Tag: Donald Trump
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.
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?
“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."
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."
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.
EBM “Boy Wonder” Vinay Prasad is toppled
Evidence-based medicine "Boy Wonder" Dr. Vinay Prasad was fired as CBER Director after less than three months on the job. What can the kerfuffle surrounding his ouster tell us about the FDA and doctors who enabled Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.?
COVID-19 contrarian Dr. Vinay Prasad meets real world responsibility
Dr. Vinay Prasad parlayed his COVID-19 contrarianism into a high-ranking position in the FDA. Now he's facing real world responsibility, and knives are out for him. Can he survive?
RFK Jr.’s vaccine committee bloodbath: I hope you’re all up-to-date on your vaccines…
...because the CDC schedule is about to start shedding vaccines the way antivax newly appointed ACIP members think people vaccinated against COVID-19 shed spike protein. Ground zero for RFK Jr.'s extinction-level event with respect to public health is vaccines and the committee that recommends them for the CDC schedule.
The MAHA Report: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly (mostly the bad and ugly)
President Donald Trump and HHS Secretary's MAHA report has landed. It's a mix of the good (a little), but mostly the bad and the ugly (a lot).
MAHA and “soft eugenics” revisited: The “autism tsunami,” Dr. Oz, and your “patriotic duty” to stay healthy
Two weeks ago, I referred to the "soft eugenics" of RFK Jr. and MAHA. This week, he and Dr. Oz provide new examples, one about autism, the other about public health.