> For instance, last month, Kennedy canceled nearly $500 million in grants that supported developing mRNA vaccines to prevent the next pandemic. In June, Kennedy fired all 17 highly qualified and respected experts on a vaccine advisory panel for the CDC—the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices—which sets the vaccine standards and insurance coverage for the country. Kennedy quickly restocked ACIP with hand-selected members who share his contempt for mRNA vaccines and pandemic policies. He's currently considering adding more such members.

I’ve heard a lot recently about the fall of the Roman Empire and how lots of people died of the plague at the end which meant they weren’t able to maintain social order, military, etc.

I wonder if that’s what’s gonna happen to the US. The next pandemic will come and maybe next time instead of “only” 1.2 million people dying it’ll be many more. Someone might take advantage of that when that happens.

Never thought I'd have to get a passport just so I could go to another country to get a vaccine. But I guess I have to get used to living in a third world country, which is what the United States has decided it wants to be.

For comparison the UK NHS latest is

>For autumn 2025, COVID-19 vaccination will be offered to:

adults aged 75 years and over

residents in care homes for older adults

individuals who are immunosuppressed

so not that different, although you can pay to get vaccinated privately if you are not in those groups. I had various covid jabs in the past but there doesn't seem much point for most people these days.

I'm curious if there anything in the constitution that is interpreted as giving the power to gatekeep medical treatments to the federal government as opposed to the states?

At this point hundreds is millions (billions) of people have received the shot. If there were widespread adverse events, they would have impacted a non negligible fraction of humanity.

I do not understand why Covid makes conservatives so angry. It happened. People died. We have a shot, that is not all that different from other routine vaccines. Why is it so special?

This is wild. I spend most of each day helping my 75+ and disabled parents. I've stayed extremely up to date with my covid shots because I want to reduce the chance that I pass anything to them, either through just not getting infected or being able to get over it as quickly as possible if I do get infected.

The most depressing part of this is that an administrator has any say in this at all, as opposed to letting the science/data speak for itself.

Trump loves superlatives, so he must be enjoying having the most anti-science administration in hundreds of years.. FDA, EPA, CDC, NASA all being hit.

Just waiting for the new gov dept of witchcraft and animal entrail divination to be created.

[flagged]