Air Date 3/4/2025

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JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: [00:00:00] Welcome to this episode of the award-winning Best of the Left podcast. An old proverb says that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, and we're all about to see how dangerous, as know-nothings and science skeptics take over the government agencies staffed by doctors and scientists with the goal of keeping the population healthy. 

For those looking for a quick overview, the sources providing our top takes in about 50 minutes today includes Way Too Early, Inside the Hive, The Dig, The Dream, The Humanist Report, Democracy Now!, and Some More News. 

Then in the additional deeper dives half of the show there will be more in four sections:

Section A: Health Organizations

Section B: RFK Jr. 

Section C: Anti-Science Dangers 

And Section D: Predators and Prey

ACTIVISM ROUNDUP

Amanda: Hey everyone, Amanda here with your weekly roundup of activism actions. There's a lot going on, so remember to do what you feel is most impactful and what is possible in your life. All right? All right. Let's dive [00:01:00] in. 

First, I want to talk about defying "overwhelm." In these times, it's helpful to have a repeatable plan of action to turn to. Women's March recently amplified Queer Nature's 2020 podcast about a decision making framework called OODA Loop. This framework was born out of the U. S. Air Force, but is applied across industries and situations, and in activism. OODA stands for Observe, Orient, Decide, Act. So, for example, when you see something new and threatening in the news, observe it to understand the facts, orient yourself to learn its importance and the points of power, decide how and where you can engage that can be helpful, act, and repeat. OODA reflects the natural way people respond to an urgent threat or challenge, but you can also turn to this language when the overwhelm kicks in. It can mean the difference between spiraling and making a positive impact. 

Next up, on March 8th, International Women's Day, Women's March is organizing national events that will include house meetings, rallies, block parties, protests, and more, under the banner Unite and Resist, A National Day of Action. You can learn more and find events at [00:02:00] WomensMarch.Com. 

Speaking of actions across the country, the February congressional recess made national headlines and put Republicans on the back foot as they were forced to defend their support of a cruel and harmful budget and president back home. Indivisible is reporting that Republican leadership is now telling their members to avoid town halls altogether in response. That just means we have to keep up the pressure. The next recess is this month, so save the dates of March 15th to 23rd and get in touch with your local Indivisible groups now to get involved in town halls or office visits near you. The goal is to loudly amplify situations where Republicans cower or don't show, and ensure Democrats know the people want them to actively and forcefully resist this administration at every turn. 

And finally, there are critically important elections in multiple states coming up in early April. Florida will have special elections for their 1st and 6th districts on April 1st. These are red districts, but the hope is for big turnout from the left and for more people on the right to stay home. Look up candidates Gay Valamont and Josh Weil, [00:03:00] that's W E I L, to get involved. 

A few days later, on April 4th, Wisconsin will hold its election for a Supreme Court judge seat, which will once again dictate control of the state's highest court. Musk is sinking millions into this race, so strong support for the Democrat-backed Susan Crawford is essential. 

FYI, the special election for New York's 21st district is on hold as Republicans delay Elise Stefanik's confirmation out of fears over their extremely slim majority in the House during budget negotiations.

 

Remember that no one can do everything, but everyone can do something. Finding community and taking action are truly the best ways to deal with everything being thrown at us. We don't get to choose the times we live in, so we need everyone to act like everything is on the line. Because it is.

U.S. health agencies hit with mass layoffs by Trump administration - Way Too Early with Ali Vitali - Air Date 2-18-25

ALI VITALI - HOST, WAY TOO EARLY: We're learning more about what agencies have been affected by the Trump administration's continued mass layoffs across the Health and Human Services Department. That is, of course, just one, but several sources tell Politico the cuts have hit staffers at the Food and Drug Administration, as well as the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, [00:04:00] Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the National Institutes of Health. The firings were part of cuts affecting about 3600 probationary employees across the department. 

Joining us now, White House correspondent for Politico, Adam Cancryn. Adam, first, Trump officials are saying that these are methodological firings and that they are meant to serve the larger goal of cutting 10 percent of the workforce.

But there's actual tangible impacts to this. 

ADAM CANCRYN: There absolutely is. Anytime you do a culling of this many people, and we're talking about, the administration has said about 3, 600 people across the health department, that's going to hit several offices and it's going to hit several offices abruptly. And from what we've heard, the evidence that we've seen so far, these haven't been kind of precision surgical cuts. These are people who are finding out out of the blue that they are being fired. These are people who have been fired without their supervisor's knowledge or even Trump political appointees in the agencies knowing who of their reports is going to be out and what the impact is going to be afterward. 

ALI VITALI - HOST, WAY TOO EARLY: So [00:05:00] it's the same kind of a method that we've seen, this slash and burn, maybe ask questions afterwards. Is there any sense that when you look, for example, at disease preparedness and response teams, again amid an avian bird flu outbreak, as the White House has said, senior officials have said to me, well, you know, this is something that we're prepared to deal with. And yet they're slashing people from the very place that is dealing with it. How does that work? 

ADAM CANCRYN: Absolutely. We've seen cuts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, right? That the main public health agency for this country, HHS has an emergency preparedness and response unit, which is a lot of times on the front line of things like the bird flu response and monitoring Ebola overseas, that kind of thing. There were cuts in that office as well over the weekend. 

And so there's just this core tension of, how much can you pare down while still making sure that you're doing the surveillance, doing the research, doing the kind of activities that are gonna make sure that this country remains safe from all these various health threats? And that's really the question here is whether this White House feels [00:06:00] like it can really, really shrink the workforce and at the same time, keep an eye on these kinds of constant things that are at threat of coming into the country. 

ALI VITALI - HOST, WAY TOO EARLY: Because it's not just the layoffs that we're seeing at the agencies themselves. When you also talk about the funding freeze, you're seeing people who receive grants from these agencies doing important research on all matter of diseases also seeing their funding pulled. I think on the layoffs piece, though, there might be people who are wondering, is there an end in sight for this? It does feel -- and you and I were saying this during the break -- like every Friday, we get to a point where you go into a weekend of just hearing about layoff news. 

ADAM CANCRYN: Yeah, this has been the main source of anxiety talking to people in the Health and Human Services building, as an example, of people just don't know when this is going to be over. And it's ironic we're talking about "government efficiency," because I'm talking to folks who say, I haven't actually been able to do my job in the last few days because we're just trying to figure out if we will have jobs. One example: there was an office in the Medicare and Medicaid agency that around 4 p.m. Friday, there [00:07:00] had been no notices of terminations. Supervisors were telling their employees, I think we're safe because I think we do something this administration values. Wow. Termination started rolling in Friday afternoon into Saturday morning and afternoon. And now suddenly people are saying, I guess I'm out of a job. I guess I wasn't valued that much. So really a lot of anxiety and nervousness.

Department of Health and Holy Sh*t: RFK Jr.’s MAHA Movement and What It Means for America Part 1 - Inside the Hive - Air Date 2-5-25

CLAIRE HOWORTH: Let's talk about what he represents for Trump's second term. Claire, you brought up the MAHA, Make America Healthy Again, constituency. 

SENATOR BERNIE SANDERS: [To RFK Jr.] I very much like the slogan that you coined, Make America Healthy Again. And I strongly agree with that effort. Do you agree with me? that the United States should join every other major country on Earth and guarantee health care to all people as a human right. Yes? No. 

ROBERT KENNEDY JR.: Senator, I can't give you a yes or no answer to that question. 

RADHIKA JONES - HOST, INSIDE THE HIVE: MAHA [laugher]. MAHA is the [00:08:00] Venn intersection of crunchy Earth mamas and anti-vaxxers and farmers because there's an agricultural, a huge agricultural component. And, during the hearings, we called them the MAHA cheersquad, but there was Cheryl Hines, who is also a MAHA industrialist because she has this line of candles. Megan Kelly, who's an avowed Kennedy supporter. Jessica Reed Krause, who is a "journalist" and MAHA extremist. And Vani Hari who's known as Food Babe on the internet.

So, that's who we're talking about when we talk MAHA. There's a little Hollywood intersection. These women in particular are all very glamorous looking. Vani has on these gorgeous gold costume earrings and a hot pink blazer, and she's got the perfect red lip. And I think Kennedy has built that part of himself, too. He's got a kind of [00:09:00] Schwarzenegger-esque physique and vibe. 

CLAIRE HOWORTH: Putin-esque, some might say. 

RADHIKA JONES - HOST, INSIDE THE HIVE: Putin-esque. I don't know. We might be too flattering to Putin. 

CLAIRE HOWORTH: Shirt on, shirt off, it's all the same. 

RADHIKA JONES - HOST, INSIDE THE HIVE: That was, that was MAHA aesthetics.

CLAIRE HOWORTH: And now Calderone, you can talk about MAHA beliefs. 

MICHAEL CALDERONE: Shirt off, shirt on, RFK can do it all. And he does bring a lot of these forces together. And RFK Jr. is somebody who has been railing against vaccines. I think he would consider himself a vaccine skeptic. And I think we saw with COVID this kind of radicalization, especially, and a lot of these forces coming together. And in some ways you can say, well, sure, I think ultra processed foods in school, lunches is probably a bad thing, or we should limit it. There's some aspects of this that I think a lot of people could get behind. But then at the same time, you take the skepticism of measles vaccines and fluoride in the water and so many other more radical ideas that RFK or others have espoused. And I think that's where [00:10:00] it gets into a more extreme vision for what Health and Human Services would be. He's essentially going to be the most powerful health advisor in 

America and would have a huge impact on American life.

CLAIRE HOWORTH: I would love to know what mythical moment in American history they mean when they say Make America Healthy Again. Is it before the polio vaccine? Is it the decade I grew up in, the era of AIDS? 

RADHIKA JONES - HOST, INSIDE THE HIVE: It all goes to some fake Norman Rockwellian idea of an America that most of us thinking Americans realize was never, if it existed for some, it certainly did not exist for all.

CLAIRE HOWORTH: Well, I got to say, I looked up life expectancy and I'm here to tell you that we are healthier now than we have ever been. Just FYI. Although I'm with him on the processed foods. So, Michael, regardless of what happens with the confirmation vote, what are your thoughts on what R. F. K. Jr. represents? 

MICHAEL CALDERONE: I think it's a power center here, and [00:11:00] he still has clout with his supporters, and it's in Trump's interest to keep RFK close to him. Now, what this means exactly, these two have vested interests together. And one thing we know about Donald Trump is he is incredibly transactional.

And whether RFK criticized him in the past, once you're in a fold again, that's a good thing in his book. We saw this on inauguration to where tech CEOs like Mark Zuckerberg who were out of the fold, suddenly they're back in. And I think Trump 2. 0, a fundamental difference with Trump 1. 0, is he does have more tech executives. He does have more celebrities, even though there are more celebrities on the Democratic side. He's got more this time. And the Camelot aspect is another part of it. To have a Kennedy in your fold, I think is a big win for him. 

CLAIRE HOWORTH: And quite frankly, I think it could also be a big win for RFK Jr. And that was the calculation he made back in August when he suspended his campaign and joined Team Trump.

MICHAEL CALDERONE: Yeah, I think they all are more [00:12:00] powerful together. And that's why it'll be interesting to see if these big egos, these big personalities with your Musks and your RFKs, how they all interact when there's not a campaign anymore and you're not fighting the Democrats, but they all got to work together in some way in the Trump orbit.

Psychiatric Struggle w/ Danielle Carr - The Dig - Air Date 2-17-25

DANIEL DENVIR - HOST, THE DIG: I want to turn to RFK's anti science politics and those households that do not believe science is real. What forms of pervasive American common sense about health does that politics reflect? We've been talking about the 'science is real' politics. What are these politics? Obviously, RFK is a unhinged, profit seeking grifter, power hungry person, whose opinions on vaccines could lead to truly dystopian public health outcomes if implemented. But, he's also right that industrial agriculture is a plague upon this country. What sort of common sense does RFK [00:13:00] Jr. encapsulate, and why does that common sense resonate so powerfully among so many at this moment? And then in particular, why is it that the sort of wellness politics, the so called medical freedom movement, what is it about it that creates for so many people the sort of particularly efficacious and often quite sudden entry point into far right politics? It's almost as if it's like a portal that people can step through, overnight sometimes. 

DANIELLE CARR: I think one of the things in play definitely is a sort of disaffection with the institutions of science that intensified during COVID but had been a long time coming in many ways and is not without its validity.

For instance, to take only the development of SSRIs, it is a fact that, in the 90s, the [00:14:00] manufacturers of antidepressant drugs were reporting data from these clinical trials in very selective ways, and that there was a capture of psychiatry by the brute sort of corruption of the scientific process by money and big pharma.

And you're not crazy to have some suspicion of a lot of the scientific establishment around the commodification of health in general. Like, this is not crazy, right? it is not insane to have a critique of the deregulation of the American food pipeline, such that, like, American food is poison. That's true. That is true. 

I just want to mark that. I think that this suspicion did really intensify during COVID and not for no reason. The wildly vacillating instructions that were given people, some of which was like, I think it was a mistake for the [00:15:00] CDC to say don't buy masks during a period in which there was a fear that this protective equipment would be hoarded. And so there were instructions that really vacillated. And I think that people were, quite rightly, left wondering whether indeed these organs of government science did have the everyday population's best interests at heart.

So that's one critique. I think in a broader sense, though, this type of thinking about health that seems to be, like, what do we know about it? It's really tied to influencers. There is this sort of, we could almost say, libertarian epistemology in play where these forms of knowledge making about like seed oils, or raw milk, or any of this other health stuff seems to gain legitimacy in some ways to the [00:16:00] extent that it does not participate in large institutions of science. We know that it resides in this sort of literalist fantasy of purity, whether that's gender can be straightforwardly deduced from some sort of biophysiological fact, or masculinity and femininity can be purified through the elimination of unnatural hormones and additives.

That's what we know about it. And one thing that I have been thinking about a lot recently is, Antonio Gramsci's idea of organic crisis, which I know your listeners might be familiar through the really wonderful series that you've had with Michael Denning about Gramsci. But for those listeners who haven't, Gramsci's idea of organic crisis is that essentially all of the institutions of legitimacy production and hegemony have broken down. [00:17:00] People do not feel that the institutions of civil or political society like Congress or the NIH, let's shorthand, represent them. And within these moments of generalized breakdown, there is a possibility for radical alternatives to emerge, like socialism or barbarism, right? And one of the things that Gramsci points out is it's in these conjunctures that you see the rise of what he calls Caesarism. These strongman figures who claim that they are speaking, standing astride history and shaping history through this power of the individual. And this is one way to think about this sort of influencer-yness of this new alt right health movement. Is this just Caesarism for science?

I think that's one way of describing it. I want to [00:18:00] just, as someone who was trained as a medical anthropologist, I am hesitant to engage in this kind of 'aren't they so stupid' discourse. Certainly, it might seem to like you or me to be ridiculous that the government has these secret med beds that it's hiding from everyday people, all of these other like different conspiracy theories and forms of belief.

DANIEL DENVIR - HOST, THE DIG: Or that elite pedophile cabals are stealing children and sado-sadistically sexually torturing them to extract adrenochrome, for example. 

DANIELLE CARR: Uh, I think that... is there a meaningful difference between your everyday NPR listener talking about intergenerational trauma, which the jury is really out on whether there is this kind of like mechanism for that kind of epigenetic transfer between generations. This sort of essentially [00:19:00] woke Neolamarcanism of the way that your average liberal like talks about trauma science and maybe the types of thinking that are prevalent on the right and less formally educated populations about the mechanisms of their health beliefs. I would say in the delta between those two in terms of "scientific literacy" or "legitimacy", might be less than we would like to think.

MAHA Forever - The Dream - Air Date 2-16-25

JANE MARIE - HOST, THE DREAM: Do you think he was born a conspiracy theorist? 

ANNA MERLAN: That's a good question. 

JANE MARIE - HOST, THE DREAM: Being a toddler with your uncle having died in the way that he did. And his dad. And then your dad. And then there's all these questions around it and questioning authority and stuff, like, is that just part of his personality from the jump? I mean we are not being armchair psychologists. 

ANNA MERLAN: No, I don't know. I mean it hasn't taken any of the other Kennedys in that direction. It's a pretty big family, but certainly he has talked a lot about conspiracy theories [00:20:00] around especially his uncle, JFK's, assassination. and has suggested that he thinks the CIA was involved. I believe he's also said that about his dad's assassination. But yeah, I think he's alone in the sort of vast forking, very dramatic Kennedy family in holding those views. So it's a mystery. It's a mystery where he got there. 

JANE MARIE - HOST, THE DREAM: I just think about him as a toddler. Like, what happened? What do you do to a kid to make them this crazy? But, okay. 

ANNA MERLAN: He actually started his career as an assistant district attorney in Manhattan, which is kind of crazy. That didn't last very long. 

JANE MARIE - HOST, THE DREAM: Mm hmm.

ANNA MERLAN: Then he became part of two non profits that were environmentally focused. One was Riverkeeper that he was at for a long time. And the other was the Natural Resources Defense Council. I'll point out that, like, when he was running for president, there was an open letter from a group of people who had worked with him in environmental spaces asking him to drop out. So, like, you know. And then starting in 2005, he started engaging in [00:21:00] anti vaccine conspiracy stuff. He published this now really infamous article that ran in Slate and Rolling Stone at the same time called "Deadly Immunity". Slate ultimately retracted it. Rolling Stone I don't think ever actually did formally retract it, but tons and tons of corrections later, the article was taken down. 

JANE MARIE - HOST, THE DREAM: It was an op ed? About vaccines?

ANNA MERLAN: No, it purported to be an investigative article. 

JANE MARIE - HOST, THE DREAM: Written by him.

ANNA MERLAN: Yeah, written by him. 

JANE MARIE - HOST, THE DREAM: A lawyer.

ANNA MERLAN: Yes.

JANE MARIE - HOST, THE DREAM: Who has nothing to do with health care. 

ANNA MERLAN: Essentially, his entry into the anti vax world was he claimed that a mother came to him being, like, please investigate the environmental and health harms of vaccines. Please investigate what they're doing to our children. So, this was in the period of time when there was still a belief, which we now have thoroughly debunked, that vaccines might be linked to autism. 

JANE MARIE - HOST, THE DREAM: Right.

ANNA MERLAN: That is not true. But, during that period of time, that's when he got involved. 

JANE MARIE - HOST, THE DREAM: Was that mother Jenny McCarthy?

ANNA MERLAN: She was part of it. 

JANE MARIE - HOST, THE DREAM: Yeah, I know.

ANNA MERLAN: So, yeah, then he eventually became [00:22:00] part of an organization that was originally called World Mercury Project and then was called Children's Health Defense, and he is the CEO of, or was the, sorry, was the chairman of the board of that and then went on leave during his presidential campaign and now claims to not be part of it.

JANE MARIE - HOST, THE DREAM: So, Children's Health Defense, I'm on their mailing list. 

ANNA MERLAN: Sure.

JANE MARIE - HOST, THE DREAM: I know, but I feel embarrassed about it. I mean, it is great, but it's also like, I don't want to... 

ANNA MERLAN: Oh, it's very interesting. 

JANE MARIE - HOST, THE DREAM: ...I don't want to add to his popularity by signing up for this thing. But it is very interesting. 

ANNA MERLAN: I love a mailing list.

JANE MARIE - HOST, THE DREAM: Their daily newsletters about like, how's your kid gonna die today? 

ANNA MERLAN: Yeah, also just the fact that they're so excited about Kennedy, like, today they're running a big sale on all of his books. 

JANE MARIE - HOST, THE DREAM: Mm hmm.

ANNA MERLAN: They sent out a fundraising email and then encouragement to buy the onesies that Bernie Sanders was mad about during the confirmation hearings. 

JANE MARIE - HOST, THE DREAM: Which ones?

ANNA MERLAN: It's like, I forget what the onesies say, but there's something about the baby being unvaccinated and Bernie Sanders put up a big image of them during the confirmation hearings and was like, do you stand by these onesies, which is just [00:23:00] objectively a very funny thing to say.

SENATOR BERNIE SANDERS: You have started a group called the Children's Health Defense. You're the originator. Right now, as I understand it on their website. They are selling what's called onesies. These are little things, clothing for babies. One of them is titled "Unvaxxed, Unafraid". And they're sold for 26 bucks a piece, by the way. Next one is, "No Vax, No Problem". Now you're coming before this committee and you say you are pro-vaccine. Just want to ask some questions. And yet your organization is making money selling a child's product to parents for 26 bucks, which casts fundamental doubt on the usefulness of vaccines. 

JANE MARIE - HOST, THE DREAM: And then the mercury thing, he said there was a study of some sort where children were given tuna fish and then immediately their blood was drawn and they have elevated levels of mercury and Joe [00:24:00] Rogan was like, whoa, really? What if we can make money just doing that? 

ANNA MERLAN: Yeah, it'd be great. That sounds so fun. That sounds so much easier. I love too that Joe Rogan's fact checking always consists of just asking his producer to Google things. And then Jamie, the producer, just clearly reads like whatever the first thing is that comes up and is like, well, it looks like it's, just, it's fantastic.

JANE MARIE - HOST, THE DREAM: Horrible and fun.

ANNA MERLAN: No, it's great. I think it's so great. I think you guys should do that. 

So, what Kennedy is mad about with the mercury is thimerosal, which is a preservative that is mercury based, not the kind of mercury that is dangerous to human beings or is that is found in fish, different kind, that he always conflates the two. So, thimerosal was a preservative that was used in some vaccines and was taken out of pretty much all of them by 2001. Has also never been linked to any harm in human health. 

JANE MARIE - HOST, THE DREAM: Got it.

ANNA MERLAN: It's a preservative. Nonetheless... 

JANE MARIE - HOST, THE DREAM: For vaccines.

ANNA MERLAN: For vaccines. And now lately he's been like, well, let's talk about mercury more generally.

JANE MARIE - HOST, THE DREAM: Mm hmm.

ANNA MERLAN: Yeah, so he's talking about, when he talks about tuna fish [00:25:00] sandwiches, he's talking about methylmercury. That's what is in fish. What's in thimerosal is ethylmercury, and he's always like, well, you know, there's no safe kind of mercury, but that's not actually true. And in any case, thimerosal isn't used in anything anymore except I think some multi dose vials of flu vaccine. But it's been taken out of pretty much everything out of an abundance of caution and also because...

JANE MARIE - HOST, THE DREAM: ...he's so annoying.

ANNA MERLAN: ...because the CDC does not want people not getting their kids vaccinated because they're afraid of a preservative. So, the thing about World Mercury Project was that it was devoted to trying to prove he harms of mercury in a bunch of things, including vaccines, it was obviously mainly focused on vaccines and Children's Health Defense then took on a different angle, which has been echoed by the wider anti vax movement, which is going away from making like specific scientific claims because those can be debunked to making more of a civil rights sort of freedom of choice argument around vaccines, which works incredibly well on Americans, especially, were very [00:26:00] susceptible to the idea that vaccines just should be a choice and nothing should be forced upon you, which is, of course, true. That's true. 

JANE MARIE - HOST, THE DREAM: But my body, my choice is also not part of this. 

ANNA MERLAN: This is the argument we get into when, for instance, you want kids to be vaccinated against measles before they go to school because measles is so incredibly contagious. And most people need to be vaccinated against it to keep it from spreading. So, this is the fertile space in which he found himself. And I would say that there have been a couple points where his career really takes off. One is after "Deadly Immunity", the article that he published in Slate and Rolling Stone, and the sort of hysteria that went on around this now debunked link between vaccines and autism until the paper claiming that vaccines could cause autism was retracted. And the doctor who heavily promoted it, Andrew Wakefield, ultimately lost his medical license in the UK.

Republicans are Proposing Bills SO F***ing Stupid They’ll Make Your Head Explode - The Humanist Report - Air Date 2-18-25

MIKE FIGURADO - HOST, THE HUMANIST REPORT: On the subject of unnecessary suffering, our new health secretary, RFK Jr., who's definitely not anti-vax himself, [00:27:00] by the way, is taking aim at SSRIs, which is a common medication used to treat obsessive compulsive disorder, depression, anxiety, and other mental health issues. Now, Mother Jones reports that RFK Jr. signed a memo within hours of his confirmation, laying out his plans for his first 100 days in office, which apparently includes an assessment of SSRIs. Quote, "The government," he said, "would assess the prevalence of and threat posed by the prescription of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, antipsychotics, and mood stabilizers." Oh goody. 

Now, the policy implications of this "assessment" are not clear, but we do know that he definitely doesn't like SSRIs and has talked about how they're overprescribed because he thinks he's more qualified than every doctor in the country. But back when he was still running for president, he was so anti-SSRI that on a podcast, he said that we should put people on SSRIs into labor camps, [clears throat] [00:28:00] excuse me, "wellness farms," to grow organic food to break their addictions to SSRIs and other drugs that he doesn't like.

But let's hear it straight from the horse's mouth, so you don't think that I'm misconstruing what he's saying. Quote, "I'm going to create these wellness farms where they can go to get off of illegal drugs, off of opiates, but also legal drugs, other psychiatric drugs if they want to, to get off of SSRIs, to get off of benzos, to get off of Adderall, and to spend time, as much time as they need, three or four years if they need it, to learn to get reparented, to reconnect with communities."

Now, he graciously says that this service will be offered free of charge, which is incredibly generous if you ask me, because I was expecting to have to pay to work for them, but apparently, it's free, which is cool. We all love to do work for free. 

The only problem is that if somebody, say, spends, three or four years there, how exactly are they supposed to support themselves during that time, and when they get out? It's not like all of us have rich family members that we can exploit, [00:29:00] that can support us if we want to take a multi-year stay at a wellness center. 

Furthermore, who are you, RFK Jr., to tell us that our doctors are wrong to prescribe us with the medications that they say we need? I mean, your brain, just like any other part of your body, sometimes requires medicine for it to work properly. So, even though being out in the sun and farming might make people feel better, it's not gonna change the underlying fact that their body lacks serotonin needed to function properly. 

But, he makes it seem as if being depressed or having anxiety is a choice, or the product of an unhealthy lifestyle, which is insulting, and confirms that he doesn't know what he's talking about. And I say this as somebody who's been on an SSRI for almost 10 years now. Before that, my quality of life was non-existent. Without it, I would be miserable. So the prospect of him taking that away from me, or making it more difficult to access these drugs? That is extremely dangerous. [00:30:00] Now, we don't know what he intends to do with them, but we know that he doesn't like them, and he's in a position of power to do something about it.

Doctors prescribe SSRIs for a reason. And if you're not a physician, you shouldn't speak about things that you're not qualified to talk about. And you certainly shouldn't be in charge of Health and Human Services for the entire country. But I'm afraid that that ship has sailed. 

But on the subject of criminally underqualified imbeciles, I do want to talk about the big guy himself, Donald Trump. Because I don't think that it's a stretch to say that his incompetence is bound to get a lot of people killed. 

Samoa's Health Chief Says RFK Jr. Spread Anti-Vax Misinformation Before Deadly Measles Outbreak - Democracy Now! - Air Date 1-31-25

DR. ALEC EKEROMA: In 2019, Samoa had a very low vaccination rate, and that was because of some problems back in 2018 with a matching-mixing of vaccines that resulted in two deaths. And so, therefore, we had a low vaccination rate already. And then Kennedy visited, before the measles outbreak. Now, the measles outbreak, of course, it came from New Zealand across the islands, and [00:31:00] because of a low vaccination rate, it just took off, and so resulting in so many deaths.

But the government responded quickly and demanded a vaccine campaign — vaccination campaign, and there was some international assistance to Samoa from all countries in the world, who came across — doctors and nurses came across to Samoa to help with the mass vaccination of our people. So, that drove the vaccination up, rate up, to 90%, within a few months.

So, Kennedy’s presence in Samoa a few months before that actually emboldened the anti-vaxxers locally and also from New Zealand. And so, they were the ones, really, that tried to sow the vaccine hesitancy in the country. But, fortunately, our leaders did not believe that and mounted this emergency and mass vaccination campaign.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: Why did Kennedy go to Samoa?

DR. ALEC EKEROMA: [00:32:00] Apparently, he came to talk about some database that they could create. But when he was here, he talked to — well, he talked to the director — the then-director general of health and to the prime minister, but he also talked to local anti-vaxxers, as well. So, I’m not privy to what was discussed, but the result of his visit didn’t result in any improvements in our ICT or software capabilities in the country. None was promised.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: I want to bring our other guest into this conversation. As we talk to the health director in Samoa, I also want to bring Brian Deer in, who was there in 2018 — in 2019 in the midst of the measles outbreak. He’s an investigative journalist and author of The [00:33:00] Doctor Who Fooled the World. His recent New York Times opinion piece, “I’ll Never Forget What Kennedy Did During Samoa’s Measles Outbreak.” So, can you elaborate further on what Dr. Ekeroma is saying?

BRIAN DEER: Good morning, Amy.

Yes, indeed, I was out in Samoa at the time, and I spent a great deal of my time there speaking to the mothers of children who died from measles. And it was the most emotional experience, and I ended my time there just crying, as I became overcome by the pain of these mothers. Eighty-three people died, overwhelmingly small children.

Now, Mr. Kennedy thinks he knows better than anybody else. He claims that he’s not anti-vaccine. I’ve been following what is now called the anti-vaccine movement for 25 years. And I can assure you that Mr. Kennedy is not only an anti-vaccine campaigner, he is [00:34:00] the preeminent anti-vaccine campaigner in the world. And he went to Samoa, and after the outbreak began, he then wrote to the prime minister, trying to suggest that it wasn’t, in fact, the virus at all that was killing these children, but was, in fact, the responsibility of the vaccine itself.

And he didn’t stop there. Even this week, speaking to senators, he claimed that nobody knows what these children died from, even though the measles was — the vaccine there had collapsed as a result of other issues. And then, after a vaccination campaign that followed the outbreak, or took part — occurred at the same time as the outbreak, the children stopped dying. But Mr. Kennedy felt that he should tell senators that nobody knows what killed those children — extraordinary thing for him to say.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: What do [00:35:00] you think, Brian Deer — and then I want to ask the health minister in Samoa — of him being the health secretary, the secretary of health and human services of the United States?

BRIAN DEER: Well, I have to say, listening to him over the last couple of days, Amy, that I was shocked by the attitude he displayed. He was making it absolutely clear that notwithstanding him being the — hoping to become the head of an agency with a $2,000 billion budget and employing 90,000 people, he was going to personally involve himself in vaccine science, and it would be he who would be deciding whether the research was conducted properly, even though he has no medical or scientific qualifications at all, and not the enormous staff he represents and the agencies, that have actually written to him previously telling him that the research [00:36:00] overwhelmingly and conclusively shows that there is no link between vaccines and, for example, autism. He was making it absolutely clear to senators that he was going to — in that job, with those enormous responsibilities, for that massive entity, he was going to involve himself in the individual pieces of research and deciding for himself whether vaccines, for example, cause autism.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: And before we leave Samoa, Dr. Alec Ekeroma, if you can talk about the significance of if he is confirmed as health secretary here in the U.S.?

DR. ALEC EKEROMA: It is quite significant. Someone who is prominent in the world, with a [inaudible] , spitting out anti-vaccine sentiments, emboldening anti-vaxxers around the world and in Samoa, is going to be a public health disaster for us. Already, we’re going to [00:37:00] have reduction in U.S. funding to United Nations and to WHO that is going to affect our capability here. And then you add in Bob Kennedy into this role, that is going to slow down the flow of vaccines to us, that is going to harm our public health state in this country. And so, therefore, it will be a disaster for us.

Dear Donald Trump Voters: His Actions Are Going To Hurt You Too - Some More News - Air Date 2-19-25

CODY JOHNSTON - HOST, SOME MORE NEWS: So, let's, at the start of this, pretend that COVID wasn't a big deal. I mean, it was. It killed a lot of people. But let's just say you're someone that thinks the CDC was overreacting, or that mask bans or lockdowns were a waste, and we faked a freakout about a light flu. Do you think that about all future pandemics? Like, if that movie Contagion happened, do you think we still shouldn't have masks or lockdowns? Or were you just bothered by COVID specifically? I am genuinely asking. Write down your answer and mail it, please. 

Logically speaking, it would be [00:38:00] very odd to think that there's no such thing as any disease or any pandemic, right? In fact, we are literally experiencing a bird flu problemo right now, so it really doesn't seem wise to, say, block the CDC from sharing their data with healthcare professionals like nurses and doctors and hospitals. Trump did that in his first week, as well as instructing the various federal health agencies under the Department of Health and Human Services to pause all of their external communication, such as health advisories or social media posts. 

Why do that? Does that help us? Does that help you? I'll make it simple.

Remember how one of the big concerns was egg prices? Like, we got to get rid of the Democrats and wokeness because eggs are too expensive. And now it seems like egg prices are only getting higher. That's because of the bird flu. That's currently spreading throughout the country. This disease is [00:39:00] killing our pets as we speak and has killed one human as of filming this. And so it is so clearly important for the CDC to be able to send out alerts and updates right now. And so it's very strange and dare I say bad and incompetent to order the CDC to shut off their communications with hospitals. 

Did you know that they found out that bird flu can be passed from your cat to you? Just one more way your cat can destroy you. They knew that, and they had to delete their findings after Trump ordered them to stop. How is that helpful? Is that not hurtful? Additionally, bird flu is a global problem, and yet Trump has pulled out of the World Health Organization, citing mishandling of the COVID pandemic.

He's probably not wrong in that reports have found that the WHO did mishandle COVID. Did you know who else did? The United States. The CDC absolutely screwed it up, as did Trump. [00:40:00] Pretty much our entire government failed during COVID. There's a lot of blame to spread around, but that doesn't really justify exiting the WHO, which serves to coordinate global responses to pandemics and other health emergencies. Trump is claiming to be steering policy to put "America first", but diseases don't have nationalities. Much like your germ ridden cat, they don't see borders. And Trump knows this. The value of sharing information and collaborating between countries to combat disease was one of the core premises behind Trump's Operation Warp Speed. By removing ourselves from the WHO, all we're doing is weakening our ability to respond to a global pandemic, thus hurting more Americans. 

Remember how, at the top of this, I said that people tend to choke to death in bathrooms? That's what we're doing here. We're removing ourselves from the support of the world in the name of independence. And so unless our Department of Health and [00:41:00] Human Services is really on the ball, this is going to jeopardize us. And here's the thing about the Department of Health and Human Services. It's going to be run by this guy talking to Bernie Sanders. 

SENATOR BERNIE SANDERS: Vaccines, do not cause autism. Do you agree with that? 

ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR.: As I said, I'm not going to go into HHS with any preordained...

SENATOR BERNIE SANDERS: I asked you a simple question, Bobby. Studies all over the world say it does not. What do you think? 

ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR.: Senator, if you show me those studies, I will absolutely, as I promised to Chairman Cassidy, I will apologize... 

SENATOR BERNIE SANDERS: That is a very troubling response. 

CODY JOHNSTON - HOST, SOME MORE NEWS: So, RFK, if you're watching, thanks. Make sure to like and subscribe. But also, here. I just spammed the screen with studies that show vaccines don't cause autism. During his confirmation, RFK Jr. claimed that he isn't anti vaccine, and that he'll simply have to look at the evidence and draw his own conclusions. But he has been shown that [00:42:00] evidence over and over again. He also said if the studies prove him wrong, he'll publicly apologize. But then, apologize for what? He claimed he isn't anti vaccine, so that's weird. Also, the counter study he cited in his hearing has a whole bunch of obvious issues, and was by a guy who already has some redacted studies. Because RFK doesn't have a medical background. He's a lawyer with an axe to grind.

Doesn't it seem odd that the guy being charged with overseeing America's health also ran a personal campaign specifically against vaccines? Doesn't it worry you considering right now a town in Texas with the lowest vaccination rates and highest school exemption rates from measles vaccination is currently having a measles outbreak?

That shouldn't be happening. Does any of this worry you, especially since Trump has flat out said he's going to let RFK Jr., again, a man with no medical background, do whatever he wants? 

DONALD TRUMP: And, I'm gonna let him go wild on health, I'm gonna let [00:43:00] him go wild on the food, I'm gonna let him go wild on medicines.

CODY JOHNSTON - HOST, SOME MORE NEWS: I don't know, man. Honestly, some of what RFK believes is, in my opinion, not terrible. He wants to cut down on processed foods and end pharmaceutical ads on TV. He's willing to explore using psychedelics for medical treatments. Not that I do drugs! Haha, ok? But he's one of those guys who's right on the line of reason and then he trips and falls over on the other side because he also thinks vaccines and fluoride are bad and has boasted that he only drinks of raw milk. Boy, don't do that Bobby, did you not just hear about the bird flu? He also wants to replace a lot of HHS staff with people who, like him, aren't medical experts. 

Also, just my opinion, but I suspect he won't even be allowed to do the stuff he wants to do. Trump LOVES fast food, right? Here they all are eating it together. Most people like fast food. Trump's policies actually seem to go directly against a lot of what RFK is [00:44:00] saying. For example, some of Trump's executive orders were aimed at undoing directives to lower drug costs and expand Medicaid. How does eliminating the lowering of drug costs help you? Sounds like it empowers the pharmaceutical companies RFK is going after. And more likely, RFK will be there to allow Trump to downsize the HHS like he means to do with every other agency. He is extremely unprepared for another pandemic. And in fact, right now, the biggest pushes they are making are to go after abortions and eliminate guidance on HIV and contraception from federal websites, at least until a judge told them to reverse that. 

If Project 2025 is any indication, and it should be, the plan is most likely to use HHS to push more and more oppressive laws around reproductive health. According to Project 2025, exact quote, "HHS should return to being known as the department of life [00:45:00] by explicitly rejecting the notion that abortion is health care".

Now, Trump may have said he had nothing to do with Project 2025, but so far, a whole lot of his executive orders match up perfectly with it. So you have to ask yourself. Are you okay living in a country where abortion becomes outlawed? I don't know, maybe you are. Maybe you want to live in a country where women are required to give birth, even if it means they will die doing it, or that they were raped, or one of the many extremely practical and vital reasons someone might need to terminate a pregnancy.

And whether or not you realize it, this is going to affect someone you know. A friend, or sister, or aunt, or mother, or daughter, or that girl at Starbucks who said she liked your shirt but probably just says that to everyone so you really, really shouldn't make a move. Also, men. Men are affected by this because they tend to get people pregnant. And heck, I know you're going to hate this, folks, but some of them can get pregnant. 

This is actually where we might have to draw a [00:46:00] moral line in the sand. Because there are certain things that Trump is doing that, while having consequences for everyone, is going to have more consequences for specific people. And at a certain point, you just have to decide if you have empathy for those people or not. If we're in this together, or not. 

Note from the Editor on the tragedy of the mirror world

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: We've just heard clips today starting with Way Too Early, highlighting the disruption of mass layoffs to our health systems. Inside the Hive considered the potential impact of RFK Jr. and the broader Make America Healthy Again movement in the Trump administration. The Dig discussed anti-science politics and the gateways to the far right. The Dream dove deeply into RFK Jr.'s history. The Humanist Report looked specifically at RFK Jr.'s threat to antidepressants, depended on by millions. Democracy Now! spoke with some directly impacted by RFK Jr.'s interference in Samoa's measles outbreak in 2019. And Some More News considered some of the consequences of [00:47:00] anti-science health policy. And those were just the Top Takes. There's a lot more in the Deeper Dive sections. 

But first, a reminder that this show is produced with the support of our members who get access to bonus episodes and enjoy all of our shows without ads. To support all of our work and have those bonus episodes delivered seamlessly to the new members-only podcast feed that you'll receive, sign up to support the show at BestOfTheLeft.Com/Support (there's a link in the show notes), through our Patreon page, or from right inside the Apple Podcast app. 

And as always, if regular membership isn't in the cards for you, shoot me an email requesting a financial hardship membership, because we don't let a lack of funds stand in the way of hearing more information.

If you have a question or would like your comments included on the show, our upcoming topics you can chime in on include the widespread corruption absolutely endemic to Trump and just about everyone that surrounds him, followed by coverage of what resistance there is to the Trump and Musk takeover.

So get your comments and questions in for those topics or anything else. You can leave us a voicemail or send us a [00:48:00] text at 202-999-3991. We're now also findable on the privacy-focused messaging app Signal at the handle bestoftheleft.01. There's a link in the show notes for that. Or you can simply email me to [email protected].

Now as for today's topic, I was reminded of -- I think my favorite conservative take on health policy and pandemic response that I've seen maybe ever, and I don't mean favorite because it was a good take, but it was a bad take in a relatively unique way that also shined some light on what it must be like to live permanently in the mirror world, as so many conservatives do these days. This was back in fall of 2021. Vaccines against COVID-19 were widely available. And one of the biggest hurdles to getting people vaccinated was the political divide wherein far more Republicans were skeptical of the science of the vaccines compared to Democrats.

And it was in that context, an [00:49:00] opinion article was published on the far-right site Breitbart written by a pro-Trump pro-Vaxxer. And the writer was clearly somewhat scientifically literate. He was understanding the difference between transmission rates and the much larger concern of hospitalization and death rates. He tried to argue to his conservative audience that they were being tricked into thinking that the vaccines weren't effective just because transmission of the virus was still high. Because people didn't understand that being vaccinated doesn't prevent the transmission, it just reduces the severity of the symptoms and often prevents hospitalization and death.

So far so good. We're on the same page. 

But in the midst of all of that reasonable understanding of science, he also decided to speculate on who was largely responsible for conservatives getting vaccinated at much lower rates. There was some blame cast [00:50:00] on anti-vaxxers for their lack of understanding of the science and promotion of conspiracies, but more of his anger was directed at the left for encouraging everyone, including conservatives, to get vaccinated.

No, you did not mishear that. Here's what he said, quote: "I sincerely believe the organized left is doing everything in its power to convince Trump supporters not to get the lifesaving Trump vaccine." End quote. 

And you're probably thinking, well, he's just in his own media bubble. He doesn't know what the left is saying. He doesn't know that they're advocating that everyone get the vaccine. That is not it, that is not his argument. 

Again, he argues that the left was doing this by loudly advocating that everyone get vaccinated, something that the writer strongly believes in. He agrees with the left that everyone should get vaccinated. And he thinks that the left [00:51:00] advocating that everyone get vaccinated -- in exactly the same way that he is -- is a plot to prevent people from getting vaccinated.

It's a brain bender. That's why they call it "the mirror world," and this is where in the article I got to experience the only time ever I've seen an article that includes both lessons on scientific literacy and the word "cocks". He explains his logic this way, quote: "The organized left is deliberately putting unvaccinated Trump supporters in an impossible position, where they can either not get a lifesaving vaccine, or can feel like cocks, caving to the ugliest smuggest bullies in the world." End quote. 

Now I'm being reminded of a side note as he's describing pro-vaccine advocates as ugly, smug bullies. I don't really need to lay out [00:52:00] the irony of that for a Trump supporter. But anyway, out of curiosity, I checked his Twitter profile today just to see what he was up to more recently. And his profile description just says that his pronouns are "Trump won." So he's clearly a class act -- not. Not one of those ugly smug bullies you might find on the internet. 

But just for more context, he went on to explain why the left would do something so harmful as advocate for a lifesaving vaccine. Quote: "The left's morality is guided by only that which furthers their fascist agenda, and so using reverse psychology to trick Trump supporters not to get a life-saving vaccine is to them a moral good. The more of us who die, the better." End quote. 

So, imagine for a moment what it must be like for that [00:53:00] guy to be able to hold all of those ideas in his head at the same time. On one hand, he has a basic grasp of epidemiology, to the point where he can explain the benefits of vaccines to skeptics, differentiating between transmission rates and severe cases. But on the other hand, he appears to think that millions of vaccine-advocating progressives, people who agree with him about vaccines, got the idea to kill conservatives. An idea that, I dunno, we all got together on a Zoom or something and we widely agreed that this was a good idea. And that we then decided that the way to do it was through mass reverse psychology, by encouraging people to get vaccinated. We would try so hard to convince people to get vaccinated, that conservative vaccination rates would drop, just as we planned, and millions would die because of it.

[00:54:00] Like I said, this is my favorite conservative health policy take, because it walks that incredibly strange line. He demonstrates the ability to use logic and reason. Not, you know, not all of them do. But then also gives a crystal clear look into the mirror world and that bizarro world logic that resides there.

My big takeaway from all of this is that it's genuinely sad that people like this are finding themselves trapped in the mirror world, flailing around for something logical to hold onto and coming up mostly empty. But then of course, it's a much bigger tragedy for society as a whole that there are millions of people trapped in that mirror world, but still casting votes in the real world, being nominated to cabinet positions in the real world. Cutting budgets and staffs in the health departments of the real world. All [00:55:00] based on a total, well, maybe not total, but enough of a lack of understanding of science, logic and reason that it's not that they're not capable of it, it's that it's been twisted in their minds so badly by the falsities and conspiracies of the mirror world that they don't know which way is up anymore. 

SECTION A: HEALTH ORGANIZATIONS

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: And now we'll continue to dive deeper on four topics today. 

Next up, Section A: Health Organizations, followed by Section B: RFK Jr., Section C: Anti-Science Dangers, and Section D: Predators and Prey.

“Attack on Science”: Trump’s Exit from WHO Could Make Next Pandemic More Likely, More Deadly - Democracy Now! - Air Date 1-23-25

LAWRENCE GOSTIN: We rely on the WHO for so many things that we never even realize as a population. First of all, and most immediate, is that WHO has a global response capacity. And so, [00:56:00] wherever there’s a hot spot in the world, whether it’s polio in Gaza or Ebola in West Africa or mpox in the Democratic Republic of Congo, you name it, the WHO is there early, and they put out fires before they come to America. 

The other thing I want to mention, as I think it’s even more important, is that WHO has a vast network of laboratories, scientists and public health agencies that report on data. And our pharmaceutical companies, our public health agencies, like CDC and NIH, rely on that data to develop the vaccines and treatments that we need when the next health emergency hits. Americans are used to being at the front of the line when it comes to vaccines and treatments, with Africa and others at the back. We might find ourselves near the back of [00:57:00] the line next time, because we’re not going to have access to those vital pieces of information, like pathogen samples or genomic sequencing data or the emergence of mutations and dangerous variants. And so we can’t update our vaccines. We can’t create new vaccines. And it will even affect our seasonal influenza vaccines, because every year we use WHO data to update our influenza vaccines.

NERMEEN SHAIKH - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: Professor Gostin, in the same executive order in which Trump said the U.S. would be pulling out of the World Health Organization, he also called for the U.S. to stop negotiations on the WHO Pandemic Agreement, which some say is even more injurious to global public health than U.S. pulling U.S. funding from the WHO. If you could explain, what is this Pandemic Agreement?

LAWRENCE GOSTIN: Again, I don’t think it’s as bad as pulling out of the [00:58:00] World Health Organization, but it is really bad. So, in the aftermath of COVID, countries around the world called for a new pandemic treaty, because this Pandemic Agreement really would be a treaty, to try to make the world less vulnerable to the next pandemic. This would include, you know, deep, what we call One Health approach — animals, climate and humans, because, you know, some 75% of all novel outbreaks arise in the animal community. It also includes equitable allocation of vaccines and treatments, and also rapid research and development for them, which is really very important. And then it has financing and other provisions for outbreak detection [00:59:00] and response.

The United States, for the last several years, has been kind of right at the head of the table. They’ve really — the Biden administration has been very constructive. And they’ve mediated between Africa and equity groups and the European Union. We’ve been the honest broker in the room. And now we’re walking away. And the irony is, is that what we’re doing is we’re allowing the global rules of the road without defending our national interests, our national values, and we cede leadership to our adversaries. I think one of the ironies of this whole thing is that President Trump has said that China has undue influence on WHO. Well, I’ve worked with WHO for nearly 40 years, and the U.S. has far more influence than China ever has, but that could change as we pull out of [01:00:00] WHO and the Pandemic Agreement.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: Professor Gostin, I wanted to ask you about other moves that President Trump has taken that have alarmed scientists and doctors around the country and the world: the Trump administration’s abrupt cancellation of scientific meetings at the NIH and other places, as well as freezing many health agency reports and posts, what public health professionals around the country rely on to assess the health of the American people, including the MMWR, the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, of the Centers for Disease Control. Can you talk about the significance of this?

LAWRENCE GOSTIN: Oh, it’s deeply consequential. I don’t think people understand how consequential it is. Let me start with health communications. Having access to timely and accurate health messages [01:01:00] from trusted public health agencies like the CDC and the FDA is really essential to Americans’ public health. Absent that, we can’t make good decisions about our health, our nutrition, whether there’s a food outbreak, say, of Listeria, whether there’s a warning about a novel circulating virus or of a dangerous spike in COVID cases. These are things the American people need to keep them healthy. And this will delay those things, and they will make them less true.

Just ask yourself the question: Who would you trust more to give you information about health than a career scientist at the CDC or the FDA, or a political appointee in the White House that filters scientific information through the lens of [01:02:00] politics? It really is outrageous. I’m also a member of several of these scientific committees at NIH, and I can tell you we’re not there conspiring. We’re there trying to figure out hard problems that affect the American population. You know, I know that a lot of President Trump’s administration’s kind of line is that these are, you know, fat bureaucrats. But I can tell you, at NIH, CDC, FDA, these are just — these are doctors, scientists, nurses, that get up every day and do their best to make America healthier and safer. They don’t always get it right, but I would certainly trust their integrity, their experience and their understanding of science to try to guide us through health emergencies and just everyday health problems that American families face.

The RFK Jr of it All: A House of Pod Collab - Hood Politics with Prop - Air Date 2-11-25

JEREMY FAUST: The CDC. What does the CDC do? [01:03:00] The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, um, is in Atlanta and they are, it's a massive organization. There's a lot of important work ranging from just pure epidemiology, meaning they, they keep statistics like how many people die.

What did they die from? That's something that they do, um, The CDC studies disease, it, it, um, helps scientists and physicians like me and you know what the latest recommendation is. So they have a vaccine committee that says, okay, what should the scheduling for pediatric vaccinations be? And we know that that has saved lives.

So many lives the past century. So, they, they do that. They, um, and they also partner with other organizations, both in the United States, so it could be non profits, it could be state public health officials. But also around the world in detecting [01:04:00] and combating outbreaks. So, I'll give you an example of that.

Right now, there is an outbreak of Ebola virus in Uganda. And I wouldn't recommend getting Ebola. But CDC scientists, in general, would hear about this, and their experts would be on a plane the next day To go to Uganda and say, how can we help? What do you have? What do you need? Yeah. How can we augment your resources, your expertise?

They're not there to tell 'em how to do it. They are there to, to, to see where our resources can plug holes and be of assistance. And that is the work that we do, um, with the WWHO, the World Health Organization. Um, and our, in our, in our own foreign aid, Trump put a pause on that last week. So we do not have those people on the ground helping that outbreak.

So that's an example of, of things the CDC does. They track down outbreaks. They'll send out literal, they call them disease hunters, is like the nickname. Some, someone says, oh, there's something happening in, [01:05:00] I don't know, rural Washington. These kids are getting sick. Someone goes out there and looks into it, and figures out, oh, oh gosh, there's like, there's a poisoning, salmonella, you know, we gotta make sure that people know about it.

So they do everything from keeping track of big, big data sets, you Tracking deaths, COVID hospitalizations, tracking disparities in outcomes, and how to treat diseases to responding to crisis. 

DR. KAVEH HODA - HOST, HOUSE OF POD: And just remind the world again, for those who may have forgotten, why is it important for us, the United States, to have involvement in infectious disease elsewhere in the world?

Why is that important for us? 

JEREMY FAUST: So why do we want to help people? That's the question you wanted to ask? Uh, why would we do that? Um, so you could, you could take the humanitarianist side and say, why do we care about people in Papua New Guinea or wherever?

But there's actually, uh, A geopolitical reason that we help people. One is our own security and one is soft power. So [01:06:00] our own security is, if we can go help a novel outbreak get controlled, it won't reach our shores. And we don't have that problem. That would be lovely. Another one is for HIV, for example, we provide up until recently.

Although the question is whether it's back online or not, it's very unclear. Yeah. But up until recently, we have provided. Since the Bush administration, which always shocks people, George W. Bush started this. We have been, we have this program called PEPFAR, which has provided HIV medications to poor nations, um, and has saved 25 million lives.

25 million lives. Um, which is pretty substantial. It's a government project that worked, actually. It's like amazing. And, um, so, yes, you could make the argument, like, why do we care, but when people actually have their HIV confirmed, Controlled by medications, there's less likely for, uh, resistant bad strains to, to emerge again, which can come here and make our lives more miserable.

So it could be selfish. You can make the altruistic argument, but there are selfish reasons to save lives overseas. [01:07:00] And then the last one is, I would say that I can, that I could think of is this soft power thing. We, why is America, why does America have a positive reputation or why did it? And a lot of it has to do with things you don't always think about.

It could be literally things like, we make the best movies, we have the best music, we, we have great writers, culture, right? Culture is a way to express That a, that a society is doing well, but another way to do it is to, to do the kind of work in public health that, that we've done. And so people actually say, Oh, the gosh, the Americans, they really screwed it up on this thing and this war, this foreign policy.

But on the other hand, they did save 25 million lives. So maybe we shouldn't be complete jerks to them. So it's, it's actually, there's a, there's a lot of reasons why we do this work. 

PROP - HOST, HOOD POLITICS: This is this again. And now we're crossing into my world because of the soft power, cultural power and how to be. Just how to be the man.

You know what I'm saying? Like this is how, this is how you run a, this is how you run a city. You be the guy they go to, no matter how much of a jerk that you are. If I'm the dude you got to go to, [01:08:00] then, then if I'm put up with a lot, you put up with a lot. Number one, you put up with a lot cause you have to come to me.

And then number two, um, if, if you're the guy that you got to go to, and you're a good dude, then like, When you're in need, you're going to be the first person they think of, right? When, when it's, when it's my turn, or if there's like, if we're lobbying for something like, okay, I could sell, you know, we could give this 10 million gallons of crude oil to this country, or we could give it to them.

Then again, they did save 20 million lives and maybe we should sell it to them first and maybe at a discounted rate, you know, so yeah, there's that, there's that. But I think. Uh, the, the best part to me is what you're saying as far as the selfish side of, like, you act like there's a force field at the 47th parallel that just stops the air from flowing.

Like, what is you talking about? Like, it is one planet, right? Like, why, why would, why would it not get here? Right? Like what? Like there's no. We don't really have a wall, guys. 

And even if we [01:09:00] did, like, you know. 

DR. KAVEH HODA - HOST, HOUSE OF POD: If COVID taught us nothing else, it should be that what's happening in other countries will impact us.

The potential impacts of Trump's decision to withdraw from the World Health Organization - PBS NewsHour - Air Date 1-21-25

LAWRENCE GOSTIN: I believe this is a truly historic decision. The United States really formed the World Health Organization in 1948, and has been its most influential and greatest funder for 75 years. This is going to make America decidedly less safe, less secure.

And it's hard for me to think of any national advantage that we get. I only see us alone and isolated, not stronger.

AMNA NAWAZ- HOST, PBS NEWSHOUR: You mentioned the U.S. has been its greatest funder for WHO. If you take a look at this graphic, we should just point out, look at the top 10 sources of funding there, the U.S. there at the top, but there's other groups like the World Bank, the Gates Foundation, countries like Germany, U.K. and Japan.

But the U.S. is responsible for someone-sixth of the [01:10:00] organization's budget. So is President Trump's characterization that the U.S. is shouldering an unfair financial burden here wrong?

LAWRENCE GOSTIN: Yes, actually, I think it is wrong, but it's not totally wrong.

Let me explain. The WHO has a budget of roughly one-quarter of the U.S. CDC. So, for a global institution, it's chronically underfunded. It doesn't have the resilience and funding that it needs to put out fires all over the world. So the United States shouldn't pay less, but other countries should pay more.

China should, India, the Gulf states, many other middle-income countries. So I think that Trump would do a much greater service to the United States and the world if he stayed in and he negotiated a deal. Yes, [01:11:00] let's make WHO more resilient. Let's fund it better. Let's make it more powerful and let's make it more accountable with financial oversight.

But leaving it would gravely damage United States' national interests and world health writ large. It's not really like the border, where you can kind of seal off the Mexican border so that you can stop immigrants. Germs don't know borders. And a United States without WHO is a United States alone and isolated and more fragile and vulnerable.

AMNA NAWAZ- HOST, PBS NEWSHOUR: Pulling out of the organization means that the U.S. would lose access to the World Health Organization's global public health data too, which you said would leave agencies like the CDC flying blind.

Help make that real for us. What is the potential harm that you are worried about?

LAWRENCE GOSTIN: I see this as the [01:12:00] greatest self-inflicted wound that this executive order has put for us.

I mean, it is a grave wound to WHO, but I think it's a more grievous wound to the United States. Here's why. The World Health Organization leads a vast network of public health agencies, laboratories, and international scientists that constantly track novel outbreaks and shares data.

Without that, CDC doesn't have an early warning. We can't respond. And so we're weaker. We're less prepared. But here's more. And I think it's really important. Our pharmaceutical industry, the NIH, needs these data to develop vaccines, therapies, and other lifesaving tools that we rely on.

If you remember back to COVID-19, and Operation [01:13:00] Warp Speed, and Trump gets a lot of credit for that, we were in front of the line for vaccines. We may be near the back of the line because we're not going to get data about how these viruses are evolving, what we can do to respond to them and create vaccines.

SECTION B: RFK JR.

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: Now entering Section B: RFK Jr.

WATCH: Caroline Kennedy Slams Cousin RFK Jr. as “Dangerous” and a “Predator” in Video to Senate - Democracy Now! - Air Date 1-29-25

CAROLINE KENNEDY: Dear senators,

Throughout the past year, people have asked for my thoughts about my cousin Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his presidential campaign. I did not comment, not only because I was serving in a government position as United States ambassador to Australia, but because I have never wanted to speak publicly about my family members and their challenges. We are a close generation of 28 cousins who have been through a lot together. We know how hard it’s been, and we are always there for each other. But now that Bobby has been nominated by President Trump to be secretary of health and human services, a position that would put [01:14:00] him in charge of the health of the American people, I feel an obligation to speak out.

Overseeing the FDA, the NIH, the CDC and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, agencies that are charged with protecting the most vulnerable among us, is an enormous responsibility and one that Bobby is unqualified to fill. He lacks any relevant government, financial, management or medical experience. His views on vaccines are dangerous and willfully misinformed.

These facts alone should be disqualifying, but he has personal qualities related to this job, which for me pose even greater concern. I’ve known Bobby my whole life. We grew up together. It’s no surprise that he keeps birds of prey as pets, because Bobby himself is a predator. He’s always been [01:15:00] charismatic, able to attract others through the strength of his personality, his willingness to take risks and break the rules. I watched his younger brothers and cousins follow him down the path of drug addiction. His basement, his garage, his dorm room were always the center of the action, where drugs were available and he enjoyed showing off how he put baby chickens and mice in a blender to feed to his hawks. It was often a perverse scene of despair and violence.

That was a long time ago, and people can change. Through his own strength and the many second chances he was given by people who felt sorry for the boy who lost his father, Bobby was able to pull himself out of illness and disease. I admire the discipline that took and the continuing commitment it requires. But siblings and cousins who Bobby encouraged down the path of substance abuse suffered addiction, illness and death, [01:16:00] while Bobby has gone on to misrepresent, lie and cheat his way through life.

Today, while he may encourage a younger generation to attend AA meetings, Bobby is addicted to attention and power. Bobby preys on the desperation of parents of sick children, vaccinating his own kids while building a following hypocritically discouraging other parents from vaccinating theirs. Even before he fills this job, his constant denigration of our healthcare system and the conspiratorial half-truths he’s told about vaccines, including in connection with Samoa’s deadly 2019 outbreak of measles, have cost lives.

And now we know that Bobby’s crusade against vaccination has benefited him in other ways, too. His ethics report makes clear that he will keep his financial stake in a lawsuit against an [01:17:00] HPV vaccine. In other words, Bobby is willing to profit and enrich himself by denying access to a vaccine that can prevent almost all forms of cervical cancer and has already been safely administered to millions of boys and girls. During my time in Australia, I worked on the Quad Cancer Initiative, and I learned that cervical cancer is among the top three forms of cancer among women in a majority of countries. Tragically, every year, more than 200,000 children lose their mothers. They are orphaned due to a lack of vaccines and screening. Those are the real-world consequences of Bobby’s irresponsible beliefs.

We are a close family. None of that is easy to say. It also wasn’t easy to remain silent last year when Bobby expropriated my father’s image and distorted President Kennedy’s legacy [01:18:00] to advance his own failed presidential campaign and then grovel to Donald Trump for a job. Bobby continues to grandstand off my father’s assassination and that of his own father. It’s incomprehensible to me that someone who is willing to exploit their own painful family tragedies for publicity would be put in charge of America’s life and death situations. Unlike Bobby, I try not to speak for my father, but I am certain that he and my Uncle Bobby, who gave their lives in public service to our country, and my Uncle Teddy, who devoted his long Senate career to the cause of improving healthcare, would be disgusted.

The American healthcare system, for all its flaws, is the envy of the world. Its doctors and nurses, researchers, scientists and caregivers are the most dedicated people I know. Every day [01:19:00] they give their lives to heal and save others. They deserve a knowledgeable leader who is committed to evidence and excellence. They deserve a secretary committed to advancing cutting-edge medicine to save lives, not to rejecting the advances we have already made. They deserve a stable, moral and ethical person at the helm of this crucial agency. They deserve better than Bobby Kennedy, and so do the rest of us. I urge the Senate to reject his nomination.

Sincerely, Caroline Kennedy.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: That was Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s cousin Caroline Kennedy, former U.S. ambassador to Japan and Australia, daughter of President John F. Kennedy. She sent that video and an accompanying letter to the Senate Finance Committee senators.

Department of Health and Holy Sh*t: RFK Jr.’s MAHA Movement and What It Means for America Part 2 - Inside the Hive - Air Date 2-5-25

MICHAEL CALDERONE: Kennedys have served in the Biden administration and other presidential administrations over the years.

CLAIRE HOWORTH: And also a lot of continuing tragedy. You have deaths from [01:20:00] overdoses, plane crashes. Yeah. And in a way, I feel like As we're saying this, and we're counting all of these trajectories, it's fascinating how RFK Jr. himself checks a lot of those boxes. You know, he went down a dark path, he found, and then he found a mission where he felt he could serve.

Talk about that a little bit, Michael. 

MICHAEL CALDERONE: Yeah, I mean, One of the interesting things, and we're, I think, looking back at this piece, Bobby's Kids, by Michael Schneerson, is, this is at a point in the 1990s where RFK Jr. is an environmental lawyer, and I think was pretty highly regarded at that time for the work he was doing with Riverkeeper, and it seemed like that was cleaning up the Hudson River.

Yeah, a good thing. That is that is a good fit. A good thing. We can. 

RADHIKA JONES - HOST, INSIDE THE HIVE: Climbed in some blue fluid, personally. 

CLAIRE HOWORTH: That is a fact. This piece was in 1997. It's from Vanity Fair. We all went went back and looked at it. It's pretty fascinating. 

MICHAEL CALDERONE: It's an incredible artifact to think of because at that time, It leads with other [01:21:00] controversies about other Kennedy cousins, it's not not a specifically on RFK, it's on other members of the Kennedy family and at this point in time in the 90s, RFK was one of the ones who seemed to be doing.

It's more public service oriented work than, than some of the others. 

CLAIRE HOWORTH: He was putting the noble in nobility. But you know, there was a line in that piece that felt like it could have been published last week. So this is a line from Bobby's Kids published in Vanity Fair in 1997. In fact, says another person close to the RFKs, meaning the RFK kids, the family values are more those of the mafia.

It's about power and control. It's like the mafia, even in the way the children are directed, not to be well rounded individuals, but to create an effective team. And the family rallying around is a through line in Kennedy lore. And that's what we saw in the last few years when RFK Jr. was running for president.[01:22:00] 

The cousins were not, they did not think this was a great idea, but they weren't really going to speak out about it. And all of a sudden last week, Caroline Kennedy, who I think It sounds like has been harboring these feelings for quite a long time, writes this open letter saying, don't confirm my cousin.

He's bad news. 

A predator. 

MICHAEL CALDERONE: A predator, and she even speaks to the fact that his substance abuse and his recovery is something that could be looked on as an asset.

But at the same time, she says that he's gone on throughout his life to misrepresent 

CAROLINE KENNEDY: lie and cheat his way through life, 

MICHAEL CALDERONE: and that is a pretty damning statement coming Radhika's point, it did strike me as well looking at Bobby's kids. How there's this gentility in the Kennedy family where you don't necessarily talk to outsiders about what's going on, and this has me thinking about another great Vanity Fair piece from just [01:23:00] last year in July of last year.

Joe Hagan wrote a piece. RFK Junior's family doesn't want him to run. Even they may not know his darkest secrets. And this was an incredible piece that really dove into both the family's thinking and the family's reluctance sometimes to say this publicly. 

RADHIKA JONES - HOST, INSIDE THE HIVE: And what would have happened if Caroline had said something sooner?

Um, Joe's. Project was all about digging into what the family felt behind the scenes, and he handled it very objectively as to whether or not there should have been a more, um, a firmer pushback at an earlier moment, you know, endorsing Biden in a group shot at the White House, right? Quite enough. 

CLAIRE HOWORTH: Now devil's advocate. Would it have mattered? I mean, we see this time and time again, and people pushing back on Donald Trump, you know, the people come forward called Donald Trump a predator. What happens? Nothing, he gets elected. So I uh, it's almost, it's possible that we're just past any of that efficacy. But the truth is this, the Kennedys have a lot of symbolic importance, and [01:24:00] I think that They still do hold this cultural power.

I mean, we've seen, you know, it's been almost 25 years since John F. Kennedy Jr. and his wife, Carolyn Bessette Kennedy, and her sister died in a small plane crash. And you still have kids on the Upper East Side going out and buying Carolyn Bessette's headband, you know. Mm hmm. The influence, the kind of the style of them, the touch football, although hilariously in the Schneerson piece, I think someone's quoted saying, you know, you'd be more likely to put together a group to go to an AA meeting now than to play touch football.

But those images are very lasting. The idea that, again, that there's this sort of like version of, I mean, it sounds Trumpy, right? But it kind of, you know, American, it's not greatness, but it's like, I don't know, that they're Catholic. It's not WASP y. You do want to 

RADHIKA JONES - HOST, INSIDE THE HIVE: say WASP y, don't you?

CLAIRE HOWORTH: But, but, you know, something heroic.

But I think that, [01:25:00] We have RFK Jr. now playing the anti hero role, too. 

RADHIKA JONES - HOST, INSIDE THE HIVE: There's also this incredibly dark and kind of gothic aspect to RFK Jr. He's got this very strange history with animals, dead animals. He's put, according to Caroline Kennedy, mice and baby chicks in a blender to feed to his hawks because he's obsessed with birds of prey.

He drove a dead bear to Central Park. There's the whale. I mean, but who hasn't? Right. Right. Right. Who among us? Uh, there's, there, there are the emus running around his house in LA that, you know, Cheryl feeds I guess. And then he also has a terrible history with womanizing. He, as Joe Hagan reported for Vanity Fair, he has sent pictures of women's genitalia unbidden to contacts.

And then in that same story, Joe Hagan spoke to a woman named Eliza Cooney, who had babysat for the Kennedy family in the 90s, for RFK Jr. [01:26:00] himself, and who accused him of sexual assault. Now, Kennedy did not deny the allegations prior to or after our report published. Instead, he told Breaking Point, a self described anti establishment podcast. 

ROBERT KENNEDY JR.: Listen, I have said this from the beginning, I am not a church boy. I had a very, very rambunctious youth. I have so many skeletons in my closet that if, if they could all vote, I could run for king of the world. 

RADHIKA JONES - HOST, INSIDE THE HIVE: This whole story came up in his hearings when Senator Patty Murray, a Washington state Democrat, asked him about it. And only then did he deny it under oath, which really makes you think.

Last week, Eliza Cooney called Joe Hagan and said she thought that Caroline Kennedy's letter came too late to warn anybody off of RFK Jr. Indeed, that seems to be the case. 

MICHAEL CALDERONE: I think it's very telling that RFK said that he's not a church boy as a way to just sort of brush off [01:27:00] any sort of bad behavior of the past.

And I think when we're thinking about a son of privilege, and we're thinking about the way of the Kennedys may have seen right or wrong or what they could get away with. I think it is instructive to look at how he responded to this.

CLAIRE HOWORTH: We're also in this larger cultural moment, as evidenced by Mark Zuckerberg, uh, of all people, of kind of a reclaiming of what people have been referring to as toxic masculinity. Like, no, no, it's all good. Like this is how I behaved and I did it because I'm a man and I can do that 

MICHAEL CALDERONE: right and it hasn't stopped RFK from ascending to this cabinet position just like dozens of sexual misconduct allegations did not stop Donald Trump from winning a second term as president.

SECTION C: ANTI-SCIENCE DANGERS

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: You've reached Section C: Anti-Science Dangers.

What you need to know about bird flu - On Point - Air Date 1-8-25

MEGHNA CHAKRABARTI - HOST, ON POINT: I do want to just go straight at this issue on how people are [01:28:00] reacting to the various measures that have been taken so far, regarding trying to prevent H5N1 from becoming a bigger issue.

Do you think that the right lessons have been learned from COVID or not in terms of deciding when to do things like advise a recall of raw milk?

DR. NIRAV SHAH: No, that's a great question. It's one we talk about here at the CDC all the time. Let me first start with just the big picture, which is, as Dr. Davis has noted, right now, we assess that the risk of H5 to the general public is low. But as others have noted on this call and on this program, the risk of a possible pandemic coming out of the H5 situation is not low. We assess it to be a moderate risk. And so right now, our advice for the general public is that they should be alert.

But not alarmed. And that said, for that reason, we almost on a daily basis are assessing where we stand with respect to H5, whether it's round things [01:29:00] like raw milk, and our guidance there, which I concur, raw milk is to be avoided. It's all the risks with none of the benefits, or around other ways that we can make testing more available or making sure we're getting a better understanding of how this virus is changing.

H5 is not the same as COVID. It differs in a number of ways, not least of which is that we have decades of experience understanding the virus, understanding how it transmits, and understanding the risk that it poses.

And that gives us a significant head start when it comes to things like medications, which we have available vaccines, which are a possibility if needed, as well as a good understanding of how to move in those directions if needed, when we get to those decisions, then we'll be in a posture to do.

MEGHNA CHAKRABARTI - HOST, ON POINT: So I hear an echo of myself because a question I asked for every public health official who joined us for the first year of COVID is, How do you know when the if needed line has been crossed?

DR. NIRAV SHAH: Yes, that is the exact right question to [01:30:00] ask. And as you can imagine, it's not a bright line. It's not a situation where there's a giant switch on the wall. And one day we decide to flip it. We continually assess the situation on a daily basis with each new case we have, with each new sample, with each new piece of data.

And broadly speaking, there are a number of factors that we look at. Key among them is what's already been discussed, which is whether there is the emergence of person-to-person transmission. Of course, we've seen animal to animal transmission, and as a result, our antenna are very high. I share the concern of, say, Dr. Lakdawala, which is, our antenna are very high, and we are deeply concerned about the situation.

We haven't yet seen human to human transmission at the epidemiological level or at the molecular level, when we study the virus. Another thing that we look for is whether the virus itself has lost its susceptibility to the medications or the other therapeutics that we have available.

If we started to see [01:31:00] changes of that nature, we would want to ramp up our own posture. And then, of course, the third is what kind of disease is it causing? Right now, except for one case in the United States, the other 65 of the 66 cases that we've seen have caused eye redness. They haven't caused the significant respiratory conditions that we've seen with this virus in other parts of the world.

So these are some of the factors we look at, transmissibility, susceptibility to medications, severity of illness. If we were to see significant departures on any of those, relative to the history that we have with this virus over the past 20 years or so, that's when we would start moving closer to that line.

MEGHNA CHAKRABARTI - HOST, ON POINT: Okay. So let me just repeat what you just said. In the United States, as of this moment, and again, just within the U.S., 65 of the 66 cases of bird flu in humans have resulted in this conjunctivitis, right? And no one wants to have that, right? I'm not saying that it's a great thing, but [01:32:00] are you making that point as a way of saying, hey, look, right now in humans, we are cautious, but we're not, no one's panicking, right?

DR. NIRAV SHAH: That is one of the points there, which is again, we want to be alert, but not alarmed. The other reason that is important. The prevalence of conjunctivitis rather than significant severe respiratory symptoms, is that what the vaccines do in particular is really reduce the severity of illness.

Now, vaccines can also reduce the likelihood of spreading it, but what they are exquisitely good at is reducing the severity of illness. And that's true whether it's the COVID vaccine, the flu shot or the pneumonia vaccine. Where really excel is in reduction of severity. And where we have not seen human to human transmission, and where we have not seen severe illness as the norm, then we have to wonder whether the vaccines are the right tool for the job right now, versus, say, [01:33:00] widespread use of medication. Which is what CDC recommends. Now that said, and I want to be very clear, we should not trifle with the H5 virus.

It is a dangerous virus, and around the world, we've seen that up to 50% of the people who can get infected with that virus can end up dying. So this is not an effort to suggest that we are minimizing the virus at all. Again, we are taking this very seriously, because this virus is not something to mess around with.

MEGHNA CHAKRABARTI - HOST, ON POINT: Why is the fatality rate, you just described a shockingly high fatality rate around the world. Is it really as much as 50% of people who get it can die?

DR. NIRAV SHAH: It can be, in other countries where they have experienced cases, in small clusters of cases. So then the question is, and I think where you're going is, what's different about now?

Because what seems to be different now is that the cases have been significantly milder than what we've seen historically. There are a few potential hypotheses as to why that might be the case. One of them is that, in the current [01:34:00] outbreak in 2024 and '25, we've been on it a lot more. We've been monitoring workers.

We've been testing individuals who have been exposed. And as a result of that, we're catching not just the severe cases, but also the milder cases as well. So it's possible that in other countries in the world that grappled with these outbreaks. They too have had a significant number of mild cases. They just weren't aware of those.

And thus, when you do the math, if the only thing is four cases, two of which are severe, you get a different number as a result of that. So some of it just might be that we have a better sense of the entirety of the iceberg rather than just what's above the water. Another piece of it might be the way in which individuals are exposed.

The bulk of cases that we've had in the U.S. have been from individuals who have had an exposure on the dairy farm, as Dr. Davis was mentioning. Fewer cases have been from individuals who had exposures to dead birds. The dairy farm exposure might end [01:35:00] up leading to a lower dose of virus than what you might get if you encountered a dead bird on the sidewalk.

And so that might be one reason why cases are a little bit milder. Again, that is not to suggest that anyone should not have their antenna up. We want folks to be tracking the situation, but we also don't want folks to be alarmed at this moment.

Trump's Attack on Science Funding - The Brian Lehrer Show - Air Date 2-21-25

BRIAN LEHRER - HOST, THE BRIAN LEHRER SHOW: Katherine, your piece lays out obviously an alarming picture of the Trump administration's impact already on science. What are the most significant changes that you're seeing so far?

KATHERINE WU: Oh, my goodness, do we even have time to go through them? There have been so many. I think this really comes down to the fact that it has been so many that it's actually difficult to point to the most significant ones. Certainly, the fact that funding has been frozen, that means that researchers are essentially not getting the funds they need to pay their staff to continue their studies.

That means participants in clinical trials are potentially being called and told, "Well, we can't continue to [01:36:00] study anymore. This very important experimental drug that might be helping you stay alive may not be an option for your care anymore." We've seen thousands of federal workers fired from across government and that includes scientists doing vital work. We have seen foreign aid abroad been totally dismantled.

People who need life-saving HIV treatments not getting the care that they need. I am sure I am missing things from this list only because the list is so ridiculously long. There truly has not been a sphere of American science or American science being done abroad that has not been impacted by this. It is the way that science is being done and who is allowed to be doing science right now, every aspect of it.

BRIAN LEHRER - HOST, THE BRIAN LEHRER SHOW: One of your articles is called The NIH, National Institutes of Health, Memo That Undercut Universities Came Directly from Trump Officials. Remind us of that one.

KATHERINE WU: Yes, so this is one of the most [01:37:00] important changes that has happened in the past two weeks. I suppose I hesitate to call it a change because it never actually fully went into effect. On February 7th, the NIH seemed to release a memo. They did release the memo saying that indirect cost rates were going to be cut and indirect costs are basically overhead.

You get a grant. You apportion some of that grant to cover the day-to-day logistics of being able to do your research, paying rent for your lab, paying the utilities bills for your lab, making sure that administrative stuff gets done, all the logistical stuff that makes the research run on the side, not just the hard science that we picture or see in stock images. This is essential stuff.

Those rates can go as high as 60%, 70% at some universities. It's a very big deal for it to be slashed all the way down to 15%. For that to be a hard cap effectively overnight, which is what that would have done, [01:38:00] that would have been devastating. That would have been an overnight salary cut for countless people and the work that they do. You can't sustain that kind of cut with no notice whatsoever.

This created huge uproar that has since been temporarily blocked by a federal judge. We're going to see how that all shakes out once this is fully litigated in court. The larger issue here was that it was not NIH behind this memo, even though it was their website that released it. The Trump administration pushed that directive through and basically forced them to publish it on their website as what appears to be just a show of force.

BRIAN LEHRER - HOST, THE BRIAN LEHRER SHOW: Let's take a call from a scientist. Isabel in Manhattan, you're on WNYC. Hi, Isabel.

ISABEL: Hi. Thanks so much for having me. I'm a postdoctoral neuroscientist at Columbia University. I'm also a proud member and steward for my union, UAW [01:39:00] 4100. I wanted to talk about how these funding cuts to science, health care, and higher education are impacting my job and the jobs of scientists like me. I love that I get to come into work every day and study how our brain makes memories. These funding cuts are putting my job and my science at risk along with the work of thousands of other hardworking researchers and educators.

I also want to talk about something that's giving me some hope right now, which is academic labor power. Academic unions are more prolific than ever. This Wednesday, we organized a national day of action, including a rally here in New York City that was co-organized by my union, UAW 4100, and other academic unions across the city. These rallies brought together thousands of researchers, academic workers, and allies to say no to these funding [01:40:00] cuts. It's really empowering for me to see the collective labor power that we're building in New York and nationwide. I think this is going to be a powerful tool to fight for the future of science, health care, and academic jobs.

BRIAN LEHRER - HOST, THE BRIAN LEHRER SHOW: Isabel, thank you. I'm going to add another voice to yours, Isabel, as our next caller, I think, is another scientist also getting involved with the UAW actions. Alexa in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hello, Alexa.

ALEXA: Hi there. I'm a lifelong scientist. I feel like I can talk to you about the ways that this has affected the prospects of my career and the ability to do science, but I'm really passionate also about us making the connection that what we're watching happening in science right now, what were victims of in science and in research and in higher education right now also is something that is part of the global [01:41:00] or the US economy at large with the decline in manufacturing and that we should learn from history since we're organized with the United Auto Workers.

What they've experienced in the auto industry over the past 40 years is what we're experiencing right now in research and higher education, and that when we talk about the funding of US science and US research at large, we can't pretend that it's been good. The past 30 years have been a major stagnation of research funding. That's come at the cost of workers where we haven't kept up with inflation.

That's why we've organized ourselves into unions. It's because of how bad it's been. The fact that this is happening should highlight to everyone across the US and internationally just how tenuous the system of research funding is. It's right now that we need to decide whether we believe that we are a country, whether we are people that believes in public [01:42:00] knowledge production or not.

BRIAN LEHRER - HOST, THE BRIAN LEHRER SHOW: What would you say to listeners who might think, "Okay, you're a microbiologist. The pharmaceutical industry is big and wealthy. If they want to develop medications--" I'm sure your work isn't only on medications. If private industry wants to develop things that are science-based, that are going to be useful to the public, then they will make money on them. Why do we need taxpayers to subsidize this at the level that they have? What would you say to that?

ALEXA: Also get this question in another frame, which is, "You have a PhD. You're a microbiologist. Why don't you just work in private industry?" I just don't believe in that. I believe that there is such an important place for public research and for basic science research. I actually don't study anything in biomedicine. The research that I do actually is only valued by the Department of Energy right now. My PhD is in soil microbiology. I think it's so [01:43:00] crucial. We have no idea what discoveries we make now will be important for innovation, technology, medicine, climate change 20, 30 years from now. We need to be investing in the big questions that really propelled knowledge forward. Knowledge in and of itself is a public good.

BRIAN LEHRER - HOST, THE BRIAN LEHRER SHOW: There isn't profit in basic research, thank you for your call. Katherine Wu, what are you thinking listening to those couple of callers?

KATHERINE WU: Yes, so much. I think it's worth reiterating just how important it is to keep training future generations of scientists. Discoveries don't get made. Drugs don't get developed unless there is rigorous training in place and funds to make sure that those young scientists have the training that they need, the support they need, especially scientists from underrepresented backgrounds.

I think the system now is so strapped that some universities are trying to figure out, "Do we need to pause graduate student admissions?" There could be multiple generations of young scientists at risk here. We will see the fallout [01:44:00] of that loss for years and years and years. That is so much knowledge that is at stake here. Absolutely, I think the conversation about private funding is an important one.

I think if you think about the amount that the federal government contributes to scientific research, if you're even to pair away at that a little bit, there isn't actually a really reasonable way for private funding to fill that gap. There's not enough of it. A lot of private funding comes with strings attached, right? It's what foundations want to fund. It's to their own ends. Certainly, pharmaceutical companies are doing their own research, but it's what's lucrative. What about rare diseases? What about things that don't have a big dollar sign attached to them?

It's incredibly important to work toward the public interest and not just where the money is. I also want to point out, we have so many examples of discoveries that were made totally by accident in the pursuit of basic research, penicillin maybe being the most famous one. There will be devastating [01:45:00] consequences for everyone's health and well-being and our understanding of the world if any type of science is hampered by this continued pause.

Bird flu is spreading faster. Should we worry? - Front Burner - Air Date 2-14-25

NICHOLAS FLORKO: There's actually several kinds of bird flu. So, the one that we're talking about today is called H5N1. And H5N1 has been around, actually, for decades. But it's become an issue for us here in the U.S. where I am when it started showing up in wild birds in 2022. We saw it spread then to domestic poultry, and then, things got even more worrisome when we started to see this spreading to dairy cows, which here in the U.S. was documented in March of last year. Now, luckily, we haven't seen the virus spreading from human to human, but that's of course why everyone is paying attention to this virus. If we start to see consistent human-to-human transmission, that's when things really start being worrisome and we could be heading towards another flu pandemic.

JAYME POISSON - HOST, FRONT BURNER: What do we know about how it spreads from animals to humans, though?

NICHOLAS FLORKO: [01:46:00] So, infected birds can spread it through their mucus, their saliva, their feces. So, if a human is around a sick bird without protective equipment, they could potentially catch the virus. And the leading theory of how it spreads from cows to humans is through their milk. So, that means folks that are might be at risk or folks who might be consuming raw, unpasteurized milk or handling raw, unpasteurized milk.

JAYME POISSON - HOST, FRONT BURNER: Are there any risks if you are just drinking, like, grocery store milk or, or, and sorry if this is a silly question, but what if you're eating, like, meat from one of these birds?

NICHOLAS FLORKO: Luckily, it seems that pasteurization of milk especially has prevented the spread of the virus. So, milk that is in your grocery store is safe as long as you are not in a place where they are selling or allowed to sell raw milk, unpasteurized milk. We haven't seen any [01:47:00] cases as far as I'm aware at all of, of someone eating potentially a sick bird. And I think that's just because birds are relatively symptomatic when this occurs. So, we wouldn't see those ending up in the meat supply.

JAYME POISSON - HOST, FRONT BURNER: This idea that it could potentially spread from human to human, how could that happen?

NICHOLAS FLORKO: Well, the virus would likely have to mutate, and that is the fear always when we're talking about a potential influenza. That is actually how we got the swine flu pandemic, if you remember that back in 2009. And so, the fear is that if we keep letting this virus spread unabated, that gives it more and more chances to pick up mutations and then, potentially it picks up a mutation that does allow it to actually spread readily from human to human.

JAYME POISSON - HOST, FRONT BURNER: I mentioned in the intro that Canada saw its first and only domestically acquired human case in this B.C. teenager back in November. This [01:48:00] 13-year-old girl is alright now, but she was quite sick for a while. She was hospitalized for two months. She was in respiratory distress, and she actually had to be intubated at one point. And I know the U.S. has seen dozens of cases in people and generally speaking, like what are the symptoms of how serious this can get?

NICHOLAS FLORKO: Here in the U.S., most cases have been much more mild than the one that you just described. The most common symptom that we've actually seen is eye redness or conjunctivitis. That, in addition to, you know, some typical sort of flu-like symptoms. That being said, and you know, as you said in the intro, we have had one severe case here in the U.S. last month in the state of Louisiana. We did, unfortunately, have a death from the virus.

REPORTER 2: Health officials confirming a patient in Louisiana is the first human to die from bird flu in the U.S. The Louisiana Department of Health saying the person was over the age of 65 with [01:49:00] underlying health conditions and contracted the virus after being exposed through a flock of birds in a backyard. The CDC analyzed the virus in that Louisiana patient, and found concerning new mutations which could help the virus infect people more easily.

NICHOLAS FLORKO: And I think that just underscores how serious this, this can be. And frankly, we know from historical data that bird flu in the past has been, has been quite deadly. So, we want to be on guard here for any changes and potentially, you know, these more severe cases popping up.

JAYME POISSON - HOST, FRONT BURNER: What would be the reason for why some people get, like, conjunctivitis and other people might have to be intubated?

NICHOLAS FLORKO: Yeah. I mean, we still have such few human cases of bird flu that what we know and what we can say definitively about different, different strains of the virus are limited. But the one thing I do want to note is both the teenager in [01:50:00] Canada and the person here in the U.S. that, that unfortunately passed, they actually were both in--, infected with a strain of the virus known as D11. That is not the predominant strain that's been spreading throughout the dairies here in the U.S. And so, there's this question of whether D11 might be more dangerous and if that becomes a prominent strain, does that cause issues? But we have so few cases right now, we really can't say definitively like, yes, this is more deadly or this is more dangerous, this strain versus this one.

JAYME POISSON - HOST, FRONT BURNER: You mentioned that bird flu had, has been quite deadly in the past. And I wonder if you could just tell me a little bit more about how it's popped up in, in history and what happened.

NICHOLAS FLORKO: Yeah, I mean, so the case fatality rate historically for bird flu, I believe, is above 50 per cent. So, we have seen some really worrisome outbreaks occurring in the past. And [01:51:00] I think scientists are still grappling with figuring out why.

REPORTER 3: As concern grows into anxiety in Hong Kong, hundreds of people have been calling special government hotlines, worried about a new strain of a potentially deadly flu that comes from chickens. Health officials say so far there have been six confirmed cases and now this. In four of those, the virus may have been transmitted from person to person.

NICHOLAS FLORKO: This time around, we very luckily, are not seeing this much higher death rate because, I think if you talk to anybody who has studied bird flu for some time, you know, if bird flu gets into the respiratory system, there's a lot of, you know, fears that this could cause severe illness and, and widespread death. But luckily, we haven't seen that yet. And I really do think scientists are still grappling with why that is. I don't think we know yet.

SECTION D: PREDATORS AND PREY

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: And finally, Section D: Predators and Prey.

Ezra Young on Trans Rights Law, Anne Sosin on RFK Jr. ans Rural Health - CounterSpin - Air Date 2-7-25

JANINE JACKSON - HOST, COUNTERSPIN: There are a number of people in lots of places who have [01:52:00] centered their lives per force on concerns around food and health and medicine.

And they see a guy who seems to be challenging Big Pharma, who's saying food additives are problematic, who's questioning government agencies. There are a lot of people who are so skeptical of the U. S. healthcare and drug system that a disruptor, even if it's somebody who says a worm ate his brain, that sounds better than business as usual.

And so that's leading some people to think, well, maybe we can pick out some good ideas here, maybe, but you think That is the wrong approach to RFK Jr. 

ANNE SOSIN: I think that that's misguided. Certainly, there are some people who see RFK as a vehicle for championing their causes, and there are other people who think that we should seek common ground with RFK, that [01:53:00] we should acquiesce, perhaps, on certain issues, and then work together to advance some other causes.

And I think that That's misguided. I think we need to recognize what's given rise to RFK and other extreme figures right now, but we need to make common cause with the communities that he's exploiting in advancing his own personal and political goals. 

JANINE JACKSON - HOST, COUNTERSPIN: And in particular, you're thinking about rural communities, which have been played a role here, right?

What's going on there? 

ANNE SOSIN: Yes, my work is centered in rural communities right now, and I think we need to understand the political economy that's given rise to RFK and other figures, the social, economic, cultural, and political changes that have given him a wide landing strip in rural places, as well as some of the institutional vacuum That are K [01:54:00] and other very extreme and polarizing figures are filling. 

JANINE JACKSON - HOST, COUNTERSPIN: Expand on that please a little.

ANNE SOSIN: Sure. So we're seeing growing resistance in some places, including rural communities to public health and interventions that have long been in place, including vaccination and fluoridation. Resistance to public health measures often in my view reflects unmet need. Sometimes those needs are material.

We see that people resist or don't follow public health programs or guidance because they don't have their material needs met and those material needs might be housing, paid leave, or other supports that they need. But the unmet need might also be emotional. Or effective that some people may resist out of a sense of economic or social dislocation, a feeling of invisibility or something else.

And [01:55:00] those feelings get expressed as resistance to public health measures that are in place. And so understanding and recognizing what those on that are is really important. And then thinking about how do we address those needs in ways that are productive and don't undermine. Public health and health care is really important.

JANINE JACKSON - HOST, COUNTERSPIN: Well, vaccinations are obviously a big concern here, particularly as we may be going into another big public health concern with bird flu. So the idea that vaccines cause disease is difficult to grapple with from a public health perspective. Vaccines can't be a choose your own adventure if they're gonna work.

Societally, and it almost seems like we're losing the concept around vaccination. We're losing the concept of what public health means and how it's not about whether or not you decide to eat cheese. You know, there's kind of a [01:56:00] public understanding issue here. 

ANNE SOSIN: I think you're correct. I think we've seen just in the U. S. and increasing. Yeah. Why is the patient of public health? A loss of the recognition that public health means all of us public health is the things that we do together to advance our collective health and the increased focus on individual decision making really threatened all of us and we look forward around vaccination.

We have seen very well funded initiatives. To undermine public confidence in vaccination over the last several years, there have been a lot of money spent to dismantle public support and public confidence in vaccination and other life saving measures. And it really is poses a great threat is we think about not only novel threats, like H5N1, but also things that have long been under control.

JANINE JACKSON - HOST, COUNTERSPIN: Well, finally, I [01:57:00] took a quick look at media, uh, major national media and rural health care, and there wasn't nothing. I saw a piece from the Dayton Daily News about heart disease in the rural south and how public health researchers are Running a medical trailer around the area to test heart and lung function.

I saw a piece from the Elko Daily Free Press in Nevada about how Elko County and others are reliant on non profits to fill gaps in access to care, and that's partly due to poor communication between state agencies and local providers. I really appreciate local reporting, local reporting is life, but some health care issues, and certainly some of those that would be impacted by the head of HSS are broader and they require a broad understanding of the impact of policy on lots of communities.

And I just wonder. Is there something you would like to see news [01:58:00] media do more of that they're missing? Is there something you'd like them to see less of as they try to engage these issues, as they will in days going forward? 

ANNE SOSIN: Certainly local coverage is Essential and I'm really pleased when I see local coverage of the heroic work that many rural health care providers and community leaders are delivering.

We see very creative and innovative work happening in our rural region in our research in our community engagement. And so it's. It's very encouraging when I see that covered, but all of the efforts on the ground are shaped by a larger policy landscape and a larger media landscape, larger political landscape.

And what we see often is efforts to undermine the policies. That are critical to preserving our rural health care infrastructure. We see well funded media efforts to erode social cohesion [01:59:00] to undermine our community institutions to sow mistrust in measures, such as vaccination. We see other work to harden the divisions between urban and rural America and within.

Rural places. And so I hope that media will pay attention to the larger forces that are shaking the landscape of rural life and not adjust to the, the outcome of that. It's easy to take note of the disparities between urban and rural places, but it's much harder to do the deep and complex work of understanding the forces that generate those uneven outcomes across geographic differences.

RFK Jr. Flunky LOSES IT When Confronted On Measles Outbreak - The Majority Report with Sam Seder - Air Date 2-22-25

EMMA VIGELAND - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: Right now, there is a measles outbreak in West Texas that keeps getting worse. And it's spreading into New Mexico. And in this area of Texas, there is a very low vaccination rate. This is the result of increased anti vaccine sentiment that is at a fever pitch [02:00:00] right now and has been since the pandemic, creating a political movement strong enough that it is now kind of incorporated into MAGA.

MAHA is a part of MAGA, and RFK Jr. is Health and Human Services Secretary. As insane as that sentence is to say out loud, and I surprise myself as I say it out loud, and how much it freaks me out, That's the case. Um, so Pamela Brown had one of the RFK Junior's advisors on to talk about what's happening right now in Texas with this measles outbreak.

And right now, the CDC just paused a meeting that they were supposed to have on the issue of vaccines, just delaying it indefinitely under RFK's leadership as Health and Human Services Secretary. They have stopped advertising. Uh, for folks to get the flu vaccine, as we're in the middle of one of the worst flu seasons.

It's a mess. And [02:01:00] there's also, uh, bird flu, right now, that has the capacity, potentially, to cross over to humans. And Elon Musk's Doge cut all those people. Then realized what they had done because they just basically clicked ctrl all or ctrl f in a document and then press delete and then realize Oh, these are the folks working on the bird flu that's making the egg prices go up which Donald Trump said he wanted to bring down Okay, can we hire you guys back please civil servants?

Can you please come back? It's a this. Here's one of RfK jr. 's advisors talking about this measles outbreak 

PAMELA BROWN: And just to be clear, these are two separate issues. There's vaccines, which are proven safe and effective, and we're going to talk more about that. But then there's the issue of disease caused by, you know, the food that we're consuming, processed food and all of that, which as you both agree on, that needs to be dealt with.

That needs to be a priority, of course, um, which is why in many ways, RFK Jr. has gained so much popularity among many [02:02:00] Americans, um, on that issue. But, but I want to go to you, Callie, to respond. And also, you know, with this measles threat. Is it now a time to promote vaccines, which again, the CDC says safe, effective, two doses are 90 percent effective against measles.

Um, is it now a time to promote that, especially among children who are being impacted by measles in places like Texas and in these six states who are unvaccinated according to health officials? 

CALLEY MEANS: Pamela, with, with respect, why aren't you asking me about the fact that 50 percent of teens have obesity? Why aren't there, there's other questions for you, but we're talking about this day after day.

Pamela. It's breathless. It's breathless coverage of five measles cases. You sound breathless. We, why aren't we asking why 16 percent of COVID deaths worldwide were Americans when we're only 4 percent of the world population because the CDC. 

EMMA VIGELAND - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: Pause it! You know why? Because of cranks like you. Because of cranks like you saying that the vaccine wasn't safe and effective, [02:03:00] then when we know it was a safe and effective at reducing transmission and severity, and then there were obviously variants, and we've had updated versions of that m. R. N. A. Vaccine, uh, that have still, uh, Protected people. And by the way, these were the vaccines greenlit by Donald Trump, the, uh, president who you now apparently serve with Operation Warp Speed, which was actually very successful, but the left would have done it differently. We wouldn't have just given billions and billions of dollars to Big Pharma.

We would have said, okay, we'll subsidize you to research it, but we own it after. 

MATT LECH: I hate these people so much. The death in this country preceded the vaccine because our ultimate priority was not public safety, but getting people back to work so they can serve the type of people that give these people money to go spew their goddamn bullshit on CNN.

How disgusting. Talking about obesity and kids. That's because of our food system, you idiot. 

EMMA VIGELAND - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: Yeah, agreed. You want to reform that? But then, what, the [02:04:00] lazy whataboutism. She, Uh, Pamela Brown , made a painstaking effort at the beginning of that question to say we are taking into consideration all these other things that you are throwing out there to distract from the fact that you're actually anti vax.

But can we deal with this measles outbreak where over a hundred cases are now being reported between West Texas and New Mexico combined? Can we have that discussion? Oh, no, wait. Another one of baptism. of 

CALLEY MEANS: COVID deaths worldwide were Americans. We were only 4 percent of the world population because the CDC said our immune says, no, it is related, Pamela.

And let me say why, because the entire coverage of Bobby Kennedy is around measles. The Democrats said the word measles 25 times in the first hearing and said the words, obesity, diabetes, and chronic disease, zero time. The HHS priority document under president Biden said the word equity 25 times. Said the word vaccine.

MATT LECH: Sorry, pause it one more second. I, I really get frustrated hearing people like this talk and think they should [02:05:00] be muzzled. But just say there's a reason that measles comes up with RFK because he has a history of lying or spewing his bullshit about vaccines that kills people. You search RFK American Samoa.

He's killed kids with his bullshit. 

EMMA VIGELAND - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: And now it's spreading to West Texas. Um, there the it's Texas State Department health data shows that the vast majority of cases are among people younger than 18. Um, and the, the, it's mostly, uh, concentrated with kids who are unvaccinated or under vaccinated, meaning, meaning they've maybe only had one dose, but keep going.

CALLEY MEANS: I did not say the word obesity or diabetes. There is a problem right now because this is not zero. This is zero sum. We are focused on a very small subset that's important. We need good infectious disease management. Bobby Kennedy, Dr. Offit, is not correct. Bobby Kennedy has said one thing about vaccines and one thing only.

That they should be studied like any other product. Dr. Offit on the ACIP committee has [02:06:00] recommended vaccines that have ended up being required. 

MATT LECH: Sorry, um, when he says they should be studied, he says that I don't trust any of the studies that have been done for decades about things like autism and vaccines.

I think it needs to be studied until it confirms my biases. And you're really stupid if you can't understand that. 

EMMA VIGELAND - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: Um, nearly one in five incoming kindergartners in that area in Gaines County did not get the vaccine. That 18 percent vaccine exemption rate for the county is one of the highest in the state, according to data from the WOKES.

Oh, actually, it's the Texas Department of State Health Services, so. Oh. What a coincidence that measles is outbreaking in the area that has one of the highest vaccine exemption rates in the state. 

MATT LECH: I just looked up what this guy is, what TruMed is. TruMed is a company that helps people use their health savings accounts and flexible spending accounts.

That dumb financial bullshit is part of the [02:07:00] reason why Americans die. It's because no parasite like this idiot, Kali Means, is that his name? No, no parasites like him should be even involved in healthcare. Yeah. Doing some sort of finance, like, no. It should be, you know. Public insurance, publicly paid for, not this fancy new tax scheme to give some people health care.

This guy is a parasite. 

EMMA VIGELAND - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: But these are the anti vaxxers. They are the people. They are basically financiers are trying to make money off of them. What happened? Uh, wasn't RFK juniors like a charitable organization taking a bunch of shady donations and it was offshore or something like that? This is a business for these people selling you snake oil.

That, so an 18 percent vaccine exemption rate in this area that's getting this measles outbreak. Across, uh, the, the country, the national average is 4%. So it must just be a total coincidence

The Crunchy Mom To Alt-Right Pipeline - The Suburban Women Problem - Air Date 4-18-24

AMANDA WEINSTEIN - HOST, THE SUBURBAN MOM PROBLEM: Throughout history, men have been the face of alt right extremist movements. We think about this [02:08:00] sea of white men with red, Today, I'm going to be talking about the importance of men flooding the Capitol with American flags draped over their shoulders. Most of us don't picture modestly dressed women baking sourdough bread and preaching the importance of divine motherhood and the white racial purity of children.

TRAD WIFE 1: Today, I'm going to be talking about The Treadwith Movement. Being a wife and a mother should be your top priority, always. And that is what is so great about this movement. Order is coming back into place in a chaotic world. 

TRAD WIFE 2: No other society or culture, except the Western culture, which is built by Europeans, has been forced this, upon them, diversity and multiculturalism.

Hey y'all, welcome back to my channel. So today we are going to be [02:09:00] talking about boxed cake mixes and why they are tools of communism. 

AMANDA WEINSTEIN - HOST, THE SUBURBAN MOM PROBLEM: We've all seen crunchy mom or so called trad wife content on social media. It's usually a young millennial mother standing behind a kitchen counter talking about all the ways she lives a clean, traditional life.

They avoid modern medicine, eat only organic food, and typically oppose vaccinations. They want to live a more quote unquote traditional lifestyle. It's a very specific aesthetic, often presented as simple and natural. These traits are commonly associated with people on the left. But what happens when you go so far left that you end up on the far right?

SEYWARD DARBY: A big project within my wider project of the book was to dispel the idea that there is any one type of person who gets involved in white nationalism. 

AMANDA WEINSTEIN - HOST, THE SUBURBAN MOM PROBLEM: Sayward Darby is the author of Sisters in Hate, American Women on [02:10:00] the Front Lines of White Nationalism. After the election of former President Donald Trump, Sayward went on a search for the women involved in white nationalism to highlight their role in the movement.

One of the women she followed, Ayla Stewart, was a self professed feminist turned online tradwife personality. She went viral for what she called a white baby challenge, where she challenged others to have more white babies than she had. 

SEYWARD DARBY: I think it may come as a surprise to some people that women who had previously sort of professed to be uber liberal, um, you know, very, um, All organic foods like want to raise their own food.

Um, you know, very kind of bleeding heart on the, on like the edge of the left, so to speak, could radicalize in such a pendulum or seemingly pendulum swinging direction. But we have actually been seeing that type of radicalization happening, um, for, for quite a long time, particularly in the, [02:11:00] in the internet age.

And so I was really interested to understand that trajectory. What I discovered, really, was that it's actually not so much a pendulum swing, it's that people who are very, very sort of far to the left on, um, on the, it's not even political spectrum exactly, I mean politics is part of it, but it's sort of just like a way of interacting with the world.

It's actually more like a little jump, if you think of it as a circle, you know, you kind of jump from one side to the other. And if you think about You know, this sort of obsession with freedom from, um, impurity, freedom to, you know, raise your children how you want to raise them, um, freedom from influences you don't like, a sense of control, really, over, you know, the curation of your child's existence.

It's really not that much of a leap from, um, Being very lefty to actually being much more, you know, authoritarian, quite frankly. 

AMANDA WEINSTEIN - HOST, THE SUBURBAN MOM PROBLEM: Now to be clear, there's [02:12:00] nothing wrong with making sourdough bread or trying to live a more simple life. The danger comes when you take that small step forward and turn a quote unquote clean life into something far more extreme.

TRAD WIFE 1: Hi guys and welcome back to my channel. Today I'm going to be giving some tips for the ladies on how to achieve A masculine man, a provider man. In order to be approached, you have to be approachable. So there's that saying feminine fit and friendly. And I highly agree with that. You should be smiling a lot at the cashiers who are checking you out.

Or when somebody opens the door for you say thank you and smile You of course should be putting effort into your look whether you are into makeup or hair or Anything like that if you are just putting on sweat pants and a loose shirt and a hair and your hair in a bun I promise you you will feel better and feel more approachable when you put more effort into the way you look So I challenge you if you are the type [02:13:00] that likes the lululemon or the sweat pants for a whole week Put yourself in maybe jeans or put dresses on and skirts on and it will make such a big difference I promise.

There are some great feminine jobs out there that won't put you in that masculine dominating energy, but more so in that nurturing and feminine energy. Some of these feminine jobs are nannying and babysitting. I love babysitting. I think it's a lot of fun to be around energetic kids. Another one would be teaching or teachers aid because I believe to be a teacher you have to have a bachelor's I think.

Nursing is also a great occupation because you are caring for people, you are nurturing, it's not super dominating and aggressive. 

AMANDA WEINSTEIN - HOST, THE SUBURBAN MOM PROBLEM: The transition happens slowly, sometimes before you even realize it's happening in the first place. 

SAMANTHA: So many people are not just documenting their lives, they're creating their own brands.[02:14:00] 

And It's usually very aspirational, you know, it's a woman in either a modestly, you know, decorated home with neutral colors or bright colors. There's like a child on her hip, she's whisking things with a smile on her face, talking about how happy she is to have found this holistic medicine. There's a weird purity spiraling is actually what the far right and what other people call it.

AMANDA WEINSTEIN - HOST, THE SUBURBAN MOM PROBLEM: That was Samantha, an employee at Life After Hate, a nonprofit that works to help people leave the far right and lead compassionate lives. Samantha, who wishes to keep her last name anonymous, is an exit specialist and peer mentor. She works to help people exit extremist movements and provides the support they need to rebuild their lives.

SAMANTHA: There was a channel on the far right that, that had this, uh, a YouTube channel. They had like their own little sub YouTube channel, and it was just this blonde woman. And she would always, it was [02:15:00] like, I'm going to be making these sugar cookies, or I'm going to be making this like Swedish, traditional, Meal or whatever and you wash it and you're like, wow, I really love that recipe and like how it's all whole foods and this and that and then you realize it's a sub channel you go on to the main channel and it happens to be like, yeah, don't go tanning because it will ruin your white skin and you kind of you just fall into it.

SEYWARD DARBY: In the case of coded language and the way that people might not even know what they're being told and fed, um, you know, what we've seen particularly in the last seven, eight years, but it was really going on well before that too, is again, not necessarily overt, you know, are you a white person? Do you also hate other people?

It's that's not the message, right? The message that often draws people in is more, okay. Do you feel dissatisfied with your life? That can mean your personal life, you know, [02:16:00] the political situation that you find yourself in, that you think the country is in. Do you believe that, you know, you're not being told everything about how we got here?

Do you feel like there are things you can't say because it's no longer politically correct, um, to say, you know, I don't want to live in an urban environment because people will call you racist, or, you know, all of these things. It's kind of appealing to these, like, racist, quite frankly, instincts that I think a lot of Americans, white Americans, you know, have instilled in them just by virtue of the society that we live in and being told that those things are okay and that there's a community that will support those impulses.

And then it gets more intense and it gets more explicit in its racism. So, you know, radicalization is not as simple as, you know, an existing white supremacist organization Identifying a person who hates people who aren't white. Like that's not how this works. It's more looking for people who are susceptible, who are vulnerable.

Credits

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: That's going to be it for [02:17:00] today. As always, keep the comments coming in. I would love to hear your thoughts or questions about today's topic or our upcoming topics, which include the widespread and predictable corruption endemic to the Trump administration, followed by the resistance, such as it is, to the hostile takeover of the government.

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The additional sections of the show included clips from Democracy Now!, Hood Politics, The PBS NewsHour, Inside the Hive, On Point, the Brian Lehrer Show. Front Burner, CounterSpin, The Majority Report, and Red Wine and Blue. Further details are in the show notes. 

Thanks to everyone for listening. Thanks to Dion Clark and Erin Clayton for their research work for the show, and participation in our bonus episodes. Thanks to our transcriptionist trio, Ken, Brian and [02:18:00] Ben for their volunteer work helping put our transcripts together. Thanks to Amanda Hoffman for all of her work behind the scenes and her bonus show co-hosting. And thanks to those who already support the show by becoming a member or purchasing gift memberships. You can join them by signing up today at BestOfTheLeft.Com/Support, through our Patreon page, or from right inside the Apple Podcast app. Membership is how you get instant access to our incredibly good and often funny weekly bonus episodes, in addition to there being no ads, and chapter markers in all of our regular episodes, all through your regular podcast player. You'll find that link in the show notes along with a link to join our Discord community, where you can also continue the discussion. And don't forget to follow us on any and all new social media platforms you might be joining these days. 

So coming to you from far outside the conventional wisdom of Washington, DC, my name is Jay!, and this has been the Best of the Left podcast coming to you twice weekly, thanks entirely to the members and donors to the show from BestOfTheLeft.Com.