Category: Politics and Regulation

Charlton Heston as George Taylor in The Planet of the Apes.

It’s a madhouse! Public health under the heirs to Lysenko (and Dr. Zaius) in 2025

As 2025 barrels towards its depressing conclusion, I look back at the damage federal science and medicine have sustained thus far under Donald Trump and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. through the lens of a classic film. Truly, it's a madhouse, in which our federal science apparatus is run by Lysenko's heirs.

/ December 29, 2025
A syringe drawing liquid from a vial is shown in front of a blurred FDA logo on a blue background.

The FDA’s Proposed “Black Box” Warning for COVID-19 Vaccines

The real hazard is not the vaccines, but the warning itself

/ December 23, 2025

The FDA under MAHA control: Weakening the quack Miranda warning on supplements

The FDA sent a letter to the supplement industry assuring that it would make it easier for them to hide disclaimers (which we like to call "quack Miranda warnings") about unproven health claims for supplements. What does this tell us about MAHA?

/ December 15, 2025
Trump is antivax.

“Best practices”: The buzzword that the Trump administration will use to eliminate as many vaccines as RFK Jr. can

The CDC Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices met last week, eliminating the universal recommendation for the birth dose of the hepatitis B vaccine. There was, however, a more insidious threat to vaccines in a White House press release after the meeting cloaked under the buzzword "best practices."

/ December 8, 2025
3D illustration of a coronavirus particle, highlighting its spike proteins and a cross-section revealing genetic material inside—often studied in gain of function research. Several similar particles float in the background.

“Gain of Function” Research Is Misunderstood – And That Is A Problem

Misplaced concerns or opposition could lead to overregulation or even banning

/ December 4, 2025
Vinay Prasad, MD, MPH

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is definitely coming for your vaccines, part 5: VAERS and a useful idiot at the FDA

In the sadly continuing story of how Health and Human Services Secretary RFK Jr. is working to eliminate vaccines, we look at a useful idiot, Dr. Vinay Prasad, and how he is weaponizing dead children to justify making vaccines harder to approve.

/ December 1, 2025
Graffiti art of a man wearing a judge's wig and crown, holding a scepter and a briefcase, striding confidently. The mural is painted on a wall next to wooden boards and stones.

Read the Comments: “Just Do the Opposite of Whatever This Administration Recommends!”

It's obviously not good that people have lost trust in the FDA, NIH, and CDC. However, since those once vulnerable institutions are now lead by naked emperors, it's good that the American public, at least those that read the news, has uniformly recognized they have no clothes.

/ November 29, 2025
CDC Headquarters

The CDC is lying to you about vaccines and autism

The CDC webpage about vaccines and autism now misrepresents the science and lies to the public about vaccines and autism. It's just part of HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s continuing war on vaccines.

/ November 24, 2025
MAHA has fallen

“MAHA has fallen”? Antivaxxers are getting very impatient with Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Recently, antivaxxers have been expressing their impatience with HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s progress eliminating vaccines. It was inevitable. Has MAHA fallen?

/ November 17, 2025
Two panels show how PD-L1 on tumor cells binds to PD-1 on T cells to block immune response, and how anti-PD-L1 or anti-PD-1 drugs block this interaction, allowing T cells to kill tumor cells.

The opposite of “turbo cancer”: COVID-19 vaccines sensitize cancer to immunotherapy

A new preliminary study published in Nature suggests that COVID-19 vaccines might actually boost the immune system to make immunotherapy more effective. If confirmed in followup studies, this result suggests that the vaccines do the opposite of causing "turbo cancer."

/ October 27, 2025