<
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/26/rfk-jr-chronic-disease-covid>
"The US health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, entered office with a pledge to
tackle the US’s chronic disease epidemic and give infectious disease a “break”.
In at least one of those goals, Kennedy has been expeditious.
Experts said as Kennedy makes major cuts in public health in his first weeks in
office, the infrastructure built to mitigate Covid-19 has become a clear target
– an aim that has the dual effect of weakening immunization efforts as the US
endures the largest measles outbreak since 2000.
“If his goal is to undermine public health infrastructure, he’s making strides
there,” said Dorit Reiss, a University of California Law School professor whose
research focuses on vaccine law. “If his goal is combating chronic diseases –
he’s not doing very well.”
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has been characterized by
upheaval since Kennedy and the billionaire Elon Musk’s unofficial “department
of government efficiency” (Doge) cumulatively axed 20,000 jobs – roughly a
quarter of the 82,000-person workforce.
And it appears that turmoil will continue: a leaked budget memo shows the
administration poised to propose a budget cut of another $40bn, or roughly
one-third of the department’s discretionary spending.
Amid the cuts, attacks on Covid-19 infrastructure have proven thematic, and
show the administration’s hostility toward work that once mitigated the virus.
That’s included attacking promising vaccine platforms and elevating
once-ostracized voices to high-level roles.
“The Covid-19 pandemic is over, and HHS will no longer waste billions of
taxpayer dollars responding to a non-existent pandemic that Americans moved on
from years ago,” a spokesperson for HHS told the Guardian in response to
questions about its strategy.
“HHS is prioritizing funding projects that will deliver on President Trump’s
mandate to address our chronic disease epidemic and Make America Healthy
Again.”
Gregg Gonsalves, a Yale University associate professor and infectious disease
epidemiologist, calls this strategy the “revenge of the Covid contrarians”.
“They’re not interested in the science, they’re interested in their conclusions
and having the science bend to their will,” said Gonsalves. “They want to
create a Potemkin village of their own making that looks like science but has
nothing to do with science at all.”"
This is going to be a problem for other countries such as Australia who import
our vaccines from the US.
Via Violet Blue’s
Threat Model - Covid: May 1, 2025
https://www.patreon.com/posts/covid-may-1-2025-127880470
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
