If something bad happens, as it would be likely to, and he kills one or more children, how would the law treat it?

He could tell the court that he sincerely didn’t “mean” to kill anyone, but that wouldn’t exonerate him.

The court would consider the case at minimum as vehicular homicide, and more likely, given the aggravating circumstance of lethal speed in a school zone, it might well result in conviction for aggravated murder.

Absent a miraculous development of telepathic powers, we can’t read people’s minds and determine their “real” mental state; we can only infer intent from their behavior.

If someone commits a reckless act whose adverse consequences are clearly foreseeable, then for all practical purposes, that person willed the consequences.

This principle—who wills the means wills the ends—is applicable in law, but should also be valid in everyday life. It should particularly apply to the behavior of public officials who wield power over the rest of us.

With that in mind, let’s look at President Donald Trump’s first-term record.

His handling of the COVID-19 pandemic plainly indicated an unconcern for the consequences of his ignoring the outbreak in its early stages during the winter and spring of 2020.

As he told Bob Woodward, he wanted to downplay the disease so as not to spook the stock market, evidence of his preference for Wall Street over human life.

His refusal to recommend masking and social distancing, and encouragement of crackpot Covid deniers, took a heavy toll.

Trump’s behavior during the pandemic alone should have disqualified him from ever holding elective office again.

According to Scientific American, “In the final year of Donald Trump’s presidency, more than 450,000 Americans died from COVID-19, and life expectancy fell by 1.13 years, the biggest decrease since World War II.

Many of the deaths were avoidable; COVID-19 mortality in the U.S. was 40 percent higher than the average of the other wealthy nations in the Group of Seven (G7).”

That equates to 140,000 excess deaths from his contempt for human life in a crisis whose outcome was predictable.

Trump’s behavior during the pandemic alone should have disqualified him from ever holding elective office again.

Alas, the American people’s memory, knowledge, and judgment being what they are, we are now being forced, like hostages at gunpoint, to endure another four years of criminal behavior, carried out with our tax money.

We have already seen enough to expect the Trump regime’s second term to be like the first on steroids.

Thus, gutting the Department of Health and Human Services’ infectious disease research and forcing out the FDA’s chief vaccine expert is exactly what it looks like: an effort to see that more Americans die prematurely.

This same result will certainly come as well from cutting $12 billion from state health service grants.

The secretary of HHS, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., wants to implement placebo testing of vaccines, even though this methodology had been eliminated long ago because of ethical concerns: subjects administered a placebo could be placed at considerable health risk when the overall efficacy of vaccines has been demonstrated worldwide for the many decades. So why is Kennedy doing this?

The most benign explanation is that he is a paranoid crackpot who believes in his quack medical theories (in which case, why did the Republican Senate confirm him in the face of abundant evidence of his lack of qualification and risk to public well-being?).

A harsher explanation might be that Kennedy, in line with his various crank theories, sees too many human beings as pestilential, and wouldn’t mind if there were fewer of them.

In either case, every senator who voted to confirm him will be just as responsible for any excess deaths occurring as he would.

The same applies to veterans’ health programs. The VA under Trump has slashed personnel, cut programs, and halted clinical trials.

In recent testimony, the department’s secretary, Doug Collins, succeeded in matching his own bumbling incompetence with arrogance and nastiness.

Yet the Republican senators who pretended to be critical of him in the hearing for the benefit of their veteran constituents had voted to confirm him, so if any veterans die from lack of health care, it will be their responsibility as well as that of Collins.

Why did the Trump cabal eliminate the terrorist data base at the Department of Homeland Security? Given that most domestic terrorism cases have a right-wing motivation, they must want to see more terrorism: it is useful in cowing the rest of the population.

As for terrorist incidents in general, they can serve as an excuse for martial law. We can similarly conclude that wiped-out towns and lives ruined by natural disasters is the intended result of slashing FEMA.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that approximately 420 Americans die from Salmonella each year.

The CDC also estimates that about 1.35 million people get sick from salmonellosis, and 26,500 are hospitalized.

So why did Trump’s Agriculture Department withdraw a proposed rule that would have limited salmonella content in raw poultry and required producers to test their products before sale?

You might say it was lobbying by the poultry interests. In that case, it reflects the same attitude of willful contempt for human life on the part of Trump and his minions: that the profits of corporate contributors are more important than the safety of the American people.

Where does this contempt for human life come from? Any rational person who observed Trump over the past decade would conclude that he is a pathological narcissist who is indifferent to others.

But that only leads to another question: why do so many Americans not only support him, but treat him as a near-deity?

At the core of Trump’s base are tens of millions of religious fundamentalists who believe in the Apocalypse. If the end is at hand, if in fact it could come at any moment, why worry too scrupulously over a life or two, or, for that matter, over the functioning of society at a level above that of the bronze age? The behavior of Trump’s supporters, particularly their “Covid parties” and “measles parties,” suggests an actual courting of disease and death. Their relation to Trump is like that of the ancient Carthaginians, sacrificing their children to the destroyer-god Baal.

Where does this contempt for human life come from? Any rational person who observed Trump over the past decade would conclude that he is a pathological narcissist who is indifferent to others.

There is another, more secular, source of this willingness to let people die: survivalists whose rabid fear of economic collapse, social breakdown, and anarchic violence ironically leads them to hope for the very chaos they supposedly abhor, because it would prove them to have been right all along.............

Republicans want you to die

Don't believe this? Just look at their record

www.alternet.org

 

[Optimus Prime]

U.S. President Donald Trump is conducting an "unprecedented and illegal" broadside against science and scientists that will have devastating consequences for regular Americans, according to a report released Tuesday by Sen. Bernie Sanders, an Independent from Vermont.

The report, which casts Trump's actions as a "war on science" that will lead to "preventable suffering" and "needless loss of life," was compiled by the minority staff with the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, where Sanders is the ranking member.

To compile the report, staff interviewed federal health workers, analyzed National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant funding data, reviewed self-reported data from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), and more.

The report concludes that Trump's moves against science will yield fewer breakthroughs for combating diseases, a less robust public health response to future infectious disease threats, and even less trust in public institutions.

In a statement on Tuesday, Sanders said that "Trump's war on science is an attack against anyone who has ever loved someone with cancer."

All told, according to the report, as of April 2025 the Trump administration has terminated at least $13.5 billion in health funding and has dismissed thousands of employees who support America's scientific infrastructure.

In what the report calls the "clearest sign" of the administration's effort to defund science, it states that NIH committed $2.7 billion less to research in the first three months of 2025 compared to the same time period last year, representing an effective 35% cut..

When the researchers behind the report conducted an analysis of National Cancer Institute grants, they found there has been a 31% decline in cancer research grant funding in the first three months of 2025, compared to the first three months of 2024.

The report also relays accounts from federal workers who highlight the Trump administration's efforts to impose control over "scientific speech."

For example, one HHS official said: "We get requests from the media to provide scientific expertise. Normally, [political appointees] would never get involved in this type of non-high-profile stuff but now they have to approve every single media request."

Also, "researchers across the federal science agencies report that certain scientific topics now trigger heightened scrutiny or political review before publication, presentation, or grant consideration," according to the report. The researchers also state that over 100 scientific meetings have been delayed or canceled............

Trump slammed for 'attack against anyone who has ever loved someone with cancer'

U.S. President Donald Trump is conducting an "unprecedented and illegal" broadside against science and scientists that will have devastating consequences for regular Americans, according to a report released Tuesday by Sen. Bernie Sanders, an Independent from Vermont.The report, which casts...

www.alternet.org

 

[superchuck500]

 

[Optimus Prime]

RFK Jr tells Congress ‘people shouldn’t take medical advice from me’

Health secretary demurs on questions about vaccine stance and defends Republican plans to cut healthcare

www.theguardian.com

 

[Optimus Prime]

As the US prepares for what could be another record-breaking hot summer, Donald Trump and his pick to lead the nation’s workplace safety agency are expected to derail the creation of the nation’s first-ever federal labor protections from extreme heat.

Trump in February nominated David Keeling to lead the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (Osha). Keeling formerly served as an executive at the United Parcel Service (UPS) and Amazon – both of which have faced citations from Osha for worker injuries and deaths amid heat exposure. The companies deny the deaths were heat-related.

Under Keeling, Osha is expected to thwart heat protections. After years of pressure from organized labor, the agency in 2021 began working to create a federal heat standard, and last year rolled out a draft rule aimed at requiring access to water, shade, breaks and training which the Biden administration estimated would protect 36 million workers.

But corporations have pushed to gut the rules, and there are concerns among safety advocates and some workers that Keeling could help them do so.


Seth Pacic, a UPS delivery driver and union steward in Dallas, Texas, who has experienced heat exhaustionon the job, said he feared “any meaningful policy to combat heat injuries will be put on hold while he holds the position”.

Keeling served as vice-president of global health and safety at UPS from 2018 to 2021, and as director of road and transportation safety at Amazon from 2021 to 2023. Both companies have faced backlash for heat-related workplace incidents.

A recent review of federal records by investigative outlet the Lever found that during Keeling’s tenure, Osha fined the two companies a combined $2m for more than three hundred workplace safety citations, including for heat-related incidents.

In the past decade, more than 170 UPS workershave been hospitalized due to heat exposure, including more than 50 during Keeling’s tenure. And at Amazon and UPS, at least seven workers died after extreme heat exposure in recent years with at least three of those deaths occurring when Keeling was at the companies. Both companiesdenied any of the deaths were both heat-related and job-related.

“These are companies that are known to be not that great when it comes to dealing with extreme heat,” said Juley Fulcher, a worker health and safety advocate at consumer advocacy non-profit Public Citizen……..

Trump pick for workplace safety agency sparks fears heat protections will be derailed

Under David Keeling, a former UPS and Amazon executive, Osha is expected to thwart protections on extreme heat

www.theguardian.com

 

[fooferdoggie]

RFK Jr tells Congress ‘people shouldn’t take medical advice from me’

Health secretary demurs on questions about vaccine stance and defends Republican plans to cut healthcare

www.theguardian.com

Well, finally, but still his influence is taking over.

 

[Optimus Prime]

Federal officials announced a new framework for vaccine approvals, aimed to provide clarity and predictability for vaccine manufacturers, will be revealed “in the coming days.”

Makary did not reveal any specific details about the upcoming framework, but said it will outline the FDA's approach to vaccine approvals, providing companies with a clearer understanding of regulatory expectations. Vaccines in the U.S. need Food and Drug Administration approvals before hitting the market. While they have typically been of little fanfare, more questions about vaccines has led more Americans to question their safety.

That includes the Trump administration and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The White House previously introduced changes to the traditional process of approving updated coronavirus vaccines, typically offered in the fall.

“We want to be very transparent,” The Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Marty Makary said Thursday during the Food and Drug Law Institute Annual Conference. “We want to create a framework for vaccine makers that they can use so they have a predictable FDA where they don’t have to worry how is this going to be received.”

RFK Jr. has long questioned vaccines and pushed skeptical claims about them. He has already announced placebo-controlled trials for all new vaccines and updates, including those already approved for use in the United States.………

FDA set to change requirements to get vaccines OK’ed

New FDA framework on changes coronavirus vaccine approval will be released “in the coming days,” FDA Commissioner Marty Makary said Thursday.

www.independent.co.uk

 

[MT15]

They love to say that word “transparency”, but they never ever actually provide any.

 

[Optimus Prime]

WASHINGTON ― During a Senate committee hearing on Wednesday, Sen. Angela Alsobrooks (D-Md.) had a strange clash with Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. over the massive cuts he’s overseen at his agency, including to personnel.

“You made it very clear here today you have no knowledge whatsoever of the absolutely amazing scientists and researchers who you have callously fired,” said Alsobrooks.

“I didn’t fire any working scientists,” Kennedy said.

“That, sir, is not true either,” replied Alsobrooks.

“It is true,” repeated Kennedy

“It is not true,” Alsobrooks said, moving on.

He made the same claim when the Maryland senator later brought up a 30-year program he axed at his agency, the Safe to Sleep campaign, along with all of its staff. He said it again to Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), the chairman of the committee, at the start of the hearing.

“The cuts we have made to date are administrative cuts. As far as I know we have not fired any working scientists,” said Kennedy. “There are some people who were scientists that were doing IT or administration ... who did lose their jobs. But in terms of working scientists, our policy was to make sure none of them were lost and that that research continues.”

That sounds nice. But also it is not true. Kennedy has been firing hundreds, if not thousands, of scientists and researchers doing critical work at various agencies under HHS. It’s not even as if he’s been doing this in secret; it’s been widelyreported for months.

Under his direction, the National Institutes of Health, the world’s top biomedical research agency, axed 1,200 employees in February. A doctor behind award-winning research on Parkinson’s disease was among the leading NIH scientists pushed out in April. Top scientific leaders at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and at the Food and Drug Administration were reassignedto remote Indian Health Service regions. Key scientists working on the bird flu at the Center for Veterinary Medicine were fired, as were nearly a dozen in-house senior scientists at NIH who worked on neuroscience.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last month carried out mass firings that included a group of scientists who researched traumatic brain injury. Still more CDC scientists were fired after their entire lab tracking STIs and hepatitis outbreaks was axed.

It’s not clear if Kennedy is intentionally lying about not firing scientists or doesn’t understand the scope of damage he’s causing to the work of HHS, or if this a matter of semantics. Maybe he’s bristling at the verb “fire” to describe how he has been aggressively dismissing scientists from their employment or ordering scientists to give up their jobs.

An HHS spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Alsobrooks said Kennedy is just lying, even as it’s so absurdly obvious.

“I think that RFK Jr. clearly believes that the more he tells a lie, the more it becomes the truth,” she told HuffPost on Thursday.

Kennedy’s claim that HHS scientists have all kept their jobs “flies in the face of the reality that there are hundreds of scientists from the NIH, CDC and FDA who have lost their jobs as a part of his plan to overhaul the department.”.............

RFK Jr. Insists He Hasn't Fired 'Any Working Scientists' ― After Firing Hundreds Of Them

The HHS secretary "clearly believes that the more he tells a lie, the more it becomes the truth,” Sen. Angela Alsobrooks (D-Md.) told HuffPost.

www.huffpost.com