The Truth about RFK Jr

As we noted, Secretary Kennedy said, "It’s very, very difficult for any infectious disease to kill a healthy human being." SBM's Dr. David Gorski wrote in response, "Of course, these are the sorts of things that RFK Jr. has been saying all along. First, his idea that measles is a harmless disease if you are healthy is just plain wrong. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not arguing against good nutrition, but good nutrition is not going to make it less likely that an unvaccinated child will catch measles and is not a silver bullet to prevent death. The second part is so wrong that RFK Jr. is not even wrong. It is, however, a common MAHA talking point that frames health as an issue of private virtue with respect to health-related behaviors and implies, if not outright states, that if you live the “correct” lifestyle, consume the “correct” diet, and do the “correct” amount of exercise, infectious diseases can’t harm you." Or putting it another way, if you get sick, it is your own fault. My position is sometimes the fault is not in ourselves, but in our genes. Our immune systems are not identical the entire population.

David Gorski wrote, "Again, let’s just say that, if anything, I understated the danger when I called RFK Jr. an extinction-level threat to US federal science-based programs in health, public health, and biomedical research...I didn’t make much in the way of specific predictions about the NIH, but let me just say right now that what’s going on at the NIH is far worse than my worse nightmares last year."
 
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I am quite in agreement with the above, but would just add that the anti-vax approach means, even if the lie about healthy kids not dying were true, that healthy kids have the right to go out and infect, maybe killing, those who are not. You may deceive yourself into believing that that's their fault - God made that kid have asthma or a childhood illness no doubt - but parents who think it's OK for their kids to be the unwitting agents of moral judgment...well, I cannot speak politely enough for a posting here, but since the auto censor should take care of it, I'll just say that those ◊◊◊◊◊◊◊ ◊◊◊◊◊◊◊ should ◊◊◊◊ themselves with a file.
 
Chris_Halkides said:
NBC reported, "Kennedy claimed that the FDA’s proximity to the food industry has resulted in its failure to address food contamination. “Like every agency,” he said, the FDA “at one point really became a sock puppet for the industry it was supposed to regulate.” Kennedy has long alleged that the federal health agencies are too close with the industries they regulate. It’s not an uncommon critique of the FDA — in 2021, for example, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., denounced President Joe Biden’s FDA pick, citing close ties to the pharmaceutical industry. Some have also taken issue with the fact that the FDA’s review of products, like drugs, is funded by user fees from industry."

Regulatory capture is real thing, but the problem has been recognized for a long time. One might ask "What solution to regulatory capture does he propose, and how general is it?"
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Their solution is obviously to remove the FDA. Then there's no regulations for industries to capture. Simples!
 
Medscape wrote, "In 2019, 13.7 million people died globally from infectious disease and 3 million of those deaths were in children younger than 5 years, according to the March 2022 issue of The Lancet, Global Health. In 2023, COVID-19 alone contributed to 76,446 deaths in the United States. Each year an estimated 12,000-52,000 people die from influenza in this country, depending on the severity of the flu season, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention."
 
Chris_Halkides said:
Medscape wrote, "In 2019, 13.7 million people died globally from infectious disease and 3 million of those deaths were in children younger than 5 years, according to the March 2022 issue of The Lancet, Global Health. In 2023, COVID-19 alone contributed to 76,446 deaths in the United States. Each year an estimated 12,000-52,000 people die from influenza in this country, depending on the severity of the flu season, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention."
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A small sacrifice to pay in order to keep woke medical poisons like vaccination out of our precious children!
 
Orphia Nay said:
NIH cuts triggered a host of lawsuits:

www.nature.com

NIH cuts triggered a host of lawsuits: Nature’s guide to what’s next

A host of legal claims aim to roll back the Trump administration’s grant terminations, indirect-cost cap and more.
www.nature.com www.nature.com

Eta: Sorry, you need an account to read the whole thing, but hopefully just the intro is useful.
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As ever "and whose army?" They can win as many legal cases as possible but who is going to force the government to comply?
 
Yeah, these people don't understand risk.

1/2000 is like 4 times higher than the chance that a person will die if they drive drunk (it's about 1/7500 or so, maybe a little lower even)

They can't even use the excuse "well if you drive drunk you might kill someone else" because, if you infect someone else with the measles....

We don't accept a 1/1000 risk of death in almost anything we do in life. I mean, maybe in NASCAR drivers. Climbing Mount Everest has historically about a 5% death rate.

Life insurance won't cover you for death by skydiving or scuba, and those have death rates on the order of 1/300 000.
 
Whether measles can kill a healthy human being isn't the only consideration- there can be long term complications (NBC News):

The virus can wipe out the immune system, a complication called “immune amnesia.”

When we get sick with viruses or bacteria, our immune systems have the ability to form memories that quickly allow them to recognize and respond to the pathogens if they’re encountered again.

Measles targets cells in the body, such as plasma cells and memory cells, that contain those immunologic memories, destroying some of them in the process.

“Nobody escapes this,” said Dr. Michael Mina, a vaccine expert and former professor of epidemiology at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, who has led some of the research in the field.
...
More frightening is an untreatable measles complication called subacute sclerosing panencephalitis (SSPE), a brain disease that can occur 10 years or more after someone recovers from the infection and is almost always fatal.


For reasons not well understood, the measles virus can cause a persistent infection that can lead to damage in the brain, resulting in cognitive decline, coma and death.
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If the Richest Country On Earth can't afford to help its citizens with their health-care insurance, its leaders could at least stop putting them in a position to need it by casting the best preventative as the more dangerous alternative.
 
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Chris_Halkides said:
... RFK Jr's whole idea seems poorly thought through.
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Because it is. Herd immunity achieved by letting everyone get sick has at least three problems.

1) It leads to the pathogen constantly slow rolling. It's always around. We had plenty of years before vaccines to provide evidence.

2) If you can't constantly keep herd immunity > xx% then you cannot control the infections including in healthy people..

3) Cost/benefit assessments demonstrate the vaccine costs less that the pathogen.

1&2 may seem to be redundant but they are not.
 
Chris_Halkides said:
Why 20% of the NIH budget should ever go to replication is open to question, given how much new work needs to be done.
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First, research on vaccine associated autism has been replicated and for that plus methods to diagnose autism prior to giving any vaccines is more than dollars spent continuing to look for an association with vaccines means less or no money looking for the actual cause of autism.

But a lot of research is done on small sample sizes and many more were poorly done. Those are the studies that do need replicating. And it should be prioritized despite there being competing studies. One need only look at the massive market for vitamin C based on a single, poorly designed, study done on a small sample size to see the need for replicating studies.
 
The problem with doing research on vaccines is that it is a distraction from doing research on autism. If you want to find the cause of autism you find it by doing research on autism not vaccines or weedkillers. It is very difficult to prove a negative, so research on vaccines is not going to prove they are not a cause of autism in some cases. even if an association is found between vaccine use and autism (which it is possible they might find due to confounding factors), an association is not proof of causation. But if you believe something as RFK does it takes little evidence to confirm your prior belief and a great deal to change your belief.
 
Planigale said:
The problem with doing research on vaccines is that it is a distraction from doing research on autism. If you want to find the cause of autism you find it by doing research on autism not vaccines or weedkillers. It is very difficult to prove a negative, so research on vaccines is not going to prove they are not a cause of autism in some cases. even if an association is found between vaccine use and autism (which it is possible they might find due to confounding factors), an association is not proof of causation. But if you believe something as RFK does it takes little evidence to confirm your prior belief and a great deal to change your belief.
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"I reject your reality and substitute my own!"
 
I Am The Scum said:
It's also just a plainly incoherent strategy. The goal is to prevent the illness. Anyone who thinks that the first step should be getting the illness has clearly lost the plot.
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Yeah, I was going to say that. The purpose of "herd immunity" is so that people don't get the disease. What is the point of it if everyone gets the disease?

It's pretty moronic.
 
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