Making America Sick

As we prepare to go to the polls in the most consequential election of my (long) life, I thought I’d focus on just one of the multiple threats posed by this rogue administration–the assault on public health orchestrated by the loon conspiracist Trump put in charge of Health and Human Services.

Talking Points Memo recently published a handy list of Kennedy’s “biggest hits” to America’s well-being.

The report began by noting that, just this summer, “the FDA has discovered salmonella in granola, salad dressing, jalapenos, and animal food; glass in fruit popsicles; and metal in sourdough, as well as the “bouts of diarrhea lettuce and E. Coli blueberries.”  The author suggested that the “sweeping staff and budget cuts on the FDA, CDC and HHS may not have been the best idea.”

The report then assembled a list of just some of the massive failures of public health under Kennedy. It began with teeth.

Water fluoridation has long been touted as a public health achievement, reducing tooth decay by more than 25% in children and adults. RFK, Jr., however, calls fluoride “industrial waste.” He’s spread misinformation about its health risks, prompting Utah and Florida to ban its further use, and lawmakers in at least 21 states to propose measures to prohibit or roll back the addition of fluoride to public water systems.

The Trump admin entirely dismantled the CDC’s Division of Oral Health, nixing its research for and assistance with fluoridation programs. And TPM fellow Farrell Brenner reported that these RFK-fueled conspiracy theories are also prompting patients to turn down fluoride treatments at the dentist’s office and throw out their kids’ fluoridated toothpaste.

We have recently become aware of Kennedy’s drastic cuts to parasite monitoring, which led to the recent outbreak of cyclosporiasis. More than 17,000 cases had been documented as of Aug. 2026; that number includes 922 hospitalizations and two deaths.

Kennedy has also joined the GOP’s incessant attacks on reproductive care. Despite the fact that women are increasingly dying preventable deaths thanks to state abortion bans and cuts to Medicaid and the VA, he has joined in efforts to ban use of the abortion pill mifepristone, launching a review of the drug’s “safety profile” despite the fact that the FDA has found it to be safe and effective when used as indicated.

Kennedy’s vendetta on vaccination is probably the most well-known of his assaults on medical science. He’s slashed the number of vaccines children are scheduled to receive; cancelled $500 million in funding for mRNA vaccine research; replaced the CDC’s expert vaccine advisory panel with cranks; and promoted discredited links between vaccination and autism. As a result, vaccination rates have fallen, and measles–among other diseases we’d once eradicated–has returned with a vengeance.

It isn’t just measles. As TPM reports, declining vaccination rates are also expected to bring about a rise in diseases like mumps, whooping cough and meningitis.

I have previously reminded readers that the more “mundane” activities of a properly functioning government are aimed at harm prevention–keeping airplanes from crashing, banks solvent, food safe to eat, air safe to breathe. When government doesn’t function properly, public health and safety are increasingly at risk. Rather obviously, that risk is greatest when a know-nothing, anti-science crank is in charge of a department responsible for protecting public health. With this one appointment, Trump has jeopardized the health of the entire American population.

The indiscriminate cuts to staff (based upon a massive lack of understanding of the mission and importance of agency functions) have significantly increased the threats to public health, but that isn’t even the most discouraging outcome. The refusal to fund medical research–including the interruption and cancellation of research projects already underway–will set back medical science efforts to eradicate diseases like Parkinson’s, cancer and many others, for years.

Furthermore, the very public disregard for science and probative evidence continues to create concern and doubt among vulnerable members of the population. Lack of trust has given us declining vaccination rates, and is undoubtedly leading many people with treatable conditions to ignore medical advice and turn instead to the various quackeries that prey on anxious and frantic folks.

There may be parts of the “Trump agenda” that don’t concern the more fortunate, who think “I’m not Black or female or Muslim, and my stock portfolio is doing fine…so I’ll vote Republican. Or stay home.” The overwhelming incompetence of Trump’s administration, however, endangers every American. We all board airplanes, deposit money in banks, breathe the air…

And we’re all at risk of buying contaminated lettuce or dying of a once-eradicated disease.

Thanks, MAGA…

Comments

Women’s Rights, Human Rights And The GOP

The firehose of negative news that we awaken to every morning–the “flooding the zone with shit” tactic adopted by this administration–has buried news of a maddening recent vote cast by the United States at the United Nations.

The United States was the only country to oppose adoption of “agreed conclusions” of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW). It was the first time in 70 years that the usual consensus was broken.

As Health Policy Watch reported,  the U.S. had proposed eight amendments to the text– amendments that would have removed “controversial social issues” from the document, including “ambiguous language promoting gender ideology”, “vague, unqualified commitments to sexual and reproductive health that can be interpreted as implying abortion rights”, and “censorship language on regulating artificial intelligence.”

More specifically, the U.S. objections centered on language promoting universal access to sexual and reproductive health services, and language about that “woke” recognition of diversity, inclusion and intersectionality, which the U.S. dismisses as “gender ideology.” The U.S. also opposed language referencing the effects of climate change on women, the regulation of artificial intelligence, and inclusive definitions of gender.

The U.N. Commission on the Status of Women was established in 1946; it is the main global intergovernmental body exclusively dedicated to the promotion of gender equality–to the rights and empowerment of women. In prior years, the annual “agreed conclusions” have been routinely adopted.

This year’s theme was “ensuring and strengthening access to justice for all women and girls,” a goal to be achieved by eliminating discriminatory laws, policies, and practices, as well as structural barriers to justice–to “seek to create justice systems that work for everyone equally.”

Evidently, that goal was a non-starter for the defenders of “Christian” patriarchy who currently control the U.S. government. As a co-convenor of the Young Feminists’ Caucus told a media briefing on Tuesday, “The decision to break consensus and proceed to a vote underscores how deeply contested commitments to gender equality, human rights and access to justice remain in this current geopolitical moment.”

Language in the official “explanation” of the unprecedented vote was revealing and offensive: “We will always protect women and girls from dangerous radical gender ideology and reaffirm biological truth.”

It is the policy of the United States to recognize two biological sexes, male and female. To achieve this, we use clear and accurate language that recognizes women are biologically female and men are biologically male. Sex is not interchangeable, rather it is irreplaceable. The differences between male and female should be celebrated, appreciated, and respected…

There has unequivocally never been an international commitment on “sexual and reproductive health and rights,” and we strongly oppose the use of this terminology. The Trump Administration is committed to supporting families, promoting women’s health, and protecting children at all stages of life and reaffirms there is no international right to abortion.

As Civicus Lens has reported,

The Commission on the Status of Women’s latest session was the most contested ever. For the first time, its outcomes were put to a vote, with the USA voting against. The US government also tried to push through amendments targeting reproductive health and a resolution that would have imposed a highly restrictive definition of gender. The Trump administration has eliminated US$60 billion in foreign aid, withdrawn from UN Women and helped set in motion a proposal to merge UN Women with the UN Population Fund. Over 4,600 civil society delegates at the meeting held firm, but the human rights commitments they defend are under rising threat.

The United States withdrawal from UN Women and its executive board cited opposition to ‘gender ideology’ and the  “promotion” of abortion, a clear echo of the far-Right ideologies of MAGA and Project 2025. The assault on gender equality is part of the administration’s broader campaign against international recognition of human rights– ending funding for the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), and attempting to dismantle global support for sexual and reproductive health rights.

At the Munich Security Conference in February, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio defined western civilisation as bound together by Christian faith, shared ancestry and cultural heritage, an ideological approach that treats women’s equality, reproductive rights and LGBTQI+ rights not as human rights but as ideological impositions to be rejected.

The termination of USAID shut down global clinics, and discontinued distribution of HIV medications and contraceptives. The US has also reinstated its global gag rule, blocking US funding to any organisation providing abortion services, referrals or counselling.

We cannot allow information about these unremitting attacks on women’s autonomy and human rights to be buried in the “flood of shit” that is the Trump administration.

Comments

You’ll Miss It When It’s Gone

Americans rarely consider the extent to which we depend on functioning government. When we board an airplane, we rely on  air traffic controllers–employed by government–to ensure that our aircraft won’t smash into another; when we go to the grocery, we assume that the foods we purchase have been inspected–by government–and are safe to consume. When we deposit our paychecks in the bank, we’re confident the funds will be available when we need them, thanks to government oversight and the FDIC.

When we need to drive somewhere, we’re not only aware that speeding might attract unwanted attention from a government-employed police officer, but (assuming we think about it at all), we understand that the citations issued to other motorists keep us safer.

And so on…

Although the news media provides us with daily evidence of the incompetence, corruption and insanity of the Trump administration, there has been significantly less coverage of the degree to which that administration has eroded our ability to trust government to discharge multiple mundane but essential functions. As a recent report from Can We Still Govern has documented, the destruction of government’s ability to perform the myriad functions we all depend upon has been ongoing–the reckless damage didn’t stop when Elon Musk’s DOGE departed.

In the United States today, it’s hard to know whether the food you buy will land you in the hospital. There are currently dozens of active recalls—precisely the sort of outcome foretold by current and former federal government workers who warned against President Donald Trump’s shredding of our food safety net. It’s one example of where the public would have been better off if Trump listened to public servants rather than berating and firing them.

Unfortunately, the increasing uncertainty about the safety of our food supplies is only one example, and–as the linked report asserts– far from the only consequence of Trump’s ongoing decimation of the federal workforce.

The White House’s war on what it dismissively terms “the administrative state” is being orchestrated by Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Russell Vought, the major author of Project 2025, whose fever dream is to take the country back to a time when Black folks were slaves, women were in the kitchen preparing a chicken they’d raised, and that pesky government wasn’t harassing “job creators” just because they were dumping industrial waste into the river that supplied the town’s drinking water….

Since Trump is too stupid, lazy and senile to oversee much of anything, Vought has had free reign–indeed, he’s been called the “shadow President.”

As the linked article notes, it can be difficult to explain to the public how significantly Trump’s damage to public service harms us all. One reason is that– to a larger extent than most of us realize– government’s job is risk reduction. These mundane functions are intended to keep bad things from happening. When the agencies that are supposed to prevent and minimize harms are dismantled, we are all but ensured an increase in what the article delicately calls “adverse outcomes.”

And because the people most aware of the harms being done–and most able to explain those harms to the general public– are government workers, Trump and Vought have gone after those workers and their unions with special ferocity. Early in March of 2025, Trump signed Executive Order 14251, stripping about one million federal workers of unionization and collective bargaining rights. The percentage of federal workers represented by a union declined from 56% at the beginning of Trump’s second term to 34% in July.

The mass firings of people charged with protecting America’s food supply have been most severe at Health and Human Services, where RFK, Jr. slashed about 20% of the entire staff of the Food and Drug Administration, firing more than 4,600 workers. He also fired at least 25% of the CDC staff (more than 3,200 workers). You will not be surprised to learn that the lab tasked with identifying cyclospora was not spared.

As the federal government has been emptied out of people with expertise, the number of political appointees has soared.

I don’t know about the rest of you, but recent air traffic mishaps have made me leery of boarding a plane, and this “senior citizen” breathes a sigh of relief when my social security check arrives…along with a brooding concern about how long I will be able to depend upon its receipt.

There’s an old saying that “You don’t appreciate things until they’re gone.” I wonder whether all those anti-government trolls will rethink their animus when they hesitate to buy lettuce, board a plane or make a bank deposit…

Comments

The Rich And The Rest

I frequently quote Nick Hanauer, the billionaire who regularly warns other super-rich titans that unless they change their ways, ordinary Americans will be coming for them with pitchforks. Hanauer understands something that far too many apologists for our distorted capitalism don’t–that their continued affluence depends upon replacing today’s neoliberal corporatism with a properly understood and properly regulated market capitalism.

Hanauer was one of the first to point out that, far from depressing job creation, increasing the minimum wage and putting discretionary dollars in more pockets increases employment. (If no one has enough money to buy your widgets, you aren’t likely to hire more folks to produce them.)

What I particularly appreciate about Hanauer’s substacks is his defense of actual capitalism, and his recognition how very far today’s corporatism/crony capitalism has departed from that economic model. A recent essay is a good example;  he begins by attributing the emerging popularity of the DSA–Democratic Socialists of America–to the widespread rejection of America’s current economic performance.

Hanauer is not making an argument for the DSA. As he writes,

Anyone familiar with my resume will be unsurprised to learn that I don’t believe socialism is the answer to cure our economic ills. But what all these centrist pundits miss is that the real risk to markets isn’t the rise of DSA candidates, it’s the failure of the policies centrists are still clinging to for dear life. It wasn’t socialism that expanded income inequality by stealing nearly $80 trillion from worker paychecks and handing it off to my fellow plutocrats over the last 50 years—it was a different kind of economic redistribution, commonly known as trickle-down economics.

As Hanauer argues–and as survey research confirms–the American people know the economy isn’t working for them, and many attribute that economic failure to capitalism, not recognizing how far America has departed from a properly regulated and taxed market economy. Gallup recently found that the percentage of the American public holding a positive view of capitalism is 54 percent—an all-time low.

There’s a reason for that. During the past 50 years, the bottom 90 percent of wage earners have lost $3.9 trillion out of their paychecks to the top 10 percent– mostly the top .01 percent.

Had that $80 trillion loss been distributed the way it was before 1975, median incomes today would be nearly double what they are. That’s the scale of what’s been taken from most Americans—not through bad luck, or the hard work of a handful of wealthy CEOs, but through deliberate policy choices made by both Democratic and Republican leaders since the 1970s that purposefully concentrated wealth and power at the very top….

When you exclude the bottom 90 percent from the gains of economic growth, you don’t just impoverish them. You hollow out the consumer demand that drives innovation, you shrink the market that businesses depend on, and you eventually destabilize the entire system.

Hanauer rejects the standard “Econ 101” argument that markets are important because they’re efficient at allocating scarce resources. He argues that what really makes markets valuable is “their unrivaled ability to evolve innovative solutions to human problems. And the more people you include in that process—as entrepreneurs, innovators, well-paid workers, and robust consumers—the faster and more prosperously the whole economy grows.”

State capitalism with MAGA characteristics is no answer to this crisis. Neither is democratic socialism. And neither, frankly, is the tired orthodoxy of the past fifty years that produced this crisis in the first place.

Asking pundits to abandon the economic framework that has structured political debate for half a century is like asking a fish to question water. But here’s the thing: if you truly believe that market capitalism cannot deliver the kind of economy the American people say they want—rising wages, affordable housing, healthcare, education, economic security for their kids—then you’re not the right person to defend market capitalism. If you insist that we cannot possibly afford to raise wages, reduce inequality, and adequately address the basic needs of every American—because economics—then either you need to embrace a new economics, or you need to step aside and let a new generation of pundits and policymakers use the tools that can actually solve these problems.

Those pitchforks that I warned about over a decade ago have been sharpened. The only way to stop people from putting them to use is to give them a genuine reason to believe that market economies can actually work for them. Ignoring the problem—and thinly disguised panic over a few DSA candidates—simply isn’t going to cut it.

I couldn’t agree more.

Comments

Indiana’s Embarrassing Senator

A recurring question with which many of us grapple is: How did we get here? What were the flaws in our systems, in our institutions, in too many of our people that allowed–facilitated!– the elevation of a morally repulsive, demonstrably unfit  man to the Presidency? Why does anyone continue to support him? What accounts for the MAGA takeover of the Republican Party, and the election of equally unfit Senators and Representatives?

In a recent newsletter, Paul Krugman addressed the first question, writing that Trumpism didn’t emerge out of thin air – that  Trump and Trumpism are the “culmination of a decades-long threat to American democracy, to the moral, legal and social fiber of this country.” He drew a straight line from Koch Brothers’ money, which allied itself with segregationists and religious fundamentalists, created the Federalist Society, and now infests the Roberts Supreme Court, the crypto-industry and the tech-broligarchy.

Krugman’s description of that history has been amplified by a number of political and religious historians, who have traced the lengthy history of an autocratic, reality-averse and patient far-Right movement that finally has come to dominate America’s federal government and the governments of several Red states.

Like Indiana. 

I have written before about the deep disappointment so many Hoosiers have experienced with Indiana Senator Todd Young. Young is intelligent; he clearly knows that this administration is destroying what I call the American Idea, but he continues to meekly bend his knee and do Trump’s bidding. There’s a tendency to focus on Young simply because we believe he does know better. 

Indiana’s other Senator, however, is Jim Banks. Banks is a MAGA True Believer, a thorough-going ideologue who, despite being a constant embarrassment to the Hoosier state, is firmly in charge of Indiana’s Republican Party.

Talking Points Memo recently featured our embarrassing Senator in a report about Trump’s effort to skew the census in order to distort the vote. (Trump wants the Census Bureau to disregard the Constitutional language requiring it to count “all people,” and count only those who are citizens, a count that would cause Blue states to lose representation and Red states to benefit. He also wants the Bureau to stop collecting demographic data, absence of which will make it harder to implement civil rights laws.)

In what TPM calls “a kind of nerd corollary to Trump’s claims about the 2020 election,” MAGA figures like Banks are claiming that Trump’s “victory” was snatched from him by shadowy actors at the Census Bureau. Not only did these miscreants deny Trump his victory, but their actions deprived the GOP of several seats in Congress.

These claims are quite obviously looney-tunes, so Senator Banks enthusiastically endorsed them.

“The 2020 Census was a fraud,” Sen. Jim Banks (R-IN) declared on X last year, one example of the claim. “The Biden admin used a shady ‘privacy’ formula that scrambled the data and miscounted 14 states. It included illegal immigrants and handed Democrats extra seats. Americans deserve a fair count and I’m fighting to fix it.”

Of course he is.

This particular conspiracy theory rests–as so many do–on the innumeracy and statistical ignorance of its proponents.

At the center of these claims is a technique used by statisticians who are dealing with large data sets to protect the privacy of individual respondents; it’s called differential privacy.

The technique, an online army and a handful of elected officials claim, messed with apportionment, the process through which officials determine, based on population, how many seats each state gets in Congress and in the Electoral College. The fact that differential privacy isn’t even used on the population numbers that underlie apportionment has not done much to dampen enthusiasm for this allegation. Other versions of the conspiracy theory allege differential privacy fuzzed up the data that underlies redistricting.

These allegations are intended to support the GOP’s effort to exclude immigrants from apportionment, add a citizenship question to the Census, and to stop collecting the racial demographic information used to challenge discriminatory voting maps. Whether Banks is bright enough to understand that and simply carrying MAGA water-or whether he is truly the crazed zealot he seems to be–is an open question.

The other open question–at least for Hoosiers–is whether the upcoming election will be typical, with the (pathetically few) Indiana voters who bother to turn out continuing to elect any coward, zealot or buffoon with an R beside his or her name. I guess we’ll find out in November, when Banks’ chosen candidate for Secretary of State is on the ballot….

Comments