Tag: cdc
DeSantis Vows To Appoint His Anti-Vax Surgeon General To Top Health Post

DeSantis Vows To Appoint His Anti-Vax Surgeon General To Top Health Post

Governor Ron DeSantis is pledging to "clean house" at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and says he will install his current, highly controversial Surgeon General at the nation's top public health agency, should the Florida Republican win the White House.

Dr. Joseph Ladapo, who DeSantis hired away from the University of California, Los Angeles, is known as an anti-vaxxer who claims his opposition to the life-saving COVID vaccines is God's plan. As DeSantis' Surgeon General, Ladapo has pursued a campaign of vaccine misinformation, and been accused of scientific fraud after he "personally altered" critical results of a COVID vaccine study.

"Ladapo’s changes," Politico reported in April, "presented the risks of cardiac death to be more severe than previous versions of the study. He later used the final document in October to bolster disputed claims that Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines were dangerous to young men."

"The surgeon general, a well-known Covid-19 vaccine skeptic, faced a backlash from the medical community after he made the assertions, which go against guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and American Academy of Pediatrics. But Ladapo’s statements aligned well with Gov. Ron DeSantis’ stance against mandatory Covid-19 vaccination."

In May, the Orlando Sentinel reported, "Ladapo says anti-vaccine crusade was God’s plan."

In its deep profile of Ladapo, the Sentinel quotes the Florida Surgeon General saying the COVID-19 vaccine “has a terrible safety profile,” and, “At this point in the pandemic, I’m not sure anyone should be taking them.”

The newspaper adds, "In a December interview with Republican politician Dr. Ben Carson, Ladapo said his wife encouraged him to speak out about the COVID-19 vaccine."

“Even though I’m chatting with you here, it’s really a mom-and-pop operation. It’s my wife and I,” Ladapo told Carson, the Sentinel reported. “… She has been so vocal against these things for kids since … it was just a twinkle in the eyes of the CEOs of Pfizer and Moderna. She just knew that they were up to absolutely no good and she was right.”

Dr. Ladapo's wife, Brianna Ladapo, "is also the one who convinced Ladapo to go to the counseling that he believes was God’s plan to give him the courage to speak out against COVID-19 policy."

Before becoming Surgeon General, "Ladapo signed the Great Barrington Declaration along with 47,000 other medical practitioners, which called for people to build an immunity to COVID through natural infection when possible in order to reach herd immunity, rather than isolating or wearing face masks."

Governor DeSantis' crusade against scientifically-accepted public health measures, measures that Ladapo also opposes, has impacted Florida's COVID-19 response, with disastrous results.

Although a report last year found Florida neglected to report thousands of COVID deaths during the pandemic, the Sunshine State still had poor results battling the deadly virus.

Florida ranked tenth-worst in per-capita COVID deaths, and eight-worst in COVID cases per capita.

That performance continues to this day.

"By state, Hawaii and Florida saw the highest rates of new COVID-19 hospitalizations," U.S. News and World Report reported last week, "more than twice the national rate."

Speaking to Fox News Thursday night, behind a chyron that read "Liberals Bring Back COVID Hysteria," Governor DeSantis adamantly insisted his COVID polices are the right ones, as he praised Dr. Ladapo and pledged to install him at the Centers for Disease Control (CDC).

"We're going to clean house in places like the CDC," DeSantis said, "they didn't follow the science during COVID they followed the narrative during COVID and that was very, very destructive."

"So we will clean house with personnel. You're gonna have people in with me like my surgeon general in Florida, Dr. Joseph Ladapo," DeSantis continued.

"These are people that were right about COVID from day one. They were pilloried by a very politicized scientific establishment but they stood their ground, and they've been proved right. Those are the people that need to be in positions, not the political actors that we've seen over the last four or five years."

Watch at this link.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

RFK Jr.

RFK Jr. Says He Backs National Abortion Ban

Conspiracy theorist and 2024 Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., confirmed Sunday that he would back a national abortion ban after first three months of pregnancy, NBC exclusively reports.

Despite Kennedy's choice to identify as a Democrat, the Democratic hopeful's more conservative opinions have landed him on the radar of Republicans like Florida governor and 2024 Republican candidate Ron DeSantis.

DeSantis, who passed a six-week abortion ban in the Sunshine State this year, has said he would consider appointing Kennedy to lead either the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) or the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) if elected president.

During an NBC News interview at the Iowa State Fair Sunday, Kennedy said, "I believe a decision to abort a child should be up to the women during the first three months of life. Once a child is viable, outside the womb, I think then the state has an interest in protecting the child. I'm for medical freedom. Individuals are able to make their own choices."

NBC reports that when the presidential hopeful was "pressed" further on the matter, he confirmed that he would sign "a federal ban at 15 or 21 weeks."

The New Republicreports, "An overwhelming majority of Americans—62 percent, to be exact—still think abortion should be legal in all or most cases, according to the Pew Research Center. What's more, people consistently vote in favor of increasing abortion rights protections."

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Marjorie Taylor Greene

'Disgusting Filth': Outrage Erupts Over Margie's Mean Attack On Stepmoms

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) says that women who are stepmothers are not real mothers, because they are not a child’s “biological” parent.

The Georgia Republican delivered that claim during a congressional hearing on Wednesday to a woman who happens to be the head of the nation’s second-largest teachers’ union, and who also happens to be a lesbian: Randi Weingarten.

“Miss Weingarten,” Rep. Greene asked, “Are you a mother?”

“I am a mother by marriage,” Weingarten replied. “And my wife is here with me. So I’m really glad that she’s here.”

“By marriage,” Greene noted. “I see.”

During her allotted five minutes of questioning, Greene spent nearly the entire time not asking questions, but attacking Weingarten over a wide range of topics. Among them, Weingarten tweeting she supported Twitter suspending Greene for spreading COVID misinformation, which Greene tried to imply meant Weingarten did not support the First Amendment. She also railed against the teachers’ union chief for submitting a plan to the CDC on how to protect students, teachers, and staff during the COVID crisis.

But she began and ended her time belittling Weingarten’s motherhood.

Greene sternly told Weingarten, “you have no business advising the CDC what the medical guidelines were for school closures, because now we have a nation of schoolchildren who suffered because of it. The problem is people like you need to admit that you’re just a political activist. Not a teacher, not a mother, and not a medical doctor.”

Weingarten, who never professed to be a medical doctor, is both a mother and a teacher.

Many over the past 24 hours have taken Greene’s attack as an attack on parents who adopt, and on adopted children.

They are well within their rights to do so.

In July 0f 2022, just after the U.S. Supreme Court revoked a woman’s right to choose – a move supported by the right who insisted adoption is the answer to unwanted pregnancies – Greene referred to adoptive parents as “fake,” as Newsweek reported.

“Children are in the greatest danger in America today because traditional family values are being destroyed—the idea that mom and dad together, not fake mom and fake dad, but the biological mom and biological dad, can raise their children together and do what’s right for their children,” she said.

Greene at the time was blasted by adopted children and their parents on social media.

“I don’t tweet politics nor usually care about the rantings of a moron. But as part of a family where we are blessed to have adopted members, her referring to non-biological parents as ‘fake mom and fake dad’ is too offensive to ignore,” wrote Philadelphia sports radio host Glen Macnow, as Newsweek noted.

And now, Greene is again declaring non-biological parents not real parents – and not parents at all.

Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-FL) unleashed on his Republican colleague.

“My mom and dad adopted me at birth and they are my parents. Fuck you and your bigoted questions,” he tweeted at Rep. Greene.

“Marjorie Taylor Greene doesn’t think you’re a mother if you adopt children. I am adopted and this hurts. I love my mom,” tweeted a political science student.

“I was adopted at 3 days old. I only have one Mother as far I’m concerned. She raised me, nurtured me & is my best friend to this day. She is 94 & the roles have reversed. Giving birth alone does not make you a mother. I am highly offended by Marjorie Taylor Greene’s ignorance,” wrote a Twitter user.

“As the single mother of adopted daughters, yet one more reason to find Marjorie Taylor Greene a poor excuse for a human being,” wrote another.

“If my mother were alive today, she’d cross the street twice to kick Marjorie ‘Tuesday’ Green’s ass. She was not a ‘biological’ mother. Rather, she was a loving woman who adopted my brother and I, gave us a home & a life. That’s a mother,” wrote a tech CEO.

“My mom died last year. She adopted me when I was six months old. She wasn’t perfect, but she was the best parent anyone could have asked for. She was my mom. Marjorie Taylor Greene can unkindly go fuck herself,” tweeted a photographer.

“Marjorie Taylor Greene, I would like to let you know as an adopted child I think that you are a piece of crap,” wrote another Twitter user.

“I was adopted and raised by the two most amazing people I could have been,” wrote another Twitter user. “Marjorie Taylor Greene is … the worst human being on Congress right now, which is saying something. Every word she utters offends me as a human being and as an American. She must be removed!!”

Many more, who did not identify themselves as adopted children or adoptive parents, also blasted Greene.

Among them, MSNBC anchor and legal analyst Katie Phang, who tweeted: “What disgusting filth from MTG. It’s unconscionable to go after amazing people like @rweingarten and countless others who provide unconditional love and support for their children, regardless of whether they’re the biological parents.”

Also, political commentator and think tank CEO Sally Kohn, who posted a video clip of Greene and wrote: “Here is the moment where Marjorie Taylor Greene suggested that Randi Weingarten — and EVERYONE who has step children or adopted children — are not real parents. Just nasty and offensive — not to mention wrong!”

Watch Rep. Greene below or at this link:

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

How Republican Anti-Vax Madness Killed Off Their Party's Midterm Voters

How Republican Anti-Vax Madness Killed Off Their Party's Midterm Voters

The short version is, COVID is not going away. The long version is, it’s killing way more people in rural areas than in the cities. Those deaths may have had a deleterious effect on Republican turn-out in the midterms and may have even cost the Republican Party some seats in the House and Senate.

It's their own fault, of course. From DeSantis in Florida to Abbott in Texas, Republican governors were in a hurry to get their states out of lockdown but in no hurry at all to get people vaccinated. In fact, some red states passed laws making mandatory vaccination requirements imposed by county and city governments illegal, and in some Republican states, governors forced school boards to re-open their schools before administrators and local school boards thought it was safe.

Here is the way that’s paying off for them. According to figures published recently by the Pew Research Center, death rates in urban areas during 2020 and early 2021 were nine times higher than those in rural counties. In the waves of the disease that followed – the third wave, after the first vaccine roll-out; the fourth or Delta wave; and the fifth, or Omicron wave – the figures were reversed. Death rates in rural areas went up, while those in urban areas went down.

The pattern began to mimic the way people voted in America. In the early stages of COVID, counties that voted Democratic had much higher death rates than rural Republican counties. By the third wave of the disease in the fall of 2020, “Counties that voted for Donald Trump over Joe Biden were suffering substantially more deaths from the coronavirus pandemic than those that voted for Biden over Trump,” according to Pew. As the vaccine roll-out went on, the difference between red and blue counties became more pronounced, even as the total number of deaths in the country began to fall. As the fourth wave of the disease set in, “death rates in the most pro-Trump counties were about four times what they were in the most pro-Biden counties,” according to Pew.

The National Bureau of Economic Research in September published a study of excess death rates in two states, Ohio and Florida, comparing death rates in those states in 2017 before COVID with mortality data from 2018 to 2021, including the first two years of COVID. The study looked at how many more people died after the COVID pandemic hit than those who died in the “normal” year of 2017 before the disease took hold.

By linking death rates to voter registration data in both states, the study was able to determine where the excess death rate was higher on a county-by-county basis. The study found “substantially higher excess death rates for registered Republicans when compared to registered Democrats, with almost all of the difference concentrated in the period after vaccines were widely available.” The overall excess death rate for Republicans was 76 percent higher than the excess death rates for Democrats. But when the study concentrated on rates after vaccines became widely available, the excess death rate for Republicans in both states jumped to 153 percent higher than excess death rate for Democrats.

“The gap in excess death rates between Republicans and Democrats is concentrated in counties with low vaccination rates and only materializes after vaccines became widely available,” according to data from the study. The study’s authors are Jacob Wallace and Jason L. Schwartz, both from the Yale School of Public Health, and Paul Goldsmith-Pinkham of the Yale School of Management.

Pew Research figures echo the study by the National Bureau of Economic Research. “Overall, the COVID-19 death rate in all counties Trump won in 2020 is substantially higher than it is in counties Biden won (as of the end of February 2022, 326 per 100,000 in Trump counties and 258 per 100,000 in Biden counties).”

Jonathan V. Last in The Bulwark screwed the figures from both studies down to the results in the very tight Senate race in Nevada. Last looked up the COVID figures for Nevada and found that between January of 2021 and November of this year, 9,400 people died of COVID. “The data suggests that the majority of these people would have been Republican voters,” Last reported dryly. Adam Laxalt, hand-picked by Trump to run for the Senate in Nevada, lost his race by only 6,000 votes.

It's a fact that if you are vaccinated, you have a far lower risk of dying from COVID. It’s also a fact that rural counties with low vaccination rates had much larger rates of death than counties with high vaccination rates. According to Pew, during the Delta wave of the Pandemic, death rates in counties with vaccination rates lower than 40 percent were six times as high as death rates in counties where 70 percent or more were vaccinated. More recently, over the winter of 2021 and early 2022, when the 7-day average for deaths nationally was between 1,000 and 2,500, death rates in counties with low vaccination rates were twice those of counties where 80 percent or more were vaccinated.

These are grim figures, and they don’t bode well for red America going forward. Right now, today, more than 300 people are dying from COVID every day. According to the New York Times, about 27,000 people in this country are in the hospital with complications from COVID on any given day.

The politicization of COVID has cost an untold number of American lives. Don’t count on recent figures showing that far more Republicans are dying of the disease than Democrats to change anything. The leaders of the party that is suffering the most don’t care, so long as those Republicans still living vote for them.

Researching this story, I was reminded of a day way back in the spring of 2020, when some poor soul at the CDC was asked by a reporter how many people might die from COVID total. The CDC employee, who was in the leadership of the agency as I recall, answered 200,000. That person was sidelined by the Trump White House because at the time, Trump was telling the world COVID was just going to “go away.” The CDC employee was eventually fired. All interviews with CDC personnel from then on had to be approved by the White House.

This year alone, 220,000 American citizens have already died from COVID. The total number of deaths due to the disease in this country is over a million and climbing. It’s not even worth estimating how many fewer deaths there might have been if the Republican Party had not chosen to make shut-downs, masks, and vaccinations a political issue so they could get more votes.

Look where it got them. Trump lost in 2020, and Republicans just suffered the worst midterm results any party has had since the 1950’s. It has apparently been a difficult lesson to learn for Republicans that dead people don’t vote.

Lucian K. Truscott IV, a graduate of West Point, has had a 50-year career as a journalist, novelist, and screenwriter. He has covered Watergate, the Stonewall riots, and wars in Lebanon, Iraq, and Afghanistan. He is also the author of five bestselling novels. You can subscribe to his daily columns at luciantruscott.substack.com and follow him on Twitter @LucianKTruscott and on Facebook at Lucian K. Truscott IV.

Reprinted with permission fromLucian Truscott Newsletter