Trump Taps 'Manifestly Unqualified' Peter Thiel Prot¨¦g¨¦ as Acting CDC Director After RFK's Purge. A health researcher for Public Citizen said Trump's interim CDC director has "no medical or public health background and extremist libertarian views."

...

"O'Neill would be in a prime position to ensure favorable outcomes for several medical industry startups he's been financially linked to that have direct business before HHS and the CDC," said Accountable.US executive director Tony Carrk. "How can American patients be sure that proper vetting of these companies would take place on O'Neill's watch and that public health will be a higher priority over the profits of his former clients?"
posted by subdee at 9:43 PM on August 30 [12 favorites]

I assume that somewhere in this there is a monetary benefit to this cruelty for its perpetrators, but I don¡¯t see it obviously out there. Like, I absolutely believe that some of these assholes are true ideologues, but most of them are grifters right? Who is funding this murderous grift?
posted by Mizu at 11:20 PM on August 30 [8 favorites]

Here¡¯s the latest Deremiad from Science magazine¡¯s In the Pipeline about the catastrophic situation at the CDC.

One interesting tidbit:

There are stories sourced to unnamed administration officials that Monarez had attempted to publish an op-ed piece about the recent shooting incident at the agency but had been blocked from doing so, and that she had refused orders to fire other top CDC officials. Her public statements that vaccines save lives also seems to have gotten on the nerves of higher-ups, and that just by itself is a huge flashing red alarm, because this is a simple demonstrable fact that is accepted by physicians, scientists, and public health officials around the world.

The CDC made Trumbo look even Trumber than usual during his first term, and now he's bent on revenge. That alone could account for this, but I think you must be right about the money too, Mizu.
posted by jamjam at 11:48 PM on August 30 [15 favorites]

Oh goody, I can't wait for individually-identifiable patient data to somehow be shared with Palantir in the name of public health.

(under the auspices of a highly lucrative no-bid contract, of course.)
posted by Nerd of the North at 12:13 AM on August 31 [15 favorites]

Quacker Barrel
posted by lalochezia at 2:40 AM on August 31 [13 favorites]

I think generally the money angle is that private companies will take over the functions that government stops providing -- eg, SpaceX instead of NASA.

So i suspect there are a bunch of VC-funded private labs waiting to attach their siphons to the tariff-payer money supply. Money flow upward.
posted by Dashy at 4:51 AM on August 31 [20 favorites]

I wish there was a money angle to this with other folks champing at the bit to step in. That wouldn't be great, but at least there would be a chance that there's a plan to have someone replicate what the CDC did. Unfortunately, I suspect that this is just pure vandalism. Kennedy is convinced that a world without a functioning, science-led CDC is a better one and he's going to do everything he can to make that world reality. Any sort of alternative private institutions which develop in its wake are an undesired side effect for him and I imagine that he'll do his best to eliminate them as well.
posted by nangua at 5:09 AM on August 31 [24 favorites]

This is so, so bad. I'm hearing so much dread from my former students who've gone on to work in health care.
posted by doctornemo at 6:02 AM on August 31 [5 favorites]

Yes, there's a money angle to shrinking public-health authority. In 2020, CDC guidance briefly imposed prevention costs on businesses and reduced consumer spending. For the owner class, that was a red line crossed, and public health's fate was sealed from that moment.

CDC delenda est is what greed demands. RFK Jr. is the useful idiot chosen to make it happen.
posted by Dimpy at 6:20 AM on August 31 [13 favorites]

Yeah, I'm with nangua. I think these people really believe this stuff. Yes, maybe some quack medicine types will make some money alongside the raw milk guys, but mostly this is deliberate vandalism for vandalism's sake. They just want to tear all this stuff down.

CDC Shuts Down Key Labs for Hepatitis and STI Testing After Layoffs "Among those let go were all 27 scientists in the nation¡¯s only lab that performs advanced genetic testing needed for hepatitis outbreaks. That lab had been investigating an outbreak affecting multiple states when the layoffs hit."
posted by BungaDunga at 6:53 AM on August 31 [23 favorites]

Quacker Barrel! Genius, lalochezia.
posted by doctornemo at 7:01 AM on August 31 [1 favorite]

The stories about being unable to get certain tests done really strikes home for me. The motivation for destroying so much of our (flawed though it may be) healthcare structure in the US may indeed be nihilistic vandalism, but there are plenty of enabler who say the government should turn almost everything over to private industry where it can be done ¡°cheaper and more efficiently¡±. I have never seen anyone actually explain how this will work with private industry doing the same job for less money while adding the cost of having to make a profit other than just yelling ¡°WASTE, FRAUD, AND ABUSE!¡± over and over. Because as we all know there is none of that in the private sector (/s).

A rare disease that is very relevant to me is a muscle disorder called Malignant Hyperthermia, a disease where all the skeletal muscles in the body contract uncontrollably in response to certain anesthetic drugs. Left untreated it is over 90% fatal, and the best bet is to avoid triggering agents in affected patients. Which of course requires an accurate diagnosis. The gold standard test requires a sample of live muscle, which is then put through a precisely described sequence of tests to determine susceptibility. Testing is difficult enough that there are currently only three places in North America (down from 5 a few years ago and in contrast to about 15 in Europe) that perform the testing, which must be done in person at the center. The barriers to testing are such that the only center available to US citizens has only done 136 tests since 1992. There is work being done on genetic testing but it is not nearly as good. (I actually just lectured on this at a meeting and so could go on and on but won¡¯t.) The bottom line is that this sort of testing and the research needed to make it better is not going to be profitable enough for private industry to take it over and its existence depends on government support. An oft cited figure for the test I described is $5,000.00, but an expert I talked to said the true cost is probably closer to $30,000.00 when you take into consideration the expense of maintaining a specialized lab for the tests, travel expenses for the patients, and so on. Since it is a rare disease, there are probably only about 700 people affected by it in this country (although the true incidence isn¡¯t known for sure), but repeat this for every rare, or even uncommon, disease out there and the health of many thousands, or tens of thousands, of people gets put at risk.
posted by TedW at 7:28 AM on August 31 [22 favorites]

@walkerbragman.bsky.social?: "Just tried watching Ezra Klein's latest NYT podcast episode on how the U.S. got to this point where vaccines are so politicized. It's pretty clear that Klein and his guests¡ªDavid Wallace Wells and Rachael Bedard¡ªreally do not understand why/how the political right turned on vaccines."

The COVID-19 pandemic undermined the right in several key ways:

1. It showed us which workers are essential and empowered them.
2. It showed that the markets can¡¯t solve everything.
3. It threatened GOP political prospects in a critical election.
4. Government relief proved popular and effective

If you¡¯re the side of:

• capital interests
• wealth as an indicator of virtue/the value of one¡¯s societal contributions
• free markets
• ¡°The nine most terrifying words in the English language are ¡®I¡¯m from the government and I¡¯m here to help¡¯¡±

...you¡¯re fucked. COVID just exposed you entirely.
?
And if you don¡¯t want anything to interfere with business, well, the only thing to do is end the crisis¡ªat least the public¡¯s perception that there is one.
?
So we saw right-wing media and dark money groups start messaging out bullshit like:

• COVID is not really a huge deal
• Deaths are overcounted
• Best to pursue herd immunity through mass infection
• COVID mitigation measures are an assault on personal liberty
• School closures are irreparable harm.

Now, on the surface, it doesn¡¯t make sense for the right to oppose the COVID vaccines, right?

They presented a way out of the pandemic. They were created through Trump¡¯s Operation Warp Speed.

But logic doesn¡¯t apply here. Pure politics do.
?
See, Biden got to roll out the vaccines and claim that victory.

Of course, the vaccines did not end the crisis immediately. They took a long time and Biden dropping nonpharmaceutical interventions meant a lot of people died on his watch.

Undermining the vaccines meant undermining Biden and Dems.
?
But that wasn¡¯t all. Trump had pushed fake cures pre-vax. The people enlisted in that effort did not go away.

Folks like Simone Gold of America¡¯s Frontline Doctors, which pushed Trump¡¯s fake hydroxychloroquine miracle COVID treatment.

She ended up allying with anti-vaxxer Robert Kennedy Jr...

So we got the seeds for anti-vax bullshit on the right with the embrace of fake cures like hydroxychloroquine and later, ivermectin.

Also, the herd immunity crowd is a natural ally for anti-vaxxers. Bc they said we didn¡¯t need a vaccine for herd immunity, just infection

So we start seeing anti-vaxxers in the comments sections of posts by folks like Jay Bhattacharya of the Great Barrington Declaration.

And eventually, these folks whose real goal was undermining government and the pandemic response, embraced that audience.

Taking a step back: The embrace of the unregulated wellness industry and anti-vax hokum was probably inevitable for the right.

As the representative of big business interests, it has long had an antagonistic oppositional relationship with science and expertise. Think tobacco and climate science.
?
With COVID vaccines, didn¡¯t matter that Trump facilitated their production. It just mattered that they could be used to undermine the right¡¯s favorite enemies:

• government
• Democrats
• public health authorities
• teachers and schools

...and appeal to their natural base:

• affluent whites

While making inroads with new demographics in anyone skeptical of modern medicine and our healthcare system.

Which, in this country, is a lot of fucking people. Our healthcare system breeds distrust. Millions don¡¯t have a primary care doctor. Cost is prohibitive. Lack of access is another issue.
?
Biden¡¯s vaccine or test mandate was when we saw the growing alliance between anti-vax world and the political right to mainstream.

The Defeat the Mandates rallies were really the start of MAHA before MAHA was actually a thing.
?
The TL;DR here is that the mainstream political right came to embrace anti-vax bullshit because it helped undermine their favorite targets.

Groups like Brownstone Institute and Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance acted as bridges to that world of Robert Kennedy Jr.

But it was all politics.
?
And I will also add that these efforts to politicize and undermine the government, public health authorities, and pandemic response were pretty successful.

What should have been a catalyst for progressive change ended up serving the re-election of Donald Trump and the rise of anti-science cranks.
?
Having covered this story in real-time through various pieces, it was weird watching each narrative become essential to the right¡ªeven as they contradicted each other.

Like, the bio weapon/lab leak stuff that I didn¡¯t get into in this thread directly contradicts the anti-vax and herd immunity stuff

The right has like, a soup worldview. Anything goes in the pot so long as it erodes demand for and trust in government.

Believe one part of it, you¡¯ll eventually have to accept the others to stay relevant with the right. Even if it¡¯s contradictory and the sum of the parts doesn¡¯t make sense.
?
Last thing:

Adding to the inevitability of the herd immunity/anti-vax alliance, both camps (falsely) claim their views were suppressed by the powers that be. It adds a layer of conspiratorial appeal.

And to be clear: I don¡¯t normally watch Klein¡¯s show. It was sent to me by a friend and colleague.
?
I will also add that largely as a result of this right-wing ratfucking that helped reelect Trump, we never mounted a real COVID response.

The virus is still circulating, killing, and disabling people.

We never made necessary changes¡ªlike clean indoor air for workplaces and schools.

We should tho.

@walkerbragman.bsky.social?: "Fascism is all about elevating unqualified mediocrities to positions of power as a reward for loyalty. Kennedy is not, in fact, a public health expert by any metric. He is, however, a man who has built his fortune undermining qualified public health experts. And that's so dangerous. Kennedy is living proof that fascism can never and will never make anyone safer or more prosperous. The damage he has done to our pandemic preparedness and just basic public health is incalculable. To say nothing of our global reputation as a leader in science. Fascist Stephen Miller's comments are aimed at reinforcing the unreality that the political right now exists in. That reality will come crashing down on all of us if these fucking people are not removed from power."
posted by kliuless at 7:42 AM on August 31 [60 favorites]

I assume that somewhere in this there is a monetary benefit to this cruelty for its perpetrators, but I don¡¯t see it obviously out there.

From the comment directly above yours:

"O'Neill would be in a prime position to ensure favorable outcomes for several medical industry startups he's been financially linked to that have direct business before HHS and the CDC," said Accountable.US executive director Tony Carrk.

I think that's pretty bleeding obvious, yeah?
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:45 AM on August 31 [3 favorites]

I know I know I know, reporters don't write their headlines, gotta be catchy, gotta appease the algorithm etc. But. That headline encapsulates so much wrong with America. THE CDC IS THE REAL WORLD. IT'S PEOPLE WHO GO TO WORK AND KEEP YOU SAFE. WTF "spills over into real world"!? AHHHJJJJJDHGHB!!! The idea that "government" and "politics" are some magical separate entities from everyday life is pernicious humbug.

Anyway, the article is informative and good.
God help my county.
posted by Wretch729 at 7:52 AM on August 31 [39 favorites]

oh and re: "Government relief proved popular and effective," SuperDole (RIP?).
posted by kliuless at 7:56 AM on August 31 [4 favorites]

Jim O'Neill was assigned to CDC so that Peter Thiel could rip off the CDC's budget, through Palantir's Health & Life Sciences division.

Palantir Is Rapidly Increasing Its Presence In Healthcare

Meet the 2 twenty-somethings running Palantir's healthcare AI business
posted by jeffburdges at 8:23 AM on August 31 [10 favorites]

RFK believes that illness is the universe punishing people for lack of virtue. If you are sick, in RFK's mind, then you are at fault. You should have eaten better, you should have exercised more, you should have prayed more, you shouldn't have had sex the wrong way, you shouldn't have thought bad thoughts, whatever. It's your fault.

The obvious corollary to this is that being healthy is a symbol that you are a virtuous person. Anyone healthy must be virtuous.

EXCEPT....

Medicine gets in the way of all that. Medicine is cheating. Medicine is, in their minds, moral/virtue welfare, it's giving people who didn't EARN health the benefit of health. It's giving those who deserve to be ill a way out without fixing their virtue problem.

So of course he hates vaccines. And any other sort of healthcare that actually works (well, for us plebes anyway, he of course is virtuous by definition and therefore should get healthcare since for him it wouldn't be cheating).

There's a Darwinist aspect as well, to RFK and his ilk if you die then it means you're weak and it is, therefore, good for your inferior genes to be eliminated so that the ?bermensch like him can stride forward unencumbered by your icky plebian poor person inferiority.

Note that no one ever asks RFK what is sin is? He's ill. He suffers from spasmodic dysphonia, clearly by his own logic this means he must be unvirtuous. He must have been eating wrong, or thinking bad thoughts, or having bad sex, or something that invited this illness into his life and since he still has the condition it means he hasn't stopped sinning and become virtuous.

I'd give my left arm to see someone actually ask RFK why, if illness is the result of bad diet or lifestyle, what it is he did that was so wrong he was inflicted with spasmodic dysphonia.

It wouldn't actually change anything of course, but it'd be funny to watch him get pissy.

And, of course, there is definitely money to be had in quackery. If you don't have to bother with that inconvenient and expensive work of making sure your so called medicine actually does good then you can sell snake oil at a huge mark up!

What bothers me is I don't see a way out. Trump et al got clever, notice how they're framing their destruction of the CDC as restoring real science and ending partisanship and ideological bias? The problem is, to fix what they're breaking we will need to actually restore real science and end partisanship and ideological bias, but since they've poisoned the well on that language it makes us look like chumps and gives the know nothings a great opening to say that BothSides(TM) are obviously pushing their own stupid ideology and shrug, who knows how disease happens anyway?

By falsely presenting their anti-science crusade as "real science" they're killing the very idea of science as a real thing that is separate from anyone's ideology.
posted by sotonohito at 8:48 AM on August 31 [46 favorites]

The CDC made Trumbo look even Trumber than usual during his first term,

Hey, now- let's not tarnish the name of the man who wrote Roman Holiday and Spartacus by association with Trump.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 8:56 AM on August 31 [14 favorites]

The "real world" framing, tragically, points to a major flaw in modern American society that is, IMO, currently biting us on the ass. It is very easy to see the Trump administration as a TV show, fronted as it is by a clownish game show host, and peopled by entities often pulled from trash TV, popular entertainment, and hyperbolic newscasts. But these people are, somehow, actually real people, even if they seem less real than most of the characters in scripted dramas. If you didn't know, and you had to guess whether Noah Wyle in The Pitt, or Kristi Noem in reality, was a real life person, you would never guess Kristi Noem was the real person but she is. Our entire sense of what is real and what is not has been distorted by the blurring of fact and fantasy presented to us daily by electronic media, and frankly, it affects our judgment, a lot.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 9:08 AM on August 31 [31 favorites]

let's not tarnish the name of the man who wrote Roman Holiday and Spartacus by association with Trump.

Also author of Johnny Got His Gun, which gave us this
posted by Didymus at 9:11 AM on August 31 [7 favorites]

> Jim O'Neill was assigned to CDC so that Peter Thiel could rip off the CDC's budget, through Palantir's Health & Life Sciences division.

@joshuajfriedman.com?: "What a cursed sentence..."
Medicare Will Require Prior Approval for Certain Procedures - "The A.I. companies selected to oversee the program would have a strong financial incentive to deny claims. Medicare plans to pay them a share of the savings generated from rejections."

> There's a Darwinist aspect as well, to RFK and his ilk if you die then it means you're weak and it is, therefore, good for your inferior genes to be eliminated so that the ?bermensch like him can stride forward unencumbered by your icky plebian poor person inferiority.

like x-men villains :P age of apocalypse!
posted by kliuless at 9:26 AM on August 31 [11 favorites]

The John Birch society campaigned against vaccinations not long after the introduction of polio vaccine. This is nothing new. No monkey serums for me. When Ronald Reagan heard that there was a plague killing queer folk, his punchline was what's the problem?. Everybody's stupid some people just have more than others.
posted by hortense at 9:27 AM on August 31 [7 favorites]

The bottom line is that this sort of testing and the research needed to make it better is not going to be profitable enough for private industry to take it over

Oh, the few real scientists left know this well (just like we know that private foundations and Susan J Komen will never be able to replace NIH funding of basic biomedical science).

But the general public won't, and they'll be very fooled by silicon valley marketing. See: Holmes, Elizabeth. Palantir will pick up where she left off.
posted by Dashy at 9:29 AM on August 31 [10 favorites]

Medicine is cheating. Medicine is, in their minds, moral/virtue welfare, it's giving people who didn't EARN health the benefit of health. It's giving those who deserve to be ill a way out without fixing their virtue problem.

RFK Jr. is somehow managing to re-invent Christian Science.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 9:37 AM on August 31 [9 favorites]

I maintain that there is a broad consensus among established American wealth that more of the poors need to die (and that their privilege will protect them), and this is why the New York Times, et al continue their de facto endorsement of every aspect of this administration. But as for the rubes who support this, this is some pretty serious death drive shit -- and many of them are educated and smart enough to have an awareness in the back of their minds that they're playing with fire.
posted by Smedly, Butlerian jihadi at 9:43 AM on August 31 [13 favorites]

TBH, I'm consistently surprised by how much shit the NYT comfortably feels talking about Trump in the context of news articles. I presume they aren't worried about this because they know neither Trump nor his people can read.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 10:14 AM on August 31 [3 favorites]

more of the poors need to die

I don't disagree with you at all, but it's a flaw in the plan, certainly? who is going to provide slave labor in Gault's Gulch if you kill off all the poors and POCs? who will be your exploitable labor in factories, forced to live and work and purchase in a Liberty City company town if everyone dies of preventable disease?
posted by supermedusa at 10:52 AM on August 31 [1 favorite]

who will be your exploitable labor in factories, forced to live and work and purchase in a Liberty City company town if everyone dies of preventable disease?

I would say this is what AI and robotics are for, but some of these people just won't be happy unless there are actual humans out there suffering to provide their comfort.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 11:08 AM on August 31 [4 favorites]

they're just going to innovate and disrupt their way to a world where all of that suffering can be produced by a single child held deep within Peter Thiel's blood throne.
posted by turbowombat at 11:20 AM on August 31 [8 favorites]

People who think that anti-vax and others stars in the constellation of anti-healthcare establishment views that RFK Jr. appears to celebrate were cynically dreamed up after COVID by pro-business Republicans don't get that strain of thinking at all. And just thinking about the right-wing division of that sentiment, if there's one thing you'd have to call it, is 100% sincere.

Also, there are few lobbies in DCs more powerful than the HMOs and the pharmaceutical companies and they are quietly quite panicked about the open animosity being displayed toward them by who have for the past 35 years been their most fervent supporters: Republican officeholders. They wouldn't be panicked if they thought they could easily just roll back to Democrats but with pro-single-payer Democrats appearing to be in the ascendance that doesn't work for them either.
posted by MattD at 11:25 AM on August 31 [11 favorites]

Historians See Autocratic Playbook in Trump¡¯s Attacks on Science

¡°Despots want science that has practical results,¡± said Paul R. Josephson, an emeritus professor of history at Colby College and author of a book on totalitarian science. ¡°They¡¯re afraid that basic knowledge will expose their false claims.¡±
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 11:36 AM on August 31 [8 favorites]

supermedusa: "more of the poors need to die

I don't disagree with you at all, but it's a flaw in the plan, certainly? who is going to provide slave labor in Gault's Gulch if you kill off all the poors and POCs? who will be your exploitable labor in factories, forced to live and work and purchase in a Liberty City company town if everyone dies of preventable disease?"

Atlas Shrugged 2: One Hour Later
posted by Reverend John at 12:09 PM on August 31 [8 favorites]

Afaik, Jeremy Grantham was only one billionaire interviewed by Nate Hagens, which suggests he maybe the most ecologically and collapse aware billionaire. Even he defended population growth. Afaik nobody asked the few music billionaires.

There is definitely a "broad consensus among wealth" that "the poors" should not be supported in any way, or not in most ways for the "lefty billionaires", but they do want more poors because a taller wealth pyramid needs a more numerous and poorer base.
posted by jeffburdges at 12:16 PM on August 31 [2 favorites]

I never thought the government cared all that much about people, but now it seems to have gone from not caring to actively wanting many of us to die. But it fits with RFKjr being very much a eugenicist. Anyone who needs a vaccine or a medication to live is clearly carrying inferior genes and has to be removed from the population. If you die without procreating, even better.
posted by tommasz at 12:41 PM on August 31 [2 favorites]

I presume the worm in his brain hates humanity and is trying to destroy us all.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 12:52 PM on August 31 [5 favorites]

Who is funding this murderous grift?

Who benefits/profits most (politically? financially? both?) from eliminating the US federal government?
posted by Thorzdad at 1:08 PM on August 31 [2 favorites]

People who think that anti-vax and others stars in the constellation of anti-healthcare establishment views that RFK Jr. appears to celebrate were cynically dreamed up after COVID by pro-business Republicans don't get that strain of thinking at all. And just thinking about the right-wing division of that sentiment, if there's one thing you'd have to call it, is 100% sincere.

Yeah, I have to second this. My partner has been following and organizing with health care workers to understand antivaxers for just about ten years now. They are 100% serious, and RFK is a true believer. All of this makes perfect sense from their perspective, and they are salivating to see the gains as what they see (incorrectly) the artificiality controlling and harming themselves and their families is washed away.

You can't follow the money because the money isn't driving it. It's being driven by two groups: Nazis/eugenicists and antivax/wellness groups. And RFK is, by all accounts, an antivax true believer. He's not doing this to make a profit. He's genuinely this deluded about basic scientific reality.

Antivaxers and similar health conspiracies see themselves (and often their children) as carrying unknown weaknesses susceptible to insult from environmental threats, and these threats are responsible for most of the significant conditions and disabilities they fear. (Autism is of course one of the most prominent of these; ADHD and mood disorders, cancer, chronic pain/fatigue, and obesity follow close behind.)The general mindset this creates is like a kind of orthorexia, except it's long since metastasized well past restricting itself to foodstuffs. That community is currently rioting against SPF and sunscreen, okay? They are fixated on what they see as purity of the natural self and preventing anything from potentially changing and corrupting that self, and they don't find it hard at all to add targets to their arsenal. They are frightened of things they don't understand, which is everything, and they seek a sense of control over their lives and often uncertain health by controlling their environment.

Eugenecists and Nazis, by contrast, are okay with a certain degree of "culling" in service to the aim of breeding a new, superior strain of humans that are immune to current forms of suffering, and they are often completely okay with being found among the "culled" if that advances the greater vision. (At least, the true believers are, but I fully buy that the Christofascist and Nazi factions contain many people in this set.) They don't necessarily think they are already superior, they think that seizing control of human reproduction can get them there. For these people, allowing death, sometimes mass death, is just an unfortunate period to suffer through before reaching the genetic promised land.

We will not be saved by the cleverer billionaires realizing that waves of disease are going to kill their peasants. On this topic, the billionaires aren't driving the bus. Sorry.
posted by sciatrix at 1:33 PM on August 31 [71 favorites]

"I have really had so many cares upon my Hands and Mind, with a bad inflamation in my Eyes that I have not been able to write. I now date from Boston where I yesterday arrived and was with all 4 of our Little ones innoculated for the small pox."

-Abigail Adams to John Adams. July 13, 1776.
posted by clavdivs at 2:15 PM on August 31 [10 favorites]

sciatrix What does your partner think about the way they (claim to) worry about things right up to the point where it would interfere with right wing orthodoxy? I have my own thoughts, but since your partner has been studying it I'd be interested in their thoughts if you/they are willing to share?

For example:

They CLAIM to worry obsessively about the use tiny amounts of mercury compounds in vaccine preservatives.

They don't worry at all about the mercury released by burning coal in coal powered electric plants.

They CLAIM to worry about "toxins"

They aren't worried about BPA or microplastics or any actual real toxins.

Etc.
posted by sotonohito at 2:35 PM on August 31 [24 favorites]

Wow sciatrix, that is terrifying. I guess at the end of the day i'd rather believe it was money driving this than true belief but I don't know anyone who's been working inside this like your partner. Really terrifying.
posted by supermedusa at 2:37 PM on August 31 [3 favorites]

This is the real terror at the heart of all of it: for so many years, it was reassuring to know that, ultimately, all the republicans really cared about was making a buck. When people talk about republicans and democrats being all the same, I think this is mostly what they mean; the democrats and the republicans all went to the same schools, they all know the same people, they have more in common with each other than they do with any of us, and at the end of the day all they really want is their birthright, their entitlement: a lot of shit, way more shit than anybody else, the best shit, the hottest trophy wife, the biggest house, the most money, the most, the best, all of it.

But these people, these new ones, are actually crazy, and believe the bullshit. And people like Mitt Romney stand by in shock and horror, because don't these people get that that's just the shit you sell the rubes? The crazy people are the base! They aren't the fucking product!

But now they are. Wackadoodle nihilists who think having a shitflinging orgy on the bus as it charges, burning, over a cliff is what it looks like to drive a bus. They're crazy.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 2:57 PM on August 31 [27 favorites]

sciatrix What does your partner think about the way they (claim to) worry about things right up to the point where it would interfere with right wing orthodoxy? I have my own thoughts, but since your partner has been studying it I'd be interested in their thoughts if you/they are willing to share?

Their basic thought is that this is conspiratorial thinking, and conspiratorial thinking starts with a conclusion and then finds arguments to support that conclusion. They start with the target of their ire--and sometimes that target isn't inherently in line with right-wing orthodoxy! Large corporations ("Big Pharma," especially) are a common bogeyman in these circles. The problem is that any entity with perceived power can become that bogeyman, and the more that this entity is perceived as restricting someone's freedoms, the more likely that conspiracy theories settle onto that entity. The government makes a really nice roost for conspiracy theories, unfortunately.

The most fertile ground for conspiracies is a person who is experiencing a lot of fear or free-floating anxiety for reasons they either a) don't understand or b) can't control. Conspiracy theories offer a rationale that makes the fear make "sense" to the person, and they usually also offer something that can be done about the fear by providing an amorphous enemy that can be opposed as a way to conquer the fear. That combination of understanding anxiety and having something to do about it is terribly, terribly comforting, and it can suck someone under like a riptide very easily if they're in a vulnerable place... like, say, a highly stressed out country where half is certain that the other half is about to murder them at any given moment.

The thing you have to understand is that anti-vax thinking specifically is spread primarily by primary caregiving parents, and specifically it is mostly spread to recently postpartum new parents. (This is why my partner went into Labor and Delivery nursing, actually: they wanted to understand how to protect against anti-vax sentiments in this highly vulnerable population.) They want to underscore that vulnerability to this stuff isn't mediated by gender identity--trans people are also plenty susceptible--and that everyone on the political spectrum seems to be potentially vulnerable to this stuff, not just conservatives. Think about it as a virus of the mind.

Immediately after giving birth, many people are sleep deprived, overwhelmed, filled with hormones, and newly filled with terror: some of it cognitive, and some of it hormonal, and all of it centered on the new baby they just evacuated from their own body. Sometimes that baby comes out in a context where they are terrified for the baby's survival, especially if the NICU is involved. (Fun fact: Most NICU babies are there relatively briefly while they grow big enough to fit safely in a car seat or need a little breathing support for a week or two because they inhaled meconium.) And there's nothing those parents can do to control their fears, and in the case of new gestational parents, their hormones are often creating massive anxiety well out of proportion to any actual risks. What do you even do about that?

Spouse says, "There is no way to say to somebody who is afraid that they have nothing to fear without them feeling like a foreign person is accusing them of lying. Even when we ask them 'what are you afraid of?,' instead of saying that there's nothing to be afraid of, often the anti-vaxer vultures have already swooped in and warned them that this is a trap. They tell mothers what our arguments are and how to argue against them. Did you know that the most common type of posting on an anti-vaxer forum is someone saying: Hey, so-and-so is telling me that vaccines are safe. How can I debunk their arguments? When new people enter these places, that's what they're greeted with immediately when they read a few new posts. They've already seen our arguments listed alongside a whole bunch of reasons that we're lying."

It doesn't help that most of the people pushing this genuinely do not understand what a chemical really is--or a toxin. For example, they do not understand the phrase "the dose makes the poison." No matter how much you explain, they won't believe you: they believe that if the dose makes the poison, then why would you take the risk of having any poison at all? The broader point that the world is composed of "chemicals" that all interact constantly with our bodies (also made of chemicals) is beyond them. When they do believe that there's a difference between chemicals that your body needs and chemicals that your body could be assaulted by, the vast majority of the time they believe that naturally occurring chemicals and synthetically created chemicals are fundamentally different even when they are molecularly identical. So your coal mine? Coal is natural! Gasoline, now. That's processed, so it must be more dangerous than coal. Sometimes they go so completely off grid to get away from the "chemicals" that they won't use soap on their children, since soap is a "chemical." Spouse has observed people talking about cleaning children with beef tallow instead, which is somehow more natural. (Yes, this makes no sense if you know how soap is made. They don't, and they won't learn.)

Knowing a lot about how chemicals or toxins or vaccines work seems to be somewhat protective, but the real threshold is the level of anxiety/fear/paranoia the person is working with and the extent to which the conspiratorial idea provides them a comforting way to control and understand that fear. For that reason, no one is completely safe unless they feel safe, and who feels safe these days?

If you want to read more about this, there are a number of good books on the subject. Paul Allen Offit has written several, including Deadly Choices: How the Anti-Vaccine Movement Threatens Us All and Autism's False Prophets: Bad Science, Risky Medicine, and the Search for a Cure. Spouse also recommends Brian Deer's The Doctor Who Fooled the World: Science, Deception, and the War on Vaccines.
posted by sciatrix at 3:58 PM on August 31 [66 favorites]

The American Medical Liberty League was founded in 1918, and opposed the American Medical Association, quarantines, and pure food and drug laws. Its "Medical Liberty Avalanche" magazine was first published in October, 1929.

From its first editorial:

(Our) aim is to inform and arouse good Americans to act in concert to end a wicked and murderous regime.

Who are they who suffer under State Medicine?

Ask the parent who is given his choice of letting a doctor poison his child, or himself going to jail. Millions are in that position today.

Reckless Wreckers of Business

Ask the cattle owner whose title to his animals is disputed by the agents of State Medicine, the medical health officers and the Government veterinarians. All cattleowners are today threatened with the confiscation of their hard-earned property. Hundreds of thousands of them have had to let State Medicine kill their cows.

Additionally:
Medical Liberty: Drugless Healers Confront Allopathic Doctors, 1910¨C1931
by Stephen Petrina, The Journal of medical humanities, 2008/09/01
Link:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/23154895_Medical_Liberty_Drugless_Healers_Confront_Allopathic_Doctors_1910-1931

And note that the American Medical Association first published Hygeia: A Journal of Individual and Community Health in April, 1923, to "to inform the layman concerning the fundamental facts of physiology and pathology; to keep him in touch with the advance that scientific medicine is making in the prevention and alleviation of disease." The first article in the issue is "Plain Facts About Health and Disease."

P.S. Wikipedia lists Hygieia as a daughter of Asclepius, the god of medicine, and a sister of other healing deities. She is associated with the prevention of sickness, the continuation of good health, and the cult of Asclepius and Athena.
posted by issue #1 at 4:15 PM on August 31 [3 favorites]

a taller wealth pyramid needs a more numerous and poorer base.

Maybe I understand the urge for additional but less powerful foundation blocks from a class control standpoint but if I were one of these titans it would seem preferable to *right now* make the bottom blocks bigger, profit off the significantly larger economy and enjoy the fact that you don't have to spend any time forming domestic spy networks or population control mechanisms, or need to maintain assassination protection or prepare ludicrous evil lairs, I mean, bunkers. Moreover, that option combined with increased automation means they needn't wring their hands over the impossible prospect of making sufficiently more babies in the appropriate time.

What insanity to make life more difficult for oneself. And, yes, I know they hire people for that but there still would non-negligible involvement in drafting and choosing those plans - like picking the wallpaper and choosing the type of spikes in the moat - and a definite amount of real worry about being on the wrong end of a Luigi or Guillotine.

What insane dummies!

And kids that's why we don't eat the billionaires: something in them tastes off. Presumably, a bitterant to discourage consumption in an eschatological scenario or if captured by people with a Point To Make like spear-wielding cannibals or me.
posted by DeepSeaHaggis at 4:22 PM on August 31 [6 favorites]

Superb comments and work, sciatrix, flagged as fantastic.

Also see "On Immunity: An innoculation", by Eula Biss.
posted by lalochezia at 4:29 PM on August 31 [5 favorites]

I read a book on the wellness to nazi pipeline, it's a thing. The obsession with purity can bleed into an obsession with racial purity. Also people who are a little bit disconnected from reality are easier to con and corral into your movement.

I think some of this is driven by foreign agents at top levels of government looking to undermine the USA. For real.

And I think some of it is that wellness world has been captured and brought into the right-wing base by slowly dialing up the anti science rhetoric and paying top influencers to take a movement that's not necessarily political and deliver them as voters to the republican party. There's a religious component too, my born-again cousins are all into the selling essential oils pyramid scheme.

And now that the anti-science folks are a big part of the base, along with the religious folks and white supremacists (and there's overlap between these groups), they get a say in how the government will run. Giving them the destruction they want is a way to deliver something that's not redistributing wealth from billionaires.

And yeah the new guy is giving all the contracts to Palantir. Peter Thiel is obsessed with the end times.
posted by subdee at 5:26 PM on August 31 [6 favorites]

paying top influencers to take a movement

Something with which influencers are well-acquainted
posted by DeepSeaHaggis at 6:22 PM on August 31

For example:

They CLAIM to worry obsessively about the use tiny amounts of mercury compounds in vaccine preservatives.

They don't worry at all about the mercury released by burning coal in coal powered electric plants.

They CLAIM to worry about "toxins"

They aren't worried about BPA or microplastics or any actual real toxins.

Etc.

No, they are also super intensely worried about BPA and microplastics. In lots of areas where crunchy women (mostly moms) congregate, I¡¯d say a large portion of the conversation is around ways to eliminate plastic as much as possible. Sometimes when it makes sense to do so, sometimes when it¡¯s inconvenient and even dangerous (100% wooden baby toys means that eventually wooden objects will be flying through your indoor spaces). It¡¯s a hard fixation, definitely on par with a fear of ¡°chemicals¡± that is also their signature.
posted by knotty knots at 8:15 PM on August 31 [5 favorites]

Historians See Autocratic Playbook in Trump¡¯s Attacks on Science

¡°Despots want science that has practical results,¡± said Paul R. Josephson, an emeritus professor of history at Colby College and author of a book on totalitarian science. ¡°They¡¯re afraid that basic knowledge will expose their false claims.¡±
posted by They sucked his brains out!

So where do they propose the funds for the basic science underlying the development of 'practical results' will come from?

¨C¨C¨C¨C¨C¨C¨C¨C¨C¨C¨C

RFK Jr is a hardcore true believer anti-vaxxer, a eugenicist (Nazi or otherwise), soaked through with raw power lust and the undiluted sense of entitlement to it, a shameless grifter, and a batshit insane sociopath.

All part of the same toxic package.
posted by Pouteria at 2:05 AM on September 1 [1 favorite]

Like everything else in Trump-world, there is a kernel of truth in this. American food is almost unregulated (seen from a European perspective), and filled with all sorts of weird additives. American medicine is mostly the same as medicine in the rest of the world, but the use is only lightly regulated compared to the rest of the world (except for reproductive care, that is regulated in many states now). Opioids and antibiotics are not nearly as often prescribed here as in the US, which makes sense, because with free healthcare and paid leave for when/if you fall ill, you don't need antibiotics or painkillers nearly as much.
But as with all the other things Trump and his ilk are breaking, the rightful anger is misdirected. Even that is to some extent understandable. Because the people who try to fix the problems fail again and again. Or rather, their fixes are so small and incremental that people don't really feel them. Obamacare was an amazing political feat, but just look at ask.metafilter to see how many people in this community have insufficient care.
Mistakes were made everywhere during COVID, but the USA was just fundamentally ill equipped to handle a public health crisis. Not from a scientific point of view, but from a care point of view. I don't think a Clinton administration would have done a lot better, specially in the beginning, because the basics had to be built from scratch, and because the general level of trust in government is so low.
posted by mumimor at 3:23 AM on September 1 [4 favorites]

I think some of this is driven by foreign agents at top levels of government looking to undermine the USA. For real.

I think there is some truth to this, though I would add that I don¡¯t believe any foreign agents started the various conspiracy theories, movements, and the like. I think it was more like external power(s) looked at the emerging sov-cit/anti-vax/govt-conspiracy/anti-govt movements, and saw a very energized and very-easily-manipulated population that could be used as an internal weapon against the US government.

Somewhat ironically, at least in the case of the anti-vaxers, they are themselves the infection that is being allowed to run rampant in the system, likely to result in the death of the host.
posted by Thorzdad at 4:36 AM on September 1 [4 favorites]

mumimor: "I don't think a Clinton administration would have done a lot better, specially in the beginning, because the basics had to be built from scratch, and because the general level of trust in government is so low."

Well...they'd have done a bit better, as we know.

A pandemic plan was in place. Trump abandoned it ¡ª and science ¡ª in the face of Covid-19
posted by tiny frying pan at 5:49 AM on September 1 [13 favorites]

Well...they'd have done a bit better, as we know.

Fair enough, but my point was exactly that while the US has some of the leading scientists in the world, it has the worst healthcare system in the developed world. During the first Trump presidency, the smart scientists could keep on developing vaccines. This time round it's different, of course.
With any president, one would have had different states reacting differently, which I think was a huge cause of excess mortality in the US. For instance Italy was really hit hard but the cases were very unevenly distributed, with nearly no excess mortality in Sicily and a horrific chaos in the north. This was because the national government was able to stop the disease from spreading after the initial outbreak. I think the same republican governors who didn't respect the rules under Trump would have been even more irresponsible under Clinton -- to own the libs.
posted by mumimor at 7:49 AM on September 1 [1 favorite]

It's being driven by two groups: Nazis/eugenicists and antivax/wellness groups.

I don't think I realized until quite recently how compatible the antivaxx and the Nazi fears around contamination are.
posted by BungaDunga at 8:05 AM on September 1 [1 favorite]

Hey now. Let's not forget Eugenics.

Fascists love themselves some Eugenics.

Part of the reason you want to raise birthrates is so you'll still have a workforce to imprison once the runts of the litter have died off.

Fuck these guys forever.

(Reminder! Protests today!)

https://www.mobilize.us/
posted by chromecow at 9:20 AM on September 1 [2 favorites]

The CDC¡¯s collapse didn¡¯t begin with RFKjr. It was underway by 2021, when an administration that campaigned in the poetry of ¡°follow the science¡± chose to govern in the prose of ¡°let¡¯s move on,¡± and the CDC acquiesced by systematically downplaying the prevalence and long-term effects of COVID in its marquee public messaging, then muting its recommendations for masking and ventilation to near silence. Americans entered 2025 largely unaware that there had been about 450,000 confirmed COVID deaths since 2021¡¯s Declaration of Independence from COVID. They stumbled into the Trump 2.0 era unaware that now routine COVID infections introduced millions to Long Covid last year. After five years of pandemic they still knew as little about effective COVID prevention options as teenagers in abstinence-only districts know about birth control options, with similar results.

Public health collapses slowly, then all at once.
posted by Dimpy at 12:29 PM on September 1 [13 favorites]

Yup. After four years of not catching covid and wondering if I might just be immune like a character from The Stand, I had covid twice -- first in August '24, then less than a year later, in July of this year. I had been vaccinated in December '24. Maybe the vaccine didn't work, but maybe it did, making the second case less severe. I have no way of knowing. But I'm honestly very apprehensive that this collection of huge fucking idiots will keep me from getting vaccinated this year.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 12:46 PM on September 1 [3 favorites]

According to my pharmacy, if I get a prescription from my doctor for the vaccine, they can give it to me (off label), since I am younger than 65. Obviously this only works if you have access to a primary care physician, but I put this out there in case it helps anyone else.
posted by wittgenstein at 3:21 PM on September 1 [8 favorites]

Dimpy you're not wrong, but I do think you're conflating a 3 to 4 level shitty anti-science event to a 11 level anti-science event.
posted by sotonohito at 3:21 PM on September 1 [3 favorites]

Thanks, wittgenstein!
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 7:21 PM on September 1

As with a lot of things, it does feel like our desire to move on and put the pandemic behind us is what's ultimately coming back to bite us in the ass.

So much disgusting shit happened during the pandemic. Remember how blue states had to arrange their PPE shipments in secret so Trump wouldn't steal them? Remember how Trump favored red states when distributing ventilators? How many people died because of this? And yet we just had to move on...
posted by RonButNotStupid at 7:59 AM on September 2 [10 favorites]

According to my pharmacy, if I get a prescription from my doctor for the vaccine, they can give it to me (off label), since I am younger than 65. Obviously this only works if you have access to a primary care physician, but I put this out there in case it helps anyone else.

I guess I didn¡¯t think of it because I very rarely write prescriptions, but if any GA mefites need a covid shot prescription, contact me via memail and I may be able to help you out.
posted by TedW at 11:26 AM on September 2 [7 favorites]

According to my pharmacy, if I get a prescription from my doctor for the vaccine, they can give it to me (off label), since I am younger than 65. Obviously this only works if you have access to a primary care physician, but I put this out there in case it helps anyone else.

If you have one of the conditions that qualifies you for access, I don¡¯t think you need to do this¡ªmy (national chain) pharmacy let me self-attest.
posted by sickos haha yes dot jpg at 11:51 AM on September 2 [1 favorite]

That's good to know, thanks. (Was self-attestation at the pharmacy enough to get it covered by insurance?)
posted by nobody at 12:59 PM on September 2

yep! (honestly it¡¯s in the ins companies¡¯ interest to pay for vaccines. they drastically lower health care costs. the pushback is not coming from them.)
posted by sickos haha yes dot jpg at 4:18 PM on September 2 [4 favorites]

Some of it might be. It's been very frustrating to see how in many countries with strong universal healthcare insurance systems there still is way less support for annual covid vaccines than for other types of vaccines. I can get a flu shot where I live easily with no questions asked; there's lots of public messaging about how people should get their flu shots; flu shots are available at every health clinic; but covid? None of the above applies. Meanwhile we seem to be in the middle of another wave.
posted by trig at 2:04 AM on September 3 [4 favorites]

strong universal healthcare insurance systems

i am talking about private insurance companies in the United States.
posted by sickos haha yes dot jpg at 6:00 AM on September 3

Right, but if the logic is that they should naturally be pro vaccines because they lower health care costs overall, that logic doesn't seem to hold for other types of health insurance organizations. There might be factors that change the cost-benefit logic on this for US private health insurance companies vs. other types of health insurance companies, I don't know, but I think it may be optimistic to assume that health insurance companies, public or private, necessarily see their interests as strictly aligned with public health outcomes. They sure seem to push back on lots of things that would theoretically lower their costs in the long run.
posted by trig at 9:36 AM on September 3 [1 favorite]

flu shots are available at every health clinic; but covid? None of the above applies. Meanwhile we seem to be in the middle of another wave.
posted by trig at 2:04 AM on September 3 [3 favorites +] [?]
As someone who is right now going through a bit of a COVID thing, and actually had a really bad episode last year, I'll have to say that in sane countries, COVID is like a very bad flu. My 85 yo mum gets vaccinations and I can get them at the pharmacy if I want, but no-one thinks they are going to die. I will probably get the next COVID vaccination because I have astma, but it's not really a big deal in a country where you have universal healthcare and sick leave.
posted by mumimor at 9:42 AM on September 3

Every COVID infection you get can lead to complications and/or Long COVID. Vaccination reduces but does not eliminate these risks. It is still best to not get COVID. Many sane public health agencies are recommending masking during the current surge.
posted by hydropsyche at 9:49 AM on September 3 [3 favorites]

As someone who has struggled with long COVID from 2021 and finally recovered, I wonder if this is another thing that needs a functioning healthcare system? I actually recovered while I was dealing with another health incident: I broke my shoulder. While I was dealing with that very serious issue -- at first they didn't think I would recover mobility -- the care I received meant that I recovered from long COVID. I am not a doctor, so I have no idea what happened.
posted by mumimor at 10:00 AM on September 3

Florida makes plans to end vaccine mandates, including at schools.


Aaaaaaaaaah!
posted by subdee at 1:28 PM on September 3 [2 favorites]

More than 1,000 current and former CDC employees demanded RFK, Jr resign.
posted by subdee at 5:14 PM on September 3 [4 favorites]

You know, if you'd told me even 15 years ago that the American right would make opposition to vaccination a core value I'd have thought you were delusional.

I still don't comprehend how "vote Republican, we want you and your children to die" is a campaign message that works, but it does.
posted by sotonohito at 8:52 AM on September 4 [6 favorites]

oh you see my children are made of strong genetic stock, maybe your children need vaccines but I shouldn't be required to risk autism just because you have crappy liberal genes
posted by BungaDunga at 8:58 AM on September 4 [2 favorites]

my household avoids disease using all-natural immune boosting supplements, so vaccine mandates are unnecessary. maybe you are too addicted to poor diet and exercise and want to risk giving your kid autism but in my household we are protected by our faith and hard work
posted by BungaDunga at 9:00 AM on September 4

"There's no such thing as society... people must look after themselves first."
posted by trig at 12:51 PM on September 4 [1 favorite]

RFK defending himself to Republican senators on what's going on at the CDC... But what's also notable is every speech has to start and end with praise for Dear Leader.

Disgusting and enraging. What are we even doing?

(I know what we're doing, but I hate it.).
posted by subdee at 7:28 PM on September 4 [2 favorites]