this post was submitted on 04 Mar 2025
285 points (100.0% liked)

News

28499 readers
4389 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.


Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.


7. No duplicate posts.


If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners.


The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 88 points 1 month ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 month ago (7 children)

Guy does the right thing and you call him an asshole for it.

[–] [email protected] 123 points 1 month ago (1 children)

He’s been spreading lies about vaccines for years, pushing anti-vax propaganda. Now that some poor child of an anti-vaxxer family has died, he’s suddenly pro-vax for just this one thing?

No fuck him. He’s an asshole.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 month ago (5 children)

That's exactly how not to encourage people to be better.
Wouldn't you like for him to be better? Or are you just more comfortable in a black and white world of, once bad always bad?

[–] [email protected] 37 points 1 month ago

Wouldn’t you like for him to be better?

I'd like him to admit he has no business personally advising anyone on the public policy of health matters, hire a capable person for the job and say "I will simply be following every directive of this competent person I hired on matters related to the national policy on health". That would do it for me.

[–] [email protected] 35 points 1 month ago (2 children)

The man campaigned against measles vaccines in Samoa which was followed by a reduction of vaccinations and a measles outbreak.

Now he was promoting fucking vitamins to deal with it. I bet his wife told him to get it together as she did during Covid for whatever party they had where guests needed to be vaccinated. He's an asshole.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 month ago

Also, this:

As health secretary, Kennedy has also raised alarm for canceling meetings of influenza experts at the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), issued a stop-work order on contracts meant to develop new vaccines, and is “re-evaluating” a $590m contract with the vaccine-maker Moderna to develop a bird flu vaccine.

This guy shouldn't be anywhere NEAR the levers of power.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

he also drove his previous wife to suicide i believe.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

you need to read further, hes only issuing 2000 doses, which means very little. hes only half-assing it.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 month ago

Youre the guy praising Hitler for building highways.

[–] [email protected] 46 points 1 month ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 month ago

And further he remained unrepentant for his role in murdering 83 Samoan children (most of which were babies). Instead deflecting blame onto the people of Samoa, saying it was because they were malnourished, or possibly because they had the audacity to get vaccinated during an epidemic that he had a direct role in causing (and thus the vaccines killed the unvaccinated children who died of measles, somehow)

[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 month ago (1 children)

He's sending 2000 doses of the MMR vaccine to Texas.

Kennedy said his federal Department of Health and Human Services would send Texas 2,000 doses of the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine – typically meant to be given to children in a series of two shots at 12 to 15 months old as well as between the ages of four and six years old – through its immunization program.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/01/kennedy-jr-measles-outbreak-health-department

It's a two-part series, so that's enough for one thousand people to be properly vaccinated. That's nothing. There are already about 160 identified cases. It's extremely contagious. Measles has a reproduction number of about 15, meaning 1 person can infect 15 other people. Compare that to the WHO's value of 1.4-2.4 for COVID.

Secondly, he stuck to his stance that "the decision to vaccinate is a personal one", which is a nod and wink to antivaxxers to continue their denial.

He's not doing this because he's changed his stance. He's still anti-vaxx. He's just feeling some pressure to do something, so he is, but he's dragging his feet and doing the minimum possible.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 month ago

Secondly, he stuck to his stance that “the decision to vaccinate is a personal one”, which is a nod and wink to antivaxxers to continue their denial.

This. This could be the single most worst thing, ever. Even if he doesn't work to attack vaccines with the power he has (and it looks like he IS doing that, given some of the other things he's done).

By giving even 5-10% the notion that they are right to be vaccine denialists, he could destroy our herd immunity levels country-wide.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 month ago

The right thing for him to do as the secretary of health and human services would be to resign, as he’s unqualified for the position.

Touting the effectiveness of vaccines was actually the bare minimum if you’re going to be the health advisor to the fucking president.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 month ago

He helped cause this situation. Doing the [barest minimum you can even consider the] right thing after it's too late doesn't change the fact that he did the wrong thing for years before this. And will go right back to that wrong thing the moment he thinks he can get away with it

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago

Do you know who this man is? He did the good thing once and only because he's well aware he's a fraud. 🤣

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago

Here’s the “/s” you meant to use

[–] [email protected] 78 points 1 month ago (5 children)

It's a good time to note that this is the vaccine the autism bullshit stems from. If he was genuine in his views, this is the one vaccine it would make sense for him to oppose.

[–] [email protected] 34 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (3 children)

Let's assume for a second that the claims about the MMR vaccine had merit. It was specifically claimed that the cause was the addition of thimerosal as a preservative agent. Despite there being no evidence supporting this assertion, thimerosal was removed from nearly all vaccines decades ago. Which means that, if he was genuine in his beliefs, he shouldn't have a problem with any of them anymore.

EDIT It appears the thimerosal claim wasn't actually linked to MMR, as that vaccine never had it to begin with. My bad.

[–] [email protected] 32 points 1 month ago

if he was genuine in his beliefs

I found the problem.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 month ago (1 children)

The MMR vaccine never contained thimerosal. There were two separate claims by antivaxxers. The first was Wakefield's money making scheme to invent an alternative MMR vaccine by claiming the existing MMR vaccine caused autism.

The second, entirely separate, claim was that thimerosal in other vaccines was also causing autism.

The two claims then got conflated into a general 'vaccines == bad' by idiots like Kennedy, Jim Carrey, Jenny McCarthy and a whole quack industry of autism 'cures' such as chelation, HBOT etc.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

Ah, looks like you're correct, I guess I got the claims conflated myself.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 month ago

Denialists are absolutely famous for moving the goalposts, though. That's how they remain denialists.

Famous example is the evolution denialists always going on about a "missing link". The minute some new transitional fossil is found then creates TWO MORE "missing links".

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 month ago

The man has no moral center.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago

The bullshit stemmed from an investor of competing vaccines to the combined MMR. They were selling separate vaccines which were less popular so they wanted to take down the combined MMR to make money.

It's all been collateral damage of unrepentant greed.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] [email protected] 30 points 1 month ago (1 children)

A decade of anti-vaccine rhetoric comes full circle—tragically, at the expense of children's lives.

😺😺😺

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 month ago

The "mainstream" antivax shit has been almost 2 decades at this point. Jenny McCarthy published her shit book and talked about it on Oprah in 2007.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 month ago

This shit was effectively eliminated in 2000, but thanks to assholes like Bobby Brainworms, all that work of science was undone by a whole lotta anti-intellectual dipshits.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I guess he's seeing the inside info now? What a fucking tool. He should go to Texas to show his support. Maybe kiss a few babies for good measure.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 month ago (1 children)

100% chance HE is vaccinated completely while pushing this shit

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

They always are. Even Mother Teresa, an ardent outspoken supporter of letting the poor and ill suffer to be closer to God sought the best Western medicine when she fell ill.

Bunch of frauds.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 month ago

what a hero

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 month ago (1 children)

is this our timeline's version of "there are no atheists in foxholes"?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 month ago

No, because that saying is false.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 month ago (1 children)

why not just call him anti-vaxxer cbs.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

Same reason they talk about Elon Musk and Steve Bannon's strange and mysterious extension of the right arm palm down at a 45 degree angle.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 month ago (2 children)

If RFK Jr. fails to control this, he will make Texas bluer and Trump will punish him for this serious mistake.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 month ago

That's fine. The Democrat plan is to normalize fascism. 1000000235

"Both sides are the same" is ultimately true because both empower capitalism's subjugation of democracy. Every time the GOP tugs right and the DNC meets them half way. The greatest accomplishment of the Democrats in the last 20 years is the ACA- designed by the heritage foundation but stripped of the greatest cost savings measures.

https://politicalcompass.org/uselection2016

https://electiontruthalliance.org/clark-county%2C-nv

https://substack.com/home/post/p-153003086

https://www.brut.media/us/videos/us/politics/gop-strategists-daughter-leaks-secret-files

https://www.the74million.org/article/across-all-ages-demographics-test-results-show-americans-are-getting-dumber/

https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/exclusive-lee-atwaters-infamous-1981-interview-southern-strategy/

https://eji.org/news/nixon-war-on-drugs-designed-to-criminalize-black-people/

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

I don't think it'll turn blue, but they could lose a lot of voters to another virus

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago

Wow. Actually doing something after a kid's death. That's a new one.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago

Excellent news.

More. More!

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago

“I prayed on it and God told me to say something that goes against everything I’ve stated I believe in. So, yeah.”

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Could it be that he’s just stupid on paper?

Naaah, he’s an idiot in all mediums.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Nothing for Texas they don’t deserve it.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Not everyone in Texas is a fucking loon. They're just being ruled by loons like the rest of us.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago

There's something about Texas specifically that make people hate them even more around here.