The Truth about RFK Jr

[catsmate]

I have requested a thread split.

Which hasn't happened.....


The isolation of the cruise ship MV Ambition by French authorities in Bordeauxis apparently completely unrelated to hantavirus.
More than 1,200 passengers and 500 crew on the cruise ship have been isolated after an elderly passenger died and several dozen came down with gastric problems.

Panic now!

Over 1,700 confined on cruise ship after passenger dies

French authorities have confined more than 1,700 passengers and crew on a cruise ship docked in Bordeaux after an elderly passenger died, said officials, who played down any links to the hantavirus scare.

www.rte.ie

 

[Chris_Halkides]

At The Nation Gregg Gonsalves wrote, "This is a dry run for any new or known pathogen with pandemic potential. And today, the people who would be in charge of managing such a pandemic are the worst possible people: from Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at Health and Human Services, to Jay Bhattacharya at the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, to Russell Vought in the White House.

Together, these men have left the White House Office of Pandemic Preparedness and Response Policy vacant; have shuttered 10 of the Centers for Research in Emerging Infectious Diseases meant to study zoonotic pathogens that jump from animals to humans, like hantavirus; gutted the STOP Spillover Project, a USAID-funded network that tracked “menacing animal viruses across seven countries”; put a hold on research at the Integrated Research Facility in Frederick, Maryland, which studies high-risk pathogens; left key posts at CDC with acting directors including the Division of High-Consequence Pathogens; wound down mRNA vaccine research, which is one of the platforms under consideration for a hantavirus vaccine; refocused infectious disease research away from novel pathogens at NIH toward more common infections; proposed cutting funding for state and local preparedness grants to health departments and hospitals around the country; canned the CDC’s full-time cruise ship inspectors and port health workers; and we have left the World Health Organization, leaving us flying solo without a key source of international collaboration and coordinated planning...If you wanted to make Americans sitting ducks for any new pandemic, these fellas have put all the checkmarks next to the items on the to-do list for ensuring that our collective vulnerability is maximized. Then remember, RFK Jr., is a proponent of terrain theory, the idea that it’s your environment that makes you sick, not infectious diseases, and only those who are weak have anything to fear from viruses like SARS-CoV-2."

 

[dann]

Which hasn't happened.....

Yes, it would probably be better to have a thread specifically about the hantavirus in Science, Mathematics, Medicine and Technology.

The Vertlartnic has been busy recently:

The Vertlartnic on X, May 10, 2026
Doctors To Briefly Pause Reassurances About Covid To Issue Reassurances About Andes Hantavirus

The Vertlartnic on X, May 12, 2026
Hantavirus Quarantine Facilities To Use Full Emergency ‘Cough Into Elbow’ Protocol

The Vertlartnic on X, May 12, 2026
Mild Patient Mildly Tests Mildly Positive Mildly For Mild Hantamildvirus

The Vertlartnic on X, May 12, 2026
There Won’t Be A Hantavirus Pandemic. No One Outside The Cruise Ship Has Even—Oh Hang On

The Vertlartnic on X, May 12, 2026
Infection Control Experts Unsure Of Hantavirus Transmission Mode, Advise Public To Use Only Precautions That Feel Comfortable

The Vertlartnic on X, May 13, 2026
Hantavirus Cruise Passengers Sent Home To Self-Circulate For 45 Days

 

[Chris_Halkides]

Jonathan Howard wrote, "To be clear, these are very important articles. We should all appreciate journalists who gave us the inside scoop on Dr. Marty Makary’s ouster and revealed how Kennedy and MAHA doctors are quietly attacking vaccines from within. Without them, we wouldn’t know such things. Moreover, their descriptions of MAHA doctors aren’t totally false. However, they are woefully incomplete and therefore fundamentally inaccurate, like describing OJ Simpson as a football player who had some disagreements with his wife."

 

[dann]

Andes Hantavirus Outbreak Highlights Need for Effective Response and International Coordination (World Health Network, May 12, 2026)

Factors creating elevated risk
The International Hantavirus Society and members of the international hantavirus scientific and clinical community released a public statement [6] emphasizing several conditions that create elevated transmission risk:

• the precise timing of infectiousness remains incompletely defined
• transmission before clear symptoms may occur
• negative PCR testing early in illness may not reliably exclude infection [12]
• incubation periods may extend to 45 days or longer [6,13].

Together, these factors imply that monitoring exposed individuals alone cannot be relied upon as a sufficient outbreak prevention measure. After infection, the times at which a person becomes infectious, develops symptoms, and tests positive may not occur in the same sequence. Therefore, quarantine and isolation protocols become necessary components of response policy. This necessity arises from the potentially severe consequences of sustained transmission, even if the probability of such spread is not high.
Such measures were successful during the Epuyén outbreak, where isolation, quarantine, and active contact tracing reduced the effective reproductive number to below one [9].

Hantavirus: the gamble on asymptomatic, still unclear if they are contagious (Il Sole 24 Ore, May 12, 2026)
There are certified kits for diagnostic use, but for the Andes virus the situation is more complex: tests are few and only authorised for research

"Super-Spreaders" and Person-to-Person Transmission of Andes Virus in Argentina (NEJM, Dec 2, 2020)

However; ...

CDC not requiring hantavirus cruise passengers to isolate at home (The Hill, May 13, 2026)
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said on Wednesday that the hantavirus remains a low public health risk and while the agency is “encouraging” American passengers of the infected cruise ship to isolate at home, the absence of a formal quarantine order means these individuals can go out in public if they choose

 

[dann]

"... the absence of a formal quarantine order..."

British man hauled out of bar when he was meant to be in hantavirus quarantine (Metro.co.uk, May 13, 2026)

Brit who was on plane with woman who died from hantavirus is detained at Italian bar and quarantined (MSN, May 13, 2026)
Key takeaways

• Quarantine Measures: A British tourist and companion in Italy were forcibly quarantined despite testing negative, completing a 42-day isolation at Sacco Hospital in Milan.
• Cruise Ship Cases: 11 hantavirus cases reported on the MV Hondius, including 3 deaths, with passengers from Saint Helena and Ascension Island being repatriated to the UK for self-isolation.
• Health & Support: UKHSA and WHO emphasize safety, monitoring, and mental health support, ensuring affected individuals are treated with dignity and compassion during isolation.

British Tourist Sparks Hantavirus Panic After Cruise Ship Death Link Forces Italy Lockdown (ETimes on YouTube, May 14, 2026 – 7:32 min.)
A British tourist has been placed into a shocking month-long quarantine in Italy — despite testing negative for hantavirus and showing no symptoms. Italian police traced the man to a Milan B&B after alerts from UK authorities linked him to a deadly cruise ship outbreak connected to two deaths. As fears grow over the rare rat-borne virus, more British nationals are now being flown to the UK for emergency isolation and monitoring.

No, I don't give a ◊◊◊◊ about this guy's freedom to be left alone by the 'nanny state'!

 

[dann]

Hantavirus:

The Close, Prolonged Contact Myth – Knowing how a virus spreads is essential to public health, but people keep getting it wrong. (The Atlantic, May 12, 2026)
A man goes to a birthday party, sits next to someone with hantavirus, catches it, gives it to his wife, and dies. His wife then infects 10 more people at his wake. Another guest at that same birthday party has no interaction with the index patient except to say “hello” as they cross paths, but that person gets sick too.
One index patient, 33 subsequent infections, 11 deaths, four waves of transmission.
This is from a meticulously documented hantavirus outbreak in Argentina in late 2018 and early 2019, published in the New England Journal of Medicine(NEJM). Nearly the exact same Andes strain of hantavirus caused the recent outbreak on the Dutch cruise ship MV Hondius. Yet from the moment this latest outbreak hit the news last month, public-health officials have been claiming that this virus is spread through “prolonged close contact.” The evidence is not nearly so reassuring.

Officials working to contact 26 'low-risk' passengers about hantavirus, top doctor says (TheGlobe&Mail, May 14, 2026)

Officials working to contact 26 ‘low-risk’ passengers about hantavirus, top doctor says
Canadians were on flights with a known case of the virus and are not required to isolate, according to Joss Reimer

 

[Norman Alexander]

*sigh*

They are trying to kill your children.

And shortly they will succeed on a massive scale.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

At CIDRAP Dr Jake Scott discussed two Covid vaccine studies that the FDA buried. He concluded, "The studies suppressed here were not buried because they showed the vaccines were dangerous. They were buried because they showed the system was working."

 

[dann]

The host of the blog Pandemic Accountability Index JJ Kogburne wrote, "In the wake of Vinay Prasad’s dramatic ousting from the role of the Food & Drug Administration’s Center for Biologics Evaluation & Research Director, FDA Commissioner Marty Makary has shown an inability to learn an important lesson from the ordeal: You simply cannot put unqualified, inexperienced social media posters in charge of essential federal departments. Makary is looking to replace Prasad with Houman David Hemmati, a regular guest on FOX News. Walker Bragman over at Important Context wrote a great article, of which I’m following up with a stack of damning, incredibly disqualifying quotations. Houmann is seemingly incapable of independent critical thought. Whenever it comes to COVID-19, he can be found on FOX News simply repeating whatever conservative anti-vax memes he reads on Twitter. This is deeply embarrassing, while making him an obvious a perfect pick for Marty Makary’s FDA."

It should come as no surprise to anybody that Vinay Prasad is now minimizing the hantavirus outbreak.
I have made a thread about hantavirus at Science, Mathematics, Medicine and Technology.

 

[dann]

Lisa Jarvis on bsky, May 15, 2026
Hoeg's name might not ring a bell to the masses, but she had a lot to do with the overhaul of the childhood vaccine schedule--and HHS's bizarre obsession with Denmark

Exclusive: FDA drug center head expected to leave after commissioner's exit, sources say (Reuters, May 15, 2026)

• Hoeg's departure comes amid broader shakeup of health agency
• Hoeg helped lead changes to childhood vaccination schedule
• Drug center has had five directors since last year

The acting head of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's drug center, Tracey Beth Hoeg, is expected to leave the agency just ‌days after Commissioner Marty Makary resigned, according to three people familiar with internal planning.

We apologieze for the damage done and hope that the replacement will be an improvement. With the current administration, that's not a given.

Jonathan Howard on bsky, May 15, 2026
She can go back to injecting stem cells into knees.

 

[dann]

Jenna Norton on bsky, May 17, 2026
Late in the afternoon on Friday (yesterday), HHS/NIH did 2 things:
1) They RIFd more employees (despite the extreme staffing shortages).
2) They sent announcements to supervisors letting them know people in their chain of command will be moved to the career/policy “at will” status. 1/3

The timing of late Friday afternoon is meant to keep this quiet. It’s typically a dead zone for press coverage.
On the RIFs, the affected folks had been excluded from the original RIF apparently because they had expressed interest in the incentivized retirement program but never took it.

On career/policy “at will” status (aka, schedule F), the specific people affected do not seem to be specified. The email indicates this is the first “tranche” that will primarily affect people in GS-15 level roles.

 

[angrysoba]

Looks like waving RFK Jr through confirmation didn't do Bill Cassidy any good. So he endangered all those kids for nothing...

The Republican senator Bill Cassidy lost his primary on Saturday, as voters in Louisiana opted instead to advance two challengers to a runoff election after an extraordinary intervention by Donald Trump to oust the incumbent.

Cassidy’s bid to win the Republican party’s nomination for a third term in the deep-red state was imperiled by his decision to vote in favor of Trump’s conviction after the January 6 insurrection. In what was widely seen as an effort to rehabilitate his standing with the president, Cassidy last year cast the deciding vote to advance vaccine skeptic Robert F Kennedy Jr’s nomination to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, flying in the face of the senator’s support for immunizations and training as a physician.

Earlier this year, Trump encouraged the US representative Julia Letlow to enter the Senate race, and offered his endorsement in a bid to unseat Cassidy that now has paid off. Trump lambasted Cassidy on Saturday morning, calling him “a disloyal disaster” and “a terrible guy” on social media. Trump criticized the senator’s impeachment vote and said “he’s going to get CLOBBERED”, adding that Letlow was “a winner who will NEVER let you down”.

Link

 

[Chris_Halkides]

Medicinal chemist Derek Lowe commented on recent events regarding the corona vaccine and the shingles vaccine: "The Times got a comment from HHS on this: “The studies were withdrawn because the authors drew broad conclusions that were not supported by the underlying data. The F.D.A. acted to protect the integrity of its scientific process and ensure that any work associated with the agency meets its high standards” And that is exactly the sort of ◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊ that I would have expected. The higher-ups at HHS have been cloaking a lot of these decisions as issues of scientific integrity, reproducibility, and so on, when what’s really going on is obvious to any outside observer."

 

[Chris_Halkides]

MedPage Today interviewed health journalist Donald McNeil, Jr. "The conventional wisdom that the WHO stumbled badly during COVID is false. I was on the phone with them from the beginning, and they tried hard to raise the alarm and tell countries how to minimize the spread. They repeatedly pointed out Asia's success. Not just China's. By late May, when we hit 100,000 COVID deaths, Japan had only 857 and South Korea just 269. We ignored their advice. I also don't agree that the WHO completely succumbed to Chinese pressure. They get pressure from all their big donors. But just for the sake of protecting ourselves, we want to be at that table, exerting pressure. Not sulking outside.

Slashing USAID and PEPFAR was vindictive, and a tragedy. Studies have concluded that hundreds of thousandsopens in a new tab or window have already died and millions may soon, many of them children. Patients in clinical trials were abandoned. Foreign aid is a tiny fraction of our budget, and the life-saving things we buy -- porridge meal, cooking oil, powdered milk, vaccines, malaria medications, mosquito nets, and so on -- are generally very cheap. And good PR for us. South Africa, which suffered very big cutbacks, is a crucial site in many clinical trials, including of drugs and vaccines we need. This is "America First" shooting itself in the foot."

 

[Helen]

The ignorance is stunning; to not even realise that what you learn through aid programmes could benefit not only the participants, but all of us, and instead think of aid as nothing but wasting money on non-americans, is so stupid and short-sighted, that doing so should be an immediate disqualification for any public office.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

Nature reported, "Three senior officials at the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) have been given the choice to either accept reassignment outside the institute or resign, sources at the NIAID have told Nature. The three officials are the latest high-ranking NIAID scientists to lose their positions since President Donald Trump began his second term as president in January 2025. Last year, senior officials at the US National Institutes of Health (NIH), which oversees the NIAID, ousted Jeanne Marrazzo, successor to Anthony Fauci as NIAID director. With the new departures, scientists in most of the senior positions at the NIAID will have been required to vacate their jobs, including officials in eight of the ten top leadership slots...The reassignment of career scientists, such as the three who have just lost their positions, is highly unusual for the NIH. Career scientists are typically not replaced when presidential administrations change...At a meeting on 30 January, Bhattacharya and other top agency officials outlined a new vision for the NIAID that reorients the agency towards research on infectious diseases affecting the United States today, rather than research on how to prepare for the next pandemic."

 

[Norman Alexander]

The ignorance is stunning; to not even realise that what you learn through aid programmes could benefit not only the participants, but all of us, and instead think of aid as nothing but wasting money on non-americans, is so stupid and short-sighted, that doing so should be an immediate disqualification for any public office.

But they're brown! And foreign! So it's OK to ignore them, and certainly not to help them in any way.

 

[Norman Alexander]

Nature reported, "Three senior officials at the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) have been given the choice to either accept reassignment outside the institute or resign, sources at the NIAID have told Nature. The three officials are the latest high-ranking NIAID scientists to lose their positions since President Donald Trump began his second term as president in January 2025. Last year, senior officials at the US National Institutes of Health (NIH), which oversees the NIAID, ousted Jeanne Marrazzo, successor to Anthony Fauci as NIAID director. With the new departures, scientists in most of the senior positions at the NIAID will have been required to vacate their jobs, including officials in eight of the ten top leadership slots...The reassignment of career scientists, such as the three who have just lost their positions, is highly unusual for the NIH. Career scientists are typically not replaced when presidential administrations change...At a meeting on 30 January, Bhattacharya and other top agency officials outlined a new vision for the NIAID that reorients the agency towards research on infectious diseases affecting the United States today, rather than research on how to prepare for the next pandemic."

It's now the NIH motto: "Liberos vestros interficiemus".

 

[dann]

Amy Maxmen on bsky, May 18, 2026
Brilliant story on RFK's push for an unethical study that withholds vaccines from 7000 children in Guinea-Bissau, based on a "house of cards."
Guinea-Bissau says they never approved of this. And yet HHS calls it an "opportunity."
By Arthur Allen @kffhealthnews.org – www.wired.com/story/a-dani...

A Danish Couple's Maverick Vaccine Research Finds Its Moment in RFK Jr.'s Vaccine Policy (Wired, May 18, 2026)
The work of Peter Aaby and Christine Stabell Benn has long been controversial. Until Robert F. Kennedy Jr. became US health policy chief most vaccine scientists tended to ignore it. Now they can't.

I hope that this will be the end of them, in both Denmark and the USA.