• meowmeowbeanz@sopuli.xyz
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    13 hours ago

    A decade of anti-vaccine rhetoric comes full circle—tragically, at the expense of children’s lives.

    😺😺😺

    • tigeruppercut@lemmy.zip
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      12 hours ago

      The “mainstream” antivax shit has been almost 2 decades at this point. Jenny McCarthy published her shit book and talked about it on Oprah in 2007.

  • CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world
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    13 hours ago

    This shit was effectively eliminated in 2000, but thanks to assholes like Bobby Brainworms, all that work of science was undone by a whole lotta anti-intellectual dipshits.

  • eRac@lemmings.world
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    18 hours ago

    It’s a good time to note that this is the vaccine the autism bullshit stems from. If he was genuine in his views, this is the one vaccine it would make sense for him to oppose.

    • qantravon@lemmy.world
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      18 hours ago

      Let’s assume for a second that the claims about the MMR vaccine had merit. It was specifically claimed that the cause was the addition of thimerosal as a preservative agent. Despite there being no evidence supporting this assertion, thimerosal was removed from nearly all vaccines decades ago. Which means that, if he was genuine in his beliefs, he shouldn’t have a problem with any of them anymore.

      • Leraje@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        13 hours ago

        The MMR vaccine never contained thimerosal. There were two separate claims by antivaxxers. The first was Wakefield’s money making scheme to invent an alternative MMR vaccine by claiming the existing MMR vaccine caused autism.

        The second, entirely separate, claim was that thimerosal in other vaccines was also causing autism.

        The two claims then got conflated into a general ‘vaccines == bad’ by idiots like Kennedy, Jim Carrey, Jenny McCarthy and a whole quack industry of autism ‘cures’ such as chelation, HBOT etc.

      • CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world
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        13 hours ago

        Denialists are absolutely famous for moving the goalposts, though. That’s how they remain denialists.

        Famous example is the evolution denialists always going on about a “missing link”. The minute some new transitional fossil is found then creates TWO MORE “missing links”.

      • Catoblepas@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        12 hours ago

        The right thing for him to do as the secretary of health and human services would be to resign, as he’s unqualified for the position.

        Touting the effectiveness of vaccines was actually the bare minimum if you’re going to be the health advisor to the fucking president.

      • OhStopYellingAtMe@lemmy.world
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        19 hours ago

        He’s been spreading lies about vaccines for years, pushing anti-vax propaganda. Now that some poor child of an anti-vaxxer family has died, he’s suddenly pro-vax for just this one thing?

        No fuck him. He’s an asshole.

        • Steve@communick.news
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          19 hours ago

          That’s exactly how not to encourage people to be better.
          Wouldn’t you like for him to be better? Or are you just more comfortable in a black and white world of, once bad always bad?

          • Ledericas@lemm.ee
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            9 hours ago

            you need to read further, hes only issuing 2000 doses, which means very little. hes only half-assing it.

          • NJSpradlin@lemmy.world
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            19 hours ago

            I’m not the guy you’re replying to, but a broken clock being right twice a day doesn’t miraculously fix it. It’s still broken. Dude’s still an asshole, even if in this one moment he’s being ‘right’. He has already begun to dismantle the department he was appointed to as the head of. You’ll see next year, if we even get health and flu related death numbers anymore, what the impacts of his decisions, up to TODAY even, have brought.

            • lobut@lemmy.ca
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              16 hours ago

              Yeah, I mean people like to get into a position of power and foment vaccine hesitancy and we’re supposed to praise him?

              Fuck him. I’ll praise him when he goes comes back fully. This ten steps back and one step forward bullshit? Fuck that.

          • partial_accumen@lemmy.world
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            18 hours ago

            Wouldn’t you like for him to be better?

            I’d like him to admit he has no business personally advising anyone on the public policy of health matters, hire a capable person for the job and say “I will simply be following every directive of this competent person I hired on matters related to the national policy on health”. That would do it for me.

          • Sh0ckw4ve@lemmy.world
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            19 hours ago

            The man campaigned against measles vaccines in Samoa which was followed by a reduction of vaccinations and a measles outbreak.

            Now he was promoting fucking vitamins to deal with it. I bet his wife told him to get it together as she did during Covid for whatever party they had where guests needed to be vaccinated. He’s an asshole.

            • CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world
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              13 hours ago

              Also, this:

              As health secretary, Kennedy has also raised alarm for canceling meetings of influenza experts at the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), issued a stop-work order on contracts meant to develop new vaccines, and is “re-evaluating” a $590m contract with the vaccine-maker Moderna to develop a bird flu vaccine.

              This guy shouldn’t be anywhere NEAR the levers of power.

        • ragebutt@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          17 hours ago

          And further he remained unrepentant for his role in murdering 83 Samoan children (most of which were babies). Instead deflecting blame onto the people of Samoa, saying it was because they were malnourished, or possibly because they had the audacity to get vaccinated during an epidemic that he had a direct role in causing (and thus the vaccines killed the unvaccinated children who died of measles, somehow)

      • OutlierBlue@lemmy.ca
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        18 hours ago

        He’s sending 2000 doses of the MMR vaccine to Texas.

        Kennedy said his federal Department of Health and Human Services would send Texas 2,000 doses of the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine – typically meant to be given to children in a series of two shots at 12 to 15 months old as well as between the ages of four and six years old – through its immunization program.

        https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/01/kennedy-jr-measles-outbreak-health-department

        It’s a two-part series, so that’s enough for one thousand people to be properly vaccinated. That’s nothing. There are already about 160 identified cases. It’s extremely contagious. Measles has a reproduction number of about 15, meaning 1 person can infect 15 other people. Compare that to the WHO’s value of 1.4-2.4 for COVID.

        Secondly, he stuck to his stance that “the decision to vaccinate is a personal one”, which is a nod and wink to antivaxxers to continue their denial.

        He’s not doing this because he’s changed his stance. He’s still anti-vaxx. He’s just feeling some pressure to do something, so he is, but he’s dragging his feet and doing the minimum possible.

        • CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world
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          13 hours ago

          Secondly, he stuck to his stance that “the decision to vaccinate is a personal one”, which is a nod and wink to antivaxxers to continue their denial.

          This. This could be the single most worst thing, ever. Even if he doesn’t work to attack vaccines with the power he has (and it looks like he IS doing that, given some of the other things he’s done).

          By giving even 5-10% the notion that they are right to be vaccine denialists, he could destroy our herd immunity levels country-wide.

      • Bronzebeard@lemm.ee
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        17 hours ago

        He helped cause this situation. Doing the [barest minimum you can even consider the] right thing after it’s too late doesn’t change the fact that he did the wrong thing for years before this. And will go right back to that wrong thing the moment he thinks he can get away with it

  • Wren@lemmy.worldM
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    10 hours ago

    Could it be that he’s just stupid on paper?

    Naaah, he’s an idiot in all mediums.

  • JohnnyCanuck@lemmy.ca
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    16 hours ago

    I guess he’s seeing the inside info now? What a fucking tool. He should go to Texas to show his support. Maybe kiss a few babies for good measure.

  • MCasq_qsaCJ_234@lemmy.zip
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    17 hours ago

    If RFK Jr. fails to control this, he will make Texas bluer and Trump will punish him for this serious mistake.

      • Soulg@ani.social
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        13 hours ago

        There’s something about Texas specifically that make people hate them even more around here.