Health News that Trump Doesn't Want You To Know

[KaraBulut]

Meanwhile, back in the world of epidemiology...

The US has been in the midst of a human influenza outbreak for about 4 weeks now.

And guess what the CDC just did?

Amid worst U.S. flu season in decades, RFK Jr.–led CDC pulls vaccine campaign | Fortune Well

Last season’s flu vaccine prevented 9.8 million illnesses and 7,900 deaths nationwide, the CDC says.

fortune.com

Amid worst U.S. flu season in decades, RFK Jr.–led CDC pulls vaccine campaign

Yes, seasonal flu shots are still available, and no, it’s not too late to get yours. But you’d be forgiven for being confused, because the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has halted one of its educational flu vaccine campaigns.

The agency’s Wild to Mild initiative, launched at the start of the 2023–24 flu season, aimed to inform the public that while getting immunized against the flu doesn’t guarantee you won’t catch an influenza virus, it can protect you from severe illness, hospitalization, and death. With the catchphrase “A flu vaccine can take flu from wild to mild,” the campaign’s marketing materials featured hulking, wild animals juxtaposed against domesticated, sometimes stuffed, counterparts, such as a blowfish versus a goldfish. Wild to Mild targeted high-risk groups in particular, including children and pregnant people, whose vaccination rates had suffered during the COVID-19 pandemic.

 

[KaraBulut]

Last Fall, the Biden Administration renewed the free COVID tests program (covidtests.gov) that offered two free COVID test kits that were delivered by the USPS.

Last week, HHS announced that it was planning to destroy $500 million in COVID tests that were in the national stockpile. These tests had already been purchased and paid for.

U.S. weighs destroying $500 million in stockpiled covid tests

Washington Post The government is reviewing proposals to shut down the program that ships free covid tests to American households and is considering destroying 160 million tests. The Trump administ…

www.unmc.edu

The government is reviewing proposals to shut down the program that ships free covid tests to American households and is considering destroying 160 million tests. The Trump administration has been evaluating the costs of destroying or disposing of tens of millions of coronavirus tests that would otherwise be provided free to Americans, according to two officials at a federal public health preparedness agency and internal documents reviewed by The Washington Post.

Internal documents show that officials in the Department of Health and Human Services have been considering two options: either disposing of or continuing to ship more than 160 million tests, valued at more than half a billion dollars. Only a small fraction of the tests are expired, according to the officials.

After a public outcry, the Administration backed off on a plan to discontinue the free test program and has not destroyed the tests... yet.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2025/02/18/trump-administration-covid-tests-stockpile/

 

[KaraBulut]

Saturday's update: 99 cases- 90 cases in Texas and 9 cases in New Mexico. Word is that there are more cases that haven't been reported to the States or are waiting on lab confirmation. The majority of cases -upwards of 80% have been in unvaccinated children, 16 of whom required hospitalization. There have also been reports of a few cases in people who said they had been vaccinated.

The outbreak has also crossed the border to Mexico.

Four days later. 124 cases now.

Well, we are back in the 1950s with McCarthyism and a crazy Congress.

And kids dying of the measles.

https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/26/health/texas-measles-death/index.html

A person who was hospitalized with measles has died from measles in West Texas, the first death in an outbreak that began late last month.

Lubbock city spokesperson Lauren Adams confirmed the death Wednesday. It wasn’t clear the age of the patient, who died overnight.

Covenant Children’s Hospital in Lubbock didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

 

[rareboy]

RFKjr just shrugged the death off, saying "We have measles outbreaks all the time".

This was the first death in 10 years.

 

[KaraBulut]

Here's what he said. Most of it was inaccurate or misinformation.

This is why RFK Jr is such a disasterous choice for that position: he had NO understanding of the basics of public health. With a disease like measles, herd immunity must be >95% to prevent epidemics. One unvaccinated person can infect 10-12 unvaccinated people.

RFK Jr dismissed the problem as being related to the Mennonite community in that county of Texas. Mennonites are Anabaptists and Anabaptists are not opposed to vaccination. The epidemic might have started with the Mennonite community but it has already spread to Mexico, New Mexico and adjacent counties in Texas.

The problem is that the state of Texas has allowed broad and liberal public school vacccine exemptions for "reasons of conscience". If the State mandated the vaccines and allowed only medical exemptions, these children in the Mennonite community would have been protected and one of those children would have been alive today. The county in Texas where this started had a 14% vaccine exemption rate in their public schools- that is the problem.

The story of measles in five charts

Measles vaccines have had a massive impact on public health, but there’s still a way to go before everyone is protected.

www.gavi.org

 

[rareboy]

I just keep thinking how we lucked out as kids contracting measles before vaccines... but I seem to remember that in one of the outbreaks some child in our village died.

The break-out has also hit Ontario as it will other states and provinces because people travel.

 

[rareboy]

And Meanwhile in Canuckistan...where the anti-vax nonsense promoted by the Kremlin troll farms and the American grifters and anti-vax freaks like RFK for the last decade have had an effect.

 

[KaraBulut]

CDC has a team of epidemiologists and public health experts based out of Atlanta who travel to remote parts of the world that are experiencing outbreaks of infectious disease.

Since professional golfer Donald Trump and President Musk have constrained the CDC and pulled the US out of WHO, we have no information about an outbreak of hemorrhagic fever in the Congo that broke out last week. Estimates are that 425 have gotten sick and over 50 people have already died.

The CDC "go team" sets up testing at airports and train stations to screen people who might be infected. Since that team has been grounded and we are no longer part of WHO, we are uncertain whether infected people are being allowed to travel outside high risk areas.

Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever

WHO fact sheet on Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever: includes key facts, definition, signs and symptoms, transmission, diagnosis, treatment, prevention and control, WHO response.

www.who.int

Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever (CCHF) is a widespread disease caused by a tick-borne virus (Nairovirus) of the Bunyaviridae family. The CCHF virus causes severe viral haemorrhagic fever outbreaks, with a case fatality rate of 10–40%...

The CCHF virus is transmitted to people either by tick bites or through contact with infected animal blood or tissues during and immediately after slaughter. The majority of cases have occurred in people involved in the livestock industry, such as agricultural workers, slaughterhouse workers and veterinarians.

Human-to-human transmission can occur resulting from close contact with the blood, secretions, organs or other bodily fluids of infected persons. Hospital-acquired infections can also occur due to improper sterilization of medical equipment, reuse of needles and contamination of medical supplies.

 

[KaraBulut]

CCHF is the third concurrent hemorrhagic fever in Africa: there's an Ebola outbreak in Uganda, a Marburg virus in Tanzania and now the CCHF in the Congo.

Remember a few years ago when there was an Ebola outbreak? Remember airports and customs screened people and took their temperature? Remember doctor's offices and hospitals would routinely ask if you had recent travels outside of the US? None of that is happening because we're not getting guidance from HHS, CDC or DHS.

 

[KaraBulut]

Every few months, a group of senior scientists meet and discuss the flu epidemic. The meetings are open to the public and to the press. The experts discuss which strains have been in circulation. They review whether the last year's vaccine was effective. They make recommendations to the vaccine makers for what they anticipate will be the dominant strains in the next flu season.

The Trump Administration has canceled all of those meetings. They have decided that they don't need experts or public hearings. The Trump Administration think that they know better than the vaccine experts.

FDA cancels meeting to select flu strains for next season's shots

The meeting was canceled just days after a CDC vaccine advisory committee meeting was abruptly postponed.

www.nbcnews.com

FDA cancels meeting to select flu strains for next season's shots
The meeting was canceled just days after a CDC vaccine advisory committee meeting was abruptly postponed.
A Food and Drug Administration vaccine advisory committee meeting scheduled for March to select the strains to be included in next season’s flu shot has been canceled, a panel member said Wednesday.

Federal health officials notified members of the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee of the cancellation in an email Wednesday afternoon, said committee member Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

The email, Offit said, offered no explanation for the scrapped meeting.

 

[bendted]

Why? Are these meetings too expensive or do they consider them to be woke - I guess? Makes absolutely no sense whatsoever on any level.

 

[rareboy]

Meanwhile...for some bizarre reason, TrumpCo. are determined to destroy the United States' pre-eminence in medical research....with thousands of the best and brightest being cast aside at the NIH.

I have not seen much on where these scientists are hoping to land. Obviously all the Title 42 Visa holders will likely have to return to their home countries and at the moment, I doubt if other institutions have the funding available to suddenly add a lot more to their existing programs.

https://www.science.org/content/article/nih-ban-renewing-senior-scientists-adds-assaults-its-house-research

 

[cityboy-stl]

These people are straight-up evil.

 

[KaraBulut]

Why? Are these meetings too expensive or do they consider them to be woke - I guess? Makes absolutely no sense whatsoever on any level.

It's more likely a manifestation of the "I do my own research" and anti-vaxxer sentiment from Trump's base.

One thing that people forget is that during the pandemic, when States were scrambling to find gloves, gowns, masks, PPE and ventilators, Trump announced that the governors should work it out amongst themselves because it wasn't the Federal government's job. Then when the vaccines were about to deployed, he pronounced that the States should figure out how to get the vaccines and distribute them. Some of that "anti-Federalism" stuff may also be connected to the CDC and FDA actions, although I'm not sure whether that means that every State needs to figure out what they want in their annual flu vaccine.

You know the reason why we don't have a clear answer? Because Trump lied during his campaign and none of this shit was ever mentioned when he was standing on a stage talking about Arnold Palmer's penis or playing YMAC on a loopo. It may be in the Project 2025 book that few people took seriously and Trump said he knew nooooooothing about.

 

[Norri]

These people are straight-up evil.

View attachment 2939406

I think they’re more stupid than evil (I concede I might be wrong) it’s a great example of the intelligent being totally unaware of their ignorance.

 

[KaraBulut]

I think they’re more stupid than evil (I concede I might be wrong) it’s a great example of the intelligent being totally unaware of their ignorance.

"All of the above" is still an option.

 

[KaraBulut]

Four days later. 124 cases now.

2 days later, 149 cases. 20 people hospitalized over the course of the outbreak and thankfully, only 1 dead (so far).

Additional unrelated cases have been found in Georgia (3), California (3), New Jersey (3) and Kentucky (1). All are unvaccinated people.

 

[cityboy-stl]

I think they’re more stupid than evil (I concede I might be wrong) it’s a great example of the intelligent being totally unaware of their ignorance.

I may be wrong as well, but it's really hard for me to believe they are stupid and don't know what they're doing, as well as the consequences of it. They talk all over the place to confuse and divert, but when it comes down to actions and votes, they're all in lock-step with each other. What say means nothing, what they do, is what counts.

 

[cityboy-stl]

San Antonio

'Thousands' possibly exposed to measles in Texas as outbreak grows

At least 146 people have been infected since late January. One child has died.

www.nbcnews.com

"Parts of Central Texas have been monitoring for measles cases ever since an infected person traveled from Gaines County to San Marcos and San Antonio over Valentine’s Day weekend."
“It’s very possible that this person could have come in contact with, if not hundreds, thousands of our community residents, as well as visitors,”

 

[cityboy-stl]

On another note, here in St. Louis, they closed the flight cage and the Bird House at the zoo, and moved as many birds as they can indoors because a wild duck dead from avian flu was found.

Photo of the flight cage. This is awesome to walk through. It was built for the 1904 World's Fair.