Category: Politics and Regulation

The front view of the United States Supreme Court building in Washington, D.C., featuring tall columns, statues, steps leading to the entrance, and a clear blue sky overhead.

Is (Conversion) Therapy Speech?

The US Supreme Court recently heard a case that could have devastating effects on the standard of care in medicine, and the indicators of where the justices fall are not good. The case is Chiles v Salazar, in which a licensed therapist is arguing that a Colorado law banning conversion therapy for gay and trans clients violates her free speech. So the...

/ October 15, 2025
Aluminum hydroxide

RFK Jr. is definitely coming for your vaccines, part 4: Aluminum edition (or: Everything old is new again…again)

Last week, news stories reported that HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. had convened an "aluminum working group." Among the "scientists" there are antivax scientists about whom I've been writing for over a decade. Everything old antivax is new again.

/ October 13, 2025
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. lying about vaccines again

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. weaponizes an old antivax trope in his quest to eliminate vaccines

People who keep whistling past the graveyard (of vaccines) to assure themselves that RFK Jr,. won't take away their vaccines are deluding themselves. One seven-minute video he posted last week shows that, weaponizing an old one deceptive antivax trope claiming that vaccines didn't do that much to improve global health.

/ October 6, 2025
Mark Blaxill

Mark Blaxill: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. resurrects another washed-up antivax activist

Last week, it was reported that Mark Blaxill had been hired at CDC. It looks like RFK Jr.'s resurrecting every washed up antivax crony he can find to staff HHS.

/ September 30, 2025
ACIP screenshot, day 2

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is definitely coming for your vaccines, part 3: Antivax rhetoric and incompetence at ACIP

The CDC's newly reconstituted antivax Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices met last week. The results weren't as horrific as I'd expected, but not for lack of trying. In this post, I'll focus on one presentation as a lens through which to look at the meeting as a whole.

/ September 22, 2025
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is definitely coming for your vaccines, part 2: VAERS, the FDA, and ACIP

The Food and Drug Administration appears to be about to weaponize a classic antivax trope against COVID-19 vaccines, the abuse of reports to the Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System to falsely portray them as deadly, even as news reports suggest that RFK Jr. will further restrict access to COVID-19 and three childhood vaccines. Here we go again.

/ September 15, 2025
Donald Trump and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. (RFK Jr.)
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is definitely coming for your vaccines

The chaos at the CDC in the wake of last week's firing of its Director and the resignations of four senior officials is fallout from the latest skirmish in RFK Jr.'s war against vaccines. Make no mistake, RFK Jr. is working hard to take away your vaccines if he can. Here's a progress report.

/ September 1, 2025
A YouTube error message on a dark background reads: "Video unavailable. This video is no longer available because the YouTube account associated with this video has been terminated.

I am a Private Citizen Seeking to Hold My Government Accountable. Dr. Vinay Prasad, a Government Doctor, Killed My YouTube Channel.

Americans do not need our government's permission to remember the words of our public officials, and I refuse to let them be silenced or censored.

/ August 31, 2025
Trojan Horse

Jay Bhattacharya’s “plan to drive Gold Standard Science”: A Trojan horse for Lysenko-izing the NIH

Last week, the NIH published a plan to "drive Gold Standard Science." The plan cunningly wraps what are obvious Lysenkoist ideological purity tests disguised as "academic freedom" and "unbiased peer review" in seemingly reasonable proposals.

/ August 25, 2025