Planning a study
Kennedy’s woo infects the CDC:
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is planning a large study into potential connections between vaccines and autism, two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters, despite extensive scientific research that has disproven or failed to find evidence of such links.
In other news, NASA is planning a large study into the potential flatness of the earth.
The CDC’s move comes amid one of the largest measles outbreaks the U.S. has seen in the past decade, with more than 200 cases and two deaths in Texas and New Mexico. The outbreak has been fueled by declining vaccination rates in parts of the United States where parents have been falsely persuaded that such shots do more harm than good.
Kennedy, whose role includes authority over the CDC, has long sowed doubt over the safety of the combined vaccine for measles, mumps and rubella (MMR). In a cabinet meeting last week, Kennedy initially downplayed news that a school-aged child had died of measles in Texas, the first such death in a decade, calling such outbreaks ordinary and failing to mention the role of vaccination to prevent measles.
In other words Kennedy is a reckless self-involved idiot who thinks he knows better than the people who have actual medical training and that it’s just fine for him scare people away from getting vaccinated. Let the dangerous disease run rampant!
A complete and utter waste of time and resources. Kennedy has made no commitment to accept the results of any such study. Unless and until Kennedy commits to change his position if the study finds no link, and to advocate for vaccination, it will only serve to further undermine the CDC, and science in general. It’s a no-win situation for the researchers.
Sadly one can always buy the study one wants to enhance one’s position. Tobacco , Pharmaceutical, Petroleum, and many other businesses have proved this time and time again.
Kennedy will get the result he wants, there’s more than one Andrew Wakefield available for hire. And it won’t matter what other researchers have to say, the CDC imprimatur is all he needs.
Isn’t this exactly the sort of wasteful government spending that should attract the attention of Musk?