Instead of feeling “shock and awe“ I think most of us are experiencing “predictability and disgust.“
This is all about centralizing the flow of information, as authoritarian regimes do. The enforcement of collective fictions comes next, which will result in more Covid, polio, measles, and maybe just another devastating pandemic via H5N1.
As long as we don’t know what’s happening, maybe it’s not happening. Doesn’t matter. Blind fealty to the great leaders does matter.
Last evening Chris Hayes presented a short bit on this topic, including showing the time when Trump told his audience that he had instructed his people to slow down the testing for Covid because the more you test, the more cases there are. I'm finding it very difficult to stay calm in the current situation. I realize that some things happen between administrations but I don't trust that things will bounce back to anything like what we are used to in the area of communication of data.
So it falls to each and every one of us to boost the truth. I recommend to all here, no matter how small your reach, to circulate Team YLE posts in whatever way you have available, including restacking on Substack in notes. Let’s get the numbers of subscribers rocketing up. And thanks to you, Ryan, for your conscientious devotion to the truth in your own Substack.
I agree, Susan! Information networks are still decentralized enough that good communication is possible, though currently blocked in many ways. More important now than ever to follow trusted sources like YLE, CIDRAP, TWiV, NEJM, quality people on Bluesky, etc
Yes. Agree 100%. The truth dies in darkness. While there will be people who, out of fear of retaliation or loss of profits, will agree to be silenced and kiss the ring of fascism, there are loads of doctors, scientists, and rational human beings who won't, and I hope they will continue to work on getting public health information out there one way or another. The common good is still important, folks. We need to stay strong and help keep truth in the pipeline.
I wish I could hold out hope that there are " more reasonable voices in the new administration." I don't think there are. I think the support for public health will have to come from outside this administration. Thank you Ryan.
It's the opposite of surprising, indeed. It's an entirely part of the dictator's playbook. Chaos is good for autocrats. Widespread disease is chaotic, therefore it's good for them. They have also laid the foundation that all disease is the caused by "filthy immigrants" who are "poisoning our blood."
So it's "double plus good" for them.
Same thing for weakening law enforcement. More crime = more fear = more likely to accept autocracy. Oldest trick in the book.
Thank you, I needed to read this today. State health department epidemiologist here, watching all my CDC meetings and calls get canceled well into February, and feeling pretty scared about it. It’s good to remember the longer view.
This situation brings out the absolutely critical role of state and local health departments in protecting the public’s health. For better or worse, state health departments have become increasingly dependent on federal funding, mostly through CDC, but they have always retained the responsibility for protecting the health of their populations, with or without Federal financial and technical support.
"So my prediction — which I hope proves false — is that when NIH and other health agencies emerge from the current freeze they will have been emasculated and politicized, prohibited from releasing information and research whose implications the Trump administration doesn’t like, banned from making policy recommendations that are inconvenient for Trump or at odds with the prejudices of the MAGA base."
So bird flu could explode to become human to human and as long as the numbers aren't being collected and reported it isn't happening. So no vaccine, no treatment plan, no worries about adequate staffing as hospitals can't handle the numbers of ill citizens. I know I'm exaggerating but that's where my mind goes when I think about the authoritarian dictates we are experiencing.
Yes! He and Dr. Jetelina are a formidable tag team today. I just wrote a comment on his site to encourage everyone there who hasn’t done so to subscribe to YLE. One thing we can all do to help out is to boost Team YLE posts by restacking them, as well as sharing them around with family, friends, and neighbors. Even if we each have small reach, all of our efforts can add up.
Thank you. As someone working in epidemiology education K-12, I want to add that it's important to keep up our educational efforts---in school, out of school, and with our neighbors. Keep communicating with your constituencies, families, and friends. Provide data that they might not have access to anymore. Let them know about what's happening with bird flu. If we need to do this through our own communication channels, then let's do it. And remember to support each other as we get through this marathon, which is still in its first mile.
Jan, thanks for this post. We must remain diligent and use our voices in spaces where messaging is not happening. WE in totality have the power to educate and inform those in our circle.
I am so happy I belong to this newsletter and I forward it on to those that need to get the relevant information that is shared here. My nephew has been buying raw milk for his family for a few years not knowing the danger (crazy) and he has stopped buying it because of Katelyn's information on the dangers of raw milk!
I am hoping that the investigative journalists will have ways, but really I'm thinking that the glitch will be that the info just is not being collected anymore so it's not there for anyone to find.
I think there will be leaks galore from the principled people who will remain working in their posts, and investigative journalists will report that way.
Of course, leaks involve risk, and with Trump & Co. positively slavering over revenge, the consequences to leakers can be high.
(By the way, although quitting on principle may be a noble action, not everybody can afford to do it. People depend on their jobs for their livelihood, for their families, for simple survival, and it's not easy to just up and quit, especially en masse.)
This is deeply disturbing, thank you for reporting. I’d hope that there are measures to stop this halt and censorship— but I’m unaware of them. Not burning out and holding steady is good advice for individual mental health but is there any action that will be effective to protect public health?
Thank you, as always, Dr. Jetelina, for your incredibly important work.
As for this: "we have to leave room for more nuanced conversations with the reasonable voices in the new administration who share the values of caring for the health of all Americans."
I don't see any reasonable voices in this administration. I don't see any nuanced conversations or possibilities thereof.
I realize you have to keep your powder dry, especially in your position of public prominence, which coud put you in the crosshairs of the vile goon in the White House and his criminal cabal, so I understand why you wrote that.
The rest of us out here know exactly what's going on and see with clear eyes the danger we're all in. The only consolation -- and I admit it's a small one, but at this point I'll take what I can get -- is that thanks to the criminality of Trump & Co., the next pandemic will take a lot of his supporters out of the gene pool.
(Yeah, yeah, everyone can spare me their pearl-clutching about how "terrible!" "awful!" "uncharitable!" that sentiment is. We are literally fighting for our lives in this country, and I'm not one of the killers; this administration is.)
Yours is the most fearlessly optimistic post I’ e read this week. Thanks for the reminders. For public health and other work of government. I will try to stay steady.
Public health is only one channel of the gaslighting that's going to be coming from this administration. I urge everyone to start keeping personal offline diaries.
I’ve had to back off from the amount of news I’ve been reading this week because my back has gone into spasm - for no reason that I can discern except stress and fury. Thank you for your counsel, which I will re-read often as a calming measure.
One big concern that I have is that the administration will use control of public health actions and communication to suppress any news of a bird flu pandemic in order to pretend that it doesn't exist.
I am referring to https://www.canada.ca/en/public-health.html as one alternative source. It's their CDC equivalent and after Illinois, it may be our closest reliable information here in Chicago.
Stun and disorient. Then take control of, well everything including information. This is true power. And leveraging our health and safety to do so. It’s even worse seeing it in action than it has been imagining it all these months.
Thank you so much for your work. I really appreciate the information that you are able to pull together and share. We need to keep sharing information as it is available. Thank you again. None of us should be surprised by what is coming from the current administration - unfortunately they are doing exactly what they said they would. We need to keep educating each other and keep the information flowing.
I have been earnestly leaving respectful comments on your newsletter for over two years now. I am a physician, engineer and former science editor for RFK Jr's CHD. You have repeatedly expressed concern over the shifting sands beneath our institutions of public health. You have cited poor communications during the pandemic response as a contributing factor. You have also accused misinformation spreaders like Kennedy as being culpable.
At the same time you have urged curiosity, listening and compassion when engaging with those who disagree. Yet you never have responded to my fair and measured critique of your assessments. Some of my comments on your previous posts are the most liked by your readers. I would suggest that if you are truly interested in public health it would make sense to respond.
I am part of the medical establishment. I am extremely concerned that the medical orthodoxy has lost public trust and that we may never regain it. This should be concerning to both of us. We are actually on the same team, but we just happen to disagree. The point here is that if new technologies emerge that are truly safe and efficacious what good will it be if the public doesn't trust them? All of the medical professionals I work with complied with the vaccine mandates. Very few of them plan on complying again. I know. I have asked them myself.
As you pointed out, a temporary gag order has been placed on the CDC, NIH and FDA. That order came from the new administration, and it was delivered by Stefanie Spear, the newly appointed deputy chief of staff at the HHS. Did you know that Stefanie was the managing editor of the Defender, CHD's online publication? She and I worked together daily for over a year, making sure that what we published was airtight and could not be debunked by an army of experts. As you might imagine, this sudden shift in power is head spinning to us as well.
To be clear, there was no dearth of topics to write about during the dark days of 2021 and 2022. The CDC's MMWRs offered more than enough misinformation to keep us busy. You have treated these reports as gospel--analyses done by experts that could not and should not be contested. Interestingly it was an MMWR that got me to open my eyes back in the spring of 2021. It had to do with mask mandates.
I don't claim to be an expert on RNA viruses, immunology or infectious diseases. I am an anesthesiologist. I happen to be very good at keeping people alive under the most extreme situations. I am also intimately familiar with the benefits and harms of surgical masks. It was the CDC's MMWR published in March of 2021 that caught my attention. The authors of that report claimed that 10 months of data proved that there was an association between mask mandates and a decrease in the daily growth rate of Covid infections.
It didn't seem possible (for reasons that I explain in an article linked below). When I unpacked the CDC's methodology, it became clear that they were using dubious means of arriving at a predetermined conclusion. All it took was some basic knowledge of calculus and a willingness to download reams of data and do some number crunching to prove that the CDC was misleading the public. As an epidemiologist you will have no problem following my reasoning.
I couldn't believe that the CDC would do such a thing. But why? The answer came three days later. Then director of the CDC, Rochelle Walensky used this MMWR to issue new public guidance: Masks were effective, but were unnecessary if you were fully vaccinated. It suddenly dawned on me that this was a sneaky way of getting people to accept the experimental shots. It doesn't matter whether or not you believe in the Covid vaccines. The CDC was being manipulative. That's why they have lost public trust.
You are an epidemiologist. I am a physician on the front lines. We need to work together to hold our authorities accountable when mistakes are made, otherwise we will continue to lose public trust. I cite this article as just one of many MMWRs that have been misleading.
To all readers of YLE, please feel free to leave your comments on the piece below (I don't demand a paid subscription for that privilege).
You are correct, "The truth is, there's a lot we don't know yet." If there ever were a time to pause and take stock of what you know and why you believe what you believe it would be now.
I suggest that before you assume that I must be wrong you ask yourself why you are so sure that you and the CDC have been right this whole time.
"I am a physician, engineer and former science editor for RFK Jr's CHD." Well, useful of you to out yourself right up front so we know the kind of rank dishonesty and delusion you're dealing with.
BTW, as far as I have been able to determine, you are, in fact, an anesthesiologist. That does not make you a "a physician on the front lines" and gives you no authority to pontificate on subjects about which you clearly know nothing.
You also claim to be an electrical engineer, but I can find no evidence that you have any credentials in this area. It's an odd thing to boast about, given that even if it were true it would add noting to your credibility, such as it is.
He also outed himself by calling the Covid vaccines "experimental shots."
Vile lie.
Yet he couched it in a verbose post where he pretends to be so accommodating, so sensitive, so rational, so compassionate, so humane, so "why can't we all just get along?", when in fact it's all just a smokescreen.
I find your comment here surprising. Earlier you state:
"I don't see any reasonable voices in this administration. I don't see any nuanced conversations or possibilities thereof."
You really believe my comment above is not nuanced or reasonable? I think I made a coherent argument for why I take issue with much of the CDC's messaging. I offer an example to prove my point.
If you have some advice as to how one could, in your view, attempt to present a counter argument so that it won't be dismissed out of hand, I am all ears.
I certainly have views that run counter to Katelyn's. But I don't think anything I wrote above was disrespectful or disingenuous. I am sincerely concerned with the credibility of the medical establishment. I am a part of it, after all.
If you can refer to a part of my comment that was in any way inflammatory that would be helpful.
Straw man argument. I didn't say that anything in your comment was inflammatory. I said we can see what you believe by the posts and memes you promote.
The fact that you work with that quack RFK Jr., who has already done so much damage to public health and is poised to do more, speaks volumes. You call yourself, quote "an ardent supporter of RFK Jr." You promote anti-vax garbage and 9/11 conspiracy claptrap. In your original comment you called the Covid vaccines, quote, "experimental shots." You imply repeatedly that the Covid vaccine kills people. You extol J. D. Vance. You indicate that you belive in the "Deep State" and imply that the assassination attempt against Trump was a "Deep State" conspiracy. You tout astrology and claim that the solar eclipse portended some kind of global "awakening." Etc.
You can claim all you like that you're, as I said earlier, oh so reasonable and pretend not to understand how anyone could find your ideas dangerous -- that's called sealioning, by the way -- you can even bury a nugget of common sense here and there among the bilge, but that doesn't change the thrust of your rationalizations.
I didn't find you until the end of 2020 and have always said I wish I had found you sooner as it would have saved me a lot of the early pandemic stress and frustration as a frontline healthcare worker. I am so glad to have you from the very beginning of this next journey into uncharted territory. Thank you for your time and dedication. I hope you know how appreciated you are.
Instead of feeling “shock and awe“ I think most of us are experiencing “predictability and disgust.“
This is all about centralizing the flow of information, as authoritarian regimes do. The enforcement of collective fictions comes next, which will result in more Covid, polio, measles, and maybe just another devastating pandemic via H5N1.
As long as we don’t know what’s happening, maybe it’s not happening. Doesn’t matter. Blind fealty to the great leaders does matter.
Last evening Chris Hayes presented a short bit on this topic, including showing the time when Trump told his audience that he had instructed his people to slow down the testing for Covid because the more you test, the more cases there are. I'm finding it very difficult to stay calm in the current situation. I realize that some things happen between administrations but I don't trust that things will bounce back to anything like what we are used to in the area of communication of data.
So it falls to each and every one of us to boost the truth. I recommend to all here, no matter how small your reach, to circulate Team YLE posts in whatever way you have available, including restacking on Substack in notes. Let’s get the numbers of subscribers rocketing up. And thanks to you, Ryan, for your conscientious devotion to the truth in your own Substack.
I agree, Susan! Information networks are still decentralized enough that good communication is possible, though currently blocked in many ways. More important now than ever to follow trusted sources like YLE, CIDRAP, TWiV, NEJM, quality people on Bluesky, etc
Yes. Agree 100%. The truth dies in darkness. While there will be people who, out of fear of retaliation or loss of profits, will agree to be silenced and kiss the ring of fascism, there are loads of doctors, scientists, and rational human beings who won't, and I hope they will continue to work on getting public health information out there one way or another. The common good is still important, folks. We need to stay strong and help keep truth in the pipeline.
I wish I could hold out hope that there are " more reasonable voices in the new administration." I don't think there are. I think the support for public health will have to come from outside this administration. Thank you Ryan.
He learned his first time around. No more reasonable voices only loyalists.
It's the opposite of surprising, indeed. It's an entirely part of the dictator's playbook. Chaos is good for autocrats. Widespread disease is chaotic, therefore it's good for them. They have also laid the foundation that all disease is the caused by "filthy immigrants" who are "poisoning our blood."
So it's "double plus good" for them.
Same thing for weakening law enforcement. More crime = more fear = more likely to accept autocracy. Oldest trick in the book.
Thank you, I needed to read this today. State health department epidemiologist here, watching all my CDC meetings and calls get canceled well into February, and feeling pretty scared about it. It’s good to remember the longer view.
This situation brings out the absolutely critical role of state and local health departments in protecting the public’s health. For better or worse, state health departments have become increasingly dependent on federal funding, mostly through CDC, but they have always retained the responsibility for protecting the health of their populations, with or without Federal financial and technical support.
Paul Krugman, who is not typically hyperbolic wrote about this, with alarm:https://open.substack.com/pub/paulkrugman/p/donald-trump-wants-you-to-die?r=6q5yk&utm_medium=ios
"So my prediction — which I hope proves false — is that when NIH and other health agencies emerge from the current freeze they will have been emasculated and politicized, prohibited from releasing information and research whose implications the Trump administration doesn’t like, banned from making policy recommendations that are inconvenient for Trump or at odds with the prejudices of the MAGA base."
So bird flu could explode to become human to human and as long as the numbers aren't being collected and reported it isn't happening. So no vaccine, no treatment plan, no worries about adequate staffing as hospitals can't handle the numbers of ill citizens. I know I'm exaggerating but that's where my mind goes when I think about the authoritarian dictates we are experiencing.
Yes! He and Dr. Jetelina are a formidable tag team today. I just wrote a comment on his site to encourage everyone there who hasn’t done so to subscribe to YLE. One thing we can all do to help out is to boost Team YLE posts by restacking them, as well as sharing them around with family, friends, and neighbors. Even if we each have small reach, all of our efforts can add up.
Thanks for posting this, especially because he links to a splendid song "I was gonna die young".
Thank you. As someone working in epidemiology education K-12, I want to add that it's important to keep up our educational efforts---in school, out of school, and with our neighbors. Keep communicating with your constituencies, families, and friends. Provide data that they might not have access to anymore. Let them know about what's happening with bird flu. If we need to do this through our own communication channels, then let's do it. And remember to support each other as we get through this marathon, which is still in its first mile.
Jan, thanks for this post. We must remain diligent and use our voices in spaces where messaging is not happening. WE in totality have the power to educate and inform those in our circle.
I am so happy I belong to this newsletter and I forward it on to those that need to get the relevant information that is shared here. My nephew has been buying raw milk for his family for a few years not knowing the danger (crazy) and he has stopped buying it because of Katelyn's information on the dangers of raw milk!
I am hoping that the investigative journalists will have ways, but really I'm thinking that the glitch will be that the info just is not being collected anymore so it's not there for anyone to find.
I think there will be leaks galore from the principled people who will remain working in their posts, and investigative journalists will report that way.
Of course, leaks involve risk, and with Trump & Co. positively slavering over revenge, the consequences to leakers can be high.
(By the way, although quitting on principle may be a noble action, not everybody can afford to do it. People depend on their jobs for their livelihood, for their families, for simple survival, and it's not easy to just up and quit, especially en masse.)
This is deeply disturbing, thank you for reporting. I’d hope that there are measures to stop this halt and censorship— but I’m unaware of them. Not burning out and holding steady is good advice for individual mental health but is there any action that will be effective to protect public health?
Thank you so much for your wise words during this difficult time, and sending you all our support!
Thank you, as always, Dr. Jetelina, for your incredibly important work.
As for this: "we have to leave room for more nuanced conversations with the reasonable voices in the new administration who share the values of caring for the health of all Americans."
I don't see any reasonable voices in this administration. I don't see any nuanced conversations or possibilities thereof.
I realize you have to keep your powder dry, especially in your position of public prominence, which coud put you in the crosshairs of the vile goon in the White House and his criminal cabal, so I understand why you wrote that.
The rest of us out here know exactly what's going on and see with clear eyes the danger we're all in. The only consolation -- and I admit it's a small one, but at this point I'll take what I can get -- is that thanks to the criminality of Trump & Co., the next pandemic will take a lot of his supporters out of the gene pool.
(Yeah, yeah, everyone can spare me their pearl-clutching about how "terrible!" "awful!" "uncharitable!" that sentiment is. We are literally fighting for our lives in this country, and I'm not one of the killers; this administration is.)
Yours is the most fearlessly optimistic post I’ e read this week. Thanks for the reminders. For public health and other work of government. I will try to stay steady.
Public health is only one channel of the gaslighting that's going to be coming from this administration. I urge everyone to start keeping personal offline diaries.
I'm not sure I understand the basis of your suggestion. Can you say more about why this is a good idea?
Big Brother is watching?
I’ve had to back off from the amount of news I’ve been reading this week because my back has gone into spasm - for no reason that I can discern except stress and fury. Thank you for your counsel, which I will re-read often as a calming measure.
Yes, taking a break is a good idea!
One big concern that I have is that the administration will use control of public health actions and communication to suppress any news of a bird flu pandemic in order to pretend that it doesn't exist.
I am referring to https://www.canada.ca/en/public-health.html as one alternative source. It's their CDC equivalent and after Illinois, it may be our closest reliable information here in Chicago.
That's a really good idea, Adair! Thanks.
Stun and disorient. Then take control of, well everything including information. This is true power. And leveraging our health and safety to do so. It’s even worse seeing it in action than it has been imagining it all these months.
Thank you so much for your work. I really appreciate the information that you are able to pull together and share. We need to keep sharing information as it is available. Thank you again. None of us should be surprised by what is coming from the current administration - unfortunately they are doing exactly what they said they would. We need to keep educating each other and keep the information flowing.
Katelyn,
I have been earnestly leaving respectful comments on your newsletter for over two years now. I am a physician, engineer and former science editor for RFK Jr's CHD. You have repeatedly expressed concern over the shifting sands beneath our institutions of public health. You have cited poor communications during the pandemic response as a contributing factor. You have also accused misinformation spreaders like Kennedy as being culpable.
At the same time you have urged curiosity, listening and compassion when engaging with those who disagree. Yet you never have responded to my fair and measured critique of your assessments. Some of my comments on your previous posts are the most liked by your readers. I would suggest that if you are truly interested in public health it would make sense to respond.
I am part of the medical establishment. I am extremely concerned that the medical orthodoxy has lost public trust and that we may never regain it. This should be concerning to both of us. We are actually on the same team, but we just happen to disagree. The point here is that if new technologies emerge that are truly safe and efficacious what good will it be if the public doesn't trust them? All of the medical professionals I work with complied with the vaccine mandates. Very few of them plan on complying again. I know. I have asked them myself.
As you pointed out, a temporary gag order has been placed on the CDC, NIH and FDA. That order came from the new administration, and it was delivered by Stefanie Spear, the newly appointed deputy chief of staff at the HHS. Did you know that Stefanie was the managing editor of the Defender, CHD's online publication? She and I worked together daily for over a year, making sure that what we published was airtight and could not be debunked by an army of experts. As you might imagine, this sudden shift in power is head spinning to us as well.
To be clear, there was no dearth of topics to write about during the dark days of 2021 and 2022. The CDC's MMWRs offered more than enough misinformation to keep us busy. You have treated these reports as gospel--analyses done by experts that could not and should not be contested. Interestingly it was an MMWR that got me to open my eyes back in the spring of 2021. It had to do with mask mandates.
I don't claim to be an expert on RNA viruses, immunology or infectious diseases. I am an anesthesiologist. I happen to be very good at keeping people alive under the most extreme situations. I am also intimately familiar with the benefits and harms of surgical masks. It was the CDC's MMWR published in March of 2021 that caught my attention. The authors of that report claimed that 10 months of data proved that there was an association between mask mandates and a decrease in the daily growth rate of Covid infections.
It didn't seem possible (for reasons that I explain in an article linked below). When I unpacked the CDC's methodology, it became clear that they were using dubious means of arriving at a predetermined conclusion. All it took was some basic knowledge of calculus and a willingness to download reams of data and do some number crunching to prove that the CDC was misleading the public. As an epidemiologist you will have no problem following my reasoning.
I couldn't believe that the CDC would do such a thing. But why? The answer came three days later. Then director of the CDC, Rochelle Walensky used this MMWR to issue new public guidance: Masks were effective, but were unnecessary if you were fully vaccinated. It suddenly dawned on me that this was a sneaky way of getting people to accept the experimental shots. It doesn't matter whether or not you believe in the Covid vaccines. The CDC was being manipulative. That's why they have lost public trust.
You are an epidemiologist. I am a physician on the front lines. We need to work together to hold our authorities accountable when mistakes are made, otherwise we will continue to lose public trust. I cite this article as just one of many MMWRs that have been misleading.
To all readers of YLE, please feel free to leave your comments on the piece below (I don't demand a paid subscription for that privilege).
https://madhavasetty.substack.com/p/its-safe-to-drop-our-masks-but-not
You are correct, "The truth is, there's a lot we don't know yet." If there ever were a time to pause and take stock of what you know and why you believe what you believe it would be now.
I suggest that before you assume that I must be wrong you ask yourself why you are so sure that you and the CDC have been right this whole time.
Madhava Setty, MD
"I am a physician, engineer and former science editor for RFK Jr's CHD." Well, useful of you to out yourself right up front so we know the kind of rank dishonesty and delusion you're dealing with.
BTW, as far as I have been able to determine, you are, in fact, an anesthesiologist. That does not make you a "a physician on the front lines" and gives you no authority to pontificate on subjects about which you clearly know nothing.
You also claim to be an electrical engineer, but I can find no evidence that you have any credentials in this area. It's an odd thing to boast about, given that even if it were true it would add noting to your credibility, such as it is.
He also outed himself by calling the Covid vaccines "experimental shots."
Vile lie.
Yet he couched it in a verbose post where he pretends to be so accommodating, so sensitive, so rational, so compassionate, so humane, so "why can't we all just get along?", when in fact it's all just a smokescreen.
I find your comment here surprising. Earlier you state:
"I don't see any reasonable voices in this administration. I don't see any nuanced conversations or possibilities thereof."
You really believe my comment above is not nuanced or reasonable? I think I made a coherent argument for why I take issue with much of the CDC's messaging. I offer an example to prove my point.
If you have some advice as to how one could, in your view, attempt to present a counter argument so that it won't be dismissed out of hand, I am all ears.
I looked at your Substack bio and the articles and memes you're promoting.
I think we all know what we can do with your "respectful comments."
I certainly have views that run counter to Katelyn's. But I don't think anything I wrote above was disrespectful or disingenuous. I am sincerely concerned with the credibility of the medical establishment. I am a part of it, after all.
If you can refer to a part of my comment that was in any way inflammatory that would be helpful.
Straw man argument. I didn't say that anything in your comment was inflammatory. I said we can see what you believe by the posts and memes you promote.
The fact that you work with that quack RFK Jr., who has already done so much damage to public health and is poised to do more, speaks volumes. You call yourself, quote "an ardent supporter of RFK Jr." You promote anti-vax garbage and 9/11 conspiracy claptrap. In your original comment you called the Covid vaccines, quote, "experimental shots." You imply repeatedly that the Covid vaccine kills people. You extol J. D. Vance. You indicate that you belive in the "Deep State" and imply that the assassination attempt against Trump was a "Deep State" conspiracy. You tout astrology and claim that the solar eclipse portended some kind of global "awakening." Etc.
You can claim all you like that you're, as I said earlier, oh so reasonable and pretend not to understand how anyone could find your ideas dangerous -- that's called sealioning, by the way -- you can even bury a nugget of common sense here and there among the bilge, but that doesn't change the thrust of your rationalizations.
Brevity is a lost art.
Honest question- do you not worry about any of this?
I didn't find you until the end of 2020 and have always said I wish I had found you sooner as it would have saved me a lot of the early pandemic stress and frustration as a frontline healthcare worker. I am so glad to have you from the very beginning of this next journey into uncharted territory. Thank you for your time and dedication. I hope you know how appreciated you are.
Thank you for your diligence in reporting on these things. Your work is critical and appreciated.