Covidiots

USA Today reports: Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. blames ultra-processed foods, environmental chemicals, lack of physical activity, chronic stress and “overmedicalization” for driving chronic diseases in U.S. children, according to his Make America Healthy Again commission report published May 22. The 69-page report, titled “Making Our Children Healthy Again,” also says these drivers are partly propelled by corporate influence …

CBS News reports: The Food and Drug Administration is telling Pfizer and Moderna to expand the warning labels on their COVID-19 vaccines about the risk of a possible heart injury side effect linked to the mRNA shots, primarily in teen boys and young men, citing findings from a study published last year and new agency data. Orders to expand the …

Politico reports: The Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs subcommittee hearing on how “health officials downplayed and hid myocarditis and other adverse events” associated with Covid-19 vaccines comes a day after federal health officials released a new framework for vaccines. The witnesses at today’s hearing represent a more extreme contingency of vaccine skeptics, and their testimony could show how they feel …

The New York Times reports: The Food and Drug Administration on Friday approved the Novavax Covid-19 vaccine, but only for older adults and for others over age 12 who have at least one medical condition that puts them at high risk from Covid. Scientific advisers to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, who typically make decisions on who should …

The New York Times reports: Come this fall, only older Americans and those with chronic health problems may be urged to get the Covid shot — assuming the vaccine is available at all. The advisers are expected to decide on a way forward at a meeting in June. But the debate may have become irrelevant. New requirements for clinical testing …

“The attacks that Casey is unqualified because she left the medical system completely miss the point of what we are trying to accomplish with MAHA. Casey is the perfect choice for Surgeon General precisely because she left the traditional medical system–not in spite of it. Her leadership has inspired many doctors to reform the system and forge a new path …

The Washington Post reports: Steven J. Hatfill, a virologist and White House adviser during President Donald Trump’s first term who pushed hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for the coronavirus despite what most researchers said was a lack of scientific evidence, has joined the second Trump administration in a senior role at the Department of Health and Human Services. An Army biodefense …

“I want to say this, we’ve had four measles deaths in this country in 20 years. We have 100,000 autism cases a year. We have 38% of our kids now are diabetic or pre-diabetic. That should be in the headline. What I’ve been saying to people is, let’s pay attention to other illnesses as well, the illnesses that are really, …

Ars Technica reports: Germ theory is, of course, the 19th-century proven idea that microscopic germs—pathogenic viruses, bacteria, parasites, and fungi—cause disease. It supplanted the leading explanation of disease at the time, the miasma theory, which suggests that diseases are caused by miasma, that is, noxious mists and vapors, or simply bad air arising from decaying matter, such as corpses, sewage, …

NBC News reports: The Food and Drug Administration confirmed Monday it was requiring drugmaker Novavax to run another clinical trial as part of the approval process for its Covid vaccine, which has been available under emergency use authorization since 2022. Dr. Marty Makary, the FDA’s commissioner, said the company is asking the agency to approve “a new product” based on …

The Guardian reports: Donald Trump’s private golf resort in South Florida will next week host one of the world’s leading purveyors of chlorine dioxide, a potentially life-threatening form of industrial bleach that is claimed without evidence to be a cure for cancer, HIV/AIDS, Covid and autism. Andreas Kalcker is among 50 listed speakers at the “Truth Seekers Conference”, a two-day …

Politico reports: HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is weighing pulling the Covid-19 vaccine from the government’s list of recommended immunizations for children, two people familiar with the discussions told POLITICO. The directive under consideration would remove the Covid shot from the childhood vaccine schedule maintained by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and widely used by physicians to …

“It is your patriotic duty, I’ll say it again, it is the patriotic duty of all Americans to take care of themselves. Because it’s important for serving in the military but it’s also important because healthy people don’t consume health care resources. The best way to reduce drug spending is the use less drugs because you don’t need them because …

Wired reports: Anti-vaccine activists with close ties to US health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. are falsely claiming that the measles public health crisis in Texas is caused by a “bioweapon” targeting the Mennonite community. These activists are now trying to sell their followers a range of pseudoscientific cures—some purportedly powered by artificial intelligence—that supposedly prevent customers from contracting measles. …

The Texas Tribune reports: When Daisy Hildebrand became the second Texas child to die of measles on April 3, her physicians reported – per the state health code – the 8-year-old’s death to local officials in Lubbock where she died and in tiny Gaines County where the girl lived. In deference to the girl’s family, who planned to bury her …

Axios reports: HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. took the unusual step of publicly contradicting one of his own agencies’ autism studies on Tuesday, suggesting at a press conference that “environmental factors” including drugs, not improved screening, were causing a spike in confirmed cases. Kennedy’s assertion that researchers and the media are engaging in what he called “epidemic denial” could …

The Daily Beast reports: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. isn’t convinced that “society” should pay to treat people with unhealthy habits. Asked in a CBS interview about the basic level of care every American should receive and who should pay for it, Kennedy said that “when it comes to healthcare, that’s a difficult question” with moral and philosophical considerations. “People have …

NBC News reports: The measles outbreak in West Texas has reignited familiar anti-vaccine tactics: claiming there are readily available treatments for the disease while sowing doubt in the safety of vaccines. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. touted two particular medications that have not been shown to work as first-line treatments for measles: the steroid budesonide and the antibiotic clarithromycin. …

Media Matters reports: Right-wing media helped dupe their audiences into believing that drugs like ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine were miracle cures for COVID-19. Now, conservative commentators are apparently cashing in on that credulity thanks to the paid sponsorship of a mail-order pharmacy that provides easy access to the medicines. The Florida-based All Family Pharmacy has sponsored a slew of right-wing commentators, …

The Florida Alligator reports: When Gov. Ron DeSantis hand-picked Joseph Ladapo as Florida’s surgeon general in September 2021, the role came with a second high-profile appointment: a tenured faculty position at UF. But Ladapo’s colleagues still aren’t sure what he does to earn his salary at the university. Some say not much. UF fast-tracked Ladapo into a $337,000-a-year contract as …