RFK Jr. confirmed
He’s not my favorite of Trump’s nominees. But I’ll give him a chance.
The vote mirrored that for Tulsi Gabbard yesterday – Mitch McConnell was the only Republican voting no.
I do think that RJK’s anti-vax views have been somewhat exaggerated by his detractors. He’s certainly not against all vaccines, for example.
And here’s a relatively fair article about him from, of all places, the BBC.
They did a good job of “Sanity Washing” him. Because I support(!!!) cleaning up our food and medical industries I am concerned about someone with a multi decade record of flakey and erratic behavior.
If I’m not mistaken, Glitch McConnell voted for Biden’s nominees, by and large.
RFK Jr. is a mess of a man with a checkered past and a sketchy skill set. However, he was helpful during the campaign so gets a position he wants. I suspect what distinguishes him from Matt Gaetz is that the dirt on RFK Jr is public information and ‘priced-in’. I do hate the political world in which we live.
@art deco:If I’m not mistaken, Glitch McConnell voted for Biden’s nominees, by and large.
16 / 21. Six Republicans voted for more…
Incidentally there are already news articles blaming him for measles deaths among unvaccinated children, apparently by using a time machine.
I have to say that at my health-care-adjacent day job, everyone is scaring each other with how many people will die because of RFK Jr.
But in my experience, nurses believe in a lot of woo and quite a few refused the COVID vaccinations; many of them secretly agree with him and are pretending not to, or are just unaware of how much they overlap with things he believes, or have let politics drive them insane. All or any of these could be operating with some of them.
I don’t know much at all about him, and didn’t watch the hearings. Does he think that MMR vaccines cause autism? That seems to be smear against him. Is he likely, in his new position as Secretary of HHS, to imply that it does? Asking for a friend.
Mike Plaiss:
All I can find so far is that at his hearing he refused to say that vaccines don’t cause autism, and he said the rising rates of autism need more study.
> Does he think that MMR vaccines cause autism? That seems to be smear against him.
Even in digital computing, where functional subsystems are as hermetically isolated from each other as theoretically possible, anyone who ever did performance profiling knows that the material world is a b11ch.
Human beings (whether you look at the body or the _psyche_) are very bad at functional isolation. We were not designed for that, and we never evolved for that. We evolved (or were designed) for efficiency (proxy: for as much reuse as possible).
Never rule out the existence of a connection in a material world.
This summary might help (click through the links):
https://www.sciencealert.com/the-connection-between-autism-and-the-gut-microbiome-is-clearer-than-ever
LXE, it seems to me that gut microbiome is a more likely cause for disorders than a small amount of a substance in a traditional vaccination.
What I predict with RFKJr is that he will continue to be purposed by the Progressive Left as a lightning rod, continually charged with all the worst, flakiest pejorative smears. Depending upon how much the Legacy Mainstream Media changes course, this could change once a meaningful challenge starts to be suggested – such as relying on laboratory testing and scientific methodology to improve the safety and efficacy of drugs and vaccines.
I would just be happy to see a renewal of the ban for advertising pharmaceuticals on television and other common-sense advances – such as the curtailment of special protections from liability enjoyed by the vaccine manufacturers, and meaningful change for the testing and approval of vaccines along accepted medical standards.
I like his commitment for greater transparency.
I didn’t take the covid vax because they kept advertising to not take if you are allergic to any components. I tried to find out what was in the stuff. My doctor tried to find out. We decided that since I have a few allergies, I would not take the risk.
I am not against vaccines, I just don’t like the schedule for little kids. I think Rand Paul mentioned the Hep B vaccine that is given within the first few months of life. He commented, with a laugh, that babies don’t have sex that young. He mentioned that if the mother is at risk, then that is a good reason for the early dose. Otherwise, it can be given later.
@Kate
> gut microbiome is a more likely cause for disorders than a small amount of a substance
The bitter irony is that the quantitative argument (“a small amount of substance”) destroys the very theory behind the effect of vaccines.
The goal of vaccination _is_ to affect the composition of the microbiome — very rarely directly (it is VERY expensive to synthesize antibodies; I was on Xolair for a while, and it comes literally at $5K a shot, the insurance paying the $4K), and more commonly by provoking the immune system to produce the expected response by signaling it with antigens.
“Signal” is the key. The immune system works (qualitatively) as a giant processor and (magnitudinally) as a giant amplifier. Optimization exclusively for efficiency means that the processor (analog, as in neural networks, albeit on different physical/chemical principles) is borderline overtrained and sometimes overreacting/hallucinating (google/bing: allergies).
The TL;DR summary would be (almost in the words of Arthur C. Clarke), if three or more patients perceive a causal effect between a medical intervention and a biological reaction, they are most likely right; but if any number of experts deny the possibility of a reaction on _a priori_ grounds without troubleshooting the evidence in good faith, they are most likely wrong.
Very unfortunately, basic economics AND basic political science independently suggest a deficit of good faith among government-approved experts. If you have any doubt, just ask all those transed kids ten years later.
Yes, LXE, but in traditional vaccines the “small substance” which makes the difference is the killed or inactive virus which triggers the immune response. RFK Jr. had argued that it was an inactive ingredient which made children be autistic, and that seems not to be valid, or at least it has not been convincingly proved to be valid. Anyhow, he said in the hearings that he would not change the recommended schedule of childhood vaccinations. We’ll see.
LXE has the right of it. Because the human body is very complex, sometimes small amounts of substances have a very large effect. Immunization is predicated on this. Some substances need very large doses to cause a negative effect (table salt) and some only need a very small amount (cyanide).
An “inactive” ingredient just means that it doesn’t contribute to the intended effect, not that it does nothing at all. For example, if you read a NyQuil bottle there are three active ingredients listed. Alcohol is listed as an INactive ingredient, but it’s not as though alcohol has no effect on the body. It’s just “inactive” from the perspective of what NyQuil is intended to treat.
I don’t think the connection between autism and MMR vaccines has been established, but if there were one, it might be because one of the “inactive” ingredients has an unintended and not-understood effect, and so no one could just handwave away the size of the dose and the “inactivity” of that ingredient as reasons to discount that possibility.
There is a lot more generally accepted medicine unsupported by good standards of evidence than most people realize, and not everything doctors do went through controlled studies. For example, ten years ago I was given a silver cream to treat a burn, but there never was good evidence from controlled studies that it works better than anything it was ever compared with. It is just a traditional medicine.
I am very happy that he was chosen by Trump and confirmed. I was very biased against him up until the Pandemic. I formerly was a big-pharma defender. I listened to his “debate” with Dershowitz and I found out things regarding the science and inproper research regarding vaccines that shocked me. His book on Fauci was a difficult read exposing horrible actions advanced by our government. I could barely get through it. The Democrat pushback against him is indicative of the truth. They supported Fauci (“the Science”) and rejected RFK Jr., even the Kennedy family. When the prevailing Democrats say “science” or “environment” or “health” or “protection of children” you can be assured it represents the opposite.
If you want to get a read on RFK Jr., I recommend listening to his interview with Joe Rogan.
And THAT—unfortunately—is “all ye’ need to know”….
If the Democrats, and the people they have seduced to support them, have persuaded me of anything it is precisely THAT.
“Unfortunately”, because 1) it is NOT an ideal situation for the country to be in; and 2) because those crafty, hateful, power-hungry imbeciles may, at times, stumble upon truth—even if accidentally or unintentionally—which complicates matters, SINCE IT MEANS means that EVERYONE will have to develop Soviet-type, laser-like abilities to read/hear/see “between the lines”, as it were, which I don’t believe is possible for most in the West.
(OTOH, if the venal, insane—endless—lying persists, even Westerners may EVOLVE to develop such critical—in all senses—capabilities…)
File under: The skeptical skeptic…
I’ve always thought he was a kook and a useful kook during the election. I hope I’m wrong about him.
Not going to lie, RFK has never been my favorite candidate among Trump’s retinue, but he has his points. Moreover he doesn’t need to be my favorite man in history but do a job within the limits of the law and President. We’ll see how it goes.
Sharon W, yes JFK Jr’s book was a difficult read and not just because of the voluminous footnotes. His revelations about Fauci and AZT were extremely disturbing to me because of the many friends who took it to no avail and died horrible deaths. I had friends who lived in death houses waiting their turn, then attended funeral after funeral over a 5 year period in the mid 80s. We looked at Fauci as a savior when it turns out he was a monster.
If Kennedy is in error about vaccines, the possibility of inert ingredients in them causing autism, open research will prove him wrong. If he’s in error it could be something as simple as, correlation does not prove causation. It’s more likely that a number factors are leading to the increase, including mis-diagnosis.
Duh, RFK, Jr…
The fact that we had a presidential candidate this past election cycle, who is now in an influential position in government, at least talking about the chronic disease epidemic AND how that was a driving force behind COVID-19 deaths, was nothing short of miraculous to me. We need people like RFK Jr. right now. He’s part and parcel of the extreme, sweeping change we need to make in the federal government. He’s certainly going to expose a great deal of the lies and corruption that have been going on in the pharmaceutical, food, and agricultural industries, and anyone who isn’t evil will be glad in the long run.
Do you listen to Dark Horse at all (Bret Weinstein and Heather Heying)? What they’ve had to say lately might make you reconsider some of your opinions on RFK Jr. Specific episodes I recommend are #256 “Follow the White Rabbit(s)” and #263 “A Germ of Truth.”