this post was submitted on 28 Nov 2024
358 points (97.9% liked)

News

23444 readers
3728 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.


Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.


7. No duplicate posts.


If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners.


The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

Summary

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Donald Trump’s pick for Health and Human Services secretary, has a history of extreme rhetoric and conspiracy theories about vaccines.

In previously unreported comments at autism conferences, Kennedy likened vaccination programs to Catholic Church abuse scandals and Nazi death camps and argued for jailing vaccine scientists.

He has falsely claimed vaccines cause autism and accused public health agencies like the CDC of corruption and hiding vaccine dangers.

Critics fear his leadership could dismantle vaccine safety efforts, decrease public trust, and disrupt public health policy.

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] Droggelbecher 75 points 5 days ago (3 children)

Fuck the vaccines cause autism argument. Like even if it were true. I'm autistic. You're telling me you'd rather your child die than be like me? Speaks volumes to how much hate you have both for people like me and your own child.

[–] CitizenKong 15 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Also (without wanting to belittle your condition), if the choice is between autism and life in an iron lung, I'd take autism.

[–] Droggelbecher 6 points 4 days ago

Can't speak for everyone, I'm quite high functioning. But 100% same.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] [email protected] 26 points 5 days ago

If vaccination is just as bad for children as the Catholic church then he's going to ban both of them, right? 🙄

[–] [email protected] 21 points 5 days ago (1 children)

He looks like someone that would be an expert on child abuse

[–] FlyingSquid 12 points 4 days ago

Considering he decided to take his kids with him when he went to saw that whale's head off and they had to ride back in the car with the whale's head on top wearing tarps but still getting covered in "whale juice," and his daughter just told that story casually in an interview a few years ago, I'm guessing he's got quite a bit of experience in abusing children.

Maybe not the way the Catholic Church does, but...

[–] nman90 63 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Even if it happened to be true, obviously it's not, RFK isn't attacking the church over their rampant abuse. Definitely speaks volumes.

[–] LifeInMultipleChoice 14 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (6 children)

Wait, so Christians voted not only for a president who clearly isn't Christian, but also a man from a Catholic family who disowned the church and speaks against them? Don't get me wrong, I'm perfectly fine with everyone bashing the Catholic Church until they find ways to root out all the evil within, but how did Christians vote for him when they were claiming Trump (the man who stands against all of Jesus's teachings) was the Christian choice.

Maybe I'm wrong and he didn't abandon the Catholic Church though, just calls them evil while joining them for mass? Idk

[–] Hazor 21 points 6 days ago

Decades of propaganda have convinced Christians that Republican=Christian, and the last decade of propaganda have convinced them that Trump is a good Christian man anointed by God and all the bad stuff they might hear about him is just Democrat lies. Many, if not most, honestly don't know the half of Trump's evils, let alone believe them.

load more comments (5 replies)
[–] [email protected] 55 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Holy fucking shit this guy is going to be in charge of stuff

[–] [email protected] 44 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (4 children)

The CDC has been involved in genetically sequencing strains of the virus and working on vaccine development, in exactly the kind of preparedness we need for a very deadly virus that could go pandemic at any time. RFK has promised to end vaccination programs and force vaccines off the market, and he's about to be put in charge of the CDC. The whole world will be worse prepared for a bird flu pandemic thanks to his wacky antivax views, and many, many people will die in the USA and elsewhere as a result. This is a virus that by some measures has a fatality rate of 51%, whereas COVID was probably somewhere between 1% and 2%.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 6 days ago (2 children)

It's sad. But every single Trump voter who is also anti-vax deserves to actually experience the consequences of their actions.

[–] FlyingSquid 15 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Their children, who they won't vaccinate, do not.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

Also all the rest of us. People all around the world will suffer the consequences of Trump voters' ignorance. An unvaccinated USA will be a huge pool in which any pandemic virus can linger and mutate.

[–] AnUnusualRelic 5 points 5 days ago

Like the first time, the next Spanish Flu will be a US export.

[–] Hackerman_uwu 6 points 5 days ago (4 children)

They should read Roald Dahl’s letter.

“Read” …sorry guys, I say some crazy things.

load more comments (4 replies)
[–] [email protected] 11 points 6 days ago (4 children)

I don't fully understand why the deaths of tens of millions or more helps corporations maintain cheap labor?

What's the conservative benefit here? Simply suffering?

[–] Diplomjodler3 13 points 5 days ago

Yes. They enjoy making people suffer. Nothing gives them more satisfaction than making people suffer and then being worshipped for it by those same people.

[–] diffusive 11 points 6 days ago

Votes. People vote with emotions and fear is one of the most powerful emotion.

This is for giving the various people scared by a world where there are (and will be) more and more deadly diseases (due to intensive farming and whatnots) a simple, reassuring and deadly wrong answer: it’s all a big conspiracy theory for big pharma to make money and for the government to control your brain and Bill Gates to steal your top candy crush score.

This is the same technique at work with economy btw: economy is scary and complex…here a simple answer “Trump will fix it because he is rich so he understands money”

Democrats talk to rationality (and sometimes rationality crosses emotions e.g. with abortions rights), Republicans talk to emotions, where facts, interests, justice doesn’t matter

load more comments (2 replies)
load more comments (2 replies)
[–] splonglo 11 points 4 days ago (1 children)

In his defence he has a worm in his brain.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 4 days ago

And now he gets to dictate public health policy.

[–] Hazor 31 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (3 children)

Can you imagine what it'd be like if mandatory childhood vaccines are eliminated? Can you imagine what a resurgence of measles or even polio would be like?!

No, you probably can't, because vaccines made them non-issues before most of us were even born. And now they might come back because some dullard thinks he knows better than actual doctors and scientists. Dunning and Kruger must be crying themselves to sleep these days.

[–] FlyingSquid 18 points 5 days ago
[–] somethingsnappy 8 points 6 days ago (2 children)

He will probably try to roll back washing hands and quarantine. Then XDR TB will roll up and kill waaaay more than most other things. But, to be fair, some of the other things will kill more quickly.

load more comments (2 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 22 points 5 days ago (1 children)

People like these will end up causing thousands of deathsand untold suffering

At the inevitable end, when people finally realize what normal people already have known for a century (that none of these policies work) I expect them all to be punished appropriately. None of this "one death is a tragedy but a million deaths is a statistic" bullshit, if multiple homicides gets you life, what should thousands get you?

[–] Maggoty 11 points 5 days ago

We politely clap for the paintings of a former president who lied to get us into a war and got thousands more Americans killed. He did this for political and financial gain, not because the US needed to go to war. So fraud on a massive scale with thousands of murders.

Make sure to clap.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 5 days ago (8 children)

Prosecute the Catholic Church first, then we might take your point seriously.

load more comments (8 replies)
[–] iAvicenna 18 points 5 days ago (1 children)

promote raw milk (likely infested with H5) to people at the same time as demonizing vaccines. surely that can't go wrong.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 days ago (4 children)

When I was a kid, my grandma would send me to a nearby farm to get raw milk. It was then brought to a boil at home, the top skimmed, for making pastries, and then consumed. It was way better tasting than store bought, but it was boiled.

load more comments (4 replies)
[–] [email protected] 16 points 5 days ago

Gaslight
Obstruct
Project

Fuck fascists.

[–] Potatisen 19 points 6 days ago

I just imagine a worm that caved out a little den with a bunch of tunnels running throughout the brain. Wormo got a couch and two sticks with a big red button in between that he's using to control RFK. When he pushes the button it sends a shock through RFKs brain and he says something, like a tick. Every now and then something in another room fucks up so Wormo has to leave the sticks and jiggle-wiggle over to fix the issue and leave RFK unattended.

🪱

[–] [email protected] 17 points 6 days ago (1 children)

He is ready to make Polio great again!

[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 days ago

And measles and mpox and, finally for many of us, bird flu.

[–] distantsounds 13 points 6 days ago (1 children)

So are people just gonna go along with ‘ole worm for brains’?

[–] Diplomjodler3 10 points 5 days ago

They went along with Diaper Don, so yeah, they will.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 6 days ago (2 children)

Why are we trusting a rich guy with a brain worm

[–] 800XL 7 points 6 days ago

Because we've been told for eons that to be rich you have to be smart.

Most of the time we don't know all these fucking dumb rich people inherited their money instead of earning it themselves so we assume they're smart too.

Hey we'd all be rich too if mommy and daddy gave us seed money and the expertise of their business advisors for free.

Hell, I'm still confused why anyone gives a shit about the Kennedys. They are so stupid they bought into lobotomy despite everything saying how dumb it was to do.

Rich people are dumber than middle class and poor people.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 days ago (1 children)

I'm always curious how people with opposing views on serious topics stay married. I guess if he's just some kooky anti vaxxer on his own it doesn't affect much, but if he starts doing serious damage by being the guy in charge, I wonder if it'll force Cheryl Hines to confront some issues about him.

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments
view more: next ›