And then we have RFK for head of Health and Human Services
It’s no surprise at all, although if you’d have said a year ago that it would happen, most people would say you’d lost your mind.
I’m not a big RFK fan (see this, for example), but I can’t say I’ve done a deep deep dive into some of his ideas that I question, and so I’m open to seeing how he performs in this particular job if he’s confirmed. However, I most certainly don’t automatically discount his views because some health “experts” disagree with them:
President Donald Trump’s pick of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services “is an extraordinarily bad choice for the health of the American people,” Dr. Ashish Jha, dean of the Brown University School of Public Health, warned Thursday.
“I was worried we could go low but not this low,” Dr. Carlos del Rio, executive associate dean of the Emory School of Medicine & Grady Health System, wrote of the pick.
Although Trump signaled in the runup to the election that he planned to let the vaccine skeptic “go wild” on health, food and medicine, Kennedy’s official selection for the nation’s top health post sent shockwaves through the public health world, concerned about his potential effects on vaccination rates, research on infectious diseases and misrepresentation of established science.
The article leaves out the fact that Dr. Jha was Biden’s COVID czar from April of 2022 to June of 2023. That seems relevant to me, although from a brief look at his policies it seems to me he wasn’t an extremist compared to some of his colleagues. But considering his former position in the Biden administration, I think it’s wrong not to mention it in the article and to lead people to believe he has no horse in this race.
But in general it’s a case of “physicians, heal thyselves.” The health establishment has a great deal to answer for in terms of COVID origins, the COVID vaccine, and COVID lockdowns, and if people have become skeptical of them and their recommendations regarding vaccines or anything else, I think that health authorities should point the finger at themselves.
I’m a middle-of-the-roader on all of this, as most regular readers here know. I was initially calling for a far less panicky approach to all of it, and continued in that vein (please see this post, for example). But I’ve also noticed that many of the most extreme anti-vax positions are also based on very faulty readings of statistics, and I’ve written many posts on that topic, too (see see this for one of them). But it cannot be said enough that if people have lost trust in health authorities, those health authorities are the ones who have undermined that trust.
Here’s Dr. Oz on the RFK appointment, for what it’s worth. Oz’s politics, at least, are well known:
I just hope he can do some good.
My Wife and I just got the COVID booster, first one since the boosters first came out. We did it because my Wife is seriously medically compromised. I got one to potentially help protect her.
I think it was Ace who characterized a physician’s study of early intervention in gender issues. Something like, “If the public finds out our work has been harming children, we might not be able to continue harming children.”
A leaked email from Vanderbilt medical, early on, referred to the gender biz as a “cash cow”.
The State Supreme Court of NY has ordered the rehiring of 1700 employees who were fired for refusing a vax mandate. Since it’s not a vax, according to the court, not stopping you from getting the crud, nor from spreading it. This is going to be a big deal, since it includes back pay and likely pension credits. And they’ll have to be fit into wherever they came from which no doubt has organized to get along without them.
Similar case with the same assertions in the Ninth Circuit.
Took two jabs for my wife and I to finally get Covid.
What’s going on with autism? Is there more of it? Expanded diagnoses? Recent report of women ingesting some “pollution” while pregnant.
Is mercury the terriblest poison in the world, or can we go back to playing table hockey with globs of it in chem class? Is the only safe thing shooting it into our kids?
Remember when you could be smarter than illiterate hillbillies by sneering at their concern about fluoride in water? Search for “fluoride”. “child” “intellectual”. Seems the illiterate hillbillies were right. Now what?
Point is, there are always questions and an excess of arrogance will turn on the medical world.
Richard Aubrey:
I’ve dealt at length with the autism diagnosis issue. See this for one example. It’s over 15 years old, though, and a bit rusty, although I think the main conclusion – that the increase is an artifact of diagnostic and reporting changes – is correct.
China Virus was second biggest Hoax in human history. COVID deaths went up – most other deaths went down. Trump was played like a rookie.
Govt paid more for a COVID death than other deaths. How many COVID deaths had autopsies to actually prove the death was by COVID?
Democrats got the precedent set for the future – Govt can shut down churches, synagogues, businesses, etc. Govt can fire workers who do not agree with Govt policies. Govt can force people to wear paper masks in order to protect them from ‘Thangs that have escaped from a Level 4 Biolab. Those are just some that I noticed, but who knows how long the actual list is…
Yeah, Trump did just fine with RFK Jr. for HHS, IMHO.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/nov/15/mike-pence-reject-rfk-jr-trump
I’m no fan of Pence since he went Never Trump, but I agree with him here. It’s a bit odd, since the Dems are pro-abortion.
Mike Pence is in the history book. The Abortion issue is in the State’s hands now, and should be left there…
With abortion now a state issue, what actual authority over abortion policy does HHS have?
If RFK Jr. can doe something about the obvious corrupt practice of NIH grant-makers getting ongoing royalty payments from drugmakers, he’ll be doing a wonderful thing.
Neo
Something causes autism. Nobody seems to know what. An advocate named “Escher” has two grown autistic kids. She’s wondering. Why one? And two? And nobody knows why?
It’s a human thing to seek patterns and causes when what’s happening looks random. And autism requires some serious medical stuff to go wrong all at once. “random” doesn’t satisfy.
Two “randoms” for the same woman is hard to fit into probability theory. Was at a public event about a year and a half ago. Religious in nature. Saw two families each with two autistic kids. Random? Hard to sell.
It is human nature to seek a cause, one which can be understood and, please God, controlled.
One they found out what Asperger’d been up to in his spare time, the Aspies disappeared. Presumably folded into the autism numbers. That’s true, right?
As a general rule, anything on a spectrum is subject to diagnostic extension.
More stuff to worry about. Maybe Trump will be put in the position of having to restrain some of his appointees, rather than vice versa.