Right-wing anti-vaxism has been growing post-Covid, but for RFK in particular it is most likely simply that anyone who supports Trump is now a hero. I don't think even two years ago he would have been considered right-wing. He was originally intending to run as a Democrat.
I was a lifelong Democrat and since covid I have Seen enough to completely lose trust in Pharma and the regulatory agencies because of the massive amounts of money involved that’s corrupted medicine. I’m not even sure what “right wing” is supposed to mean anymore.
For the purposes of this comment thread, not entering into that, just noting that partisan views on vaccines have swapped in the last few years. (Or at least that anti-vaccine has died out on the left. On the other side the vaccine-critical views that emerged were possibly always there but previously more quiet.)
There was a massive marketing and propaganda psyop run on all of humanity to terrify us and manipulate us. I know Republicans who are pro vaxx and it was Trump who signed off on Operation Warpspeed and I certainly hold that against him but not as much as I hold the mandates and lies against Biden who I voted for in 2020. I am extremely pissed off that viable treatments were denied under the EUA and fucking virus was engineered. I’m sorry, but humanity has enough problems without the DOD/NIH CCP in Wuhan and any other crazy arrogant sacks of vile shit making diseases more deadly for fun and profit. The people responsible for this bullshit should be hanged and sent to hell to burn. We’re run by a kleptocratic Uniparty. I still love my Dem friends and they love me a newly minted MAHA/MAGA.
I think Ezra Klein's NYT article today is actually a pretty good window. RFK is aligned against institutions even if he's coming from a different side and that's more than enough for a lot of people on the right right now.
Right. People irritated at the establishment want famous anti-establishment heroes, the existence of which tends to socially legitimate their grievances which in isolation seem low status and kooky, and so when a seemingly high status figure comes upon the scene they tend to instinctively drop their guards of scrutiny and lend their own enthusiasm to signal boost social proof for the hero. It's important to keep in mind that heads of agencies and departments no longer perform any genuinely managerial functions and their role is increasingly that of a kind of media-magnet public celebrity and disposable cat's paw for the real decision-makers.
Over the past 20 years or so everything has become increasingly centralized in the executive office of the president and especially in the office of the chief of staff which inescapable controls the filtering and flow of information - you may notice no DEI hires for that spot. Principles and Deputies committee meetings have taken on a completely different character, and almost everything and everybody gets vetted at White House level now. Congressional hearings are a kind of performance in two-sided pretense in which a soldier is grilled on why he """decided""" to do something when obviously it was because he was ordered to, merely a human flak absorber who is little more than a passive conduit for policy from up high. Another clue is that many senior leadership positions down at the agencies were given titles in the original authorizing statutes that bear no relation to what the political operatives installed in those positions do on a day to day basis, are merely nominal titles useful for legal reasons to put them on the payroll. Long gone are the days when a president could just pluck any one of many members of the American elite quasi-aristocracy and simply trust in that fellows judgment and leadership ability to a sufficient degree to give them the kind of decentralized discretion that was closer to the original constitutional vision and scheme.
Not buying that as a defense of your claim "that heads of agencies and departments no longer perform any genuinely managerial functions" and therefor it doesn't matter what their inclinations are. There are way too many decisions made for the White House to run herd on all of them. And we have the experience of the first Trump administration where White House polices routinely disappeared into the Swamp without a trace.
Plus concerns about health are probably the least partisan subject imaginable. That article didn’t have comments but I’ve seen others at NYT that did. Their leftist readers are not generally complaining about vaccines but legitimately concerned about food additives and ultra processed food. Plus there’s suspicion of “Big Pharma.”
That brings up an interesting point. This is one of the 'contradictions' (sources of internal tension and incoherence) that, unlike the circular firing squad of rival identity interest groups isn't an inherent logical implication of the left's anti-oppressor-archetype political formula. Instead, it is a consequence of progressivisms becoming the ideology of both the social and state establishment (and "The Science" that informs policy) and of high status elites in general with their need for markers of class differentiation from the masses.
What that means is that the left on the one hand has to defend state regulations and "The Science", e.g., "Yellow dye #5 is safe" which is a statement that applies to humanity across the board, dropouts to PhDs, poor and rich alike.
But, on the other hand, high status elites are always going to want to feel like how Gwyneth Paltrow markets herself, that they are ahead of the curve in health and wellness trends, showing off that they are the first to learn about and are embracing the latest fashions in diet and exercise, medicine and supplements and cosmetics, and so forth, cutting out the corn syrup and seed oils, going all-in on collagen or Pilates or whatever. And like all fashion, this -requires- them to be doing something different from the lowly, uninformed masses, which they -cannot do- consistent with the backing of the state, the establishment, and the science, because the minute that happens it's immediately democratized and universalized for everyone.
So, now that the left has become the party of the establishment, the inveterate health and wellness contrarians are having their own "I didn't leave the Democratic party, the Democratic party left me!" moment. Thusly someone like RFK Jr. can go from being considered for Obama's cabinet (his close relative Bobby Shriver III is Biden's Acting Director of OMB) to being in Trump's cabinet in just a few years.
Not all of them are defending “the science.” I see people using the term “Big Pharma” on both the right and the left. RFK Jr has definitely hit a nerve here.
He helped Trump get elected. He is the only liberal who has changed his view on immigration for the better. (He said so in his going independent announcement speech). He is seriously anti Ukraine war. He did heroin with my old friend Eric Breindel and they remained friends for years after.
No insight here, but it's pretty much exactly what a friend of mine said of a mutual friend of ours like 30 years ago: "The thing about [NAME REDACTED] is that he doesn't know the difference between a good idea and a bad idea."
Steve, have you listened to any of RFK Jr's long-form interviews, as with Joe Rogan? (I know, not your style.) I listened to some when he was still trying to primary Biden and was impressed by his intelligence, his sincerity, and his good intentions--so different than most politicians. At the time, I thought, "I could accept this man as president." I had the same positive feeling about Tulsi Gabbard when she was campaigning as a Democrat in 2019. So, while I don't agree with RFK Jr on everything, I'm glad he has Trump's ear and believe he has a lot to contribute.
Anyone who thinks being "anti-vax" is right-wing hasn't really delved into the issue. I was born in 1949 and had the smallpox vaccine and the oral polio vaccine. My children, born 1975-1981, had only DPT, MMR and polio vaccines. No kids in those days were autistic nor were there peanut allergies. Now there are 72 recommended doses of vaccines for children and autism, allergies and auto-immune diseases have sky-rocketed. It's not unusual now for me to meet a grandparent at a cocktail party who tells me of an autistic grandchild . In my immediate circle of 6 women friends, one has an autistic grandchild and one has a grandchild with type-1 diabetes at age 7. RFK jr has taken on the vaccine industry. That's why many support him.
And this is very proven, as is the wicked commercial greed of Andrew Wakefield who put this dumb idea out there because he was asked to by a lawyer trying to build a case.
There are thousands of doctors and medical experts sounding this alarm and unlike your side they don’t stand to gain a beach house by coming out against vaccines. On the contrary, they stand to be burned at the stake.
Do you think you are smarter than all of these people? Do you think you are more informed?
Have you done any research into the subject at all?
Being on the same side as Pfizer should be a huge red flag.
I'm going to read this. BTW things may have changed recently especially with the mRNA tech, but I recall a couple decades ago that the government actually had to persuade the big pharmas to keep making vaccines because they were not profitable. The common childhood vaccines aren't exactly blockbuster drugs
reading now- I am over 50 and definitely heard of autism as a young person. I assume the disconnect is that at the time they would have simplified the way Chris Moltasanti did about Czechs, 'autistic? That's a kinda retard, right?'
I also will call out a flaw in his reasoning about where all the adult cases are. He is using the latest numbers for all autism spectrum and then acting like we should see that percentage of old people with severe autism and where are they all? To answer this we need to know the numbers for disabling autism not all autism spectrum. Also, since in times past they would have been institutionalized it's possible that most of the severely autistic people from the past simply died young.
The author is not great with numbers but looking at the stats more deeply and considering only the prevalence of profound autism (i.e. trying to correct for the broadening definition over time) it sure looks like there has been an explosion in autism. I wouldn't jump to the conclusion that vaccines are the cause but it is very concerning
With a friend, I visited his mother in an assisted living facility. While visiting, a nurse came in and gave my friend's mother 10 different pills, one after another. On another occasion in the town where I live, I was walking out of the hardware store as a mother pushing a baby in a carriage came thru the door. It was hot summer, the baby wore only a diaper and its skin was covered with big purple splotches. I asked, "What is wrong with the child's skin?" Answer: "The doctor said it is caused by the different vaccines she was given." Helpless old people and helpless children are being abused and seriously damaged by prescribed\required medications. Big Pharma owns the FDA.
Without medications I'd be dead. I'm taking 9 pills and a shot, and I'm not in an assisted care facility. I might not need all of them to survive (except the shot) and two are short term antibiotics, but there's no doubt in my mind that I'm ahead overall.
I understand. I do not deny the effectiveness of modern medicine judiciously applied. During the lifetime of the Baby Boom generation the Art of Medicine became a business, a really big expensive business. One would be fortunate indeed to find a doctor these days who thinks of their profession as an art, not a business. Do you take all 9 pills at once or is there a schedule of application?
Yes and yes. Not ALL applications are all 9 pills and the shot.
Medicine is of course a business. It can also be a vocation and I guess skill can merge somewhat with "art", but the word "art" smells in the current day.
AFAIK. I was in the ICU with late onset diabetes and was given Metformin (since replaced with Glipizide) as well as insulin. My blood sugar was off the charts enough so that there was a lot of surprise it hadn't killed me. My kidneys stopped working. I have no memory of the beginning of that time since my brain wasn't working properly. I sure needed something.
A bit later on I had a heart attack, Got a stent and am taking pills for that condition, too.
20 years on or so later I'm still here. In any earlier age I'd be, as I said, dead. No point in my being a prepper, either.
Also, recently, I spent my sweet time getting to the emergency room with a non-healing hole in my foot that it turned out went to the bone. Not losing my toes was a close run thing. But I've still got them. Pills are part of that too, I'm convinced.
So "pills are bad" is not going to cut it with me.
She wrote "doses" to pump the number up. I am willing to concede that maybe we don't need a vaccination for everything but the number of people on this board who are against all vaccinations just shocks me. Just an example of a problem so well solved people wonder why we even need the solution.
Loads of kids were autistic. I was born in 1960 and 100% I would be diagnosed now if born in 2000. So would quite a few of my contempories. Serious autism, of the kind that can be identified as early as 1- 2 (coincidentally not long after MMR vaccines are given) was certainly under diagnosed then, just as mild autism is over diagnosed (or at least diagnosed to no advantage) now.
Asperger's Syndrome was observed by Dr. Asperger back in the 1940s. I don't think we know yet whether autism is on the rise or if just autism diagnosis is on the rise. When I was a kid you weren't considered autistic until you were practically catatonic. Then they developed the spectrum and suddenly everyone is autistic.
All that aside the mere fact that vaccines increased at the same time as autism diagnoses is nonsense to use as proof of a connection. And peanut allergies? Anything is possible but do you have a reference on that?
Vaccines are not the only cause of autism, but they are the primary cause in developed nations. Exposure to heavy metals and other industrial toxins is the essence of it, it just so happens that that’s what vaccines are.
For instance, they have recently established that Tylenol causes ASD disorders despite being widely recommended for the past 50 years. You guys have some sort of cognitive bias that makes it impossible to see what’s in front of your face.
50% of my children have peanut allergies. Neither my wife nor I have any allergies at all, not even to poison ivy. I’m closing in on my seventh decade and have been the very picture of health. At my first physical after getting the Pfizer vaccine the doctor heard a heart murmur. I went for an echocardiogram and they found a damaged aortic valve. Very mild so far, but it makes one think.
I’ve been traveling to Ireland since I was four years old. The Irish used to gleefully point out fat American tourists. In the last twenty years, they’ve caught up with us and maybe even passed us.
I’m not really a conspiracy guy, but I’m getting to the point where I could be easily persuaded.
aortic regurgitation is commonly caused by mere aging. Doing an echocardiogram on an otherwise well person is just asking for trouble, giving the well something to worry about. I made the same mistake myself recently. An auto read EKG that I didn't need had a finding so they talked me into an echo and more findings to work up. My brother, who is an excellent internist who has grown conservative over the years, chided me and my doc for it. Never should have even done the EKG in his opinion, given how good my cardiovascular conditioning is.
I can imagine some mechanisms by which the vaccine could damage your aortic valve but they all strike me as unlikely. If it is the cause, at least it shouldn't get any worse.
Thank you, it’s kind of you to go the trouble. That’s much the same thing that my cardiologist said. It’s very mild stenosis of the valve, otherwise my heart is functioning very well. Ejection fraction in the 70s. I’m inclined to believe it’s just an odd coincidence.
I do not believe RFK Jr is at all rightwing, nor do I see him as belonging to what currently poses as the left. He is also not anti-vax; that's a slur. He's anti-piss-poor-testing-and-quality-control, and thinks vaccines ought to be trialed like any other medicine before being injected into newborns. He himself is fully vaccinated, with the exception of the cvd jabs, as were his children.
As an activist lawyer, he campaigned for years against poisons in American food; yet no one calls him anti-food.
For telling the truth during and after Covid, for being slimed for his integrity, for being a man in a nation of twinkies, many supported his candidacy and applauded his endorsement of Trump.
Had he not made the huge mistake of abandoning his presidential run as a Democrat, we would have had a Very Different Democrat National Convention than the coronation we saw. Even with a few dozen delegates, he would have made the selection of the prostituting attorney quite impossible to pull off without an uproar. And had god peeled back the roof and forced the Democrats to obey the law and hold some form of democratic process, he would have made one hell of an opponent for Trump.
Alan, you nailed it! I would like to add RFK, Jr.’s free speech bona fides. The left unconditionally hates free speech, as does the establishment, milquetoast right. That’s another thing that endears Kennedy to the new right.
mRNA tech is not actually a vaccine. The FDA altered the definition of vaccine to omit the prevention of infection and transmission. If you read the EUAs for Pfizer and Moderna, they state plainly that neither was tested for safety or effectiveness, though we were chanted that lie daily during the mandate period. mRNA tech has been around for a long time, and no one has tried to get it through clinical trials because of its immunological response issues. They needed an emergency to push it on us. We are the test.
As for the rest of the vaccine line up, they have to tell you what’s in baby food, so why not control what we’re injecting into infants? If asking is anti-vax, proud to be one.
"mRNA tech is not actually a vaccine"-- this sounds like a semantic argument. mRNA vaccine accomplishes the same purpose as traditional vaccines (i.e. primes the immune system to respond to an antigen to prevent disease) so what does it matter if you call it a vaccine or not? The word "antibiotic" should, technically, apply to antiviral drugs but, because it came into use long before the first antivirals, doctors tend not to include those in the category of antibiotic. Who cares? There is no official body for defining these words at that level of rigor.
I have no idea why you think something isn't a vaccine if it can't completely prevent infection (true of all vaccines as far as I know BTW) and transmission (different vaccines are different levels of good at this) and I think it is irrelevant to whether or not the mRNA potions were a good idea.
The mRNA vaccines went through phase I, II and III trials (e.g. https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2035389) so I don't know where you are getting the idea they were never tested for safety or effectiveness. I also don't know what you could mean by no one has tried this (when they have) because of its immunological response issue (what is that?)
I think this novel vaccine, developed for an emergency (and in the hopes of making all the scaredy cats stop freaking the fuck out so we could agree to end the stupid ill-advised lockdowns) should not have been given to everyone. It should have been reserved for the especially vulnerable and the nervous people who wanted it. Forcing it on people was a mistake. Denying it was being forced on people was a bigger mistake.
That doesn't mean they were ineffective or poison or a plot to microchip people or whatever.
There is no question that mRNA gene therapy constitutes an extension to the prior definition of vaccine. Otherwise there would have been no need to change the definition. And no one is obligated to accept that revision in the definition as valid. I don't.
Because calling mRNA gene therapy a vaccine was a deliberate attempt to say that nothing new was going on and that was deceptive. Maybe it's just me but I don't like attempts to deceive me.
Calling Covid shots gene therapy is silly. Gene therapy has a meaning, and Covid shots do not fall anywhere near it. Calling Covid shots vaccines makes sense, since they stimulate the immune system to manufacture antibodies against a type of infectious agent, which is what vaccines do.
"Calling Covid shots vaccines makes sense, since they stimulate the immune system to manufacture antibodies against a type of infectious agent, which is what vaccines do."
THIS is silly. Calling two different thing by the same name because they "do" the same thing is more than silly, it's dangerously idiotic.
Wikipedia: "Gene therapy is a medical technology that aims to produce a therapeutic effect through the manipulation of gene expression or through altering the biological properties of living cells."
Also, "Messenger RNA (mRNA) is a single-stranded RNA molecule that is complementary to one of the DNA strands of a gene.[11] An mRNA molecule transfers a portion of the DNA code to other parts of the cell for making proteins.[12] ... mRNA therapeutics do not need to enter into the nucleus to be functional since it will be translated immediately once it has reached to the cytoplasm.[13]"
So, it's not (doctors think) getting into the DNA of the cells it manipulates, I'll give you that. But it's not a vaccine just because the intended end of the therapy chain -- presenting the immune system with the relevant spike protein -- is the same. It gets to that point in a different way, and things which are different are not the same. As I said, calling it a "vaccine" WAS AN ATTEMPT TO DECEIVE the unwary into thinking that nothing new was going on. The purpose of language is communication. That was an attempt at obfuscation.
It is the production of spike protein from the RNA injections (genetic therapy) that causes the cardiac, brain, and respiratory (awa other organ) morbidity. Myocardial infiltration has caused an unprecedented spike in mortality from CHF in certain people, most often young athletes. In folks with healthy immune systems , there can be a massive deposition of spike protein-antibody complexes in these various target organs. This has been the cause of millions of respiratory deaths. Covid could have been treated with common, inexpensive drugs, that have been known to be effective against other coronavirus common colds (which Covid is).
The epidemiology of the mRNA injection deaths is poorly understood (why some people and why certain target organs are so much more susceptible to the RNA produced spike protein-antibody complexes and fragments) but progress has been made, despite the dearth of grants going toward that work. It is such a politically incorrect area for research, implicating Fauci et al, awa the media, academia, etc. in horrendous misanthropy. I do think RFK would be helpful here.
No, he isn’t. No, he hasn’t. He wants to see vaccines tested and manufactured to the same standards as other medicines. How many millions have been spent teaching you to parrot an utter bullshit lie? Who would do that? Why?
They still go on about MMR and Autism, one of the most dishonest and corrupt campaigns ever. RFK has been chairman for 17 years (and only on sabbatical even now)
At your link: "Children's Health Defense (CHD) is an American 501(c)(3) nonprofit activist group mainly known for anti-vaccine disinformation, and which has been called one of the main sources of misinformation on vaccines.[1][2][3][4][5]"
This just looks to me like a typical Lefty Wikipedia slur.
You either know that the anti-vax campaign against MMR is one of the great scandals of the last 40 years and has been an object of disgust amongst health professionals ever since or you have learnt it yet.
Your problem is that you have learned a lot of things that aren't true and you are not smart enough to realize that. It is of course the coercive application of experimental injections to healthy and unwilling individuals that is the great medical scandal of the last hundred years or more.
Still waiting for your explanation of how "[RFK Jr} himself is fully vaccinated, with the exception of the [COVID] jabs, as were his children", and says so, is supposed to fit in with your slur that "[RFK Jr] has been campaigning on anti vaxx at Child Health Defense (very creepy name) for years." You evidently have "learnt" a very strange definition of "anti vaxx" and are waving it about as if you knew what you are talking about, which you obviously don't.
It's "Children's Health Defense", btw, and I don't find that in the slightest bit "creepy". But it's another demonstration that you have "learnt" bogus things.
Like Jared wrote, what matters now is not an individual's politics but the degree to which they are coded as anti-establishment. The Red Scare ladies aren't traditional conservatives but they freaked out Freddie DeBoer when they started hanging out with Alex Jones. At that point DeBoer realized that the old alliances were coming undone as the era turned over.
Another example: anybody who keeps a close eye on California politics knows who Nicole Shanahan is. Just a few short years ago it would have been unthinkable for her to appear with Steve Bannon. Covid plus the election have radicalized her to the point where she will make common cause to anyone who agrees that the system is rotten regardless of any political disagreements they may have.
He stands, almost alone, against the completely corrupt medical-intelligence-industrial complex that many believe is being used, especially the vaccine/germ warfare/intelligence industry, as a template for societal and population control. The controls applied during the COVID event increased his following exponentially
I don’t think the MAGA movement is necessarily a Right Wing movement, but more of an anti-Establishment movement that utilizes Populism and Personality.
I like him because he has litigated to make big industries to clean up the Hudson River. He’s working to get the liability shield removed from vaccines because then risks are hidden from the public and he wants to get Pharma money out of everything. I have come to despise mercenary for profit medicine based on unsafe and ineffective products. Since covid I have seen enough NOT to trust them or the regulatory agencies.
I mean, you're right about the Soviet Union and China, and to a lesser extent Venezuela, though I think they have less money for control.
A lot of the left in the USA seemed to be about throwing off oppressive structures (rock n' roll, liberation movements), until they got the chance to make their own of course. To some degree it's all about who's holding the gun, but I could see how people suspicious of centralized power could be leftists up until about the 2010s.
Right-wing anti-vaxism has been growing post-Covid, but for RFK in particular it is most likely simply that anyone who supports Trump is now a hero. I don't think even two years ago he would have been considered right-wing. He was originally intending to run as a Democrat.
I was a lifelong Democrat and since covid I have Seen enough to completely lose trust in Pharma and the regulatory agencies because of the massive amounts of money involved that’s corrupted medicine. I’m not even sure what “right wing” is supposed to mean anymore.
For the purposes of this comment thread, not entering into that, just noting that partisan views on vaccines have swapped in the last few years. (Or at least that anti-vaccine has died out on the left. On the other side the vaccine-critical views that emerged were possibly always there but previously more quiet.)
There was a massive marketing and propaganda psyop run on all of humanity to terrify us and manipulate us. I know Republicans who are pro vaxx and it was Trump who signed off on Operation Warpspeed and I certainly hold that against him but not as much as I hold the mandates and lies against Biden who I voted for in 2020. I am extremely pissed off that viable treatments were denied under the EUA and fucking virus was engineered. I’m sorry, but humanity has enough problems without the DOD/NIH CCP in Wuhan and any other crazy arrogant sacks of vile shit making diseases more deadly for fun and profit. The people responsible for this bullshit should be hanged and sent to hell to burn. We’re run by a kleptocratic Uniparty. I still love my Dem friends and they love me a newly minted MAHA/MAGA.
Whether one is right-wing, left-wing or of the center, Big Pharm is a giant carbuncle on the republic, a cyst of avaricious evil.
Exactly. If Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan are right-wing, then the right wing can stuff it where the monkey put his nuts.
I think Ezra Klein's NYT article today is actually a pretty good window. RFK is aligned against institutions even if he's coming from a different side and that's more than enough for a lot of people on the right right now.
Right. People irritated at the establishment want famous anti-establishment heroes, the existence of which tends to socially legitimate their grievances which in isolation seem low status and kooky, and so when a seemingly high status figure comes upon the scene they tend to instinctively drop their guards of scrutiny and lend their own enthusiasm to signal boost social proof for the hero. It's important to keep in mind that heads of agencies and departments no longer perform any genuinely managerial functions and their role is increasingly that of a kind of media-magnet public celebrity and disposable cat's paw for the real decision-makers.
That's false. Who are in this separate class of "real decision makers" who, in your imagination, don't become heads of agencies and departments?
Over the past 20 years or so everything has become increasingly centralized in the executive office of the president and especially in the office of the chief of staff which inescapable controls the filtering and flow of information - you may notice no DEI hires for that spot. Principles and Deputies committee meetings have taken on a completely different character, and almost everything and everybody gets vetted at White House level now. Congressional hearings are a kind of performance in two-sided pretense in which a soldier is grilled on why he """decided""" to do something when obviously it was because he was ordered to, merely a human flak absorber who is little more than a passive conduit for policy from up high. Another clue is that many senior leadership positions down at the agencies were given titles in the original authorizing statutes that bear no relation to what the political operatives installed in those positions do on a day to day basis, are merely nominal titles useful for legal reasons to put them on the payroll. Long gone are the days when a president could just pluck any one of many members of the American elite quasi-aristocracy and simply trust in that fellows judgment and leadership ability to a sufficient degree to give them the kind of decentralized discretion that was closer to the original constitutional vision and scheme.
Not buying that as a defense of your claim "that heads of agencies and departments no longer perform any genuinely managerial functions" and therefor it doesn't matter what their inclinations are. There are way too many decisions made for the White House to run herd on all of them. And we have the experience of the first Trump administration where White House polices routinely disappeared into the Swamp without a trace.
Plus concerns about health are probably the least partisan subject imaginable. That article didn’t have comments but I’ve seen others at NYT that did. Their leftist readers are not generally complaining about vaccines but legitimately concerned about food additives and ultra processed food. Plus there’s suspicion of “Big Pharma.”
That brings up an interesting point. This is one of the 'contradictions' (sources of internal tension and incoherence) that, unlike the circular firing squad of rival identity interest groups isn't an inherent logical implication of the left's anti-oppressor-archetype political formula. Instead, it is a consequence of progressivisms becoming the ideology of both the social and state establishment (and "The Science" that informs policy) and of high status elites in general with their need for markers of class differentiation from the masses.
What that means is that the left on the one hand has to defend state regulations and "The Science", e.g., "Yellow dye #5 is safe" which is a statement that applies to humanity across the board, dropouts to PhDs, poor and rich alike.
But, on the other hand, high status elites are always going to want to feel like how Gwyneth Paltrow markets herself, that they are ahead of the curve in health and wellness trends, showing off that they are the first to learn about and are embracing the latest fashions in diet and exercise, medicine and supplements and cosmetics, and so forth, cutting out the corn syrup and seed oils, going all-in on collagen or Pilates or whatever. And like all fashion, this -requires- them to be doing something different from the lowly, uninformed masses, which they -cannot do- consistent with the backing of the state, the establishment, and the science, because the minute that happens it's immediately democratized and universalized for everyone.
So, now that the left has become the party of the establishment, the inveterate health and wellness contrarians are having their own "I didn't leave the Democratic party, the Democratic party left me!" moment. Thusly someone like RFK Jr. can go from being considered for Obama's cabinet (his close relative Bobby Shriver III is Biden's Acting Director of OMB) to being in Trump's cabinet in just a few years.
Not all of them are defending “the science.” I see people using the term “Big Pharma” on both the right and the left. RFK Jr has definitely hit a nerve here.
Yes, this is it.
He did for Trump what they were hoping Liz Cheney would do for Kamala.
Yeah he maybe brought over a 1%+ of the electorate and that is worth a cabinet post.
He helped Trump get elected. He is the only liberal who has changed his view on immigration for the better. (He said so in his going independent announcement speech). He is seriously anti Ukraine war. He did heroin with my old friend Eric Breindel and they remained friends for years after.
What do you think of the Soros-fag-hedge fund Trump pick for Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessent? I'm done with Trump.
When you weren't "done with Trump" what did that amount to?
Immigration's a big one. Can't be against it and be on the left now.
No insight here, but it's pretty much exactly what a friend of mine said of a mutual friend of ours like 30 years ago: "The thing about [NAME REDACTED] is that he doesn't know the difference between a good idea and a bad idea."
A significant percentage of people like royalty, even if it's the fake kind People Magazine dishes out.
He advocates for personal autonomy, free speech and data driven debate vs government mandates, government industry partnerships and propaganda.
Maybe democracy in its purest form is men vs. women. RFK joined the boys' team.
Steve, have you listened to any of RFK Jr's long-form interviews, as with Joe Rogan? (I know, not your style.) I listened to some when he was still trying to primary Biden and was impressed by his intelligence, his sincerity, and his good intentions--so different than most politicians. At the time, I thought, "I could accept this man as president." I had the same positive feeling about Tulsi Gabbard when she was campaigning as a Democrat in 2019. So, while I don't agree with RFK Jr on everything, I'm glad he has Trump's ear and believe he has a lot to contribute.
Anyone who thinks being "anti-vax" is right-wing hasn't really delved into the issue. I was born in 1949 and had the smallpox vaccine and the oral polio vaccine. My children, born 1975-1981, had only DPT, MMR and polio vaccines. No kids in those days were autistic nor were there peanut allergies. Now there are 72 recommended doses of vaccines for children and autism, allergies and auto-immune diseases have sky-rocketed. It's not unusual now for me to meet a grandparent at a cocktail party who tells me of an autistic grandchild . In my immediate circle of 6 women friends, one has an autistic grandchild and one has a grandchild with type-1 diabetes at age 7. RFK jr has taken on the vaccine industry. That's why many support him.
I work with autistic children. It makes me very angry if the harm done to them was covered up so Big pHARMa can earn billions.
Vaccines do not cause autism.
And this is very proven, as is the wicked commercial greed of Andrew Wakefield who put this dumb idea out there because he was asked to by a lawyer trying to build a case.
Steve Kirsch would like a word.
https://kirschsubstack.com/p/over-300-pages-of-evidence-from-the
If you know that, how *is it* that you know it?
They absolutely do.
https://open.substack.com/pub/jbhandley/p/vaccines-cause-autism-get-red-pilled?r=7y4vw&utm_medium=ios
There are thousands of doctors and medical experts sounding this alarm and unlike your side they don’t stand to gain a beach house by coming out against vaccines. On the contrary, they stand to be burned at the stake.
Do you think you are smarter than all of these people? Do you think you are more informed?
Have you done any research into the subject at all?
Being on the same side as Pfizer should be a huge red flag.
I'm going to read this. BTW things may have changed recently especially with the mRNA tech, but I recall a couple decades ago that the government actually had to persuade the big pharmas to keep making vaccines because they were not profitable. The common childhood vaccines aren't exactly blockbuster drugs
reading now- I am over 50 and definitely heard of autism as a young person. I assume the disconnect is that at the time they would have simplified the way Chris Moltasanti did about Czechs, 'autistic? That's a kinda retard, right?'
we were lumpers back then
I'm reading his post about the surge in autism cases. The numbers he gives in his graph are not supported by the CDC (the stated source of the graph). The CDC also shows a large increase but some of it is explained here https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-real-reasons-autism-rates-are-up-in-the-u-s/
I also will call out a flaw in his reasoning about where all the adult cases are. He is using the latest numbers for all autism spectrum and then acting like we should see that percentage of old people with severe autism and where are they all? To answer this we need to know the numbers for disabling autism not all autism spectrum. Also, since in times past they would have been institutionalized it's possible that most of the severely autistic people from the past simply died young.
still reading though
The author is not great with numbers but looking at the stats more deeply and considering only the prevalence of profound autism (i.e. trying to correct for the broadening definition over time) it sure looks like there has been an explosion in autism. I wouldn't jump to the conclusion that vaccines are the cause but it is very concerning
With a friend, I visited his mother in an assisted living facility. While visiting, a nurse came in and gave my friend's mother 10 different pills, one after another. On another occasion in the town where I live, I was walking out of the hardware store as a mother pushing a baby in a carriage came thru the door. It was hot summer, the baby wore only a diaper and its skin was covered with big purple splotches. I asked, "What is wrong with the child's skin?" Answer: "The doctor said it is caused by the different vaccines she was given." Helpless old people and helpless children are being abused and seriously damaged by prescribed\required medications. Big Pharma owns the FDA.
Without medications I'd be dead. I'm taking 9 pills and a shot, and I'm not in an assisted care facility. I might not need all of them to survive (except the shot) and two are short term antibiotics, but there's no doubt in my mind that I'm ahead overall.
I understand. I do not deny the effectiveness of modern medicine judiciously applied. During the lifetime of the Baby Boom generation the Art of Medicine became a business, a really big expensive business. One would be fortunate indeed to find a doctor these days who thinks of their profession as an art, not a business. Do you take all 9 pills at once or is there a schedule of application?
Yes and yes. Not ALL applications are all 9 pills and the shot.
Medicine is of course a business. It can also be a vocation and I guess skill can merge somewhat with "art", but the word "art" smells in the current day.
You might need them now but did you need the first one?
AFAIK. I was in the ICU with late onset diabetes and was given Metformin (since replaced with Glipizide) as well as insulin. My blood sugar was off the charts enough so that there was a lot of surprise it hadn't killed me. My kidneys stopped working. I have no memory of the beginning of that time since my brain wasn't working properly. I sure needed something.
A bit later on I had a heart attack, Got a stent and am taking pills for that condition, too.
20 years on or so later I'm still here. In any earlier age I'd be, as I said, dead. No point in my being a prepper, either.
Also, recently, I spent my sweet time getting to the emergency room with a non-healing hole in my foot that it turned out went to the bone. Not losing my toes was a close run thing. But I've still got them. Pills are part of that too, I'm convinced.
So "pills are bad" is not going to cut it with me.
The recommended schedule of vaccines in the province of B.C. does not have anything close to 72 vaccines.
She wrote "doses" to pump the number up. I am willing to concede that maybe we don't need a vaccination for everything but the number of people on this board who are against all vaccinations just shocks me. Just an example of a problem so well solved people wonder why we even need the solution.
The COVID "vaccine" isn't one.
I'm puzzled by the supposed "doses" distinction. How many vaccines consist of multiple doses?
a lot of them https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/hcp/imz-schedules/child-adolescent-age.html
Thanks.
Loads of kids were autistic. I was born in 1960 and 100% I would be diagnosed now if born in 2000. So would quite a few of my contempories. Serious autism, of the kind that can be identified as early as 1- 2 (coincidentally not long after MMR vaccines are given) was certainly under diagnosed then, just as mild autism is over diagnosed (or at least diagnosed to no advantage) now.
Asperger's Syndrome was observed by Dr. Asperger back in the 1940s. I don't think we know yet whether autism is on the rise or if just autism diagnosis is on the rise. When I was a kid you weren't considered autistic until you were practically catatonic. Then they developed the spectrum and suddenly everyone is autistic.
All that aside the mere fact that vaccines increased at the same time as autism diagnoses is nonsense to use as proof of a connection. And peanut allergies? Anything is possible but do you have a reference on that?
Vaccines are not the only cause of autism, but they are the primary cause in developed nations. Exposure to heavy metals and other industrial toxins is the essence of it, it just so happens that that’s what vaccines are.
For instance, they have recently established that Tylenol causes ASD disorders despite being widely recommended for the past 50 years. You guys have some sort of cognitive bias that makes it impossible to see what’s in front of your face.
They are poisoning you for profit.
show me the studies that demonstrate these causes of autism please. I'm very open minded but I need to see good studies
They haven't got any.
50% of my children have peanut allergies. Neither my wife nor I have any allergies at all, not even to poison ivy. I’m closing in on my seventh decade and have been the very picture of health. At my first physical after getting the Pfizer vaccine the doctor heard a heart murmur. I went for an echocardiogram and they found a damaged aortic valve. Very mild so far, but it makes one think.
I’ve been traveling to Ireland since I was four years old. The Irish used to gleefully point out fat American tourists. In the last twenty years, they’ve caught up with us and maybe even passed us.
I’m not really a conspiracy guy, but I’m getting to the point where I could be easily persuaded.
You have never gotten a reaction from poison ivy?
Have you ever had the urge to test the theory that you are immune (e.g., rubbing large amounts all over a part of your body to confirm no reaction)?
I’ve done just that. My son isn’t allergic to it either.
aortic regurgitation is commonly caused by mere aging. Doing an echocardiogram on an otherwise well person is just asking for trouble, giving the well something to worry about. I made the same mistake myself recently. An auto read EKG that I didn't need had a finding so they talked me into an echo and more findings to work up. My brother, who is an excellent internist who has grown conservative over the years, chided me and my doc for it. Never should have even done the EKG in his opinion, given how good my cardiovascular conditioning is.
I can imagine some mechanisms by which the vaccine could damage your aortic valve but they all strike me as unlikely. If it is the cause, at least it shouldn't get any worse.
Thank you, it’s kind of you to go the trouble. That’s much the same thing that my cardiologist said. It’s very mild stenosis of the valve, otherwise my heart is functioning very well. Ejection fraction in the 70s. I’m inclined to believe it’s just an odd coincidence.
Again, thank you.
I do not believe RFK Jr is at all rightwing, nor do I see him as belonging to what currently poses as the left. He is also not anti-vax; that's a slur. He's anti-piss-poor-testing-and-quality-control, and thinks vaccines ought to be trialed like any other medicine before being injected into newborns. He himself is fully vaccinated, with the exception of the cvd jabs, as were his children.
As an activist lawyer, he campaigned for years against poisons in American food; yet no one calls him anti-food.
For telling the truth during and after Covid, for being slimed for his integrity, for being a man in a nation of twinkies, many supported his candidacy and applauded his endorsement of Trump.
Had he not made the huge mistake of abandoning his presidential run as a Democrat, we would have had a Very Different Democrat National Convention than the coronation we saw. Even with a few dozen delegates, he would have made the selection of the prostituting attorney quite impossible to pull off without an uproar. And had god peeled back the roof and forced the Democrats to obey the law and hold some form of democratic process, he would have made one hell of an opponent for Trump.
Well said!
Alan, you nailed it! I would like to add RFK, Jr.’s free speech bona fides. The left unconditionally hates free speech, as does the establishment, milquetoast right. That’s another thing that endears Kennedy to the new right.
Vaccines have been tested thoroughly. Except for Covid, which was a rush job.
mRNA tech is not actually a vaccine. The FDA altered the definition of vaccine to omit the prevention of infection and transmission. If you read the EUAs for Pfizer and Moderna, they state plainly that neither was tested for safety or effectiveness, though we were chanted that lie daily during the mandate period. mRNA tech has been around for a long time, and no one has tried to get it through clinical trials because of its immunological response issues. They needed an emergency to push it on us. We are the test.
As for the rest of the vaccine line up, they have to tell you what’s in baby food, so why not control what we’re injecting into infants? If asking is anti-vax, proud to be one.
"mRNA tech is not actually a vaccine"-- this sounds like a semantic argument. mRNA vaccine accomplishes the same purpose as traditional vaccines (i.e. primes the immune system to respond to an antigen to prevent disease) so what does it matter if you call it a vaccine or not? The word "antibiotic" should, technically, apply to antiviral drugs but, because it came into use long before the first antivirals, doctors tend not to include those in the category of antibiotic. Who cares? There is no official body for defining these words at that level of rigor.
I have no idea why you think something isn't a vaccine if it can't completely prevent infection (true of all vaccines as far as I know BTW) and transmission (different vaccines are different levels of good at this) and I think it is irrelevant to whether or not the mRNA potions were a good idea.
The mRNA vaccines went through phase I, II and III trials (e.g. https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2035389) so I don't know where you are getting the idea they were never tested for safety or effectiveness. I also don't know what you could mean by no one has tried this (when they have) because of its immunological response issue (what is that?)
I think this novel vaccine, developed for an emergency (and in the hopes of making all the scaredy cats stop freaking the fuck out so we could agree to end the stupid ill-advised lockdowns) should not have been given to everyone. It should have been reserved for the especially vulnerable and the nervous people who wanted it. Forcing it on people was a mistake. Denying it was being forced on people was a bigger mistake.
That doesn't mean they were ineffective or poison or a plot to microchip people or whatever.
There is no question that mRNA gene therapy constitutes an extension to the prior definition of vaccine. Otherwise there would have been no need to change the definition. And no one is obligated to accept that revision in the definition as valid. I don't.
I suppose what I mean is, why do you care what it is called?
Because calling mRNA gene therapy a vaccine was a deliberate attempt to say that nothing new was going on and that was deceptive. Maybe it's just me but I don't like attempts to deceive me.
Calling Covid shots gene therapy is silly. Gene therapy has a meaning, and Covid shots do not fall anywhere near it. Calling Covid shots vaccines makes sense, since they stimulate the immune system to manufacture antibodies against a type of infectious agent, which is what vaccines do.
"Calling Covid shots vaccines makes sense, since they stimulate the immune system to manufacture antibodies against a type of infectious agent, which is what vaccines do."
THIS is silly. Calling two different thing by the same name because they "do" the same thing is more than silly, it's dangerously idiotic.
Wikipedia: "Gene therapy is a medical technology that aims to produce a therapeutic effect through the manipulation of gene expression or through altering the biological properties of living cells."
Also, "Messenger RNA (mRNA) is a single-stranded RNA molecule that is complementary to one of the DNA strands of a gene.[11] An mRNA molecule transfers a portion of the DNA code to other parts of the cell for making proteins.[12] ... mRNA therapeutics do not need to enter into the nucleus to be functional since it will be translated immediately once it has reached to the cytoplasm.[13]"
So, it's not (doctors think) getting into the DNA of the cells it manipulates, I'll give you that. But it's not a vaccine just because the intended end of the therapy chain -- presenting the immune system with the relevant spike protein -- is the same. It gets to that point in a different way, and things which are different are not the same. As I said, calling it a "vaccine" WAS AN ATTEMPT TO DECEIVE the unwary into thinking that nothing new was going on. The purpose of language is communication. That was an attempt at obfuscation.
"mRNA tech" comment: Very well stated, Erik. Agree.
It is the production of spike protein from the RNA injections (genetic therapy) that causes the cardiac, brain, and respiratory (awa other organ) morbidity. Myocardial infiltration has caused an unprecedented spike in mortality from CHF in certain people, most often young athletes. In folks with healthy immune systems , there can be a massive deposition of spike protein-antibody complexes in these various target organs. This has been the cause of millions of respiratory deaths. Covid could have been treated with common, inexpensive drugs, that have been known to be effective against other coronavirus common colds (which Covid is).
The epidemiology of the mRNA injection deaths is poorly understood (why some people and why certain target organs are so much more susceptible to the RNA produced spike protein-antibody complexes and fragments) but progress has been made, despite the dearth of grants going toward that work. It is such a politically incorrect area for research, implicating Fauci et al, awa the media, academia, etc. in horrendous misanthropy. I do think RFK would be helpful here.
of course he is anti-vax - he has been campaigning on anti vaxx at Child Health Defense (very creepy name) for years.
No, he isn’t. No, he hasn’t. He wants to see vaccines tested and manufactured to the same standards as other medicines. How many millions have been spent teaching you to parrot an utter bullshit lie? Who would do that? Why?
He was anti MMR long long after MMR has been a proven safe vax and highly tested.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children%27s_Health_Defense
They still go on about MMR and Autism, one of the most dishonest and corrupt campaigns ever. RFK has been chairman for 17 years (and only on sabbatical even now)
hm. That’s more than I know about it. I’ll look into it, thanks.
@m droy: Define "anti-vax".
Hodge, upthread: "He himself is fully vaccinated, with the exception of the cvd[sic] jabs, as were his children."
This isn't a focus of mine, but if what Alan says is true you need to explain how this fits in with what you are calling him.
see above
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children%27s_Health_Defense
See WHAT above.
At your link: "Children's Health Defense (CHD) is an American 501(c)(3) nonprofit activist group mainly known for anti-vaccine disinformation, and which has been called one of the main sources of misinformation on vaccines.[1][2][3][4][5]"
This just looks to me like a typical Lefty Wikipedia slur.
You either know that the anti-vax campaign against MMR is one of the great scandals of the last 40 years and has been an object of disgust amongst health professionals ever since or you have learnt it yet.
Sorry if your education has been so sheltered.
Your problem is that you have learned a lot of things that aren't true and you are not smart enough to realize that. It is of course the coercive application of experimental injections to healthy and unwilling individuals that is the great medical scandal of the last hundred years or more.
Still waiting for your explanation of how "[RFK Jr} himself is fully vaccinated, with the exception of the [COVID] jabs, as were his children", and says so, is supposed to fit in with your slur that "[RFK Jr] has been campaigning on anti vaxx at Child Health Defense (very creepy name) for years." You evidently have "learnt" a very strange definition of "anti vaxx" and are waving it about as if you knew what you are talking about, which you obviously don't.
It's "Children's Health Defense", btw, and I don't find that in the slightest bit "creepy". But it's another demonstration that you have "learnt" bogus things.
Like Jared wrote, what matters now is not an individual's politics but the degree to which they are coded as anti-establishment. The Red Scare ladies aren't traditional conservatives but they freaked out Freddie DeBoer when they started hanging out with Alex Jones. At that point DeBoer realized that the old alliances were coming undone as the era turned over.
Another example: anybody who keeps a close eye on California politics knows who Nicole Shanahan is. Just a few short years ago it would have been unthinkable for her to appear with Steve Bannon. Covid plus the election have radicalized her to the point where she will make common cause to anyone who agrees that the system is rotten regardless of any political disagreements they may have.
Perhaps it should be noted that this is all possible because the system really is rotten?
He stands, almost alone, against the completely corrupt medical-intelligence-industrial complex that many believe is being used, especially the vaccine/germ warfare/intelligence industry, as a template for societal and population control. The controls applied during the COVID event increased his following exponentially
I don’t think the MAGA movement is necessarily a Right Wing movement, but more of an anti-Establishment movement that utilizes Populism and Personality.
I like him because he has litigated to make big industries to clean up the Hudson River. He’s working to get the liability shield removed from vaccines because then risks are hidden from the public and he wants to get Pharma money out of everything. I have come to despise mercenary for profit medicine based on unsafe and ineffective products. Since covid I have seen enough NOT to trust them or the regulatory agencies.
I despise, fear and loathe the technocrats and their manipulative social engineering, mass surveillance and desire control every one and every thing.
That would have been a very left-wing statement as late as the 2000s.
Not really. Leftists have always been about total control. Every leftist, totalitarian state tries to do the same thing.
I mean, you're right about the Soviet Union and China, and to a lesser extent Venezuela, though I think they have less money for control.
A lot of the left in the USA seemed to be about throwing off oppressive structures (rock n' roll, liberation movements), until they got the chance to make their own of course. To some degree it's all about who's holding the gun, but I could see how people suspicious of centralized power could be leftists up until about the 2010s.