https://www.reddit.com/r/LockdownSkepticism/comments/1bb6fz1/trumps_vaccine_rhetoric_sends_chills_through/

Trump’s vaccine rhetoric sends chills through public health circles
BY NATHANIEL WEIXEL - 03/09/24 12:00 PM ET
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Public health advocates are watching in growing alarm as former
President Trump increasingly embraces the anti-vaccine movement.

“I will not give one penny to any school that has a vaccine mandate or a
mask mandate,” Trump said in a recent campaign rally in Richmond, Va.

It’s a line Trump has repeated, and his campaign said he is only
referring to school COVID-19 vaccine mandates — but that hasn’t eased
fears that the GOP leader could accelerate already worrying trends of
declining child vaccination.

Trump “is an important voice. He has a big platform. And he uses that
platform, in this case, to do harm. Because he’s implying by saying that
we shouldn’t mandate vaccines, vaccines are in some ways ineffective or
unsafe,” said Paul Offit, a pediatrician and vaccine expert at the
Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

The ironic part, Offit noted, is that the Trump administration
kickstarted Operation Warp Speed, which helped drug companies use a
relatively new technology to make two very effective and safe COVID-19
vaccines in less than a year.

Throughout the campaign, Trump has performed a complicated tap dance
regarding COVID vaccines. He simultaneously wants to take credit for
their speedy development but has also criticized their use and knocked
his now former rivals for being too pro-vaccine.

In a post on Truth Social reacting to Biden’s State of the Union speech
on Thursday, Trump again claimed credit for the COVID-19 shots.

“You’re welcome, Joe, nine month approval time vs. 12 years that it
would have taken you!”

Every state and the District of Columbia requires children to get
vaccinated against certain diseases before they start school, including
measles, mumps, polio, tetanus, whooping cough and chickenpox. A plan to
withhold federal funding would have widespread impact.

“Like most states, Virginia requires MMR vaccine, chickenpox vaccine,
polio, etc. So Trump would take millions in federal funds away from all
Virginia public schools,” former GOP Rep. Barbara Comstock (Va.) wrote
in response to his campaign threat on X, formerly Twitter.

Since the public health emergency ended last May, no state requires
students to get the COVID-19 vaccine, while 21 states have laws
specifically banning schools from requiring COVID-19 shots.

Trump’s campaign says his comments only apply to states that mandate
COVID-19 vaccines — making it essentially an empty threat.

“If you actually listen to the entire section, and also if you’ve been
following his speeches for the past year, he’s talking about COVID
vaccines in addition to masks in the same breath. This isn’t anything
new,” Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung said in an email.

Experts say the politicization of vaccines has led to an increase in
hesitancy and is sparking more outbreaks of preventable diseases like
measles.

There have been measles outbreaks in 15 states this year, most recently
in Florida, where state Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo did not recommend
parents vaccinate their children or keep unvaccinated students home from
school as a precaution.

Instead, he sent a letter to parents advising them to make their own
decisions about school attendance.

Ladapo was appointed by Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) in 2021 and has since
aligned himself with anti-vaccine sentiments, primarily about the
COVID-19 shots.

Ladapo told people not to get the most recent shot and has drawn sharp
rebukes from the medical community — as well as federal health agencies
— for claims that the shots alter human DNA, can potentially cause
cancer, and are generally unsafe.

Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health
Association, said he worries that Trump is signaling he will empower
more people like Ladapo if he wins reelection.

“I worry about any administration that doesn’t follow good evidence and
good science, that they will put more and more people like them in their
administration,” Benjamin said.

“We know that Trump had some extraordinarily competent people [in his
first term]. But we also know that he had some extraordinarily
incompetent people, and that in many situations, some of the really
incompetent people carried the day because they aligned with his
philosophy,” Benjamin added.

Robert Blendon, a professor emeritus of health politics at the Harvard
School of Public Health, said the experience in Florida and the comments
from Trump are part of a much broader Republican backlash against public
health expertise and government mandates that can be traced to
anti-COVID policies.

“It isn’t that he’s just going after these anti-vaccine votes,” Blendon
said of Trump.

Trust in public health authorities has dropped precipitously among
Republicans since 2021, and Blendon said Trump is a symbol of that. The
anti-vaccine movement has never been associated with one particular
political party, whereas the public health backlash is strongly
Republican-centric.

“That’s made it very, very powerful,” Blendon said. “There are
Republicans in the House and Senate, who when they’re not investigating
public health, want to cut back the budget … so it has caught on within
the Republican base very widely.”

Whether it’s anti-vaccine specifically or anti-public health more
broadly, the sentiment is growing.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the
percentage of kindergartners whose parents opted them out of
school-required vaccinations rose to the highest level yet during the
2022-2023 school year.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a well-known vaccine skeptic who is running for
president as an independent, has gained a major platform to spread
misinformation and widely debunked claims about vaccines.

He has falsely claimed vaccines cause autism, falsely declared the
coronavirus shot is the world’s deadliest vaccine and questioned the
safety of shots’ ingredients.

Offit, the vaccine expert, said he thinks public health officials could
have done a better messaging job on the COVID-19 shots, and that by
mandating vaccines they “inadvertently leaned into a Libertarian left
hook.”

Still, Offit said he is concerned about the increasing anti-science
rhetoric from politicians like Trump.

“I feel like we’re on the edge of a precipice here … you have the most
contagious of the vaccine preventable diseases coming back to some
extent, and with Donald Trump basically casting aspersions on vaccines,
that’s only going to worsen.”

Michael Ejercito wrote:

>https://www.reddit.com/r/LockdownSkepticism/comments/1bb6fz1/trumps_vaccine_rhetoric_sends_chills_through/
>
>Trump’s vaccine rhetoric sends chills through public health circles
>BY NATHANIEL WEIXEL - 03/09/24 12:00 PM ET
>SHARE
>POST
>
>Unmute
>
>Captions
>
>
>Fullscreen
>
>Share
>
>Pause
>
>Public health advocates are watching in growing alarm as former
>President Trump increasingly embraces the anti-vaccine movement.
>
>“I will not give one penny to any school that has a vaccine mandate or a
>mask mandate,” Trump said in a recent campaign rally in Richmond, Va.
>
>It’s a line Trump has repeated, and his campaign said he is only
>referring to school COVID-19 vaccine mandates — but that hasn’t eased
>fears that the GOP leader could accelerate already worrying trends of
>declining child vaccination.
>
>Trump “is an important voice. He has a big platform. And he uses that
>platform, in this case, to do harm. Because he’s implying by saying that
>we shouldn’t mandate vaccines, vaccines are in some ways ineffective or
>unsafe,” said Paul Offit, a pediatrician and vaccine expert at the
>Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.
>
>The ironic part, Offit noted, is that the Trump administration
>kickstarted Operation Warp Speed, which helped drug companies use a
>relatively new technology to make two very effective and safe COVID-19
>vaccines in less than a year.
>
>Throughout the campaign, Trump has performed a complicated tap dance
>regarding COVID vaccines. He simultaneously wants to take credit for
>their speedy development but has also criticized their use and knocked
>his now former rivals for being too pro-vaccine.
>
>In a post on Truth Social reacting to Biden’s State of the Union speech
>on Thursday, Trump again claimed credit for the COVID-19 shots.
>
>“You’re welcome, Joe, nine month approval time vs. 12 years that it
>would have taken you!”
>
>Every state and the District of Columbia requires children to get
>vaccinated against certain diseases before they start school, including
>measles, mumps, polio, tetanus, whooping cough and chickenpox. A plan to
>withhold federal funding would have widespread impact.
>
>“Like most states, Virginia requires MMR vaccine, chickenpox vaccine,
>polio, etc. So Trump would take millions in federal funds away from all
>Virginia public schools,” former GOP Rep. Barbara Comstock (Va.) wrote
>in response to his campaign threat on X, formerly Twitter.
>
>Since the public health emergency ended last May, no state requires
>students to get the COVID-19 vaccine, while 21 states have laws
>specifically banning schools from requiring COVID-19 shots.
>
>Trump’s campaign says his comments only apply to states that mandate
>COVID-19 vaccines — making it essentially an empty threat.
>
>“If you actually listen to the entire section, and also if you’ve been
>following his speeches for the past year, he’s talking about COVID
>vaccines in addition to masks in the same breath. This isn’t anything
>new,” Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung said in an email.
>
>Experts say the politicization of vaccines has led to an increase in
>hesitancy and is sparking more outbreaks of preventable diseases like
>measles.
>
>There have been measles outbreaks in 15 states this year, most recently
>in Florida, where state Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo did not recommend
>parents vaccinate their children or keep unvaccinated students home from
>school as a precaution.
>
>Instead, he sent a letter to parents advising them to make their own
>decisions about school attendance.
>
>Ladapo was appointed by Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) in 2021 and has since
>aligned himself with anti-vaccine sentiments, primarily about the
>COVID-19 shots.
>
>Ladapo told people not to get the most recent shot and has drawn sharp
>rebukes from the medical community — as well as federal health agencies
>— for claims that the shots alter human DNA, can potentially cause
>cancer, and are generally unsafe.
>
>Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health
>Association, said he worries that Trump is signaling he will empower
>more people like Ladapo if he wins reelection.
>
>“I worry about any administration that doesn’t follow good evidence and
>good science, that they will put more and more people like them in their
>administration,” Benjamin said.
>
>“We know that Trump had some extraordinarily competent people [in his
>first term]. But we also know that he had some extraordinarily
>incompetent people, and that in many situations, some of the really
>incompetent people carried the day because they aligned with his
>philosophy,” Benjamin added.
>
>Robert Blendon, a professor emeritus of health politics at the Harvard
>School of Public Health, said the experience in Florida and the comments
>from Trump are part of a much broader Republican backlash against public
>health expertise and government mandates that can be traced to
>anti-COVID policies.
>
>“It isn’t that he’s just going after these anti-vaccine votes,” Blendon
>said of Trump.
>
>Trust in public health authorities has dropped precipitously among
>Republicans since 2021, and Blendon said Trump is a symbol of that. The
>anti-vaccine movement has never been associated with one particular
>political party, whereas the public health backlash is strongly
>Republican-centric.
>
>“That’s made it very, very powerful,” Blendon said. “There are
>Republicans in the House and Senate, who when they’re not investigating
>public health, want to cut back the budget … so it has caught on within
>the Republican base very widely.”
>
>Whether it’s anti-vaccine specifically or anti-public health more
>broadly, the sentiment is growing.
>
>According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the
>percentage of kindergartners whose parents opted them out of
>school-required vaccinations rose to the highest level yet during the
>2022-2023 school year.
>
>Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a well-known vaccine skeptic who is running for
>president as an independent, has gained a major platform to spread
>misinformation and widely debunked claims about vaccines.
>
>He has falsely claimed vaccines cause autism, falsely declared the
>coronavirus shot is the world’s deadliest vaccine and questioned the
>safety of shots’ ingredients.
>
>Offit, the vaccine expert, said he thinks public health officials could
>have done a better messaging job on the COVID-19 shots, and that by
>mandating vaccines they “inadvertently leaned into a Libertarian left
>hook.”
>
>Still, Offit said he is concerned about the increasing anti-science
>rhetoric from politicians like Trump.
>
>“I feel like we’re on the edge of a precipice here … you have the most
>contagious of the vaccine preventable diseases coming back to some
>extent, and with Donald Trump basically casting aspersions on vaccines,
>that’s only going to worsen.”

In the interim, we are 100% prepared/protected in the "full armor of
GOD" (Ephesians 6:11) which we put on as soon as we use Apostle Paul's
secret (Philippians 4:12). Though masking is less protective, it helps
us avoid the appearance of doing the evil of spreading airborne
pathogens while there are people getting sick because of not being
100% protected. It is written that we're to "abstain from **all**
appearance of doing evil" (1 Thessalonians 5:22 w/**emphasis**).

Meanwhile, the only *perfect* (Matt 5:47-8 ) way to eradicate the
COVID-19 virus, thereby saving lives, in the US & elsewhere is by
rapidly (i.e. use the "Rapid COVID-19 Test" ) finding out at any given
moment, including even while on-line, who among us are unwittingly
contagious (i.e pre-symptomatic or asymptomatic) in order to
"convince it forward" (John 15:12) for them to call their doctor and
self-quarantine per their doctor in hopes of stopping this pandemic.
Thus, we're hoping for the best while preparing for the worse-case
scenario of the Alpha lineage mutations and others like the Omicron,
Gamma, Beta, Epsilon, Iota, Lambda, Mu & Delta lineage mutations
combining via slip-RNA-replication to form hybrids like "Deltamicron"
that may render current COVID vaccines/monoclonals/medicines/pills no
longer effective.

Indeed, I am wonderfully hungry (
https://groups.google.com/g/sci.med.cardiology/c/6ZoE95d-VKc/m/14vVZoyOBgAJ
) and hope you, Michael, also have a healthy appetite too.

So how are you ?