Health News that Trump Doesn't Want You To Know

[rareboy]

Meanwhile...Texas is going back to the late 1950's. Measles parties.

Texas official warns against “measles parties” as outbreak keeps growing

Twenty people have been hospitalized. Most cases are in children.

arstechnica.com

 

[KaraBulut]

San Antonio

I saw a briefing from one of the health departments in Texas where they commented that, overall the district had a 95% MMR vaccination rate. But when they looked at children entering school after the pandemic, the number drops to 88% of the children being vaccinated.

The anti-vax movement, particularly around the false claims around the MMR vaccine, started with progressives and affluent families, where it was considered to be a "fringe issue". During the pandemic, it was super-charged by MAGA, who equated refusal to get vaccines with anti-Biden resistance against COVID vaccine mandates. This has been exploited by Trump as a political issue and it has now been mainstreamed to the point that measles is something we have to worry about for the first time since 1963.

Why the COVID Deniers Won

Lessons from the pandemic and its aftermath

www.theatlantic.com

 

[LilBit]

And now RFK Jr is suspending public comment on HHS rulemaking: https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/5170090-rfk-jr-hhs-public-comment-rulemaking-ends/

 

[Norri]

Transparency is a challenging word for a few of these guys, they sure like using the word without any evidence they know what it means.

 

[rareboy]

Unsurprised, of course

 

[rareboy]

This is how stupid the GQP are:

ProPublica looked into science grants that Ted Cruz's team flagged as "radical" and "neo-Marxist"

A Study of Mint Plants. A Device to Stop Bleeding. This Is the Scientific Research Ted Cruz Calls “Woke.”

The senator flagged thousands of National Science Foundation grants for using words like “female” and “diversify.” A ProPublica analysis found numerous examples of projects caught up in his crude method for identifying research he calls “woke.”

www.propublica.org

 

[KaraBulut]

Add Rubella to the list of diseases that has shown up in Texas. Rubella is the "R" in the MMR vaccine. Not familiar with it? That's probably because there were only 38 total cases in the US between 2016-2022.

Rubella is also known as "German measles" and it's about half as contagious as "regular" measles, with one infected rubella patient likely to create 6-7 new cases in an unvaccinated population. Rubella was particularly important to eradicate because it can cause miscarriages and severe birth defects if a pregnant mother contracts it during pregnancy.

 

[rareboy]

We have a major outbreak in Ontario, thanks to the 'Fuck Trudeau' crowd that was directly influenced by Kremlin financed propaganda organizations during COVID and the 'I did my own research' crowd of people who never took science in High school.

126 cases in Ontario alone.

 

[rareboy]

Please forgive me for putting this here...but it is right on the nose.

RFK Jr. Vows To Make Measles Deaths So Common They Won’t Be Upsetting Anymore

WASHINGTON—Addressing the ongoing outbreak in Texas that has infected at least 124 state residents and killed one child, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. vowed Thursday to make measles deaths so common that they wouldn’t be upsetting anymore. “When President Trump...

theonion.com

 

[KaraBulut]

So, here's something that RFK Jr and his HHS won't tell you: there's some recent research that indicates that measles isn't just an innocuous infection that results in a rash and a few days of high fever. Researchers are finding that measles attacks the immune system, similar to the way that HIV attacks the immune system. After measles infections, the children who were infected had significantly lower antibody levels and appeared to lose "memory" of previous infections. This may explain why, before the first MMR vaccines were made available in 1963, children who had measles were more likely to experience subsequent severe infections and were more likely to die from other childhood infectious diseases.

Measles does long-term damage to immune system, studies show

www.cidrap.umn.edu

The researchers compared the plasma of subjects and paired controls using VirScan, a tool that scans a person's antibodies from a small blood sample, allowing the researchers to catalogue the children's history of viral infections and immunity. Mina said this study was VirScan's debut, and showed that the immune systems of the unvaccinated Dutch children who acquired measles during an outbreak were severely impaired following infections.

"In a normal, healthy vaccinated person, we can expected a 5% to 10% drop in antibodies over time," Mina told CIDRAP News.

After severe measles, children lost a median of 40% (range, 11% to 62%), and after mild measles they lost 33% (range, 12% to 73%), of their total preexisting pathogen-specific antibody repertoires. Paired, healthy controls retained approximately 90% of their repertoires over similar or longer durations.

 

[KaraBulut]

Today in measles...

159 total cases in the west Texas and eastern New Mexico outbreak. 20 children have been hospitalized.

Today, RFK Jr recommended taking cod liver oil and "vitamin A" to ward off measles. I kid you not.

RFK Jr.’s Bonkers Answer to Measles Outbreak Has Experts Worried

The U.S. health secretary suggests vitamin A and “good nutrition” will help stop the spread of measles.

www.thedailybeast.com

Lawmakers and health experts are sounding the alarm after Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. argued in an opinion piece that vitamin A and nutrition, instead of vaccines, will help stop the spread of measles.

Kennedy penned the opinion piece for Fox News on March 2, almost a week after an unvaccinated school-aged child in Texas became the first U.S. measles death in nearly a decade.

In the piece, Kennedy spoke about the benefits of “good nutrition” and vitamin A in curbing the outbreak.

As Measles Spreads, Kennedy Embraces Remedies Like Cod Liver Oil

In an interview, the H.H.S. secretary claimed that unconventional treatments were helping patients but did not mention vaccination.

www.nytimes.com

The spokesperson for HHS, the agency that RFK Jr has inexplicably been put in charge of, abruptly resigned in frustration.

RFK Jr.’s Top Spokesman Abruptly Resigns After Rift Over Measles Outbreak

Spokesman Thomas Corry had reportedly become frustrated with Kennedy’s subdued response to the escalating measles outbreak in Texas.

www.thedailybeast.com

The top spokesperson at the Health and Human Services Department (HHS) resigned Monday after clashing with its head, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., over his response to the measles outbreak.

Thomas Corry, who was the assistant secretary of public affairs at HHS, said he called it quits “effective immediately” in a post on his LinkedIn account just two weeks into his tenure at the agency.

 

[KaraBulut]

While kids were getting sick from measles in Texas, RFK Jr was off hiking in California's Coachella Valley:

RFK Jr. Was Mountaineering in California as Measles Outbreak Worsened

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who went mountaineering over the weekend, has experts concerned over his handling of the West Texas measles outbreak.

www.rollingstone.com

RFK Jr. Was Mountaineering in California as Measles Outbreak Worsened
Maybe putting an entitled conspiracy theorist in charge of the nation’s health systems wasn’t such a great idea

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is a vaccine conspiracy theorist with no real medical experience — which is why thousands of doctors and dozens of Nobel Prize winners opposed his confirmation to run the Department of Health and Human Services, and why countless others have been concerned about his ability to lead the nation through an infectious disease outbreak.

Well, measles has been spreading through West Texas since late January, and, sure enough, RFK Jr. hasn’t appeared up to the task.

Kennedy addressed the measles outbreak during President Donald Trump’s first Cabinet meeting late last month. He largely brushed off the severity of the outbreak — claiming, falsely, that it’s “not unusual” — despite it resulting in the first measles death in the United States in a decade.

A few days later, Kennedy was exploring nature in California. “Afternoon mountaineering above Coachella Valley,” he captioned a Facebook post featuring a few shots of him smiling atop some rocks.

 

[KaraBulut]

Want to know why eggs are so expensive and why the quality of chicken and eggs that you're buying in stores has suffered?

Because 166,012,718 chickens in the US have been infected with H5N1 influenza and had to be killed in an attempt to stop the spread of the virus. Note the number of dairy herds that have also tested positive (fun fact: RFK Jr is a fan of unpasteurized milk).

 

[KaraBulut]

Back in 2020, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services changed the rules to allow providers to be reimbursed for seeing patients over telehealth- by video conference or in some cases by telephone. Many chronically ill patients and their providers found it easier to use telehealth services instead of having the patient go into the physicians office for a 15 minute visit. Telehealth has been a particular success with patients who live in rural or remote areas where their providers may be hours away by car. It also removed barriers for patients who were dependent upon others for transportation.

Congress proposed a bill this year to extend those rules for another 2 years. So far the Trump Administration has not supported an extension.

Medicare defenders slam 'obscene' looming cuts to telehealth coverage

The announcement Thursday that Medicare will no longer cover many telehealth services starting April 1 prompted elder and telemedicine advocates to urge the Trump administration to continue the provision of vital remote care for millions of Americans.According to the Medicare website, "you can...

www.rawstory.com

The announcement Thursday that Medicare will no longer cover many telehealth services starting April 1 prompted elder and telemedicine advocates to urge the Trump administration to continue the provision of vital remote care for millions of Americans.

According to the Medicare website, "you can get telehealth services at any location in the U.S., including your home" until March 31. Beginning April 1, "you must be in an office or medical facility located in a rural area... for most telehealth services. If you aren't in a rural healthcare setting, you can still get certain Medicare telehealth services on or after April 1."

What we know about Medicare ending telehealth coverage in April 2025

Telehealth coverage allow patients to access health care remotely using digital technology.

www.yahoo.com

On Feb. 20, 2025, U.S. Rep. Ro Khanna, a Democrat from California, an image on X that said Medicare would "stop covering most telehealth services (phone and video visits)" from the beginning of April. It also said people with a telehealth appointment after that date might be contacted to switch to an in-person appointment. At the time of this writing, the post had amassed 2.9 million views.

 

[KaraBulut]

Florida is reporting a measles outbreak. The CDC hasn't acknowledged it formally. This is the second outbreak in Florida. There was an earlier outbreak reported in February in an elementary school in Broward County (Fort Lauderdale area, which is north of Miami). The latest case is a high school student in Miami, which is unusual since most measles cases are in elementary-aged children.

https://www.miamiherald.com/news/health-care/article301467059.html

The Palmetto Senior High student is Florida’s first confirmed case of the disease this year, according to preliminary data from Florida’s reportable disease surveillance system. In 2024, the state had at least a dozen cases of the rash-causing disease, some of which were linked to an outbreak at a Broward elementary school.

Florida measles cases are ramping up. Here's what to know

Amid an alarming outbreak in Texas, Florida has apparently joined the fray, according to a number of media sources.

www.pnj.com

While the CDC has yet to confirm any measles cases in Florida, the Miami-Dade Health Department has one reported case stemming from a student at Miami Palmetto Senior High School in Pinecrest, according to CBS News.

Near the end of February, NPR reported about a measles outbreak that started at the Manatee Bay Elementary School in Broward County. The number has since risen to nine cases, and another in Polk County.

 

[smokeshadow]

IDIOTS ! ! ! ! !

MSN

 

[rareboy]

It isn't just about idiocy.

It is tantamount to promoting manslaughter.

 

[smokeshadow]

Well, I was just trying to be polite to idiots

 

[KaraBulut]

Well, I was just trying to be polite to idiots

Isn't that what ya'll call, "thinning the herd"?

 

[rareboy]

Isn't that what ya'll call, "thinning the herd"?

This is what we are getting to.

RFK, whose own brats are immunized is basically telling the rest of America that it should now be up to natural selection.

Which is so bizarre, because the last fucking thing the world needs is more RFK sprog clogging the pipes.