cms now stands for coke, miracles & soda
Trump contemplates advanced cancer therapy on Air Force One, also known as a warm Fanta in a Styrofoam cup.
The president of the United States, a man with the nuclear codes and a permanent McDonald’s coupon book, apparently believes diet soda might kill cancer cells because it can kill grass. This revelation comes courtesy of Mehmet Oz — now somehow running the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services — who cheerfully recounted how Trump defended chugging Fanta on Air Force One by declaring, “this stuff’s good for me – it kills cancer cells,” and then suggested it was basically health food because it’s made with “fresh squeezed” orange juice from concentrate. America, your tax dollars are sponsoring a live-action YouTube misinformation reel.
Not to be outdone, Don Jr. nodded along and floated the idea that maybe his dad is “on to something,” citing Trump’s “energy, recall, stamina” as if surviving on Diet Coke and grievance were a peer-reviewed clinical trial. Meanwhile, actual doctors are sprinting to social media to remind people that diet soda does not, in fact, cure cancer — though Trump’s logic does raise the exciting possibility that bleach is a superfood. Physicians have to publicly debunk the commander-in-chief’s lawn-care-based oncology theories while the same health department he controls is re-writing US nutrition guidelines to emphasize “real food.” Sure, real food — as long as it comes in a fountain cup and melts a dandelion.
This is the same brain trust that once mused about injecting disinfectant and shining “powerful light” inside the body, now effectively crowdsourcing public health policy from late-night infomercials and whatever pops into Trump’s head when he sees a commercial. With Dr. Oz at CMS and Trump treating sodas like chemo in a can, the line between federal health guidance and a daytime talk show segment has fully disintegrated. The only thing getting killed here isn’t cancer — it’s scientific credibility.
#anti-science#healthcare#full-stupid
rfk jr runs cdc like a facebook comments section
Robert F Kennedy Jr studies vaccine policy the way most people read YouTube comments: confidently, incorrectly, and with catastrophic consequences.
The Trump administration’s second-term health strategy is finally clear: if you can’t beat infectious diseases, legally disable the people who know how. A federal judge just hit pause on all the vaccine "work" done by the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) — the one hand‑picked by HHS secretary and professional anti-vaxxer Robert F Kennedy Jr — and in the process vaporized official CDC recommendations for current flu shots, Covid boosters, and a new RSV shot for babies. So yes, the world’s richest country has managed to stumble into respiratory virus season with a vibes-based vaccine policy.
Instead of fixing the mess, the administration has produced a fresh one. There’s no confirmed CDC director, ACIP is legally radioactive, and Kennedy technically could issue recommendations himself, assuming he can stop suing vaccines long enough to read the court order. Health officials might also just ignore the judge entirely — a move that, to be fair, is now standard operating procedure for Trump-world whenever the judiciary gets fussy about laws and due process.
States are splintering off, insurers aren’t sure what they’ll cover, pharmacists don’t know what they’re allowed to give, and professional medical organizations are scrambling to fill the void with guidelines based on whatever data they can legally see. Meanwhile, the administration’s big reform is a new ACIP charter that gives more power to groups that treat PubMed like a Deep State psy-op. Public trust in vaccines and the CDC is circling the drain, and experts say the genie of confusion and mistrust is already out of the bottle. Perfect timing, as always, for the next pandemic roll of the dice.
#anti-science#healthcare#killing-democracy
epa now stands for environmental pollution agency
Lee Zeldin tells a ballroom of professional climate deniers that they’re the real victims, moments after they finish cheering the rollback of the EPA’s legal basis for regulating pollution.
While scientists announce that March was the most abnormally hot month in U.S. history, a bunch of middle-aged men in conference lanyards huddle in a D.C. hotel basement to declare that, actually, everything’s fine and CO2 is your friend. The Heartland Institute, a fossil-fuel-funded monument to professional wrongness, throws a climate denial pep rally complete with children’s books minimizing sea level rise and buttons bragging "Unashamed about my carbon footprint" — because nothing says serious policy movement like merch that could double as gag gifts from Spencer’s.
Presiding over this science bonfire is Trump’s EPA administrator Lee Zeldin — also reportedly on the shortlist for attorney general, because this administration views qualifications the way it views emissions limits: something to be repealed. Zeldin uses his keynote to rail against a "cabal" of elites who believed in things like data, while the crowd cheers the repeal of the EPA’s "endangerment finding" — the legal backbone of virtually all U.S. climate rules. Meanwhile, denialist groups brag about getting an ophthalmologist with no air pollution background placed on a crucial EPA science panel, proving the new standard for environmental expertise is "has eyes."
Naomi Oreskes dryly points out that these guys aren’t oppressed outsiders; they’re bankrolled by big oil and Republican megadonors like the Mercers, and now enjoy direct lines into Trump’s White House and Project 2025. Heartland and its friends have already helped kill offshore wind projects, gut climate regulations, and build a government where climate deniers write climate policy. Polls show most Americans — including a big chunk of young Republicans — accept climate reality, but the people in charge are the ones handing out stress balls that say "Don’t stress. There is no climate crisis" as the planet quite literally bakes. Climate denial isn’t just winning the argument in this administration — it’s holding the regulatory pen.
#anti-science#killing-democracy
trump cures autism by giving everyone a headache instead
Trump explaining to doctors that his gut knows more than 1.5 million patient records and several decades of epidemiology.
Science has once again rudely interrupted Donald Trump’s medical fan fiction. A massive Danish study of 1.5 million children finds that taking Tylenol during pregnancy has no link to autism, despite the Trump administration’s months-long crusade to turn a basic pain reliever into the new vaccine bogeyman. Autism rates were actually lower among kids exposed to Tylenol in utero than those who weren’t, which is what happens when you compare reality to whatever Trump free-associated at a podium.
The administration leaned so hard into the Tylenol-autism myth that the FDA began a label change process in 2025 to warn pregnant people about a "potential link" that…doesn’t exist. Trump went on stage and repeatedly told pregnant people not to take Tylenol, except in "extremely high fever" situations where they couldn’t "tough it out"—a bold new public health strategy known as just suffer. Meanwhile, Tylenol use in pregnant ER patients dropped 10%, because nothing says "pro-life" like scaring expectant parents away from safe fever control.
As a bonus, the same circus also announced that leucovorin, a B vitamin, could be used to treat autism—an announcement so scientifically bankrupt it had to be quietly walked back this year. So the Trump team managed a perfect public health trifecta: elevate junk science, weaponize the FDA label to validate it, and push desperate families toward a fake treatment. Regulatory capture, medical misinformation, and cruelty toward pregnant people and autistic kids—all for the price of a bottle of Tylenol.
#anti-science#healthcare#killing-democracy
trump celebrates nasa moonshot, proposes extinction-level budget asteroid
Artemis II splashes down flawlessly as somewhere in Washington, a Trump staffer tries to cancel a mission that already died last year and calls it a bold new space policy.
NASA just pulled off its biggest human spaceflight achievement since Apollo: Artemis II looped around the moon, broke distance records, and splashed down like a training video for competence. Astronauts waxed poetic, engineers cried, the country got one of those rare moments where science, ambition, and basic human awe briefly drown out the daily political sewage.
Enter Donald Trump, logging into Truth Social to praise the "great and very talented" crew while simultaneously pushing what space policy experts are calling "extinction-level" cuts to NASA. He wants a 23% overall slash, including a 46% hit to space science, in a budget proposal so lazy it tries to save money by canceling missions that were already canceled and double-funding telescopes because someone couldn't be bothered to edit the copy-paste. It's less a budget than a cry for help from an administration that lost a fight with Microsoft Word.
NASA administrator Jared Isaacman, whose job apparently now includes pretending the agency can "meet high expectations" while being slowly dismembered, dutifully defends the cuts. Meanwhile, Congress — in a rare outbreak of functional brain activity — has already rejected a nearly identical slash-and-burn proposal once and looks ready to do it again. Space policy experts describe the whole thing as "discordant" and "from an alternate universe", which is a very polite way of saying the White House is trying to gut the very agency it’s using as a patriotic backdrop.
So while Artemis II proves the US can still send humans to the moon and back, the Trump administration is hard at work trying to make sure there’s no functioning NASA left to do it again. America’s astronauts are "ambassadors for humanity"; Trump is the guy airlocking their budget and calling it fiscal responsibility.
#anti-science#killing-democracy
epa chief celebrates burning the mission statement
EPA chief Lee Zeldin addresses a room full of people insisting fire is cold and smoke is good for the lungs.
Lee Zeldin, the guy currently cosplaying as head of the Environmental Protection Agency, just gave the keynote at the Heartland Institute’s climate denial jamboree – the same outfit that once compared climate worriers to the Unabomber on billboards. From the stage, Zeldin declared that well-established climate science is based on “bad, flawed assumptions,” while a roomful of fossil-fuel-funded contrarians nodded along like they’d just discovered gravity. Heartland, naturally, has been bankrolled by Shell, Exxon, and the Mercer family, and helped write Project 2025 – so yes, this is less a conference and more a shareholder meeting for planet-wrecking.
Under Trump 2.0, Zeldin has been busy turning the EPA into the Environmental Pollution Acceleration agency: exempting dirty facilities from rules, shuttering climate research offices, gutting the workforce, and rolling back dozens of protections for air, water, and, minor detail, a livable climate. His proudest achievement? Helping shred the EPA’s “endangerment finding,” the legal backbone of nearly all US climate regulations, while Heartland cheers that carbon dioxide is “not a pollutant and never was.” Meanwhile, scientists, public health groups, and anyone who enjoys breathing are pointing out that this isn’t “climate realism” – it’s regulatory arson.
Zeldin framed the entire scientific community as a “cabal” of “biggest grifters” who cruelly insist on things like data and physics, as he stood at an event literally sponsored by oil money and Project 2025 architects. He insists this demolition of environmental safeguards is exactly what Americans voted for when they put Donald J. Trump back in office – a refreshing bit of honesty that yes, the plan is to torch climate policy, mock the consequences, and call it freedom while the planet cooks.
#anti-science#forever-grifting
trump sees the dark side of the moon and decides to defund it
Artemis II: four astronauts orbit the moon while back on Earth one orange man tries to orbit reality itself.
NASA sends four astronauts around the far side of the moon to inspire humanity, deepen our sense of planetary fragility, and advance science. Donald Trump responds by yanking the US out of the Paris climate agreement for the second time and trying to kneecap NASA’s budget, because nothing says “visionary leadership” like betting against both Earth and science in the same fiscal year.
The Guardian notes that Artemis II only survived thanks to a rare moment of bipartisan clarity in Congress, which briefly remembered that space exploration is more useful than yet another tax break for whichever oligarch texted Trump last. While Christina Koch is up there talking about Earth’s miraculous generosity, Trump is down here radiating what the editorial politely calls “murderous bellicosity” and less politely resembles a man who saw the overview effect and chose the eviction notice instead.
The piece worries that a £100bn moon program can become a shiny distraction from not torching the one planet we already have, especially when it’s framed as a billionaire space race and a US–China resource grab, complete with plans to drop a nuclear reactor on the moon by 2030. Still, the editorial gives credit where it’s due: to the scientists and astronauts, not the White House currently trying to turn climate policy into a bonfire and foreign policy into a threat reel.
#anti-science#killing-democracy
anti-vax admin hits mute when the polls look bad
RFK Jr stares thoughtfully into the distance, presumably searching for the last remaining vaccinated child to blame for everything since 2005.
The Trump–RFK Jr health regime spent a year taking a sledgehammer to the childhood vaccine schedule — killing recommendations for flu, rotavirus, RSV and even hepatitis B at birth — then suddenly discovered the healing power of shutting up once their own pollsters told them that, shockingly, most Americans don’t want their kids catching preventable diseases. One-third of the childhood schedule gets slashed, a federal judge basically nukes the changes, and the same people who bragged about "Make America healthy again" are now treating vaccines like Voldemort: that-which-must-not-be-named before the midterms.
At CPAC, HHS secretary and professional autism-conspiracy enthusiast RFK Jr somehow managed a 30-minute "fireside chat" without saying the v-word once, downgrading his lifelong crusade to some vague rant about cell phones and social media. The man who helped gut vaccine recommendations now talks about flipping the food pyramid and banning food dyes, while his allies outside government keep saying the quiet part extremely loud — from calling for the elimination of the entire childhood vaccine schedule to bragging "we’re winning" as measles and other preventable diseases make a comeback. Inside the administration, it’s all poll-tested euphemisms about "chronic disease"; outside, it’s open season on immunizations.
Meanwhile, actual epidemiologists point out the small downside of turning public health into a campaign strategy: people will die. But the Trump–Maha brain trust has decided that if vaccines are unpopular with swing voters in 35 competitive districts, then the plan is simple — keep wrecking the system, just stop talking about it onstage. It’s not public health, it’s vibes-based biopolitics: sabotage in the agencies, denial at CPAC, and a country quietly marched backwards on infectious disease so the president’s poll numbers don’t catch anything contagious.
#anti-science#killing-democracy#forever-grifting
make america clogged again
Trump’s ‘Make America Healthy Again’ food pyramid, which is just a cow wearing an American flag, glaring at a salad.
The American Heart Association has released new nutrition guidance saying the radical, woke, extremist thing that decades of science already said: eat more plants, less red meat, fewer ultraprocessed foods, and maybe don’t chase every meal with a glass of melted cheese. In a plot twist no one saw coming, this happens to conflict with Donald Trump’s government, which has been busy issuing its own “Make America Healthy Again” guidelines that somehow translate to: more animal protein, full‑fat dairy for everyone, and a special shout‑out to beef tallow like it’s a founding father.
While Trump and Health Secretary RFK Jr are out here crusading against seed oils and synthetic dyes like they’re the Sole Root Cause of All American Illness, the AHA is gently pointing out that maybe, just maybe, hosing your arteries with saturated fat and red meat isn’t the road to national vitality. The AHA wants legumes, nuts, seeds, low‑fat dairy, unsaturated fats, low salt, less booze, and heart‑healthy habits starting at age one. The federal line, meanwhile, is veering toward a taxpayer‑funded meat lobby infomercial with a side of pseudoscience.
The FDA, clearly trying to avoid being dragged into the food culture war Thunderdome, quietly notes that it’s actually aligned with the AHA on the major points and is looking forward to working together. So on one side: cardiologists, long‑term data, and public health. On the other: a president who sells red hats and red meat as a lifestyle brand, plus RFK Jr doing wellness cosplay while the administration’s own recommendations undercut the very heart health they claim to be championing. Make America Healthy Again, apparently, means keep the base angry at broccoli while the arteries do the real protesting.
#anti-science#forever-grifting
rfk jr turns hhs into the home shopping network for sketchy peptides
Robert F Kennedy Jr proudly unveiling his new public health strategy: a dartboard, a syringe, and a coupon code for Chinese research chemicals.
US health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr has discovered a bold new frontier in public health: letting wellness hucksters and Silicon Valley bio-bros run the show while the FDA sits quietly in the corner and thinks about what it’s done. Under his Make America Healthy Again (because of course that’s the name) agenda, boring things like proven vaccines and safety standards are treated as tyrannical oppression, while chugging raw milk and injecting barely-studied peptides you bought off a sketchy website are rebranded as heroic “personal choice”.
His latest brainstorm: opening up the sale of “about 14” injectable peptide drugs that the FDA restricted in 2023 for “potential significant safety risks” and zero demonstrated benefit. Some peptides are medicines, some are basically snake venom that melts your cells, but RFK Jr’s plan is to blur that line and call it freedom. Who needs rigorous clinical trials when you’ve got anecdotes, biohacking podcasts, and a booming market for vials labeled “for research use only” being mainlined in Silicon Valley bathrooms?
The Maha project doesn’t just tolerate the peptide grey market; it wants to make the grey market the market. The goal isn’t to prove these drugs safe or effective, it’s to dismantle the FDA’s ability to say no so pharmacies, enhancement-obsessed sports outfits, and assorted wellness profiteers can cash in. Generations of public health policy built on the precautionary principle are being swapped out for a national experiment in crowd-sourced medicine where the control group is ‘other countries that don’t let their health minister legislate off Reddit threads’.
So while normal governments are still insisting on things like evidence and regulation, RFK Jr is happily turning federal health policy into a libertarian theme park where every American can be their own underfunded clinical trial. The administration calls it autonomy. The peptide sellers call it a business opportunity. The rest of us can call it what it is: public health by huckster, with the Health and Human Services seal slapped on the bottle for decoration.
#anti-science#forever-grifting
america’s leading artisanal disease factory still open for business
Pictured: a proud American entrepreneur standing between his cows and the concept of basic public health.
Raw Farm in Fresno, the nation’s premier boutique supplier of pathogens with a side of protein, has now been linked to an E. coli O157:H7 outbreak from raw cheddar cheese that’s sickened nine people across three states, more than half of them kids under five. One child has already developed hemolytic uremic syndrome, the kind that can lead to kidney failure, but don’t worry, the free market is on the case.
This is the same Raw Farm that was previously connected to H5N1 bird flu in cats in 2024, and also to the largest salmonella outbreak in more than a decade — at least 165 people sickened. So naturally, instead of being shut down or hit with a mandatory recall, the company’s president, Aaron McAfee, is out here telling NBC he won’t voluntarily recall anything without "direct proof" while boasting that 81 retail samples tested negative. Meanwhile, the FDA, mighty guardian of the food supply, has heroically recommended a voluntary recall and issued an "outbreak advisory" asking people to consider not eating the cheese.
Regulators are "investigating" and the CDC is politely suggesting you maybe avoid the product that keeps ending up in outbreak reports and scrub your kitchen like a crime scene if it touched this stuff. Raw Farm keeps operating, kids keep landing in hospitals, and the federal government’s response is essentially: "We asked nicely." America: where corporations get infinite do-overs and toddlers get kidney damage.
#anti-science#healthcare#forever-grifting
trump, rfk jr, and the miracle b vitamin that cures science
Trump and RFK Jr announcing that autism can be fixed with a B vitamin, while evidence, ethics, and basic neurology are escorted out of the building by security.
Trump and RFK Jr decided to cosplay as neurologists and announced that leucovorin, a folinic acid (read: fancy B vitamin), was basically the first FDA-recognized treatment for autism and that autism might be "entirely preventable". The FDA commissioner Marty Makary happily joined the magic show, bragging on C‑SPAN and podcasts that 50–60% of autistic kids could see clinical improvement and that "hundreds of thousands" would benefit. Parents, understandably desperate and misled by their own government, rushed to doctors, and leucovorin prescriptions for kids 5–17 promptly jumped 71%.
Then reality, like a very boring but necessary friend, showed up. The biggest leucovorin-for-autism study (a grand total of 77 kids) was retracted in January when re-analysis couldn't reproduce the results. Other studies were tiny and badly blinded. The American Academy of Pediatrics publicly said the evidence is too thin to recommend it. Even Richard Frye, the doctor whose work inspired the idea, was stunned the administration basically greenlit it "without more studies or anything". Meanwhile, neurodevelopmental specialists were left debating whether they should start doing spinal taps on kids to chase a rare folate deficiency that merely resembles autism.
So on 10 March, the FDA quietly backed away from the cliff and approved leucovorin only for cerebral folate deficiency – a very rare condition that can have "autistic features" – while pretending that months of hype about an autism breakthrough never happened. Doctors like William Graf and Leon Epstein are now saying the quiet part out loud: giving treatments without evidence is unethical, this was "almost like public deception", and the real result is that people learn they can't trust public health officials who treat science like a campaign prop. Also helpful: at the same time this crowd is selling vitamin-based miracle cures, they're slashing Medicaid and autism services and pulling FDA warnings about dangerous bogus autism therapies. Why fund real support when you can just announce that autism is optional now?
#anti-science#healthcare#killing-democracy
trump’s ambassador watches rfk jr play measles roulette in samoa
Donald Trump and Ivanka politely endure Scott Brown’s remarks, presumably unaware that a few years later he’ll be the Trump-era ambassador quietly adjacent to an RFK Jr anti-vax tour that precedes a lethal measles outbreak. Presidential personnel office really nailed this one.
Trump’s former New Zealand/Samoa ambassador Scott Brown – the guy who turned his New Hampshire backyard into a GOP petting zoo – turns out to have been well-briefed that Robert F Kennedy Jr’s 2019 Samoa trip was all about his anti-vaccine crusade. State department emails show Brown was alerted that Kennedy was heading into a country where vaccination rates had cratered, two babies had just died from a botched MMR shot, and public trust was hanging by a thread. Perfect time to fly in America’s leading anti-vax conspiracy salesman for a little informal diplomacy.
While the deputy chief of mission scrambled to keep the embassy’s fingerprints off the visit, Brown stayed in the loop as Kennedy’s presence helped validate local anti-vaxxers. Months later, Samoa was slammed by a measles outbreak that killed 83 people, mostly children under five. Kennedy has since claimed he had “nothing to do with people not vaccinating” and that the trip had “nothing to do with vaccines” – testimony that newly released emails now suggest was, at best, creative writing and, at worst, lying to the Senate by the sitting US health secretary.
The punchline: Brown later boasts about helping Kennedy prep for those same confirmation hearings, while running for Senate himself in a cycle where Republicans are suddenly terrified that the anti-vax monster they fed might eat their midterms. The Trump administration’s legacy lives on: a health secretary accused of misleading Congress about a trip that helped supercharge a deadly outbreak, and a Trump ambassador who watched the whole thing unfold from the diplomatic balcony and now wants a promotion.
#anti-science#lawlessness#forever-grifting
trump tries to shiv colorado by smashing its climate lab
The National Center for Atmospheric Research, seen here moments before the administration decides weather forecasting is too woke and should be replaced with Trump’s gut instinct and a Magic 8-Ball.
The Trump administration has apparently decided that if it can’t stop wildfires, hurricanes, and extreme weather, it can at least defund the people who study them. A new lawsuit from the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR) says the White House is trying to dismantle the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) — the country’s largest federal climate and weather research lab — as collateral damage in Trump’s personal feud with Colorado Gov. Jared Polis. Because nothing says serious national leadership like using hurricane modeling and wildfire forecasting as hostages in your anti-mail-voting revenge tour.
According to the complaint, Trump got mad that Colorado wouldn’t ban mail-in voting or spring a convicted election-tampering county clerk from prison, so the administration allegedly launched a “campaign of punishment and coercion” against the state. That includes trying to break up NCAR, slapping gag orders on scientists so they can’t talk to the public, canceling multimillion-dollar climate adaptation grants, and yanking NCAR’s supercomputing facility out of UCAR’s control. The National Science Foundation even put out a notice basically asking, "Hey, anyone want Boulder’s premier climate campus for some other use?" — as if it’s a strip mall, not critical weather infrastructure.
This is all part of a bigger tantrum, per related lawsuits: moving U.S. Space Command out of Colorado, axing $109 million in transportation funds, and slapping extra SNAP requirements on low-income residents, ostensibly over “fraud” but actually, the state argues, to punish them for not playing along with election denial cosplay. A federal judge already called BS on the SNAP stunt and blocked it. Now UCAR is asking the court to stop the administration from gutting NCAR’s funding, supercomputers, and staff — you know, the 1,400 people who do things like hurricane forecasting, wildfire monitoring, and space weather modeling that protect lives and infrastructure.
UCAR warns that this politically motivated wrecking ball “poses a direct threat to national security, public safety, and economic prosperity,” which is a very polite way of saying: Trump is so obsessed with punishing a blue state over mail ballots and an election-crimes conviction that he’s willing to kneecap America’s top climate and weather lab during an era of historic climate disasters. The message from the administration is clear: fall in line with the Big Lie, or we’ll turn your climate research center into a parking lot and sell the supercomputer for parts.
#anti-science#killing-democracy
health secretary rfk jr helps america catch freedom, e coli
Health Secretary RFK Jr bravely defends Americans’ right to wash down their conspiracy theories with a tall glass of E. coli.
The country’s largest raw milk distributor, charmingly named Raw Farm, has been linked by the FDA to a multi-state E. coli O157:H7 outbreak that mostly hit kids three and under, because of course it did. Seven people got sick across California, Florida, and Texas, but the company’s response is to SCREAM IN ALL CAPS that they “100% DISAGREE” with the FDA’s "false possible link" — a phrase that really captures the spiritual core of this administration’s relationship with science. Voluntary recall? That’s for people who don’t believe in rugged individualism and acute kidney failure.
This is the same Raw Farm whose products California had to recall in 2024 after retail samples tested positive for bird flu. So naturally, in the Biden-Trump unity cosplay administration, this is the moment Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr — a man who treats public health like a YouTube comment section — steps in to loudly champion raw milk and pledge support for the farmers selling it. The CEO of Raw Farm, Mark McAfee, proudly notes that RFK Jr is a longtime customer, which is definitely what you want to hear about the cabinet official allegedly in charge of disease prevention, not the hype man for your local pathogen co-op.
The CDC has spent years telling Americans to avoid raw milk because it’s more likely to contain dangerous bacteria. The administration’s response? Put a raw-milk evangelist in charge of federal health policy and let him boost a company already linked to E. coli and bird flu. Regulatory capture used to be about corporations quietly writing the rules behind closed doors; now it’s just the Health Secretary yelling "DRINK UP" while the FDA whispers from the corner that maybe feeding toddlers unpasteurized plague juice is bad.
#anti-science#killing-democracy
trump’s anti-vax clown car loses a wheel. again.
FDA headquarters, where vaccine policy is decided by a fight between biotech lobbyists and Trump’s in-house anti-vax evangelist.
The Trump administration’s vaccine chief, Dr Vinay Prasad, is being launched out of the FDA for the second time in under a year, which is what passes for a stable regulatory environment in Trumpworld. FDA commissioner Marty Makary told staff that Prasad will "return" to his academic job at UCSF, a polite way of saying: congratulations, you’ve been promoted back to a real institution.
Prasad’s brief career as vaccine czar has been one long collision between science, biotech lobbying, and the Trump–RFK Jr anti-vax fanfiction universe. He helped Makary push faster, easier drug reviews for companies, then turned around and slapped extra warnings and study requirements on some biotech drugs and, of course, Covid vaccines — the sacred hate-totem of health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr, who spent years attacking vaccines before being put in charge of, checks notes, national health policy.
Last July, Prasad was already forced out once after annoying biotech execs, patient groups, and Trump’s conservative allies, only to be yanked back into the building less than two weeks later with RFK Jr and Makary riding to his rescue. Now he’s out again, leaving behind an FDA where drug approvals are simultaneously sped up for industry and politically kneecapped for vaccines. Regulatory science has been replaced with a choose-your-own-adventure written by lobbyists and anti-vaxxers, and the punchline is public health.
#anti-science#healthcare#killing-democracy
trump takes on big tylenol, pregnant women lose
President Trump, flanked by RFK Jr. and Mehmet Oz, announces that Tylenol is canceled and the new Surgeon General is a YouTube comment section.
President Donald Trump looked at decades of obstetric research and said: "No thanks, I’ll go with vibes." At a Sept. 22 press conference, he told pregnant women to "fight like hell" not to take Tylenol and declared the FDA would warn doctors about a supposed autism risk that robust evidence does not support. The actual FDA letter called the topic an "ongoing area of scientific debate," and a major analysis has since found no link between Tylenol in pregnancy and autism. But Trump’s medical degree from Facebook University was already issued, so here we are.
Researchers from Harvard and Brown then checked what happens when the president freelances as your OB-GYN. Using ER records, they found Tylenol (paracetamol) orders for pregnant patients dropped 10% after Trump’s comments, while non-pregnant women’s orders didn’t budge. One of the few pain and fever meds ACOG says is actually safe in pregnancy suddenly became suspect, in a population where untreated fever itself increases the risk of birth defects. So the self-proclaimed pro-life movement is now… encouraging pregnant women to white-knuckle high fevers because Donald Trump and RFK Jr. got bored one afternoon.
While he was scaring pregnant women off a safe drug, Trump was also upselling leucovorin, a chemotherapy-adjacent folate drug he hyped as an autism treatment. New leucovorin prescriptions for kids 5–17 jumped 71% after his little infomercial, despite the American Academy of Pediatrics saying the evidence is nowhere near ready for prime time. It’s typically used with cancer patients and for a rare condition called cerebral folate deficiency, but sure, let’s toss it at autistic kids because the president heard about a couple of small overseas trials. Evidence-based medicine is for losers; real patriots chase unproven cures while making proven ones politically radioactive.
So the administration’s health policy continues its core philosophy: ignore experts, terrify vulnerable people, juice demand for speculative treatments, and call it freedom. Pregnant women are now stuck choosing between a fever that can harm their baby and defying the president’s medical fan fiction. Meanwhile, the FDA is left updating labels and cleaning up the mess from yet another Trump press conference that turned into a live-action experiment in how fast you can erode public trust in science.
#anti-science#healthcare#killing-democracy
trump admin discovers herd immunity, forgets the 'immunity' part
CDC headquarters, now specializing in vibes-based epidemiology and post-hoc thoughts and prayers.
The Trump administration has apparently decided that measles is just America’s new roommate. A senior CDC official, Dr Ralph Abraham, helpfully described the surge in cases and child deaths as the “cost of doing business”, which is a bold way to talk about a disease we basically eradicated before MAGA discovered YouTube wellness influencers. Abraham then resigned, presumably to spend more time with his talking points about how we “can’t rely exclusively on vaccination” while 94% of cases are in the unvaccinated or mystery-status crowd.
Meanwhile, CDC social media has gone from public health watchdog to witness protection program. Instead of clear outbreak alerts, they managed a rare post scolding people for calling this an American policy failure, then put out a vaccine video that somehow forgot to mention the word "vaccine" in the text. That’s not messaging, that’s performance art. Experts say the real story is the administration’s massive cuts to CDC funding and disease surveillance, which have slowed reporting, crippled outbreak tracking, and left the country flying blind while case counts blow past 1,000 and fatalities quietly stack up.
Congress finally tried to patch the holes by restoring much of the CDC’s money, so the White House responded by looking for other ways to yank hundreds of millions from state and local health departments. Also on the chopping block: wastewater surveillance, which is one of the cheapest, most effective early-warning systems we have. The administration wants to slash that from $125m to $25m, because why invest in detecting measles when you can just call deaths a rounding error? As one expert put it, if we just vaccinated kids, we wouldn’t need all this extra surveillance. But that would require a government that prefers science over Facebook grifters and doesn’t treat child mortality as a line item.
#anti-science#healthcare#killing-democracy
trump, rfk jr, and the great measles comeback tour
Surgeon General tries to explain basic vaccines on live TV while the administration’s anti-vax arsonists hose the CDC down with gasoline just off-camera.
The Trump administration handed the CDC’s vaccine program to RFK Jr., an anti-vaccine crusader whose medical expertise begins and ends with YouTube comments. He promptly fired all 17 members of the agency’s vaccine advisory committee and replaced them with vaccine skeptics, then helped the CDC quietly drop recommendations that babies be protected against hepatitis A, hepatitis B, RSV, dengue and multiple forms of meningitis. Because if there’s one thing America needed in 2026, it’s more viruses and fewer scientists.
Now states are sprinting away from the federal government like it’s coughing on them in a crowded elevator. At least 28 states have broken from the new CDC guidance, with places like Colorado, Alaska, California, Illinois, Maryland and Vermont trying to keep childhood shots free and protect doctors from being sued into oblivion by anti-vax lawfare groups. Colorado’s bill would even let providers follow the American Academy of Pediatrics instead of RFK Jr.’s Science Denial Fan Club, while expanding liability protections so health workers aren’t punished for giving, you know, proven vaccines.
The result: the country’s vaccine policy is fracturing because the federal government has decided that decades of evidence-based medicine should take a back seat to Trump’s favorite conspiracy podcaster. Major medical groups are begging people to keep vaccinating their kids against 18 diseases, Mehmet Oz is on CNN pleading “take the vaccine, please,” and states are trying to duct-tape together a functioning public health system while the White House promotes an "Eat Real Food" campaign as if organic broccoli can stop measles. This administration has essentially turned childhood immunization into a 50-state choose-your-own-adventure, except the wrong choice ends with a PICU bed.
#anti-science#killing-democracy
trump makes america great again by poisoning kids for 27 coal plants
Trump, surrounded by coal helmets, proudly accepting an award for "beautiful clean coal" while quietly handing out reply-all pollution waivers like party favors.
Turns out nearly every coal plant in America could meet stricter limits on mercury, lead, and arsenic that literally prevent brain damage in children. So naturally, the Trump administration took one look at that success and decided to torch the standards anyway, because a couple dozen of the dirtiest plants in places like Wyoming, Texas, and West Virginia might have had to install filters. Can’t have kids keeping their IQ points if it inconveniences a few aging smokestacks.
The Environmental Protection Agency, now run by Lee Zeldin, helpfully declared that protecting brains, hearts, and lungs would "destroy reliable American energy" and impose "massive costs"—a fascinating conclusion given the EPA’s own prior analysis showed only 27 plants out of about 219 needed upgrades at all. Instead, Trump’s team offered coal barons the regulatory equivalent of a grocery store loyalty card: just send an email to the president for an "emergency" pollution waiver. All 71 requests were approved, some for longer than operators even asked for, including plants that admitted they already had the tech to comply.
While being ceremonially crowned "undisputed champion of beautiful clean coal" at the White House, Trump forced uneconomic coal plants to stay open, ordered the Pentagon to buy coal power, scrapped a key scientific finding that greenhouse gases harm human health, and then bragged in the State of the Union that his energy policies lowered household costs as electricity prices went up. The administration now claims that gutting Biden’s 2024 mercury rules simply restores the "highly effective" 2012 standards, which is an elegant way of saying: we know how to protect public health better, we just choose not to. Reliable energy, sure—if you don’t mind the side effect of cooked lungs and damaged brains.
#anti-science#forever-grifting#killing-democracy
