Be the person your local govt has to deal with. 📞 Medicare DISadvantage. ⚕️Banning protective gear is non-viable for human survival. ⚠️ The true severity of the threats to public health.
Anti-vax being mainstreamed is going to kill even more people.
📍Note: I updated my CDC HICPAC meeting public comment post to include reference links. You’re welcome.
Be the person your local government has to deal with.
How To Fight Fascism In America - Leeja Miller Nov 20, 2024 Leeja Miller: “Now is not the time to be likable now is the time to be annoying as for the good of your community and your country white ladies take your I'd like to talk to the manager energy and channel it towards annoying your elected officials to the breaking point so they pass meaningful Progressive change that again moves the needle towards our shared goals of protecting democracy and providing for all our neighbors.”
I’ve taken my talk to the manager energy to my elected representatives for years. Join me.
Writing Letters to Elected Representatives, a guide Letters to politicians are some of the easiest and most effective actions many neglect. Chloe Humbert Jan 24, 2023 Our representative’s office receives your letter and considers your position and interest in the issue as representative of some number of constituents who feel the same as you do, but did not have the inclination to write at present. They often keep tallies in spreadsheets and track issues.
🗞️ In the news
CIDRAP - COVID vaccines protect frontline workers from long COVID, data suggest - Stephanie Soucheray, MA - Nov 13, 2024 A third dose of COVID-19 vaccine offered essential workers some protection from developing long COVID during Omicron variant predominance, according to a new study in The Journal of Infectious Diseases. In the study, researchers found that essential workers who received a third COVID-19 monovalent mRNA vaccine dose had lower odds of long-COVID–related gastrointestinal, neurologic, and other symptoms than unvaccinated participants, by 63%, 44%, and 52%, respectively.
Medicare DISadvantage.
There was a post in the public health subreddit about Dr. Oz, and of course the topic of his pushing for privatization via Medicare Advantage came up multiple times in the thread. Back during Trump’s administration they were doing some “experiment” of just putting people into Medicare Advantage without telling them - including people who wanted to be in traditional Medicare. Seemed like a bait and switch trick. I was writing Joe Biden about this Medicare problem soon after he became president. Now we may be going even further backwards on this.
The public health Reddit seems full of insurance brokers who seem to be there to just tell people that Medicare Advantage is wonderful. One person actually said people they know “enjoy” their Medicare Advantage plans. Who says that? Enjoys? Who enjoys a health insurance plan? Seriously strange. And that wasn’t the only strange twisted argument that doesn’t make sense.
In a prior profession I talked to people who got burned by these privatized plans and their surprise bills, and I’ve had multiple family members, as a cautionary tale, tell me about their friends who made that choice and really regretted it after getting cancer, or even after just any cardiac or chronic condition. (Cardiac and chronic illness are things that covid makes more likely).
I’m very worried for people making these decisions based on the information coming from salespeople using hard sales or even tricky persuasion tactics.
Important Context - How Dr. Oz Hyped Trump’s COVID Snake Oil Now he’s Trump’s pick to run the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Allison Neitzel Nov 21, 2024 Oz is best known for his lucrative television work promising miracle health/diet cures often lacking supporting evidence, which eventually got him in trouble with Congress. The doctor appeared before the Senate Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, Product Safety and Insurance in 2014 for a hearing on false advertising in the weight loss industry. One member of the subcommittee went so far as to tell Oz that “the scientific community is almost monolithic against you.” Columbia quietly cut ties with Oz in 2022. The 2014 hearing was brought up during his Senate run in 2022, with various scientists calling him both unfit for office and to be a doctor. Oz’s involvement in the hydroxychloroquine debacle, and appearance in the HSSCC’s 2022 report, should be brought up in light of his CMS nomination.
Anti-vax being mainstreamed is going to kill even more people.
The Public Health subreddit is just allowing rampant anti-vax talking points and disinformation subtle and blatant. I assume it's in the spirit of "both sidesing" RFK Jr. There's no such thing as 2 sides of public health though, unless by sides you mean alive or dead. It's very sad but we're going to see this normalization everywhere now if people don't say NO to it.
Vaccines require public health campaigns to get high uptake. This is an essential piece of using vaccines to fight infectious disease. Having a robust campaign is fundamental to vaccination as healthcare and public health. I think this point often gets missed in this “well if you wanna” type respect all individualist choices approach to public health messaging that’s been dangerously normalized. You would never “respect all opinions” about the proper use of antibiotics or treating a heart attack - so why would you go that route with infectious disease?
More people are “high risk” than anyone seems to realize, but this information is in fact available from the CDC.
The CDC has a list of “Underlying Medical Conditions Associated with Higher Risk for Severe COVID-19” that includes just being unvaccinated at any age or “not being up to date on COVID-19 vaccinations” - and less than half of Americans got last year’s updated vaccine, so most people have this risk condition!! Just being over 50 is a risk condition, and anxiety disorders were found to be strongly associated with death from covid.
Banning protective gear is non-viable for human survival.
They’re proposing not just mask bans, but banning hoods too. What’s next on their enemy list, tassel knit hats and earmuffs in 15 degree weather? Prohibiting old lady babushkas? Anyone should be able to wear protective gear from the elements. Infectious disease, wildfire smoke, traffic pollution, wind chill, and pollen. With climate change the need for protective gear will only be getting more imminent. Prepping is no longer fringe. It’s bizarre that we have government officials who literally assume the people don’t have a right to wear winter coats and sunglasses. These fancy officials get chauffeured around and exercise in their home gym, and have no idea what the rest of society gears up to deal with out in the world.
Neera Tanden and the demoralization of disability justice.
Neera Tanden has been accused of violating the Hatch Act while working at the White House. This embarrassment is not unexpected sadly. I associate Neera Tanden with CAP and online debacles from almost a decade ago. The big money & industry funding, and the seeming connection to a lot of demoralization of the left with regard to the non-profit industrial complex.
We’re meant to believe it’s just a big coincidence that the broad left can’t agree that, for example, people, especially people at high risk for covid, deserve to exist in society and have access to healthcare spaces where healthcare providers don’t infect their patients with preventable disease. But it’s industry money interests that are really driving this supposed disagreement, and the contrarians that push it. And we know their woke-washing claims that mitigation causes “disruption” are a big pile of bullshit because they have no problem with disruption if it’s for a regime change in the interest of elites.
📍Note: Walker Bragman's outlet has a handy link list to coverage of the Trump administration’s public health related nominees: https://www.importantcontext.news/t/trump-administration
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The true severity of the threats to public health.
Reddit - r/publichealth blueskies8484 • Tuesday, November 19, 2024 at 7:57:54 PM EST - I have several friends in public health that have cried every day since the election. I feel like people in public health have the most realistic and immediate grasp of the true severity of what is about to happen to this country.