There’s a good market for people saying dumb things
— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm.bsky.social) January 2, 2025 at 1:11 AM
Jerusalem Demsas is usually smarter than this article makes her seem (part of that — my personal bias — is that podcasts tend to make people sound dumber than they are), but the Atlantic is deeply, historically committed to its brand of Smug Libertarian Contrarianism.
What if this man’s dumb, dangerous fixations were actually… good, at least in parts? Or, at least, if they sounded good, if you edited them carefully enough?… Then you’d have deceptively edited bullshit conspiracy theories, maximized for profitable grifting!
the first step in any “maybe there’s something to what RFK is saying” argument is to substitute in something better that the author imagines he’s saying
— post malone ergo propter malone (@proptermalone.bsky.social) January 1, 2025 at 2:18 PM
This is what happens when narrative overcomes reality. You can't correct someone when they're trying to tell their story, after all. And if someone has a really exciting & unexpected story, how could you deny them the microphone?
— Chatham Harrison is tending his garden (@chathamharrison.bsky.social) December 31, 2024 at 2:34 PM
"Some of your children may die, but that's a political sacrifice I'm prepared to make"
— Chatham Harrison is tending his garden (@chathamharrison.bsky.social) December 31, 2024 at 12:23 PM
Encouragement is the last thing RFK Jr deserves!
it’s to browbeat, we had decades of Meeting People Where They Are and Listening, and the result has been hundreds of thousands of avoidable deaths
— William B. Fuckley (@opinionhaver.bsky.social) January 1, 2025 at 8:53 PM
you know what factor predicts childhood vaccination pretty well? Whether the state fucking forces you to get if you want to go to public school. Not Listening, not Addressing Community Concerns, what saves lives is using the governments monopoly on force to make people do the pro social thing.
— William B. Fuckley (@opinionhaver.bsky.social) January 1, 2025 at 8:54 PM
An underrated and invaluable part of the press is attempting to set the bounds of what is and isn't within reasonable discourse.
Expanding the tent big enough to include disease-enablers like RFK Jr, who already have a bodycount from undermining vaccines, is an abdication of that responsibility.— Kelsey Atherton (@atherton.bsky.social) January 2, 2025 at 9:38 AM
Unless one is personally invested in child-sized coffins and microplots at cemetaries, there's no compelling reason to welcome anti-vaxxers into anything. Vaccines vanquish a horseman of the apocalypse, "vaccine skeptics" of all stripes are simply handmaidens to a new wave of preventable deaths.
— Kelsey Atherton (@atherton.bsky.social) January 2, 2025 at 9:38 AM
The Audacity of Krope
RFK Jr. is set to discredit authentic efforts to make our food and drugs safer for generations.
different-church-lady
“We have to meet people’s paranoid belief in untrue things halfway” is quite a take.
different-church-lady
"I mean, Hitler may not have it right, but you gotta admit some people find Jews annoying..."The Audacity of Krope
@different-church-lady: My ignorance is not as good as your expertise.
It’s better.
Smiling Happy Guy (aka boatboy_srq)
This is what expertise skepticism buys. Not vaccine skepticism; not medical system skepticism; not public sector skepticism. This is “my iggerance is
as good asbetr than yur nolege” rejection of facts in favor of a more palatable fairytale that supports their prejudices and dogma.different-church-lady
@The Audacity of Krope: Yeah, well that’s not a heavy lift.
Smiling Happy Guy (aka boatboy_srq)
@different-church-lady: Isn’t that what came up in the previous thread?
Jeffro
that last line by Atherton…that’s really all we need
scav
Remember, having obese, unhealthy, asthmatic, crippled citizens is a net economic benefit. First in feeding them the shit to produce the health issues and secondly in all the medicine and care to keep them going. Plus, all the FREEDUMB!! expressed by shoving supersized portions of fries down their little maws just to show all those eeleete medical knowitalls just who’s boss.
Baud
If only people could be this open minded about Democrats who have views they disagree with…
Ohio Mom
Every time I get sucked into reading an Atlantic article, I am disappointed. I never put any thought into why I was repulsed by that magazine, I just knew it always left me feeling uneasy, like I had touched something gross — now, thanks to Anne Laurie, I have the words I’ve needed: it’s the Atlantic brand of Smug Libertarian Contrarianism. Thank you AL.
The Audacity of Krope
My mind is open to everything except provable facts…
scav
@Baud: There you go, expecting the world to be logical again. You silly dreamer you.
The Audacity of Krope
I’m old enough to remember when merely requiring food producers to publish the contents of their food was a big government run amok.
TBone
I just spent some time reading what the doctor has to say in that Atlantic article, which was hard for me because I don’t normally like reading long conversations. I prefer articles. I think she’s partially right. Vaccine hesitancy, which I decidedly was after receiving Lymerix and having my world turn to shit (may or may not be a result of Lymerix on top of already unknowingly having Lyme) is not the same as being anti-vaxx. Some people can be persuaded if they are listened to and worked with.
different-church-lady
@TBone: Vaccine hesitancy ain’t what RFJjr is selling.
TBone
@different-church-lady: I didn’t say HE was right! That boy ain’t right!
Also, I have former friends who are now assholes about ALL vaccines – no headway was possible.
But I tried.
Old School
@different-church-lady:
Vaccine hesitancy is what the Atlantic article is saying to engage with. The two doctors definitely aren’t RFK, Jr. fans – or fans of small plates. (That’s the end of the podcast.)
lgerard
The fact that RFK Jr looks like a zombie should be disqualifying in its self.
different-church-lady
@Old School: I guess once again we get to blame the headline writer.
Ruviana
Letting the vaccine “hesitant” into our big tent means more in the big tent will get sick.
Baud
Vaccines for contagious diseases are definitely more important than other types of vaccines. And the ease of contagion matters too. But if someone wants to risk suffering themselves, I’m not going to stop them.
TBone
Prison (or subsequent visit with sick P.O.) is where I got Covid – the doctor was working trying to get prisoners to take the jab.
Baud
Engaging the vaccine hesitant is fine as long as people recognize that means fighting RFK’s message.
The Audacity of Krope
The problem is that this really isn’t a “my body, my choice” issue. These people are fighting for the right to spread disease.
kindness
Much of the anti-vax crowds claims about vaccines using mercury & other dangerous chemicals as preservatives were true. True for vaccines in the 50’s & 60’s that is. Dangerous additives acting as preservatives have been removed from vaccines yet the antivax crowd continues to act as if they are still in modern vaccines.
JaneE
Things like eating more healthy foods and making sure vaccines are safe make RFK Jr. seem like he is pretty mainstream. The fact that there is already an agency doing the latter and the data on vaccine safety has been and is being reviewed is what moves RFKJr into the eye rolling category. His insistence on letting people make their own decisions regardless of the potential number of sick and worse and saying that public health doesn’t matter more than one individual moves him into real nutjob territory. Trying to make the public think there are still questions about vaccination in general ought to move him to about circle 7 or 8.
Until he comes up with a way to make all that healthy food affordable for everyone in the country even getting the population a little healthier will be wishful thinking.
Baud
@The Audacity of Krope:
That was what I said in the first part of my comment. Aren’t there vaccines for non-contagious diseases too?
ETA: The Google says shingles isn’t contagious.
Splitting Image
@different-church-lady:
The biggest cause of vaccine hesitancy is the coddling of people like RFK Jr.
When people constantly hear two competing narratives, they tend to assume that there is a valid argument to be had between them and defer making decisions until they get more information.
That’s why right wingers are always working to muddy the waters. It works.
Vaccines save lives. RFK Jr. is a murderer.
Princess
Demsas, Khanna, Fetterman, all of CNN… I think a lot of people realize there will be billionaires with hands dripping money for people who are willing to say the right things and they want a piece of that action.
if Suzanne is in here, I’d love to hear what you think of Demsas on housing, which is her area of expertise. What I read made it sound like she thinks we need more unfettered development for the rich so their old houses will trickle down to the poor, but it was an admittedly biased source.
The Audacity of Krope
Less contagious, sure. But those aren’t the ones we’re broadly requiring or the cause for concern.
Employers, particularly healthcare facilities, may require those vaccines. Hepatitis B, for example. Not as many people seem to get as upset when it’s a business placing requirements on their behavior.
Not technically, but it’s usually triggered by a dormant virus from a highly contagious childhood disease, chickenpox.
And no one is requiring it if anyone. But you should really get it if you know what’s good for you.
Another Scott
@kindness:
If we’re thinking of the same claims, I would disagree.
CDC.gov:
(Emphasis added.)
FWIW.
Best wishes,
Scott.
The Audacity of Krope
Also, too, the industry standard for most vaccines appears to be single dose vials or prefilled syringes. At least in the pharmacy setting.
Note: I am not a clinician.
Steve LaBonne
Duct tape can’t fix stupid, but it muffles the sound.
Baud
@The Audacity of Krope:
Sure. I get all my vaccines, and shingles isn’t mandatory because it’s not contagious. But it’s still a vaccine, so when we talk about vaccines, we should be clear that the ones we really care about are the ones needed to prevent other people from getting sick or dying.
pluky
@Baud: The initial Chicken Pox that sets the stage for Shingles most definitely is contagious. The Shingles vaccine is essentially an immune booster so that a later-in-life outbreak of latent Varicella zoster is nipped in the bud.
Baud
@pluky:
I’m not talking about the chicken pox vaccine though. Chicken pox is contagious and the vaccine should be mandatory.
The Audacity of Krope
That was always pretty clear to me. Ever since childhood, before I had any experience working in any form of healthcare.
But I never had brain worms.
Baud
@The Audacity of Krope:
You’re not the audience here.
mrmoshpotato
@Princess:
How’s that work? LOL!
The Audacity of Krope
@Baud: Maybe not, but how does one deal with things that ought to be obvious that idiots are determinedly idiotic about?
Baud
@The Audacity of Krope:
Obviously, no one knows.
The Audacity of Krope
Have you ever heard of the Wicked Witch of the East?
mrmoshpotato
@Splitting Image:
He’s also an idiot, an asshole, a psycho (bear, whale head), and a disgrace to his family.
mrmoshpotato
@The Audacity of Krope: Wasn’t she killed before the story started?
The Audacity of Krope
@mrmoshpotato: The event that killed her happened during the story. We simply never met her beforehand.
Bonus points if you know how she died.
The Thin Black Duke
@Baud: Unfortunately, there ain’t a vaccine for stupidity.
The Audacity of Krope
@The Thin Black Duke: On a long enough timeline, vaccine hesitancy may reduce overall stupidity in the population.
Is it worth it?
John S.
I just can’t with this asshole.
I’ve spent the last 17 years of my autistic son’s life arguing with people about the non-existent link between vaccines and autism. I’ve spent the last 3 years arguing with people about the non-existent link between the COVID vaccine and my daughter’s Type 1 diabetes.
I swear to god, I really just can’t anymore.
mrmoshpotato
@The Audacity of Krope: She shook her ass and got down a bit too much one night. (Her ass fell off; 100% fatality rate)
The Audacity of Krope
@mrmoshpotato: You’re right. You’re right.
hitchhiker
I can’t imagine why but when I read this sentence:
the face of Tom Nichols appeared next to it.
lowtechcyclist
@The Audacity of Krope:
Saw a t-shirt once that said something like “I just haven’t been the same since that house fell on my sister.”
WTFGhost
One of the problems with people saying “build a bridge/open the tent” is, these people only exist in significant numbers due to Republicans willingness to lie about anything and everything. Planning to reach people who exist in a swirling miasma of lies isn’t easy, especially when your editor tells you to stop reporting on the lies, because it might drive Trump supporters away.
VeniceRiley
@TBone: I live in fear of the officer spouse bringing something home from there. Back at the start of it, she would tell me stories of staff showing up sick and sweaty and sending them home like WTF. Stay HOME! Currently, every dumb knob on staff has flu or something. Except her. She’s had her flu shot and COVID booster.
Norovirus tearing through UK too now. I’m not leaving this house! If they want people to boost this economy, they can dang well offer a covid booster to under 65’s.
ColoradoGuy
The quality of the writing in the Atlantic is what gives the articles the sheen (not the substance) of plausibility. If you rephrased them in Fox-speak, the absurdity and mendacity would be immediately obvious.
This is the same trick William F Buckley played on PBS in the sixties and seventies. He used two-dollar words, often intentionally archaic, to conceal dime-store fascism. At the level of Father Coughlin, fascism is obvious. As sold by Buckley, it flew under the radar of those who were not historically aware of what he was selling. The Atlantic is doing the same trick, just in glossier format.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
Demsas is a “new liberal” hack of the highest order. She got her start at Vox, working with noted geniuses like Yglesias; she wasn’t hired for any intellectual integrity but to launder far right, libertarian housing propaganda into “think” pieces for the Totebagger Radio crowd. She failed upward to the Atlantic. If it’s something from places like the Lewis Center (UCLA), the Mercatus Center (George Mason), the Niskanen Institute (libertarian DC think tank), she’ll be there spinning it with faux progressive messaging.
Our resident Libertarian in a Trench Coat I’m sure will sing her praises.
NeenerNeener
@Baud: Chicken pox can also make men sterile. You would think Project 2025 would be all for mandatory vaccinations.
lashonharangue
At the risk of the abuse I will receive for this comment, I suggest people read this article before further insults are directed toward RFK Jr. (who I think is quite weird). While I deeply appreciate all the work Anne Laurie does, I think there are some credible dissenting voices in medicine that have not made it into the conversation here.
mrmoshpotato
@The Audacity of Krope: I’d forgotten about the house crushing at the beginning.
TBone
@VeniceRiley: I actually had to argue with a former friend who is a nurse, and who teaches nursing!, and is also a paramedic who rides ambulances at all hours, about why the Covid coronavirus was called “novel” and I finally gave up and sent her the link to
staythefuckhome.com
How she overlooked the meaning of NOVEL is still a mystery, but Dr. Drew was somehow involved.
I hope you stay uninfected!
https://staythefuckhome.com/
WTFGhost
@TBone: One of the difficulties of public health is how things are very different, yet have the same term. For example, you had vaccine hesitancy caused by a massively bad reaction. Well, if you’d taken an anti-depressant, and puked your guts up like you’d chased your antabuse with hard liquor, you’d probably be hesitant to take another antidepressant, but, you’d be different from someone who was taught that antidepressants are evil agents of satan, intended to destroy your free will.
So the term is the same, because they’re thinking in broad strokes about large numbers of people, and, hopefully, they remember (when needed) that their broad strokes will hide *lots* of detail.
different-church-lady
@mrmoshpotato: Yeah, I’ve blocked most of that movie out of my mind too.
mrmoshpotato
@TBone: Did you send her a definition link?
TBone
@WTFGhost: yes!
TBone
@mrmoshpotato: I screamed WE BOTH KNOW THAT NOVEL MEANS NEW IT IS NOT JUST ANOTHER COMMON COLD VIRUS goddamnit
Once I heard the words Dr. Drew, I lost my shit.
Steve LaBonne
@lashonharangue: @lashonharangue: No abuse, just pie. Sayonara.
hrprogressive
No, I am not expanding the “big tent” to include lunatics. I don’t give a fuck what their concerns are, outside of those who have actual allergic reactions to certain immunizations.
eclare
@Baud:
I got the chicken pox vaccine around age 30, as soon as it came out. Somehow I never had chicken pox as a child.
brantl
@kindness: Thimerosol is still in some vaccines.
scav
We have an entire industry built of little more than advertising drugs with unspecified benefits by listing an extensive litany of side-effects (including death) and ending with a chirpy “Ask Your Doctor!”. Has to be a shit ton of vaccine hesitant buyers of same to make that industry the success it undoubtedly is.
MomSense
The definitive reporting on RFK, jr can be found on the podcast Maintenance Phase. It is an excellent podcast and if you want to get into the nitty gritty of RFK, Jr. check them out.
beckya57
Opinionhaver (see Bluesky post) is correct: the evidence supports requiring vaccines, eg in order to attend school, for work, military service, etc. Engaging with people around irrational fears doesn’t work. (This is different from engaging with people who have a history of bad vax side effects, which are rare but do happen; those people’s fears may actually be rational.). And as others have pointed out, this isn’t an individual choice issue: vaccine refusers needlessly endanger people who can’t be vaccinated. It’s more like requiring seat belts, or not allowing smoking in public places: these mandates protect the public. RFK Jr is a disgrace, and if he is made HHS chair people will die (or be crippled by polio). It’s not complicated. Articles like this are why I cancelled my Atlantic subscription. The point about the need to set the parameters of the discourse is a critical one; we’ve gotten away from that, and now all opinions, from data-based to complete fantasies, are being treated as equally meritorious. There’s a reason why experts in these fields go to school for many years.
UncleEbeneezer
@Ohio Mom: The Atlantic has some good writers on Israel/Palestine. We need way more voices like Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib (link to ForeignPolicy article) on the Left, who want peace and Palestinian self-determination but who also don’t shovel the usual antisemitism cloaked in Anti-Zionism that has become dogma in Progressive spaces. On any other topic though I agree about The Atlantic.
hitchhiker
@lashonharangue: You’ve stuck your thumb in a pie with this one, pal.
Princess
@mrmoshpotato: Poorly, so far!
Another Scott
@eclare: You were fortunate. I had chicken pox as a kid. It was horrible, horrible. It hurt. It hurt to take a bath. It was terribly itchy, but beyond that it hurt. I’ve still got several scars on my face from it, all these years later.
I got the shingrix vaccine as soon as I was eligible.
Like Ruckus, I too knew people who had had polio (a great uncle, some people in the neighborhood). People didn’t have to be convinced to get the vaccines – there were lines to do so, for very good reasons!
My brother got the mumps. We both had rubella (“German measles”) and my pregnant mom had a spontaneous abortion as a result.
These are serious diseases that kill and maim people.
The COVID-19 vaccines have save millions of lives.
Vaccines are an almost miraculous example of what science and reason can give humanity.
PhilanthropyRoundtable.org (repost):
Pasteurization isn’t just about food taste, it’s about keeping people – especially children – from dying. And it’s not ancient history – 1996 Odwalla E. coli outbreak.
Those “leaders” who push vaccine falsehoods, raw milk falsehoods, pasteurization falsehoods, and all the rest, are not “just asking questions”. They’re not just trying to make things better and give people choices. They are endangering public health and endangering society because they are feeding the “my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge” (as Asimov put it) which is a deadly danger to progress.
[/rant]
I feel rather strongly about this. ;-)
Thanks.
Best wishes,
Scott.
lowtechcyclist
@UncleEbeneezer:
Yeah, that’s the problem with the Atlantic. There’s always one or two writers there that I’d want to read, but I’m not willing to support their stable full of horseshit to read them.
They’ve been this way for a while, I think it’s been nearly 20 years since I stopped subscribing.
scav
@hitchhiker: But hey! It got people to respond. All click-publicity is good: that first sentence is an outright plea for it. They’re a player with impact!
David_C
I couldn’t get very far into the article before my Covid-induced short attention span kicked in. As someone with a PhD in toxicology/immunology, I found the argument, and the headline framing, troubling. As was pointed out above, the idea that the additives in vaccines made them unsafe is false.
As far as vaccine side effects go, I only rarely have a bad day after the flu vaccine, but I also haven’t had the flu in decades. Shingrix was tough, but I got shingles just a couple of months before I was eligible for the former formulation, and shingles kept me in constant pain for 3 weeks. And Covid? I’m fully vaccinated and feel miserable, but at my age it could be a lot worse.
I don’t see how meeting RFK Jr halfway will help. I’m at NIAID but will see if they try to shut me up. Had a post on BlueSky that got some traction and have a couple more that discuss diversity, Good Clinical Practice, and Tuskegee, and a hero of mine – Frances Kelsey – and the need to demonstrate safety and efficacy on tap. The laws and regulations that govern the FDA were written in blood.
frog
@Princess:
Do I, a middle class person, get one of these houses before fobbing it off to a poor?
eemom
@ColoradoGuy:
Great comment overall and especially that perfect metaphor.
matt
Have we maybe judged plague rats too harshly? How much can a little bit of exposure to them hurt?
UncleEbeneezer
@lowtechcyclist: Right. I mean, 20 years ago they had Ta-Nehisi Coates as one of their big attractions. And iirc, Adam Serwer was writing there not too long ago.
waspuppet
I don’t remember who it was who first said that you don’t get credit for saying cigarettes cause cancer if you also say potatoes cause cancer. That’s where we’re at with RFK Jr.
What I still don’t understand is why Trump has embraced him. The knee-jerk answer is “It was transactional to get RFK’s base” and, um, what base? He got like 14 votes in the Democratic primaries. And vaccinations were the only thing Trump did
wellkinda competently as president. Is it really just that Trump is so old and addled that the support of a Kennedy was that important to him?eclare
@Another Scott:
Impressive! I feel strongly about this too. I kept reading articles about the chicken.pox vaccine coming out in the mid-nineties, devouring all of the development news that I could find.
Once it was approved, I got the two shot series in weeks. I’ve since had a booster shot.
eemom
@UncleEbeneezer:
That may have something to do with Jeffrey Goldberg being editor in chief. Not a fan of his, but he sure as shit doesn’t do antisemitism.
Canceled my subscription to The Nation because of the dogma you mention. It’s been an absolute cesspool since 10/7/23.
wenchacha
@Another Scott:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12480426/
Our kids’ pediatrician was involved in this study. We trusted his research, and we trusted him with our children’s health.
Another Scott
@waspuppet: I assume it’s another reflection of him being stuck in the ’70s, still looking for approval and membership and fealty from folks who have actual money. “Look, even teh bigly Kennedys support me! I’m Somebody, and the rest of you are a Nobody!”
It could also be him trying to get explicit control over the Qanon folks (who seem to have just slid over to MAGA by this time), without understanding that JFK, Jr isn’t the same person as RFK, jr.
Dunno.
Best wishes,
Scott.
tobie
I don’t understand Polis’ or the Atlantic’s framing. If you google “Rachel L. Levine” + nutrition, you immediately find a series of videos under the title Food is Medicine.
TBone
The point that the doctor was making in the Atlantic is that the people who are falling for the bullshit spread by JFK, Jr. are reeled in because of the barest, tiny seeds of truth contained therein, from which those conspiracy theories then sprout. Those people may be reachable before they fall all the way down the rabbit hole.
Another Scott
@wenchacha: Interesting. Thanks.
Best wishes,
Scott.
karensky
@different-church-lady: I was in the 3rd grade of elementary school when I had the measles and I almost died. I slept in my mom and dad’s bed with my mom and my dad slept in a spare room with my brothers in another room. I basically lay in bed in a fugue state for a week and a half until I could read and sit up. The family doctor came each day on his way home. There was no vaccine and no cure. He saved my mom from going into depression. I can not imagine any sane human man parent agreeing to let their children kid go through that. Anti-vazxers are anti children.
Kay
@lashonharangue:
You should double check everything written in that article because Denmark vaccinated kids for Covid. Denmark had an 80% vaccination rate compared to the US’s 50%. They had billboards congratulating Danes for beating Covid.
hitchhiker
@lowtechcyclist:
Same, except I recently renewed it just to have access to old articles, so many of which really are worth reading.
Miss Bianca
@Steve LaBonne:
OK, I’m swiping that one.
TBone
@waspuppet: pwning the libs is the point.
Miss Bianca
@The Thin Black Duke:
And if there were, the right people wouldn’t take it.
TBone
@Miss Bianca: I remember the meme where the dumb guy says he won’t be with any women who are vaxxed and the ladies say “Good! The vaccine is working!”
prostratedragon
Watching Bringing Up Baby, and was reminded of my new favorite praise song.
Kay
@lashonharangue:
Does RFK Jr know that the wellness industry is bigger than pharmaceuticals in the US? The industry where his celebrity wife sells overpriced potions to people?
It’s amusing he’s so upset about a profit motive. He understands that “wellness” is HUGELY profitable as a sector, right?
And almost completely unregulated.
I just hope he isn’t permitted to waste public health money on remedies he pulls out of his ass. There’s opportunity cost there.
Steve LaBonne
@Miss Bianca: I stole it myself!
lashonharangue
@Kay:
In April 2022, Denmark announced the suspension of its COVID-19 vaccination program, making it the first country in the world to do so.[144] As of October 2022 the Danish Health Authorities recommend a booster vaccination to people aged 50 and over, as well as selected risk groups. They did so due to the expectation of an increasing number of COVID-19 infections during the autumn and winter months.[145]
Because children and adolescents rarely become severely ill from the Omicron variant of COVID-19, the Danish Health Authority does not recommend vaccination. From 1 July 2022, it was no longer possible for children and adolescents aged under 18 to get the first injection and, from 1 September 2022, it was no longer possible for them to get the second injection. A very limited number of children at particularly higher risk of becoming severely ill may still be offered vaccination based on an individual assessment by a doctor.[146]
Miss Bianca
@NeenerNeener:
So can mumps. The main reason I don’t have children? (Besides general lack of inclination?) My ex had mumps when he was 10 years old. When he was finally fertility tested, he was sterile as a mule.
Shhh…
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Kay:
That’s a rhetorical statement, right? Cuz we all know that’s exactly what he’ll be allowed to do when he’s not actively screwing over every aspect of the department he’ll head.
Kay
its written as if they never vaccinated kids – they did. Denmark lifted restrictions faster than other countries because they controlled the spread. They beat it. We could have beat it here too if every “wellness” grifter hadn’t jumped on the anti vaccine bandwagon and kept our vaccination rates low.
The person you are reading is dishonest. She writes about the variance in vaccination schedules as if it’s some smoking gun – it’s just national differences.
RFK Jr is living in a glass house ranting about a profit motive. Wellness industry purveyors sell BILLIONS in the US. It’s a huge industry. If you had any integrity you’d all be nonprofits. But you’re not. You’re raking it in.Why are you-all exempt from the no profit rule? Because you’re hypocrites. There’s no difference in “purity” between selling a vaccine and selling remedies – except vaccines are actually tested and they work.
Dan B
@Miss Bianca: Mandatory mumps and chickenpox vaccinations for white men!
Elmo Husk!!!
Jay
As we discovered in mid-Covid, “we” are very much on our own.
Yes, Blue States can require that kids be vaxxed, but they can’t stop fakes.
So the only real protection your kid has at school against, for example, the measles, is to be vaxxed. Sucks if they are immunocompromised.
So, stay vaxxed, wear masks in public, wash your hands regularly.
Take care of yourselves and to hell with those who won’t.
Kay
@lashonharangue:
Denmark actually locked down. Not the phony “lockdowns” like in the US where people screamed bloody murder because they couldn’t go to restaurants. Danes were restricted to their houses or family play outside for months. MAGA would have rioted and probably shot 40 or 50 people.
mrmoshpotato
I’m with Cole on this. Air strike on this fucker’s semi.
Albatrossity
“Seeds of truth” is just another term for “lies of omission”.
UncleEbeneezer
@eemom: I ditched The Nation when I got tired of reading umpteen articles bashing the Dems and blaming them for everything. Then the Russian invasion of Ukraine happened and I realized there was another good reason never to read it (The Nation is filled with big-time Putin apologists).
lashonharangue
@Kay:
He is a cancer doctor and epidemiologist at a major teaching hospital with hundreds of refereed publications and two books. He may be wrong. Why do you assume he is dishonest?
zhena gogolia
@prostratedragon: Brilliant!
Citizen Alan
@Ohio Mom: I stopped reading the Atlantic after Ta-Nahesi Coates left. Everyone left was some combination of vapid and evil.
Kay
@lashonharangue:
Because of how it’s written. He has to tell the whole story of the Nordic countries and Covid. He can’t cherry-pick facts he likes to form a narrative. He knows darn well RFK Jr is not advocating for the adoption of the Danish vaccination schedule. Thats not at all his goal.
I mean, how could you do this to people? You’re putting a degenerate nepo-baby lawyer with zero training in charge of public health? And along with him comes the entire packed full ‘o grifters “wellness industry”?
You’re irresponsible and thoughtless. You will kill vulnerable people. Get some other hobby. Play some other game. Learn a craft or something. Play pickleball.
Suzanne
@Princess:
I am here, but I don’t know anything about Demsas.
What you just described is usually called “filtering” (not trickle-down), and it has historically been generally true. It’s the same principle as cars: today’s new cars become tomorrow’s used cars. The challenge is that, in many cities, the land is so valuable that it’s worth it to a rich person to buy the land, tear down the house, and build something big and new. (This happened to the house Mr. Suzanne grew up in.)
One of the challenges facing a lot of places is that they have written their zoning codes in such a way that only large houses are profitable for builders….. like there is a large minimum lot size or setback that requires a lot of land. So the idea is that, in places like that, we should go ahead and build the big stuff.
Princess
@waspuppet: There’s a theory that Barron is autistic and Trump blames vaccines.
mrmoshpotato
@Princess:
That implies the orange shitstain cares about any of his spawn.
Citizen Alan
I would speculate that “vaccine hesitancy” is a creature of conservatives and horseshoe leftists. One side thinks vaccines are evil because corporations are inherently evil and the other side things vaccines are the Mark of the Beast. I’ll let you guess which side is which.
NotMax
@Citizen Alan
Not to mention those pesky nanobots.
//
Citizen Alan
@NotMax: Ah, yes. “Nanobots: The Thinking Man’s Mark of the Beast.”
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@mrmoshpotato:
It doesn’t. He cares about how his kid’s reflect on him. A guy like Trump can’t have a special needs kid without having something else to blame.
Miss Bianca
@TBone: If you read anything about the history of public health campaigns in general, and vaccination in particular, then you end up realizing a lot of these things – like, anti-vaxxers have been around as long as vaccination has, for example. And back in the day, that “kernel of truth” was a lot bigger. Prior to the FDA, yeah – a lot of vaccinations WERE fucking dangerous, and DID kill a bunch of people, because they were adulterated or not produced under sterile conditions or being produced by quacks with no actual medical bona fides or what have you.
That’s WHY we have the FDA, which for all its faults has saved more people than it’s ever harmed. Kind of like vaccines themselves.
Christ, if I ever became the tin-pot dictator Trump aspires to be, the first thing I would proclaim is that every American from the age of 17 up must read the book Pox: An American History.
Come to think of it, it’s time for me to reread it.
WaterGirl
There’s an open thread for anyone who wants one.
Gretchen
It’s not just the ignorance, but the confident ignorance. Virologists mapped the entire genome of the virus from early cases, from samples in the wet market, and from bats, and can tell down to the nucleotide where each sample differs/replicates every other one. They know how the virus attaches to human cells, and how mutations change the shape of the spike protein to better or more poorly attach. Guys like RFK Jr. and Nate Silver know none of this, and don’t care to learn. They think they’ve figured out hidden knowledge that these dummy scientists are ignoring. « Did you know there’s a virology lab in Wuhan and that’s where the outbreak started. Huh? Huh? Did you know that? It’s obviously a lab leak and the scientists are trying to hide their nefarious work. « It’s infuriating.
TBone
@Citizen Alan: I tried to head off speculation by pointing out the difference between “hesitancy” and “anti-vaxx” at #15
mrmoshpotato
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: Ah.
Jay
@Citizen Alan:
“vaccine hesitancy” is both real and fake.
For the people for whom it is real, one one hand they have an”Authority” recommends or mandates a vaccine, on the other hand, 30 years of wellness woo/anti-vax bullshit have flooded the zone. For a variety of reasons, they can’t/won’t differentiate between the two polarities.
For the people for whom it is being faked, there are a variety of reasons from profit, religion, politics to oppositional defiance.
Kay
@lashonharangue:
I have known RFK Jr is a liar and scammer for almost exactly 20 years. Twenty years ago he wrote this conspiratorial garbage about how Republicans stole Ohio in the 2004 election in Rolling Stone, a publication that should have “too good to check” on the masthead.
I was a pollworker in Ohio for 15 years. I was active in volunteer election protection on behalf of Democrats for both the 2000 and 2004 elections. RFK Jr. doesn’t know the first thing about how elections in Ohio actually work. He doesn’t know what Boards of Election do or how votes are counted. He saw a possible grift on the Left (that time) and he jumped right on it, because that’s who he is – of poor character. He’s a bad person. He saw liberals were sad and worried because they lost an election and he exploited that, and in a VERY MAGA way. And now he’s exploiting you. Wise up.
Another Scott
@lashonharangue: Eh?
SST.dk (1 page .pdf)
The link for the PDF is from a page dated 13 Sept 2023.
I clicked on it today, so the information is presumably still valid.
Page with map showing 28 locations to get COVID-19 and flu vaccinations.
HTH!
Best wishes,
Scott.
Gretchen
@VeniceRiley: I just read that alcohol hand sanitizer doesn’t work against norovirus because alcohol works by disrupting a lipid coat, and norovirus doesn’t have a lipid coat. Handwashing with soap and water, and bleach for surfaces, does work.
TBone
@Miss Bianca: Am aware of much of that but haven’t read that book yet. I learned a lot of that history by virtue of my research battle against spirochetes, back when doing your own research was the only option. Great strides were made by people who had to fight along every step of the way – presentation of any new scientific facts or treatments often resulted in being accused of heresy and batshittery by the historically all male medical establishment. For starters. I appreciate the hell outta the FDA although my mantra remains that I generally won’t take a new drug until ten years of use by the public has passed without the usual TV lawyers entreating victims of harm to “call us and get paid!”
(I’m too tired to be eloquent, I hope that nonsense makes sense)
JPL
@Kay: Good job!
JPL
@Princess: If true, and I heard from a reliable source that it is, why not add funding to find out the cause rather than go with qnon theories.
It’s amazing how far treatments have come that help those on the spectrum.
Gretchen
@lashonharangue: No, no, no! Your article is by one of the worst vaccine-deniers, Vinay Prasad! He opposed vaccines for children, and wanted children to get mass-infected because he thought, without evidence, that covid is harmless in children and mass infection would get us to herd immunity quickly. He never treated a covid patient, and wouldn’t listen to those who had. He’s right in there with Kennedy as far as spreading misinformation and « skepticism ». https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/dr-vinay-prasad-opposed-the-pediatric-covid-vaccine-before-there-was-a-pediatric-covid-vaccine/
Jacel
@The Audacity of Krope: It’s been documented that children can catch chicken pox from adults with shingles. My brother and I are living proof of that, when shingles was part of the mix of conditions my grandfather had at the end, and we were knocked down with chicken pox at the time of his death.
Suzanne
@Gretchen: The thing that I have never understood about the lab leak theory is…. it is plainly evident that the people who push the lab leak have animus against the Chinese government, and also probably lots of Chinese citizens. But why do they think a lab leak would be more damaging or hostile than zoonotic transfer at the wet market? Neither scenario reflects well: either cause indicates that the government there was not keeping facilities clean and controlled and regulated.
TBone
I followed the Torrey case with great interest, only to have all hope dashed…again
https://www.lymedisease.org/fifth-circuit-rejects-case-against-idsa/
https://www.lymedisease.org/torrey-idsa-insurance-settlement/
Gretchen
@Suzanne: worse yet, these same people hold the belief that the lab nefariously genetically engineered the virus as a dangerous bio weapon, and that no precautions like masking, closures and vaccines should be taken because it’s no more dangerous than the flu. Pick a lane, guys!
NeenerNeener
@Suzanne: From what I’ve seen of the lab leak theory posts those people also have a great deal of animus against Dr. Fauci and are blaming him for the leak. He supposedly was responsible for creating that variation that “escaped from the lab”. It’s totally nuts, but it’s also why he and his family have to have security guards now.
gene108
@lashonharangue:
Vinay Prasad is an insufferable douche nozzle.
The issue isn’t whether after careful consideration should the U.S. change policy, it’s getting people to trust expertise over their “gut instinct” about whether vaccines cause autism or do not.
RFK, Jr. reinforces conspiracy theories. In a position of power, he will enable and legitimize conspiracy theories.
They’ll crawl out of the woodwork like white supremacists did after Trump getting elected in 2016.
Kay
You guys, she sold out to UNILEVER. A giant multinational! I sure hope no one profited. These grifters are opposed to profit, but only for other people.
Suzanne
@Gretchen: @NeenerNeener: I should know better by now to stop looking for rationality where there is only idiocy.
sab
@Ohio Mom: I agree.
Gretchen
@lashonharangue: It’s not an assumption that Prasad (who is an oncologist but not an epidemiologist) is dishonest. It’s a very well documented fact. Look at Science-Based Medicine where there are dozens of articles about his wrongness, along with RFK Jr and all the other covid denialists. Why are you carrying water for someone who has been smugly wrong all along? Are you an antivax shit-stirrer who just reads things he agrees with?
Would you go to an infectious disease doctor if you have cancer? Why would you take the word of a cancer doctor about infectious disease. Read the virologists like Angie Rasmussen if you want to be informed.
gene108
@mrmoshpotato:
Trump cares if his kids inherited bad genes from their mother and not his good strong German genes. It shows weakness in Donald’s seed that his son may have a defect and May not be strong and fierce like dad.
Glory b
@JaneE: BUT RFK was photographed wolfing down Big Macs with Trump.
Trump’s food choices are what makes me think this won’t go that far.
Gvg
@Ohio Mom: My mother subscribes. My opinion reached a long time ago was that they just took 4 times as many words to say everything as needed. Full of themselves too.
satby
@Smiling Happy Guy (aka boatboy_srq): it comes up in every fucking thread now.
bcwbcw
@Baud: The google is wrong. If blisters are present, and you haven’t been vaccinated or had chickenpox, you can get chickenpox from the live virus in the blisters. You don’t catch “shingles,” you catch chickenpox.
RevRick
@The Audacity of Krope:
@Baud:
My dad had an older sister who died in 1921 at age four.
My maternal grandfather’s mother died when he was a boy, probably in childbirth.
Modern medicine has made these outcomes far less likely. Crackpot ideas about vaccines and autism threaten to undo all the hard-fought gains of medical science.
satby
@Another Scott: My father came close to dying as an infant from raw milk from the family cow. And that was in the 1930s.
I’ve talked about the memory, still strong after 65 years, of the parents weeping with relief at the mass immunization for polio held at the park by the health department. And of kids I knew that ended up deaf after measles.
And the Republicans undermined all of that now, first with Covid but now basically all vaccines, in their lust for power. Killing their own constituents so long as they can scrabble a few votes more. We need to be implacable in opposition to any accommodation to antivaxxers in our party or in government. May they all go to hell.
Bill Arnold
Just to note the stakes if measles comes back. Measles makes the adaptive immune system forget how to defend against other pathogens that it had previously learned to defend against. Antivaxxer parents are basically saying that they have the right to have their children spread measles to those susceptible, and cause immune amnesia (except for measles) in both their children and the others that they spread it to, recursively, and epidemically if enough of the population is susceptible. They are saying that they have the right to commit stochastic homicide, basically. Similarly for adult vaccine refusers.
Measles and Immune Amnesia (Feb. 7, 2024, The American Society for Microbiology)
tobie
@Bill Arnold:My sister’s about to start 20 weeks of aggressive chemo. The diagnosis and the chemo regimen are terrifying enough. The idea that she could become infected when she’s least able to handle it because of an antivaxxer’s mistaken beliefs or the delusions of someone with no training in virology, immunology, or public health like RFK, Jr. is scary and infuriating at the same time. How many people with compromised immune systems will find themselves in danger’s way now?
Elizabelle
@tobie: Oh no. Wishing your sister all the best for a successful treatment and recovery.
RevRick
@WaterGirl: Had our son over for a one-day-late pork and sauerkraut dinner. We had gone out to an Italian restaurant, continuing a 70ish year tradition of MrsRev’s family, and of course the huge portions meant leftovers last night.
After our repast, we watched the New Year’s edition of the British show, Taskmaster, and then the first episode of Skeleton Crew.
Citizen Alan
@Jay: confession time: there was a period during the Bush 2 administration when I flirted with being antivax. Wakefield had not yet been debunked and sounded persuasive to my layman’s ears. And I thought that if there were any people on earth who would have known about dangerous side effects of vaccines and concealed them from the public, it would have been george w bush’s goons. I am still suspicious of aspartame because of the role that that blood gargling psychopath donald rumsfeld supposedly played in its approval.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
I’m late back to this so the people who might most benefit from it probably won’t check up but here it is anyway.
The crap Demsas was hired by Yglesias back in the day to peddle and peddled by “market urbanists” in here (“filtering” is simply a rebrand of trickle-down) and nationally (thank you Peter Theil!) was seen first hand as it developed in CA by Zelda Bronstein, former commissioner of the Berkeley Planning commission:
http://dollarsandsense.org/archives/2018/0918bronstein.html
A pretty good recent overview of the con was done last year by TNR of all outlets:
https://newrepublic.com/article/179147/case-against-yimbyism-yimbytown-2024
A great summary on trickle-down, non-affordability and the bogusness of the climate change argument:
https://www.newgeography.com/content/007165-the-one-element-missing-discussion-housing-ca-tolerance
Finally, a piece on why “filtering” aka trickle-down, doesn’t work by a housing justice advocate:
https://x.com/leighbeadon/status/1782609378769531112
If anybody wants to talk offline about this, I have literally over a hundred links to papers, studies, and pieces that push back on this crap, don’t hesitate to contact Water Girl for my info.
Always remember that libertarians wound up a crop of entitled white people (mostly dudebros but not always if the peloton fits), who were already predisposed to be pricks and told them they were doing the work of MLK Jr on housing. They lie repeatedly and repeat the lies so that it becomes the narrative as fact. Sound familiar? Should be, they use the same messaging techniques as Big Tobacco and the opiod pushers. And the right-wing in general. Libertarians in Trench Coats.
These people are either people on the real estate industry payroll in one form or another (planners, real estate developers, builders, architects, etc) or people too clueless to know that the only folks who say these things are being paid. And the billionaires and developers are laughing at the latter from their mountain homes in Telluride, or Aspen, or a yacht.
Bill Arnold
@Suzanne:
Worse than that. The term “lab leak” was a 2020 invention, because (presumably) the alliteration made the narrative more spreadable and gave it extra traction because people are easily swayed by word games.
Prior to 2020, the term of the art was “lab escape”, which can easily be verified by searching google scholar with time window searches.
La Nonna
@Kay: Italy also locked down hard, no gatherings, no non-household members in the car with you, no going out of your neighborhood on foot or by car. We paid a hefty 300 eu fine for shopping on the wrong side of town during lockdown, I didn’t realize it until too late. This lasted for almost a year.
Kayla Rudbek
@lashonharangue: and you will DESERVE every single bit of the tongue-lashing that you will receive, you maliciously ignorant imbecile. Pied.
Kayla Rudbek
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: and of course he would never accept that it’s his aging sperm that would be responsible for any problems that Barron might have.
John Cole
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
What are we doing here? Who is our resident libertarian in a trench coat? Name them or knock it off. These is weird behavior. People are allowed to disagree on here.