RFK Jr.'s CDC may limit Covid shots to 75 and up, claim they killed kids | Hacker News Reader

RFK Jr.'s CDC may limit Covid shots to 75 and up, claim they killed kids

arstechnica.com

31 pointsbarbazoo14 comments

> 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.

"I wonder if that’s what’s gonna happen to the US."

it already happened, we are gathering beach trinkets while the actual tsunami is gathering momentum, this state of affairs isnt just U.S.

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?

That's relevant only as long as they're following the constitution. Were the tariffs under emergency powers constitutional? Was it constitutional to send the National Guards to the cities without the permission of the corresponding state governor? You need to acknowledge the reality before seeking a solution.

True, but it seems that the system of federal government is now showing it's weakness - a single point of failure that can easily be abused and broken by someone determined to do so. It seems that Trump is intent on systematically destroying the government, department by department, whether by incompetence and/or design. The constitution does not appear well suited to handle this challenge, and the republicans anyways don't appear inclined to hold their man in check to abide by the division of powers that the constitution lays out.

Maybe it's time for the individual states to assert control and challenge the federal assumption of powers that are not constitutionally given to them.

I'd argue that it's a failure of democracy rather than federalism. Trump is not a single person -- he was elected by a majority, and if that election were re-run today it would likely have the same result. His party holds majorities in both houses of Congress. I see little evidence that there is widespread opposition from his supporters.

The Constitution was designed for some resistance to tyranny-of-the-majority, but it was not absolute. It took decades of effort to subvert it -- most notably by focusing on the Supreme Court.

When the majority is that deeply opposed to the minority, then it may be time to reconsider whether this specific federation can continue. Which is too bad -- establishing hard borders would weaken everybody. But the union itself no longer appears sufficiently united to make any kind of system work.

"Medical treatments" were barely even a thing when the Constitution was written. "medicine" was still mostly folk remedies and witchcraft. Vaccinations were a new thing in the late 1700s and Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin and George Washington supported vaccinations even though at the time it was a far more dangerous and risky technology than it is now.

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?

Because conservatives are, by definition, people who don’t deal well with change. I wouldn’t go that far, but I’ve heard it called a mental illness masquerading as a political position (well, there may be something to that in some cases).

They were mad that work was interrupted, and if they ever wore any masks at all, they weren’t high quality respirators that are actually awesome to wear in the winter or allergy/smoke season—they were either uncomfortable (humidity built up inside the mask, hard to get people to hear you clearly, fiddly rubber bands hurt your ears or mess up your hair) or ineffective (low filtration, worn without a good seal).

So they want to argue that it was all unjustified and we should just ignore the next pandemic so we can stick to how it’s always been done, because that’s more comfortable.

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.

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

Oh, please don't give them any ideas.

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