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Pixeloid's avatar

"Given that we’re still in reasonable danger of a future bird flu pandemic, that is technology that could come in handy, so as to avoid another 1.2 million people dying."

If bird flu jumps to Humans we won't have to worry about another 1.2 million dying. Since bird flu has about a 50% mortality rate in humans, it would be more like 60 million.

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nick kelly's avatar

When I saw on TV RFK heading over on the stage to shake T's hand as he endorsed T. I thought: 'who would want this nut's endorsement?' It's a negative for T, who doesn't need any more.

Well what do I know? Question: which is crazier. Trump running the economy or RFK running health? Prognosis: not good for either/

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Marycat2021's avatar

I am convinced that Trump revels in having appointed loonies and morons to his cabinet, and has done so as a way to destroy the federal agencies these dipshits ostensibly "run." Never mind that these figureheads are dangerous to the country, the worst of them being RFK Jr. That jerk has the car keys to start up an enormous hearse which he will fill up with corpses, if given the chance. All so that Trump can run the country into the ground. And hey, with Lee Zeldin heading up the EPA, within a few years there will be no forests left; think of how sick we'll be then.

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Timothy M Dwyer's avatar

To Paraphrase the estimable and honorable Ernst from Iowa, “we’re all gonna die”, but RFK intends to streamline the process….

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Zyxomma's avatar

Ta, Robyn. To say I'm appalled would be such an understatement that I'll say nothing. I can say I hope RFK Jr. gets what he deserves. I'll not say that involves being on a respirator at the end of his miserable, worthless life.

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Marycat2021's avatar

And may his personal hell consist of having to swim for eternity in a pool of raw sewage while worms eat what's left of his brain.

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Ron Spangler's avatar

Shit like this really makes me want to see those Epstein files.

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simpledinosaur's avatar

These types run with Nietzsche's "Whatever doesn't kill me makes me stronger" notion. Trouble is, that's sort of crazy if you take it too literally. If I get a horrible disease or have a catastrophic accident, I'm not going to emerge "better for it." Bullshit! These things are traumatic and have long-lasting effects, and not one of them is good. RFK Jr should stick to lifting heavy barbells and doing 500 pushups an hour, or whatever the hell his regimen is, and leave the science to others.

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thephantomcheese's avatar

That also goes backwards. What doesn't make you stronger kills you.

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marxalot's avatar

we slew one of the horsemen of the apocalypse. we straight up eliminated plagues that had taken a tithe and more of humanity for as many generations as we’ve been living in buildings. there is no more smallpox. we were on track to wipe out measles. childhood vaccination had made it so that, even in places where the extractive rapaciousness of colonization and its violent sequels had shortened lives and limited technological and medical access, more people lived to twenty five than ever before. we had our hand around the throat of pestilence, and then, what, some people who have never wanted for anything or understood the size of the mechanisms required to make their lives so easy looked at a needle and got scared? decided that medicine couldn’t possibly work as well as claimed, and since it couldn’t it didn’t, and since it didn’t they shouldn’t have to use it, and should get something else instead?

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Marycat2021's avatar

Interestingly, one of RFK's siblings has said that his delusions about vaccines and health care began in his childhood after his father was assassinated. It appears that he's never stopped looking for a magical path to immortality, and has never stopped blaming the very doctors who save lives for their failure to save his father. Weird, because logically, he should be devoting his life instead to stopping gun violence.

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simpledinosaur's avatar

That's one of the main rhetorical arrows in the demented Republicans' quiver. If a vaccine isn't 100% effective at prevention, they'll say it's useless. And if a social program doesn't make everybody whole, well then, it's a "boondoggle" and we must eliminate it. It's the most childish thing imaginable, and they've been talking that way for decades. Now they have just the crew to apply the principle to all of government and society, including health care.

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Marycat2021's avatar

When one starts out by denying medical science and believing all social programs are catering to lazy people, everything is a boondoggle. That's the GOP.

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Bagels of Doom's avatar

Nothing I can say about this that won't get me banhammered.

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Ponderful's avatar

This doesn’t get enough press. This defunding of research is going to cost lives. I think our billionaires ought to pony up the money.

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Hank Napkin's avatar

Why does RatFKJr persist in thinking he's doing Atmosphere on Madmen?

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Goonemeritus's avatar

Sure, but I got the COVID vaccine in 2020 and now I'm five years older. No one warned me that the COVID jab would age me.

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Lionel “8647” Hutz's avatar

Who needs a bird flu vaccine? Just start rubbing yourself with any feathers or dead birds you find on the ground, and you will be just fine.

Bob Kennedy did all the science so you don't have to!

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Goonemeritus's avatar

I missed my chance, we had several snow goose's die in our field here in the Finger Lakes. I stupidly disposed of them without licking them.

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Khavrinen's avatar

"It’s natural, right? Everything that’s natural is good. Like arsenic."

Perhaps good ol' Bobby-J could demonstrate this for us...

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T L Mills's avatar

We wish.

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Always Be Ithacating's avatar

"According to the CDC ... " – I feel like we need a small set of abbreviations to denote whether something a US government agency says is from a reliable era in its history, or likely issued by Trump lunatics, or has an unknown status. Something we can also use for analysis if and when these terrible times end.

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Free beach's avatar

The party of death.

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