Everything these people talk about is the exact opposite. Prime example is the “patriot” act, but Brainworms saying he’s going to make us more healthy while being an antivaxxer is a contradiction in terms. Especially when we might be on the cusp of bird flu outbreak…
we were healthier when we had less tests and understood less about biology!
I see we’re taking a page out of Russia’s playbook on how they handled HIV/AIDS (stop recording and reporting metrics on it altogether) and applying it writ large. Wcgw.
Cavemen must have been the healthiest of people.
Well, that’s actually what some kooks claim. Look at the “paleo” diet gurus and the like…
Im conflicted on RFK. He’s right on his takes about nutrition and over reliance of Americans on prescription drugs, and he may be right about flouride (which we have always known had risks). He also wants to ban drug advertising which is 100% necessary. Yet his takes on vaccines are so so bad that it counters all the good he could do if he was really able to clean the food toxic food environment of the US and curb the power of big pharma.
I’m gonna hope for the best here. Vaccines are big business, so Trump might not let him make too many changes there. But so is food so who knows?
But, are vaccines big business? I thought they typically have to be ordered it massive quantities from the government and/or enticed to make them, since the margins are not very high.
I mean I would still think it’s a non trivial amount of revenue for companies. Haven’t really looked that deeply into it.
It turns out it’s a little complicated. Pre-Covid, you can find evidence that profits were rather slim on vaccines. Seems Covid may have changed that for companie. Pre-Covid, the margins were rather slim, and historically, companies stopped making them because of that. Seems like pre-Covid, they made up about 2-3% of the pharma profits. Covid changed the equation, at least for Covid vaccines - and probably other mRNA vaccines, as well, most likely because it’s new tech and because of patents.
This was written in 2015:
https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/02/vaccines-are-profitable-so-what/385214/
Not only do pediatricians and doctors often lose money on vaccine administration, it wasn’t too long ago that the vaccine industry was struggling with slim profit margins and shortages. The Economist wrote that “for decades vaccines were a neglected corner of the drugs business, with old technology, little investment and abysmal profit margins. Many firms sold their vaccine divisions to concentrate on more profitable drugs.”
In fact, vaccines were so unprofitable that some companies stopped making them altogether. In 1967, there were 26 vaccine manufactures. That number dropped to 17 by 1980. Ten years ago, the financial incentives to produce vaccines were so weak that there was growing concern that pharmaceutical companies were abandoning the vaccine business for selling more-profitable daily drug treatments. Compared with drugs that require daily doses, vaccines are only administered once a year or a lifetime. The pharmaceutical company Wyeth (which has since been acquired by Pfizer) reported that they stopped making the flu vaccine because the margins were so low.
Interesting read, thanks for taking the time to make the research.
So you admit to just making up your stance then and prioritizing your vague feeling as some sort of evidence?
What a garbage take.
Did you read what I wrote? I said I hope, which means yes I am basing myself off of vague feelings because I can’t read the man’s mind nor Trump’s. But I can’t just dismiss RFK because he has a few bad takes, since I tend to agree with most of what he says outside of the vaccine stuff. Or do you disagree that Americans are over reliant on medications, that drugs shouldn’t be advertised, and that our food supply is horrible and toxic for the most part? Because these are not opinions, these are facts. For evidence look to countries that actually care about the well being of their citizens and you’ll find that their regulations are on the side of RFK.
My expectation is that he won’t be allowed to do anything and will be fired 6 months into the job because he really wants to shake things up and that threatens the profit of a lot of corporations.
My hope is that he will at least be able to remove drug advertising from TV, that nutrition labels will adopt a standardized serving size and that he limits the use high fructose corn syrup, additives and dyes in our food supply. If he fucks with vaccines well it’s only 4 years, we can fix it then. But I am almost certain he won’t ban vaccines and Trump wouldn’t allow it anyways, so the worse he can do is dissuade about their use. People can make decisions by themselves at that point, or so I have to think.
I think the amount of harm he might do could be very extensive. Since he will be in position of power and the assumed authority that (low info) people will attribute to him, he doesn’t even have to ban vaccines outright. All he has to do is throw just enough shade on vaccines to have people opt out for four years (or longer) and have herd immunity for several diseases plummet.
Things were already bad enough with a lot of dipsticks thinking they don’t need to vaccinate their kids, the antivaxxer conspiracy theories accelerated during Covid.
This guy could cause a lot of death in America and abroad (again). I cannot imagine what he might do were we to have a bird flu. He might kill as many people as donvict himself did, and as far as I know donvict killed more Americans than any other person in history.
I don’t want to get behind this type of thinking. I get it, I really do. I would also like to shake sense into people. But as you’ve seen that doesn’t work.
I believe that all people should question authority and they should inform themselves using the proper sources without taking what anyone says at face value. Authorities will more often than not simplify and remove all nuance when communicating information to the masses and this is the root of the increased mistrust in vaccines with Covid came from. Authorities stated as facts things that they did not know were facts and overstated the effectiveness of the vaccines and then tried to silence the fact that in a small number of people the vaccine did cause cardiovascular issues. The government should have been upfront about that and explained why the trade off was worth it, but they didn’t because they erred on the side of thinking that people are complete morons. They may be, but we need to give them the benefit of the doubt.
IMO, and this is maybe off topic but official authorities should have open and long panels in podcast format discussing why they take the decisions they take and explaining the people the benefits and risks, inviting dissenters and proponents so that people can make the most informed decision. Not for every decision of course, but at least for those health related decisions that affect everyone we should.
I know many or even most will not do the right thing and inform themselves properly. But I also cannot stop believing that people are capable of finding good information and making the best decisions with the evidence available if we make that information easily accessible with all possible considerations. Because if I believe that people cannot make good decisions, then I necessarily also have to believe that we should limit the participation in our democratic society to only those who demonstrate this aptitude and I really really don’t want to believe that.
