Robert Kennedy Jr. doesn't know shit about health. Wait. That's not quite right. Robert Kennedy Jr. knows only shit about health. Everything he says, every action he takes, every new restriction he inflicts on the American people, actively makes things worse.
In just 48 hours this week, came word that Kennedy intends to outlaw the COVID-19 vaccine, threaten doctors who try to get around new guidelines limiting childhood vaccines, and take personal control of who can and can not have Medicaid.
According to information obtained by The Daily Beast, the COVID-19 vaccineâa vaccine responsible for preventing an estimated 14.4 million deathsâis going to be outlawed "within months" as part of Kennedy's ongoing campaign against mRNA vaccines. That campaign is based on a complete misunderstanding of how these vaccines work, and the evidence he has presented only shows how effective this technique has been.
As Staat reports, Kennedy deliberately misstated and distorted the results of mRNA research to justify blocking the use of these vaccines.
When it isnât misreading studiesâ conclusions, the compilation uses them in an intellectually dishonest way. ⌠The safety distortions are egregious. The document highlights anaphylaxis rates as high as 1 in 2,280 doses from selective studies, while systematic CDC surveillance estimates 4.5 per million doses, 400 times lower. They emphasize myocarditis in young males, which peaked at about 100 per million among males ages 16-17 after the second dose, without mentioning that SARS-CoV-2 infection causes myocarditis at higher rates with worse outcomes, or that rates have since dropped to background levels.
With this false justification, Kennedy has already cut off $500 million in funding that was going to 22 separate vaccine research projects, including not just improved COVID-19 vaccines, but vaccines against bird flu, HIV, and several forms of cancer. Banning the currently available COVID-19 protection, after already blocking the release of updated vaccines and making it more difficult for anyone to get a shot this fall, will absolutely result in more illness, hospitalization, and deaths. Unnecessary deaths.
In reaction to the radical nonsense now being spread by the agencies that are supposed to provide expert advice to the public, several medical organizations, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, have issued their own advice on childhood vaccines.
The AAP is strongly recommending COVID-19 shots for children ages 6 months to under 2 years. Shots also are advised for older children if parents want their kids vaccinated, the AAP said.
Kennedy is now threatening anyone who tries to fight back against his deadly nonsense and protect children by threatening to remove liability protections guaranteed under the law.
"AAP should ... be candid with doctors and hospitals that recommendations that diverge from the CDC's official list are not shielded from liability under the 1986 Vaccine Injury Act," Kennedy posted this week on X
It shouldn't be surprising that this is also a lie. Vaccine liability is regulated under the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, which hasn't been changed by Kennedy's counterfactual declarations. Yet. But Trump and congressional Republicans will surely help go after doctors trying to save the lives of children when they are called on to change the VICP. After all, it's what they do.
And, in case you, along with the media, have forgotten, the United States is still undergoing a major outbreak of measles that is also being ignored by the "Make America Healthy Again" coalition.
As measles surged in Texas early this year, the Trump administrationâs actions sowed fear and confusion among CDC scientists that kept them from performing the agencyâs most critical function â emergency response â when it mattered most, an investigation from KFF Health News shows.
As the outbreak he has carefully nurtured grows, Kennedy is moving to take personal control over who gets health care in America. Because, as Mother Jones reports, Kennedy doesn't blame viruses, or bad medical advice, or health care costs, for your illness. He blames you. And he does not think you're worth it.
The ethos behind Kennedyâs Make America Healthy Again movement blames individual people for their chronic diseasesâparticularly by associating health conditions with choices like vaccinationâand links Medicaid usersâ value to their economic productivity, as when Trumpâs Agriculture Secretary, Brooke Rollins, said in early July that able-bodied people on Medicaid should replace deported migrant farm workers.
With the latest changes, Kennedy will personally hold "almost total control" over who is allowed to get Medicaid. That includes classifying people suffering from severe chronic pain or debilitating fatigue due to illnesses like COVID-19 as "able-bodied." Unless those people can set their illnesses aside and work at least 80 hours a month, Kennedy can jerk away their care.
In his previous time in the White House, Trump played a constant game of round robin with his advisers and staff, tossing one sycophant after another into the fire as soon as they ran afoul of public opinion or showed any sign of independent thought. But even with Kennedy daily introducing quackery that is already getting American children killed, don't expect Trump to can Kennedy any time soon.
First, the media is not providing anything near the pressure that's necessary to keep the horrors now taking place at the CDC in the public eye. You might think that destroying cancer research, deliberately hiding health statistics, and denying children life-saving vaccines might be more important than how someone ran their email server. You would be wrong.
Second, Trump doesn't give a damn about healthcare. He's never had to think for one moment about whether or not he would get anything less than the absolute best care, and has not even the slightest concern thatâno matter what Kennedy saysâhe'll keep getting whatever it takes (including whatever the hell he's getting right now).
Third, instead of being concerned about kerfuffles around his underlings, Trump is more than happy for the secretary of this, that, and the other thing to capture a bit of the limelight this time around. Their missteps and should-be-scandals help steer public attention away from Epstein (which the media also seems to have largely forgotten) and to give Trump space to plot his next round of graft, authoritarianism, or a two-in-one.
If Kennedy put Josef Mengele on a CDC board, Trump would fully approve. And he's already come close.
Kennedy isn't ending American lives by accident. All of his actions come from the deep-seated belief that he and his brainworm are super healthy because he does pushups and eats roadkill. The rest of us deserve whatever we get. Including dead children.
Until the somulent media and even more out of it Democratic leadership wake up, the death toll is only going to rise.
Comments
We want Uncharted Blue to be a welcoming and progressive space.
Before commenting, make sure you've read our Community Guidelines.