The Truth about RFK Jr

Chris_Halkides said:
  • Joseph R. Hibbeln, a psychiatrist and neuroscientist who worked on nutritional neurosciences at the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
  • Martin Kulldorff, an epidemiologist formerly at Harvard Medical School.
  • Retsef Levi, a professor of operations management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Sloan School of Management.
  • Robert W. Malone, a biochemist who took part in early research of mRNA vaccine technology.
  • Cody Meissner, a professor of pediatrics at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth College who previously served on ACIP.
  • James Pagano, an emergency medicine physician.
  • Vicky Pebsworth, the Pacific region director of the National Association of Catholic Nurses. She formerly sat on the Food and Drug Administration’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee.
  • Michael A. Ross, a clinical professor of obstetrics and gynecology at George Washington University and Virginia Commonwealth University.
The above are the eight new members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), and they will meet on 25 June. Dr. Kulldorff was a co-signer of the Great Barrington Declaration. According to TheHill, Dr. Robert Malone "promoted the use of hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin for treating the coronavirus and repeatedly claimed the COVID shots did not work." PBS wrote, "The new appointees include Vicky Pebsworth, a regional director for the National Association of Catholic Nurses, who has been listed as a board member and volunteer director for the National Vaccine Information Center, a group that is widely considered to be a leading source of vaccine misinformation."

NPR wrote, "Public health advocates are wary. "Kennedy did not pick people with strong, current expertise in vaccines," says Dorit Reiss, a professor at UC Law, San Francisco, who studies vaccine policy. "It tells me that Kennedy is setting up a committee that would be skeptical of vaccines, and possibly willing to implement an anti-vaccine agenda."...Dr. Retsef Levi, who's at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has stoked concerns about the shots. In a social media post in early 2023, Levi said that all "COVID mRNA vaccination program should stop immediately…because they completely fail to fulfill any of their advertised promises regarding efficacy" and there was "mounting and indisputable evidence that they cause unprecedented levels of harm, including the death of young people and children.""
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Martin Kulldorff is more than a cosigner of the GBD. He is coauthor of the herd-immunity-by-infection manifesto!
See post 1,341 of the Swedish thread.

And Kulldorff works for Jeffrey Tucker's Brownstone Institute (Wikipedia).
 
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MSNBC reported, "Dr. Sean O’Leary, an infectious disease expert with the American Academy of Pediatrics, told NBC News that Kennedy’s evidence-free accusations are “deeply insulting to the many scientists who contribute countless hours to the process.” The doctor noted that the ACIP panel is “a model for the rest of the world,” adding that Kennedy is now responsible for “manufactured chaos.” O’Leary told The New York Times that Kennedy’s move should be seen as “an unmitigated public health disaster.”"

BioSpace reported, "[Dr. Paul] Offit highlighted Robert Malone, a biochemist and early mRNA vaccine researcher, “who has testified in front of Congress that the mRNA vaccines cause cancer and heart disease and autoimmune disease, even though it doesn’t.” BMO Capital Markets, in a Wednesday evening note to investors, likewise highlighted Malone as a “notable vaccine skeptic.” The analysts also identified Martin Kulldorff, an epidemiologist “who was against COVID lockdowns and vaccine mandates” and Vicky Pebsworth, the director of Research & Patient Safety at the National Vaccine Information Center, “a nonprofit group widely criticized for spreading vaccine misinformation.” Offit concurred, calling the National Vaccine Information Center a “virulent anti-vaccine group.” Meanwhile, MIT professor Retsef Levi published what Offit called a “horribly flawed paper” claiming that the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines caused heart attacks, which has been “roundly criticized for its methodological problems...Instead, he [Offit] pointed to Project 2025, long thought to be a guiding document for the Trump administration. “If you look at the project 2025, under CDC, it says it wants to eliminate CDC as a recommending body.””
 
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On X Tablet Magazine wrote, "On May 8, Bill Gates announced to the New York Times that he planned to spend down the $200 billion in his foundation’s coffers by Dec. 31, 2045—several decades before originally intended. A month later, Gates revealed that the majority of that money will go to bolstering the work his foundation has been doing in Africa. But what, exactly, have they been doing there? In January, @ArminRosen traveled to Nairobi, where he discovered not only that Kenyans are the raw material for Gates’ better world—but that they hold the key to understanding what’s in store for the rest of us too." Admin Rosen wrote an article called, "Unnatural Immunity: What, exactly, is Bill Gates Doing in Africa?" On X Robert F. Kennedy wrote, "Thanks for calling attention to this. Gates’s ag policies and medical imperialism have transformed Africa into a continent of guinea pigs." I do not know what "medical imperialism" is.
 
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Chris_Halkides said:
On X Tablet Magazine wrote, "On May 8, Bill Gates announced to the New York Times that he planned to spend down the $200 billion in his foundation’s coffers by Dec. 31, 2045—several decades before originally intended. A month later, Gates revealed that the majority of that money will go to bolstering the work his foundation has been doing in Africa. But what, exactly, have they been doing there? In January, @ArminRosen traveled to Nairobi, where he discovered not only that Kenyans are the raw material for Gates’ better world—but that they hold the key to understanding what’s in store for the rest of us too." Admin Rosen wrote an article called, "Unnatural Immunity: What, exactly, is Bill Gates Doing in Africa?" On X Robert F. Kennedy wrote, "Thanks for calling attention to this. Gates’s ag policies and medical imperialism have transformed Africa into a continent of guinea pigs." I do not know what "medical imperialism" is.
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I assume in this case medical imperialism is the practice of giving people medicine that they did not make at home. We should keep our immunities to ourselves! The only thing we should be exporting to those heathen darkies is Jesus!
 
At the Gates Medical Research Institute I found this: "Tuberculosis (TB) is an ancient disease that has affected humans for thousands of years. It remains a leading cause of death worldwide. Each day, over 4,000 people lose their lives to TB and close to 30,000 people fall ill with this preventable and curable disease <a href="https://www.gatesmri.org/disease/tuberculosis/#References">1</a>.

Up to a quarter of the world’s population is thought to be latently infected with TB. In 2020 alone, an estimated 10 million people developed active TB— including 1.1 million children— and 1.5 million people died from TB, including 214,000 people living with HIV. The disease burden remains greatest in LMICs, which account for 98% of reported TB cases <a href="https://www.gatesmri.org/disease/tuberculosis/#References">2</a>."

If curing or preventing tuberculosis is what RFK Jr. meant by "medical imperialism," then it sounds like a good thing.
 
Chris_Halkides said:
  • According to TheHill, Dr. Robert Malone "promoted the use of hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin for treating the coronavirus and repeatedly claimed the COVID shots did not work."
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Medicinal drugs are not magic potions. Some work by inhibiting a single type of enzyme among thousands within a cell, which I will assume to be the case for the purposes of discussion. Part of modern drug development is target engagement, where the researcher asks, "Is the in vivo binding target of my drug candidate the same one that I have been inhibiting with this drug candidate during in vitro experiments on a single, purified enzyme?" What are the presumed targets of hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin? What experiments have been done to test each hypothesis? Without answers at least the first question (and preferably the second one), I am puzzled regarding how anyone could advocate for use of either drug against Covid-19. I have read that some states are mandating that ivermectin be sold over the counter; a few people believe that it has broad curative powers--at least from my casual reading. Although RFK Jr. is not responsible for what the states do, his comments suggest that he approves it on general principles.
 
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Chris_Halkides said:
Medicinal drugs are not magic potions. Some work by inhibiting a single type of enzyme among thousands within a cell, which I will assume to be the case for the purposes of discussion. Part of modern drug development is target engagement, where the researcher asks, "Is the in vivo binding target of my drug candidate the same one that I have been inhibiting with this drug candidate during in vitro experiments on a single, purified enzyme?" What are the presumed targets of hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin? What experiments have been done to test each hypothesis? Without answers at least the first question (and preferably the second one), I am puzzled regarding how anyone could advocate for use of either drug against Covid-19. I have read that some states are mandating that ivermectin be sold over the counter; a few people believe that it has broad curative powers--at least from my casual reading. Although RFK Jr. is not responsible for what the states do, his comments suggest that he approves it on general principles.
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Ivermectin will broadly cure you of intestinal worms. It affects intestinal worms, not so much humans. Which is why it hasn't been tested for COVID.
 
The problem is if you believe that vaccines are bad then you need to believe in a magic bullet. For measles that is high dose vitamin A (+/- inhaled budesonide and azithromycin). For Covid-19 that is Ivermectin (+/- azithromycin, hydroxychloroquine, vitamin C etc.). The rational were some dubious in vitro tests using high dose ivermectin that showed some non-specific anti-viral action. It is then a big step to argue that Ivermectin is an effective agent against a novel virus, but if you don't believe in lock downs or viruses you need something to believe in. Then there were some early reports from obscure places reporting unbelievably good results from Ivermectin. I say unbelievably because they were better than any anti-viral drug previously tested. The same for hydroxychloroquine. So some doctors who couldn't bare the thought (and desperate families) of saying we don't have any treatment started giving something rather then nothing. They had to believe they were doing some good.

The truth is multiple (ie replicated) well done placebo controlled trials (the sort RJK normally insists on), haver shown that Ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine have no benefit. There is often the claim that big pharma is covering up the role of cheap off patent medicines, but this is untrue as the first effective therapy (shown in multiple ie replicated well done RCTs) was dexamethasone, a cheap off patent medicine. A disproportionate amount of resource had to be spent showing ivermectin didn't work that could perhaps have been used to look at other therapies. There was limited research resource, and needing to address false narratives about hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin was harmful in that it prevented other research being done.

www.nature.com

Mortality outcomes with hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine in COVID-19 from an international collaborative meta-analysis of randomized trials - Nature Communications

Hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine have been investigated as a potential treatment for Covid-19 in several clinical trials. Here the authors report a meta-analysis of published and unpublished trials, and show that treatment with hydroxychloroquine for patients with Covid-19 was associated with...
www.nature.com www.nature.com
journals.lww.com

The impact of ivermectin on COVID-19 outcomes: a systematic ... : Annals of Medicine and Surgery

and randomized controlled trials raised questions about its efficacy and safety. Method: This systematic review and meta-analysis followed MOOSE and PRISMA guidelines. Comprehensive searches were conducted in databases including Scopus, Embase, PubMed, and Web of Science up to April 2024. Data...
journals.lww.com journals.lww.com
 
Chris_Halkides said:
On X Tablet Magazine wrote, "On May 8, Bill Gates announced to the New York Times that he planned to spend down the $200 billion in his foundation’s coffers by Dec. 31, 2045—several decades before originally intended. A month later, Gates revealed that the majority of that money will go to bolstering the work his foundation has been doing in Africa. But what, exactly, have they been doing there? In January, @ArminRosen traveled to Nairobi, where he discovered not only that Kenyans are the raw material for Gates’ better world—but that they hold the key to understanding what’s in store for the rest of us too." Admin Rosen wrote an article called, "Unnatural Immunity: What, exactly, is Bill Gates Doing in Africa?" On X Robert F. Kennedy wrote, "Thanks for calling attention to this. Gates’s ag policies and medical imperialism have transformed Africa into a continent of guinea pigs." I do not know what "medical imperialism" is.
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Tablet is a far-right heavily racist zionist tabloid.
 
At Inside Medicine Dr. Jeremy Faust wrote, "Nobody seems to have noticed that HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy is now trying for a “do-over” on the CDC vaccine panel’s votes in favor of recommending RSV and meningococcus vaccines back in April, now that he’s sacked the experts and replaced the panel with a handpicked crop of his own. Well, I noticed...When a Washington Post reporter asked me what I thought of the new ACIP members, I said this: “This is the baseball equivalent of replacing the 1927 Yankees with the 1955 Senators. And that’s apropos because the US Senate owns this.” They didn’t print that."
 
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At Unbiased Science Jess Steier and colleagues wrote, "The following day, he attempted to justify the decision in a lengthy and confusing tweet riddled with misinformation and flawed interpretations of scientific data. Follow along as we unpack the tweet's confusing claims and factual errors…a closer examination [of the eight newly named members] reveals deeply troubling patterns, including:

  • Complete lack of relevant vaccine expertise
  • Serious conflicts of interest
  • Deeply contrarian or cynical views on vaccines
  • Affiliations with organizations that actively promote vaccine misinformation"
 
Chris_Halkides said:
At Unbiased Science Jess Steier and colleagues wrote, "The following day, he attempted to justify the decision in a lengthy and confusing tweet riddled with misinformation and flawed interpretations of scientific data. Follow along as we unpack the tweet's confusing claims and factual errors…a closer examination [of the eight newly named members] reveals deeply troubling patterns, including:

  • Complete lack of relevant vaccine expertise
  • Serious conflicts of interest
  • Deeply contrarian or cynical views on vaccines
  • Affiliations with organizations that actively promote vaccine misinformation"
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If anyone's intention is to get the ultra-gullible part of the US public to simply lose all faith in vaccine management, this is how you could conceivably go about it.
 
At Respectful Insolence David Gorski wrote, "It’s basically an antivaccine myth that the ACIP is totally corrupt and controlled by the pharmaceutical industry. I do suspect, though, that that will soon change given how many potential members favored by RFK Jr. have very real COIs through their financial connections to antivax organizations and the sale of supplements and various “treatments” for “vaccine injury.”"

One of the eight new members is Joseph Hibbeln. According to The Guardian, "Hibbeln is a California-based psychiatrist who previously served as acting chief for the section of nutritional neurosciences at the NIH. He describes himself as an expert on omega-3, a fatty acid found in seafood. He also serves on the advisory council of a non-profit that advocates for Americans to eat more seafood. He practices at Barton Health, a hospital system in Lake Tahoe, California. His work influenced US public health guidelines on fish consumption during pregnancy."
 
Ancient miasma theory may help explain Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s vaccine moves (NPR, June 14, 2025)
One of the ideas that could be influencing his overhaul of federal health agencies dates back to ancient Greece.
The miasma theory is one of the first ideas that civilization hatched to try to explain why people get sick.
"It goes back to Hippocrates," says Dr. Howard Markel, an emeritus professor of medical history from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. "He wrote in a book called Epidemics, that epidemics came from some type of pollution – some pollution of the atmosphere, of the air that we breathe. And hence we got terrible infectious diseases."
(...)
"He's trying to give this false veneer of intellectualism by saying, 'Oh, the miasma theory,'" says Dr. Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health Center for Health Security. "This all just obfuscation to support his idea that vaccines are not valuable."
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It rhymes with this:
Chemtrails: why is RFK Jr battling a debunked conspiracy theory? (TheGuardian, June 12, 2025)
The US health secretary is among those who believe nefarious substances are covertly added to commercial jet fuel
The US health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, is determined to take action on chemtrails. During a recent TV discussion, when an audience member said chemtrails were her biggest health worry, Kennedy affirmed that material was being added to jet fuel. “I’m going to do everything in my power to stop it,” he said. “Find out who’s doing it and holding them accountable.”
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At Dr. Hibbeln's LinkedIn page, I found, "Adequate brain nutrition is obviously fundamental to optimal brain health. Unfortunately, common diets consumed in the 21st century often provide inadequate brain nutrients and are likely contributing to the high burden of mental illnesses worldwide. Valuing the importance of “Nutrition above the Neck” offers profound opportunities to reduce major depression, suicide, aggressive disorders, ADHD, pain and addictions. In my 30 years a commissioned officer in the United States Public Health Service it has been my honor, my privilege and my duty to contribute to the origins of this field. In particular, I have been particularly proud to contribute to advancing brain nutrition for active duty US Military and for Veterans. As a scientist in the intramural program of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, I have used a wide portfolio of basic and clinical science tools to advance nutrition in mental health. The Section of Nutritional Neurosciences comprehensively integrates data from epidemiological, nutrigenomic, basic and clinical science perspectives to best formulate actionable interventions that will improve public health. We seek to determine if resuming historically normal intakes of these essential fats might substantially reduce emotional distress in modern societies." A Quick Look at some publications indicates his research includes the nutritional effects of types of unsaturated fatty acids. I have yet to see anything regarding vaccines.
 
At KFF Health News Jackie Fortier wrote, "A document the Department of Health and Human Services sent to lawmakers to support Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s decision to change U.S. policy on covid vaccines cites scientific studies that are unpublished or under dispute and mischaracterizes others...In two instances, the HHS memo makes claims that are actively refuted by the papers it cites to back them up. Both papers support the safety and effectiveness of covid vaccines for pregnant women...On June 4, Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.) and Schrier introduced a bill that would require Kennedy to adopt official vaccine decisions from the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, or ACIP. Young said the motivation behind the bill was Kennedy’s decision to change the covid vaccine schedule without the input of ACIP’s vaccine experts, who play a key role in setting CDC policies around vaccine schedules and access."
 
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Chris_Halkides said:
At Dr. Hibbeln's LinkedIn page, I found, "Adequate brain nutrition is obviously fundamental to optimal brain health. Unfortunately, common diets consumed in the 21st century often provide inadequate brain nutrients and are likely contributing to the high burden of mental illnesses worldwide. Valuing the importance of “Nutrition above the Neck” offers profound opportunities to reduce major depression, suicide, aggressive disorders, ADHD, pain and addictions. In my 30 years a commissioned officer in the United States Public Health Service it has been my honor, my privilege and my duty to contribute to the origins of this field. In particular, I have been particularly proud to contribute to advancing brain nutrition for active duty US Military and for Veterans. As a scientist in the intramural program of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, I have used a wide portfolio of basic and clinical science tools to advance nutrition in mental health. The Section of Nutritional Neurosciences comprehensively integrates data from epidemiological, nutrigenomic, basic and clinical science perspectives to best formulate actionable interventions that will improve public health. We seek to determine if resuming historically normal intakes of these essential fats might substantially reduce emotional distress in modern societies." A Quick Look at some publications indicates his research includes the nutritional effects of types of unsaturated fatty acids. I have yet to see anything regarding vaccines.
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The benefits of Omega-3-fatty-acids, for example, completely lack proof. Possibly some connection to inflammation.

Omega-3 fatty acid - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org
Google's AI nevertheless gave lots of links of its benefits!
 
dann said:
Martin Kulldorff is more than a cosigner of the GBD. He is coauthor of the herd-immunity-by-infection manifesto!
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Have they explained how you manage to infect enough of the population to achieve herd immunity in a population with herd immunity?
 
In January Respectful Insolence wrote, "The second shows just how far a certain oncologist and EBM methodolatrist turned COVID-19 contrarian and public health underminer has fallen. Obviously, I’m referring to Dr. Vinay Prasad, who recently posted to his monetized Substack one of the most risibly historically ignorant attempts at gaslighting RFK Jr.’s role in the 2019 Samoan measles outbreak that I’ve yet seen, entitled The true story of the Samoa measles outbreak. (Hint: It ain’t.) Either that, or it was intentional faux ignorance."
 
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Tero said:
The benefits of Omega-3-fatty-acids, for example, completely lack proof. Possibly some connection to inflammation.

Omega-3 fatty acid - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org
Google's AI nevertheless gave lots of links of its benefits!
Click to expand...
Tero said:
The benefits of Omega-3-fatty-acids, for example, completely lack proof. Possibly some connection to inflammation.

Omega-3 fatty acid - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org
Google's AI nevertheless gave lots of links of its benefits!
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These are more complicated questions than I realized. In a 2018 post at SBM Steven Novella, MD wrote, "The bottom line of all that is that there was no clear health benefit from consuming omega-3 fatty acids in food or supplements." In a 2025 article on seed oils, Steven Novella wrote, "In the end, there is no evidence that having a higher 6:3 ratio is a health risk for inflammatory or vascular disease." These passages do not bear directly on the issue of mental health and brain nutrition, which is Dr. Hibbeln's area of research. After having seen some very interesting research on vitamins and behavior, I am inclined to keep an open mind regarding the latter. Yet I am still not seeing any connection between his research and vaccines.
 
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Mojo said:
Have they explained how you manage to infect enough of the population to achieve herd immunity in a population with herd immunity?
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They wouldn't. They have no interest in that. The idea was focused protection, i.e. that people of working age and younger should get infected SARS-CoV-2 as soon as possible, which would then make them immune to ever getting it again. In the meantime, the elderly, who were the only really vulnerable people, were to be protected. They never really got into how that was to be accomplished. In Sweden, it also never happened. Tegnell was only concerned with getting everybody infected. As state epidemiologist, he never thought that it was his job to think of ways to protect the elderly. He was busy making sure that schools stayed open, which would contribute to getting everybody infected fast, and people didn't wear face masks - probably for the same reason, but his argument was that wearing masks were dangerous!

The whole thing made it obvious that the main point of this strategy was to eliminate all concerns that might impact 'business (!) as usual' and make people stay away from nightclubs, bars, restaurants, movie theaters etc.

Remember that one of the main financial backers of this strategy is Jeffrey Tucker (Wikipedia):
Tucker blogged in opposition to social distancing measures and face masks during the COVID-19 pandemic, framing them as subservience to "arbitrary and ignorant authority".
In 2020, Tucker helped organize the Great Barrington Declaration, signed at AIER, which advocated the lifting of COVID-19 restrictions.
In 2021, Tucker founded the nonprofit Brownstone Institute for Social and Economic Research, a think tank that opposes various measures against COVID-19, including masking and vaccine mandates. Senior roles were given to Martin Kulldorff and Jay Bhattacharya, two of the co-authors of the Great Barrington Declaration, which Tucker also helped to organize. The institute has described itself as "the spirit ual child" of the Great Barrington Declaration. Writers of Brownstone articles have included Sunetra Gupta, the third co-author of the Great Barrington Declaration, Paul E. Alexander, a former Trump administration health official, and George Gilder, a senior resident fellow at AIER. Science-Based Medicine has described the Brownstone Institute as spreading misinformation against vaccines and in favor of disproven treatments.
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Jeffrey Tucker also supports these public health initiatives:
Leaked Brownstone Institute Emails Reveal Support for Child Labor, Underage Smoking (Important Context, May 25, 2023)
Newly obtained internal emails from the Brownstone Institute reveal support for child labor and underage cigarette smoking at the COVID-19 misinformation dark money group.
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At In the Pipeline medicinal chemist Derek Lowe wrote, "But I have no confidence in the man at all, other than in him bulldozing along to get to his desired results, damn the evidence and all rules that might stand in the way. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is hostile towards vaccines. He is not carefully considering the evidence, he is not a brave outside-the-box truthteller about them: he hates vaccines. He has made tens of millions of dollars by loudly, publicly hating vaccines and blaming them for all kinds of health problems, and he is absolutely not going to stop now. Here's the greatest chance of his life to do more damage to the vaccination schedules than he has ever been able to do before, and by God he is not going to let that slip past."
 
At Mother Jones in 2024 David Corn wrote, "Soon after that, Kennedy wrote a blog post for the CHD site that called Tamasese a “medical freedom hero.” He referred to the 2019 blast of measles in Samoa as merely a “mild measles outbreak” and praised Tamasese for having “infuriated the Global Medical Cartel.” He suggested that the vaccine, along with lousy hospital protocols, had caused the deaths. A photo accompanying this post showed Kennedy posing with both Tamasese and Winterstein, and the post included Tamasese’s self-serving account of his actions during the outbreak."
 
MedPageToday wrote, "The Trump administration's cancellation of $766 million in contracts to develop mRNA vaccines against potential pandemic flu viruses is the latest blow to national defense, former health security officials said. They warned that the U.S. could be at the mercy of other countries in the next pandemic....Since President Trump took office, at least half of the security council's staff have been laid off or left, and the future of BARDA is murky. The nation's top vaccine adviser, Peter Marks, MD, PhD, resigned under pressure in March, citing "the unprecedented assault on scientific truth."
 
At SBM David Gorski summarized his evaluations of the eight new members of the ACIP: "Come to think of it, the way to look at this new panel is that four (Pebsworth, Malone, Levi, and Kulldorff) are antivax, one is qualified but a COVID-19 contrarian (Meissner) who opposes vaccinating children and pregnant people against COVID-19, and the remaining three (Ross, Hibbeln, and Pagano) are utterly unqualified to be on ACIP."
 
Chris_Halkides said:
At Mother Jones in 2024 David Corn wrote, "Soon after that, Kennedy wrote a blog post for the CHD site that called Tamasese a “medical freedom hero.” He referred to the 2019 blast of measles in Samoa as merely a “mild measles outbreak” and praised Tamasese for having “infuriated the Global Medical Cartel.” He suggested that the vaccine, along with lousy hospital protocols, had caused the deaths. A photo accompanying this post showed Kennedy posing with both Tamasese and Winterstein, and the post included Tamasese’s self-serving account of his actions during the outbreak."
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What a stupid, god damned lying piece of ◊◊◊◊◊◊◊ ◊◊◊◊.
 
Reuters reported, ""If confirmed, he will maintain the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices without changes," Cassidy said in a Senate floor speech after receiving assurances from Kennedy. The senator expressed concern on Monday following the ACIP firings that the outgoing members would be replaced by vaccine skeptics and said he would speak to Kennedy to ensure that does not happen. At least half of the replacements Kennedy announced on Wednesday have a history of anti-vaccine advocacy.
The senator does not see the move as a violation of Kennedy's promise, a spokesman said. "As Senator Cassidy has said publicly, the commitment was about the ACIP process, not staffing," the Cassidy spokesman told Reuters on Friday." Reuters also reported that Senator Cassidy will pick one of the new members.
 
Chris_Halkides said:
Reuters reported, ""If confirmed, he will maintain the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices without changes," Cassidy said in a Senate floor speech after receiving assurances from Kennedy. The senator expressed concern on Monday following the ACIP firings that the outgoing members would be replaced by vaccine skeptics and said he would speak to Kennedy to ensure that does not happen. At least half of the replacements Kennedy announced on Wednesday have a history of anti-vaccine advocacy.
The senator does not see the move as a violation of Kennedy's promise, a spokesman said. "As Senator Cassidy has said publicly, the commitment was about the ACIP process, not staffing," the Cassidy spokesman told Reuters on Friday." Reuters also reported that Senator Cassidy will pick one of the new members.
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As long as Cassidy has even a shred of plausible deniability for Kennedy outright lying bald-faced in his confirmation hearing, all is fine in Cassidy-world. And that's what is really important here.
 
The 17 ousted members of the ACIP wrote an editorial that appeared in JAMA. It said in part, "The abrupt dismissal of the entire membership of the ACIP, along with its executive secretary, on June 9, 2025, the appointment of 8 new ACIP members just 2 days later, and the recent reduction of CDC staff dedicated to immunizations have left the US vaccine program critically weakened.5,6 These actions have stripped the program of the institutional knowledge and continuity that have been essential to its success over decades. Notably, the ACIP charter specifies that committee members serve overlapping terms to ensure continuity and avoid precisely the disruption that will now ensue. The termination of all members and its leadership in a single action undermines the committee’s capacity to operate effectively and efficiently, aside from raising questions about competence. Compounding these concerns, recent changes to COVID-19 vaccine policy, made directly by the HHS secretary and released on social media, appear to have bypassed the standard, transparent, and evidence-based review process.7 Such actions reflect a troubling disregard for the scientific integrity that has historically guided US immunization strategy. " ABC News also reported on this editorial.
 
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Chris_Halkides said:
The 17 ousted members of the ACIP wrote an editorial that appeared in JAMA. It said in part, "The abrupt dismissal of the entire membership of the ACIP, along with its executive secretary, on June 9, 2025, the appointment of 8 new ACIP members just 2 days later, and the recent reduction of CDC staff dedicated to immunizations have left the US vaccine program critically weakened.5,6 These actions have stripped the program of the institutional knowledge and continuity that have been essential to its success over decades. Notably, the ACIP charter specifies that committee members serve overlapping terms to ensure continuity and avoid precisely the disruption that will now ensue. The termination of all members and its leadership in a single action undermines the committee’s capacity to operate effectively and efficiently, aside from raising questions about competence. Compounding these concerns, recent changes to COVID-19 vaccine policy, made directly by the HHS secretary and released on social media, appear to have bypassed the standard, transparent, and evidence-based review process.7 Such actions reflect a troubling disregard for the scientific integrity that has historically guided US immunization strategy. " ABC News also reported on this editorial.
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They should have just written: "Secretary R.F. Kennedy Jr. is trying to kill you all. His actions re vaccines will kill lots of US children in the near future. And old people, young parents, sick people, immuno-compromised people, males, females, workers, retired folks, military members and anyone else not listed here. He is trying to kill you all."
 
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At Beyond the Noise Paul Offit, MD discussed the errors in the document recently given to Congress. He concluded, "The letter that RFK Jr. sent to Congress to justify his decisions about Covid-19 vaccines would fail a 10th grade science class. As a document produced by the Department of Health and Human Services, it is a stunning indictment on the lack of integrity of the nation’s leading health official."
 
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At Science-based Medicine Mark Crislip wrote, "For the current administration, in its ongoing effort to make sure infectious disease doctors have enough work, has disbanded The CDC Infection Control committee, the Healthcare Infection Control Practices Advisory Committee (HICPAC)...I think what separates SBM from the current Lysenco-ists is reality, not science. I received reality based guidelines from the CDC. Moving forward? Fictions, fantasy, lies and delusions. Ah well."

NBC News had reported, "Four professional societies previously asked Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in a letter on March 26 to preserve the committee amid widespread cuts to federal health agencies...“While we had significant concerns regarding HICPAC’s make up and proposed guidance, the termination of the committee removes important public transparency,” Thomason said in a statement Tuesday. “Without HICPAC’s public meetings, there is no longer any public access to the process for drafting CDC guidance on infection control for health care settings. This further undermines safety for patients, nurses, and other health care workers.”"
 
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There was a discussion of Lysenkoism on a recent episode of the Skeptics Guide to the Universe podcast, but I think they missed the point a bit. The main problem with Lysenkoism isn't simply the fact that it's bad science. It's that science is subjugated to political authority. Politicians, not scientists, are in charge of science. That's what's happening in the US now.
 
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