Covidiots

The Hill reports: President-elect Trump’s choice for deputy secretary of Health and Human Services is Jim O’Neill, an investor and historically close associate of billionaire Peter Thiel, the president-elect said Tuesday. O’Neill has also held roles as managing director at Thiel’s Mithril Capital Management and principal associate deputy secretary at the Department of Health and Human Services during former President …

The New York Times reports: President-elect Donald J. Trump said on Tuesday evening that he had selected Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, a Stanford physician and economist whose authorship of an anti-lockdown treatise during the coronavirus pandemic made him a central figure in a bitter public health debate, to be the director of the National Institutes of Health. If confirmed by the …

Politico reports: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is enlisting associates with close ties to anti-vaccine organizations to help vet and interview candidates for senior roles at the Department of Health and Human Services, even as he publicly seeks to distance himself from the movement he once led. At least three informal advisers connected to the anti-vaccine movement are assisting Kennedy in …

CBS News reports: President-elect Donald Trump nominated Dr. Marty Makary Friday to lead the Food and Drug Administration, selecting a surgeon and author who opposed vaccine mandates and some other public health measures during the coronavirus pandemic. Makary, a Johns Hopkins University professor, is the latest in a string of Trump nominees who have declared the U.S. health system to …

USA Today reports: The only person Eliza Cooney told what happened was her mom. This summer, she went public with her story. About how Kennedy, a man closer to her father’s age really, groped her when she worked as a live-in nanny for his family. She was 23 years old. One night, there was a meeting in the family kitchen …

NBC News reports: The Supreme Court late on Wednesday rejected an attempt by Children’s Health Defense, the anti-vaccine group founded by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., to protect doctors being investigated in Washington state for allegedly spreading misinformation about the Covid-19 virus. The emergency application was denied by Justice Elena Kagan on behalf of the court. “We hope that one day …

Mediaite reports: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. voiced his support for conspiracy theories claiming the government intentionally caused the Covid-19 pandemic in video clips unearthed by The Bulwark. These newly unearthed video clips are far from Kennedy’s first foray into conspiratorial waters. He has blamed antidepressants for mass shootings, pushed conspiratorial nonsense about chemtrails, and claimed that Covid-19 could have been …

Politico reports: Democratic-aligned health care advocacy groups are putting together a strategy to fight Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s nomination to be HHS secretary. During an organizing call on Monday, the details of which have not been reported publicly, more than 200 people from several dozen of those groups, along with other advocacy organizations, discussed strategies to oppose Kennedy’s nomination. That …

“I think that we’re talking about magnitudes of danger beyond erroneously making legal decisions. This is life or death. The HHS affects people from birth to their grave and is intimately connected with every state in the country. “So this could be very dangerous. I think it’s totally disqualifying for anyone who seeks to lead the major health agency in …

The Washington Post reports: Health officials around the world are alarmed over the likely impact of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — a longtime vaccine skeptic who was tapped for the health secretary role this week — on global health. Experts from Samoa have been particularly vocal in sounding the alarm, citing the destructive impact of Kennedy’s rhetoric on the tiny …

Tampa’s NBC affiliate reports: The Winter Haven City Commission voted Tuesday to stop adding fluoride to drinking water after a lengthy public comment period where residents shared health concerns. Commissioners voted 3-2 to remove the fluoride by January 1, or on a date “as soon as reasonably practical thereafter.” Commissioner Brad Dantzler suggested giving some of the estimated $48,000 saved …

From the New York Post editorial board: The overriding rule of medicine is: First, do no harm. We’re certain installing Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to head Health and Human Services breaks this rule. A radical, prolonged and confused transition ordered by a guy like RFK Jr., who will use his high office to spout his controversial beliefs, leaves a lot …

Politico reports: President-elect Donald Trump is expected to nominate former presidential candidate and anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, according to a person with direct knowledge of the selection. The expected pick, which will roil many public health experts, comes after Trump promised to let Kennedy “go wild” with health and …

“The stuff that he eats is really, like, bad. Campaign food is always bad, but the food that goes onto that airplane is like just poison. You have a choice between—you don’t have the choice, you’re either given KFC or Big Macs. “That’s when you’re lucky and then the rest of the stuff I consider kind of inedible. And then …

Mother Jones reports: Anti-vaccine activist and Donald Trump transition team member Robert F. Kennedy Jr. had said he’d fire and replace 600 people from the National Institutes of Health on “day one” of a second Trump term. The NIH is one of the public health agencies Kennedy loathes the most—and despite still lacking any defined role in a new administration, …

Michael Bloomberg writes for Bloomberg News: Trump should remember that Kennedy spread lies about the Covid vaccine, falsely calling it the “deadliest vaccine ever made.” In any position of influence, Kennedy would jeopardize decades of hard-won advances in public health and put American lives needlessly at risk. Thanks to vaccines, afflictions such as polio are now rare. Smallpox has been …

From the medical site STAT News: The health community is spinning with worry about the fate of science and evidence-based medicine if Trump makes good on his promise to let Robert F. Kennedy Jr. “go wild” on the nation’s leading health agencies. We are particularly concerned that RFK highlighted nutraceuticals, a subtype of dietary supplement, and peptide hormones, a common …

The Florida Phoenix reports: Gov. Ron DeSantis on Wednesday endorsed his own controversial State Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo for a top health care position in the next Trump administration. DeSantis went on social media, where he called on his followers to repost a picture of Ladapo if they want to see him serve as secretary of the Department of Health …

Courthouse News reports: Doctors skeptical of the efficacy of vaccines — represented by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — asked the Supreme Court for emergency intervention Monday to prevent medical boards from punishing health care workers for spreading vaccine disinformation that threatens to erode public trust in the medical profession. “The court should speak clearly and decisively to state actors, professional …

The Associated Press reports: A regional public health department in Idaho is no longer providing COVID-19 vaccines to residents in six counties after a narrow decision by its board. Southwest District Health appears to be the first in the nation to be restricted from giving COVID-19 vaccines. Vaccinations are an essential function of a public health department. Of the more …