Trump's War On Medical Science
The last time he was president, Donald Trump faced a big crisis. His response to the COVID-19 pandemic was erratic at best (and even that's being charitable). Later, he and his followers demonized the doctors and medical experts who were desperately trying to save lives with their advice and recommendations -- so threateningly that President Joe Biden felt the need to pre-emptively pardon Dr. Anthony Fauci right before he left office. Biden feared that Trump would harass Fauci via the Justice Department, so he precluded it from happening.
This time around, President Trump is pre-emptively taking a wrecking ball to the federal government's medical establishment, in what can only be called a war on medical science. It was telling, during the early months of the COVID crisis, that Trump kept complaining that we were doing "too much testing." The numbers of people infected and hospitalized and dying were shooting up dramatically, after Trump had promised the country that they wouldn't. The solution, as far as Trump was concerned, was to just stop testing everyone. That way, there wouldn't be any big numbers to alarm everyone. Hey presto! Problem solved!
This is a rather juvenile approach to a problem, obviously. It is the equivalent of hiding your head in the sand, or sticking your fingers in your ears and screaming: "LA LA LA LA... I CAN'T HEAR YOU!!!" But Trump saw no problem with this approach.
Thankfully, we did keep on testing, and the medical experts were still allowed to make recommendations, and measures were put in place in an attempt to make life safer and to defeat the spread of the virus. Some of these measures worked better than others, but they were all instituted for safety's sake.
Trump is not going to let anything like that happen again. He is now waging a war on the scientists who would be responsible for making such recommendations, in a pre-emptive way. Today, Robert F. Kennedy Junior appeared before a Senate committee hearing to consider his confirmation to run the Department of Health and Human Services. Of course, Kennedy is woefully unqualified to head the department, since he has little or no experience running such a large organization and he also has little or no expertise in medicine or government programs that deal with health. Which makes him the perfect candidate for Trump to nominate, obviously.
Kennedy was not prepared for today's hearing -- he got basic facts about Medicare and Medicaid wrong, even though he will be in charge of administering both programs if he is confirmed. He will also be in charge of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, even though Kennedy is an anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist. The only truly good thing Trump did during COVID was to get a vaccine quickly developed and approved -- which is simply not going to happen as quickly if R.F.K. Jr. is in charge of things.
But while the R.F.K. Jr. hearing took center stage today, the truly frightening thing was what has been going on behind the scenes, throughout the government's health sector. Here's a quick rundown:
The National Institutes of Health, whose grants enable America's astonishing medical innovation, have been paralyzed this week by President Donald Trump's political commissars. One NIH website abruptly informed researchers around the country: "At the present time, all NIH-sponsored meetings are cancelled."
. . .
NIH "study sections" to review new grants have been canceled. Because travel funds have been frozen, senior researchers from NIH and the Food and Drug Administration won't be able to attend -- among many other examples -- a conference on HIV in early March in San Francisco, or one later that month on hepatitis B in Los Angeles. These diseases affect millions of people around the world, and conferences play a crucial role in sharing knowledge. But not this year, it seems.
The website of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention didn't show any signs of the policy changes being implemented internally. But medical professionals who depend on the CDC's data worry that its frequency and reliability could be affected. Take the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, a crucial indicator of the spread of disease. It failed to publish on Jan. 23. How long will this vital resource remain suspended?
A meeting this week of the Presidential Advisory Council for Combating Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria was canceled, according to STAT News. So was a February meeting of the National Vaccine Advisory Committee.
Doctors fear they could be blacklisted if they seem to be challenging the new public health regime. One doctor, who asked for anonymity for that reason, noted that the U.S. funding freeze is affecting global programs that depend on money from the U.S. Agency for International Development, which is on shutdown, too. A program called ICAP based at Columbia University works in more than 40 countries to fight tuberculosis, malaria, HIV and other diseases. It's on pause. So is a maternal and child health-care program at Johns Hopkins.
"Clinics overseas have been told to shut down, so treatment and preventive services around the world have been affected," said the doctor who requested anonymity.
Then, independent of this effort, the Trump administration tried to shut down all government grants and spending. Thankfully, a federal judge stepped in to smack this down, but not before the Medicaid site went down in all 50 states. Trump is trying to perform an ideological review of all spending, so he can end programs that, for instance, try to make sure medicines are tested on a diverse population, to study the effects on different groups of people. He's also trying to end all medical care for transgender people, again for ideological reasons.
The order to shut everything down caused chaos across the government. So today, in response to the judge, the White House served up some more chaos. It "rescinded" the original memo, but at the same time didn't rescind the shutdown itself. Nobody really knows what this means, least of all the people who are supposed to explain it to the public. The Washington Post attempted to put together a list of what would be affected and what wouldn't (and what they weren't sure about), and the first item on the list of frozen funds was: "Research Grants." Which means:
Some National Institutes of Health grants for research projects that are already underway were subject to the Trump administration's pause, according to an NIH employee who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the issue publicly. Affected researchers included those outside NIH who have received funds in previous years, said the person, who predicted disastrous results if it became impossible to plan experiments, pay staff members and buy supplies. NIH is the largest public funder of biomedical research in the world. The funding pause would have affected researchers at universities, medical schools and other research institutes outside of NIH who have received funds. A spokeswoman for NIH did not immediately respond to a request for comment late Tuesday.
Trump's shutdown attempts are having a much broader effect than just on health and medicine, of course. But it seems obvious that health services are a big target for team Trump. This is especially troubling since while America is not currently experiencing a pandemic, one may be waiting in the wings. So far, the bird flu has not made the leap to humans in an easily-transmissible form, but it could mutate at any time and do so. The efforts of the federal government to combat bird flu have so far been underwhelming, at best. This is the fault of Joe Biden, not Donald Trump, it bears mentioning, since it happened on Biden's watch throughout last year. But what will happen if bird flu does mutate, or if some different virus appears and attacks the populace?
During COVID, all the efforts to combat the spread of the virus were politicized by Trump and his MAGA followers. Everything was called into question and tinged by political ideology. If another pandemic hits, Trump is not going to follow any experts' advice, instead he is going to be leading the anti-science faction. No "freedoms" will be taken away, instead we'll all have the "freedom" to get sick and die.
How many of us do so may never be known, either. Because this time around, when Trump gets the idea "let's just stop all the testing," he will have in place a team of people who will obey him unquestioningly. And what could possibly go wrong with a plan like that?
-- Chris Weigant
Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant
these are real crises we're facing, and most of them are not Donald's fault.
JL,
When do you suppose Americans began losing faith in the integrity of their government?
I think it could be traced back to the early sixties with the JFK assassination and all of the lies and deception that surround it to this day.
JFK for sure. And Vietnam. And Nixon.
Today’s insanity makes perfect sense if Putin is making many of these decisions for Trump that objectively hurt America.
Elizabeth on [2]
What are the lies and deceptions about JFK's assassination that surround it to this day? As far as I can tell, the story is straightforward, though not pretty: Oswald did it, alone. Sure there are conspiracy theories, but they hold the kind of weight that all conspiracy theories hold: roughly zero, outside the conspiracists' imaginations.
I would say it was Vietnam, from the same period of the mid-60s, that could more likely be cited as the point when Americans began to mistrust the US government. On Vietnam, the authorities objectively lied to the people for years, and the people eventually found that out.
And as MtnCaddy adds, Nixon substituted for Johnson as another president, from the other party, who also lied to the people and was eventually caught in his lies. By the mid-70s, Americans were a LOT more cynical about their government than they had been in the previous era.
@liz,
1824
JL
Really!?? It's PRESIDENT Trump who has a war on medical science!!???
Nope.. PRESIDENT Trump has a way on DEMOCRAT medical "science"!. And rightly so..
These ridiculous claims from the woke progressive Democrats about PRESIDENT Trump’s so-called “war on medical science” is LAUGHABLE given the facts and the OBJECTIVE REALITY. It’s HILARIOUSLY funny how the woke progressive Democrats have turned this narrative into a weapon against anyone who dares to challenge their agenda. Let’s be clear on ONE SIMPLE FACT: it’s the Democrats who have a war on science, especially when it comes to the basic biological facts of life.
Take the issue of gender, for example. Woke progressive Democrats have completely ignored the medical science of biology, insisting that there are more than two genders. They’ve pushed this absurd ideology so hard that they’ve managed to create a culture where anyone who dares to say otherwise is labeled a bigot. The reality is that science clearly states there are two biological sexes, yet the left continues to peddle their nonsensical narrative. If that’s not a war on science, I don’t know what is!
Now, let’s talk about the COVID-19 pandemic. The left loves to blame Trump for everything that went wrong, but let’s not forget that it was the Democrats who politicized the entire situation. They turned public health measures into a partisan issue, and if you didn’t toe the party line, you were branded an enemy of public health. The pressure to conform was unreal, and anyone who dared to remain silent or question the narrative faced public shaming.
And what about the vaccines? PRESIDENT Trump’s Operation Warp Speed was a monumental achievement that got vaccines developed in record time. But instead of acknowledging this success, woke progressive Democrats have tried to rewrite history, claiming that Trump’s administration was reckless. The truth is, it was the Democrats who sowed doubt about the vaccines, undermining public trust in the very science they claim to uphold.
Now, let’s get back to the commentary at hand. CW wants to paint Trump as the villain for wanting to streamline the federal government’s medical establishment. But the facts are clear. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have been paralyzed by political correctness and bureaucratic red tape for years. The woke progressive Democrats have turned these institutions into echo chambers that prioritize ideology over actual science. This FACT is well documented.
The claim that Trump is waging a war on scientists is laughable. If anything, he’s trying to cut through the nonsense and get back to what really matters: protecting American lives. Woke progressive Democrats, on the other hand, are more interested in pushing their radical agenda than in addressing real public health concerns. They’ve created a culture where dissent is not tolerated, and if you’re not on board with their latest cause, you’re labeled as anti-science.
Let’s also keep in mind the chaos that ensued during the pandemic. The Democrats were quick to criticize Trump for his handling of COVID, but they were the ones who turned mask mandates and lockdowns into political statements. They’ve ignored the science that shows the negative impacts of prolonged lockdowns on mental health and the economy. Instead of focusing on real solutions, they’ve chosen to play politics with people’s lives.
Now, let’s talk about the staggering number of COVID-19 deaths that occurred under Basement Biden and Headboard Harris. The reality is that the vast majority of COVID deaths happened after Biden took office. Despite having the vaccines available, the Biden administration failed to implement a coherent strategy to combat the virus effectively. They flip-flopped on mask mandates, created confusion around booster shots, and allowed misinformation to run rampant.
In states like New York, where Governor Andrew Cuomo was celebrated by the left, the nursing home scandal resulted in thousands of unnecessary deaths. Biden’s administration didn’t hold him accountable; instead, they turned a blind eye. The Democrats’ mishandling of the pandemic has led to a tragic loss of life, and yet they want to blame Trump for everything that went wrong.
The truth is, the woke progressive Democrats have politicized every aspect of the pandemic response, and their failures are evident. They’ve ignored the facts when it suits their narrative and have created a culture of fear around dissent. If they truly cared about science and public health, they would focus on real issues instead of trying to tear down a president who has done more for this country than they ever could.
To sum things all up: the Democrats are the ones who have turned science into a political weapon. They’ve ignored the facts when it suits their agenda and have created a culture of fear around dissent. The real battle is not against Trump; it’s against the woke progressive Democrats who are determined to undermine the very foundations of science and reason in their quest for power.
It’s time for the American people to wake up and see through this charade. The real war on science is being waged by those who refuse to acknowledge basic biological facts and who politicize public health for their own gain.
Typo Alert..
Nope.. PRESIDENT Trump has a way on DEMOCRAT medical "science"!. And rightly so..
Nope.. PRESIDENT Trump has a war on DEMOCRAT medical "science"!. And rightly so..
JL,
these are real crises we're facing, and most of them are not Donald's fault.
Exactly...
The real crises we face in the here and now are a direct result of the woke progressive Democrats war on PRESIDENT Trump..
Admit it.. You are a little bit taken aback by the lengths that woke Progressive Democrats went to to try and prevent President Trump from being re-elected...
From actually trying to keep PRESIDENT Trump off of ballots to persecuting PRESIDENT Trump with novel and completely precedent setting legal maneuverings that have NEVER been tried to assassination attempts..
Even YOU must acknowledge that woke progressive Democrats went batshit crazy trying to stop PRESIDENT Trump...
All of THAT forms the foundations of the crises we see in the here and now...
@JMCT
Sure there are conspiracy theories, but they hold the kind of weight that all conspiracy theories hold: roughly zero, outside the conspiracists' imaginations.
Really???
I can point to a DOZEN facts in the here and now that started out as "conspiracy theories"..
Not the least of which was the "conspiracy theory" that the COVID pandemic began in a lab in China..
THAT was a "conspiracy theory"... Right up until the fact that it wasn't...
Yunno, if you want to have discussions here in Weigantia you could try to bring some INTELLIGENCE to the table.. :eyeroll:
I'm just sayin'....
Border Czar Tom Homan was asked about THE VIEW'S Joy Reid....
“She’s dumber than a box of rocks.
Bottom line is, let’s talk about Chicago for a minute. Chicago mayor says that we put fear in the elementary schools because ICE agents went to an elementary school — total false story. What ICE did in Chicago is save children. What we did in New York today is save children.
Just in Chicago alone, we arrested at least nine sexual predators, most of them child sex predators. We took them off the street. We took them off the street in New York today. We’re protecting the community. We’re saving children. We’re going to secure that border so less Americans die of fentanyl deaths. We’re securing the border so less women and children are sex trafficked.
Let's talk about what Joe Biden has done. The Biden administration has a 600% increase in sex trafficking. We’re securing the border so less terrorists and people on the terrorist watch list get into the country. Under Biden, we had a 3,500% increase in people on terrorist watch lists. No, we’re saving this nation. We make America safe again. So they need to get out of the way because we’re coming. We’re going to do it. They’re not going to stop us.”
-Border Czar Tom Homan
Isn't it great to have a Border Czar who... yunno... actually does some GOOD about the border???
Unlike Token DEI Hire Headboard Has Been Hooker Harris.. :eyeroll:
And just so ya know..
When Tom Homan said that Joy Reid from THE VIEW is dumber than a box of rocks..
That was fact checked..
And it was deemed factually accurate..
Joy Reid from THE VIEW *IS* dumber as a box of rocks....
And PRESIDENT Trump wins again!!! :D
Meta agrees to pay $25 million to settle Trump lawsuit over suspended accounts
Meta said Wednesday it would pay $25 million to settle a four-year-old lawsuit from President Donald Trump over the social media company’s decision to suspend Trump’s accounts after the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol.
Meta, the parent company of Instagram and Facebook, filed a notice of the settlement in federal court in San Francisco, where the lawsuit was pending. Meta spokesperson Andy Stone separately confirmed the terms: a $25 million payment from the company, with $22 million going toward a fund for Trump’s presidential library and the balance dedicated to legal fees and other plaintiffs in the case.
PRESIDENT Trump is wracking up ALL of these wins and everyone is jumping aboard the PRESIDENT Trump train!!! :D
Woke progressive Democrats are gonna get run over!!! :D
Isn't it a great day to be an American!!?? :D
And now let's talk about the scumbag woke progressive moron, FORMER General Mark Milley, the so-called “hero” who has turned into a traitor in the eyes of many Americans.
Let’s break down the absurdity of his actions and why he deserves every bit of condemnation coming his way. First off, Milley’s unauthorized contacts with enemy commanders during the 2018-2020 timeframe are nothing short of treasonous. He thought he could play the role of a rogue general, undermining the chain of command and putting national security at risk.
After the 2020 election, Milley reportedly took secret precautions to prevent President Trump from launching military action or using nuclear weapons. Who does he think he is? This isn’t some Hollywood movie where the general gets to decide what’s best for the country. He was supposed to be a loyal officer obeying the orders of the Commander-in-Chief, not a backdoor operator trying to thwart the will of the elected president.
And let’s not forget the fallout from the disastrous U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. Milley has been criticized for his role in that chaotic exit, which left American citizens and allies stranded. Instead of taking responsibility, he deflected blame and continued to play politics. It’s no wonder Trump has called him out for his failures.
Now, with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth removing Milley’s security detail and suspending his clearance, it’s clear that accountability is finally catching up to him. The Pentagon is right to investigate his conduct, and the fact that his portrait is being taken down is a fitting end to his tarnished legacy.
Let’s also talk about the preemptive pardon from Biden. This move reeks of desperation and a desire to protect Milley from facing the consequences of his actions. It’s a slap in the face to the military and to every American who believes in accountability. Milley’s actions have shown that he is more concerned with his own skin than with the safety and security of our nation.
In the end, General Milley’s behavior is a disgrace. He has undermined the very principles he swore to uphold, and it’s time for the American people to recognize him for what he truly is: a traitor who put his political agenda above the safety of our country. The military deserves leaders who are loyal, accountable, and committed to serving the American people—not self-serving individuals who think they can operate above the law.
Let's hope that the intense investigation that Milley is going to endure will expose OTHER malfeasance and derelictions of duty that this traitor CAN be prosecuted for..
The real crises we face in the here and now are a direct result of the woke progressive Democrats war on PRESIDENT Trump..
that's also false. most of the problems, like illegal immigration or research waste, are systemic, and can't really be legitimately blamed on any single individual or group.
Take the issue of gender, for example. Woke progressive Democrats have completely ignored the medical science of biology, insisting that there are more than two genders.
believing that there exist only two sexual genotypes, phenotypes and genders is like believing there are only four humors, and putting leeches on your stomach to suck out the bad blood. DNA analysis and MRI scans allow us to know more about the objective reality of sex and gender than we used to, so our vocabulary needs to adapt to account for the reality that's always been there, outside our ability to perceive it. if your set want to insist the earth is flat that's your business, but quite simply, it ain't. there are six genetic sexes, MANY atypical variations in primary and secondary sex characteristics, and EVEN MORE brain variations that help determine gender. those variations factually exist, and always have, regardless of whether or not all you flat-earthers want to admit it.
The reality is that the vast majority of COVID deaths happened after Biden took office. Despite having the vaccines available, the Biden administration failed to implement a coherent strategy to combat the virus effectively. They flip-flopped on mask mandates, created confusion around booster shots, and allowed misinformation to run rampant.
that is, quite simply, insane.
Donald mucked things up so royally in ten months that the clean-up took multiple years, during which hundreds of thousands died as a direct result of donald's decisions while in office. By the time Joe Biden took office, he was basically relegated to janitor status, cleaning up the Augean stables that, he'd been left at every level, including the rate of daily COVID deaths, and including a public so poorly informed that they had to be slowly and grudgingly brought to accept their part in fighting the pandemic. the right-wing take on this is the worst kind of lie, exploiting a simple statistic to forward a narrative that is completely and utterly false.
JL
that's also false. most of the problems, like illegal immigration or research waste, are systemic, and can't really be legitimately blamed on any single individual or group
I'll allow that woke progressive Democrats did not CREATE the border problems... You are correct in that there is a LOT of blame to go around..
But it's simply UNDENIABLE that woke progressive Democrats totally and completely exacerbated the existing problem to new heights..
Therefore my claim is not completely false..
believing that there exist only two sexual genotypes, phenotypes and genders is like believing there are only four humors, and putting leeches on your stomach to suck out the bad blood. DNA analysis and MRI scans allow us to know more about the objective reality of sex and gender than we used to, so our vocabulary needs to adapt to account for the reality that's always been there, outside our ability to perceive it. if your set want to insist the earth is flat that's your business, but quite simply, it ain't. there are six genetic sexes, MANY atypical variations in primary and secondary sex characteristics, and EVEN MORE brain variations that help determine gender. those variations factually exist, and always have, regardless of whether or not all you flat-earthers want to admit it.
Yes, there are mutations.. This is undeniably FACT...
But they ALL expand from 2 basic genders...
To claim that these mutations are actually new "genders" is simply not supported by the actual scientific FACTS...
Having said that, I am glad to see you accept the fact that GENDER is NOT a "state of mind" but rather a scientific biological fact..
That's progress.. :D
that is, quite simply, insane.
I understand that THAT is your OPINION on the matter..
But the facts are sound.. Basement Biden and Headboard Harris flip-flopping and then back again on COVID actions directly resulted in many hundreds of thousands of needless deaths.. Not to mention Cuomo's actions in NY State that ALSO resulted in needless death and suffering..
I'll be happy to list ALL the facts that prove these claims are the objective reality if you are so inclined.. :D
the right-wing take on this is the worst kind of lie, exploiting a simple statistic to forward a narrative that is completely and utterly false.
Except the FACTS prove this is completely and 100% factually accurate...
Would you like me to list ALL the facts that prove the claim is the objective reality...
I warn you in advance.. It's a VERY long list...