Remember this: Trump wants to put RFK Jr. in charge of America’s public health policy.
FDA’s war on public health is about to end. This includes its aggressive suppression of psychedelics, peptides, stem cells, raw milk, hyperbaric therapies, chelating compounds, ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine, vitamins, clean foods, sunshine, exercise, nutraceuticals and anything else that advances human health and can’t be patented by Pharma. If you work for the FDA and are part of this corrupt system, | have two messages for you: 1. Preserve your records, and 2. Pack your bags.
There’s a bunch of both dangerous (opposed by the FDA) and innocuous (not opposed, and sometimes endorsed, by the FDA) things in that list, and a not-so-subtle paranoid conspiracy theory behind it all, but what I find particularly worrisome is the threat at the end. If you aren’t in favor of raw milk, ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine, and random psychedelics, pack your bags, you’re going on Donald Trump’s list of undesirables.
At least I hate the Sacklers and Martin Shkreli as much as anyone, and I’m on the side of sunshine and exercise. In fact, I just had my morning vitamins and am going to go on a walk.
The christofascists didn’t learn much from the last pandemic, Covid-19 virus.
The one which killed 1.4 million Americans and left millions more with long Covid-19 virus syndromes.
Trumps mishandling of that pandemic had a lot to do with why he lost his last election.
It’s estimated that 330,000 antivaxxers died unnecessarily from not getting the available vaccines.
It’s estimated that the vaccines saved the lives of 3.2 million Americans, one of which is likely myself.
There will be another pandemic some day.
We just don’t know which new virus or when.
Right now, lethal Mpox is creeping along in Africa and the bird flu is showing up in unexpected places in the USA.
We don’t know, but it is possible that either of those viruses is a few mutations away from…a new pandemic.
Useless for COVID, actually effective against brain worms
One of the reasons why the US response to the Covid-19 virus was so inept and slow, was due to past attacks on the US CDC.
The CDC used to be one of the world’s best organizations for understanding and fighting communicable diseases, ones caused by living pathogens.
After years of attacks, not enough funding, and being used as a political football, the CDC ended up hollowed out.
When it came time to move fast, they couldn’t do it. The expertise and organizational leadership weren’t there.
Who ended up leading the anti-pandemic efforts were Tony Fauci and the NIAID instead. At least no one had been kicking them around for years.
I’m sure Robert Kennedy jr. et al would go after NIH and NIAID as well. They are after all, centers of modern medical research.
Be a bit careful about that “sunshine” thing, because it is too easy to get radiation burns from that minimally-shielded fusion reactor overhead.
Vitamins, exercise, sunshine, and…raw milk? One of these things is not like the others.
If RFK Jr gets near the public health power structure I wonder how long before vaccines are banned and preventable communicable diseases make an even more resounding come back. Plague rat.
As I understand it, the FDA’s stance against psychedelics was largely a relic of Republican policy, particularly Richard Nixon’s, so I guess the numbskulls are changing their tune. The FDA has softened their stance somewhat in recent years so researchers have more opportunity to explore how psychedelics might help with some mental illnesses. The possible benefits are TBD, so that’s not an invitation to drop a bunch of LSD or micro-dose mushrooms.
And I just confirmed for myself that as I recalled, hydroxychloroquine was one of those COVID-19 panaceas that floated around briefly. It didn’t prove to have any benefit.
It’s serious business. It’s happened before. Trump installed Michael Caputo, a rethuglican “strategist” as a communications director in the CDC during Covid, as I recall. His job, which he did, was to alter reports coming out of the CDC to align with statements and beliefs of Trump. Now, the thing about people who actually obey the law and have professional ethics is that there is nothing they can do about it short of revolution. It’s a real battle between keeping your job and battling injustice. However, the heat was on and Caputo eventually resigned due to “medical conditions.” Caputo was also involved in Russia, Russia, Russia and a subject of the Mueller investigation.
Again, it happened under George W. Bush who appointed a stooge as communications director at NASA. His job was to suppress any reports mentioning climate change or the Big Bang (dog know why!) The stooge resigned after if was discovered he forged his resume having never actually graduated from Texas A&M, as I recall.
It only takes a few people in key positions to poison an entire organization.
robro@6
The infamous exemplars Joe Rogan and Aaron Rodgers are potential outcomes of experimenting with psychedelics, right? Not a good look. Reminds me of the egg in a frying pan commercial.
@4 Snarki, child of Loki
Yeah, was going to say, do they think there is a “conspiracy” to sell people sun screen, or that the vast number of pasty white dermatologists in the country are all somehow making money from telling people to stay out of the sun, just like they do? Because, seriously, unless this is some weird attempt to shift the US back towards a more sane view of naturism and nude beaches, which I seriously freaking doubt given that these right wing nutjobs are the people literally responsible for the sort of madness you get on every single media site in existence in which said sites have panic attacks over, “OMG a female nipple!”, I very much doubt there is any sort of sanity involved with including “sunlight” as something on that list. Oh, and are these nuts not also the people who are anti-solar?
@8
Yeah, sorry, but I rather suspect that those two have done way more than just psychedelics. And even if they have not, there is a reason why tribal people, when they used them, employed ritual to “guide” people’s pre-drug mental state into something that would be conducive to the preferred outcomes – if you go into such a thing already convinced of utterly stupid things, and obsessing over whether or not they are true, the likely outcome of the experience is going to be one of, “feeling even more connected to all the crazy shit you already imagine is happening.”, and not necessarily in a “good way”. The value these things have is somewhat tempered by the fact that they don’t “fix” stupid, or crazy, or pseudoscientific thinking, or anything of the sort. They might make you, in theory, more empathetic, but maybe only to people that think the same absurd things, or “more connected” to what ever silly nonsense you already believe (magic, trickle down economics, etc.), but they don’t make you smarter, or give you incite into what things you already think are true, which are complete BS.
Its kind of like if someone who is a complete ass became depressed, and instead of sending them to some place where they might learn how f-ed up everything they believe really is, and guide them to be better by realizing that the world is reacting to them being an ass, you instead sent them to someone who is an expert in self affirmation, and telling them how totally never wrong they are. Just because the tool can be used to screw someone up worse doesn’t mean its not, if used right, a useful tool.
Hemidactylus #8 I know quite a few people who did a fair amount of psychedelics, myself included, and we didn’t end ip like Joe or that other guy. So maybe it’s not the meds but other things that lead to those behaviors.
Peptides?!?
What, Bobby Brainworm thinks the FDA is suppressing peptides? Because…they’re trying to eliminate all amino acid chains? That inclusion on the list is even weirder than the “clean foods, sunshine, exercise” trio. Where does he even get this stuff?
Raw milk and ivermectin… gods
A second Trump admin offers so much to be terrified of, but one of the scariest things to me personally, as someone on an immunosupressant, is RFK Jr as Secretary of Health and Human Services or some other powerful health related position. Immunosupressed people already live at the sufferance of everyone else, and the situation is bad enough with COVID right now, but if the vaccine stops becoming widely available… if anti-mask laws become more common… if there are more outbreaks of communicable disease… We will be the first to die.
@ #11 stwriley: The “peptides” thing jumped out at me too; aspartame is a peptide, and I thought RFK and his ilk hate it. I’m confused. Or maybe they are.
The Snake Oil Salesmen are in charge of the asylum.
Just as bad as William Perry Pendley’s assertions that the BLM is no longer doing quarterly oil and gas leases (it is, but some of the leases are smaller than the oil barons think they should be, so they complain) and that the Fish and Wildlife Service is putting 10(j) populations (experimental populations of endangered species) into areas where they never existed (I used to work for FWS and was in on a black-footed ferret 10(j). Why would we put them in areas where they had no chance of survival?). It’s like they’re just throwing things at the wall to see what sticks (though in RFK’s case, I’m sure he believes this stuff).
The sun that is the centre of the solar system is all well and good, but that baby is just creepy.
PZ, you know as well as I do that Shkrelis and Sacklers are the type of pharmco owners who will do brilliantly under Trump and RFK Jr.
Sorry, I realise that sounded harsh. Wasn’t meant as a criticism, more an extension of your argument. It’s not like RFK Jr would ever shut down a half-trillion dollar industry that gives millions in political donations when he can make the regulatory framework favour the worst players.
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blockquote>Peptides?!?
…I could go for a piece of cellular peptide cake…
This is what happens when you let the people who spread demonstrable lies go unpunished.
Recursive Rabbit@19: … with mint frosting!
Hey Bobby Brainworm, I had a squamous cell carcinoma cut out of my hand earlier this year, and innumerable BCCs cut out of me over the years. Given I’m a redhead whose uncle died young from skin cancer I think I’ll give vitamin sunshine a pass, and just take Vitamin D supplements.
@3. raven :
Also, if memory serves didn’t Trump fire the pandemic planning team or something like that?
(Searches)
Source : https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/feb/28/michael-bloomberg/did-donald-trump-fire-pandemic-officials-defund-cd/
So, kinda yeah.
Raven @ 1
Of the 330.000 unnecessary deaths among antivaxxers, the majority would have been Trump voters. If the current election really is down to just a few thousand votes here and there like it was in 2016 and 2020, we might regard their de facto mass suicide as a noble act of sacrifice to save USA from fascism / s.
gijoel @ 22
My dad died of melanoma, and my skin is super-sensitive to sunlight, so, yeah, I do not think Mr Brainworm has thought this through.
StevoR @ 23
Both the US government and the Tory government got rid of the expert groups tasked with handling pandemic. Boris Johnson literally made this duribg his first week in government but it was decided by his predecessor so she also has blood on her hands.
I find it interesting that we seem to look back on the pandemic as if it’s history from far longer ago than four years. Even in a few comments here, folks are recalling things with hesitance that were front and center in the news not long ago at all. I think we’ve all been so bombarded with constant ‘breaking’ news over the past decade that we just can’t keep it all in our heads. (I’m in no way criticizing here, and mostly speaking for myself.)
I recall reading, before Covid hit, about the 1918 flu epidemic, and how it had been mostly forgotten, compared to the vast impact it had around the world. The writer proposed that this was because, during its run, people were more or less helpless to do anything about it, and, once it was over, just wanted to put that helplessness, and all the tragedy, behind them, at least partially out of the knowledge — and fear — that it could happen again, and we’d still be helpless.
I was in my forties when I found out that my paternal grandfather’s first wife died in 1918 from the flu. And over 90% of the men in my maternal grandfather’s WWI platoon also died from it. It just wasn’t talked about.
In the midst of the chaos, once Covid hit, I heard the epidemiologist Dr. Michael Osterholm (I think it was) talking about this, and his concern that it would happen again; that we’d try to put this behind us and out of mind as soon as we could. Even though, now, we can do something about pandemic outbreaks. Since the handling of Covid was so botched by some, and since it was so stupidly made into a political issue, we also face gaslighting. ‘Are you better off than you were four years ago?’ Seriously?
@27 Paul K
Both my parents and my aunts and uncle lived through the 1918 flu and I do not remember any of them ever mentioning it.
I am not sure if they were repressing the memory or if the state of public health back then was such that it was just another epidemic along with smallpox, polio, TB, etc., so that it was not all that remarkable. Given restrictions on reporting during WWI they may not have realized just how bad it had been.