Make America Healthy Again - Trump populism comes to health regulation (3 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]

Yeah, we buy the Fairlife no lactose whole milk for the grandkids, as the twins are sensitive to lactose. And oddly, as I get older, I am too, although I don’t drink milk any longer, just use it in cooking.

 

[Sendai]

We drank whole milk growing up. I drink skim Fairlife now. I am a little different in our circle of friends in that I don’t drink tea, coffee or alcohol. I simply never acquired a taste for them. I drink water, pop (or soda depending on where you are) and milk.

Have you tried Olipop or Poppi soft drinks, considerably lower sugar. I don’t do alcohol but I do enjoy my two morning cups of coffee.

 

[faceman]

We drank whole milk growing up. I drink skim Fairlife now. I am a little different in our circle of friends in that I don’t drink tea, coffee or alcohol. I simply never acquired a taste for them. I drink water, pop (or soda depending on where you are) and milk.

I also drank whole milk when I was younger. I've been a 1% man for more than 30 years now. Being diagnosed
with high cholesterol made that decision easier.

 

[Dragon]

I’ve also been drinking 1% milk for most of my life—except for the two years I worked as a caretaker assistant on a large dairy farm, where we drank raw milk from our own cows. We never got sick from it, but this was not casual or uncontrolled. All milk was tested daily at the dairy, and I knew every single cow. At the slightest sign of a problem, the cow was immediately moved to quarantine, examined by a veterinarian, and its milk discarded. Danish veterinary regulations are extremely strict.

Any cow treated with medication is excluded from milk production for at least three weeks and the meat is not permitted for human consumption for 3 months, whether through shipment to a slaughterhouse or slaughter on-site (which we did to minimize stress on the animal).

 

[faceman]

. I drink water, pop (or soda depending on where you are) and milk.

Where I;m from every soda is called coke. When a server asks what will you be drinking,our
response is what kind of cokes do you have?

 

[zztop]

Health secretary RFK Jr appoints two vaccine skeptics to CDC advisory panel

Physicians have disputed prevailing scientific views on vaccines and use of antidepressants during pregnancy

www.theguardian.com

The health and human services secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, has appointed two new obstetrician-gynecologists to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s vaccine advisory committee. Both are physicians who have publicly disputed prevailing scientific views on vaccines and the use of antidepressants during pregnancy.

Kennedy announced on Tuesday that the two doctors will join the advisory committee on immunization practices (ACIP), which advises the CDC on vaccine recommendations. The additions bring the committee’s membership to 13, following Kennedy’s controversial decision in June to dismiss the previous panel and replace it with 11 new members of his choosing.

 

[Optimus Prime]

AIDS United Condemns DeSantis Administration For Putting Tens of Thousands of Lives At Risk By Gutting Florida ADAP - AIDS United

AIDS United strongly condemns the Florida Department of Health’s decision, under Governor Ron DeSantis’ administration, to decimate Florida’s AIDS Drug Assistance Program (ADAP) by slashing eligibility from 400% to 130% of the federal poverty level, ending support that helps clients purchase...

aidsunited.org

 

[Optimus Prime]

Kids with brain cancer were already in a life and death struggle. Then came Trump

The US president vowed to ‘end childhood cancer’. But his administration is dismantling the search for a cure and sending families scrambling for treatment

www.theguardian.com

 

[MT15]

This is immoral and horrific.

 

[Optimus Prime]

Fewer kids are getting the flu vaccine this year, despite this being the worst season in decades.

The so-called super flu is surging through communities with at least 18 million Americans infected this season, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Of those infected, 230,000 were hospitalized and 9,300 died, the CDC said.

“This is definitely a banner year,” Dr. Caitlin Rivers, an epidemiologist and senior scholar at Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, toldCNN. “It’s the worst we’ve had in at least 20 years. We’re seeing a majority of the country is experiencing very high levels of activity, and we’re still in the thick of it.”

Fewer kids are vaccinated this year despite ‘super flu’ surging through communities

This is the worst flu season in decades, with at least 18 million people infected so far this year

www.independent.co.uk

 

[Optimus Prime]

Pregnant individuals can safely use paracetamol as directed during pregnancy without an increased risk of autism, ADHD, or intellectual disabilities in their children, a comprehensive new review has concluded.

The findings aim to definitively address previous unsubstantiated claims regarding the painkiller’s safety.

The study, published in The Lancet Obstetrics, Gynaecology and Women’s Health, directly refutes assertions made by U.S. PresidentDonald Trump in September, who claimed a "meteoric rise" in autism cases and suggested Tylenol – known as paracetamol in the UK – was a potential cause.

He advised pregnant women to "tough it out" rather than take the painkiller, comments that drew widespread criticism from autism campaigners and scientists globally.

Experts involved in the latest research expressed hope that the robust findings would "bring the matter to a close".……..

‘No evidence whatsoever’ Tylenol causes autism as Trump claims, experts say

Trump has advised pregnant women to ‘tough it out’ rather than take the painkiller

www.independent.co.uk

 

[Optimus Prime]

RFK Jr’s new diet guidelines pose risks for health and the environment, experts say

US health department’s new food pyramid places red meat and cheese high in saturated fats over plant-based proteins

www.theguardian.com

 

[Optimus Prime]

After the Trump administration upended childhood vaccine planning, some parents are confused and some are more determined to vaccinate their children........

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Pediatricians are disregarding the new vaccination schedule​

 

[Optimus Prime]

Milk is mundane in most contexts, but you can’t help noticing when it is smeared across the upper lips of America’s government officials. An image of Donald Trump sporting a milk mustache and glowering over a glass of milk was just one of many dairy-themed posts shared by government accounts on X during the past week, all of which made clear that the milk was whole.

In one video, a seemingly AI-generated Robert F. Kennedy Jr. takes a sip and is transported to a nightclub, suddenly milk-mustachioed; in another, former Housing Secretary Ben Carson raises a glass of full-fat and sports a white ’stache. The upper lips of the former collegiate swimmer Riley Gaines and the former NBA player Enes Kantor Freedom, among other personalities embraced by the right, also got the whole-milk treatment.

The posts were shared to celebrate a big month for whole milk. On January 7, the Department of Agriculture released its updated Dietary Guidelines for Americans, which newly recommend whole dairy over low-fat products, and placed a carton of whole milk near the top of a revamped, upside-down food pyramid. Then, on Wednesday, President Trump signed into law a bill allowing schools to serve whole milk after more than a decade of being restricted to low-fat.

Medical professionals, who have long advised people to avoid full-fat dairy because it contains high levels of saturated fat, were generally critical of the new dietary guidelines for milk. But Kennedy and Trump, along with other government officials, have framed it as a major win for health.

Kennedy recently argued that America’s children have been missing out on key nutrients such as calcium and vitamin D because they don’t want to drink the low-fat milk served in schools. The new law, he said at its signing, embodies the new dietary guidelines’ directive to “eat real food.”............

Beyond serving as an economic engine, milk is a potent cultural symbol. It has long evoked an idealized past: a simpler time when cows roamed through pastures and produced pure, wholesome milk, and the Americans who tended them thrived in harmony with the natural world. Dairy companies have leaned into that aesthetic, featuring barns, fields, and words such as pure on milk cartons.

Milk is also culturally linked to strength, wealth, and beauty, thanks in no small part to the celebrity-studded dairy ads of the late 20th century, including the “Got Milk?” campaign referenced by the Trump administration’s milk mustaches. Such positive associations make milk a powerful metaphor for what America could be—if certain unsavory elements of modernity could be undone or erased.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, this association has also been invoked in racist contexts for more than a century. In a 1923 speech, Herbert Hoover, who was then commerce secretary and would be elected president five years later, framed milk as a means to ensure “the very growth and virility of the white races.” Modern-day white nationalists and alt-right groups hold up dairy milk as a symbol of whiteness and masculinity, in contrast to soy milk, which they associate with the woke, feminist, multiracial left. (Yes, seriously.)

The idealized era of perfectly safe, perfectly wholesome dairy never really existed. “This whole idea that there was a time when we were healthy, and during that time we were eating steak and drinking whole milk, is not rooted in any reality,” Dow said. Nevertheless, it resonates with the MAHA and MAGA agendas, which both center on the belief that America will return to its former glory if it can re-create the past.

The Trump administration’s endorsement of whole milk may nominally be about public health. But a recent White House post featuring a retro illustration of the president as an old-fashioned milkman, captioned “Make Whole Milk Great Again,” was all about aspiration—and the purified nation, untainted by modernity, that America could someday become.

Why the Trump administration is obsessed with whole milk​

Why the Trump Administration Is Obsessed With Whole Milk

Will the dairy wars ever end?

www.theatlantic.com

 

[Optimus Prime]

Huge amounts of extra land needed for RFK Jr’s meat-heavy diet guidelines

Even 25% increase in meat and dairy consumption would require 100m more acres of agricultural land, analysis says

www.theguardian.com

 

[bird]

Huge amounts of extra land needed for RFK Jr’s meat-heavy diet guidelines

Even 25% increase in meat and dairy consumption would require 100m more acres of agricultural land, analysis says

www.theguardian.com

He is loony tunes.

 

[MT15]

Good job, idiot anti-vaxxers and RFK, Jr. We are now a third world country.

“Measles has been eliminated in the U.S. since 2000, a designation that indicates the virus is no longer constantly circulating, though there are occasional outbreaks. However, global public health authorities consider the virus endemic — or always present — after one year of continuous transmission.

“We have all the ingredients to have our elimination status revoked,” said Amira Albert Roess, a professor of global health and epidemiology at George Mason University.

“In previous times, it would be unheard of to lose your elimination status, unless it was a war-torn, collapsing country,” she added.”

After a year marked by measles outbreaks across the U.S., is the virus now endemic? — NBC News

Public health experts worry the country meets the criteria to lose its elimination status, now that a year has passed since Texas’ deadly measles outbreak began.

apple.news

 

[MT15]