Health and Sanity category archive

Via the Las Vegas Sun, Lisa Jarvis wants to know, “Why do we need explosive diarrhea to remind us public health matters?”

Follow the link for her thoughts on the matter.

RFK Jr. would be very disappointed in me.

I got two vaccinations yesterday.

Because, golly gosh gee, I believe in factual knowledge.

Inaction has consequences. So does willful ignorance.

A measles outbreak in south and central Pennsylvania is growing, especially among unvaccinated children and adults. . . .

We are a society of stupid.

One of the reasons that measles and other preventable diseases are making comebacks it that there has been a concerted campaign to undermine Americans faith in science. At the Psychology Today website, Lawrence T. White notes that

One of the most unsettling things about living in the United States today is the fact that millions of Americans have a low opinion of science and scientists. In one poll, 22 percent of adults said they have little or no confidence that scientists will act in the public’s best interests. Five years earlier, that number was only 12 percent (Pew Research Center, 2026).

It’s not a huge mystery why this is so. For years, prominent voices have been telling Americans that scientists should not be trusted.

Follow the link for his thoughts as to how to combat this contagion of ignorance.

Via The Japan Times, Lisa Jarvis considers the legacy of the Trump maladministration’s and of Elon Musk’s DOGE in the light of a spreading ebola epidemic in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Here’s a bit from her article (emphasis added):

. . . DOGE took a wrecking ball to that network. USAID was shut down practically overnight, which led to Ebola-prevention funding being “accidentally” canceled, as Elon Musk cavalierly noted. Musk at the time claimed it had been restored, but ultimately the health infrastructure was dismantled. Meanwhile, the CDC faced its own steep cuts and the U.S. — which had long been the WHO’s top funder — withdrew from the organization entirely.

While it’s too early to directly blame those cuts for the late detection of the current outbreak, one thing is certain: The decimation of USAID and the U.S.’ exit from the WHO will make containing the spread much more difficult.

Afterthought:

I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that the Trump maladministration and today’s Republican Party do not comprehend the concept of–nor give a tuppence for–the common good.

At the Psychology Today website, Christopher Lane discusses a recent book by Kira Ganga Kieffer, in which Kieffer explores whether (some) vaccine hesitancy in the U. S. may have religious roots.

In these times of measles outbreaks and other incipient infections, methinks his article is worth a look.

Via the Las Vegas Sun, the New York Times editorial board thinks that, under RFK Jr., the prognosis for infectious diseases bright–for the diseases, that is.

Not so much for people.

A snippet (emphasis added):

A vast majority of American children — more than 90% by most estimates — are still vaccinated for measles. But it takes a threshold of 95% to stop the illness from spreading, and in too many communities, the rates are lower than that already or falling fast. In Idaho, just 78.5% of kindergartners were vaccinated for measles last school year. Nationwide vaccination rates for several other diseases — including flu, hepatitis B, rotavirus, Hib, polio and whooping cough — are also down.