Don’t take vaccines for granted.
Don’t take vaccines for granted.
There are big money interests attacking vaccines and anyone who promotes them. And they told us at the CDC ACIP meeting that they will continuously consider restricting covid vaccines based on cost.
(Note there is a podcast version of this with nearly identical content if you prefer. It also has a transcript and is available on my other substack, and also apple podcasts, and probably wherever you get your podcasts.)
The tricky thing with preventing something bad from happening is that the bad thing doesn’t happen and so people take for granted that it didn’t happen and can feel smug in saying it never would’ve happened anyway. It’s actually how things typically work apparently. Historically, change has actually come driven by a small portion of people dedicated to action who are the first to speak up and push things along. And then later after the fact there’s more broad support.1 And then people take it for granted, assume there was always universal support, that it was always a given, forget about the work that went into it and the people who made it happen, and then only find that out when it’s gone or seriously threatened. Worse, if something happens after prevention is rejected, the default is to claim that it was inevitable - normalizing negative outcomes is nothing new.2
In the case of covid vaccine restriction, I can lay out the evidence that we need to keep lobbying to prevent the withholding of the vaccine from universal access. It is absolutely not “fear mongering” to be concerned about vaccine access being taken. Recall how some said abortion access was guaranteed, and that Roe V. Wade was settled law? We’re already facing the closure of the Bridge program through defunding. There are posse comitatus militia groups, made up of people described as being angry about being forced out of the military by being compelled to get a vaccine, who are revving up to be deputized to do “live streamed swatting raids” to people on enemy shit lists,3 presumably like Peter Hotez or Anthony Fauci. And who knows where this ends. This isn’t a made-up concern, the people involved are openly stating their plans.4 And how can anyone be so unaware that MAGA right-wingers are trying to take away even vaccines - eventually from everyone, for every disease. The Republicans are trying to ban lettuce in Tennessee over vaccines.5
And anti-vax propaganda has made it into every nook and cranny across the political spectrum too. I now see people with long covid now blaming vaccines after going to or following anti-vax doctors6 who promote ivermectin.7 There was a zine that’s supposedly for lefties, but it was pushing pseudoscience popular with wellness influencers, and the zine was advertising a very expensive concierge clinic that was recommending colloidal silver8 like they’re Alex Jones or something.9
A supposedly liberal journalist from Milford Pennsylvania had an op-ed published in Salon where he argues to not do anything to avoid covid, because he’s getting along with his Trumper neighbors by not getting vaccinated or masking. He essentially was saying covid mitigations were no longer political because he was no longer doing much to avoid covid. I was surprised the op-ed didn’t just end with “don’t beat em, just join em.” Salon didn’t even have a fact checker correct his citation of vaccination rates based on the original series. Uptake on the latest vaccine is horribly low. This journalist is a senior citizen and was either unaware that there was an updated vaccine, or at least didn’t want to mention it in his op-ed. To be considered fully up-to-date on vaccination, you need to have been vaccinated with the latest. I guess he may have just been saying everyone should become anti-vaxxers in order to get along with their Qanon neighbors.10 We know that a corporate conservative think tank ran ads targeting liberals to make Democrats hate masks.11 It feels like there have been a number of high profile pieces in major publications to either turn people against vaccines or manufacture doubt or confusion.12 And there’s a distinct trend in op-eds to just tell people to relax and let the Trumpism happen.13
But we have news that updated vaccines will be available soon, for people ages 6 months and older.14 This is great news. But how did we get here? Let’s review the discussion of the covid vaccine in the CDC ACIP committee meeting - which is where this recommendation came from.15
ACIP stands for Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices. It’s a committee within the CDC, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. On day 2 of the meeting, on June 27, 2024, the matter of what recommendation to give out on the FDA approved updated covid vaccines for 2024. This determines what is approved and paid for by insurance, and what vaccines people are allowed to get.
Was universal recommendation a foregone conclusion: NO it was NOT.
Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) Day 2 - Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) July 27, 2024 Dr. Jamie Loehr MD FAAFP (Owner, Cayuga Family Medicine Ithaca, New York): “I'm torn between the recommendation for universal versus risk-based, especially for younger people where the burden of disease is lower and the cost effectiveness is much higher as Dr. Long just noted. I came in here thinking that I was more in favor of risk-based and I want to say that because of your presentation today I'm actually more in favor of universal. I do want to make a sort of longish comment. We got about 4,000 public comments, written comments, to the ACIP for this meeting. Of the over 3,000 comments that concerned covid, the ones I reviewed over 95% of them were in favor of a universal recommendation. I was very surprised when I saw that. And so it seems that at least the public who are commenting are very in favor of a universal recommendation and want the opportunity to get their vaccination. And I'm also very aware that there are a number of vaccine preventable diseases that we recommend now which probably do not have great cost effectiveness data which have lower hospitalization rates and have lower death rates than we have with covid right now. And so on balance I'm in favor of the universal recommendation.”
Dr. Loehr was more in favor of risk-based before this meeting, was torn over it in fact, but after seeing presentations and noting that 95% of public comments about the covid vaccines were in favour of universal recommendation, he’s now more in favour of universal.
Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) Day 2 - Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) July 27, 2024 Dr. Denise Jamieson MD MPH (Vice President for Medical Affairs, Dean, Carver College of Medicine, University of Iowa): “I just wanted to underscore what Dr. Loehr just said. I was really struck with the number of hospitalizations and deaths from covid in the pediatric population compared to the annual rate of hospitalization and death for other vaccine preventable diseases prior to vaccine. And so I think it's really important that we not get too caught up in cost effectiveness currently, if we compare it to other vaccine preventable diseases it seems like a really good investment.”
Do I really need to say that our lives, our health, and our safety shouldn’t boil down to cost-effectiveness in a situation where billionaires spend billions on things that nobody even wants, like AI chatbots creating disinformation campaigns and replacing good art with AI slop, or how about power plants constructed for no other reason but because of pointless chatbots and cryptocurrency operations. There’s plenty of money, it’s just not being spent wisely or in a way anybody wants.
Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) Day 2 - Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) July 27, 2024 Dr. Matthew Daley MD (Senior Investigator Institute for Health Research Kaiser Permanente Colorado Aurora, CO): “I think when we look at the cost effectiveness ratios in pediatrics you know we need to keep in mind - is there burden preventable through those vaccines, and is it an efficient use of resources, and in order to answer that question I think we need to take not a comparison to covid vaccination in older adults, but a comparison to cost effectiveness of other vaccines. And in order for us to make decisions about whether it's an efficient use of resources we would need essentially a cost effectiveness threshold that we apply equally across all vaccines. Okay. That comment should not be taken as sort of support of profligate use of resources. I think what we need is vaccine costs go down, cost effectiveness goes up, and we need to recognize the burden in pediatric age groups. Okay. So then taking a big step back you know I just want to highlight for everyone that's listening that we in August of 2023 brought to the workgroup: Are you in favor of risk-based strategy or are you in favor of universal strategy? And the workgroup at that time reached a consensus that they were in favor of a universal strategy. That's August of 23 voted on in September 23. And then that same question was brought to the work group in March of 2024 and the consensus of the workgroup was that they were in support of a universal strategy. But that is recognizing, integrating and interpreting all the data that Dr. Panagiotakopoulos just just ran through for us. And also putting into the context what Dr. Jamieson just said about burden in pediatric age groups, morbidity and mortality from covid compared to other vaccines, which we willingly vaccinate against. Dr. Helen Keipp Talbot, MD, MPH (Professor of Medicine and Health Policy, Division of Infectious Diseases, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee.): “I think we are at a position where we still have a lot of morbidity and mortality in kids. And we feel compelled to make sure we protect them, which is the right thing to do. However, I'm not sure that the cost is sustainable. So it really needs to be taken into account that as we continue this program, it is a yearly program and has yearly high costs. And I anticipate as more and more of society is exposed, either to vaccine or disease, it will become much less cost effective than it already is. So I think in the idea of keeping this a sustainable practice from year to year we will need to have a less expensive vaccine to make this work.” Dr. Jamie Loehr MD FAAFP (Owner, Cayuga Family Medicine Ithaca, New York): “But if I'm just facing this individual decision right now the cost effectiveness of the younger children is concerning to me. And as I mentioned earlier the costs of the covid vaccines are about five times if not more expensive than the flu vaccine that we're recommending on a regular basis and so I guess I would still like to make another encouragement for the manufacturers to take that into consideration that we have a very good vaccine that protects against hospitalizations and deaths, and yet it's very expensive and a large portion of the population is going to have a hard time affording this in the future as the Bridge program goes away.”
The Bridge program doesn’t need to go away! That’s a political decision.
But I hope this makes it clear that it was not a foregone conclusion that universal recommendation would've happened now or going forward into the future either. This isn’t set it and forget it. We can’t trust that things will remain. Surely all these Supreme Court decisions have made that clear. They’re telling us in the Project 2025 document about their plans.16 They didn’t stop at complaining about mask requirements, they’re now banning masks.17 What on earth makes you think they’ll ban masks, but not vaccines? Roe V. Wade was “settled law” right?
In 2021 Corey Robin had an essay published in The New Yorker magazine arguing that fear of fascism and the overturning of Roe V Wade was overblown and essentially alarmist. All these people said Roe V Wade was settled law, don’t worry. Then a year after that was published, Roe V Wade was struck down by the Supreme Court. Historian Thomas Zimmer pointed out that after that happened apparently The New Yorker magazine quietly changed the wording in Corey Robin’s article,18 apparently to move the goal posts to keep chastising people as overreacting but acknowledging that what they said wouldn’t happen absolutely happened.
Within weeks of Joe Biden becoming president, even before many mask mandates were tossed away, I was prioritizing writing to Joe Biden pleading for proactively recognizing the right to mask for one’s personal health & safety on the job.19 I heard about many people who were forbidden to mask early in the pandemic by their employers, and I knew this was bound to happen again. And it did, over a year ago news reports were coming out about In and Out Burger banning employees masking, and I’ve heard on forums for ages about people being pressured to unmask at work, being pushed out, or losing their jobs.
But there were “moderate” voices who said don’t worry, the Trumpers just don’t like mandates, they just want to get rid of the mandates, they just don’t want people telling them what to do. You can always “one way mask” if you want to! Nevermind how that isn’t the case at the dentist, the DMV, or an endoscopy. In those situations we really do need others to mask for our safety.20 But there were so many assurances that worrying about being banned from masking was alarmist because of course nobody would be barred from masking or prevented from wearing an N95 respirator. Many of us were lambasted and ridiculed for being concerned about this. It was supposedly “fear mongering” by crazy people, right?
But now we have mask bans that have since been coming to fruition on university campuses,21 by employers,22 by businesses,23 and by actual laws pushed by state GOP politicians in North Carolina,24 and even Democrats in New York25 and LA.26 And people are riled up to attack other people based on laws that didn’t even exist yet - just the proposal of a mask ban in North Carolina led to a story in the news about a cancer patient in North Carolina being quote “confronted by a man who shouted expletives and called her a liberal for wearing the mask. The man identified himself as a conservative, she said, and he falsely told her that wearing a mask in public was illegal.”27 Something that was not yet passed in the legislature. But now it is28 and heaven only knows what someone like this could be emboldened to perpetrate upon cancer patients. The police are now a risk to disabled people just for needing to mask.29
This is real, and this is happening. Physician Allison Neitzel is threatened with lawsuits,30 and letters from other doctors wishing quote “prolonged death” upon Neitzel31 and others who promote vaccines or dare to debunk false claims funded by dark money. The live streamed swatting raids by deputized anti-vaxxers aren’t something I came up with. That’s what the anti-vaxxers are saying they want to do.
The CDC should give recommendations based on public health, not on cost to health insurance. But that was definitely on the table.
Dr. Matthew Daley MD goes on to explain in this meeting that in an annual vaccine it will be hard to compare cost effectiveness, because the benefits of prior vaccinations from previous annual vaccinations would show less contrast. And this committee has mentioned in the meeting that there are less burdensome diseases with more expensive vaccines, and we don’t deprive kids of those vaccines.
Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) Day 2 - Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) July 27, 2024 Dr. Jamie Loehr MD FAAFP (Owner, Cayuga Family Medicine Ithaca, New York): “And I'm also very aware that there are a number of vaccine preventable diseases that we recommend now which probably do not have great cost effectiveness data which have lower hospitalization rates and have lower death rates than we have with covid right now.”
It sounds again like one of those tricky situations where prevention averts the disaster, so nobody thinks the disaster would’ve happened - where if public health is functioning well, it’s essentially invisible.32
The People’s CDC is celebrating the amount of public comments and the universal recommendation as a win.33 And it should be celebrated as a win. But the struggle continues.
And here we have proof here in the meeting that the public comments did get read, and did get considered, and that they were still hand-wringing about the cost to private health insurers for protecting kids with a universal recommendation. It’s very clear what works, and what needs to keep happening.
So let’s not forget that last year there was tons of PR for restricting vaccines. There were op-eds34 and quotes35 continually floated from prominent supposedly pro-vax doctors claiming that the vaccine should be restricted to only the very very elderly. That’s not our imagination. Paul Offit said point blank that a yearly covid vaccine should be restricted to people over 75.36
And again, in this meeting in June 2024, they admit that they were deliberating restricting the vaccine, and not doing universal recommendation - even though that’s antithetical to the public health point of vaccination programs throughout history! The COVID-19 Vaccines Work Group in this meeting, thought it was important to communicate to us, with a slide highlighting it, that this will be an ongoing thing, not an accepted outcome of universal recommendation - it will be re-visited EVERY time. They’re telling us that.
The slide used in the meeting from the Work Group clearly states “The Work Group will continue to evaluate COVID-19 vaccine policy, including the need for a universal recommendation particularly as COVID-19 epidemiology continues to change.” This sounds scientific, as if there would be a scientific reason to put the stops on recommending vaccination, but if the epidemiology of covid continues to change, and the virus continues to evolve with new variants, and the vaccines continue to show waning, we will the need new updated vaccines, and need to get updated on vaccination. That’s everyone will need the update. That’s common sense logic, right?
So what they’re telling us is that if we don’t continue to advocate for the need for a universal recommendation, over and over and over, they will continue to consider restricting it in the future. NOT based on science, but based on COST.
There’s a new formula for flu shots every year, and they love to compare covid to flu, so one wonders why a yearly covid vaccine isn’t a given the way the flu shot being available and recommended is done. But we see that covid has a higher level of stigma, so there are always these carve outs where common sense is said to not be allowed to be applied to covid.
And please make no mistake about the cost issue - they said it loud and clear right there in the meeting: “I'm not sure that the cost is sustainable.” They said, speaking to us like children who want another treat, as if vaccination isn’t a matter of life and death, but just a luxury.
Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) Day 2 - Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) July 27, 2024 Dr. Helen Keipp Talbot, MD, MPH (Professor of Medicine and Health Policy, Division of Infectious Diseases, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee.): “However, I'm not sure that the cost is sustainable.”
“How ya gonna pay for that?”
Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) Day 2 - Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) July 27, 2024 Dr. Sarah Long MD (Professor of Pediatrics Drexel University College of Medicine Section of Infectious Diseases St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children Philadelphia, Pennsylvania): “The reason I ask is that for some of the age groups the cost per quality is… high.”
I suggest taxing the billionaires to pay for it. This is not an unsolvable problem. And it IS completely sustainable if wealthy tycoons pay their fair share.
Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) Day 2 - Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) July 27, 2024 Dr. Jamie Loehr MD FAAFP (Owner, Cayuga Family Medicine Ithaca, New York) “And so on balance I'm in favor of the universal recommendation. But if I'm just facing this individual decision right now the cost effectiveness of the younger children is concerning to me. And as I mentioned earlier the costs of the covid vaccines are about five times if not more expensive than the flu vaccine that we're recommending on a regular basis and so I guess I would still like to make another encouragement for the manufacturers to take that into consideration that we have a very good vaccine that protects against hospitalizations and deaths, and yet it's very expensive and a large portion of the population is going to have a hard time affording this in the future as the Bridge program goes away.”
I don’t have to tell anybody how there’s always money for other things. Congress could reinstate the Bridge program if pressured to do so.
Giving into anti-vax activists or assuming people are just “tired” of getting vaccinated is not a valid reason to keep vaccines from those of us who want them.
I don’t know of any dentist who would recommend you stop getting checkups and teeth cleaning because you’re sick of it, and that’s a far more inconvenient appointment commitment compared to a quick vaccination at the pharmacy. And the injustice of depriving people who want vaccines, based on some people being anti-vax is an inexcusable level of nonsense unfairness which should surely never ever be imposed on a public mostly eager for protection from covid’s effects which can be extremely unpleasant or even deadly for some. But those specious arguments and narratives seem to seep into any discussion about the covid vaccines.
We need an actual vaccine promotion campaign.
We need an actual vaccine promotion campaign. Instead we have tepid recommendations hedged with gripes that make no sense. There’s no robust full throated support the public is hearing. But the public hears nonstop anti-vax talking points. It’s not a mystery why uptake is so low and why even healthcare professionals are not doing their duty and recommending vaccination to their patients. It’s because of a lack of leadership and assertive confident direction that the covid vaccines have benefits that far outweigh any risks. The vaccines are beneficial and safe.
The committee meeting included people who were surprised healthcare providers weren’t recommending vaccines. They seem to be unaware that people have anti-vax healthcare providers who are covid contrarians or even covid deniers who won’t wear a mask for their transplant recipient patients and won’t even recommend vaccination to the immunocompromised. And even more doctors are simply not informed, they’re busy and overworked by large healthcare system employers and a lack of union protections, and they prioritize things that are required, and covid vaccination information is not even being promoted, let alone required.
The CDC ACIP Covid-19 Vaccines Work Group did recognize this potential issue at the meeting in September that: “Shared clinical decision making could create barriers to vaccination and may not effectively target those at highest risk.”37
Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) Day 2 - Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) July 27, 2024 Dr. Denise Jamieson MD MPH (Vice President for Medical Affairs, Dean, Carver College of Medicine, University of Iowa): “I was really struck with the low proportion of healthcare providers that recommended and given what we know about influenza and other vaccines and the critical role that healthcare providers play in recommending vaccines um I wondered what we did know about healthcare provider attitudes and what some of the barriers may be and as an aside it worries me that if it were not a universal recommendation that the role of the health care provider in identifying and appropriately counseling those with risk um would that would be become even more problematic.” Dr. Matthew Daley MD (Senior Investigator Institute for Health Research Kaiser Permanente Colorado Aurora, CO) “I feel like because the burden was so high in the oldest age groups, we lost sight of the absolute burden in pediatric age groups. And that was coming through early 2020, 2021, 2022, when I think the message that got heard by parents of young children is “covid doesn't cause bad disease in children” and that was problematic. It does cause bad disease in children, just less frequently than it does in older groups. And I think that narrative, we need to change, we just need to remind all of us that there still is burden, vaccine preventable disease. And this is obviously my bias as a pediatrician as well, but there's significant burden in pediatric age groups that can be prevented through vaccination.” Carol Hayes, CNM, MN, MPH, FACNM - (American College of Nurse Midwives (ACNM), Adjunct Professor Georgia State University School of Nursing Atlanta, GA) “Hi, Carol Hayes with the American College of Nurse Midwives. I just want to kind of bring y’all back for one second, somebody here said earlier, a couple people said that they were a little bit surprised that healthcare professionals are not recommending the vaccine. And I will tell you that a number of people that I've spoken to, healthcare professionals, the public in general, do not understand how much this virus has mutated, and that if we're not giving the current vaccine, you're not protected. And we have to just keep saying that over and over and over again: You need this year's vaccine to be protected against this year's strain of the virus.”
All of this is directly related to the lack of a vaccine campaign. If people are not given the information, they of course will not recommend it, and they won’t get it. We need an actual proper vaccine campaign to actually promote vaccination and work against the undermining of public health.
And that was a primary focus of my public comment.
Hi I’m Chloe Humbert. We need better vaccine promotion campaigns from our government.
The recommendation for a spring covid vaccine boost for seniors was NOT well promoted. Worse, the spring boost excluded 50 to 64 year olds with underlying conditions - people clearly at higher risk of hospitalization or death. At a previous CDC meeting in September 2023, it was mentioned twice that “THERE IS NO GROUP THAT HAS NO RISK OF SEVERE ILLNESS”. The exclusion of 50 to 64 year olds, or any adults, from twice a year OPTION is perplexing since there's NO evidence of risks that outweigh benefits, especially for people over 50, and there’s been evidence presented at previous meetings of profound waning.
Many patients at times fail to heed doctor’s advice, but it’s not a reason to stop encouraging patients to quit smoking, and it’s not a reason to stop promoting vaccination. There is certainly no good reason to restrict access to the next covid vaccine update. And to be clear, catering to private insurance company lobbyists is not a good reason. Of course the recommendation for a spring booster for seniors on Medicare, was not even properly promoted. Uptake for seniors is horribly low and it’s because there are people in their 80s who have not gotten the message, which was the responsibility of the CDC, this is what the public is paying this agency to do.
This lack of vaccination campaign is a persistent failure and the anti-vax has been coming from inside the house. The scandalous news about the anti-vax campaign perpetrated by a DOD contractor on behalf of the government is a grotesque pinnacle of our nation’s unacceptable public health failures. This disinformation campaign is reported to have undermined vaccination and also masking and testing. It’s reported that the military psyops campaign was forbidden by law from targeting Americans, but in our world wide web world in a global pandemic, the idea of undermining public health abroad without harming Americans is ridiculous on its face. And harming innocent civilians abroad during a global health crisis is not itself defensible. CDC officials may think this is not the fault or responsibility of the CDC, but that is false.
This is not “just some people online” and it’s not a game. Real people are counting on the CDC. Leadership cannot rest on laurels or point a finger elsewhere. Infectious disease doesn’t recognize geopolitical boundaries or federal agency silos. An amends is needed and the CDC should have a distinct and purposeful goal to actually promote public health and lead on vaccination promotion with an active campaign.
The person who spoke after me made a very good point about needing vaccines for the school age children before October. Every year now it seems we have a surge in northeastern Pennsylvania in mid September a couple weeks after school starts. Of course we know that schools are drivers of infectious disease spread, we’ve always noticed this.
We’ve done vaccination campaigns before, we can do it again.
This is a quote from the American Journal of Public Health published in 1928,38 a decade after the 1918 pandemic started, and after many intervening flu surges and other infectious diseases. And this is how we vanquished them for a long time. James A Tobey, who was speaking about the sanitarians which was the word back then for public health advocates. He wrote about a bill that took years in the 1920s to get passed, to improve public health.
Though the Parker Bill by the amendments lost a certain effectiveness, it is still a very important measure, especially in its provisions for allowing the detail of U.S. Public Health Service personnel to other government bureaus; in granting a commissioned status to sanitary engineers and other scientific personnel of the service; in providing for a Nurse Corps; and in setting up a national advisory health council. Sanitarians are still interested in this excellent measure and keenly desirous that it be passed now. If it is not, the bill must be reintroduced and passed all over again in the next Congress. It would be helpful if sanitarians would communicate with their United States Senators and Representatives regarding this important matter. Do it now.
And from thereon out, research, epidemiology, and disease control measures expanded greatly, because “From Roosevelt's New Deal in the 1930s through Johnson's Great Society of the 1960s, a federal role in services affecting the health and welfare of individual citizens became well established.”39 This was because the sanitarians and others communicated with their representatives.
The polio campaign in the U.S. was successful because of a concerted effort to do a door to door campaign that started before the vaccine was even available.40 The idea that everyone just naturally got on board without prompting is nostalgic fantasy, it took some work to make that happen. There was toxic anti-vax propaganda back then too - some even blamed paralysis from polio on Americans who let their kids eat junk food.41 Sound familiar? Some people made sure we countered that nonsense and had a proper vaccine drive. The bullshit was overcome.
We shouldn’t wait for everybody. We can’t wait for everybody.
References:
Don’t wait for everybody before speaking up. We don’t need to convince everyone before moving forward, and we may already have more on board than it appears anyway. We won’t know until we try. CHLOE HUMBERT AUG 08, 2023 Historically, change has actually come driven by a small portion of people dedicated to action who are the first to speak up and push things along. And then later after the fact there’s more broad support. The environmental movement mobilized about 10% of Americans who participated in various local demonstrations around the country for the first Earth Day in 1970. Even in the midst of the turmoil of war protests this movement pressured on environmental issues and so Nixon (yes Nixon) passed “an unparalleled, impressive legislative and political trifecta” later in 1970. Nixon created the Environmental Protection Agency and it was directed to focus on public health effects when developing their regulations - the EPA was specifically instructed to not consider at all the costs to industry in their regulatory decisions. In 2018, 48 years later, a nationwide poll showed 74% support the EPA, The Clean Air Act, and stricter limits on air pollution.
Rand Waltzman on Linkedin: Strategies for Manufacturing Doubt (6) - Appeal to Mass Media, - Appeal to journalistic balance - Develop relationships with media personnel - Prepare information for media personnel - Invoke the Fairness Doctrine, Take Advantage of Target's Lack of Money / Influence - Silence or abuse individuals by - out-spending - exploiting a power imbalance, Normalize Negative Outcomes - Normalize the presence of negative effects - Reduce importance - Make them seem inevitable
Are they really planning an anti-vax military retiree interahamwe in America? If the far right wrests power, the best case scenario is that possibly medical technology gets shelved and masks and vaccines are maybe banned. The worst case scenario is... worse. CHLOE HUMBERT MAY 28, 2024 Raiklin claims ex-military people who are resentful toward the vaccines are expecting to be deputized by local county officials in order to, he said, “conduct live streamed swatting raids of every single person that we can identify that conducted the necessary unlawful activity by county on my deep state target list” — and for whatever reason he mentions that people who have a copy of his shit list are people such as Michael Shellenberger, Elon Musk, the Justice Department, among others. Raiklin mentions Jamie Raskin’s wife during his spiel, the congressman who reportedly has had someone show up at his house to scream in his face about the covid vaccine.
[The Internet Archive Wayback Machine copy of] ForbiddenNews Substack - Ivan Raiklin Tells NPR Producer of the "Patriotic & Peaceful" Retribution that's Coming - MAY 17, 2024 Zoe Chace is a producer for a radio show called This American Life that airs on public radio stations, like NPR. She bumped into Ivan Raiklin at a Congressional hearing on Wednesday and wanted to do an impromptu interview with him, noting that he calls himself the "Future Secretary of Retribution" on his Twitter profile. What she got was a intense download of remarkably restrained righteous rage, enumerating every desecration of US Law in recent years committed against the Constitution and the People of of the United States by certain corrupt members of the US Government and how their actions have now set a legal precedent for the People to go after them in kind.
Tennessee Moves to Classify 'Vaccine Lettuce' as a Drug Published Apr 01, 2024 at 10:02 AM EDT A bill that would classify as a drug certain foods with vaccine materials added to them was passed by the Tennessee Senate and now awaits Governor Bill Lee's signature into law amid concerns about research on putting immunity boosters into lettuce. The proposed law, HB 1894, was passed in a 23-6 Senate vote last Thursday after getting the House's green light in a 73-22 vote in early March.
A Long Hauler Redditor. A review of a long hauler’s self-reported story posted across 9+ months of reddit posts. Chloe Humbert · Apr 30, 2024 On June 26, 2023, Hi_its_GOD posted in the r/covidlonghaulers reddit saying Dr. Vaughn had “graded” their “microclots pervasiveness” as 3.5/4.0. They said they expected to take an antiviral plus 3 blood thinners, but they gave them a script for ivermectin, which they were skeptical about, but also had heard the (inaccurate) defense that the studies were supposedly “designed to fail”.[7] (There’s no evidence of this.)
Vaughn, what team is he actually on? A second opinion on the politics of the pandemic healthcare landscape. Chloe Humbert · May 8, 2024 Sharyl Attkisson interviews Pierre Kory and Jordan Vaughn together at the FLCCC conference in Phoenix Arizona in April 2024. In the interview Pierre Kory mentions ivermectin and says it has “20 positive mechanisms of action”. Yet ivermectin was shown to be ineffective as a covid treatment and linked to MAGA politics.[48] David Gorski criticized FLCCC as a group formed during the pandemic with ideological motivations for “covid protocols” in their opposition to public health measures, and referred to FLCCC’s “now repurposing ivermectin for cancer” as quackery.[49]
Lefty zine promoting right-wing pseudoscience protocols of an expensive concierge clinic? Chloe Humbert · Apr 10, 2024 The link to “Nasal Sprays and Reducing the Risk of Covid Reinfection” goes to a Youtube video of RTHM Health from September 2023, a clinic which is referenced in the zine itself as a Long Covid treatment clinic. It’s a telehealth clinic in the concierge startup model whose website says they’re serving less than 10 states at this time, with plans to serve more, and that boasts offering a range of treatments “based on the latest research” — which I guess seems to mean including remedies which have not been proven effective or not been proven safe. The link takes you directly to about 35 seconds into the video to a point where on the screen is a presentation slide with the words “colloidal silver” next to a screenshot of a PLOS ONE study titled “Evaluation of silver nanoparticles for the prevention of SARS-CoV-2 infection in health workers”. Jennifer Curtain, MD — self described on twitter as a physician, entrepreneur, and recovered from ME/CFS, and as having treated post-infection illness before the pandemic.[12] The doctor has 3 poor 1 star ratings on Vitals.com, all from late 2023, one is accusatory that a prior negative review was deleted, but these are all 5 months old and still visible.[13] Jennifer Curtain also has poor ratings on Healthgrades.[14]
Alex Jones compared vaccinated people to dead cows. wat3rm370n - tumblr - Jul 1st, 2024 The podcast also highlighted how Alex Jones still advertises colloidal silver as a health product, along with toothpaste without fluoride. Silver is not recommended as a remedy for anything. And if you’re not familiar with the fluoride conspiracy fiction, Angela Collier has a really good funny explainer about fluoride on youtube.
Journalist thinks covid is no longer political — just “trusts” right-wing covid denial. When the satire is the reality, and all else falls under the laws of Poe and Brandolini. CHLOE HUMBERT APR 03, 2024 And anyway, if you’re so over covid and moved on - why all the stigma and the aversion to masks and vaccines? Frankly, I care about other people, and myself. And that’s only right. I wouldn’t trust someone who doesn’t know there’s a more recent vaccine than 2022. I wouldn’t trust someone who says fuck the science on the CDC’s website I’m doing my own research. I don’t trust someone who doesn’t know that people are being told to not isolate anymore and then not testing and not mentioning it. I don't’ trust someone who memory holed the knowledge that people can be contagious while presymptomatic or asymptomatic. I don’t trust someone who doesn’t know that natural herd immunity is a Trumpy idea, and doesn’t know that immunity wanes from the vaccines, and wanes rapidly after a covid infection. And I don’t trust someone who doesn’t follow the science. I do not trust Lucian K. Trustcott IV on health matters, and neither should anyone else, because he doesn’t know what the hell he’s talking about. He just so happens to have the right connections to platform some gibberish “trust the plan” Qanon nonsense and medical misinformation that might hurt people if they buy it.
Anti-mask Woke-washing. The moral distortion of social justice. CHLOE HUMBERT AUG 31, 2023 State Government Leadership Foundation openly bragged on social media about an advertising campaign that specifically targeted liberals to persuade them of the lie that masks supposedly do more harm than good. There is evidence that mask requirements are beneficial. But the State Government Leadership Foundation appears to have used old school advertising and simple repetition that uses the mere exposure effect, where people come to believe something simply because it seems familiar after hearing it a lot.
Journalist thinks covid is no longer political — just “trusts” right-wing covid denial. When the satire is the reality, and all else falls under the laws of Poe and Brandolini. CHLOE HUMBERT APR 03, 2024 The gaslighting PR ad campaigns are underway, to convince us - with the mere exposure effect of repetition, rather than with any logic or veracity — like the ad campaign to convince liberals to be anti-maskers. Only this time they’re trying to convince Democratic ticket voters that Trump is probably fine actually, and that anti-vax is in the right! That we can relax and trust that it’ll be fine! That we should just agree with right-wing ideas and then everybody’s happy! (Except disabled people, they’re dangerously unreasonable right?) Just get the Democratic voters on the anti-mask, anti-vax, Qanon Trump train, and “voila, roaring economy,” no division — all national problems solved! Relax!
Stop Mask Bans. Defend our human right to mask protection. - Mask Together America Mask bans are disability injustice, discrimination, and violation of human rights. They could also be an ADA issue. No one should be required to disclose reasons they wear a mask. Harassing someone to unmask or justify wearing effective mitigation tools is an intrusion of privacy. And being forced to remove your mask even briefly creates a chance to get infected. Forcing people to get sick in public spaces is un-American, raises huge equity issues. Anti-mask policies and harassment could spur more people to give up masking entirely. Lack of mitigation will lead to more outbreaks of airborne illnesses such as COVID, RSV, flu, measles, and tuberculosis – and increase risk of a deadly new flu pandemic.
Democracy Americana The Anti-Liberal Left Has a Fascism Problem Prominent leftwing intellectuals are allowing their singular, disdain-driven focus on (neo-) liberalism to completely distort their perspective on the Right THOMAS ZIMMER MAY 24, 2024 I’d be very interested to find out what happened here. Maybe I missed something, but I couldn’t find an acknowledgment anywhere in the anthology that the selected pieces might have been altered and updated. In the credits, it merely says “reprinted.” The update, clearly, has been made to reflect that something major had happened in between the original publication and the reprint, something that in many ways directly contradicted a key argument. Robin’s overall assessment in 2021 was that Liberals needed to calm down since the Right wasn’t ever exercising its power in the way Liberals decried, the liberal doomsday scenarios were never coming true. But in Dobbs, the Right did exercise power in a dramatic way, stripping half the population of bodily autonomy and equal rights.
Students not currently affected by UT campus ban for people arrested in pro-Palestinian protest Lily Kepner Austin American-Statesman April 26, 2024 Other university rules bar the refusal to identify oneself during a protest, attempts to camp or sleep on property later than 10 p.m., disrupting operations, using amplified sound, coercing attention or wearing masks.
In-N-Out bans employees from wearing masks in order to show ‘associates’ smiles’ Failure to comply with the new guidelines could lead to termination, the company memo said. July 18, 2023, 12:20 PM EDT / Updated July 24, 2023, 9:19 AM EDT / Source: TODAY By Randi Richardson “We are introducing new mask guidelines that emphasize the importance of customer service and the ability to show our associates’ smiles and other facial features while considering the health and well-being of all individuals,” the memo reads, later adding, “no mask shall be worn in the store of support facility unless an associate has a valid medical note exempting him or her from this requirement.” The new guidance caused a stir on social media. “Ugh, this is awful,” one person tweeted in disagreement. “Let people wear masks to protect themselves!”
Couple asked to leave restaurant for wearing face masks to protect their immunocompromised infant Updated: 3:17 PM CDT Sep 21, 2021 By Alisha Ebrahimji, CNN Their infant has cystic fibrosis, they said, so they have taken precautions to stay safe and do what's best for their family, and that includes wearing a face mask in public except when drinking or eating. But the restaurant they visited, Hang Time Sports Grill & Bar, has a no-mask wearing policy, according to its owner, whom KTVT identified only as Tom. Wester said she was not aware of the policy.
NC Health News - Doctors rail against proposed ban against public masking The former surgeon general in the Trump administration criticizes N.C. bill that would do away with a pandemic-era law that allowed face masks for public health reasons. by Anne Blythe May 20, 2024 “Politicizing what is fundamentally a health issue for a cheap shot at the Israel-Gaza debate is unconscionable,” Wolfe told NC Health News. Over the past week, Wolfe has gotten numerous texts from colleagues across the country and around the world asking: “Oh my god, what’s going on in North Carolina?” What’s going on is lawmakers in the Republican-led General Assembly have been quickly shepherding House Bill 237 through legislative committees and a vote last week on the Senate floor.
Gothamist - Gov. Hochul considering banning people from wearing masks on NYC subways By Jon Campbell Published Jun 13, 2024 In a news conference at the state Capitol on Thursday, Hochul said she has started discussions with Mayor Eric Adams and state lawmakers about what a mask crackdown would look like and how to craft exemptions for health and religious reasons. The mayor’s office confirmed it was looking into the issue. But Hochul made clear she wants to see mask restrictions in some form, which she believes would help deter crime on public transit.
The New Republic - Los Angeles’s Mayor Was Contemplating a Mask Ban. She Just Got Covid. Karen Bass floated banning masks for protesters days before coming down with Covid-19. Edith Olmsted June 28, 2024 The incident came on the heels of other large protests across the country, which had left Governor Kathy Hochul and New York City Mayor Eric Adams eyeing the reinstatement of a mask ban for protesters, both saying they felt the anonymity masking provides had emboldened protesters to commit violence. Meanwhile, the city is undergoing a renewed wave of Covid-19, which neither politician deigned to consider.
WRAL - 'Scared to put on my mask': Cancer patient says she was intentionally coughed on in spat over mask The Republican-led state House passed a bill Tuesday that would adjust exceptions to the state law governing masks. The bill is awaiting a decision by Gov. Roy Cooper. June 12, 2024 Shari Stuart is undergoing treatment for stage 4 cancer and has a weak immune system due to medication she takes. On Wednesday, she said, she parked her car at a Cary oil-change service station and slipped on a mask before walking into the shop. As she walked in, she was confronted by a man who shouted expletives and called her a liberal for wearing the mask. The man identified himself as a conservative, she said, and he falsely told her that wearing a mask in public was illegal. According to Stuart, she told the man that it was dangerous for her to go into public without a mask because of her diagnosis. It’s not a political statement, she said, and she showed the man a medical card describing her condition. He then proceeded to approach her and feigned coughing on her repeatedly before telling her that he hopes the cancer kills her, she said.
North Carolina's restrictions on public mask-wearing are now law after key revisions North Carolina's contentious restrictions on public mask-wearing are now law after Senate Republicans voted to override Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper's veto By MAKIYA SEMINERA Associated Press June 27, 2024, 4:09 PM North Carolina's contentious restrictions on public mask-wearing became law on Thursday after GOP lawmakers successfully overrode a veto by the state's Democratic governor. The Senate gave its final stamp of approval in a 30-14 override vote along party lines.
Syracuse University News - Mask Bans are a Heavy Burden for People with Disabilities Wednesday, June 26, 2024, By Ellen Mbuqe Reporters looking for anyone to discuss the issues around limitations for face masks, please consider Associate Professor of Law Katherine Macfarlane, the director of the disability law and policy program at Syracuse University College of Law. To give you a sense of her perspective, Professor Macfarlane said:“The bans would pose an immediate risk to people with disabilities who need to wear masks to protect themselves—from airborne illnesses like COVID-19, for example. It is difficult to imagine how a disabled person would be able to convincingly defend their mask-wearing to a police officer,” said Macfarlane. “Even if an exception to the bans were created for people with disabilities, the bans would still force people to disclose a disability they would rather keep confidential. And if an officer doesn’t believe them (as so often happens to people with invisible disabilities), what happens—they’re arrested?”
Going Deep with Russ Baker Contrived Anti-Vaxxer “Exposé” on WhoWhatWhy Writer Reveals Movement Strategy I could see right away that it was some kind of hit piece APR 07, 2024 Perhaps most relevant to those that insinuate she is somehow a tool of Big Medicine or Big Pharma, is the reality that, in her work, Neitzel has no financial or institutional stake whatsoever. She is about as far from a shill for Big Pharma or Big Medicine as one could get. But in her anger at those who promoted and politicized what the majority of leading scientists considered faux cures for COVID-19, she used intemperate language. (Her apology appears below as an addendum.) Two doctors promoting the counter-scenario aggressively pursued her, and a process server even gained access to her apartment building to dramatically serve her at her door. And — on advice of counsel to avoid a long, drawn-out litigation (though they were certain she would win) — she agreed to a very measured apology of sorts in return for their dropping their action. The apology relates to minor mistakes or transgressions — trivial in their impact compared to the consequences of the allegedly bad science that Neitzel was calling out.
Death Wish From...A Doctor MISINFORMATIONKILLS JUL 02, 2024 “You are all traitors and corruptocrats and deserve to rot in hell, and to get there by a most painful and prolonged death. You bastards are co-conspirators with Tony Fauci, responsible for millions of deaths because of his evil response to the COVID ‘plandemic’. Repent and live, continue with. Your evil ways and die. Most Sincerely, Roger Kimber, MD.”
Stein, Michael D., 'If Public Health Work Is Preventive, It’s Invisible and Becomes Visible Only During Crises', Me vs. Us: A Health Divided (New York, 2022; online edn, Oxford Academic, 17 Nov. 2022), https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780197637562.003.0003
People's CDC CDC recommends updated 2024–2025 COVID vaccines for all ages! Thanks to your advocacy, CDC decides on universal vaccination for the upcoming vaccine formulations JUL 01, 2024 Thanks to your public comments, the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) voted 11-0 to recommend the 2024–2025 updated COVID vaccinations for all ages (6 months and up). Prior to this meeting, the eligibility criteria for the anticipated fall rollout of the 2024-2025 COVID vaccine formulations had not yet been determined. Two major options were considered: a risk-based recommendation (for example, only certain age groups or people with certain medical conditions would be eligible) or a universal recommendation (all ages would be eligible, regardless of medical history). Your comments made a difference. Committee member Dr. James Loehr noted (timestamp 3:01:30) that there were around 3,000 comments on COVID vaccination, of which 95% of the comments were in favor of universal vaccination. Dr. Loehr added that he found it surprising, and admitted that while he had favored a risk-based recommendation prior to the meeting, the public comments as well as the meeting presentations had swayed him to favor a universal recommendation.
MedPage Today - Who Really Needs a Yearly COVID Booster? — "We will have the biggest impact by focusing on high-risk groups," Paul Offit says by Emily Hutto, Associate Video Producer September 27, 2023 I think anybody who wants to get a vaccine certainly should be encouraged to get it, but I'm not sure why we made that recommendation. Maybe it's because we have, to some extent, a dysfunctional healthcare system and we fear that by making a targeted recommendation, private insurers won't then cover those other people who live or work in nursing homes, or who live in the home of someone who's immune compromised. Maybe that's the reason.
The Philadelphia Inquirer - Paul Offit, Philly’s most vocal vaccine advocate, on science, truth, and why he’s not a fan of the latest COVID boosters. Nov 8, 2022 by Jason Laughlin A proponent of the new booster shots, Bob Wachter, chair of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, said the risks of additional shots are so minimal even a little more protection is worthwhile. He still respects Offit’s position.
Beyond the Noise - Do We Really Need a Yearly COVID Vaccine? On June 15th, an FDA Vaccine Advisory Committee picked the strain for “this year’s” vaccine. PAUL OFFIT JUN 20, 2023 For now, yearly booster dosing is probably best reserved for groups that are at highest risk of severe disease, such as people with multiple comorbidities, people over 75, people who are immune compromised, and people who are pregnant.
CDC ACIP meeting September 12, 2023 CDC ACIP Covid-19 Vaccines Work Group: “Shared clinical decision making could create barriers to vaccination and may not effectively target those at highest risk.”
Institute of Medicine (US) Committee for the Study of the Future of Public Health. The Future of Public Health. Washington (DC): National Academies Press (US); 1988. 3, A History of the Public Health System. Available from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK218224/ From the 1930s through the 1970s, local, state, and federal responsibilities in health continued to increase. The federal role in health also became more prominent. A strong federal government and a strong government role in ensuring social welfare were publicly supported social values of this era. From Roosevelt's New Deal in the 1930s through Johnson's Great Society of the 1960s, a federal role in services affecting the health and welfare of individual citizens became well established. The federal government and state and local health agencies took on greater roles in providing and planning health services, in health promotion and health education, and in financing health services. The agencies also continued and increased activities in environmental sanitation, epidemiology, and health statistics. Federal programs in disease control, research, and epidemiology expanded throughout the mid-twentieth century. In 1930, the National Hygienic Laboratory relocated to the Washington, D.C., area and was renamed the National Institute of Health (NIH). In 1937, the Institute greatly expanded its research functions to include the study and investigation of all diseases and related conditions and the National Cancer Institute was established as the first of the research institutes focused on particular diseases or health problems. By the 1970s NIH grew to include an Institute for Neurological and Communicative Disorders and Stroke, an Institute for Child Health and Human Development, an Institute for Environmental Health Sciences, and an Institute of Mental Health, among others. In 1938, Congress passed a second venereal disease control act, which provided federal funds to states for investigation and control of venereal diseases. In 1939, the Federal Security Agency, housing the Public Health Service and national programs in education and welfare, was established. The Public Health Service also continued to expand. During World War II, the Center for Disease Control was established, and shortly thereafter, the National Center for Health Statistics. (Hanlon and Pickett, 1984) Federal programs supporting individual health services and state programs also continued to grow, both in number of health problems and types of citizens addressed. The Social Security Act was passed in 1935. One title of the act established a federal grant-in-aid program to the states for establishing and maintaining public health services and for training public health personnel.
NPR Can't Help Falling In Love With A Vaccine: How Polio Campaign Beat Vaccine Hesitancy. May 3, 2021 By Susan Brink An army of volunteers for the March of Dimes, largely mothers, went door to door, distributing the latest information about polio and the effort to stop it; they also asked for donations. As little as a dime would help, they said. And the dimes and dollars poured in, Oshinsky says, handed to the volunteers, or inserted into cardboard displays at store checkout counters or placed in envelopes sent directly to the White House. Cases of polio may have peaked in the U.S. in 1952 with nearly 60,000 children infected. More than 3,000 died. (By comparison, roughly a year's worth of comparable statistics for the COVID-19 pandemic reveal more than 32 million reported cases in the U.S. so far and more than 573,000 deaths.) The years-long campaign of information and donations to the polio eradication effort made anxious Americans feel they were invested in a solution, Stewart says.
Slate - The Loneliest Anti-Vaxxer. Even the popular polio shot had its haters. By Nick Keppler, Nov 26, 2021 Under the banner of his organization, Polio Prevention Inc., Miller distributed hair-raising mailers with claims like “Thousands of little white coffins will be used to bury victims of Salk’s heinous and fraudulent vaccine.” A self-made shampoo magnate, he was one of the few malcontents who publicly campaigned against the polio vaccine. His crusade shows that even during a public embrace of the polio shot that many people frustrated at COVID anti-vaxxers have held up as the ideal reaction to a new lifesaving vaccine, there was dissent, some of it as vitriolic as that you find in the corners of Twitter that swap anti-Fauci memes and Bill Gates rants—and just as weird. To Miller, “polio” was not an infectious disease. It was a state of malnutrition caused by midcentury American diets, particularly soft drinks—his mortal enemy. “Disease and malfunction do not ‘strike’ us; we build them within ourselves,” he wrote in one of his two-sided handbills.