Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Not Done Killing Us Yet
Get your flu and covid shots!
I received my covid vaccine booster and flu shot earlier this week, just like your average science-believing sheep. One of the benefits of residing in war-torn Portland, Oregon, is that it was a simple matter to schedule an appointment at my local Walgreens. The entire trip took less than 20 minutes. Many Americans aren’t so fortunate, as Donald Trump’s brain-worm-addled Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. seems dedicated to rolling back all public health gains over the past 50 years. This includes vaccines, which he actively undermines to a public that already elected Trump twice, so it’s clearly susceptible to kooky thinking.
Covid immunizations were down about 25 percent nationally for the period ending October 3. That was after guidance from the administration abandoned broad support for the shots. There are also the senseless obstacles: Reuters reported in September that a 41-year-old financial professional from Salt Lake City, who routinely received the covid shot through employer-sponsored health insurance, was told at his local Walgreens that he needed a prescription. In 16 other states, patients may need a prescription from an authorized provider depending on their age and health status, before they can receive a shot at either CVS or Walgreens. If you think this extra step is a deliberate barrier, you aren’t the one letting unfounded conspiracies guide your thought process. That’s Kennedy Jr., who loathes vaccines for reasons that are range from absurd to twisted Darwinism.
When Kennedy Jr. appeared on Real Time with Bill Maher last year, he claimed that “25 percent of Americans know somebody who was killed by a covid vaccine.” The current U.S. population exceeds 340 million people — 25 percent of which is 85 million. (There are more than 1.2 million confirmed deaths from covid overall.) Maybe they all know the same person who died from a covid vaccine. Regardless, Kennedy Jr.’s data point is doo doo.
Maher is another vaccine skeptic. During a 2015 episode of Real Time, Maher managed to make Marianne Williamson seem normal. (Unlike Maher, she could at least pronounce the word “aspartame.” Maher has a demonstrated contempt for religious faith, and that’s recently extended to the scientific community, which he contends demands unquestioning “faith” from the public. “Trust the science” is no different, in his view, than “trust in God.” However, I suspect that Maher simply lacks the humility to accept that there is anything in the world he doesn’t understand. He resents “experts,” because that suggests someone knows more about any subject than he does from a casual Google.
Although covid vaccines are readily available in Oregon, not everyone is taking advantage of this public health benefit. According to Oregon Health Authority Communicable Disease and Immunization Medical Director Howard Chiou, just nine percent of Oregonians, or 360,000 people, had received this season’s COVID-19 vaccine. That’s s 21 percent lower than this time last year.
Significantly more Oregonians have received the influenza vaccine — about 1 million so far — but that’s still about five percent lower than the vaccine rate at this point last year. This reflects a broader, troubling pattern that have developed over the past five years.
“What’s worrying for me is that for both flu and COVID, there’s been this really steady decline every year in vaccination rates since 2020,” Chiou said. “And it’s really unfortunate because both flu and covid can and do cause severe disease, and the vaccine is still really the best way to protect yourself and the people around you.”
You might remember 2020 from such events as Tiger King and the global pandemic that killed a lot of people. The covid vaccine gave us our lives back, and we should have statues erected in the vaccine’s honor. Instead, Americans have declared phooey on vaccines.
When JD Vance appeared on Joe Rogan’s show last year, he claimed he’d had covid five times, despite having taken the vaccine. He said the vaccine side effects had “red pilled” him.
“We’re not even allowed to talk about the fact that I was as sick as I’ve ever been for two days, and the worst covid experience I had was like a sinus infection. I’m not really willing to trade that,” Vance claimed.
Vance is allowed to say stupid things publicly. That’s his entire raison d’ê·tre. Yet, he was alive in 2020 when covid hospitalized and even killed otherwise healthy young people. We weren’t having Zoom Thanksgivings because we feared a bad sinus infection. Vance refuses to acknowledge that his “covid experience” would’ve been far worse without the vaccine. That’s why covid has become more or less endemic rather than decidedly lethal (though long covid is still a threat).
A pronounced immune response to a vaccine can make you feel tired, feverish, achy, and downright sick. However, that’s far different from an actual infection, and the symptoms usually resolve themselves after a few days. I usually schedule my vaccine shots a few days before any major events. Now, I admit that as I write this, I’m feverish and achy, and you can’t help wondering why you’d willingly do this to your self. As a parent, there’s never a good time to feel run down, but I would trade some discomfort for the next day or so to a serious illness. So far, whenever I’ve gotten covid, I’ve felt like crap but I’ve never been bedridden or otherwise unable to function. Thank you, vaccine.
Andrew Huberman, who is more a successful podcaster than a talented scientist, has pushed the same vaccine/autism link that Kennedy Jr. spreads without real evidence. He spoke some gibberish on Maher’s show, but what stood out to me was that Maher said, “I was a guy who did not want the covid vaccine, but I do want research on mRNA.” This is the leopard-eating-faces version of anti-vaccine rhetoric, because these quacks are going after research that could prevent serious illness, including cancer.
Meanwhile, Kennedy Jr.’s handpicked team of vaccine conspiracy theorists is scheduled to meet and plot a dangerous overhaul of the childhood vaccine schedule. Maybe newborns don’t need their first hepatitis B dose shortly after birth (they do, in fact). These dullards will also “examine” whether childhood immunizations are responsible for allergies and autoimmune disorders.
Other proposed changes could make it harder and more expensive for vaccines to get approved, which would further Kennedy Jr.’s goal of limiting overall vaccine availability. This year, I cherish my sore arm.
Done. I’m a 65 yo recent cancer survivor who lives in DC. In September I was told by CVS/Walgreens that a prescription was required, which I had, but they still wouldn’t administer the Covid jab. My gp and oncologist, both of whom practice with very large healthcare providers, didn’t have access to the jab as DC is under the thumb of the idiot in the WH. Thankfully I live a 10 minute ride from the enlightened state of Maryland. Popped over there for free, no prescription required, vaccinations. (My understanding is that the Covid jab is now readily available in DC but how many people just quit trying?)
“I took the vaccine and felt achy, then I caught COVID and it only felt like a sinus infection, so the vaccine doesn’t work”—this is the trash that Yale is graduating.
Great job, America. You put the idiots and psychopaths in charge. Now they’ll kill us all if they don’t trip over their own feet first.