RFJ jr to lead Department of Health and Human Services

Schlossberg added “RFKJ has been trading in on Camelot, celebrity, conspiracy theories and conflict
for personal gain and fame.”

 

what did the ex-heroin addict say about the work of Dr. Louis Pasteur, the father of immunization and vacination?

​

​

 

This impacts my children’s future and the U.S. population as a whole.

The impact of policy decisions made under RFK Jr. would be felt well after his term. Vaccination policy affects population immunity slowly, not immediately. Children and the broader U.S. population would not see the full consequences of weakening vaccine recommendations for years, as overall vaccination rates gradually decline.

History and public health data show that even modest declines in vaccination rates lead to outbreaks of preventable diseases over time. What we are seeing today with measles and whooping cough outbreaks reflects vaccine hesitancy and coverage gaps that developed one or two decades ago. Public health models similarly indicate that further reductions in vaccination uptake are likely to result in disproportionate increases in preventable disease, affecting not only the unvaccinated, but also people with compromised immunity and even vaccinated individuals, since no vaccine is 100 percent effective.

If current policies reduce vaccination uptake, these more serious effects are very likely to emerge a decade or more from now, long after the officials responsible have left office.


https://www.scientificamerican.com/...he-u-s-s-vaccine-schedule-to-denmarks-theyre/

https://www.scientificamerican.com/...vaccines-to-align-with-denmark-will-endanger/

 

Indian authorities are rushing to contain a Nipah virus outbreak after five cases were reported and nearly 100 people quarantined in the eastern state of West Bengal, Azernews reports via The Independent.

Among those infected are two nurses, a doctor, and a healthcare worker, raising concerns over hospital-based transmission. Health officials said some patients remain in critical condition, while others are showing signs of recovery.

The Nipah virus is classified by the World Health Organization as a priority pathogen due to its high epidemic potential and fatality rate. At present, there is no approved vaccine or specific antiviral treatment for the virus.

Early symptoms typically include high fever, headache, muscle pain, vomiting, and general weakness. In more severe cases, the infection can lead to acute encephalitis, respiratory failure, and coma. Survivors of severe illness may face long-term neurological complications.

Authorities have stepped up surveillance, contact tracing, and isolation protocols as efforts continue to prevent further spread of the virus in the region.

The new confirmed cases included a doctor, a nurse, and a health staff member, news wire agency Press Trust of India reported.

Nearly 100 people have been asked to quarantine in their homes after the first case came to light on Monday, the government officials said.

People with the latest infections have been admitted to the infectious diseases hospital in eastern Kolkata’s Beleghata, while the earlier ones are still admitted in the Intensive Care Unit at a private hospital.

just something to monitor

Covid started out small as well

 

^India says they have it under control, but airport checks are in place in several Asian countries.

Meanwhile in the US, the stupid has predictable results...



Of all the things that have happened during my life, I still have a hard time believing we politicized public health to where federal policies will encourage the deaths of Americans and a good number of Americans will cheer that on. Sure, you can argue about Reagan and AIDS, but I see that as both being trapped by their family values/homophobic rhetoric and a sin of omission in that they really didn't want to think about gay sex, particularly given the disproportionate number of closeted Republicans. This is commission. They know exactly what they are doing, they like it, and they are happy with the results.

 

And the nation as a whole. Straight vertical lines are not good, y'all.

 

They clearly aren't drinking enough whole milk.

 

@basso If you were younger and had a small child this could have been you. Eat up that propaganda & conspiracy, then defecate this lovely graph.

 

please, be fruitful, and multiply with yourself.

 

nom nom nom Foxnews and right wing billionaire financed propaganda. It’s delicious isn’t it Basso?!?

 

thank you.

welcome to the list.

 

People need to stop taking Tylenol immediately so we can begin to get a handle on this.

 

i took some with a motrin chaser after shoveling snow.

 

That vertical spike in 2025–26 is not being caused by 2025–26 policy. Measles cases now mostly reflect missed childhood vaccinations from years earlier, roughly 2018–2024, when these kids should have received MMR.

During that period, US policy was still pro-vaccine. What changed was sentiment. Exemptions increased and routine shots declined, driven largely by anti-vaccine messaging.

RFK Jr was a major amplifier of that sentiment in those years. Now that he runs HHS, that same attitude is moving from culture into federal policy.

So what we are seeing now is just the delayed effect of earlier vaccine refusal. With federal policy now following that sentiment, today’s spike will look small compared to what appears years from now, for measles and other preventable childhood diseases.

 

In May 2025, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. sat in the White House and downed a shot of raw milk to celebrate the publication of the MAHA Report, a document full of AI slop and fake citations that was meant to present the Secretary of Health and Human Services’s solutions for chronic diseases and other ailments plaguing America. Kennedy had been a loud proponent of raw milk for years, promising in an October 2024 tweet that under his tenure the FDA, a key milk regulator, would stop “suppressing” the drink.

 

Dumb, uh, finds a way.

 

May have a way to get more dip$hitters vaccinated...

This Scientist Brewed and Drank His Own ‘Vaccine Beer’ to Combat a Dangerous Virus. It Seems to Have Worked

Many people dread needles and fear the brief discomfort of getting injected with a vaccine. But what if the process could be as painless—and even as enjoyable—as drinking a pint of beer?

Virologist Christopher Buck recently tested the idea on himself with “vaccine beer” that he homebrewed with engineered yeast. The beer contained signals that tell the immune system to raise its guard against BK polyomavirus, which can cause kidney, bladder, brain and cardiovascular diseases. The unorthodox immunization seems to have heightened his body’s defenses against the pathogen, according to a study exploring edible vaccines posted in December on the research repository website Zenodo. It has not been peer-reviewed.

“The idea really is to just take living yeast, which are what makes beer, and put a vaccine inside the living yeast. And by doing that, you can actually get the yeast to cause an immune response,” says Buck, who works at the National Cancer Institute but is conducting the beer project as an independent researcher, in a video. “It’s a radically simplified approach to making vaccines.”

During previous experiments, Buck and his colleagues fed mice live yeast containing empty particles that resemble BK polyomavirus, reports Science News’ Tina Hesman Saey. Those particles had formed because the researchers had supplied the yeast with genetic instructions to make a protein found in the pathogen’s outer shell. Surprisingly, after chowing down on the particles, the animals’ bodies made BK-polyomavirus-fighting antibodies.
The team’s analyses suggest that live yeast protects viral proteins from stomach acid, allowing them to reach the intestines, where immune cells can learn to recognize them, Buck and another independent researcher—his brother—write in a different study that describes the beer-making process. It was also posted on Zenodo in December and has not been peer-reviewed.

“I’ve homebrewed beer off and on for 30 years. When I saw that feeding lab mice with engineered brewer’s yeast could induce protective antibody responses against the virus I study, my instant first thought was, ‘Well, I can definitely do that at home,’ Buck writes in a blog post.

And that’s exactly what he did—in his own kitchen. “It was one of the best homebrews I ever made,” Buck tells the London Times’ Will Pavia.

For five consecutive days in May, Buck drank one pint of the vaccine beer. He took a five-day booster dose seven weeks later, followed by another seven weeks after that. Blood tests indicated that after downing the drinks, Buck produced antibodies for two kinds of BK polyomavirus thought to be implicated in some bladder cancers, he tells the London Times. In the beer-making study, Buck and his brother also report no significant side effects.

The approach, however, has caused a bit of a stir. Buck skirted around a National Institutes of Health (NIH) research ethics committee’s decision that he couldn’t test the vaccine beer on himself by starting a nonprofit organization called Gusteau Research Corporation, according to Science News. This work as a private citizen is beyond the NIH committee’s purview.

Fun fact: Who’s Gusteau?
The company was named for chef Auguste Gusteau, a character in the animated film Ratatouille, per Science News. The fictional chef’s slogan was “Anyone can cook.”

And some researchers criticize the work. Michael Imperiale, a virologist at the University of Michigan Medical School who wasn’t involved with the research, tells Science News that the beer approach would need much more safety and efficacy testing, and that it wasn’t clear which possible side effects Buck and his colleagues were looking for.

Arthur Caplan, a medical ethicist at the New York University Grossman School of Medicine who also wasn’t involved, tells the outlet that the idea of vaccine beer could worsen growing antivaccine sentiments. “This is not the place for do-it-yourself.”

Still, Buck and his colleagues think that edible vaccines could pave a new path. Beer isn’t the only option, either—any food with the engineered live yeast could be an immunization option, the Buck brothers say in the video.

“Food-based vaccines are dramatically faster, easier and cheaper to produce and are less painful than traditional injection vaccines,” the authors of the edible vaccines study write. “For some populations, edible vaccines may also be more acceptable and accessible than existing pharmaceutical products.”

What’s more, the researchers hope to expand to other diseases. “This one vaccine is just proving the principle,” Buck tells the London Times. “Next on the agenda is Covid and flu and probably herpesviruses and adenovirus [which typically causes cold or flu symptoms] … Anything that is a common-cold virus is in our crosshairs now.”