“The Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) upcoming Vaccine and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee meeting on March 13 was abruptly canceled via email on Wednesday. The committee was to consider the selection of strains to be included in the influenza virus vaccines for the 2025–2026 flu season. This is the second vaccine-related advisory meeting canceled since Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. took over at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
No reason for the cancellation was given, and the committee members were warned against forwarding the email. It suggested that members decline to answer questions from media.
So much for Kennedy’s pledge earlier this month of “radical transparency.” He added, “We will make our data and our policy process so transparent that people won’t even have to file a FOIA [Freedom of Information Act] request.”
In addition to suggesting members of the FDA’s vaccine committee stifle themselves, the HHS will publish a notice next week in the Federal Register to eliminate public comment on that agency’s plans and decisions. While past meetings have been open to public scrutiny and participation, it is not clear if the new limits will apply to future meetings of the committee.”
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“Noting that the U.S. is currently experiencing one of the worst flu seasons in a decade, Infectious Diseases Society of America president Tina Tan warns that “cancelling a critically important Food and Drug Administration meeting that is vital to the development of effective flu vaccines for next flu season is irresponsible.” She adds, “Cancelling this meeting means vaccine makers may not have the vital information and time they need to produce and distribute targeted vaccines before the next flu season. If the FDA meeting is not immediately rescheduled, many lives that could be saved by vaccination will be lost.”
RFK, Jr.’s HHS promises that the FDA “will make public its recommendations to manufacturers in time for updated vaccines to be available for the 2025-2026 influenza season.”
We’ll see.”
https://reason.com/2025/02/28/so-much-for-rfk-jr-s-promise-of-radical-transparency-at-hhs/
“There is a more realistic move Kennedy could take to address his concern about vaccine side effects: He could resuscitate the National Vaccine Program Office, which monitored vaccine safety with particular rigor but was shuttered under the first Trump presidency.”
…
“The US began fluoridating drinking water in 1945. An estimated 209 million Americans now drink tap water that contains added fluoride. The intervention is considered a historic public health win: It dramatically reduces tooth decay in children and also reduces tooth loss in adults.”
https://www.vox.com/health/385541/rfk-jr-trump-hhs-vaccines-fluoride
“Political polarization shapes how people interpret risk and who they trust and listen to, which shapes what health services they access and what behaviors they partake in or don’t. This dynamic was a big reason Covid death rates so dramatically diverged between Republicans and Democrats: Party affiliation determined people’s willingness to get vaccinated, wear masks, social distance, and take other preventive measures, says Oberlander. Republicans were less likely to take these measures, and more likely to die of Covid as a consequence.”
…
“Although left-wing Americans were more likely to take Covid’s risks seriously, Van Bavel notes Republicans outpaced Democrats on Ebola fears throughout the 2014 outbreak, during Barack Obama’s presidency. “It’s not that Democrats in America have a unique capacity to be attuned to the science and the risks of epidemics and pandemics,” he says; it’s that polarized people on the left and the right distrust the other party’s ability to handle any health threat.
Polarization is also creeping into our relationships with health care providers. A recent survey by communications firm Edelman found people feared the politicization of medical science as much as they feared the cost of medical care; 41 percent of respondents aged 18 to 34 said they wouldn’t trust medical advice from a provider who had a different political persuasion than they did, or would stop seeing them entirely.”
https://www.vox.com/even-better/388130/polarization-political-partisan-health-rfk-jr
“RFK Jr. is not a scientifically literate, fact-based, competent, experienced, or measured person. He is wrong about HIV/AIDS; linking vaccines to autism; and the purported danger of thimerosal. On some things, he is correct: The COVID regime and the “noble lies”—which are still lies!—spread to the American public by our purported health authorities are despicable. We still need accountability. Considering which endocrine disruptors might exist in our environment and what unintended consequences might stem from SSRIs are valid research questions to which RFK Jr. has brought attention. Also, raw milk is great.
But in order to actually administer these programs, you need more than the ability to just ask questions and spread theories about what could be happening. You need some amount of competence. Perhaps RFK Jr. can take a pickax to the government waste that stems from certain companies being in bed with their overseers, but don’t count on it”
https://reason.com/2024/11/15/one-brainworm-to-rule-them-all/
“The NIH is the world’s largest public funder of biomedical and public health research, with a budget of $47 billion, most of which is used to support research at universities and academic medical centers. The agency has long been criticized for being way too risk-averse when it comes to choosing which research projects to fund.”
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“Being informed by the best information is certainly the right goal. But RFK Jr.’s long history of anti-vaccination agitation suggests he is not a source of the best information for the safety and efficacy of modern vaccines. This includes false assertions that vaccines cause autism; that they are not tested using placebo-controlled trials; and, contradicting the previous claim, that COVID-19 vaccines killed more people than did a placebo.
Again, the CDC needs fixing, but RFK Jr.’s skepticism about the safety and efficacy of modern vaccines would further undermine what should be the CDC’s main focus: the prevention of the spread of dangerous infectious diseases.”
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“Four years into the post-COVID era, most research has found that ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine provide no treatment benefit for the infected. In April, the Journal of Infection published a report about a randomized controlled trial that concluded, “Ivermectin for COVID-19 is unlikely to provide clinically meaningful improvement in recovery, hospital admissions, or longer-term outcomes.””
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“Giving drug development and infectious disease an eight-year break seems inadvisable. After all, the death rate for cancer has continued to drop from 2016 to today, partially as a result of lower incidence stemming from lifestyle changes, but also because of better and more widely available pharmaceutical treatments. Recent calculations show the value of medicines to patients far outweigh the profits the drug companies rake in. And, as ever, infectious diseases lurk in the background waiting for us to lower our guards or seeking just the right mutation to enable them to jump into the human population.”
…
“RFK Jr.’s solution to stemming the tide of chronic illnesses is better diets and physical fitness. History suggests government interventions will have little effect on either. After all, the federal government has been periodically issuing dietary guidelines since 1979 and promoting physical fitness since 1956. The Lancet authors agree with RFK Jr.’s aspirations but suggest in the meantime that “regulations need to be put in place to eliminate barriers to accessing new-generation obesity clinical treatments, ensuring the availability and affordability of these options to the broader population.””
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“The FDA needs streamlining to speed biomedical innovation, the NIH needs greater risk-taking in research, and the CDC needs to be laser-focused on preventing infectious diseases. None of these appear to be high on the agenda of possible incoming secretary of health and human services.”
https://reason.com/2024/11/15/can-rfk-jr-fix-our-dysfunctional-public-health-agencies/
The Democrats, universities, and media have their faults and have been too woke, but the lies, bullshit, propaganda, and poor error-correction instincts of Trump, RFK Jr, Tucker Carlson, and others is not a better alternative.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txjr4IdCao8
RFK Jr.: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gUP_43J7wY
RFK’s Rat F—ck Campaign Exposed During Leaked Trump Call
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twvC8WSSKao