While I'm grateful that my state is joining with California and Washington to make vaccines accessible, a patchwork policy won't protect hypermobile Americans. I don't even travel anymore, but I will be subjected to the disease carriers who move in and out of Oregon, threatening my health and my life.
I have spent 5 years diligently avoiding contracting covid--and 63 years avoiding measles, polio, whooping cough, mumps, tetanus, and whatever else I have been inoculated against--only to be thrown into a pool of diseased Americans and our visitors. Oh, yes. It's not a slur. Anyone who has ever played tag on the playground knows how contagion works.
I'm furious at the utter stupidity and disregard from my fellow Americans. My father survived polio and went on to become a physician. Thank god he's dead and won't witness this destruction.
I came down with polio in 1953 and am somewhat crippled from it to this day. The Salk and Sabin vaccines vanquished polio, and now RFK Jr and company are vanquishing vaccines in general. What's next - surgeons not washing their hands before surgery?
I don't mean at all to support this president's cruel immigration enforcement. However, one of the things that Democrats didn't pay enough attention to during the policy battles over immigration was that those who apply for migrant visas, or who later go through the process of changing their status from non-immigrant to immigrant (or extra-legal to legal) must submit to an examination of their health. When we open our arms to the tired, poor, huddled and sometimes disease-plagued masses, we need to be prepared to provide needed health care to them--including vaccines.
Thank you for this very informative article. As always.
But... I'm left sputtering.
Absolutely pathetic demonstration of Democratic leadership.
Without in any way diminishing the fight shown by Senator Baldwin and 12 other Senate colleagues who called for Kennedy's resignation - why oh why wasn't Senator Baldwin joined by ALL Senate Democrats? Should have been a unanimous show of force.
Maybe give it a few minutes for their staffs to have time to find them?? They do have other responsibilities, you know. There’s a HUGE amount of magat crap flying around that they have to contend with. And 13 is actually more than a quarter of the Dem senators. Stop whining.
As Moscow Mitch proved, in the Senate the minority has considerable power.
But the problem is that Chuckles Schumer just doesn't have the belly for a fight. The Democrats need to mutiny and replace him with someone who does! Maybe Chris Murphy? Corey Booker?
It's like in The Godfather when Michael Corleone dismisses Tom Hagen as Consigliere. Michael explained it to Tom:
"Things could get rough and you're not a wartime consigliere, Tom"
Another case of putting a totally unfit individual in charge of a critical agency. RFK Jr. is against vaccines, denies research and science and is heading an agency that is intended to prevent disease and preserve public health. The man isn't an emergency, he's created a crisis ready to happen, and it's already beginning. On top of that, the man is mentally ill and is a danger to us.
That and the pork tapeworm larva lodged in his brain that neurologists found some time ago couldn't have done anything good. Apparently what it found to eat killed it, so there was surely some toxic decomposition involved too.
Senators Barrasso and Cassidy voted to confirm Kennedy. They also voted to cut nearly a trillion dollars from Medicaid which will result in thousands of their constituents losing their healthcare. Hopefully, their voters will remember.
If Barrasso or Cassidy had any integrity whatsoever, they'd request Republicans in the House impeach Kennedy since it's obvious Kennedy won't resign.
Senators Barrasso and Cassidy have been proved wrong 10 months into the Trump administration term. Forget about Senators Barrasso and Cassidy's "integrity". I (as a tax paying American citizen) want to know how this happened. I want the press to start asking the tough questions, NOW!
The two senators on the committee who are both doctors and Republicans should have the loudest voices of any of them are not loud enough. Personally I thought Senators Barasso and Cassidy were both too soft on Kennedy. They were not speaking to their patients they are dealing with Public Health policies in the United States. We need competent people in these positions. In fact, two of my former colleagues one who holds a doctorate in public health policy and the other a medical oncologist would be very qualified to hold the department of HHS position.
OK. First I want to say that I am not eloquent, so I apologize in advance. It seems that we are imploding as a country, that people are so divided...and many are very hostile about it. Good manners gone. Respect for one another gone. How Kennedy got this far is beyond me. I believe it was his cousin who pointed out that in college he would put mice in the blender in front of his friends before feeding his whatever animal it was. This was a warning even then that he was a cruel, unhinged man. Taking his nieces and nephews to swim in water that was labels as toxic, again a sign. And yet even his relatives didn't do anything about it. His response to the slowly growing danger of the H1N5 bird flu and if..and it is a big if it transferred to humans would be even deadlier than Covid 19. Can you even fathom that? Especially since he cancelled the funding that was already in place with scientists working hard to create a working vaccine....gone. From what I heard he threatened his people that if anyone leaked any news able the bird flu, he would ruin them. Do you hear anything about the bird flu....we know why. But, it is still there and still infecting cows, birds, cats and people. And here we are with him trying to wipe out our ability to get Covid vaccines. I think he truly believes in survival of the fittest. Why I ask? Where is the empathy for other human beings, even if they aren't healthy. When will this stop? We may be shell shock with all of these horrific things that just keep happening because of Trump, Project 2025 alive and winning, and all of his boot lickers...or rather butt lickers. Are they no Republicans who will stand against him? I think he is like a Mafia king...otherwise why? Democrats, where are they? I do understand that they are overwhelmed as well, but for God sakes this information needs to get out there to those who will believe this. I will tell you that I chat with nice people and they have no idea, because they are so busy with their day to day lives. They don't watch the news, don't scroll on their phones...just get up, take the kids to school, go to work, come home, cook dinner and so on. They don't have a clue. that democracy is in a hell storm. I want our lives back! What happened to good against evil wins?! Was it just in the movies? Novels? Bedtime stories?
Making FL great for the anopheles mosquito again! All that swampland just waiting to breed malaria … Couldn’t happen to more deserving people of a more deserving state.
PS. I make no apologies for the fact that I am all out of patience for these despicable throwback imbeciles. They made their decision to elect trump and sealed their own fate. I feel sorry for their innocent kids, though, some of whom will suffer the effects of malaria and smallpox and polio and tuberculosis and hepatitis for the rest of their lives, if they do not die as children. What a bunch of the most utterly unfit ignorant idiotic parents in the universe. I’m so glad I live in WA, a state that actually cares about my health and acts like it.
Thanks to global warming, Florida has also welcomed the Aedes aegypti mosquito and the dengue fever virus it carries. Dengue is working its way up the peninsula and will soon spread to the panhandle, so DeSantis can welcome it to Tallahassee.
I have reached the sad conclusion that Red and Blue America are like a couple stuck in a bad, rapidly becoming abusive, marriage that’s ruptured beyond repair. We’ve reached the point where the best solution is a (amicable, I hope—but doubt) divorce.
Think of it—Blue America can set up a modern country, with a modern economy based on technology and information. There will be equal rights and representation in a democratic (small d) government. Everyone will have the final say in controlling their own bodies, except where endangering others is involved (so we will have immunization mandates). There will be a strong social safety net so nobody goes hungry, un-housed or without health insurance. Nobody will impose their religious beliefs on anyone else, and everyone will be free to follow whatever religion they want, or no religion if they so desire.
And the bumpkins, morons, Yahoos, misogynists, bigots, racists, rubes and boobs of Red America can have their hearts’ delight setting up their very own Third World country, right here on the North American continent! The government will be authoritarian, with no free elections and with few rights. Women will be considered the property of their fathers (or oldest male blood relative if dad is dead) until they marry, and then they will be property of their husband. It will have a Third World economy, based on extraction (agriculture, mining, timber, heavy manufacturing) with a very few ultra-rich people who live apart from society and feel no responsibility toward it. They won’t be in the government because they don’t have to be—the government will be at their beck and call. There will be a small middle class, running ever faster on the economic treadmill just to stay even. There will be a good-sized working class, working several jobs, none of which have benefits, just to make ends meet. And there will be a large underclass, living in shantytowns, just trying to survive. There will be epidemics of (and deaths from) measles, German Measles (with its attendant lethal birth defectcs), Hepatitis A and B, and many other vaccine-preventalbe diseases so the morons can have their freedom to spread disease.
I don’t pretend that the divorce will be easy. First, all of us have been living high on the hog from other people’s borrowed money so we’ll need to split up the national debt. We’ll also need to divvy up Federal property. Even harder will be the fact that even in deep Blue states, rural areas are solidly red—like the Eastern Shore and Appalachia in Maryland. Similarly, in ruby-Red Texas, the big cities (Houston, Austin, San Antonio) are solidly Blue and even Dallas is competitive. The disruption will be akin to setting up India and Pakistan when British South Asia was partitioned in 1947. But we’ll work it out.
Just after listening to the hearing, wherein Sec. RFK said ANYONE could get a covid booster, I went to my pharmacy, where I've gotten all covid and other shots for several years now, and aske if I could get a covid booster. The pharmacist said No. I said, But I just heard RFK say I could! The three pharmacists present just laughed.
If so then a bunch of House Democrats should get together and file Articles of Impeachment against the crackpot RFK. It actually might even garner a few GQP votes-- and given how tightly the House is divided, that might be enough to pass! That would put all of those GQP Senators (at least some of whom know better) on the hot seat when it's time for the vote to convict.
Yes they can be impeached. In fact Jen devoted a whole program to articulating an amazing action plan which included the impeachment of the worst of the Cabinet secretaries. I think it was this past Monday.
So, RFK Jr wants to see the data. It's available, so why hasn't he already taken a look at it? I suspect he wouldn't have the slightest idea how to analyze even the simplest of data, requiring no more than a t test. Maybe he's more of a theoretician. If so, ask him to define and explain in clear terms the relationship between R0 (same as R naught), threshold population size and the relevance of vaccination coverage.
Vaccine mandates for those attending public schools are part of the schools providing a safe environment. DeSantis thinks it wise to mandate that students face risks from unvaccinated individuals carrying viral weapons into the public schools. Next will he mandate that students and maybe visitors cannot be prohibited from bringing other weapons, like knives, machetes, guns, fentanyl, etc., into schools. Students should have the freedom to worry about safety and maybe take responsibility for it into their own hands?.
When Dems are in control of Congress again, two things need to happen with regard to the Dept HHS and every one of its agencies:
* the eligibility to lead the department and every agency must be that of a currently licensed physician or doctoral degreed clinical, academic or research nurse
* failure to follow the best standard of practice and research at any time in a government appointed role is grounds for dismissal and must be included in legislation to that effect
Currently, RFKjr is practicing medicine without a license and should be charged with that, as it is a crime.
The Surgeon General of Florida should be referred to his state board of licensure/medicine for malpractice.
Physicians and nurses have been criminally disorganized and silent about policing their profession and their colleagues. Go after those who are abusing their positions (that includes physician and nurse members of Congress and state legislatures who supported or voted to appoint any of these dangerous charlatans).
With Florida's horrendous decision, made by the quack surgeon general and the governor, even if Kennedy and all his charlatans disappear tomorrow, the seed has been planted, and like Giant Hogweed, it will grow.
Russia has left Lysenkoism far behind.
China has long progressed past their Cultural Revolution.
The United States is dashing headlong back to the 14th century, when it comes to life sciences and medicine.
When Republicans kill half of us, who will be left for them to rule?
While I'm grateful that my state is joining with California and Washington to make vaccines accessible, a patchwork policy won't protect hypermobile Americans. I don't even travel anymore, but I will be subjected to the disease carriers who move in and out of Oregon, threatening my health and my life.
I have spent 5 years diligently avoiding contracting covid--and 63 years avoiding measles, polio, whooping cough, mumps, tetanus, and whatever else I have been inoculated against--only to be thrown into a pool of diseased Americans and our visitors. Oh, yes. It's not a slur. Anyone who has ever played tag on the playground knows how contagion works.
I'm furious at the utter stupidity and disregard from my fellow Americans. My father survived polio and went on to become a physician. Thank god he's dead and won't witness this destruction.
I came down with polio in 1953 and am somewhat crippled from it to this day. The Salk and Sabin vaccines vanquished polio, and now RFK Jr and company are vanquishing vaccines in general. What's next - surgeons not washing their hands before surgery?
Considering the fact that Bobby took his small grandchildren to play in a highly polluted creek, I'd say that's a definite possibility.
I don't mean at all to support this president's cruel immigration enforcement. However, one of the things that Democrats didn't pay enough attention to during the policy battles over immigration was that those who apply for migrant visas, or who later go through the process of changing their status from non-immigrant to immigrant (or extra-legal to legal) must submit to an examination of their health. When we open our arms to the tired, poor, huddled and sometimes disease-plagued masses, we need to be prepared to provide needed health care to them--including vaccines.
We ARE the disease-plagued masses.
Thank you for this very informative article. As always.
But... I'm left sputtering.
Absolutely pathetic demonstration of Democratic leadership.
Without in any way diminishing the fight shown by Senator Baldwin and 12 other Senate colleagues who called for Kennedy's resignation - why oh why wasn't Senator Baldwin joined by ALL Senate Democrats? Should have been a unanimous show of force.
Maybe give it a few minutes for their staffs to have time to find them?? They do have other responsibilities, you know. There’s a HUGE amount of magat crap flying around that they have to contend with. And 13 is actually more than a quarter of the Dem senators. Stop whining.
As Moscow Mitch proved, in the Senate the minority has considerable power.
But the problem is that Chuckles Schumer just doesn't have the belly for a fight. The Democrats need to mutiny and replace him with someone who does! Maybe Chris Murphy? Corey Booker?
It's like in The Godfather when Michael Corleone dismisses Tom Hagen as Consigliere. Michael explained it to Tom:
"Things could get rough and you're not a wartime consigliere, Tom"
Agreed!
Yes…where the hell were they?
Maybe they are writing, "strongly worded letters?"
Another case of putting a totally unfit individual in charge of a critical agency. RFK Jr. is against vaccines, denies research and science and is heading an agency that is intended to prevent disease and preserve public health. The man isn't an emergency, he's created a crisis ready to happen, and it's already beginning. On top of that, the man is mentally ill and is a danger to us.
You mean kinda like when George W. Bush said:
BROWNIE, YOU'RE DOING A HELLOFA JOB
When New Orleans was under water from Katrina?
At least Brownie was merely incompetent. RFK is beyond incompetent-- he's nuts!
Yes he is unhinged, like his boss. An it showed, in living color, in that hearing room.
And still he was lucid enough to insult the people whom we elected to their faces. He was a real turd. Great combo: inept and incontinent.
I think those years and years of hard drugs might have had a permanent effect on his brain.
That and the pork tapeworm larva lodged in his brain that neurologists found some time ago couldn't have done anything good. Apparently what it found to eat killed it, so there was surely some toxic decomposition involved too.
:)
Senators Barrasso and Cassidy voted to confirm Kennedy. They also voted to cut nearly a trillion dollars from Medicaid which will result in thousands of their constituents losing their healthcare. Hopefully, their voters will remember.
If Barrasso or Cassidy had any integrity whatsoever, they'd request Republicans in the House impeach Kennedy since it's obvious Kennedy won't resign.
Senators Barrasso and Cassidy have been proved wrong 10 months into the Trump administration term. Forget about Senators Barrasso and Cassidy's "integrity". I (as a tax paying American citizen) want to know how this happened. I want the press to start asking the tough questions, NOW!
I want an explanation on my desk monday morning!
Voter memory is short. They will associate the pain with whomever is in power then the pain becomes real.
Unfortunately, I think you’re correct. This has been proven to be the case time after time.
Agree with Stephen Colbert that Kennedy looks neither healthy nor human. Come on Dems!
The two senators on the committee who are both doctors and Republicans should have the loudest voices of any of them are not loud enough. Personally I thought Senators Barasso and Cassidy were both too soft on Kennedy. They were not speaking to their patients they are dealing with Public Health policies in the United States. We need competent people in these positions. In fact, two of my former colleagues one who holds a doctorate in public health policy and the other a medical oncologist would be very qualified to hold the department of HHS position.
OK. First I want to say that I am not eloquent, so I apologize in advance. It seems that we are imploding as a country, that people are so divided...and many are very hostile about it. Good manners gone. Respect for one another gone. How Kennedy got this far is beyond me. I believe it was his cousin who pointed out that in college he would put mice in the blender in front of his friends before feeding his whatever animal it was. This was a warning even then that he was a cruel, unhinged man. Taking his nieces and nephews to swim in water that was labels as toxic, again a sign. And yet even his relatives didn't do anything about it. His response to the slowly growing danger of the H1N5 bird flu and if..and it is a big if it transferred to humans would be even deadlier than Covid 19. Can you even fathom that? Especially since he cancelled the funding that was already in place with scientists working hard to create a working vaccine....gone. From what I heard he threatened his people that if anyone leaked any news able the bird flu, he would ruin them. Do you hear anything about the bird flu....we know why. But, it is still there and still infecting cows, birds, cats and people. And here we are with him trying to wipe out our ability to get Covid vaccines. I think he truly believes in survival of the fittest. Why I ask? Where is the empathy for other human beings, even if they aren't healthy. When will this stop? We may be shell shock with all of these horrific things that just keep happening because of Trump, Project 2025 alive and winning, and all of his boot lickers...or rather butt lickers. Are they no Republicans who will stand against him? I think he is like a Mafia king...otherwise why? Democrats, where are they? I do understand that they are overwhelmed as well, but for God sakes this information needs to get out there to those who will believe this. I will tell you that I chat with nice people and they have no idea, because they are so busy with their day to day lives. They don't watch the news, don't scroll on their phones...just get up, take the kids to school, go to work, come home, cook dinner and so on. They don't have a clue. that democracy is in a hell storm. I want our lives back! What happened to good against evil wins?! Was it just in the movies? Novels? Bedtime stories?
Making FL great for the anopheles mosquito again! All that swampland just waiting to breed malaria … Couldn’t happen to more deserving people of a more deserving state.
PS. I make no apologies for the fact that I am all out of patience for these despicable throwback imbeciles. They made their decision to elect trump and sealed their own fate. I feel sorry for their innocent kids, though, some of whom will suffer the effects of malaria and smallpox and polio and tuberculosis and hepatitis for the rest of their lives, if they do not die as children. What a bunch of the most utterly unfit ignorant idiotic parents in the universe. I’m so glad I live in WA, a state that actually cares about my health and acts like it.
Thanks to global warming, Florida has also welcomed the Aedes aegypti mosquito and the dengue fever virus it carries. Dengue is working its way up the peninsula and will soon spread to the panhandle, so DeSantis can welcome it to Tallahassee.
I have reached the sad conclusion that Red and Blue America are like a couple stuck in a bad, rapidly becoming abusive, marriage that’s ruptured beyond repair. We’ve reached the point where the best solution is a (amicable, I hope—but doubt) divorce.
Think of it—Blue America can set up a modern country, with a modern economy based on technology and information. There will be equal rights and representation in a democratic (small d) government. Everyone will have the final say in controlling their own bodies, except where endangering others is involved (so we will have immunization mandates). There will be a strong social safety net so nobody goes hungry, un-housed or without health insurance. Nobody will impose their religious beliefs on anyone else, and everyone will be free to follow whatever religion they want, or no religion if they so desire.
And the bumpkins, morons, Yahoos, misogynists, bigots, racists, rubes and boobs of Red America can have their hearts’ delight setting up their very own Third World country, right here on the North American continent! The government will be authoritarian, with no free elections and with few rights. Women will be considered the property of their fathers (or oldest male blood relative if dad is dead) until they marry, and then they will be property of their husband. It will have a Third World economy, based on extraction (agriculture, mining, timber, heavy manufacturing) with a very few ultra-rich people who live apart from society and feel no responsibility toward it. They won’t be in the government because they don’t have to be—the government will be at their beck and call. There will be a small middle class, running ever faster on the economic treadmill just to stay even. There will be a good-sized working class, working several jobs, none of which have benefits, just to make ends meet. And there will be a large underclass, living in shantytowns, just trying to survive. There will be epidemics of (and deaths from) measles, German Measles (with its attendant lethal birth defectcs), Hepatitis A and B, and many other vaccine-preventalbe diseases so the morons can have their freedom to spread disease.
I don’t pretend that the divorce will be easy. First, all of us have been living high on the hog from other people’s borrowed money so we’ll need to split up the national debt. We’ll also need to divvy up Federal property. Even harder will be the fact that even in deep Blue states, rural areas are solidly red—like the Eastern Shore and Appalachia in Maryland. Similarly, in ruby-Red Texas, the big cities (Houston, Austin, San Antonio) are solidly Blue and even Dallas is competitive. The disruption will be akin to setting up India and Pakistan when British South Asia was partitioned in 1947. But we’ll work it out.
Blue(a modern economy based on technology and information)/Red sounds like Ukraine/Russia
Just after listening to the hearing, wherein Sec. RFK said ANYONE could get a covid booster, I went to my pharmacy, where I've gotten all covid and other shots for several years now, and aske if I could get a covid booster. The pharmacist said No. I said, But I just heard RFK say I could! The three pharmacists present just laughed.
Can appointed Cabinet officials be impeached?
If so then a bunch of House Democrats should get together and file Articles of Impeachment against the crackpot RFK. It actually might even garner a few GQP votes-- and given how tightly the House is divided, that might be enough to pass! That would put all of those GQP Senators (at least some of whom know better) on the hot seat when it's time for the vote to convict.
Yes they can be impeached. In fact Jen devoted a whole program to articulating an amazing action plan which included the impeachment of the worst of the Cabinet secretaries. I think it was this past Monday.
So, RFK Jr wants to see the data. It's available, so why hasn't he already taken a look at it? I suspect he wouldn't have the slightest idea how to analyze even the simplest of data, requiring no more than a t test. Maybe he's more of a theoretician. If so, ask him to define and explain in clear terms the relationship between R0 (same as R naught), threshold population size and the relevance of vaccination coverage.
Vaccine mandates for those attending public schools are part of the schools providing a safe environment. DeSantis thinks it wise to mandate that students face risks from unvaccinated individuals carrying viral weapons into the public schools. Next will he mandate that students and maybe visitors cannot be prohibited from bringing other weapons, like knives, machetes, guns, fentanyl, etc., into schools. Students should have the freedom to worry about safety and maybe take responsibility for it into their own hands?.
When Dems are in control of Congress again, two things need to happen with regard to the Dept HHS and every one of its agencies:
* the eligibility to lead the department and every agency must be that of a currently licensed physician or doctoral degreed clinical, academic or research nurse
* failure to follow the best standard of practice and research at any time in a government appointed role is grounds for dismissal and must be included in legislation to that effect
Currently, RFKjr is practicing medicine without a license and should be charged with that, as it is a crime.
The Surgeon General of Florida should be referred to his state board of licensure/medicine for malpractice.
Physicians and nurses have been criminally disorganized and silent about policing their profession and their colleagues. Go after those who are abusing their positions (that includes physician and nurse members of Congress and state legislatures who supported or voted to appoint any of these dangerous charlatans).
It is getting really scary. And who would want to travel to Florida now ?
And I thought there could be no bigger charlatan than the Dumpster.
With Florida's horrendous decision, made by the quack surgeon general and the governor, even if Kennedy and all his charlatans disappear tomorrow, the seed has been planted, and like Giant Hogweed, it will grow.
Russia has left Lysenkoism far behind.
China has long progressed past their Cultural Revolution.
The United States is dashing headlong back to the 14th century, when it comes to life sciences and medicine.
When Republicans kill half of us, who will be left for them to rule?