Vaccines are a collective infrastructure and they work best when everyone participates, protecting people who can't be vaccinated through herd immunity. Dismantling that infrastructure pushes health protection back onto individual families, where outcomes depend entirely on what you can afford and what you happen to believe. The families with resources hire concierge doctors and navigate around the collapsing public system. Everyone else absorbs the risk. The vaccine debate looks like a science question, but structurally, it's the same privatization story playing out in a medico-cultural register.
I was formerly a hospital doctor in the UK’s NHS, and my working life provided broad and deep experience of issues such as infectious disease: I commend and recommend your comment to all readers of this post.
Autism is still being investigated. In addition, please speak to people with autism and their families about this, but it is not a ‘problem’ in itself, once its differences (what we now call neurodivergence) are recognised and accepted. In short, it is not by necessity a ‘disability’.
There is absolutely no excuse for Trump’s thinking.
Thank you Paul for raising this issue.
I join the rest of humanity in feeling horror at this Administration’s policies, in the belief that unnecessary suffering and no gain will follow.
" scientists have found a found a strong association between autism and pre-natal maternal exposure to particulate matter from fossil fuel pollution."
Thanks for this. I've always wondered if the "increase" in autism may be due to environmental factors.
And yes, we should put FF industries on the hot seat to either reduce their emissions or prove that their product is NOT causing health problems at multiple levels for all human beings.
In a perfect world, the oil and gas industry would be forced to use their own profit money to foot the bill to clean up their own pollution.
They’ve also found a correlation with father’s age 40+ and especially fathers age 50+. There’s a correlation with the older fathers/young mothers combination. And I just watched a Sci Show presentation about new research which suggest autistic traits may be what helped humans develop as a complex species. The implication is that autism as we now know it has existed as long as humans have and it’s been beneficial to have people who don’t have great social skills but are able to drill down on particular subjects. I know my autistic co-worker was the go-to guy for excellent insight into complex economic mathematics questions, making him a real asset to our team.
I'm sure your coworker was an asset, but unfortunately, your comment assumes that every person who has autism has high intelligence as well. That is not true; that's why they call it a spectrum--both for the degree of symptoms and the level of intelligence.
Much also depends on how an autistic person is raised. One whom I knew for years wasn't taught basic social skills, so he, although bright, monopolized conversations and wanted to talk only about his love of fantasy fiction. Others I've known have better manners and one always hugs me when he sees me. The range is great.
I was diagnosed with autuism in my early 40s, although I had suspected for years. I am on the milder end of the spectrum but I was never given the support I needed when I was younger. It was poorly understood in the 80s/90s. I had to teach myself social skills by copying other people and using verbatim stock phrases. As I've got older I've got better and can 'improv' when required. However, I've also learnt to embrace my autism and see it as a difference not a flaw. Interestingly, there is evidence neurodivergence people can usually communicate with one another with ease.
Thanks for sharing your experience. It is a difference, albeit one that can cause much pain for some who live with autism, often because others do not understand. Also, we all learn social graces by copying others, but we may learn in a different manner.
Things are better now, but when I volunteered in a school for children with intellectual challenges, I saw teachers making fun of their students behind their backs. That was 60 years ago. Sadly, we still have a lot to learn.
There's substantial evidence that advanced parental age is associated with increased risk for neurodivergence in offspring, with particularly consistent findings for autism spectrum disorder and some evidence for ADHD, schizophrenia-spectrum disorders, and other neurodevelopmental outcomes.
There's biologically plausible paternal-age mechanism. As men age, sperm accumulate de novo mutations, and changes in sperm epigenetics and selection among sperm-cell lineages may contribute to offspring risk.
The costs of pollution from extractive industry has never been included in the price of their products. Aside from the costs of outright subsidy via the tax system we socialize the costs from extractive industry as the public bears the cost of environmental cleanup and profits are privatized with most of those benefits flowing to the rich. So if the right fears socialism they should be demanding the fossil fuel industry bear the costs of environmental cleanup and healthcare costs directly related to their activities.
Excellent idea for who should bear some of our health care costs. And we probably don't know half of what kinds of health problems this pollution is causing either.
One would think the industrial revolution would have caused a higher number of autistic children. Temple Grandin, born in 1947, made huge strides in making people aware of autism. My grandson was born in 2009 and was diagnosed with autism. Even then there were many many questions about autism. I wonder, even today, how many children have not and will not ever be diagnosed. I am thankful that my grandson was diagnosed early on. His Grandma and I raised him and are very thankful to the wonderful folks that helped us. Frankly I had not heard about the connection to being exposed to fossil fuel pollution.
The criterion for diagnosis has changed. 40 years ago the only people considered autistic were non-verbal and severely affected. Now it's become a popular thing to have.
"Popular" is a terrible adjective here. Yes, the definition has rightfully expanded. It's incredibly difficult to keyhole it, as it is often tied with other issues like ADHD. Some of the most brilliant people on the planet are likely on the spectrum because of the incredible amount of information their brains can process, but when you mix that with a massive lack of understanding of the "rules" of social interaction, their ability to communicate what they know can be severely impacted. Put them in the right situation, and they can thrive beyond your imagination....and yet, will still get locked up on certain things. Calling it "popular to have" does a great disservice to those who are fighting it every day.
Association is NOT cause and effect. The famous folly of this is that ice cream sales cause shark attacks. No idea of the FF association is more than just association. Prof. Krugman may have used that as a folly example. Do not accept that without further scientific fact, although it could be true. Association is a great scientific tool; observation has lead to great scientific breakthroughs.
The association has withstood several published rigorous studies aimed at eliminating the two major confounders and sources of bias: ascertainment bias and causes associated with air pollution (e.g., SES, urban, medical care, others). While still no proof of causality, let alone mechanism, these data should be cause for alarm. Of course, there's always the added dividend of avoiding pulmonary disease, acute and chronic.
A few of these studies have attempted to identify the offending chemical species in air pollution. Studies are ongoing (unless the idiots in HHS block grants). Of interest, more than one study has identified third trimester as vulnerable. Neuronal development comes late in humans, extending well past birth. Unfortunately, I don't think there are any good animal models to test hypotheses. I'm a physician-scientist but have no special expertise in this field.
Hi I work for the Tennessee Valley Authority We were sued because science proved that our fossil emissions from our steam plants coal fired were causing detrimental effects to the forest and the people down of our plants IE on the East Coast.
We lost our suit and had to spend millions on environmental clean of our fossil plants.
This is a true story I worked for TVA for 18 1/2 years and was at one plant that installed over $2 million of environmental equipment
very true, but I that foes not mean that FF cause autism. However, one of the replies was by bruce Schneider, who said there was scientific evidence to back up a link between FF and autism, although likely not enough yet for a law suit.
Particulate matter is another word for dust is another word for ash is another word for dirt. Other things have an affinity for dirt and visa versa and attach themselves to particals of dirt, now dont they ? All kinds of aerosols. All kinds of sticky organic chemicals, no ? That are not good to have in your lungs much less your blood stream. So the correlation with autism does not surprise though one should not be quick to draw any conclusions from that, since as the doctor said, though its a condition, it is not a "disease". The correlation would be with poor health generally, thus life expectancy. And that would be stronger, no ? Air Pollution versus health. Bad thing.
I once lived in Berlin, NH, when the pulp plant ran. Down wind from it in the lead up to a storm, at the height of the stack. Turned our silver black.
Wiki agrees with your assessment that the "increase" is simply due to more awareness. "Autism diagnoses have risen since the 1990s, largely because of broader diagnostic criteria, greater awareness, and wider access to assessment. Changing social demands may also play a role. The World Health Organization estimates that about 1 in 100 children were diagnosed between 2012 and 2021, noting an increasing trend. Surveillance studies suggest a similar share of the adult population would meet diagnostic criteria if formally assessed."
The last sentence indicates that autism hasn't actually increased at all.
The increase in autism is largely due to a re-definition of the condition and the invention of the "autism spectrum". Not saying they're not valid constructs but that the change in statistical reporting is used by some for fearmongering to influence policy by the adolescents in the federal government.
I'm 56 and when I was a kid, autism meant something completely different than what it does now. It was extreme and nonverbal. My aunt was the principal at a special needs school (it wasn't called that at the time, but what it WAS called is no longer an acceptable word), and her doctoral thesis was on methods for teaching the profoundly autistic.
But nowadays, I am pretty sure she, her father, and I would all be considered adult cases (though why bother with a diagnosis if you are high functioning?), and my son was diagnosed on the spectrum. So yes, I think at least SOME of the increase is due to expanded diagnoses.
Dr. Trump and whack-job RFK think they know best. What's infuriating is decades ago a British doctor had a paper published in a medical journal alleging vaccines cause autism. It was thoroughly debunked and the journal withdrew the paper. But it took on a life of its own and now measles and other diseases are making a comeback.
The point is that they don't "think they know best." They know they can manipulate the market. And they can. That is all they know and all they need to know.
I am a 72 year old retired Internist. I span the pre-Polio and MMR eras. My mom took me to be vaccinated against Polio as soon as the Vaccine came to town. I remember the 2 men in 2 separate houses across the street from us - both in their 60s and both with Post-Polio Syndrome. One of the kids in my kindergarten class died of Post-Measles Pneumonia. On TG weekend when I was 5, I got sick. The doctor came, examined me and put me in his car and took me to the Hospital - Diagnosis: Mumps Encephalitis. Everyone knew a Family with a severely deformed kid from the Mother having Rubella in the first trimester. Chicken Pox didn't kill a lot of kids, but it could be lethal to a pregnant woman. Spinal Meningitis, Hepatitis B, HPV (causes Cervical Cancer in young women) The list of diseases we had thought we had conquered is long. The anti-vax movement is a paranoid delusion and collective insanity.
The history of opposition to vaccination is long and was seen with the use of unscientifically inactivated smallpox vaccine up until the 19th century, which saved lives but also had more danger, until Jenner popularized the safer use of the related and safer cowpox, Washington had the soldiers vaccinated before the use of cowpox, giving them an advantage over the British in public health. Jefferson wrote to Jenner in 1800 after reading his manuscript on the use of cowpox complimenting him on the greatest achievement in medicine and predicted it would allow the eradication of the awful disease, smallpox, that killed so many people. Jefferson was correct; however, it took a coordinated effort of worldwide vaccination and advances in public health. This Regime is actively working against the health of the public in ways that will lead suffering and death and likely increase health care costs. They either do not have the insight of observers who lived long before scientific defining mechanisms of disease, have no basic education, any concept of public good or public service, or believe the use of misinformation that actually harms the people they serve but they feel will benefit them is an appropriate path for a person whose function is to serve the people.
Just this morning Morning Joe did a great summary of the result of recent polls of Americans’ attitudes about vaccines. (It’s at the end of the first hour). The vast majority of Americans strongly support them, saying they have saved millions of lives. Even 75% of Republicans say kids should be required to be vaccinated before starting school.
The media needs to stop giving a platform the loudest voices of a small minority of people while ignoring the opinions of the vast majority of us. That is what they did back when the anti-measles scam first began and they are still doing it.
If the media weren’t so timid, they should provide a platform that explores the damage possible to children when they contract diseases such as measles, mumps or rubella, as Stephan Brady stated in his post.
I really think they should also feature real families that have suffered from this, not just a bunch of talking heads. There are older people alive today in this country who are living with the consequences of measles — blindness, hearing loss, etc. — or who lost loved ones to it.
The contrast of Washington and Jefferson, intelligent and in touch with the scientific advances of their time, and Trump is sad, but also frightening, because he holds the power they so carefully guarded.
This may sound like the lunatic fringe, but that’s not who I think I am. I believe what I have been reading and have heard spoken about by professionals who have worked with Musk. When they describe his actual world view and comprehension of human beings, we discover that his real world is what most consider science fiction. AI will enable electronics of varying modes to undertake entire functions without human interference. Elon would say there is no need for all these people in order to keep the world existing. Elon would say it is to the good of the visionaries that a large portion of humanity cease to exist, whether by war, pollution, or a shorter lifespan.
It is essentially the DEATH PANELS that the Tea Party warned would be used by the government if the ACA passed.
This is very scary, and we cannot rule it out given how slow the population seems to be in discerning friend from foe.
I can only hope your assessment is not precise. it reads like a pathway to survival of the fittest, defined as those who are best adapted to a life without an understanding of the side of human nature that is less material and more other. One might as well live on Mars surrounded by humanoid robots to fulfill all material needs and read only instruction manuals to keep them functioning. I do not think I have ever seen any analysis of happiness that would be maximized by that life. I do not expect those who put any weight on public service to be in Trump’s circle, but, your take on Mr. Musk would suggest a very hollow life. SO SAD
It would truly be wonderful if Musk’s worldview only affected him. The truly sad part is that he has a very big toe in the futures of the rest of us if the MAGAs let him, and they will.
Get ready for this: You don’t get instruction manuals. You don’t get to tell the robots what to do. In fact, you re unable to control them. They run themselves and make adjustments as they deem necessary for their own survival. The only limitation is the natural lifespan of the materials the entity is comprised of. For example, titanium.
I envision how deeply you must have hurt to lose a big part of your world. My bit is trivial compared to the tragic loss of your friend at such an early age, but I have a gap in my eyelash from a chicken pox scar and stuff always gets in that eye and it hurts, but just my eye, not my soul. I hope you can continue to spread the word to possibly convince doubters of the importance of vaccinations. A side effect of chicken pox is that you can get shingles later in life, which I have done twice. The misery is incredible and can lead to a painful and permanent neuralgia.
Many of these diseases have associated lifelong problems - sequelae. My grandmother told me when I was a teen what it had been like when Smallpox came to town in 1917... she pointed out the scars the pox had left her with.
Many people don't know that in 1777 General George Washington mandated that all members of his Continental Army be vaccinated for smallpox, because he was losing more men to smallpox than he was to the British army! You can Google this fact, if you don't believe it.
And measles kills a lot more kids than chicken pox as well as blindness, brain damage, lost immunity and more. The media should be giving far more attention to these facts.
Lifespan differences between political leanings: Democrate 77 yrs... Republican 75 yrs... I'd say that's about the change.... the US life expectancy before the modern vaccine era (1950) was 68 years... making America great again...
Im glad you mention birth defects from Rubella. The this never comes up when trying to explain the risks associated with not getting vaccinated. This problem doesn't show up unless you get the disease when pregnant but devastating nonetheless.
As a retired Family Physician - slightly older than you - I echo all of your examples and concerns. I'll spare everyone my rant on the idiocy of this whole trend in our population, especially those that promulgate disinformation. What bothers me most is that the vast majority of vaccine decisions are made by parents of children who have no say in the decision but who would suffer the most. My out in left field thought, and yes this is a bit radical, is whether there is any grounds for legal repercussions for parents that refuse vaccinations for their children and the child then has a dire consequence secondary to a preventable disease. I look at the mini-trend of holding parents legally accountable for purchases of AR- type rifles for their child who later commits a mass shooting and wonder if there is some similarity?
Well, I escaped the encephalitis, but my experience is similar to yours. I'm 77. I went to school with a girl who was made deaf by measles before she could talk. Her voice was very distinctive, to say the least. I remember the lines for the polio shots and the newsreels of people lined up in "iron lungs." Thank God we did have typhoid and diphtheria shots by then. If some kid in the neighborhood came down with mumps, most people would drag their young children over to play with him or her, hoping their child would catch it. Much better to catch it then than to catch it as a young adult.
In Tennessee, you had to be vaccinated for smallpox, typhoid, and diphtheria before entering school.
My dad had polio a few months before the vaccine became generally available. This anti vax effort is such a waste of lives, a needless application of lifelong suffering. I'm not so old I don't remember the horror in my grandparents' voices talking about the fear and anxiety of summers with mosquitos, etc., the quarantine signs in front of homes, the children coming home from the hospital in iron lungs or crippled (as they would say).
My dad lived a long life for a polio survivor, but the last couple of decades were not easy. Post-polio syndrome, overuse of the physically able parts of his body took a heavy toll. I wouldn't wish it on anyone. But I do wish RFKjr, Trump, and their ilk could be made to experience a day with a family enduring the impacts of something so easily avoided.
Right. They want to be able to peddle their fake "cures." I'm most irritated by the actors dressed up as Rabbis or claiming to be retired doctors and touting honey as a cure-all.
I don't have the coin to hire a concierge doctor , and corporate medicine is of a very poor standard , the " doctor " works for the corporation not you the patient.
Private equity has been buying up medical practices nationwide, and they squeeze the practices for more profits. I’ve reached the point where I think private equity and safe harbor rules must be outlawed in the public interest. On the other side of the equation, we have private insurers who use outdated AI to deny essential treatment and stick us with increasing prices for copays and medical bills every year.
What we’ve given the world is an example of how a few people are able to profiteer off human misery and necessity. It’s a poor example, just as the USSR and the former PRC structures were.
The degree to which private equity has permeated so many sectors would shock most Americans. Most are well aware of the sharp drop off in “service” but zero idea why. Private Equity. They have taken over medical care, veterinary care, real estate, childcare, local media, and your favorite stores and restaurants. Their number one priority is profit, rapid gains. It is not at all unusual for them to buy “low”, increase profit margins by just about any means (such as forcing doctors to cram schedules), and selling at a profit a few years down the road to…another investor. Rinse and repeat. Customers obviously notice the change and decline in service which also may come with a price increase. The employees feel the stress of quotas, etc while also getting blamed by customers. Everyone is miserable, but few are blaming the right people - the private equity firms.
Plus nursing homes, hospice, funeral homes and mobile home parks. PE is a parasite on our society, creating nothing but living off what others have created.
... which is why I bit the bullet about 15 years ago and prepaid my funeral costs. I have no idea what they would be now and don't particularly care. what has taken its place is the CA property tax load when you have a reverse mortgage - the only reason why I am still here rather than in a rent-a-van or worse.
I was shocked at what vets charge. Last month I took my dog to the vet and paid over $500 for my dog itching like crazy and crusty eyelids. She was treated but needs follow ups every month! I can’t afford this.
The way I see it is that the US has great medical care (as do many countries) but terrible health care for the reasons you state. Couple that with deteriorated air and water quality due to the current EDA (environmental destruction agency), food quality due to the MIA FDA, lack of help in emergencies (FEMA who?), horrible weather resulting from climate change, lousy housing stock; I won't go on but you get the picture. It's going to get worse before it gets any better.
I lived in the USA for 20 years from 1998 to 2018. While never a great fan of 'the greatest country on Earth' since the self-immolation of a Buddhist monk in Vietnam in 1963 showed me the deep darkly evil manipulative core of American "ideals", that ventennium convinced me that the whole country, including the moderates and progressives, was involved in the performance of the final throes of a naricisstic Murder and Suicide Cult. I fled back to Europe, where l can live out my days in the hope that the USA will be abolished.
Yeah, but underprivileged school kids are going to starve to death due to Republican cuts in SNAP and WIC benefits, so the weak will die and the strong will mostly survive the dread illnesses like mumps, measles, whooping cough, Covid-19, etc. /s
I know, and I have little choice but to agree. (I had mumps, and a college friend died quite young with polio.)
I've spent >60 years in the deep south, usually in rural locations. What do I know to be true about the overwhelming majority of my neighbors and relatives?
"MAGA hates the things they hate more than they love the things they love."
God instructing Abraham to sacrifice his son, Isaac is NOTHING compared to the sacrifices Trump expects (and receives daily) from his "worshippers".
Whatever it takes to "own the libs", even the deaths of loved ones. Oddly enough, it seems we're not hearing "death of beloved family by Covid" as one of the new complaints by disenchanted MAGA against their cult leader. So, is it possible that those paying the highest price are still willing to die...and kill family members...for The Killer Wail?
Several years ago I read of a guy in Texas whose unvaccinated kid died from measles. He pretty much said he would still refuse to vaccinate (he had other children), and that his kid dying was "god's will." IMHO, people like that should be criminally prosecuted for felony child abuse and manslaughter.
Yes, Rena, those were the parents of the two little girls who died.
And who knows what they may actually feel. But in the hands of manipulative anti-vax journalists (controlling both the phrasing of the question and somewhat the editing of the answer) they did indeed answer that they would prefer their children be dead, even knowing the vaccine WOULD have saved them.
And that's certainly the message that was embraced by millions of uneducated MAGA parents seeing the video. And it's only slightly off-topic to point out that all Trump requires of every MAGA parent is to never let any of their children open a book....or their mind. JOB DONE!
I'd like to think that the loss of family members at Trump's tiny hand should be price enough, but all indications are that they will be more saddened when Trump eventually explodes than when half their family died horribly and alone.
My sister-in-law got a clearly ridiculous diagnosis from her expensive concierge doctor. She leaves close to the Mayo Clinic and was eventually diagnosed and treated correctly there.
Medical care is too expensive in my city as it is everywhere but most people I know believe they get decent care from their physicians as do I. The docs may work for the corporation but most still really care about their patients.
My PA of 8 years, who I had to wait for on a list for 6 months, has done a wonderful job with my medical care, IMO.
However, she is leaving in September to go back to being a surgical nurse because so is sick and tired of the so called health insurance companies telling her how to practice medicine.
She will be missed by hundreds of patients. I don't blame her a bit.
In the rural south, we no longer have doctors. We have nurse practitioners only; typically young women with limited experience.
Here's an interesting situation...
UnitedHealth required me to have my NURSE PRACTITIONER (a young woman seemingly in her mid 20s) who I had seen twice in my life (and she wouldn't know me if she passed me on the street), send an approval to an actual orthopedic surgeon, who I was already a patient of.
The approval was sent, but I still expect to lose my left hand to gangrene, because the surgery was never approved, and I've given up on my every option.
The really funny thing? It will cost them more to hospitalize me for gangrene.
I find that too. But those are the MDs who go to bat for what’s best for their patients. The frustration and horror are unimaginable to have a patient for whom a particular medication is the best and only choice. The patient’s life is on the line. The insurance company denies authorization. Heartbreaking. I wonder how many MDs burn out.
Yesterday, I called my old practice to schedule a belated physical exam. I also needed clearance for an outpatient procedure. I was told they didn't do that anymore. WTF?
I just got my account from United Healthcare and noticed that my Dr charged $7000 for a surgical procedure. Medicare only paid $125 and UH paid nothing! WTF! This procedure was steroid shots etc. I sure hope I don’t get charged. Why isn’t Medicare paying? Why isn’t UH paying? I really wonder why I pay $350 a month for supplemental insurance that just increased by $75. A month
I don’t have the money either for “ concierge” medicine but don’t understand the need for it except for people who need to feel special, pampered, and above the rest of us. But I do have Medicare (at least so far), access to local healthcare and to an excellent hospital (although 2 hours away) and a brain that can read a variety of international and trusted American medical information and recommendations, critically think about the information, and I have no problem trusting what an expert (a board-certified MD) tells me regarding my personal health.
Lucky you. Thank God for small favors. I am pretty much on the same boat; if you don't get good health advice when you are young and don't need it as much, you come to regret it. I am 85 and still go to the gym twice a week and walk every day after a hip replacement forced me off the running schedule. I can tell I am slowing down, but I still feel good (except for the WashDC crisis) and thank God for good things like friends, cats, good food, and relatively good health. Things could be worse.
I don’t have the money for a Concierge medical practice either. Here’s the advantages: Doc is available 24/7. You get the doctor, not a NP or PA, and for more than 15 minutes.
Most people not on Medicaid get a 15 minute appointment these days. During that time, the doc is also writing up the visit. A good part is they usually give you a written summary of the visit.
But, if you need medical care on a weekend or holiday, too bad. Have you visited your nearest Emergency Department lately?
I don’t think it’s just a status thing. You pay to get what you need when you need it.
The doctors in these practices need to be super well educated and super smart. Most people believe that they are getting the best care from their ordinary doctor and their local hospital. It just ain’t necessarily so. There are sometimes differences that go way under the radar, or are not easily recognized by the average patient. Those differences can mean life or death, but the patient and family have no idea that a smarter doctor at a better facility would have meant life not death.
The wealthy can't easily buy their way out of contagious diseases, which is one reason why public health became a thing in the 19th century. It's an aweful thing to say but it'll probably take affluent children dieing of measles before common sense kicks in and this dangerous anti-vax nonsense ends.
That depends on the rich (other than Brainworm Bobby) being foolish enough to avoid vaccinations. But they won’t, because they will use modern medicine to their advantage just like they use modern financial markets and modern technology.
People will always buy the Snake Oil. If they didn’t the charlatans would stop selling it. Funny how the right wing podcasts etc often come out with their own brands of catheters and supplements.
What is more disgusting than Trump who appointed RFK Jr to attack science is Trump's approval rating which is 35%. The rating means about 60 million people, who are registered voters, approve of Trump and the attacks on healthcare/science/truth despite the blatant corruption and violations of law, the lying, the attacks on democracy and elections, the destruction of affordability, the ICE raids on immigrants including the murders of American citizens and the war with Iran. The 60 million includes MAGA with white male supremacists who hate women, blacks and immigrants.
However, the problem in America isn't just Trump and the 60 million who still approve of Trump and everything he does. The problem is the lawless fascist autocracy run by oligarchs to steal wealth from 95% of Americans and transfer the wealth to the oligarchs. The lawless, fascist autocracy is being installed with an ongoing insurrection totally supported by Republicans in Congress, six justices on the Supreme Court and the billionaire oligarchs. Trump's insurrection began on January 6, 2021, but the insurrection continued into 2025 and 2026. Trump, members of his administration, Republicans in Congress, six justices on the Supreme Court and billionaire oligarchs are violating federal law (18 U.S. Code § 2383). According to the federal law (18 U.S. Code § 2383), a felony crime is committed by “Whoever incites, sets on foot, assists, or engages in any rebellion or insurrection against the authority of the United States or the laws thereof, or gives aid or comfort thereto, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both; and shall be incapable of holding any office”.
Remember in 2024 SCOTUS refused to enforce Section 3 of the 14th Amendment that permanently bars individuals from holding state or federal office if they previously swore and oath to the U.S. Constitution and later engaged in insurrection or rebellion. That’s a clear violation of the federal law against insurrection which allowed Trump to be on the ballot and get elected.
The core problem in America is a corrupt legal, economic and political system that refuses to enforce equal justice under the law.
If a new Democratic controlled Congress and a Democratic president are elected in 2028 because they adopt PROJECT 2029 that solves affordability, they will have a sworn obligation to enforce the federal law against insurrection and the Constitution to prosecute, convict, imprison, Trump, members of his administration, Republicans in Congress, six justices on the Supreme Court and billionaire oligarchs.
Shhhhh. If you tell them that expect to encounter a bloody rebellion, fought by former ICE creeps who otherwise have no lives. Those guys aren’t going back to school to learn a trade.
I was born in the early 60s and had whooping cough, chicken pox, measles, mumps, and German measles and had the immunizations for all of those too. I spent the first 2 yrs sick from these illnesses and fell behind in school. Our neighbor had a baby with profound birth defect from being exposed to measles during pregnancy. I guess when people don't live these experiences and when the experience seems remote, one loses the importance of safe and sound science. Ridiculous there are vaccines for dreaded diseases and the dumbest president in our history has made people afraid to use them. I hate him more every single day.
You had all those diseases despite being vaccinated against many of them? That suggests either that you did not receive the full number of doses or that you suffered from an immune deficiency.
I was born in 1952 and was immunized against smallpox (six times! -- the usual infant and pre-college doses, plus before and after my family's deployments overseas with the Navy); diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis (whooping cough); and polio. I had measles and chickenpox and failed to get German measles or mumps despite being deliberately exposed. My older daughter, born in 1970, had the further protection of the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine (but not smallpox; our doctor didn't give it because there had not been a case in the US in ten years, but every year four children died of complications of the vaccine). Now kids get at least a half-dozen other vaccines -- Trump says too many, but I believe it's worth protecting them from any potentially-severe disease to which they might be exposed, unless a vaccine is too new for its safety profile to have been established in a large cohort.
I actually had the diseases before getting the vaccines. I had whooping cough at 6mo old and my mom said it was something all the time with me. Everytime an outbreak of something came round, I would get it, then a vaccine would be scheduled for them before school started and I would then get the vaccine. It seems I remember many outbreaks occurring during the summer.
Generally, having one of those old childhood diseases results in lifelong immunity -- but at 6 months a baby's immune system might not be mature enough to respond fully.
Unless one stays at home permanently it is impossible to “navigate around the collapsing public system” because leaving home involves interacting with other people — many of whom are now unvaccinated.
Please tell me if I’m wrong. But couldn’t exposure to particulates in pregnancy be a measure of poverty? People who are forced to live in areas with filthy air and exposure to traffic are people who may not have the choices available to the more affluent. So it may not be the pollution itself that leads to autism but the conditions that cluster in the lives of the comparatively poor. A tougher problem to solve, I know.
Yes. There was a lot of discussion about redlining and proximity to airborne lead pollution in 2020 after the killing of Freddie Gray. Those discussions referenced scientific research showing strong correlations between child development and air pollution levels. (This is probably one of the reasons the regime is so anti-science while it’s members use every modern technology and medicine themselves).
Prevailing winds in the U.S. blow basically towards the northeast. When you talk about filthy air, you were talking about much of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, and New England before the EPA got started. Those are not mainly comparatively poor.
I agree with almost all of what you said but wasn’t clear how everyone who can does get vaccinated and that, by extension, those who can’t physically tolerate vaccination are, by extension, protected through herd immunity? Isn’t herd immunity the notion that a population become inoculated by surviving repeated exposures to the virus?
Parents are torturing (I had measles, mumps and chicken pox in the pre-vaccine 50s, it was torture) and killing their children because of the anti-vax lies from Trump and RFK Jr. These people need to live with that guilt, without sympathy or support from the rest of us, for the rest of their cursed lives. Frankly RFK Jr. should be charged with mass murder for the deaths he has caused. Sadly there will be no consequences for him or for any of the anti-vax zealots who are killing children because of the lies they spew.
If we're going to do COVID let's not forget Jared Kushner who told Trump to do nothing because it was only killing people in blue states. (Part of the reason that neither he nor Princess Sparklebunny will ever be able to live in NYC again)
Interesting, as statistics show people in red states died of COVID-19 at significantly higher rates than those in blue states -- presumably as a consequence of higher rates of refusal of both vaccines and recommended infection-prevention behaviors such as mask-wearing and social distancing.
No doubt, but it would not have been the only copy.
And the Iran agreement? We hear about that a lot, and did even before Trump showed his dum(sic) "donkey" by attacking.
I've yet to hear a single reference to the Obama Pandemic Plan, even from Dems. (Even during the Bidin administration, when it was basically the meat in this Trump sandwitchhunt.)
NPR had an hour long segment on it; and several podcasts have dealt with it. But there is too much even good information out there; and too many outlets for most people who are open to good information to find; ( how do you advertise to reach them); much less deal with the bad information.
And it was Marin County/New Age/ Hollywood Liberals who some of the first vaccine sceptics.
"Your children seem so fragile as they recover over the next year, but then the four of you are back to your usual adventures. For roughly eight years, you will believe that your family made it through this crisis without suffering a tragedy. You marvel at your good fortune, and feel a rush of gratitude the day your daughter returns to school and life resumes its normal rhythm. But years later, when your baby is in fourth grade, he will begin struggling with subjects he had once mastered. His teachers will ask to speak with you about how he is suddenly acting out in uncharacteristic ways.
You will not think of his measles infection when he begins suffering muscle spasms in his arms and hands, nor when his pediatrician recommends that you see a neurologist. You realize you have entered a new nightmare when nurses affix metal electrodes to your son’s scalp with a cold conductive paste to perform an electroencephalogram to measure his brain waves. As the neurologist examines the results, she will note the presence of Radermecker complexes: periodic spikes in electrical activity that correlate with the muscle spasms that have become disruptive. She will order a test of his cerebrospinal fluid to confirm what she suspects: The measles never really left your son. Instead, the virus mutated and spread through the synapses between his brain cells, steadily damaging brain tissue long after he seemed to recover."
There is an even more common serious side effect of measles infections — immune amnesia — that is, their immune systems forgets how to right diseases they had alreadly learned to resist. That happens to most after a measles infection and can last for a very long time.
Our media should be repeating these kinds of facts every time they report on this dangerous, incredibly infectious disease. Instead they leave people with the impression it is no more dangerous than any other childhood illness. I am an older baby boomer and will never forget that girl in my elementary was left so brain damaged from the encephalitis measles had caused she never returned to school.
That is too awful! I must admit I’d never heard of it. My generation of kids (post WW2) caught ALL those diseases and I knew a few schoolmates who never really recovered. I find it extremely hard to accept the stupidity of the anti-vaccination crowd.
I had all three and i was miserable. And despite shingrix, i consider myself still vulnerable to shingles. With measles on the rise, i will be asking my doc if i should get the mmr...
Generally recommendation is to get a measles titer test that checks the level of your immunity to the disease. If it is too low then you can get the vaccine.
I feel your pain. I had all three the summer between kindergarten and first grade. My mother was ready to load me in a crate and ship me to Antarctica.
My Mom too, until she also caught them from us and couldn’t muster the energy to get to the post office! We did survive but we were very sick and so uncomfortable.
PHN here , no MD , but my training reflects this info-
Written documentation showing two doses of a live measles-containing vaccine given at least 28 days apart, with the first dose administered on or after their first birthday.
Go back and read the full string. Krikit's Songs had measles as a child, and is wondering if she still has full immunity. Carole may have been talking about infants (although my take is that she was discussing whether an adult who was vaccinated as an infant needs a booster now, as an adult), but no question the start of the string was an adult, presumably an older adult who got childhood diseases pre-vaccine, who wants to know if she should get a booster.
Aetna refused to allow the second Shingrix shot for me. I'm a great procrastinator, but I really need to check to see if I can get the shots and pay for them myself. I had a mild case of shingles once and don't want to see another.
So you only had the first dose? That's just wrong.
It's all i had, but my insurance would have covered the full package. I had a very strong reaction to the 1st one, so my doc felt i was probably ok with the one.
Correct. I had some mild swelling, so they said I was allergic. I got that removed from my medical record last November, but I still have the same insurance. I think I just need to walk into my pharmacy, get the shots, and hand them a credit card.
My goodness, call my 3 brothers and myself, had measles, chicken pox and mumps all together at the same time as kids…it was horrid but we luckily survived. Not so are for some children allowed to suffer and die as a result of village idiots anti vaxers, who should never be allowed to have children under their care anymore, due to child abuse and neglect to not protect their own child from a method proven to prevent the diseases through vaccinations. I deem them as accessories tto murder actually. They say the risk of vaccination …mind you anything ingested can be life threatening, like aspirin, antibiotics, ibuprofen or literally any medicine or even foods. And what is the alternative. Polio is coming back and are you willing to see your child in an iron lung for the rest of their lives….can you even afford it or let them suffer and diedue to your stupidity?
As soon as I heard of the return of measles—which I never had—I got the MMR shot and Tetanus Diptheria whooping cough. I was lucky with those childhood diseases. I remember the mumps and chickenpox and whooping cough pretty well.
But I also remember being 8 years old and becoming too weak to walk to the cabin my family rented for the summer. I remember crawling up a slight hill and then I must have fainted. I next remember being in bed with a million blankets, and my father came to take us all back to the city.
What I found out when I got older was that my parents’ fear was Polio, for which there was no vaccine as yet, and children were dying. Too many. Public pools were closed for years after until the vaccine.
Americans currently do not have a memory of that fear of losing their children to polio, so randomly and definitively. We are now seeing our neighbors who survived polio suffer from post polio conditions, some of which sent them to an earlier death.
I too was pre-vaccine 50s. So this year I had my annual physical include a panel of blood tests to establish if I still had immunity. At this time I have not had to pay out of pocket on Medicare for the peace of mind.
I totally agree—I also had measles and mumps. Both were debilitating and painful. It was just before there was MMR, and the measles vaccine had not been optimized. In addition to missing about three weeks of school, I had febrile seizures and then eye problems for months after the measles. With mumps, I missed all of a spring vacation and then another week of school, in addition to having hallucinatory dreams, inability to eat and extreme pain. Anyone who wants to have their child suffer like this is stupid and crazy. Plus, having shots is very traumatic, and having three of them, plus the cost of three doctor visits is torture for the child and the parent.
I wonder if trump knows that many pharmacies provide free or reduced cost vaccinations and health departments do vaccines too. My cynical side went straight to trump wants to help out private equity by forcing three doctor visits for m+m+r at $100+ a pop, rather than the one it takes for combined mmr.
That wouldn’t surprise me. He probably never took any of his kids into the doctor for shots, either. I remember having to have the pediatrician and his hefty nurse, plus my mom hold me down when I needed a shot, even as a baby!
I'm absolutely baffled people take medical advice from a failed shyster, who knows nothing about medicine or science & was a heroin addict for years, has taken his grandchildren to play in a heavily polluted creek in DC & eats roadkill!
As an Afghan who stood with America and its people, it is painful to watch the country I once believed would stand for its allies turn away from science, reason, and even the health of its own children. We Afghans know what it feels like to be abandoned after putting our trust in a government and its promises. What is happening with vaccines is deeply troubling not only for Americans, but for everyone who believes that leadership should be based on evidence, responsibility, and compassion. Allies should not be abandoned, and neither should children. Very painful
Thank you for sharing this very painful reality. So much depresses me these days and the horrors of betrayal rings loud. I can still see the last plane leaving Saigon and feeling the despair of those left behind. We are in very shameful times. I pray for miracles including the protection of our immigrants especially those who helped us .
I'm so sorry for what you went through! It probably doesn't help much, but know that there are many of us who are upset with our country for how we treated you.
I’m in the UK and just had surgery to remove my gall bladder. Many, many years ago the functions of the gall bladder were well understood, as were the problems with inflammation and stones associated with it. Yet surgery wasn’t an option: anaesthetics and antibiotics weren’t available. Surgery would kill you.
The advance if science, the dedication of health professionals and a functioning health system has gifted me another twenty or thirty years of life.
In the long run, with its attacks on science and promotion of ignorance , this is what the Republican Party is wrecking; your ability to have a good, healthy and long life.
Casually and reasonably toned, this is still a horror story. The wide outbreak of American ignorance will cost lives, mostly MAGA faithful. But not only.
A good case can be made that Red states greatly benefited financially from COVID vaccine denialism, as poor, vaccine hesitant seniors living on the state's dime in senior's facilities formed a high percentage of the total fatalities.
Those unvaccinated can be asymptomatic and still infectious- all it would take is a sneeze or cough and MANY people ( too young or immune compromised) could also be infected.
“Trump on declaring national security emergency for elections: ‘Stranger things have happened’
President Trump on Tuesday left the door open to declaring a national security emergency and federalizing control over the November midterms.”
From The Guardian, January 23, 2026
Democrats are campaigning as if the 2026 election will be fair. That’s a mistake
Austin Sarat
The following are excerpts from this article:
In a 16 January podcast interview, Robert Kagan, a historian and senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, explained why this is a mistake.
Because of Donald Trump’s desire and need for complete domination, he cannot tolerate and will not allow a Republican defeat at the polls.
As Robert Kagan put it: “There’s no chance in the world that Donald Trump is going to allow himself to lose in the 2026 elections, because that would be the end of his ability to wield total power. Unless they got up on the rooftop and said: ‘We are going to subvert the 2026 election,’ they could not be more obvious about what their intention is.”
“Last week, during an Oval Office interview with Reuters, Donald Trump touted his accomplishments and suggested that they were so great that “we shouldn’t even have an election” in November. Not surprisingly, that comment made headlines.
But it is at best a distraction from the real threat: the United States will have elections this year, but they will not be free and fair.
Far more important than his musings about calling off the midterms was what the president told the New York Times in another Oval Office interview. As the Times noted, he said that “he regretted not ordering the National Guard to seize voting machines in swing states after his loss in the 2020 election.”
As the Times observed, “Mr. Trump’s expression of regret … was ... a warning sign that he had not given up on the idea that voting machines were dangerous or that they could be seized in an effort to curb fraud.” We should take that warning seriously.
So far, the leaders of the Democratic party have not. They have focused on mobilizing to compete successfully in November, but have done little to ensure the election is not rigged through executive action, intimidation or interference with vote counting.
At the end of the day, the president may be attracted to the idea of rigging the 2026 election not just out of a fear that he will not be able to work his will but because, as scholars suggest, electoral manipulation is a signal to critical audiences (including “bureaucracy, potential defectors within the elite, or powerful stakeholders within civil society”) of his “strength“ and “invincibility”.
Whatever Trump’s motivations, Democrats are making a mistake by underestimating the likelihood that, for all the artful campaigning and the many unpopular things they can pin on Republicans, none of that will matter. They, and all the rest of us, must mobilize to avoid that result.
We have no time to waste.”
• Austin Sarat, William Nelson Cromwell professor of jurisprudence and political science at Amherst College, is the author or editor of more than 100 books, including Gruesome Spectacles: Botched Executions and America’s Death Penalty.
I don’t know why you say Democrats are assuming elections will be fair. Our local and county-wide Democratic organization is actively preparing for the possibility of election interference and my understanding is that this is an effort that is going on nationwide. Let’s stop pretending Democrats are wide-eyed thumb-suckers.
And Democratic State Attorneys General have been war-gaming scenarios for quite some time. They see the handwriting on the wall and want to be prepared.
I hope you are right. I just don't know what they can do. Any protest of any kind will be greeted with cries of insurrection and crushed with ICE or military.
What I fear is with 5000 NGs in DC until 2029 at $3 Billion, ICE acting as Storm Troopers, Concentration Camps @$38 billion with a capacity of 100000 persons. If we have elections in Nov, Ds win big, trump's lawsuits fail, he declares martial law, the NG and ICE roundup Ds to fill the CCs ? I fear that is the goal. Yeah, that can't happen here.
Folks, folks, folks!!! Remember! Sowing distrust in our elections IS the exact desire of these shmoes.
I remember in v1.0 election, a new “convert” said to me “aren’t you afraid to go to the polls?”…. (There was talk of people with guns etc. ) I knew what he was doing ..
they’re still at it. And the funny thing is how the hell do THEY explain how they won.
we should remember that in 1777, general George Washington made mandatory the inoculation of members of the Continental army against smallpox - because he was losing more men to smallpox than he was to British troops!
The US is turning, unfortunately, into a strong argument against the viability of democratic government. Absent some method of eliminating the highly profitable bulk sale of hate and ignorance, it's not clear how this is all supposed to work out.
The vaccine situation is particularly horrible as the people who are most likely to really suffer from the effects of the stupidity are babies and young children.
From Carl Sagan who, among many others, saw this coming:
The dumbing down of American is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30 second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance”
― The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
I disagree. You’re conflating the principles of democracy which is about giving voice to the individuals of a collective versus an active effort to hold and control the same individuals under a haze of ignorance and fear purging it of any critical thinking. Rather I would say that democracy or collective thinking when permitted to organically grow and contrasting ideas and opinions exchanged that a society moves forward. Sagan saw the downward spiral from early on because of critical thought and his ability to extrapolate from existing data and his training. What would be the alternative if not individual participation ?
The problem I see is that the US, a very wealthy, extremely heavily armed, and reasonably well educated society "decided", twice, the give the nuclear codes to a clearly deranged psychopath. I'm not sure what the alternative system would be, but this is not acceptable. The prerequisite for a functional democracy includes, I think, a presumption that that voters have some grasp of reality. In a media environment where multiple agents profit from making sure this isn't the case, there is a really big problem.
I agree with most of what you’ve written and I believe we are both on the same page but as you write “having a grasp on reality “ is a derivative of my earlier comment on critical thinking and more broadly educational levels. So NO “reasonably educated” is incorrect in my estimation. The information is available to arrive at ones own conclusions but they still resist to believe the falsehoods. And I believe that the U.S. falls behind most OECD countries on many subjects, history, maths, etc. The current incumbent of the WH is evidence of a failing system. While I agree that democratic institutions need greater bolstering, it’s the through the participation of intelligent, non-malevolent individuals to work for the common good rather than for individual private interests that a democratic society can exist and function affording the fruits of society to all. Given the current state of affairs worldwide and without a bend or reversal in trajectory, I would hazard that society as a whole (the people who do most of the sweating and working) will move towards serfdom. Perhaps hyperbole but I don’t like what I see and I believe that you see it as well. Good luck to us all.
It is a tragedy when one uneducated person can endanger millions. Dozy Don and the Kennedy, who has pushed god knows what into his body, taking the dose from a toilet seat in a filthy bathroom. But people believe them, rather then trained, qualified, medical people.....What a mess we are in....Why are Republicans so against education?.. Why do they always think the answer is another war. Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, Greenland, Canada, Cuba, Venezuela? Nothing but a bunch of bullies......
Those successes enable people to take the sciences for granted. Example: Polio was an absolute scourge while my Mom was a kid. My grandmother told of praying all summer long (prime polio season) that her kids would not get polio, end up in an iron lung, or die. Along came effective vaccination and polio retreated into the background of the populace's mind. It became so rare that it allowed complacency as well as conspiratorial thinking. Or just plain dumb thinking . "Polio is gone so we don't have to worry about it". That fed into conspiratorial thinking: "Polio is gone so we don't have to give our kids that polio vaccine that's worse than the disease." 🤦♀️
I was born in 1955, as was a cousin of mine. The second my mother could get me the polio vaccine, she did. While I was still a kid, she explained to me how my cousin's parents decided against the vaccine and how angry she was at them for that decision. I still remember the leg braces he wore at family gatherings.
That wasn't dumb or conspiratorial thinking. We wiped out polio nearly everywhere in the world and discontinued the shots. Today, polio exists in the wild only in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The same is true of smallpox, which actually has been eradicated.
FWIW, Trump never won the popular vote. He lost by 3 million votes to Clinton, and won more recorded votes than Harris, but he lost to the total number of votes cast for Harris and the third party candidates. He received 49.8% of the total vote in 2024. He never topped 50%.
It says a lot about the moral qualities of a lot of people ready to elect any thugs who promise to lower prices of eggs. It says also how they value democracy. And that's sadly true for all western democracies.
Born in 1951, I grew up in a nation that was proud to have the polio vaccine - when it finally came. Later the Sabin oral vaccine. And as more vaccines were developed, this was all seen as the best news. So it was the measles was considered conquered. And now.... It is utterly bizarre.
So, he has found a new way to kill his own people. Measles does not discriminate political affiliations. And children……I bet the Trump children are vaccinated, as he was when he went down with COVID.
If there were a vaccine against ignorance and stupidity trump would ban it. He’s already well on his way to destroying public education, and doing as much as possible to damage higher education as well.
Vaccines are a collective infrastructure and they work best when everyone participates, protecting people who can't be vaccinated through herd immunity. Dismantling that infrastructure pushes health protection back onto individual families, where outcomes depend entirely on what you can afford and what you happen to believe. The families with resources hire concierge doctors and navigate around the collapsing public system. Everyone else absorbs the risk. The vaccine debate looks like a science question, but structurally, it's the same privatization story playing out in a medico-cultural register.
Thanks Alison.
I was formerly a hospital doctor in the UK’s NHS, and my working life provided broad and deep experience of issues such as infectious disease: I commend and recommend your comment to all readers of this post.
Autism is still being investigated. In addition, please speak to people with autism and their families about this, but it is not a ‘problem’ in itself, once its differences (what we now call neurodivergence) are recognised and accepted. In short, it is not by necessity a ‘disability’.
There is absolutely no excuse for Trump’s thinking.
Thank you Paul for raising this issue.
I join the rest of humanity in feeling horror at this Administration’s policies, in the belief that unnecessary suffering and no gain will follow.
Regards,
Anthony
" scientists have found a found a strong association between autism and pre-natal maternal exposure to particulate matter from fossil fuel pollution."
Thanks for this. I've always wondered if the "increase" in autism may be due to environmental factors.
And yes, we should put FF industries on the hot seat to either reduce their emissions or prove that their product is NOT causing health problems at multiple levels for all human beings.
In a perfect world, the oil and gas industry would be forced to use their own profit money to foot the bill to clean up their own pollution.
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2840490
They’ve also found a correlation with father’s age 40+ and especially fathers age 50+. There’s a correlation with the older fathers/young mothers combination. And I just watched a Sci Show presentation about new research which suggest autistic traits may be what helped humans develop as a complex species. The implication is that autism as we now know it has existed as long as humans have and it’s been beneficial to have people who don’t have great social skills but are able to drill down on particular subjects. I know my autistic co-worker was the go-to guy for excellent insight into complex economic mathematics questions, making him a real asset to our team.
I'm sure your coworker was an asset, but unfortunately, your comment assumes that every person who has autism has high intelligence as well. That is not true; that's why they call it a spectrum--both for the degree of symptoms and the level of intelligence.
Much also depends on how an autistic person is raised. One whom I knew for years wasn't taught basic social skills, so he, although bright, monopolized conversations and wanted to talk only about his love of fantasy fiction. Others I've known have better manners and one always hugs me when he sees me. The range is great.
I was diagnosed with autuism in my early 40s, although I had suspected for years. I am on the milder end of the spectrum but I was never given the support I needed when I was younger. It was poorly understood in the 80s/90s. I had to teach myself social skills by copying other people and using verbatim stock phrases. As I've got older I've got better and can 'improv' when required. However, I've also learnt to embrace my autism and see it as a difference not a flaw. Interestingly, there is evidence neurodivergence people can usually communicate with one another with ease.
Thanks for sharing your experience. It is a difference, albeit one that can cause much pain for some who live with autism, often because others do not understand. Also, we all learn social graces by copying others, but we may learn in a different manner.
Things are better now, but when I volunteered in a school for children with intellectual challenges, I saw teachers making fun of their students behind their backs. That was 60 years ago. Sadly, we still have a lot to learn.
There's substantial evidence that advanced parental age is associated with increased risk for neurodivergence in offspring, with particularly consistent findings for autism spectrum disorder and some evidence for ADHD, schizophrenia-spectrum disorders, and other neurodevelopmental outcomes.
There's biologically plausible paternal-age mechanism. As men age, sperm accumulate de novo mutations, and changes in sperm epigenetics and selection among sperm-cell lineages may contribute to offspring risk.
The costs of pollution from extractive industry has never been included in the price of their products. Aside from the costs of outright subsidy via the tax system we socialize the costs from extractive industry as the public bears the cost of environmental cleanup and profits are privatized with most of those benefits flowing to the rich. So if the right fears socialism they should be demanding the fossil fuel industry bear the costs of environmental cleanup and healthcare costs directly related to their activities.
Excellent idea for who should bear some of our health care costs. And we probably don't know half of what kinds of health problems this pollution is causing either.
Hear, hear!
Well said.
Makes sense to me. Anyone disagree or refute?
I think the numbers are largely because of an increased understanding of it.
One would think the industrial revolution would have caused a higher number of autistic children. Temple Grandin, born in 1947, made huge strides in making people aware of autism. My grandson was born in 2009 and was diagnosed with autism. Even then there were many many questions about autism. I wonder, even today, how many children have not and will not ever be diagnosed. I am thankful that my grandson was diagnosed early on. His Grandma and I raised him and are very thankful to the wonderful folks that helped us. Frankly I had not heard about the connection to being exposed to fossil fuel pollution.
Temple Grandin was a genius.
Indeed!
The criterion for diagnosis has changed. 40 years ago the only people considered autistic were non-verbal and severely affected. Now it's become a popular thing to have.
"Popular" is a terrible adjective here. Yes, the definition has rightfully expanded. It's incredibly difficult to keyhole it, as it is often tied with other issues like ADHD. Some of the most brilliant people on the planet are likely on the spectrum because of the incredible amount of information their brains can process, but when you mix that with a massive lack of understanding of the "rules" of social interaction, their ability to communicate what they know can be severely impacted. Put them in the right situation, and they can thrive beyond your imagination....and yet, will still get locked up on certain things. Calling it "popular to have" does a great disservice to those who are fighting it every day.
A perfect rebuttal.
Indeed - https://hsph.harvard.edu/news/air-pollution-linked-with-increased-risk-of-autism-in-children/
Two solid scientific assertions vs Trump
Association is NOT cause and effect. The famous folly of this is that ice cream sales cause shark attacks. No idea of the FF association is more than just association. Prof. Krugman may have used that as a folly example. Do not accept that without further scientific fact, although it could be true. Association is a great scientific tool; observation has lead to great scientific breakthroughs.
The association has withstood several published rigorous studies aimed at eliminating the two major confounders and sources of bias: ascertainment bias and causes associated with air pollution (e.g., SES, urban, medical care, others). While still no proof of causality, let alone mechanism, these data should be cause for alarm. Of course, there's always the added dividend of avoiding pulmonary disease, acute and chronic.
Interesting. Thanks. Hopefully they can ascertain mechanism.
A few of these studies have attempted to identify the offending chemical species in air pollution. Studies are ongoing (unless the idiots in HHS block grants). Of interest, more than one study has identified third trimester as vulnerable. Neuronal development comes late in humans, extending well past birth. Unfortunately, I don't think there are any good animal models to test hypotheses. I'm a physician-scientist but have no special expertise in this field.
Hi I work for the Tennessee Valley Authority We were sued because science proved that our fossil emissions from our steam plants coal fired were causing detrimental effects to the forest and the people down of our plants IE on the East Coast.
We lost our suit and had to spend millions on environmental clean of our fossil plants.
This is a true story I worked for TVA for 18 1/2 years and was at one plant that installed over $2 million of environmental equipment
very true, but I that foes not mean that FF cause autism. However, one of the replies was by bruce Schneider, who said there was scientific evidence to back up a link between FF and autism, although likely not enough yet for a law suit.
Particulate matter is another word for dust is another word for ash is another word for dirt. Other things have an affinity for dirt and visa versa and attach themselves to particals of dirt, now dont they ? All kinds of aerosols. All kinds of sticky organic chemicals, no ? That are not good to have in your lungs much less your blood stream. So the correlation with autism does not surprise though one should not be quick to draw any conclusions from that, since as the doctor said, though its a condition, it is not a "disease". The correlation would be with poor health generally, thus life expectancy. And that would be stronger, no ? Air Pollution versus health. Bad thing.
I once lived in Berlin, NH, when the pulp plant ran. Down wind from it in the lead up to a storm, at the height of the stack. Turned our silver black.
Sulphur dioxide. We use it in jewelry to blacken silver.
With occasional chlorine releases.
see bruce Schneider's reply to my comment. there appears to be a link.
Wiki agrees with your assessment that the "increase" is simply due to more awareness. "Autism diagnoses have risen since the 1990s, largely because of broader diagnostic criteria, greater awareness, and wider access to assessment. Changing social demands may also play a role. The World Health Organization estimates that about 1 in 100 children were diagnosed between 2012 and 2021, noting an increasing trend. Surveillance studies suggest a similar share of the adult population would meet diagnostic criteria if formally assessed."
The last sentence indicates that autism hasn't actually increased at all.
Thanks for the link.
The increase in autism is largely due to a re-definition of the condition and the invention of the "autism spectrum". Not saying they're not valid constructs but that the change in statistical reporting is used by some for fearmongering to influence policy by the adolescents in the federal government.
I'm 56 and when I was a kid, autism meant something completely different than what it does now. It was extreme and nonverbal. My aunt was the principal at a special needs school (it wasn't called that at the time, but what it WAS called is no longer an acceptable word), and her doctoral thesis was on methods for teaching the profoundly autistic.
But nowadays, I am pretty sure she, her father, and I would all be considered adult cases (though why bother with a diagnosis if you are high functioning?), and my son was diagnosed on the spectrum. So yes, I think at least SOME of the increase is due to expanded diagnoses.
Dr. Trump and whack-job RFK think they know best. What's infuriating is decades ago a British doctor had a paper published in a medical journal alleging vaccines cause autism. It was thoroughly debunked and the journal withdrew the paper. But it took on a life of its own and now measles and other diseases are making a comeback.
The point is that they don't "think they know best." They know they can manipulate the market. And they can. That is all they know and all they need to know.
Yes they are. Thanks to the MAGAmorons who are leading this country to doomsday.
You believe Trump is actually thinking?
“it is not by necessity a ‘disability’” depending on how bad it is. And in many cases it is bad enough to be a disability.
I am a 72 year old retired Internist. I span the pre-Polio and MMR eras. My mom took me to be vaccinated against Polio as soon as the Vaccine came to town. I remember the 2 men in 2 separate houses across the street from us - both in their 60s and both with Post-Polio Syndrome. One of the kids in my kindergarten class died of Post-Measles Pneumonia. On TG weekend when I was 5, I got sick. The doctor came, examined me and put me in his car and took me to the Hospital - Diagnosis: Mumps Encephalitis. Everyone knew a Family with a severely deformed kid from the Mother having Rubella in the first trimester. Chicken Pox didn't kill a lot of kids, but it could be lethal to a pregnant woman. Spinal Meningitis, Hepatitis B, HPV (causes Cervical Cancer in young women) The list of diseases we had thought we had conquered is long. The anti-vax movement is a paranoid delusion and collective insanity.
The history of opposition to vaccination is long and was seen with the use of unscientifically inactivated smallpox vaccine up until the 19th century, which saved lives but also had more danger, until Jenner popularized the safer use of the related and safer cowpox, Washington had the soldiers vaccinated before the use of cowpox, giving them an advantage over the British in public health. Jefferson wrote to Jenner in 1800 after reading his manuscript on the use of cowpox complimenting him on the greatest achievement in medicine and predicted it would allow the eradication of the awful disease, smallpox, that killed so many people. Jefferson was correct; however, it took a coordinated effort of worldwide vaccination and advances in public health. This Regime is actively working against the health of the public in ways that will lead suffering and death and likely increase health care costs. They either do not have the insight of observers who lived long before scientific defining mechanisms of disease, have no basic education, any concept of public good or public service, or believe the use of misinformation that actually harms the people they serve but they feel will benefit them is an appropriate path for a person whose function is to serve the people.
Just this morning Morning Joe did a great summary of the result of recent polls of Americans’ attitudes about vaccines. (It’s at the end of the first hour). The vast majority of Americans strongly support them, saying they have saved millions of lives. Even 75% of Republicans say kids should be required to be vaccinated before starting school.
The media needs to stop giving a platform the loudest voices of a small minority of people while ignoring the opinions of the vast majority of us. That is what they did back when the anti-measles scam first began and they are still doing it.
If the media weren’t so timid, they should provide a platform that explores the damage possible to children when they contract diseases such as measles, mumps or rubella, as Stephan Brady stated in his post.
I really think they should also feature real families that have suffered from this, not just a bunch of talking heads. There are older people alive today in this country who are living with the consequences of measles — blindness, hearing loss, etc. — or who lost loved ones to it.
Why not all of these things? Remember that Eugenics is a thing among the Oligarchs and the tRump higher echelons.
The contrast of Washington and Jefferson, intelligent and in touch with the scientific advances of their time, and Trump is sad, but also frightening, because he holds the power they so carefully guarded.
And with the MAGA faithful he doesn’t even need slaves to do his dirty work
He just uses his little cult minions who are really nothing more than slaves but are not smart enough to know it
This may sound like the lunatic fringe, but that’s not who I think I am. I believe what I have been reading and have heard spoken about by professionals who have worked with Musk. When they describe his actual world view and comprehension of human beings, we discover that his real world is what most consider science fiction. AI will enable electronics of varying modes to undertake entire functions without human interference. Elon would say there is no need for all these people in order to keep the world existing. Elon would say it is to the good of the visionaries that a large portion of humanity cease to exist, whether by war, pollution, or a shorter lifespan.
It is essentially the DEATH PANELS that the Tea Party warned would be used by the government if the ACA passed.
This is very scary, and we cannot rule it out given how slow the population seems to be in discerning friend from foe.
I can only hope your assessment is not precise. it reads like a pathway to survival of the fittest, defined as those who are best adapted to a life without an understanding of the side of human nature that is less material and more other. One might as well live on Mars surrounded by humanoid robots to fulfill all material needs and read only instruction manuals to keep them functioning. I do not think I have ever seen any analysis of happiness that would be maximized by that life. I do not expect those who put any weight on public service to be in Trump’s circle, but, your take on Mr. Musk would suggest a very hollow life. SO SAD
It would truly be wonderful if Musk’s worldview only affected him. The truly sad part is that he has a very big toe in the futures of the rest of us if the MAGAs let him, and they will.
Get ready for this: You don’t get instruction manuals. You don’t get to tell the robots what to do. In fact, you re unable to control them. They run themselves and make adjustments as they deem necessary for their own survival. The only limitation is the natural lifespan of the materials the entity is comprised of. For example, titanium.
I believe one of his children who died if smallpox did not get the inoculation as they were ill at the time it would have been given.
Chicken pox doesn't kill many, but it did kill my best friend when I was 8. I still miss him.
I envision how deeply you must have hurt to lose a big part of your world. My bit is trivial compared to the tragic loss of your friend at such an early age, but I have a gap in my eyelash from a chicken pox scar and stuff always gets in that eye and it hurts, but just my eye, not my soul. I hope you can continue to spread the word to possibly convince doubters of the importance of vaccinations. A side effect of chicken pox is that you can get shingles later in life, which I have done twice. The misery is incredible and can lead to a painful and permanent neuralgia.
Many of these diseases have associated lifelong problems - sequelae. My grandmother told me when I was a teen what it had been like when Smallpox came to town in 1917... she pointed out the scars the pox had left her with.
Many people don't know that in 1777 General George Washington mandated that all members of his Continental Army be vaccinated for smallpox, because he was losing more men to smallpox than he was to the British army! You can Google this fact, if you don't believe it.
Well aware of it. Part of my 1970 Civics course.
And measles kills a lot more kids than chicken pox as well as blindness, brain damage, lost immunity and more. The media should be giving far more attention to these facts.
Do you mean the 'freedom of speech' media? More like the "freedom of propaganda' media.
Lifespan differences between political leanings: Democrate 77 yrs... Republican 75 yrs... I'd say that's about the change.... the US life expectancy before the modern vaccine era (1950) was 68 years... making America great again...
Im glad you mention birth defects from Rubella. The this never comes up when trying to explain the risks associated with not getting vaccinated. This problem doesn't show up unless you get the disease when pregnant but devastating nonetheless.
Dr. Brady,
As a retired Family Physician - slightly older than you - I echo all of your examples and concerns. I'll spare everyone my rant on the idiocy of this whole trend in our population, especially those that promulgate disinformation. What bothers me most is that the vast majority of vaccine decisions are made by parents of children who have no say in the decision but who would suffer the most. My out in left field thought, and yes this is a bit radical, is whether there is any grounds for legal repercussions for parents that refuse vaccinations for their children and the child then has a dire consequence secondary to a preventable disease. I look at the mini-trend of holding parents legally accountable for purchases of AR- type rifles for their child who later commits a mass shooting and wonder if there is some similarity?
Well, I escaped the encephalitis, but my experience is similar to yours. I'm 77. I went to school with a girl who was made deaf by measles before she could talk. Her voice was very distinctive, to say the least. I remember the lines for the polio shots and the newsreels of people lined up in "iron lungs." Thank God we did have typhoid and diphtheria shots by then. If some kid in the neighborhood came down with mumps, most people would drag their young children over to play with him or her, hoping their child would catch it. Much better to catch it then than to catch it as a young adult.
In Tennessee, you had to be vaccinated for smallpox, typhoid, and diphtheria before entering school.
My dad had polio a few months before the vaccine became generally available. This anti vax effort is such a waste of lives, a needless application of lifelong suffering. I'm not so old I don't remember the horror in my grandparents' voices talking about the fear and anxiety of summers with mosquitos, etc., the quarantine signs in front of homes, the children coming home from the hospital in iron lungs or crippled (as they would say).
My dad lived a long life for a polio survivor, but the last couple of decades were not easy. Post-polio syndrome, overuse of the physically able parts of his body took a heavy toll. I wouldn't wish it on anyone. But I do wish RFKjr, Trump, and their ilk could be made to experience a day with a family enduring the impacts of something so easily avoided.
Also shingles!
Grandma's Shingles gives little Johhny the Chickenpox! Same virus.
You’re correct, and the biggest problem is that we have people in charge who aren’t the least bit concerned with the common good or public health.
Right. They want to be able to peddle their fake "cures." I'm most irritated by the actors dressed up as Rabbis or claiming to be retired doctors and touting honey as a cure-all.
I don't have the coin to hire a concierge doctor , and corporate medicine is of a very poor standard , the " doctor " works for the corporation not you the patient.
Private equity has been buying up medical practices nationwide, and they squeeze the practices for more profits. I’ve reached the point where I think private equity and safe harbor rules must be outlawed in the public interest. On the other side of the equation, we have private insurers who use outdated AI to deny essential treatment and stick us with increasing prices for copays and medical bills every year.
What we’ve given the world is an example of how a few people are able to profiteer off human misery and necessity. It’s a poor example, just as the USSR and the former PRC structures were.
The degree to which private equity has permeated so many sectors would shock most Americans. Most are well aware of the sharp drop off in “service” but zero idea why. Private Equity. They have taken over medical care, veterinary care, real estate, childcare, local media, and your favorite stores and restaurants. Their number one priority is profit, rapid gains. It is not at all unusual for them to buy “low”, increase profit margins by just about any means (such as forcing doctors to cram schedules), and selling at a profit a few years down the road to…another investor. Rinse and repeat. Customers obviously notice the change and decline in service which also may come with a price increase. The employees feel the stress of quotas, etc while also getting blamed by customers. Everyone is miserable, but few are blaming the right people - the private equity firms.
Plus nursing homes, hospice, funeral homes and mobile home parks. PE is a parasite on our society, creating nothing but living off what others have created.
Definitely not capitalism. Perhaps vampireism is the best category
Some have labeled PE as end-stage capitalism, Hungry snake swallows own tail. Details at 11!
... which is why I bit the bullet about 15 years ago and prepaid my funeral costs. I have no idea what they would be now and don't particularly care. what has taken its place is the CA property tax load when you have a reverse mortgage - the only reason why I am still here rather than in a rent-a-van or worse.
We're in our 89s. We all have to stay agile to stay ahead of the flood or whatever the hell is coming.
Private equity firms are vampires. They ought to be illegal.
I have noticd that the vet costs more and there's more turrnover among the staff.
The animals will suffer as Vets have been priced out. Poor people can't afford to own dogs and cats anymore. Their best bet is to visit the zoo.
I was shocked at what vets charge. Last month I took my dog to the vet and paid over $500 for my dog itching like crazy and crusty eyelids. She was treated but needs follow ups every month! I can’t afford this.
Private equity is despised everywhere!
Why do you have to specify outdated AI? All AI sucks.
That is the main reason. It will be outdated forever. Which is why it sucks.
America has the best healthcare in the world.....
For the super-rich.
The way I see it is that the US has great medical care (as do many countries) but terrible health care for the reasons you state. Couple that with deteriorated air and water quality due to the current EDA (environmental destruction agency), food quality due to the MIA FDA, lack of help in emergencies (FEMA who?), horrible weather resulting from climate change, lousy housing stock; I won't go on but you get the picture. It's going to get worse before it gets any better.
In America's system of healthcare....
Medical professionals are NOT rewarded for...healing,
But they ARE rewarded for....prolonging.
I lived in the USA for 20 years from 1998 to 2018. While never a great fan of 'the greatest country on Earth' since the self-immolation of a Buddhist monk in Vietnam in 1963 showed me the deep darkly evil manipulative core of American "ideals", that ventennium convinced me that the whole country, including the moderates and progressives, was involved in the performance of the final throes of a naricisstic Murder and Suicide Cult. I fled back to Europe, where l can live out my days in the hope that the USA will be abolished.
And l continue to work toward that.
Yeah, but underprivileged school kids are going to starve to death due to Republican cuts in SNAP and WIC benefits, so the weak will die and the strong will mostly survive the dread illnesses like mumps, measles, whooping cough, Covid-19, etc. /s
I know, and I have little choice but to agree. (I had mumps, and a college friend died quite young with polio.)
I've spent >60 years in the deep south, usually in rural locations. What do I know to be true about the overwhelming majority of my neighbors and relatives?
"MAGA hates the things they hate more than they love the things they love."
God instructing Abraham to sacrifice his son, Isaac is NOTHING compared to the sacrifices Trump expects (and receives daily) from his "worshippers".
Whatever it takes to "own the libs", even the deaths of loved ones. Oddly enough, it seems we're not hearing "death of beloved family by Covid" as one of the new complaints by disenchanted MAGA against their cult leader. So, is it possible that those paying the highest price are still willing to die...and kill family members...for The Killer Wail?
Several years ago I read of a guy in Texas whose unvaccinated kid died from measles. He pretty much said he would still refuse to vaccinate (he had other children), and that his kid dying was "god's will." IMHO, people like that should be criminally prosecuted for felony child abuse and manslaughter.
Yes, Rena, those were the parents of the two little girls who died.
And who knows what they may actually feel. But in the hands of manipulative anti-vax journalists (controlling both the phrasing of the question and somewhat the editing of the answer) they did indeed answer that they would prefer their children be dead, even knowing the vaccine WOULD have saved them.
And that's certainly the message that was embraced by millions of uneducated MAGA parents seeing the video. And it's only slightly off-topic to point out that all Trump requires of every MAGA parent is to never let any of their children open a book....or their mind. JOB DONE!
I'd like to think that the loss of family members at Trump's tiny hand should be price enough, but all indications are that they will be more saddened when Trump eventually explodes than when half their family died horribly and alone.
And, politicians!
My sister-in-law got a clearly ridiculous diagnosis from her expensive concierge doctor. She leaves close to the Mayo Clinic and was eventually diagnosed and treated correctly there.
Medical care is too expensive in my city as it is everywhere but most people I know believe they get decent care from their physicians as do I. The docs may work for the corporation but most still really care about their patients.
My PA of 8 years, who I had to wait for on a list for 6 months, has done a wonderful job with my medical care, IMO.
However, she is leaving in September to go back to being a surgical nurse because so is sick and tired of the so called health insurance companies telling her how to practice medicine.
She will be missed by hundreds of patients. I don't blame her a bit.
In the rural south, we no longer have doctors. We have nurse practitioners only; typically young women with limited experience.
Here's an interesting situation...
UnitedHealth required me to have my NURSE PRACTITIONER (a young woman seemingly in her mid 20s) who I had seen twice in my life (and she wouldn't know me if she passed me on the street), send an approval to an actual orthopedic surgeon, who I was already a patient of.
The approval was sent, but I still expect to lose my left hand to gangrene, because the surgery was never approved, and I've given up on my every option.
The really funny thing? It will cost them more to hospitalize me for gangrene.
I find that too. But those are the MDs who go to bat for what’s best for their patients. The frustration and horror are unimaginable to have a patient for whom a particular medication is the best and only choice. The patient’s life is on the line. The insurance company denies authorization. Heartbreaking. I wonder how many MDs burn out.
Yesterday, I called my old practice to schedule a belated physical exam. I also needed clearance for an outpatient procedure. I was told they didn't do that anymore. WTF?
I just got my account from United Healthcare and noticed that my Dr charged $7000 for a surgical procedure. Medicare only paid $125 and UH paid nothing! WTF! This procedure was steroid shots etc. I sure hope I don’t get charged. Why isn’t Medicare paying? Why isn’t UH paying? I really wonder why I pay $350 a month for supplemental insurance that just increased by $75. A month
Good luck. It's getting crazy.
I don’t have the money either for “ concierge” medicine but don’t understand the need for it except for people who need to feel special, pampered, and above the rest of us. But I do have Medicare (at least so far), access to local healthcare and to an excellent hospital (although 2 hours away) and a brain that can read a variety of international and trusted American medical information and recommendations, critically think about the information, and I have no problem trusting what an expert (a board-certified MD) tells me regarding my personal health.
Lucky you. Thank God for small favors. I am pretty much on the same boat; if you don't get good health advice when you are young and don't need it as much, you come to regret it. I am 85 and still go to the gym twice a week and walk every day after a hip replacement forced me off the running schedule. I can tell I am slowing down, but I still feel good (except for the WashDC crisis) and thank God for good things like friends, cats, good food, and relatively good health. Things could be worse.
The morning cup of coffee after feeding the cats is my favorite time of day .
I don’t have the money for a Concierge medical practice either. Here’s the advantages: Doc is available 24/7. You get the doctor, not a NP or PA, and for more than 15 minutes.
Most people not on Medicaid get a 15 minute appointment these days. During that time, the doc is also writing up the visit. A good part is they usually give you a written summary of the visit.
But, if you need medical care on a weekend or holiday, too bad. Have you visited your nearest Emergency Department lately?
I don’t think it’s just a status thing. You pay to get what you need when you need it.
The doctors in these practices need to be super well educated and super smart. Most people believe that they are getting the best care from their ordinary doctor and their local hospital. It just ain’t necessarily so. There are sometimes differences that go way under the radar, or are not easily recognized by the average patient. Those differences can mean life or death, but the patient and family have no idea that a smarter doctor at a better facility would have meant life not death.
The wealthy can't easily buy their way out of contagious diseases, which is one reason why public health became a thing in the 19th century. It's an aweful thing to say but it'll probably take affluent children dieing of measles before common sense kicks in and this dangerous anti-vax nonsense ends.
That depends on the rich (other than Brainworm Bobby) being foolish enough to avoid vaccinations. But they won’t, because they will use modern medicine to their advantage just like they use modern financial markets and modern technology.
Yes but without herd immunity they become vulnerable. Measles needs 95% uptake to be effective as I understand it.
Don’t expect it to end.
People will always buy the Snake Oil. If they didn’t the charlatans would stop selling it. Funny how the right wing podcasts etc often come out with their own brands of catheters and supplements.
What is more disgusting than Trump who appointed RFK Jr to attack science is Trump's approval rating which is 35%. The rating means about 60 million people, who are registered voters, approve of Trump and the attacks on healthcare/science/truth despite the blatant corruption and violations of law, the lying, the attacks on democracy and elections, the destruction of affordability, the ICE raids on immigrants including the murders of American citizens and the war with Iran. The 60 million includes MAGA with white male supremacists who hate women, blacks and immigrants.
However, the problem in America isn't just Trump and the 60 million who still approve of Trump and everything he does. The problem is the lawless fascist autocracy run by oligarchs to steal wealth from 95% of Americans and transfer the wealth to the oligarchs. The lawless, fascist autocracy is being installed with an ongoing insurrection totally supported by Republicans in Congress, six justices on the Supreme Court and the billionaire oligarchs. Trump's insurrection began on January 6, 2021, but the insurrection continued into 2025 and 2026. Trump, members of his administration, Republicans in Congress, six justices on the Supreme Court and billionaire oligarchs are violating federal law (18 U.S. Code § 2383). According to the federal law (18 U.S. Code § 2383), a felony crime is committed by “Whoever incites, sets on foot, assists, or engages in any rebellion or insurrection against the authority of the United States or the laws thereof, or gives aid or comfort thereto, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both; and shall be incapable of holding any office”.
Remember in 2024 SCOTUS refused to enforce Section 3 of the 14th Amendment that permanently bars individuals from holding state or federal office if they previously swore and oath to the U.S. Constitution and later engaged in insurrection or rebellion. That’s a clear violation of the federal law against insurrection which allowed Trump to be on the ballot and get elected.
The core problem in America is a corrupt legal, economic and political system that refuses to enforce equal justice under the law.
If a new Democratic controlled Congress and a Democratic president are elected in 2028 because they adopt PROJECT 2029 that solves affordability, they will have a sworn obligation to enforce the federal law against insurrection and the Constitution to prosecute, convict, imprison, Trump, members of his administration, Republicans in Congress, six justices on the Supreme Court and billionaire oligarchs.
Shhhhh. If you tell them that expect to encounter a bloody rebellion, fought by former ICE creeps who otherwise have no lives. Those guys aren’t going back to school to learn a trade.
The military would easily vanquish such a rebellion
But would they?
With a Democrat as president who would use the Insurrection Act - YES the military would
Measles vaccines aren't given before six months, even the rich and reasonable will have their babies at risk from the rising stupidity.
If the adults have been vaccinated, a newborn can get some good immunities from breast milk starting Day One.
I was born in the early 60s and had whooping cough, chicken pox, measles, mumps, and German measles and had the immunizations for all of those too. I spent the first 2 yrs sick from these illnesses and fell behind in school. Our neighbor had a baby with profound birth defect from being exposed to measles during pregnancy. I guess when people don't live these experiences and when the experience seems remote, one loses the importance of safe and sound science. Ridiculous there are vaccines for dreaded diseases and the dumbest president in our history has made people afraid to use them. I hate him more every single day.
You had all those diseases despite being vaccinated against many of them? That suggests either that you did not receive the full number of doses or that you suffered from an immune deficiency.
I was born in 1952 and was immunized against smallpox (six times! -- the usual infant and pre-college doses, plus before and after my family's deployments overseas with the Navy); diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis (whooping cough); and polio. I had measles and chickenpox and failed to get German measles or mumps despite being deliberately exposed. My older daughter, born in 1970, had the further protection of the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine (but not smallpox; our doctor didn't give it because there had not been a case in the US in ten years, but every year four children died of complications of the vaccine). Now kids get at least a half-dozen other vaccines -- Trump says too many, but I believe it's worth protecting them from any potentially-severe disease to which they might be exposed, unless a vaccine is too new for its safety profile to have been established in a large cohort.
I actually had the diseases before getting the vaccines. I had whooping cough at 6mo old and my mom said it was something all the time with me. Everytime an outbreak of something came round, I would get it, then a vaccine would be scheduled for them before school started and I would then get the vaccine. It seems I remember many outbreaks occurring during the summer.
Generally, having one of those old childhood diseases results in lifelong immunity -- but at 6 months a baby's immune system might not be mature enough to respond fully.
Unless one stays at home permanently it is impossible to “navigate around the collapsing public system” because leaving home involves interacting with other people — many of whom are now unvaccinated.
Please tell me if I’m wrong. But couldn’t exposure to particulates in pregnancy be a measure of poverty? People who are forced to live in areas with filthy air and exposure to traffic are people who may not have the choices available to the more affluent. So it may not be the pollution itself that leads to autism but the conditions that cluster in the lives of the comparatively poor. A tougher problem to solve, I know.
Yes. There was a lot of discussion about redlining and proximity to airborne lead pollution in 2020 after the killing of Freddie Gray. Those discussions referenced scientific research showing strong correlations between child development and air pollution levels. (This is probably one of the reasons the regime is so anti-science while it’s members use every modern technology and medicine themselves).
Prevailing winds in the U.S. blow basically towards the northeast. When you talk about filthy air, you were talking about much of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, and New England before the EPA got started. Those are not mainly comparatively poor.
Is Autism more common amongst poor people? That should be easy to verify. But I haven't heard that as a meme before.
Funny how antivaxxers believe the government can tell you what you can't put in your body but can't tell you what you can put in your body.
I agree with almost all of what you said but wasn’t clear how everyone who can does get vaccinated and that, by extension, those who can’t physically tolerate vaccination are, by extension, protected through herd immunity? Isn’t herd immunity the notion that a population become inoculated by surviving repeated exposures to the virus?
Parents are torturing (I had measles, mumps and chicken pox in the pre-vaccine 50s, it was torture) and killing their children because of the anti-vax lies from Trump and RFK Jr. These people need to live with that guilt, without sympathy or support from the rest of us, for the rest of their cursed lives. Frankly RFK Jr. should be charged with mass murder for the deaths he has caused. Sadly there will be no consequences for him or for any of the anti-vax zealots who are killing children because of the lies they spew.
As should Trump for the COVIID deaths because of his irrationality and incompetence .
If we're going to do COVID let's not forget Jared Kushner who told Trump to do nothing because it was only killing people in blue states. (Part of the reason that neither he nor Princess Sparklebunny will ever be able to live in NYC again)
Interesting, as statistics show people in red states died of COVID-19 at significantly higher rates than those in blue states -- presumably as a consequence of higher rates of refusal of both vaccines and recommended infection-prevention behaviors such as mask-wearing and social distancing.
Wooow
I remember that. I was thinking, these guys aren't even smart enough to realize they're killing off their base.
BTW,
Ever hear any mention in the Trump Era of the mysterious Obama Pandemic Plan?
I'm sure it exists, and would have saved many lives. (And had Obama not been Black, capable and intelligent, it may even have been used by Trump.)
EVER hear of it when the America actually needed it? Even from Obama?
Trump tossed the plan as soon as he gained office just as he trashed the nuclear deal President Obama gained with Iran.
No doubt, but it would not have been the only copy.
And the Iran agreement? We hear about that a lot, and did even before Trump showed his dum(sic) "donkey" by attacking.
I've yet to hear a single reference to the Obama Pandemic Plan, even from Dems. (Even during the Bidin administration, when it was basically the meat in this Trump sandwitchhunt.)
NPR had an hour long segment on it; and several podcasts have dealt with it. But there is too much even good information out there; and too many outlets for most people who are open to good information to find; ( how do you advertise to reach them); much less deal with the bad information.
And it was Marin County/New Age/ Hollywood Liberals who some of the first vaccine sceptics.
Read up on what Kennedy did in Samoa during a measles outbreak to add another candidate for the scaffold.
Yes, I have family there and have heard about this tragedy.
I believe 83 died because of him in Samoa.
I wish Kennedy could be forced to read this article over and over, every single day. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/02/child-dies-measles-vaccines/685969 From "How a Child Dies of Measles":
"Your children seem so fragile as they recover over the next year, but then the four of you are back to your usual adventures. For roughly eight years, you will believe that your family made it through this crisis without suffering a tragedy. You marvel at your good fortune, and feel a rush of gratitude the day your daughter returns to school and life resumes its normal rhythm. But years later, when your baby is in fourth grade, he will begin struggling with subjects he had once mastered. His teachers will ask to speak with you about how he is suddenly acting out in uncharacteristic ways.
You will not think of his measles infection when he begins suffering muscle spasms in his arms and hands, nor when his pediatrician recommends that you see a neurologist. You realize you have entered a new nightmare when nurses affix metal electrodes to your son’s scalp with a cold conductive paste to perform an electroencephalogram to measure his brain waves. As the neurologist examines the results, she will note the presence of Radermecker complexes: periodic spikes in electrical activity that correlate with the muscle spasms that have become disruptive. She will order a test of his cerebrospinal fluid to confirm what she suspects: The measles never really left your son. Instead, the virus mutated and spread through the synapses between his brain cells, steadily damaging brain tissue long after he seemed to recover."
There is an even more common serious side effect of measles infections — immune amnesia — that is, their immune systems forgets how to right diseases they had alreadly learned to resist. That happens to most after a measles infection and can last for a very long time.
How Measles Causes Immune Amnesia
https://www.harvardmagazine.com/health-medicine/measles-immune-amnesia
Our media should be repeating these kinds of facts every time they report on this dangerous, incredibly infectious disease. Instead they leave people with the impression it is no more dangerous than any other childhood illness. I am an older baby boomer and will never forget that girl in my elementary was left so brain damaged from the encephalitis measles had caused she never returned to school.
That is too awful! I must admit I’d never heard of it. My generation of kids (post WW2) caught ALL those diseases and I knew a few schoolmates who never really recovered. I find it extremely hard to accept the stupidity of the anti-vaccination crowd.
Me too. I've been scratching my head on that one for years.
I had all three and i was miserable. And despite shingrix, i consider myself still vulnerable to shingles. With measles on the rise, i will be asking my doc if i should get the mmr...
Generally recommendation is to get a measles titer test that checks the level of your immunity to the disease. If it is too low then you can get the vaccine.
The problem is that special blood tests - anything out of the ordinary - are expensive.
Who’s doing TITERS? Lab Corps?
I feel your pain. I had all three the summer between kindergarten and first grade. My mother was ready to load me in a crate and ship me to Antarctica.
My Mom too, until she also caught them from us and couldn’t muster the energy to get to the post office! We did survive but we were very sick and so uncomfortable.
PHN here , no MD , but my training reflects this info-
Written documentation showing two doses of a live measles-containing vaccine given at least 28 days apart, with the first dose administered on or after their first birthday.
Then you should be immune to all three
No. Immunity varies. Get the titer, and you'll have more accurate data.
Carole is talking about infants ("on or after their first birthday") - no need to get a titer test for them. Just get them vaccinated!
Go back and read the full string. Krikit's Songs had measles as a child, and is wondering if she still has full immunity. Carole may have been talking about infants (although my take is that she was discussing whether an adult who was vaccinated as an infant needs a booster now, as an adult), but no question the start of the string was an adult, presumably an older adult who got childhood diseases pre-vaccine, who wants to know if she should get a booster.
Aetna refused to allow the second Shingrix shot for me. I'm a great procrastinator, but I really need to check to see if I can get the shots and pay for them myself. I had a mild case of shingles once and don't want to see another.
So you only had the first dose? That's just wrong.
It's all i had, but my insurance would have covered the full package. I had a very strong reaction to the 1st one, so my doc felt i was probably ok with the one.
Correct. I had some mild swelling, so they said I was allergic. I got that removed from my medical record last November, but I still have the same insurance. I think I just need to walk into my pharmacy, get the shots, and hand them a credit card.
My goodness, call my 3 brothers and myself, had measles, chicken pox and mumps all together at the same time as kids…it was horrid but we luckily survived. Not so are for some children allowed to suffer and die as a result of village idiots anti vaxers, who should never be allowed to have children under their care anymore, due to child abuse and neglect to not protect their own child from a method proven to prevent the diseases through vaccinations. I deem them as accessories tto murder actually. They say the risk of vaccination …mind you anything ingested can be life threatening, like aspirin, antibiotics, ibuprofen or literally any medicine or even foods. And what is the alternative. Polio is coming back and are you willing to see your child in an iron lung for the rest of their lives….can you even afford it or let them suffer and diedue to your stupidity?
As soon as I heard of the return of measles—which I never had—I got the MMR shot and Tetanus Diptheria whooping cough. I was lucky with those childhood diseases. I remember the mumps and chickenpox and whooping cough pretty well.
But I also remember being 8 years old and becoming too weak to walk to the cabin my family rented for the summer. I remember crawling up a slight hill and then I must have fainted. I next remember being in bed with a million blankets, and my father came to take us all back to the city.
What I found out when I got older was that my parents’ fear was Polio, for which there was no vaccine as yet, and children were dying. Too many. Public pools were closed for years after until the vaccine.
Americans currently do not have a memory of that fear of losing their children to polio, so randomly and definitively. We are now seeing our neighbors who survived polio suffer from post polio conditions, some of which sent them to an earlier death.
I too was pre-vaccine 50s. So this year I had my annual physical include a panel of blood tests to establish if I still had immunity. At this time I have not had to pay out of pocket on Medicare for the peace of mind.
Very good to know!
Thanks, Mark.
I totally agree—I also had measles and mumps. Both were debilitating and painful. It was just before there was MMR, and the measles vaccine had not been optimized. In addition to missing about three weeks of school, I had febrile seizures and then eye problems for months after the measles. With mumps, I missed all of a spring vacation and then another week of school, in addition to having hallucinatory dreams, inability to eat and extreme pain. Anyone who wants to have their child suffer like this is stupid and crazy. Plus, having shots is very traumatic, and having three of them, plus the cost of three doctor visits is torture for the child and the parent.
I wonder if trump knows that many pharmacies provide free or reduced cost vaccinations and health departments do vaccines too. My cynical side went straight to trump wants to help out private equity by forcing three doctor visits for m+m+r at $100+ a pop, rather than the one it takes for combined mmr.
That wouldn’t surprise me. He probably never took any of his kids into the doctor for shots, either. I remember having to have the pediatrician and his hefty nurse, plus my mom hold me down when I needed a shot, even as a baby!
That was true for me by the time I was in my teens. I remember the old tetanus shots as being particularly painful.
It’s amazing I went into medicine, with the childhood trauma I went through with so many illnesses, plus a terrifying pediatrician and Nurse Ratchet!
As that great philosopher Ron White once said: you can't fix stupid.
"but you can charge for it." sign at Bobby's Precision Auto.
Their children don’t deserve this
Hugues,
The world will learn what I have learned by living >60 years in the American deep south:
"MAGA hate the things they hate more than they love the things they love."
They will sacrifice their elderly to Covid and the children to measles w/o a second thought, if Trump tells them that's how to "own the libs".
And southerners have been fighting over this Civil War scam for too long to stop now.
I wish it wasn't so, but it is.
Perhaps if they saw this snarky cartoon they might think twice?
The more anti-vaxxers
The less anti-vaxxers
The problem with that is the other kids that are affected because herd immunity was not achieved. This is especially a problem with measles.
Good point....
I'm absolutely baffled people take medical advice from a failed shyster, who knows nothing about medicine or science & was a heroin addict for years, has taken his grandchildren to play in a heavily polluted creek in DC & eats roadkill!
These are many of the same people who took COVID advice from Trump and drank bleach and ate horse paste. You can't fix stupid.
“These people need to live with that guilt, without sympathy nor support from the rest of us, for the rest of their cursed lives.”
My sentiments exactly. The stupidity MUST be denounced and shamed!
We have 1 man with possible neurosyphilis and another with a worm in his brain running things. What could possibly go wrong? /s/
I don't think Samoa is going to put up statue of RFK Jr anytime soon.
That's why we need to get him out of there, as well as spread the truth
As an Afghan who stood with America and its people, it is painful to watch the country I once believed would stand for its allies turn away from science, reason, and even the health of its own children. We Afghans know what it feels like to be abandoned after putting our trust in a government and its promises. What is happening with vaccines is deeply troubling not only for Americans, but for everyone who believes that leadership should be based on evidence, responsibility, and compassion. Allies should not be abandoned, and neither should children. Very painful
Thank you for sharing this very painful reality. So much depresses me these days and the horrors of betrayal rings loud. I can still see the last plane leaving Saigon and feeling the despair of those left behind. We are in very shameful times. I pray for miracles including the protection of our immigrants especially those who helped us .
We can learn a lot from you who suffered this unforgivable betrayal. “Heartbreak” isn’t a strong-enough word to describe it.
I'm so sorry for what you went through! It probably doesn't help much, but know that there are many of us who are upset with our country for how we treated you.
I'm sorry, but our present administration's goals have nothing to do with compassion for others.
Very painful.
I’m in the UK and just had surgery to remove my gall bladder. Many, many years ago the functions of the gall bladder were well understood, as were the problems with inflammation and stones associated with it. Yet surgery wasn’t an option: anaesthetics and antibiotics weren’t available. Surgery would kill you.
The advance if science, the dedication of health professionals and a functioning health system has gifted me another twenty or thirty years of life.
In the long run, with its attacks on science and promotion of ignorance , this is what the Republican Party is wrecking; your ability to have a good, healthy and long life.
Casually and reasonably toned, this is still a horror story. The wide outbreak of American ignorance will cost lives, mostly MAGA faithful. But not only.
A good case can be made that Red states greatly benefited financially from COVID vaccine denialism, as poor, vaccine hesitant seniors living on the state's dime in senior's facilities formed a high percentage of the total fatalities.
Yes, right. Ignorance is its own reward.
By letting COVID kill off grandpa and grandma in senior's homes, Red states got themselves a pretty hefty financial bonus.
But don't think of it as mass murder. Helping the elderly meet go to be with Jesus is a calling beyond such worldly distinctions.
If the only lives lost were adult MAGA faithful I'd be fine with that.
Just supporting free will, right? If you want to be sickened or killed by COVID, by all means, skip the shot and keep a good distance away from me.
NO, not ok AT ALL!
Those unvaccinated can be asymptomatic and still infectious- all it would take is a sneeze or cough and MANY people ( too young or immune compromised) could also be infected.
Will Trump Seize the Election?
From The Hill, August 11, 2026
“Trump on declaring national security emergency for elections: ‘Stranger things have happened’
President Trump on Tuesday left the door open to declaring a national security emergency and federalizing control over the November midterms.”
From The Guardian, January 23, 2026
Democrats are campaigning as if the 2026 election will be fair. That’s a mistake
Austin Sarat
The following are excerpts from this article:
In a 16 January podcast interview, Robert Kagan, a historian and senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, explained why this is a mistake.
Because of Donald Trump’s desire and need for complete domination, he cannot tolerate and will not allow a Republican defeat at the polls.
As Robert Kagan put it: “There’s no chance in the world that Donald Trump is going to allow himself to lose in the 2026 elections, because that would be the end of his ability to wield total power. Unless they got up on the rooftop and said: ‘We are going to subvert the 2026 election,’ they could not be more obvious about what their intention is.”
“Last week, during an Oval Office interview with Reuters, Donald Trump touted his accomplishments and suggested that they were so great that “we shouldn’t even have an election” in November. Not surprisingly, that comment made headlines.
But it is at best a distraction from the real threat: the United States will have elections this year, but they will not be free and fair.
Far more important than his musings about calling off the midterms was what the president told the New York Times in another Oval Office interview. As the Times noted, he said that “he regretted not ordering the National Guard to seize voting machines in swing states after his loss in the 2020 election.”
As the Times observed, “Mr. Trump’s expression of regret … was ... a warning sign that he had not given up on the idea that voting machines were dangerous or that they could be seized in an effort to curb fraud.” We should take that warning seriously.
So far, the leaders of the Democratic party have not. They have focused on mobilizing to compete successfully in November, but have done little to ensure the election is not rigged through executive action, intimidation or interference with vote counting.
At the end of the day, the president may be attracted to the idea of rigging the 2026 election not just out of a fear that he will not be able to work his will but because, as scholars suggest, electoral manipulation is a signal to critical audiences (including “bureaucracy, potential defectors within the elite, or powerful stakeholders within civil society”) of his “strength“ and “invincibility”.
Whatever Trump’s motivations, Democrats are making a mistake by underestimating the likelihood that, for all the artful campaigning and the many unpopular things they can pin on Republicans, none of that will matter. They, and all the rest of us, must mobilize to avoid that result.
We have no time to waste.”
• Austin Sarat, William Nelson Cromwell professor of jurisprudence and political science at Amherst College, is the author or editor of more than 100 books, including Gruesome Spectacles: Botched Executions and America’s Death Penalty.
I don’t know why you say Democrats are assuming elections will be fair. Our local and county-wide Democratic organization is actively preparing for the possibility of election interference and my understanding is that this is an effort that is going on nationwide. Let’s stop pretending Democrats are wide-eyed thumb-suckers.
And Democratic State Attorneys General have been war-gaming scenarios for quite some time. They see the handwriting on the wall and want to be prepared.
THANK YOU!!!!!
I hope you are right. I just don't know what they can do. Any protest of any kind will be greeted with cries of insurrection and crushed with ICE or military.
What I fear is with 5000 NGs in DC until 2029 at $3 Billion, ICE acting as Storm Troopers, Concentration Camps @$38 billion with a capacity of 100000 persons. If we have elections in Nov, Ds win big, trump's lawsuits fail, he declares martial law, the NG and ICE roundup Ds to fill the CCs ? I fear that is the goal. Yeah, that can't happen here.
Yes. Those in the Resistance need to be thinking beyond the midterms.
SAM, save America movement/meidas piece on voter suppression and how to counter it
https://substack.com/@thesaveamericamovement/note/p-210779200?r=4vhz2o&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=notes-share-action
Folks, folks, folks!!! Remember! Sowing distrust in our elections IS the exact desire of these shmoes.
I remember in v1.0 election, a new “convert” said to me “aren’t you afraid to go to the polls?”…. (There was talk of people with guns etc. ) I knew what he was doing ..
they’re still at it. And the funny thing is how the hell do THEY explain how they won.
This is about thinking beyond the election, which is going to be a debacle created by His Royal Heinous.
They don't need to explain it, as long as they win.
we should remember that in 1777, general George Washington made mandatory the inoculation of members of the Continental army against smallpox - because he was losing more men to smallpox than he was to British troops!
And now we have Hegseth who thinks influenza isn’t an issue for his fit warriors!😝what a doofus
Although I think Hegseth basically turned on a dime on the flu vaccine after there was an outbreak amongst some of the troops....
Probably the only effective action he accomplished as a general.
The US is turning, unfortunately, into a strong argument against the viability of democratic government. Absent some method of eliminating the highly profitable bulk sale of hate and ignorance, it's not clear how this is all supposed to work out.
The vaccine situation is particularly horrible as the people who are most likely to really suffer from the effects of the stupidity are babies and young children.
From Carl Sagan who, among many others, saw this coming:
The dumbing down of American is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30 second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance”
― The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
I disagree. You’re conflating the principles of democracy which is about giving voice to the individuals of a collective versus an active effort to hold and control the same individuals under a haze of ignorance and fear purging it of any critical thinking. Rather I would say that democracy or collective thinking when permitted to organically grow and contrasting ideas and opinions exchanged that a society moves forward. Sagan saw the downward spiral from early on because of critical thought and his ability to extrapolate from existing data and his training. What would be the alternative if not individual participation ?
The problem I see is that the US, a very wealthy, extremely heavily armed, and reasonably well educated society "decided", twice, the give the nuclear codes to a clearly deranged psychopath. I'm not sure what the alternative system would be, but this is not acceptable. The prerequisite for a functional democracy includes, I think, a presumption that that voters have some grasp of reality. In a media environment where multiple agents profit from making sure this isn't the case, there is a really big problem.
I agree with most of what you’ve written and I believe we are both on the same page but as you write “having a grasp on reality “ is a derivative of my earlier comment on critical thinking and more broadly educational levels. So NO “reasonably educated” is incorrect in my estimation. The information is available to arrive at ones own conclusions but they still resist to believe the falsehoods. And I believe that the U.S. falls behind most OECD countries on many subjects, history, maths, etc. The current incumbent of the WH is evidence of a failing system. While I agree that democratic institutions need greater bolstering, it’s the through the participation of intelligent, non-malevolent individuals to work for the common good rather than for individual private interests that a democratic society can exist and function affording the fruits of society to all. Given the current state of affairs worldwide and without a bend or reversal in trajectory, I would hazard that society as a whole (the people who do most of the sweating and working) will move towards serfdom. Perhaps hyperbole but I don’t like what I see and I believe that you see it as well. Good luck to us all.
It’s not a turn to the right so much as a turn to ignorance, superstition and…oh, I get it now.
It is a tragedy when one uneducated person can endanger millions. Dozy Don and the Kennedy, who has pushed god knows what into his body, taking the dose from a toilet seat in a filthy bathroom. But people believe them, rather then trained, qualified, medical people.....What a mess we are in....Why are Republicans so against education?.. Why do they always think the answer is another war. Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, Greenland, Canada, Cuba, Venezuela? Nothing but a bunch of bullies......
How is't possible that there is so many stupid people in a country with so many successes tied to science ?
Those successes enable people to take the sciences for granted. Example: Polio was an absolute scourge while my Mom was a kid. My grandmother told of praying all summer long (prime polio season) that her kids would not get polio, end up in an iron lung, or die. Along came effective vaccination and polio retreated into the background of the populace's mind. It became so rare that it allowed complacency as well as conspiratorial thinking. Or just plain dumb thinking . "Polio is gone so we don't have to worry about it". That fed into conspiratorial thinking: "Polio is gone so we don't have to give our kids that polio vaccine that's worse than the disease." 🤦♀️
I was born in 1955, as was a cousin of mine. The second my mother could get me the polio vaccine, she did. While I was still a kid, she explained to me how my cousin's parents decided against the vaccine and how angry she was at them for that decision. I still remember the leg braces he wore at family gatherings.
That wasn't dumb or conspiratorial thinking. We wiped out polio nearly everywhere in the world and discontinued the shots. Today, polio exists in the wild only in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The same is true of smallpox, which actually has been eradicated.
The achievers in any field are always a small or tiny portion of the general population.
You mean Pareto principle ? I hope, but not sure, you are right. Could be more. Trump was elected by a bit more than 50% of voters.
I believe a bit less than 50% of voters.
You are correct, it was less than 50% of voters.
True, but likely only because Trump murdered so many of his own supporters with Covid.
It may have been that close. But countless eligible American voters have never voted, and that's the bigger issue.
FWIW, Trump never won the popular vote. He lost by 3 million votes to Clinton, and won more recorded votes than Harris, but he lost to the total number of votes cast for Harris and the third party candidates. He received 49.8% of the total vote in 2024. He never topped 50%.
abolish the Electoral College
Some Trump voters were after tax cuts and deregulation. They ignore the vaccine nonsense.
"But the price of eggs!"
It says a lot about the moral qualities of a lot of people ready to elect any thugs who promise to lower prices of eggs. It says also how they value democracy. And that's sadly true for all western democracies.
Actually slightly less. He got 49.9% in 2024.
Born in 1951, I grew up in a nation that was proud to have the polio vaccine - when it finally came. Later the Sabin oral vaccine. And as more vaccines were developed, this was all seen as the best news. So it was the measles was considered conquered. And now.... It is utterly bizarre.
So, he has found a new way to kill his own people. Measles does not discriminate political affiliations. And children……I bet the Trump children are vaccinated, as he was when he went down with COVID.
It is tantamount to child abuse, depriving children of medication that will protect them from very disabling and in some cases fatal diseases.
Sadly, MAGA will win a lot of Darwin awards...
One the ultimate evils is using children as political pawns.
If there were a vaccine against ignorance and stupidity trump would ban it. He’s already well on his way to destroying public education, and doing as much as possible to damage higher education as well.