Not bloody likely
In Bobby Jr’s HHS, only conspiracy nuts survive. The Food and Drug Administration’s top vaccine official has been pushed out, according to people familiar with the matter.
Dr. Peter Marks, who played a key role in the first Trump administration’s Operation Warp Speed to develop Covid-19 vaccines, stepped down Friday. He submitted his resignation after a Health and Human Services official earlier in the day gave him the choice to resign or be fired, people familiar with the matter said.
“It has become clear that truth and transparency are not desired by the Secretary, but rather he wishes subservient confirmation of his misinformation and lies,” Marks wrote in a resignation letter referring to HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
The letter was addressed to acting FDA Commissioner Sara Brenner. His resignation takes effect April 5, the letter said.
“If Peter Marks does not want to get behind restoring science to its golden standard and promoting radical transparency, then he has no place at FDA under the strong leadership of Secretary Kennedy,” an HHS official said.
God I get sick of this doublespeak crapola from these people.
This is a big loss:
Marks, who has been with the FDA since 2012, has led its division responsible for overseeing vaccines, biotech drugs and blood products since 2016. Part of the division’s role is making sure vaccines work and are safe.
During the pandemic, he was a member of the team that streamlined regulations and pooled government funding to speed development of Covid-19 vaccines.
He had wanted to stay in his position, though his support of immunizations conflicted with Kennedy’s skepticism, people familiar said.
Marks, who has been with the FDA since 2012, has led its division responsible for overseeing vaccines, biotech drugs and blood products since 2016. Part of the division’s role is making sure vaccines work and are safe.
During the pandemic, he was a member of the team that streamlined regulations and pooled government funding to speed development of Covid-19 vaccines.
Those vaccines were a scientific triumph and they saved millions of lives.
But the steroid addled weirdo, Bobby Jr, doesn’t like them so let’s hire another braindead weirdo to “investigate” something that’s been debunked for years. That’s what he did:
A vaccine skeptic who has long promoted false claims about the connection between immunizations and autism has been tapped by the federal government to conduct a critical study of possible links between the two, according to current and former federal health officials.
The Department of Health and Human Services has hired David Geier to conduct the analysis, according to the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation. Geier and his father, Mark Geier, have published papers claiming vaccines increase the risk of autism, a theory that has been studied for decades and scientifically debunked.
David Geier was disciplined by Maryland regulators more than a decade ago for practicing medicine without a license. He is listed as a data analyst in the HHS employee directory.
IF YOU HAD ANY DOUBT THAT THE Trump administration and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. are going after vaccines, a confidential internal document should put those questions to rest.
A March 25 memo from the National Institutes of Health provides officials at the agency with instructions on how to terminate certain grants. An appendix in the document lists several types of studies that would be subject to termination, and includes “vaccine hesitancy” among the “examples for research activities that NIH no longer supports.”
“It is the policy of NIH not to prioritize research activities that focuses gaining scientific knowledge on why individuals are hesitant to be vaccinated and/or explore ways to improve vaccine interest and commitment,” the document states, as a suggestion of language officials should use when terminating the grants. “NIH is obligated to carefully steward grant awards to ensure taxpayer dollars are used in ways that benefit the American people and improve their quality of life.”
They simply don’t believe in epidemiology. They think there is no benefit to having a population fully vaccinated to create herd immunity. They think it’s just a “personal” choice, condemning vulnerable populations to exposure and untold suffering for children and others who are at the mercy of these morons. We had measles eradicated not all that long ago in this country. Then Bobby and his fellow woo-woos and wingnuts persuaded a whole lot of people that vaccines are more dangerous than deadly illnesses and here we are. It’s only going to get worse.
A cutting-edge technology expected to foster new medical breakthroughs in treatments for cancers and infectious disease is being treated “like a four-letter word” inside the Trump administration, causing panic among scientists who fear Trump-appointed health officials, driven by misinformation and conspiracy theories about the Covid-19 vaccine, will cut critical research in the field.
Scientists and public health experts interviewed by the Guardian are sounding the alarm over a recent move by the National Institutes of Health to collect information about funding for research into mRNA technology.
Some fear it is the first step in a move to cut or defund grants that involve the technology, which was an essential component in the rapid creation of vaccines against Covid-19, a major accomplishment of the first Trump term in fighting the pandemic.
Messenger RNA technology, which in the case of Covid-19 teaches the body to fight infection by introducing immune cells to the coronavirus’s characteristic spike proteins, is being tested for use against diseases ranging from bird flu and dengue, to pancreatic cancer and melanoma.
The word is that the NIH is targeting mRNA research specifically and people are being told not to bother applying for research grants. And like everything else, they are all operating in a climate of fear afraid to say anything for fear of reprisals.
“So far, any attempt at reasoning with people has fallen on deaf ears. Everything is being run by the department [Department of Health and Human Services] or the White House,” the person said. KFF Health News separately reported that all grants involving mRNA research were to be reported to Memoli, for referral to the office of the health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, and the White House.
Adding to concerns is the administration’s February decision to review a nearly $600m contract between HHS and Moderna, which was set to fund research into potential mRNA vaccines against five flu subtypes, including H5N1 or bird flu.
The person said: “mRNA has become the new four letter word. I mean, it’s crazy. It goes beyond just anti-vax,” referring to the anti-vaccine movement in the US. “It’s about anything associated with the Covid response, which has been weaponized by extreme people in the administration,” the person added…
Most experts agree that it relates to the politicization of the pandemic and misinformation about the Covid-19 vaccines. “Prior to the pandemic, even anti-vaccine groups were not focused on mRNA vaccines,” said Dorit Rubinstein Reiss, an expert in vaccine law and professor at the University of California College of Law in San Francisco.
And, of course, the leader of this braindead movement is Bobby Jr who was hostile to the COVID 19 vaccine saying in back in 2020 “because the current risks of serious adverse events or deaths outweigh the benefits”.
Studies later showed that claim was inaccurate. A study by the Commonwealth Fund found that Covid-19 vaccines saved 3.2 million American lives and prevented more than 18 million hospitalizations through November 2022.
The vaccine gave me my life back. For anyone over a certain age the COVID was a form of house arrest forcing us to give up any semblance of a normal life because we could very easily die if we got it. (We weren’t the only ones, of course, but the statistics for people over 50 were pretty terrifying in the early days.) But once we got the vaccines and the boosters, we got to live again. And when we eventually got the virus, as most of us did, most of us never had to go to the hospital. Even the long COVID sufferers had an easier time of it if they were vaccinated.
Now they are finding that the mRNA vaccines are on the verge of offering a monumental breakthrough for cancer. Even pancreatic cancer which is so hard to treat. And these people want to take it all away because that loon Kennedy and the brainwashed right wingers who “do their own research” believe lies.
If they succeed in strangling this life-saving research I think we have to consider it a crime against humanity.
