The lies will kill us all


Don’t you know? RFK jr is not anti-vax. He supports safe vaccines.

News reports have claimed that I am anti-vaccine or anti-industry. I am neither. I am pro-safety, Kennedy said in his opening statement before the Senate Committee on Finance, prompting a protester to shout, “He lies!” Kennedy added that all of his children are vaccinated—a decision he has previously said he regrets—and said vaccines play a critical role in health care.

He lies! Those two words need to be written on his tombstone, preferably sooner than later.

We know he lies because he just slashed half a billion dollars from the budget of the department specifically tasked with developing and testing new vaccines.

The US Department of Health and Human Services said on Tuesday it would terminate 22 federal contracts for mRNA-based vaccines, questioning the safety of a technology credited with helping end the Covid pandemic and saving millions of lives.

The unit, Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, helps companies develop medical supplies to address public health threats, and had provided billions of dollars for development of vaccines during the Covid-19 pandemic.

HHS said the wind-down includes cancellation of a contract awarded to Moderna for the late-stage development of its bird flu vaccine for humans and the right to purchase the shots, as previously reported in May.

He basically wants to kill mRNA vaccine development, the technology that saved millions of lives in the recent pandemic. His excuse? In addition to his usual claim that the vaccines contain fetal tissue and DNA fragments — all false, and even if it were true, what does he think is present in the roadkill he eats? — he claims that mRNA vaccines are ineffective against viruses that affect the upper respiratory tract.

Kennedy said the HHS is terminating these programs because data show these vaccines “fail to protect effectively against upper respiratory infections like COVID and flu”, but did not offer scientific evidence.

“We’re shifting that funding toward safer, broader vaccine platforms that remain effective even as viruses mutate,” Kennedy said.

COVID was an upper respiratory infection, and the mRNA vaccines seem to have helped protect millions of people against that, but RatFucker Jr is going to just ignore that. He lies, and is wrong.

KENNEDY: “As the pandemic showed us, mRNA vaccines don’t perform well against viruses that infect the upper respiratory tract.”

THE FACTS: His claim is contradicted by scientific evidence. Countless studies show that vaccinated individuals fare far better against COVID-19 infections than those who are unvaccinated, while others have estimated that COVID-19 vaccines prevented millions of deaths during the global pandemic. The mRNA vaccines do not prevent respiratory diseases entirely, experts say. Rather, they can prevent more serious illness that leads to complications and death. For example, an mRNA vaccine against COVID-19 may prevent an infection in the upper respiratory tract that feels like a bad cold from spreading to the lower respiratory tract, where it could affect one’s ability to breathe.

While he’s cutting the budget for specious reasons, he’s also telling the scientists he doesn’t want to pay to pursue a new/old line of research.

He has also ordered a sweeping new study on the long-debunked link between vaccines and autism.

There is no link between vaccines and autism. There is a link between mRNA vaccines and preventing death.

He lies.

Comments

  1. Ariaflame, BSc, BF, PhD says

    As I remember COVID is not a respiratory virus anyway but a systemic one.

  2. raven says

    KENNEDY: “As the pandemic showed us, mRNA vaccines don’t perform well against viruses that infect the upper respiratory tract.”

    In Realityland, the mRNA Covid virus vaccines were the best vaccines we could come up with.
    They in fact performed well against the Covid-19 virus.

    We had vaccines using 4 different technologies developed to fight the virus.
    .1. Killed virus vaccines from Russia and China.
    .2. Recombinant viruses based on disabled Adenoviruses from two different companies.
    .3. A subunit plus adjuvant vaccine from Novavax.
    .4. The mRNA vaccines.

    The mRNA vaccines gave as good immunity as any of those other vaccines.
    They were also marginally safer than the Adenovirus vaccines. When rare but serious side effects appeared in the Adenovirus vaccines, we stopped using them and they are no longer available.

    The killed virus vaccines worked but not very well.
    It is estimated that at least three doses of those are needed to equal two doses of the mRNA vaccines.

    These facts are commonly known and easy to look up.
    RFK jr. is simply a delusional idiot who has and will get a lot of people killed.

  3. raven says

    In Realityland, the development of the mRNA Covid-19 virus vaccines were a major achievement of modern biological science.
    We have never before developed a vaccine in a year to a novel pathogen. In times past, vaccine development would take decades and more recently at least a decade.

    .1. It is estimated that the development of the US mRNA vaccines saved the lives of 3.2 million US people.

    I’m probably one of them, as a Boomer with some risk factors.
    I quickly got tired of hearing the mantra, “It only kills old people.” Which wasn’t even true but as an old person wasn’t what I wanted to hear.
    According to the MAGAts we don’t matter and are expendable.

    .2. The number of Covid-19 antivaxxers who managed to kill themselves in the USA is around 400,000.
    Believing anti-science lies and delusions can and will kill people.

    RFK jr and the GOP can and will kill a lot of people.
    They already have.
    Besides their war on vaccines, Health and Human Services is also cutting a lot of anti-HIV prevention and treatment programs.
    An untreated HIV infection is 100 % fatal.
    At this point, the only thing left to see is just how many people they kill.

  4. raven says

    Nature:
    NEWS 31 March 2025 By Humberto Basilio

    Trump team guts AIDS-eradication programme and slashes HIV research grants
    More than 200 federal grants for research related to HIV and AIDS have been abruptly terminated in the past few weeks.

    The administration of US President Donald Trump has hollowed out one of the federal offices aimed at ending the nation’s HIV epidemic. The move comes as the administration has also cut hundreds of grants funding HIV and AIDS research.

    Might just as well call the current Health and Human Services and RFK jr., the “Friends of the HIV Virus” agency.

    They have systematically cut programs that study and fight the HIV AIDS virus.
    This will undoubtedly kill a lot of people in the future.

  5. cartomancer says

    It’s almost a piece of performance art, really. I mean, they’ve picked possibly the least healthy-looking individual I’ve ever seen as the bloody Health Minister! A shuffling, grey-skinned cadaver with the hoarse, gravelly rasp of a heavy smoker, dead, staring eyes and a penchant for bathing in raw sewage. With a literal parasitic brain infection.

    I suppose the standard was set last time when they appointed someone as Education Minister who not only had never worked in education but hadn’t even been to school.

  6. Doc Bill says

    What amazes me and disgusts me more than all the MAGA is that the Royal We, the rational citizens of the USA, see clearly what is going on and are powerless to do anything about it. Face it, folks, “we” elected professional politicians, generally with no qualifications for the job other than their age, and there they sit, petrified to speak out, call a moron a moron, shout FIRE (!) or do anything that might jeopardize their personal jobs.

    The decline and fall of the Roman empire took 400 years. The decline and fall of the American empire is going to smash that record by 399 years. Mors Americae!

  7. AstroLad says

    BWK is symptomatic of all of Dump’s appointments. He starts beneath the bottom of the barrel and digs deeper. He cannot appoint anyone even half way competent because they will make him look bad.

  8. says

    Roadkill F*cking Kennedy jr is obviously being controlled by the still-alive brain worm. I’m sure thorough investigation will reveal the he has killed more people than vaccines.

    Just more conclusive evidence of this country’s Death Spiral .

  9. andywuk says

    RFK’s efforts are feeble, only killing a few hundreds of thousands of people and taking decades to kill millions (until teh next pandemic).

    Lest we forget, Musk and Trump are on track to have killed 14 million+ by 2030 with the defunding of USAID alone (from the Lancet- https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736%2825%2901186-9/fulltext) although those are mostly non-white so probably don’t count.

    I suspect history will rank Trump’s regime with Mao, Stalin and Hitler for megadeaths caused once those from climate change acceleration are included.

  10. cheerfulcharlie says

    Roadkill Jr, is utterly incompetent. His killing of research programs et al are going to get people killed. It is obvious now, Roadkill Jr. needs to go. Why can’t our Congress do something? Why is nothing being done? What do we do when a clown like Trump nominates an utter incompetent who then demonstrates his incompetence repeatedly? Leader of the DEMOCRATIC house is Hakeem Jefferies. Democratic Senate leader is Chuck Shumer. Action is needed.

  11. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    ArsTechnica – RFK Jr. defends $500M cut for mRNA vaccines with pseudoscience gobbledygook

    [A two-and-a-half-minute] video he posted on social media Tuesday evening.

    Kennedy: Millions of people […] caught the omicron variant despite being vaccinated, that’s because a single mutation can make mRNA vaccines ineffective.

    […] there were 37 mutations in its spike protein compared to its predecessors. Kennedy’s suggestion that it rose to prominence because of a single mutation is egregiously false.
    […]
    he’ll shift to developing vaccines using strategies like whole-virus vaccines. But this decades-old strategy requires growing up large supplies of virus in eggs or cell culture, which takes months longer than mRNA vaccines. Further, using whole, inactivated viruses can often produce more side effects than other types of vaccines because they include more antigens.

    Good thing we’ve got plenty of cheap eggs…

    SciAm – RFK, Jr. Wants to Let Bird Flu Spread on Poultry Farms (Mar 19)

    Well, we can import pharmaceuticals…

    Reuters (Aug 5)

    Trump said on Tuesday that the United States would initially place a “small tariff” on pharmaceutical imports before hiking it to 150% within 18 months and eventually to 250%

  12. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    CNBC – New federal student loan limits are a ‘punch in the face’ for aspiring doctors

    Trump’s “big beautiful bill” sets new limits on student loan borrowing for professional programs, such as medical school. […] The average cost of medical school already exceeds $200,000. At private institutions, the average cost is more than $300,000, according to 2024 data […] “You go into crazy, crazy debt to go into medicine […] and then repay those loans over decades.”
    […]
    According to 2024 projections by the Association of American Medical Colleges, the U.S. was already on track to have a shortage of up to 86,000 physicians by 2036.

  13. beholder says

    @6 Doc Bill

    The decline and fall of the Roman empire took 400 years. The decline and fall of the American empire is going to smash that record by 399 years.

    Ahh, if only American Empire had only been in decline for less than a year…

    The way I figure, U.S. empire has been in decline since the end of the Apollo moon landings. It’s been in irreversible decline since 9/11, and by the time this decade rolled around the wheels would start to come off no matter who was in charge. So the worst case limit on your estimate is more like “going to smash that record by 344 years.”

  14. StevoR says

    @15.Trump enabler and de facto Trump voter beholder : A decline YOU helped contribute to causing with your constant and single- focused attacks on the ONLY alternative to Trump in the last USoA election. This decline and its global consequences are on you and the others who vcoted for third party spoilers or didn’t vote you could have done – everyone who was able to vote who did not vote for Kamala.

  15. beholder says

    @17 StevoR

    A decline YOU helped contribute to

    I wasn’t old enough to exist back then.

  16. John Morales says

    beholder, I put it to a brand-new uninstructed Bubblebot instance:

    Me; Context is Trump election 2024; parse this expression: “A decline YOU helped contribute to causing with your constant and single- focused attacks on the ONLY alternative to Trump in the last USoA election.”
    The expression:

    The expression:

    “A decline YOU helped contribute to causing with your constant and single-focused attacks on the ONLY alternative to Trump in the last USoA election.”

    is rhetorically charged and structurally accusatory. Here’s a breakdown:

    🧩 Structural Parsing

    Subject of blame: “YOU” — direct and emphatic, capitalized for emphasis.
    Action attributed: “helped contribute to causing” — a layered construction implying partial responsibility, not sole causation.
    Mechanism of blame: “your constant and single-focused attacks” — suggests repetitive and narrowly targeted criticism.
    Target of those attacks: “the ONLY alternative to Trump” — implies a binary framing of the election, reducing viable options to one.
    Temporal anchor: “in the last USoA election” — situates the critique within a specific historical moment (presumably 2020).

    🔍 Implications

    The speaker is asserting that the addressee’s behavior (likely political commentary or activism) undermined the opposition to Trump, thereby contributing to a broader political or societal “decline.”
    The use of “ONLY alternative” suggests a belief that unity behind a single candidate was necessary, and deviation from that unity was harmful.

    🧠 Semantic Notes

    The phrase “helped contribute to causing” is tautological; either “helped cause” or “contributed to” would suffice. Its redundancy may serve to intensify blame.
    The capitalization of “YOU” and “ONLY” adds emotional weight and urgency, typical of polemical discourse.

    Even a bubblebot gets your inanity

  17. StevoR says

    @18 .Trump and fascism enabler and disingenuous troll beholder

    @17 StevoR : “A decline YOU helped contribute to…”
    I wasn’t old enough to exist back then.

    Liar. Predictable from you since that’s what you do here but what a disgusting liar you are.

    You existed last year and helped cause the decline we’re seing and you have made the world a vastly, incalculablyand ever worsening worse place by helping Trump take power again this time as unchecked de facto dictator.

    You could have helped Kamala and hurt Trump but instead you chose to hurt Kamala and help Trump. You argued for Trump you in fact, in practice, in reality voted for Trump.

    Got any Buyers remorse now? Or are you happy with seeing the consequences – predicteable and predicted and that we warned you of occur just like we said?

  18. beholder says

    @ StevoR

    you in fact, in practice, in reality voted for Trump.

    Got any evidence for that claim? Of course you don’t.

    So are you going to do the decent thing and apologize for lying? Or are you going to double down on your pathological obsession with uttering the same imbecilic lies over and over again? Was getting banned from Mano’s blog not a wake-up call for you?

  19. John Morales says

    “Got any evidence for that claim? Of course you don’t.”

    So, beholder.

    Did you vote for Harris, the only credible candidate?
    All you have so say is ‘yes’, and no worries.

    You shan’t, because we all know you were advocating for voting for anyone other than a democratic candidate.

    (You were the Vicarian sideshow, until even that feebloid faded into the background)

    (heh. I told you what’s fun about your bleatings)

  20. rorschach says

    @1,
    yes, yes, thank you, SARS-COV2 causes a multisystem inflammatory endothelitis, it just happens to also pass through the respiratory tract.
    Once China published the Covid genome, it took Biontech exactly 2 days to figure out what a vaccine had to look like.
    The issue we have now with this lunatic in charge is that mRNA technology is on track to be used for cancer vaccines/immunotherapy, a complete gamechanger, and all of this will now not happen. Absolute disaster.

  21. KG says

    He [Kennedy] basically wants to kill mRNA vaccine development, the technology that saved millions of lives in the recent pandemic. His excuse? In addition to his usual claim that the vaccines contain fetal tissue and DNA fragments — all false, and even if it were true, what does he think is present in the roadkill he eats? — he claims that mRNA vaccines are ineffective against viruses that affect the upper respiratory tract.

    Is Kennedy, knowingly or unknowingly, doing the bidding of a secretive Doomsday Cult (or perhaps a mutated and still grotesquely thriving brainworm) which is planning to unleash a global pestilence, and so is anxious to ensure effective vaccines take as long as possible to produce? I simply pose the question.

  22. KG says

    rorschach@23,

    Won’t the mRNA work be taken up in Europe? China? India? Japan? Even the UK! Obviously there will be a delay, but mRNA is so obviously the way to go in immunology and oncology, I find it hard to believe it won’t be funded somewhere.

  23. rorschach says

    “Won’t the mRNA work be taken up in Europe? China? India? Japan? Even the UK! ”

    I would assume so, but the US is a big player with a lot of influence and manpower, and that is hard to replace.

  24. pilgham says

    I assume the industry has decided mRNA is powerful and valuable to remain in public hands.

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