Category: Politics and Regulation
How bad is it? RFK Jr.’s extinction-level threat to science-based federal health policy and public health is here
Five months ago, I called RFK Jr. an "extinction-level" threat to US biomedical science and public health. That extinction is under way.
Measles, MAHA, and “soft eugenics”
I've long said that the antivax movement is borderline eugenicist (or at least social Darwinist) in nature. Now that a second child has died of measles, it's time for me to take a look at the "soft eugenics" of the antivax movement and, more generally, the MAHA movement.
“Make America Healthy Again”: The new Lysenkoism
Trofim Lysenko was a Soviet scientist whose dogmatic science denialism led to mass famine when his ideas were applied to agriculture. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is a lot like Lysenko in his science denial. Will his results be as disastrous?
Quackery (still) kills: A five-year-old boy dies in a hyperbaric oxygen chamber
Even as quacks and antivaxxers take over our federal government's health apparatus, let's not forget why we need stronger, not laxer, regulation of "unconventional" medical practices.
Misinformed refusal: What antivaxxers are really promoting when they invoke “informed consent”
Our new Secretary of Health and Human Services wants to change CDC messaging about vaccines to emphasize "informed consent." What he really means is misinformed refusal.
Paul Thacker relitigates criticisms of Dr. Jay Bhattacharya and the Great Barrington Declaration
"Journalist" Paul Thacker defends Dr. Jay Bhattacharya and the Great Barrington Declaration by rehashing the same old deceptive rhetoric that was easily debunked when it was first employed.
Indiscriminate, Cruel, and Wasteful: Abandoning USAID clinical trials
The chaos and cruelty of its abrupt deconstruction are self-evident and already demonstrable
How Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will undermine and ultimately destroy US vaccination programs
When Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was nominated to be Secretary of Health & Human Services, I called him an "extinction-level threat" to public health. Here's how he will attempt to make vaccines extinct in the US.
So it begins: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is confirmed as HHS Secretary and immediately starts dismantling US federal science infrastructure
The nightmare has come true. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has been confirmed as HHS Secretary and didn't wait long to start dismantling federal science and health programs. The White House even formed a "MAHA commission" to draw up a battle plan.
DOGE vs. the NIH: Say goodbye to the greatest engine of biomedical research ever created
Friday, the Trump administration slashed indirect costs associated with NIH grants. What does this mean, and why could it be so disastrous for biomedical research?