RFK Jr. Assclown Jambaroo: Anti-Vaxxer Bullshit, A New Panel Of Misfits, EMFs, & Chemtrails, Oh My!

RFK Jr. Assclown Jambaroo: Anti-Vaxxer Bullshit, A New Panel Of Misfits, EMFs, & Chemtrails, Oh My! from the captain-crazypantsdd dept Well, as we previously discussed was going to occur, RFK Jr. gave his keynote speech and appearance at the Children’s Health Defense conference of anti-vaxxer conspiracy-mongers, and he was certainly firmly on brand. In fact, he did so much to make news during and around this appearance that we’re going to have to break this post up into several sections to only briefly talk about the insanity that came vomiting out of his mouth. The Anti-Vaxxer Of It All: Ah, RFK Jr. classic. Among the many lies Kennedy appears to have told during his confirmation hearings, the biggest of them all was when he told Congress he wasn’t an anti-vaxxer and wouldn’t do anything to change how vaccines are administered in America. Almost immediately after his confirmation, Kennedy remade the CDC’s ACIP in his image, attempted to change the vaccination schedules for children, changed federal recommendations for other vaccines in adults, and pushed Trump into issuing an executive order demanding we all pretend that we’re Danish. Through it all, Kennedy has insisted he’s not an anti-vaxxer. Instead, he’ll say things like “the MMR vaccine is the best way to protect yourself from measles” and then go on to claim that that same vaccine is dangerous, untested, and has injured many Americans. But he is an anti-vaxxer and you need only to listen to his address to anti-vaxxer group Children’s Health Defense to understand that. “Let me be clear: You have a strong and steadfast friend in the White House. We’ve accomplished in 19 months things that would have seemed unthinkable two years ago,” he said. The speech, peppered with questions about long established vaccine safety, also highlighted how once fringe views on vaccines have been given a prominent pulpit under the Trump administration. Kennedy boasted about the administration’s moves to downsize the childhood vaccination schedule and reshape a key vaccine advisory board — steps that have since been halted by a judge. Kennedy lauded Trump for pushing ahead with attempts to overhaul vaccine guidance, including an executive order last month calling for spacing out the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine, against medical groups’ recommendations. Again, these are all things that Kennedy promised he would not do in his confirmation hearings. He lied, Congress knows he lied, and he should be impeached for it. And I’ll also say that to state the above in the middle of the largest outbreak of measles in America in over 30 years is wild. Speaking of which… I’ll See Your Real Deaths And Raise You Fake Vaccine Injuries Does RFK Jr. care about the 6 dead Americans who have succumbed to the measles under his watch? Sure, according to him. But why aren’t you talking about all the Americans who have been hurt by vaccines? Let’s just start off with the obvious: Kennedy doesn’t give a single shit about the people he helped die from measles, particularly in Pennsylvania. Kennedy, like any good sociopath, cares about Kennedy. Regarding the now four measles-related deaths in Pennsylvania, Kennedy reportedly stepped in to keep the CDC from even publicly acknowledging those deaths have occurred. His primary public comments on those deaths have teetered between claiming those deaths may not even have happened and failing to mention them at all while trying to slap around Governor Shapiro online. Show me real, scientifically validated vaccine injuries and I’ll have an opinion on what should be done about them. It’s not that they don’t exist; rather, it’s that they are tiny in number and are far outweighed by the enormous health benefits of vaccines to the public. The real point here is that Kennedy’s attempt to pivot to vaccine injuries rather than address actual dead people from measles is a non-sequitur. Another HHS Panel Of Charlatans Here we go again. ACIP isn’t the only important health panel that Kennedy decided to remake in his conspiratorial image. Back in May we talked about how Kennedy had fired the leadership of the U.S. Preventative Task Force and largely sidelined their work. The USPSTF is a volunteer group, traditionally made of appointed medical generalists who recommend which preventative care procedures should be covered by insurance companies and which should not. Kennedy has broken with that tradition by instead installing medical specialists and sycophants of his to the group. Those fears seemed to be realized today with the announcement of members who are largely out of line with previous appointments. Many of the new members have expressed a shared ideology with Kennedy and the Trump administration. At least one voiced criticism of COVID-19 vaccines. At least two have attacked gender-affirming care. One is not even a doctor but a health economist who has worked with the Trump administration. Five of the eight members are specialists, including cardiologists, a gastroenterologist, and a radiologist; the USPSTF has previously been made up of people who provide preventive care—generalist and primary care providers. This prevents specialists from swaying recommendations based on conflicts of interest. Notably, the USPSTF’s policy on conflict of interest disclosures has been removed, and the webpage that previously included it said the policy is now being updated. In a statement Thursday, Willie Underwood, president of the American Medical Association, called Kennedy’s new slate of members “a significant departure from the Task Force’s traditional membership.” The qualifications for these new members are very clear. They’re donators to the Trump campaign, doctors who are firmly against gender-affirming care, educators who have been critical of COVID vaccines, former Trump White House advisors, and so on. Every single one of these appointments is political in nature, in other words, rather than being focused in any way on actual health outcomes or good science. The impact of whatever fuckery this panel gets up to will be of a financial nature due to insurance coverage, health outcomes due to availability of care, or both. It also means that any reporting coming out of the panel is immediately suspect, since Kennedy is a well-known meddler and puppeteer in the child agencies that work under his umbrella. So long science and facts. Hello conspiracy theories and culture war. Good times. Make Sure You Buy Your N95 Grade Tinfoil Helmet Speaking at the CHD event, you can really get a sense of just how much solid-footing that group has around vaccine science by examining what else the group is interested in. And for that, we can look at what else Kennedy spoke about outside of vaccine policy. Ah, yes, EMF and chemtrails. Now we know we’re dealing with very serious people. EMF conspiracy theories have largely centered on claims that the radiation levels and frequencies of WiFi signals and phone data signals are harmful to those exposed to them. That would be — checks notes — pretty much fucking everyone at this point. The scientific consensus on this sort of thing is quite clear: there is no evidence to suggest that exposure to wireless and 5G signals have any measurable health impact on people and, in fact, those signals don’t contain enough energy to have such an impact. Kennedy wants to study it more. And if he could be trusted to be an honest broker in any of this, I’d only have a mild problem with a waste of taxpayer funds like this. But Kennedy has proven to be a serial liar who is all too happy to put his thumb on the scales of science to get the outcome he wants. He may as well be spending tax money to study the existence of the Easter Bunny. As for chemtrails, this has been another long-time passion of Kennedy’s, which should inform you just how far back his departure from reality goes. Chemtrails just simply aren’t a thing. Contrails are, which is when exhaust from plane engines collides with the freezing temperatures at high-altitude and then condenses into ice and eventually clouds of moisture. But the chemtrail claim is that something is being released from commercial planes of a chemical nature that is intentionally dumped onto unsuspecting Americans to do… something. What that something is can vary from conspiracy theorist to conspiracy theorist, because none of this is actual science. If you’d like to know why Kennedy is particularly interested in chemtrails, well, the potential chemicals being released per these theories are chemicals for weather manipulation (meh), sterilizing agents for population control (unlikely to be that interesting to Kennedy), chemicals that allow for government mind-control (doubtful on this one, what’s next?), and spreading either illnesses, secret vaccines, or both (ding ding ding!) There’s no reason to believe any of this is occurring. There’s no reason to spend taxpayer money to study it further. But it is a very useful barometer for just how serious the people at CHD are about science, medicine, and basic reality. The answer is they are deeply unserious. As is Kennedy. Each of the four sections above could have been its own post, as there are more details to get into for each of them. But I think it’s also useful to see them all mashed together so you can get an idea of just how much bullshit and chaos this one man is being allowed to spread over the course of a single day. As I’ve promised to put on repeat: Get him out of office by any and all peaceful and legal means. Filed Under: anti-vaxxers, cdc, chemtrails, hhs, measles, rfk jr., vaccines Companies: children's health defense Comments on “RFK Jr. Assclown Jambaroo: Anti-Vaxxer Bullshit, A New Panel Of Misfits, EMFs, & Chemtrails, Oh My!” The damage Trump and the GOP have done to pretty much every public institution worth a good god’s damn could end up lasting a generation. Even if the next president manages to rebuild all these institutions into something resembling what they were before Trump, the trust they held with the general public won’t be fixed for years, if not decades. And that assumes Democrats will be able to rebuild those institutions and put some kind of safeguards in place to prevent the kind of partisan hackery that the GOP allowed Trump to indulge in. Re: I never figured you for an optimist.