Give It Your Best Shot or Die!

 

Florida's DeSantis with controversial  surgeon general, Dr. Joseph Ladapo

Antivaxxer and HHS Secretary RFK, Jr

CBS News Poll 8/29-9/2

Give It Your Best Shot or Die!

RFK, Jr & Ron DeSantis continue to put more Americans at Risk

Send your children to school, unvaccinated? Or vaccinated in a school district where there are lots of unvaccinated children? Worried about your young child’s exposure to measles or whooping cough? Have an elder relative who can’t get a COVID booster? “COVID-19 is either increasing or starting to hit its late summer peak. According to data released Friday [9/5], there are now 14 states with ‘very high’ levels of coronavirus detected in their wastewater — California, Texas, Florida, North Carolina, Indiana, South Carolina, Alabama, Louisiana, Connecticut, Utah, Nevada, Idaho, Hawaii and Alaska, as well as the District of Columbia.” Rong-Gong Lin II, LA Times, September 8th. Even as Florida Surgeon General, Dr. Joseph Ladapo, announced his state’s end to vaccine mandates, a stand even Donald Trump found extreme, the man at the top of our nation’s healthcare system, Robert Kennedy, Jr., has devasted scientific vaccine research and made it much more difficult for most Americans to access vaccines for diseases that are increasing rapidly.

The MAGA rebellion against “elite professionals,” the belief that conspiracy theories are the true “scientific facts,” and a willingness to force those beliefs on everyone, pose a very significant risk to most Americans. At the September 3rd Senate Finance Committee hearings, skeptical Republican Senators, with medical degrees, tiptoed around RFK, Jr’s (who has no medical degree) rejection of the massive, proven and positive impact of COVID vaccines’ saving millions of lives. Most of us are aware that RFK, Jr represented Trump’s choice of that supreme quackster to please his base. Aside from the instant threats, ask yourself how many Americans will die or suffer from diseases that could have been prevented or cured had those federal research dollars, at the CDC and major research universities, not been slashed. Will you or your family members be one more horrible, preventable statistic?

As the latest COVID variant is exploding, those who want that inoculation are facing RFK, Jr’s obstacle course. The HHS Secretary also is releasing a medically questionable dissertation on the “true cause” of autism. It’s all difficult to understand. “Seniors in some parts of the country say they are being denied COVID-19 vaccinations amid an ongoing wave of cases, leading to rising frustration over new Trump administration policies that are making it harder to get the shots.

“Matthew D’Amico, 67, of New York City, said a Walgreens declined to administer COVID-19 vaccines to him and his 75-year-old wife Friday because they didn’t have a prescription. They’re trying to get vaccinated ahead of a trip… ‘I can’t believe we can’t get’ the vaccine, D’Amico said in an interview. ‘I’ve been inoculated a number of times and never had to get a prescription. And it’s just very frustrating that this is where we are.’… He’s not alone in his exasperation. Under the leadership of the vaccine skeptic Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., federal agencies have in effect made it more difficult to get vaccinated against COVID-19 this year. The Food and Drug Administration has ‘approved’ COVID-19 vaccines only for those 65 and older, as well as younger people with underlying health conditions.

“That means across the country, people younger than 65 interested in getting the COVID-19 vaccine must now either consult with a healthcare provider or [in some states] ‘attest’ to a pharmacy that they have an underlying health condition. It’s a potential hurdle that can make getting the vaccine more difficult and, some health experts worry, prompt even more Americans to eschew getting vaccinated… As D’Amico can attest, though, being part of a group for whom the COVID vaccine is ‘approved’ doesn’t necessarily guarantee easy access…

“The current confusion over federal COVID vaccine policy has been exacerbated by the chaos at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, where Kennedy earlier this year fired everyone on the influential Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, and orchestrated the firing of CDC Director Susan Monarez just 29 days after she was confirmed to the post by the Senate…. Some of Kennedy’s handpicked replacements on the committee have criticized vaccines and spread misinformation, according to the Associated Press. And the new interim CDC director — Jim O’Neill, a Kennedy deputy [and former GOP speech writer]— is a critic of health regulations and has no training in medicine or healthcare, the AP reported.” LA Times.

Trump’s MAGA base, looking at Trump’s Achilles Heel with the Epstein scandal, seems to have a passionate need to intrude on individual healthcare decisions, reading material, faith, marital status with a desire to make conspiracy theories the law of the land. Trump has complied via his appointment of unqualified cabinet officers, executive orders, policy practices or anything else that blue states despise. It has been a very strange civil war, punctuated by random ICE raids (with no real focus on undocumented criminals) and his use of military forces in blue cities, in what seems to be Trump’s efforts at imposing a police state to force MAGA wishes everywhere.

While the loudest voices for RFK. Jr to resign have come from Democrats, that chorus is increasingly echoed among Republicans. Back channels from more that a few GOP members of Congress have let the President know that RFK, Jr. is on “thin ice.” Interestingly, RFK, Jr’s own family is particularly aghast: “Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s sister and nephew have urged the Health and Human Services secretary to resign, denouncing his anti-vaxxer views and the ‘decimation’ of key public health institutions… Kerry Kennedy, 65, and Joe Kennedy III, 44, issued separate statements after RFK Jr sparred with the Senate Finance Committee over his vaccine policies and ousted the top official at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“‘Medical decisions belong in the hands of trained and licensed professionals, not incompetent and misguided leadership,’ Kerry Kennedy, an attorney and one of U.S. Attorney General Robert F Kennedy’s 11 children, wrote on Friday [9/5]. ‘The decimation of critical institutions, like the [National Institutes of Health] and the CDC, will lead to the loss of innocent lives.’” The Independent, September 8th.

I’m Peter Dekom, and I too am aghast at a government that is willing to put its citizens at very serious health risks to placate a minority of conspiracy theorists who only care to impose their toxic will on all Americans by any and all means possible, legal or otherwise.