This is what happens when political nepotism and cult-like behavior in MAGA puts actual idiots in charge of science programs and funding research.
Robert F Kennedy, Jr. has no business being in charge of the nation's health science. It seems he should not even be in charge of his own health.
And if you do a little research, you will find that the TRUE ORIGIN of Covid-19 has been established by Donald Trump on the White House web suite: a lab leak.
The idiocy is just mind-boggling.
I would thank you for tuning in, but I am sure you may be as disgusted as I am.
Shot in the dark
 | I’m the editor of this newsletter. |
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the health secretary, isn’t just a vaccine skeptic. He especially dislikes one type of vaccine: those that use mRNA technology, such as the first Covid shots. He has canceled nearly $500 million to make mRNA immunizations and a bird-flu vaccine that Moderna was developing.
This is a relatively new technology, and it’s worth remembering the moment the shots debuted for widespread use in late 2020. Three hundred thousand Americans had died from Covid. (The number eventually exceeded a million, the most of any country.) Most schools were still closed. White-collar workers were still mostly remote. Americans were in a mental health crisis. When I got my jab, I hadn’t eaten in a restaurant for a year. The vaccines ended all that.
Kennedy says they’re no good, and he’s halting government support for them. For today’s newsletter, I asked Apoorva Mandavilli, who covers vaccines for The Times, to explain what’s happening.
What is an mRNA vaccine?
Some vaccines use a weakened version of a bacterium or virus to provoke an immune response and train your body’s defenses. Others use a piece of the virus that the body can easily recognize as foreign. MRNA has the instructions for making only one small part of a virus. It directs the body’s cells to make that fragment, which then sets off an immune response.
What is Kennedy’s argument about mRNA?
Kennedy echoes many people’s discomfort with the speed at which the vaccines were developed. But mRNA vaccines had been studied for more than 20 years before Covid struck. His criticisms also go further than most. He has said the vaccines are ineffective because they don’t prevent infection. He has also said they’re dangerous, at one point referring to them as the “deadliest” vaccines ever made.
And what does the evidence show?
Like all vaccines, the Covid mRNA shots have some side effects. Anecdotally, thousands of people reported problems. But extensive studies in the U.S. and elsewhere found only a few serious ones. For example, the vaccines can cause heart problems in a small fraction of young men, and one study said there were seven severe cases of shingles for every million shots administered. This is comparable to the safety record of most other vaccines. It’s not surprising that we’ve heard more about Covid vaccines, because they were given to billions of people worldwide.
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| Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Tierney L. Cross/The New York Times |
Kennedy prefers “whole-cell” vaccines to mRNA shots. What does that mean?
Whole-cell vaccines are based on a crude technology developed more than 100 years ago. Those vaccines use the entire pathogen, so they may expose the body to hundreds of antigens — the part of the bacterium or virus that provokes an immune response — at once.
Not surprisingly, they also cause very strong reactions, including seizures and fevers in young children. Over the decades, we have developed much cleaner, sleeker vaccines that contain only the few antigens they need. There is a trade-off: The newer vaccines sometimes are less protective than the cruder versions.
If more people getting shots have ugly side effects, as they would from those whole-cell vaccines, it may give even more fuel to the antivax movement.
It may. In the case of Covid vaccines, it may not even be mRNA tech causing the side effects. The coronavirus is a powerful adversary, and any vaccine designed to counter it may shock the immune system. There is no perfectly safe vaccine or drug.
One thing I don’t get: President Trump built Operation Warp Speed, the government effort to develop these Covid vaccines. And he spent years urging people to get them. What’s your best understanding of why mRNA is now out of favor with his administration?
The Covid mandates turned many against the vaccines as employers and schools required people to get inoculated. Kennedy brought his own political constituency, which includes many people opposed to vaccines, and Trump has given him a lot of autonomy to make decisions about public health.
Trump Administration to Wind Down mRNA Vaccine Development
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) said on Tuesday that it will start winding down mRNA vaccine development efforts under a federal health agency focused on developing medical countermeasures to address public health emergencies.
mRNA vaccines have been credited by public health experts with saving millions of lives during the COVID-19 pandemic, and many infectious disease experts have stressed that years of research have shown the shots are both safe and effective. But HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a prominent vaccine skeptic, claimed in a statement accompanying HHS’s announcement that “data show these vaccines fail to protect effectively against upper respiratory infections like COVID and flu.”
The move, which HHS said comes after “a comprehensive review of mRNA-related investments initiated during the COVID-19 public health emergency,” will involve canceling and de-scoping various contracts under the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA). The “wind-down” will impact 22 projects that come out to a total of nearly $500 million, according to HHS’s press release.
“We’re shifting that funding toward safer, broader vaccine platforms that remain effective even as viruses mutate,” Kennedy said.
Kennedy has faced widespread criticism from public health experts over the years for spreading medical disinformation, including about vaccines. His nomination by President Donald Trump in November to lead HHS sparked outcry from the science and medical communities, but he was ultimately confirmed to the role in February.
Read More: Measles Cases Are at a 33-Year High. Experts Warn Other Diseases Could Follow
Tuesday’s announcement marks HHS’s latest move under Kennedy’s leadership to significantly change the country’s immunization policy. In May, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said that it will stop recommending annual COVID-19 vaccines for children and most adults. In June, Kennedy said that he would be retiring all 17 members of a committee that provides recommendations on vaccines to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Kennedy appointed new members to the committee, and last month, HHS adopted a controversial recommendation from the panel to remove the preservative thimerosal from flu vaccines, despite extensive research showing it to be safe in the small amounts included in some shots.
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- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 2508.08 - 10:10
- Days ago: MOM = 3690 days ago & DAD = 344 days ago
- New note - On 1807.06, I ceased daily transmission of my Hey Mom feature after three years of daily conversations. I post Hey Mom blog entries on special occasions. I post the days since ("Days Ago") count on my blog each day, and now I have a second count for Days since my Dad died on August 28, 2024. I am now in the same time zone as Google! So, when I post at 10:10 a.m. PDT to coincide with the time of Mom's death, I am now actually posting late, so it's really 1:10 p.m. EDT. But I will continue to use the time stamp of 10:10 a.m. to remember the time of her death and sometimes 13:40 EDT for the time of Dad's death. The blog entry numbering in the title has changed to reflect total Sense of Doubt posts since I began the blog on 0705.04, which include Hey Mom posts, Daily Bowie posts, and Sense of Doubt posts. Hey Mom posts will still be numbered sequentially. New Hey Mom posts will use the same format as all the other Hey Mom posts; all other posts will feature this format seen here.
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