Wednesday, December 11, 2024
Tooth and Consequences
Tooth and Consequences
Robert Kennedy, Jr’s medical track record – he has no medical credentials – should give us all pause. He is Donald Trump’s pick to head a huge federal agency, one that touches every aspect of our healthcare: the Department Health and Human Services (HHS). If confirmed RFK, Jr., would run most of the federal sub-cabinet agencies that vet food and drug safety, covers many federal social programs, and the operation of all federal health programs outside of the military. He would be one of the most powerful people in government. HHS is one of the largest federal cabinet-level agencies with well over 80 thousand federal employees. A failed presidential candidate, disavowed by the entire Kennedy family (yes, that Kennedy family), RFK, Jr has become America’s conspiracy adopter in chief, bringing quacks and antivaxxers adoringly to his door. Unfortunately, his family name gave him credibility where it clearly was not merited. Like in this reality in Samoa in2019.
“In 2013, 90% of babies in Samoa received the measles-mumps-rubella vaccination at one year of age… The 2019 Samoa measles outbreak began in September 2019. As of 6 January 2020, there were over 5,700 cases of measles and 83 deaths, out of a Samoan population of 200,874. Over three per cent of the population were infected. The cause of the outbreak was attributed to decreased vaccination rates among newly born babies, from 74% in 2017 to 31–34% in 2018, even though nearby islands had rates near 99%...
“In June 2019, American anti-vaccination activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. [had] visited Samoa to meet with local anti-vaccination activists including Taylor Winterstein and Edwin Tamanese, whom he called a ‘medical freedom hero. Kennedy also discussed vaccines with then-Prime Minister TuilaŹ»epa SaŹ»ilele Malielegaoi, and campaigned against the vaccine on social media.
“After the measles outbreak started, anti-vaxxers (including Kennedy) credited the dozens of measles deaths to poverty and malnutrition or even to the vaccine itself, but there was no evidence for these claims, and clinicians reported that Vitamin A deficiency or immunodeficiency did not appear to be a substantial contributing factor to the outbreak…
“In 2019 there [had been arising number of outbreaks] throughout the Pacific region, including in Tonga, Fiji, the Philippines and New Zealand, but only Samoa suffered casualties, due to its low vaccination rate… UNICEF and the World Health Organization estimate that the measles vaccination rate among newly born babies in Samoa fell from 74% in 2017 to 34% in 2018, similar to some of the poorest countries in Africa. Ideally, countries should have immunization levels above 90%. Vaccination rates dropped to 31% in Samoa, compared to 99% in nearby Nauru, Niue, Cook Islands, and American Samoa.” Wikipedia. Samoan babies died in unprecedented numbers as many families had eschewed vaccinating their babies and relied on RFK Jr’s holistic advice and belief that herd immunity would solve the issue.
After Joe Biden distributed the COVID vaccines in the US (notably developed during the Trump administration, but with no distribution plan… leaving that to the states), RFK, Jr lauded Trump’s later COVID approach, in which the ex-President suggested that social distancing and closing businesses, mandating vaccines and masking in many sectors, were unnecessary and deleterious to the American economy. RFK, Jr continued to insist, dramatically and incorrectly as the numbers clearly proved, that the vaccine caused more harm than good. He was cheered by antivaxxer conspiracy theorists, whose efforts have pulled mandatory school vaccinations (required for over half a century) into a “voluntary only” process in lots of American public schools. A new MAGA campaign platform was born. Anti-science skeptics were beginning to triumph is the worst possible way,
RFK, Jr’s next crusade, in his challenge to “make American healthy again,” particularly if he is confirmed as HHS Secretary, is to eliminate the use of fluorides from tap water across the land. Fluoridation has long been viewed as toxic by a small cadre of American conspiracy theorists. As noted by Saima Iqbal in the November 27th Scientific American, RFK, Jr “fueled a fluoride furor on social media when he called the mineral ‘industrial waste’. Kennedy… inaccurately claimed fluoride exposure could lead to arthritis, bone cancer, thyroid disease, IQ loss and neurodevelopmental conditions. He has said he would advise against adding it to tap water—a practice that currently reaches more than 209 million Americans.
“It remains unclear whether the incoming Trump administration could effectively ban water fluoridation: current laws let state and local governments make the decision. But at the federal level, fluoridation opponents could deploy the Safe Drinking Water Act, which regulates water contaminants nationally. They could also take advantage of a recent federal court decision: In September a California district court judge ordered the Environmental Protection Agency to set stricter regulations on tap water fluoride levels, arguing that the HHS’s national concentration recommendations might lower children’s IQ scores. But the judge leaned heavily on a recent controversial scientific report that had been rejected twice in peer review for a lack of rigor.
“‘His conclusion was misguided—and an overreach,’ says Charlotte W. Lewis, a pediatrician and dental care researcher at the University of Washington School of Medicine. She notes that widely accepted research shows water fluoridation to be an effective disease-prevention measure, especially for people in communities with less access to dental care.” But medical professionals have noted that those who get unfluoridated tap water, particularly in poorer areas where routine dental care is not accessed, are particularly vulnerable and that “a widespread crackdown on this naturally occurring mineral could be a disaster. To see how, we turn to the sobering case of Juneau, a city in Alaska that voted to stop fluoridating its water in 2007, citing many of the same fears that RFK touts today.
“In a 2018 study published in the journal BMC Oral Health, researchers examined the dental records of adolescents in the Alaska community who sought Medicaid dental care in the years surrounding either side of the ban… They divided them into two treatment groups: a 2003 group, when public drinking water had optimal levels of fluoride, and a 2012 group, well after the fluoride ban… The results were damning. On average, the 2012 group had a significantly higher number of cavity-related procedures for adolescents than the 2003 group. Similarly, the odds of someone 18 years-old or younger undergoing the same type of procedure was 25 percent higher in 2012.
“Children born after the fluoride ban were the hardest hit age group, receiving not only the most tooth decay treatments, but also having the most expensive treatments on average… Additionally on the economic side of things, the researchers found that dental care costs for adolescents soared by 73 percent as a result of the fluoride policy, even after adjusting for inflation. In sum, it seems clear cut that removing fluoride caused tooth rot to surge — and with it, medical costs.” Frank Landymore in the November 29th Neoscopeon on Futurism.com.
Trump must be aware of these medical realities, so why would he even pick RFK, Jr for this cabinet post? Given that so many of the government social programs are in HHS… programs MAGA adherent and tax-cut yearning billionaires mislabel as “entitlements”… could it be that Trump knows that HHS would unravel under RFK, Jr, giving Trump and his DOGE budget-cutters an open road to slash and burn HHS into oblivion?
I’m Peter Dekom, and Trump’s apparent dramatically inappropriate cabinet nominees appear to be part of his intentional kakistocracy (government by the worst), a hidden effort to tear the federal bureaucracy apart in order to funnel the savings into deregulation and tax cuts that benefit him and his mega-rich cronies.
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