We all experience repeated echoes from our childhoods, and some of those echoes are apt for our time. If my grandmother were still alive, for example, I can picture her reacting to the ongoing damage being done by RNK, Jr. and the rest of Trump’s clown car by shaking her head and saying “a wellness it isn’t.”
She would be so right. Some recent confirmation:
On CBS’ Sunday Morning, the network’s
The New York Times tells us that Kennedy’s insane war on effective, life-saving vaccines is curtailing research into these vital protections. The consequences of his war on science, medicine and public health expertise are being felt throughout the industry. Investors are described as “hesitant to bet on a field that has fallen out of favor in Washington,” and manufacturers are seeing declining sales. Pfizer’s chief executive has been quoted as saying that the anti-vaccine animus is “almost like a religion.” Asked what needs to change, he said, “the health secretary” characterizing Kennedy’s rhetoric as “anti-science.”
Indeed. As Lincoln Square recently noted, “certainty has sunk its teeth into his brain, like so many brainworms before it.” The article recounted Kennedy’s efforts to support stem cell treatments, which have not been medically vetted, are not FDA-approved and “have been shown to cause really, really adverse effects. Blindness. Death. Chronic pain.” But RFK, Jr. has “done some reading, found that lots of people say it’s great, and has concluded that the lack of FDA approval isn’t based on a dearth of evidence–he’s convinced that it’s part of the FDA’s war on non-traditional medical treatments.
Who needs pesky evidence?
Rolling Stone conducted an investigation into the growing number of ethical breaches at the CDC, including cases in which appointees allied with Kennedy have approved grant proposals that had not gone through a typical review process. And a complaint filed with the World Health Network details numerous violations of CDC guidelines in the agency’s revisions of recommendations for isolation.
Corruption can take many forms; at HHS, that corruption appears to be an outgrowth of Kennedy’s obsessions–his evident belief that he knows better than doctors and scientists, and his willingness to rely upon “evidence” that confirms his prejudices while ignoring evidence that rebuts them. Trump’s corruption, on the other hand, is entirely transactional and open to bribery.
A recent example: one of Trump’s innumerable Executive Orders will boost domestic production of the weedkiller glyphosate. As the linked article from Reuters reports, the executive order “invoked the Defense Production Act to ensure the domestic supply of phosphorus and glyphosate, a widely used weedkiller at the center of tens of thousands of lawsuits by plaintiffs claiming it causes cancer.” Trump’s order came after Bayer, which acquired Monsanto and is the only U.S. company that produces glyphosate, proposed a $7.25 billion legal settlement to address tens of thousands of lawsuits claiming its glyphosate weedkiller Roundup causes cancer. In 2015, the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) classified glyphosate as “probably carcinogenic to humans,” citing evidence of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma in studies of exposed workers.
The Executive Order also purports to provide “immunity” for makers of the herbicides. That immunity undoubtedly made the folks at Bayer very happy, and we can only wonder what Bayer promised Trump to persuade him to issue the order, which has infuriated the so-called “Make America Healthy Again” movement. (Even RNK,Jr. doesn’t defend Roundup…)
It’s all part of this administration’s corrupt war on science and evidence, and its willingness to sell its laws and regulations to the “highest bidder”–the corporate fat-cats and others willing to “bend the knee” and “comply in advance” with the destruction of democracy and the rule of law.
A wellness it isn’t.
This is what Citizens United bought us. EVERYTHING that Republicans touch MUST show profits. To hell with the people. In one of my books, I quote a CEO from a major drug company: “We’re not in business to cure people. We’re in business to make money.”
So, this last paragraph once again defines our state of affairs thanks to Republican “initiatives”.
It’s all part of this administration’s corrupt war on science and evidence, and its willingness to sell its laws and regulations to the “highest bidder”–the corporate fat-cats and others willing to “bend the knee” and “comply in advance” with the destruction of democracy and the rule of law.
And today they bring us a new war.
Gee, I guess the new war/distraction will drive the Epstein stuff off the front pages. Congress? We don’t need no f***ing Congress. From one mess/disaster to another. Any good news out there?
Vernon, I find it entirely plausible when you say….
“In one of my books, I quote a CEO from a major drug company: ‘We’re not in business to cure people. We’re in business to make money.'”
However, it would lend credibility to the statement if you could name the CEO and the company and the circumstances in which that statement was made.
G = Gang
O = Of
P = Pedophiles
Vern, the profit center, is taught to every young person entering college. The only goal of a company is to “maximize shareholder value.” Period.
The same advice is given to aspiring journalists who want to save the world from the tyranny of the oppressive oligarchy, “We’re not in the business of saving the world, we are in the business of making a profit.”
I wonder how a third of WaPo’s staff feels about their profit center?
I get the MAHA newsletter a couple of times a week, but I mostly delete it. The FDA and CDC have been run by the corrupt Big Health oligarchy for decades. I figure anything RFK does will cause a major uproar if he’s fighting against Big Health. I know farmers are the major users of glyphosate, and I’ve tried other weed killers without it, and they were worthless. I’ve tried natural solutions, and they’ve been worthless.
My ex-father-in-law swore that he got cancer from Roundup. It took a massive Sicilian man down to a fragile human being. It was hard to watch.
Trump and his surrounding clown posse were supposed to eliminate the “corruption of the deep state,” but all they did was swap the existing corruption with their own self-serving corruption, which has been even worse.
As Jefferson stated, this is not a disease we can vote our way out of; we have to abandon or disregard the whole system. We’ve never fully gained our independence.
As I am reading HRC’s newsletter, it’s all about the Epstein files, the new revelations just from yesterday, and all the ways Trump is involved, and all the references to withheld documents, and the dog and pony show that subpoenaed the wrong President, I am listening to NPR and I hear Trump just started a war in the mideast. LOOK OVER HERE! Ignore those pesky files…
After Yesterday’s news, it’s no surprise that Trump has launched a war today.
As for Shelia’s post, I think back to the number of times I used round-up. I would dress in long sleeves and long pants and check the wind and weather forecasts and spray early in the morning because it is the calmest time of day, and I would still get blow back onto my hands or face. After I was done, I would immediately change clothes and shower down. The stuff was great for what it said it was supposed to do and it’s no surprise that it has other side effects. It seems impossible to apply the stuff safely and even it’s applied safely, we’re all still exposed to this because it leaks into the food supply.
Glyphosate is banned Europe. Gluten intolerance seems to be higher in North America than it is in Europe, and I wonder if it isn’t really problems caused by glyphosate exposure from wheat consumption and people’s eventual reactions to the trace levels of these chemicals. Monsanto deserves to be sued into bankruptcy. I was shocked when Bayer purchased Monsanto and its billions of dollars of liability over glyphosates.
As for vaccines, I’ve had almost all of them because I believe in science and I don’t want to kill myself when I travel internationally. There are three I have not gotten, the HPV vaccine, the MPox vaccine, and RSV and I have asked my doctor about all three of them, and soon I turn 65 I will be getting the RSV vaccine.
So, with all that is happening, is your calling him RNK, a symptom of your disgust with him?
“Almost like a religion.” Yes, just as the MAGA crowd is definitely a cult, much like a religion, those who buy into RFK’ BS wholeheartedly would be a subset of the cultists, too busy seeing themselves as awakened to his new TRUTH.
We have a virtually, if not fully psychotic leader who has brought other very sick people into his fold, just as his hero, Hitler did, and yes, this is all the result, in the short term, of Citizens United. In the long term, it is the result of runaway capitalism.
War with Iran will do little but get more Americans killed for the sake of another village idiot!
I have spent days trying to convince people of the value of medical research. The reasons for this value are:
Regulatory requirements for pre-application review of safety by an Institutional Review Board (IRB) or an Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC).
Peer Review by acknowledged experts in the field being researched.
Regulatory requirements for reporting and review of “adverse events”.
Replication of the research by independent research teams, getting the same results.
If a study doesn’t have each of these things, it can’t be accepted as a viable treatment. After the autism/vaccine link was published, disputed, shown to be NOT replicable, and withdrawn from the Lancet it would be difficult to have such a study published.
Now, with Robert Nutcase Kennedy, Jr. as director of HHS, I don’t feel safe taking anything approved by the new FDA.
Connie: It was Squibb Laboratories.