RFK at the wheel

 

Or if you can trust it if it is.

UPDATE 02/18/2025:

Because he embarrassed himself with Covid

He's ordered a stop to NIH research, stopped reporting to the public on health issues, and...

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Going down fast

US President Donald Trump has signed an executive order to begin the process of withdrawing the US from the World Health Organization (WHO).

"Oooh, that's a big one," the newly inaugurated US president said as he approved the document after arriving back at the White House. It was one of dozens of executive actions he put his signature to on day one in office.

This marks the second time Trump has ordered the US be pulled out of the WHO.

Trump was critical of how the international body handled Covid-19 and began the process of pulling out from the Geneva-based institution during the pandemic. President Joe Biden later reversed that decision.

  MSN

President Donald Trump will withdraw the United States from the Paris climate deal, the White House said on Monday.

The announcement is part of Trump's broader agenda to boost U.S. oil and gas production, and to 'drill baby drill!'

Trump also withdrew the U.S. from the Paris deal during his first term in office, although the process took years and was immediately reversed by Joe Biden in 2021.

America's second withdrawal is likely to take less time, perhaps as little as a year, because Trump will not be bound by the deal's initial three-year commitment.

  MSN

[In his inaugural address, Trump] announced the Gulf of Mexico was to be renamed the "Gulf of America" under hisadministration.

[...]

He is expected to sign an executive order renaming the Gulf of Mexico in one of his first moves as he retakes the White House.

  MSN

Bananas.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE 07:32 am:

President Trump said early Tuesday his staffers are "actively in the process of identifying and removing" over a 1,000 presidential appointees from the Biden administration, including retired U.S. Army Gen. Mark Milley and celebrity chef José Andrés.

[...]

Trump said on Truth Social his Presidential Personnel Office is targeting appointees from the previous administration "who are not aligned with our vision to Make America Great Again."

  Axios

Chef Andrés???

What Trump means is anyone who is not aligned with his Nazification of the country.

Trump identified four people in the post, whom he said he's issuing a notice of dismissal with "many more" to come soon.

"Jose Andres from the President's Council on Sports, Fitness and Nutrition, Mark Milley from the National Infrastructure Advisory Council, Brian Hook from the Wilson Center for Scholars, and [former Atlanta Mayor] Keisha Lance Bottoms from the President's Export Council — YOU'RE FIRED!" Trump wrote.

Jesus, what a juvenile POS.

And so much more.  From the Whitehouse:

In other words, whatever Joe Biden signed, Trump revokes.

Also, if you ask me, and I understand you didn't, Executive Orders are out of hand, but maybe that's because Congress abdicated its responsibilities a long time ago.

The King decrees:

MAGA  is now in the "find out" phase.

Remdesivir discouraged by WHO

On Thursday, a WHO review panel issued new guidelines recommending against the use of remdesivir for COVID-19 — even though the medicine is one of the few to win regulatory approval as a treatment for the disease.

After a clinical trial in April showed that remdesivir sped up the recovery of people with severe cases of the disease, the U.S. snapped up millions of vials of the drug from its manufacturer Gilead Sciences. Over the summer, European regulators rapidly signed off on the product, leading to nations around the world signing purchase agreements for the drug. And last month, the U.S. Food and Drug administration also signed off.

Now the WHO says remdesivir doesn't do much of anything to improve the health of people hospitalized with COVID-19.

[...]

Remdesivir gained even more prominence in October when it was given to President Donald Trump as part of his treatment after he contracted the virus.

The WHO panel says it's possible there may be some benefit from the drug. But its relatively high cost along with the risks posed by giving it intravenously led them to recommend against using it.

  NPR

But, hey...we've got the world's supply.

The retail price of remdesivir in the U.S. was set by Gilead at $520 a dose. A typical treatment course requiring six or more doses costs thousands of dollars per patient.

[...]

On Thursday, Gilead issued a statement saying it was disappointed in the WHO's decision. The pharmaceutical company and other advocates of remdesivir point to a National Institutes of Health study from April that showed the drug cut the recovery time for patients with severe cases of the disease by five days.

[...]

"When WHO guidelines are made, it involves different values that are much broader than the things considered by the FDA, which weighs very heavily the clinical outcome data."

Those broader considerations that the WHO is considering include the cost of remdesivir, the complexity of administering it in a medical setting, the potential risks giving it as an infusion — and weighing that against the potential benefits. Smith says the FDA, on the other hand, is looking primarily at clinical improvement from using the drug: whether patients' symptoms improve, whether fewer people die, for example.

"This is really consistent with how we think about health care in the U.S.," she says, "which is that we're willing to spend a lot of money on health care for a very small improvement. And that is not the model everywhere in the world."

Here, we're more than willing to enrich insurance companies.

Typical Trump - just stiff 'em

The administration of United States President Donald Trump said Wednesday that it will not pay more than $60m in dues it owes to the World Health Organization (WHO) and will use the money instead to pay down other contributions to the United Nations (UN).

[...]

Despite proceeding with the withdrawal, administration officials said the US will continue to participate in select WHO meetings and make one-time contributions to specific programmes during a one-year wind-down period.

  alJazeera

And who remembers how much Trump has complained over the years about other countries who aren't paying their dues?

Maybe the WHO should refuse to pay any attention to the US when it wants to "participate" in anything unless it pays its dues.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Trump's America

The administration of United States President Donald Trump has said it will not work with an international cooperative effort to develop and distribute a COVID-19 vaccine, because it does not want to be constrained by multilateral groups like the World Health Organization (WHO).

[...]

Some nations have worked directly to secure vaccine supplies, but others are pooling efforts to ensure success against a disease that has no geographical boundaries. More than 150 countries are setting up the COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access Facility, or COVAX.

[...]

The US-based biotechnology company Moderna is in the third phase of trials for its vaccine, meaning the vaccine has been approved for early or limited use - the last step before being made available to the market.

The final trial of the government-funded vaccine will involve about 30,000 individuals, but it is unclear when that phase will be concluded.

  alJazeera

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Trump has GOT to go

The US has formally notified the World Health Organization of its withdrawal, despite widespread criticism and an almost complete lack of international support for the move in the midst of a pandemic.

Donald Trump announced his intention to withdraw in May, accusing the WHO, without evidence, of withholding information, and of being too close to China. The letter confirming the move was delivered to the UN secretary general, António Guterres, officials confirmed on Tuesday.

[...]

Trump’s Democratic challenger for the presidency, Joe Biden, said he would return the US to the WHO before the year-long process of withdrawal was complete.

“Americans are safer when America is engaged in strengthening global health,” Biden said on Twitter. “On my first day as President, I will rejoin the @WHO and restore our leadership on the world stage.”

  Guardian

Why is this something the president can do on his own anyway?

Republican members of Congress have also urged Trump to keep the US inside the WHO to support reform. The administration has received almost no support for withdrawal from US allies, with the exception of the Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro, who confirmed he had tested positive for coronavirus on Tuesday.

Well, there's a recommendation for you.

Jesus Tapdancing Christ.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Ignoramus

And you thought it was an already developed country.  I've been telling you we're third world now.  Maybe after Trump leaves office we CAN become a developing country.

He's talking about funding the WHO and WTO.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Burn it all down

For an economy based on "defense" industry, ceasefires are disastrous.

Trump Nation

Global leaders have pledged to accelerate cooperation on a coronavirus vaccine and to share research, treatment and medicines across the globe. But the United States did not take part in the World Health Organization initiative, in a sign of Donald Trump’s increasing isolation on the global stage.

The cooperation pledge, made at a virtual meeting, was designed to show that wealthy countries will not keep the results of research from developing countries.

The meeting also represented a symbolic endorsement of the United Nations body in the face of Trump’s decision to suspend US payments and condemn its leaders as subordinates of the Chinese Communist party.

[...]

[A]n ad hoc grouping of 20 world leaders and global health figures were on the call, including the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, the French president, Emmanuel Macron, and the American philanthropist Bill Gates. Britain will co-chair a joint coronavirus global response summit on 4 May aimed at raising funds for vaccine research, treatments and tests.

[...]

Five pledges were agreed on the call:

Provide access to new treatments, technologies and vaccines across the world.

Commit to an unprecedented level of international partnership on research and coordinate efforts to tackle the pandemic and reduce infections.

Reach collective decisions on responding to the pandemic, recognising that the virus’s spread in one country can affect all countries.

Learn from experience and adapt the global response.

Be accountable, to the most vulnerable communities and the whole world.

The meeting also agreed to appoint two new special envoys to lead global cooperation on vaccine research and to help ensure equal access to any successful vaccines.

  Guardian

A Tale of Two Countries

Link

Link

WHO statement on coronavirus tests to the US

The World Health Organization (WHO) has had no discussions with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) about providing tests for the novel coronavirus amid its worldwide outbreak, a spokesman said.

Tarik Jasarevic told CNN on Tuesday that the U.S. normally doesn't work with the global health agency to provide testing to its citizens because the country typically is capable of producing tests on its own. He also said that WHO did not offer to give the CDC tests as it shipped hundreds of thousands to different countries dealing with the pandemic.

The comments came as the White House and CDC face continued scrutiny over the slow pace of testing for the novel coronavirus.

[...]

The CDC in early January said that it had developed an early version of its own test for the virus without following protocols generated by WHO. CDC said on Feb. 5 that it would begin sending tests to public health labs throughout the country. By that time, WHO had already sent more than 250,000 tests to more than 70 laboratories, CNN noted.

In the meantime, the U.S. struggled to launched broader testing for the virus, and some health labs said that testing kits weren't working as expected. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) said in early March that it would probe a manufacturing problem in the original testing kits.

[...]

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the CDC's National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, addressed the problems with testing on Tuesday, saying that neither President Trump nor the CDC should shoulder the blame for it.

"It was a complicated series of multiple things that conflated that just, you know, went the wrong way. One of them was a technical glitch that slowed things down in the beginning. Nobody’s fault. There wasn’t any bad guys there. It just happened," Fauci said on "The Hugh Hewitt" radio show.

  The Hill

Well..........it didn't "just happen". A technical glitch was caused by someone or something that got corrected.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

The earth has to fight back somehow

Wait.  Is sub-Saharan Africa not warm?  Because my president told me this thing would die out in warm weather.

Just how crazy can we get?

Why, yes.  Yes we did.

A resolution to encourage breast-feeding was expected to be approved quickly and easily by the hundreds of government delegates who gathered this spring in Geneva for the United Nations-affiliated World Health Assembly.

Based on decades of research, the resolution says that mother’s milk is healthiest for children and countries should strive to limit the inaccurate or misleading marketing of breast milk substitutes.

  NYT

Let me ask you this: why would nature not provide the proper nourishment for the babies of the female of any species? But that's what we've been told for decades.

Then the United States delegation, embracing the interests of infant formula manufacturers, upended the deliberations.

American officials sought to water down the resolution by removing language that called on governments to “protect, promote and support breast-feeding” and another passage that called on policymakers to restrict the promotion of food products that many experts say can have deleterious effects on young children.

[...]

Ecuador, which had planned to introduce the measure, was the first to find itself in the cross hairs.

The Americans were blunt: If Ecuador refused to drop the resolution, Washington would unleash punishing trade measures and withdraw crucial military aid.

[...]

In addition to the trade threats, Todd C. Chapman, the United States ambassador to Ecuador, suggested in meetings with officials in Quito, the Ecuadorean capital, that the Trump administration might also retaliate by withdrawing the military assistance it has been providing in northern Ecuador, a region wracked by violence spilling across the border from Colombia, according to an Ecuadorean government official who took part in the meeting.

[...]

The Ecuadorean government quickly acquiesced.

You read that right.

“We were shocked because we didn’t understand how such a small matter like breast-feeding could provoke such a dramatic response,” said the Ecuadorean official, who asked not to be identified because she was afraid of losing her job.

[...]

The showdown over the issue was recounted by more than a dozen participants from several countries, many of whom requested anonymity because they feared retaliation from the United States.

Health advocates scrambled to find another sponsor for the resolution, but at least a dozen countries, most of them poor nations in Africa and Latin America, backed off, citing fears of retaliation, according to officials from Uruguay, Mexico and the United States.

You can see why they would fear that.

“The resolution as originally drafted placed unnecessary hurdles for mothers seeking to provide nutrition to their children,” an H.H.S. spokesman said in an email. “We recognize not all women are able to breast-feed for a variety of reasons. These women should have the choice and access to alternatives for the health of their babies, and not be stigmatized for the ways in which they are able to do so.” The spokesman asked to remain anonymous in order to speak more freely.

They were just thinking of the mothers who can't breast feed when they threatened Ecuador.

The Americans also sought, unsuccessfully, to thwart a W.H.O. effort aimed at helping poor countries obtain access to lifesaving medicines. Washington, supporting the pharmaceutical industry, has long resisted calls to modify patent laws as a way of increasing drug availability in the developing world, but health advocates say the Trump administration has ratcheted up its opposition to such efforts.

They're just thinking of the... ... ... um, I don't have anything.

A 2016 Lancet study found that universal breast-feeding would prevent 800,000 child deaths a year across the globe and yield $300 billion in savings from reduced health care costs and improved economic outcomes for those reared on breast milk.

[...]

“It’s making everyone very nervous, because if you can’t agree on health multilateralism, what kind of multilateralism can you agree on?” [the director of the Global Health Centre at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva] asked.

I think you answered your question in your question.

“What happened was tantamount to blackmail, with the U.S. holding the world hostage and trying to overturn nearly 40 years of consensus on best way to protect infant and young child health,” she said.

In the end, the Americans’ efforts were mostly unsuccessful. It was the Russians who ultimately stepped in to introduce the measure — and the Americans did not threaten them.

Imagine that.

“We’re not trying to be a hero here, but we feel that it is wrong when a big country tries to push around some very small countries, especially on an issue that is really important for the rest of the world,” said [a Russian] delegate, who asked not to be identified because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

Since Russia has been known for some time to push around some very small countries, I'd say this is just another little hint to His Lardship who's in the driver's seat before the Trump-Putin summit.

[T]he American delegation sought to wear down the other participants through procedural maneuvers in a series of meetings that stretched on for two days, an unexpectedly long period.

Without directly trying to pressure the Russians, of course.

In the end, the United States was largely unsuccessful. The final resolution preserved most of the original wording, though American negotiators did get language removed that called on the W.H.O. to provide technical support to member states seeking to halt “inappropriate promotion of foods for infants and young children.”

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:



And nobody was denying women access to formula with this resolution.  And if there are many women who need the opeiton of formula because of malnutrition and poverty - poverty?  is formula cheaper than breast milk, dickwad? - then how about we address the issue of poor, malnourished women instead of propping up the formula industry?

God, these asshats and their arguments are sickening.

Mugabe out

The World Health Organization says it has removed the Zimbabwean president, Robert Mugabe, as a goodwill ambassador following outrage among donors and rights groups at his appointment.

[...]

“Over the last few days, I have reflected on my appointment of His Excellency President Robert Mugabe as WHO goodwill ambassador for NCDs in Africa. As a result I have decided to rescind the appointment,” [WHO’s director general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus] said in a statement posted on his Twitter account @DrTedros.

  Guardian

I should hope so. What in god's name was he thinking? I'm slightly suspicious about his qualification to lead the organization after that. Aside from the fact that Mugabe is a nasty piece of work, he's 93 years old, ffs.

Several former and current WHO staff said privately they were appalled at the “poor judgement” and “miscalculation” by Tedros, elected the first African head of WHO in May.

Maybe we should be asking why he's trying to rehabilitate Mugabe. And did he think no one would notice?

Mugabe was head of the African Union (AU) when the bloc endorsed Tedros - a former health and foreign minister of Ethiopia - over other African candidates for the top post, without any real regional contest or debate, they said.

Let's look into Tedros.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.