I predicted last month that the Toddler administration and sociopathic crackpot RFK Jr. would start hacking away at anti-smoking rules if Big Tobacco paid them enough. I hate being right. “The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s 14-year ad campaign, called Tips From Former Smokers, was highly memorable and, research shows, highly effective in motivating people to quit. Last year, though, as tobacco companies gave millions to political organizations related to the Trump administration, the campaign went dark.”
“The warning on the government website was stark. Some products and remedies claiming to treat or cure autism are being marketed deceptively and can be harmful. Among them: chelating agents, hyperbaric oxygen therapies, chlorine dioxide and raw camel milk.” That page has gone dark too.
On the other hand, Kennedy has announced he’s willing to devote his department’s resources to investigating Muslim groups for non-existent crimes.
To counter the US withdrawing from the World Health Organization, some states are joining. Right-wingers are unhappy.
“For NIH, it proposes a $5 billion cut to research program funding (~11% cut). It also proposes elimination of 1 institutes and 2 centers: National Institute of Minority Health and Health Disparities National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health Fogarty International Center. The combined fiscal year 2026 budget for these ICs is approximately $1.2 billion so that leaves a $3.8 billion cut for the rest of NIH.” — Jeremy Berg on the Toddler’s proposed budget for 2027. This was a couple of months back so things may have changed, but as Berg says, the spending priorities show what Republicans think is important. Kennedy, for example, wanted to spend $5 billion of NIH funding, looking for the non-existent vaccine-autism link.
” Federal research funds are not an entitlement, they are not a subsidy: they are subject to exceptionally competitive award processes and intense federal government oversight. Universities do things private companies with research capacities cannot: train research talent, conduct basic research with uncertain payoffs, and distribute knowledge as a public good. And the rewards have been enormous. Everything from the internet to pharmaceutical and health care innovations evolved from such investments. We are richer and healthier for the investment.” — Don Moynihan on why both the Toddler’s war on university research partnerships is bad and people saying colleges should cut themselves free from such deals is also wrong.
Here’s a look at how government dictating scientific truth can go very wrong.
Despite which, the usual The Market Will Save Us suspects insist we should abolish the NIH and rely on the free market. Best quote from the thread, referring to the right wing fondness for herd immunity: “Ah yes, herd immunity, where the non-immune part of the herd just dies.”
Speaking of the free market, an epidemiologist responds to claims that vaccines are a cash cow for clinics and doctors: “Once you factor in staff time, storage and refrigeration, insurance paperwork, and the need to purchase vaccines upfront (often months before reimbursement), most pediatric practices break even. In many practices, low reimbursement for Medicaid and uninsured vaccine administration means the practice loses money on each vaccine administered.”
“Whiskey Pete” Hegseth rescinded the flu vaccine requirement for new recruits. One recruit has died of influenza. Wow, who could have anticipated that … except countless military commanders from the pre-vaccine era.
Despite Kennedy’s lies, studies have consistently found no autism-Tylenol connection. I doubt he knows crap about cellphones’ effect on our brains either. And he can’t do 20 pull-ups.
“I want to say, I’m creeped out by the memo saying that Olmstead “held only that a state cannot institutionalize such patients” — they’re talking about people with disabilities — “without justification,” and then adds, “What counts as adequate justification remains an open question.” Given Kennedy’s war on the disabled and the neurodivergent, I’m creeped out too.
Not a fan of Mehmet Oz serving as the Toddler’s hatchetman on the ACA either.
“An Idaho mother was charged with the murders of her 18-month-old twins more than a year after suggesting their deaths were the result of vaccinations.”
“I don’t think that the Democrats should relax sensible, science-based positions on vaccines and other health care, but I’m unclear on how much more confrontational and assertive Democrats could get on this issue.” — from a post about how to respond to the “woo” faction in our own coalition.
“A big problem for trust in government is that high-quality governance is usually invisible. When the various agencies designed to protect the American people from all manner of threats are working perfectly, most potential disasters are detected and prevented before they happen. A lot of highly trained government workers do diligent and difficult work for little pay and less recognition, heading off crisis after crisis, and the ignorant swing-voting layman assumes that all his tax dollars are being squandered.” — from a Prospect story on the cyclosporiasis AKA explosive diarrhea outbreak. Though in this case it seems the cluelessness was the ignorant Republicans now running things.
