I have a fuzzy memory of being maybe 5 and standing in a long winding line of families waiting to get their vaccinations. It was a winter evening inside a school, as I recall. For some reason there was what sounded like a bass drum booming every now and then. Why? No idea, but the boom of doom convinced me that I was marching towards my death because I was terrified of shots.
I’m having difficulty seeing a distinction that is a difference between what RFK Jr. has been doing/plans to do and what a bioterrorist does.
Harm and generating mass death in the service of a destructive ideology is at the center of both.
And as Donald Trump builds his corporate Babylon USA, it may be a good time to invest in advancing iron lung technology. There's a lifetime of money can be made from polio, starting early, of course, with kids.
But, hey, perhaps they, too, can become a lawyer and an inspiration like Polio Paul.
"‘Polio Paul,’ who spent most of the past 70 years in an iron lung, dies at 78"
https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/13/health/paul-alexander-polio-iron-lung
Welcome back, Polio...?
"Kennedy’s lawyer has asked the FDA to revoke its approval of the polio vaccine"
https://www.cnn.com/2024/12/13/health/kennedy-lawyer-fda-polio-vaccine/index.html
"In the 1950s, before a vaccine was available, polio killed or paralyzed more than half a million people globally each year, according to the World Health Organization."
As Trumplicans flirt with revoking approval for the polio vaccine (which in the U.S. is the inactivated, therefore 100% safe, vaccine), consider:
“Confounding,” “very unorthodox,” and “very concerning.” That’s how Shahin Huseynov, polio lead for the World Health Organization’s (WHO) European region, describes the slew of detections over the past 3 months of poliovirus in wastewater in Spain, Poland, and Germany. On 10 December, the U.K. government reported more positive wastewater samples, as did Finland."
"All the newly spotted isolates are vaccine-derived strains, known as circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus type 2, which are spawned by the live, attenuated virus used in the oral polio vaccine (OPV). They are descended from the Zamfara strain, which emerged in Nigeria several years ago and has spread widely across Africa. The closest match is to the strain now circulating in Algeria, Guinea, and Mali, says Robb Butler, director of communicable diseases for the WHO European region."
The expanding footprint of this virus into Europe may be caused by importation by travelers. Luckily, European countries are well vaccinated.
Ideally, there would be global adoption of the inactivated vaccine but it would be expensive and impractical in some countries due to technical requirements. Those countries continue to use the weakened polio vaccine which can rarely revert to wild type. Bear in mind that type 2 was declared eradicated several years ago and the weakened vaccine then manufactured without that strain. Within a year, many countries saw a rebound of vaccine-derived type 2. Surprise!
And now Trump's disease cheerleaders want to stop vaccination in the U.S. Welcome back, polio!
https://www.science.org/content/article/poliovirus-keeps-popping-european-wastewater-perplexing-and-worrying-scientists
#science #InfectiousDisease #vaccines #polio
I don't really want RFK Jr banning all the #vaccines. Otoh, centrists need to be taught a lesson about indulging bipartisanship with fascists and "meeting people where they are".
Will they actually learn anything from their fence-riding rhetoric in the face of pandemicide and widespread pestilence resulting directly from their laissez-faire approach? Probably not. So I guess we're left with basic biology to correct the error of their ways. #Centrism is making Victorian diseases great again.
The two greatest public health advances in human history are regulations/ technologies to protect the safety of #water and #food, and the discovery and roll out of #vaccines.
It boggles the mind that Trump, RFK Jr., and the GOP want to eliminate them.
If successful, a lot of people, mostly children, are going to die.
I cannot believe childhood vaccines are up for debate.
“Key legal adviser to #RFKJr, Trump’s pick for health sec, is at the center of efforts to push federal drug regulators to revoke approval for the polio & hepatitis B #vaccines & block distrib of 13 other critical vaccines.
Aaron Siri, lawyer helping Kennedy select top health admins as part of #Trump transition process, is deeply embedded in longstanding efforts to force the FDA to w/draw raft of vax that have saved lives, health of millions”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/dec/13/rfk-jr-aaron-siri-polio
WTAF America? Are you completely insane? #Polio #Vaccines https://mastodon.online/@emmalbriant/113645265420791171
I started feeling ill yesterday, thought it was a bad burrito, my stomach was hurting. But I'm having all kinds of random body aches and pains today, slight headache, fatigue. Sure glad I'm vaxxed for both flu and COVID! If I have one of those I'll probably just feel a little bit crappy for a couple of days. #vaccines
At least three closely watched senators are noncommittal about confirming the vaccine critic.
Those include swing votes like Sens. Susan Collins & Lisa Murkowski, as well as Sen Bill Cassidy, a physician who will chair a committee that could host confirmation hearings for Kennedy.
And they're being viciously targeted by Trump's thugs.
#RFKJr #HHS #USPol #Vaccines #GOPDeathCult
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/12/10/rfk-jr-faces-trouble-in-the-senate-00193579
Scrolling a little, I see more than an average amount of chat on #vaccines & their impact, #healthcare, etc. I don't want to hijack threads, so I'm posting this separately (yes, it's a repeat). If you're up for a *really* interesting read on the effect(s) of these things over the course of known human #history, I highly recommend this book by Dr. Troy Tassier, who writes about (in his words) where #economics intersects #epidemiology. Fascinating, intensely readable.
https://www.press.jhu.edu/books/title/12909/rich-flee-and-poor-take-bus
Infectious diseases killed Victorian children at alarming rates — their novels highlight the fragility of public health today
#Vaccines #VaccinesSaveLives #Vaxxed
https://theconversation.com/infectious-diseases-killed-victorian-children-at-alarming-rates-their-novels-highlight-the-fragility-of-public-health-today-242273
"In a ruling on Friday, U.S. District Judge Mark Pittman in Fort Worth, Texas, ordered the agency to produce its 'emergency use authorization' file to a group of scientists who wanted to see licensing information that the FDA relied on to approve the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine."