Tag Archives: anti-vax

“Are your friends in LA not reacting to danger in an expected way? Are they almost in a trance? Multiple confirmations independently that suggest that this is the case, including from a therapist who says her patients are not reacting normally. “Could a mood stabilizer of some kind be in what was sprayed, or do weather manipulation waves entrain human …

NBC News reports: Del Bigtree, a leading voice in the anti-vaccine movement, brought in a record windfall last year for the nonprofit group he founded, according to the latest tax filings. The Informed Consent Action Network, known as ICAN, reported $23 million in revenue for 2023, a 74% increase from the previous year. The group spent nearly $17 million on …

NBC News reports: Whooping cough cases in the U.S. have reached the highest annual total in a decade, according to data from the CDC. As of mid-September, about 14,500 cases had been recorded nationwide since the beginning of the year. That number climbed to more than 32,000 as of Dec. 14, meaning as many cases have been tallied in the …

Ars Technica reports: Flu season is ramping up across the US, but Louisiana—the state that has reportedly barred its health department from promoting flu shots, as well as COVID-19 and mpox vaccines—is leading the country with an early and strong surge. Louisiana’s flu activity has reached the “Very High” category set by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, according …

New Orleans’ NPR affiliate reports: A group of high-level managers at the Louisiana Department of Health walked into a Nov. 14 meeting in Baton Rouge expecting to talk about outreach and community events. Instead, they were told by an assistant secretary in the department and another official that department leadership had a new policy: Advertising or otherwise promoting the COVID, …

The journal Science reports: A 2020 paper that sparked widespread enthusiasm for hydroxychloroquine as a COVID-19 treatment was retracted today, following years of campaigning by scientists who alleged the research contained major scientific flaws and may have breached ethics regulations. The paper was pulled because of ethical concerns and methodological problems, according to a retraction notice. The paper in the …

The Hill reports: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will be seeking to ease any skepticism over his confirmation this week as he begins meetings with Senate Republicans over his nomination to lead the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). While Kennedy was considered one of the most controversial choices initially, there has been little public criticism from Senate Republicans. GOP …

The Washington Post reports: The world’s most respected infectious-disease agency needed a new leader. Anti-vaccine activists knew just the man: Dave Weldon, a Florida physician and former seven-term Republican congressman who had for years expressed concerns about the safety of vaccines. A Washington Post review of Weldon’s public comments, media appearances and congressional letters along with accounts of those who …

The Cleveland Plain Dealer reports: Senate Republicans on Wednesday passed legislation that would enable patients to force hospitals into administering drugs for off-label use if the hospital’s own physicians refuse. The legislation comes after a COVID-19 pandemic when conservatives came to believe that drugs like hydroxychloroquine or ivermectin, neither of which have been proven to benefit COVID-19 patients, would cure, …

Florida Politics reports: Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo continues to speak out against fluoride in the water supply, saying it’s “clearly something that was far riskier than how it was presented” by advocates of the practice. “It really is insane to keep on doing it,” Ladapo said. “You just can’t justify it.” During a recent interview on the CR Podcast with …

The New York Times reports: Mr. Trump’s pick for N.I.H. director, Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, the Stanford professor who gained notoriety during the pandemic for supporting the widely maligned idea that the coronavirus should be left to spread freely among healthy Americans, has called for a dramatic restructuring of the N.I.H., which he has said is led by small-minded bureaucrats. Dr. …

The New York Times reports: Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is in line to lead the Department of Health and Human Services in the next Trump administration, is well-known for promoting conspiracy theories and vaccine skepticism in the United States. But Mr. Kennedy, an environmental lawyer, has also spent years working abroad to undermine policies that have been pillars of …

The Hill reports: Scott Gottlieb, the former commissioner of the FDA during President-elect Trump’s first term, expressed concerns with his pick of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. to lead the Department of Health and Humans Services due to his anti-vaccine advocacy. “I think if RFK follows through on his intentions, and I believe he will, and I believe he can, it …

From a Washington Post op-ed: It is certainly possible that Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President-elect Donald Trump’s choice to be Health and Human Services secretary, will move to restrict vaccine access. A likely first target is the coronavirus vaccine. Kennedy could instruct the CDC to remove the shot from its recommended list of vaccines, which would mean insurers no longer …

NBC News reports: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has a dark view of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In 2019, he called the federal agency’s vaccine division a fascist enterprise and accused it of knowingly hurting children. He also compared what he saw as a widespread conspiracy to hide harms from the child vaccination program to the cover-up of …

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 …

Politico reports: In a flurry of Truth Social posts last night, Trump made a furious pre-holiday-week dent in his list of Cabinet and key sub-Cabinet nominations — naming nine picks in the span of about 70 minutes and ruining happy hour for all the reporters who suddenly had to freshen their pre-writes. Whether by design or by compulsion, the volume …

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 …

“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 …

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, …