In The Politics of Autism, I analyze the myth that vaccines cause autism. This bogus idea can hurt people by allowing diseases to spread. Examples include measles, COVID, flu, and polio. A top antivaxxer is HHS Secretary RFK Jr. He is part of the "Disinformation Dozen." He helped cause a deadly 2019 measles outbreak in Samoa.
He has now hijacked the CDC website -- and the CDC itself.
Erika Edwards at NBC:The South Carolina measles outbreak is growing at an astounding speed.Melanie Zanona and Brennan Leach at NBC:
“Over the last seven to nine days, we’ve had upwards of over 200 new cases. That’s doubled just in the last week,” Dr. Johnathon Elkes, an emergency medicine physician at Prisma Health in Greenville, South Carolina, said during a media briefing Friday. “We feel like we’re really kind of staring over the edge, knowing that this is about to get a lot worse.”
On Friday, the state’s health department said that 124 measles cases had been diagnosed since Tuesday, bringing the state’s total since the outbreak began last fall to 558.
A spokesperson for the South Carolina Health Department said in an email that “eight people, including adults and children, required hospitalization for complications of the disease since the start of the outbreak.” It was unclear how many people are currently hospitalized.
During the Friday briefing, Prisma Health pediatric infectious disease specialist Dr. Robin LaCroix estimated that 200 people are now “actively infected.”
President Donald Trump encouraged Rep. Julia Letlow, R-La., to primary Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., for his U.S. Senate seat in a post on Truth Social Saturday evening.
"Should she decide to enter this Race, Julia Letlow has my Complete and Total Endorsement. RUN, JULIA, RUN!!!" Trump wrote....
NBC News previously reported that the White House has assured Letlow that its support would be there if she chooses to jump into the race. But White House officials didn’t want to get involved too early in the primary for fear of alienating Cassidy, who chairs a key committee and has provided some pivotal votes for the GOP last year — including to confirm Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Cassidy voted to impeach Trump for "incitement of insurrection" and has also been critical of Kennedy. However, Cassidy has not brought Kennedy in for an oversight hearing before the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee since May, despite the secretary's promise to appear before the Committee "on a quarterly basis" if requested.
Cassidy invited Kennedy for a hearing to review changes at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in September, but the Senator continues to tell NBC News that there is no date set for that hearing to take place.
