150 Comments

Thank you for all you do. You will be a beacon in the darkness coming.

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I second this comment. It’s going to take a lot of bravery to stand against misinformation and intimidation. Your guidelines for discourse are spot on. As a family doctor I’ve found your writing very helpful and essential throughout the pandemic. Here we go again with chaos. I’m giving hugs but stubbornly sticking with science as I pick myself up from a devastating election result. More ideas on discourse within the broader political, human arena:

https://mccormickmd.substack.com/p/hope-action-and-tears-in-devastating

Standing with you (on my smaller platform ;)

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I just subscribed to your now-slightly-bigger platform. Supporting independent journalists is going to be extremely important in the coming months/years of government-sponsored censorship.

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Please don't panic folks. We are witnessing a shift towards transparency and rigor from our agencies of public health. I understand why this readership is freaking out. This is an echo chamber. The real voices of clarity do not pay for a subscription here so you haven't heard from them and you don't seek them out. You are only listening to voices like Katelyn's who echo CDC PSA's and their data as if it cannot be questioned.

I am a physician and an engineer. I left my practice in 2021 to work for RFK Jr's Children's Health Defense as the Senior Science Editor for The Defender, our on-line publication. I have since left, but I still stand behind every single article I have written and edited for that organization. I have been leaving comments on this substack for two years. Katelyn has never responded to any of my questions and critiques.

Isn't that odd? One would think that she would be able to dismantle everything I share here in this public forum for the greater good.

Let me explain why there is such a growing "antivax" movement championed by Bobby and highly published physicians like Joe Ladapo. It has very little to do with so-called misinformation spreaders. It has to do with the public finally being informed about some difficult truths. The public is a lot smarter than you think.

1) Vaccine manufacturers cannot be sued if their products is found, even in an isolated case, to have caused harm. There is no other product like that. Obviously, there is much less incentive to do the proper safety testing if there are no consequences. The public knows this.

2) Nobody can deny that there has been an explosion of childhood diseases concomitant with the expansion of the CDC's childhood immunization schedule following the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986. OF COURSE correlation doesn't equal causation. But if there was some causation, this is EXACTLY what we would be seeing. The public knows this.

3) The CDC could easily dispel all suspicion by doing a large retrospective study examining the health of vaccinated and unvaccinated children with regard to chronic disease rates. They have the data. They have not done the study and they refuse to release the data. Why?? There is no reasonable answer to this question except for the obvious: They don't want to know the answer. The public knows this too.

4) During the Covid pandemic, the mRNA shots were authorized after an initial observational period of only six weeks on average. Note that the median observational period was two months. Mathematically, that means that half of the 40,000 participants were observed for less than four weeks at most. There is NO WAY to make any claim about long term safety yet the CDC simply states that these shots have been rigorously tested for safety. That is a lie. The public knows this.

5) I have never met a single person, scientist or otherwise, who has read RFK Jr.'s "The Real Anthony Fauci", who could debunk any of his claims. That book was released at the height of the pandemic and excoriates the record of the pandemic czar, yet no defamation lawsuit was ever filed. Why is that? Obviously it is because everything is true and the receipts are there for all to see. The public is well aware of this.

6) RFK Jr.'s message is finally getting out, and he is making sense. Why on earth would anyone be against having vaccines tested by the same standards we use for medicines? Instead of pointing out the obvious, that that is an excellent idea for public health, the media runs hit piece after hit piece on this man. For every person who reads those character attacks and smiles a knowing smile, there are two more that see this as a desperate attempt to squelch some difficult truths.

7) Every other commercial on legacy media is for some sort of pharmaceutical product. It's a joke. These companies don't pay hundreds of millions of dollars to run ads to sell more product. They are buying good media coverage. People are seeing this too.

8) The idea that the pharmaceutical industry is out to improve public health is ridiculous. These are for profit companies and their executives' first priority is to the shareholders. They don't make the most money curing diseases. That eliminates demand for their product. They aren't trying to kill everybody. That also decreases demand. Whether you are willing to consider it or not, the most profit is made when the public suffers from a chronic disease epidemic. That is what we have. Our Covid mortality rates were among the highest of any country despite access to the shots and our overpriced health care system. This is staring us in right in the face.

I have no animosity towards those who disagree with me. I am just calling it as I see it. This is the way the public is starting to see it too. Every effort to discredit the movement towards a healthy America with pejoratives like "antiscience" and "antivax" is going to backfire more and more. The public is waking up. Relax and give people like Kennedy and Ladapo a chance. Let's see what happens. We all want our kids to grow up healthy and happy.

Madhava Setty, MD

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These are good points and, of course, anyone who wants to listen and hear and really engage with what "the other side" has been saying, and be able to parse out what a censored and propagandized media millieu has placed on the table as a rebuttal would want to genuinely and honestly assess source material. So do take a look at Kennedy's The Real Anthony Fauci and check out its footnotes. Anyone with a college degree from an elite institution should be able to decide for themselves. This is what you were trained to do in graduate school. This brings me to what I would append to this list of 8 theses. I suggest that we add to the list the observation that credentialed, educated, academic located elites are not immune from material inducements to toe a certain line. Follow the money. Elite universities rake in more from gov't and philanthropic (sic) than they do from tuition. There are masters to pay and they are usually the ones that are funding you. It is funny how this all works. It works for everyone. We use morals and ethics and such to constitute conflict of interest protocols, but these things are insidious and shape shifting and curmudgeonly. The former president of Stanford resigned last year because he modified research so as to promote a certain line of reasoning and therefore subsequent funding that fit with a narrative. Corruption in our academic institutions is rife. It may be systemic, ie, the system creates it by an internal logic and force of nature. This makes me think of Ashish Jha, who sat at Brown Med School tweeting like there was no tomorrow, so he could get to the White House. Where is he now? Right back at Brown. And you wonder why public health is in a complete state of shambles as seen by "normal" Americans? Look no further than Stanford and Brown and then in the mirror. I am not accusing anyone of these types of actions, but the money is all with corporate pharmaceutical companies. How much money did Bill Gates make after investing $50mm pre pandemic in BioNTech? Gates' foundation invested in BioNTech pre IPO in September 2019 and sold in Q3 2022. Timing is everything and insider knowledge works best in capital markets. Follow the money folks!!! Come outo of your hole and smell the roses. It's gorgeous day out here!

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Gate's brags that his vaccine investments have returned far more than his Microsoft ownership.

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Well said. A lot of food for thought!

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You're the one making extraordinary claims here - it's up to you to substantiate them - which you aren't doing, it's not up to us to refute them. Yawn. Wake me up when you've got something.

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Nov 8·edited Nov 8

One thing that is greatly needed in Public Health is transparency.

Are the mRNA vaccines truly “safe and effective” or are vaccine injuries real? In which case, which types of people are most at risk for injuries and should they bypass the vaccines?

Is Moderna safe for young males?

Is Novavax better at stopping transmission and preventing infection than mRNA covid shots?

You get the picture. I hope the new administration embraces providing people with the information they need to make informed choices for themselves and their families.

Too often, in the past, it felt like Public Health officials opted to gaslight us and save face versus publicity admitting mistakes and updating recommendations.

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Nov 8·edited Nov 8

YLE is your best source for those topics, and I believe all of them have been covered in previous newsletters.

Kennedy, Ladapo & their ilk will share information that suits their worldviews. Whether you believe that to be reliable or not is up to you.

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I think informed consent was, and still is, sorely missing. Most people don’t know that the mNRA vaccines have not yet been fully approved by the FDA. They’re permitted pursuant to an EUA. As such, they are still experimental and we’re essentially participating in a medical experiment.

Kansas and Texas have initiated lawsuits against Pfizer for false and deceptive advertising in violation of their consumer protection acts. Several other states are expected to join. Pfizer has responded saying the cases have no merit. The issue boils down to one of informed consent. I expect this litigation to drag on for a long time.

I’m not a doctor or medical expert. I’m a retired CPA/Atty and have time to read a lot about this. If this post is misinformation I’d like to know and correct.

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founding

I must say, as a physician, informed consent is something we do every day, all day! There are risks and benefits to everything we do. In particular there are risks to not getting a vaccine that in most circumstances (not all) outweigh the risk of getting a vaccine of any type. I go through those in detail with all of my patients and their families. In most cases, they get their vaccines. If vaccines are refused, we have them sign a form stating that they have received information about the risk of refusal and are choosing to refuse anyway (my patients are children). They also sign to consent to receive the vaccine as well.

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Nov 8·edited Nov 8

Lawsuits mean absolutely nothing, especially when filed by power hungry AGs such as Paxton and Kobach. They can file a lawsuit against anyone/any company for anything. Doesn't make it valid.

If you want to look to a bunch of professional politicians - whose medical expertise consists of a law degree and zero clinical time - to help you determine whether a vaccine is safe, by all means, do so.

Here's a good summary of the difference between full FDA approval and EUA approval: https://www.yalemedicine.org/news/what-does-eua-mean.

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I'm sorry if my post offended you. I understand that lawsuits have varying degrees of merit which should be evaluated objectively. All I know about Kobach and Paxton is that they are elected state officials charged with enforcing their state laws. I read the Yale Medicine article you referred me to and it doesn't really add anything to what I already think that I know. Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't the Covid vaccines still only authorized under an EUA? I found this part of the article confusing:

"According to one study, over the past decade, the FDA approved 21 vaccines, mostly for flu or meningococcus. The median clinical development period (meaning from a Phase I trial to approval) was just over 8 years, including a median FDA review period of about a year.

For comparison, the COVID-19 vaccine from Pfizer-BioNTech, which was the first to receive an EUA, was under clinical development for six months before it submitted its EUA. An EUA was granted in less than a month; full approval was issued eight months later."

I'm aware of Comirnaty and Spikevax being fully approved, but to my knowledge, those aren't available in the US even though their formulation may very similar to the ones that are available here. So am I right or wrong when I say that the vaccines are still only under an EUA.

I hope I didn't offend you because I have a law degree. Critical thinking and rational thought are essential for honest discourse.

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I'm sorry that I'm being short, my GAF about what other people believe is broken, but it's nothing personal against you/your questions. I thought the Yale article would help, and I am not familiar enough with the ins and outs of the EUA vs full approval to be able to speak to the specifics. Perhaps someone else will chime in.

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The formulations are exactly the same. They're the same vaccine. You're spewing unsubstantiated conspiracy theories that nobody can reasonably be expected to keep up with. To anyone skimming the comments: If you read this one before Easy Ed's: don't bother, it's a waste of time.

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deletedNov 8
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If asking straight forward questions politely and respectfully is your version of being passive aggressive, I can’t discuss anything with you. Please wash your mouth out with soap.

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deletedNov 9
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As of November 8, 2024, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has fully approved the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines for individuals aged 12 and older. Specifically, Pfizer-BioNTech’s vaccine, marketed as Comirnaty, and Moderna’s vaccine, known as Spikevax, have received full FDA approval for this age group. For children aged 6 months through 11 years, these vaccines are authorized under Emergency Use Authorization (EUA). 

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Thanks! I'll be curious to see how their TV ads will market these products or whether they will even bother to do so. Aren't these old formulations designed to counteract the original strain and are no longer considered effective against the new strains? Can people who have not been vaccinated with the primary vaccine, still get the 24/25 booster shots without first getting the primary series, i.e., Comirnaty or Spikevax?

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The FDA’s approval and authorization of these updated mRNA vaccines aim to provide better protection against currently circulating variants of the virus. The agency continues to monitor the safety and effectiveness of these vaccines across all age groups.

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A drug having approval in a given country has nothing to do with whether or not "you are taking part in a medical experiment." As a lawyer, you should know that definitions matter and the definition of a scientific experiment is that it is a process designed to determine the correctness of a given hypothesis. In medicine this almost always means that there are controls, vetting of participants, and crucially observation of outcomes.

Taking a covid vaccines, approved under the FDA with full approval or EUA approval, Health Canada, or another countries standards body, simply means you are taking the vaccine. You are NOT taking part in any experiment as you taking the drug does not meet any of the properties of a science experiment.

Science is a distinct process from government bodies. The scientific process and country approval processes must work together, but there is not a line where by a drug goes from "experimental" to "non-experimental." Scientists are always experimenting, even with fully approved drugs, but no you not taking part in those experiments unless you explicitly sign up with one.

So yes, your post is misinformation in its incorrect use of charged language like "you are part of a medical experiment." Also, personally I have more value in science than I do in law. Laws can be wrong in any number of ways.

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I used that phrase in a colloquial sense and didn’t mean to imply that we’re taking part in a random double blind vaccine study after giving our informed consent to participate. Post-marketing surveillance (PMS) is the systematic collection, analysis, and interpretation of data about the safety and effectiveness of a medical device or pharmaceutical drug after it has been released for use.

So think of it as a continuation of the initial study upon which the FDA based its initial authorization. The pharmaceutical companies are required to continue to monitor and report any problems that are observed in the broader public deployment. It was well known early on that the number of mRNA Covid vaccine adverse events reported in VAERS exceeded all other adverse vaccine events in the previous 30 years combined!

PMS is part of the scientific method to make sure that the proof is in the pudding. As you know, there is a long list of drugs and vaccines that were approved by the FDA and other countries that have been withdrawn due to adverse effects, some catastrophic. Thalidomide, polio vaccines, cox-2 meds etc.. come to mind.

Every other commercial on television is a drug commercial that starts with 30 seconds of happy people smiling, dancing etc. followed by 30 seconds of warnings about adverse side effects. These warnings provide legal protection from injury lawsuits by plaintiffs who claim that they weren’t warned about the known risks of taking the drug. These warnings are missing for the Covid vaccines because they’re afforded almost absolute immunity from lawsuits by the law that granted the FDA authority to issue EUAs. (Is this one of those bad laws you mentioned?) It’s my understanding that Cominarty and Spikevax aren’t sold in the US because the FDA has fully approved them, thus removing this legal protection. The drug companies don’t want to give up that legal protection. I’d like to know if Cominarty or Spikevax is available here, and not just the versions initially covered by the EUA.

At any rate, I still think informed consent is missing in marketing these vaccines.

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Sorry, this is objectively and verifiably false. All the mRNA vaccines were fully approved, as are the boosters. They were originally approved under an EUA in late 2020, but by 2022 both Pfizer and Moderna vaccines were fully approved. Novavax is still under an EUA, largely because they've failed to demonstrate that they've got the requisite production capacity.

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Then why does Pfizer say this on its website?

EMERGENCY USE AUTHORIZATION

Emergency uses of COVID-19 vaccines from BioNTech and Pfizer, including Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine (2024-2025 Formula), have not been approved or licensed by FDA, but have been authorized by FDA, under an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) to prevent Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) in individuals 6 months of age and older. Emergency uses are only authorized for the duration of the declaration that circumstances exist justifying the authorization of emergency use of the medical products under Section 564(b)(1) of the FD&C Act unless the declaration is terminated or authorization revoked sooner. Please see EUA Fact Sheets at www.cvdvaccine-us.com .

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Dear readers: notice the sleight of hand in the above troll's comment.

He's quoting something from Pfizer's website, so why not provide a link so that people can get the entire context?

https://www.pfizer.com/news/press-release/press-release-detail/pfizer-and-biontech-receive-us-fda-approval-authorization

Don't bother reading any of this knucklehead's comments. It's one Gish Gallop after another.

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founding

I am a physician and have received 6 mRNA Covid vaccines. mRNA technology has been studied for over a decade and is safe. Just didn’t have enough funding prior to the pandemic to be able to produce a vaccine. I am hopeful that an influenza mRNA vaccine will come out in the future!

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I actually do think that we were too heavy handed with a lot of the vaccine mandates in 2021. A sounder approach would have made the 2021 tranche of financial assistance contingent on either

1. Completing one's vaccination by a certain date

Or

2. An antibody titer, provided there waa no evidence that one hadn't made a good faith effort to avoid covid

The understanding would have been that the check that came out in 2021 would convert to an interest bearing loan unless one of the two conditions were met by the end of 2021.

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I am scared to death about the knowledge of public health being destroyed by this administration. I am very worried about the spread of Avian Flu to humans and the next pandemic. This will probably be what will kill many of us due to ignorance of the trump administration. With this administration all information wi be dismissed. Covid is dismissed today by most as just a cold. It still scares me to death and I don’t want it. This will be same with Avian Flu or any other virus that causes problems. And what can happen to vaccines is also very scary. I don’t want to lose my freedom to be vaccinated. I am so scared😢

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Nov 8Liked by Katelyn Jetelina

You are keeping a whole troop of school nurses afloat with your calm reassurance. We appreciate you more than we can say. We will make it through this!

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I've been appreciating your evidence-based perspective and wisdom for years. Thank you for promising to be a light in the darkness in the days ahead. I fear for our future, and the future of our children, but knowing you will continue to be a beacon for science and truth reassures me more than I can say.

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Thank you for this reassuring commitment—it’s a glimmer of good news during challenging times. Your dedication to providing reliable, evidence-based information is truly valued.

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Countering perceived falsehoods with trusted information from established, credentialed, grant giving and grant taking persons and institutions can only be successful if there is sufficient space to discuss, disagree, diverge, discover, deny and detail. Censorship and propaganda have no useful place in a marketplace of ideas that have real consequences. I would challenge mainstream, grant funded public health to open up to criticism. The electorate certainly has criticized the response to a novel corona virus. No one wants a booster. Stop it! I would vociferously shout that you should not double down on the problem being "misinformation". Free speech trumps mis/dis/mal- information. You are looking kinda foolish if you persist with identifying mis-information as you conceive of it as the core issue here. We all just voted that one off the island. Please open a space in your heart to let informed opinion reside in multiple places. I supported Bobby Kennedy and voted for Trump and I am a well educated coastal elite. I am neither an idiot nor an ogre.

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"Censorship and propaganda have no useful place in a marketplace of ideas that have real consequences. I would challenge mainstream, grant funded public health to open up to criticism."

Exactly right.

Citing "misinformation" as the cause of the groundswell of vaccine skepticism in the public large is asinine. The amount suppression of qualified voices who object to the CDC's guidelines and our government's pandemic response is unconscionable.

What we are witnessing now is a irrepressible shift in the winds.

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The scariest thing to me is that RFK and his ilk will also find a way to blame the illness and death they create on those of us who do not share their misinformed views. How do you spin hundreds or thousands of preventable deaths from measles and Covid on Democratic policies? Hard to know how they pull that off, but brace yourself, because it's coming.

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We desperately need this newsletter to continue in these harrowing times. Thank you, Katelyn, for standing firm and true to your mission.

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Dr. Jetelina, your message gives me all the more reason to place my trust in my longstanding, highly credentialed HCPs - and my other trusted information sources, notably yours.

Thank you so much. You are appreciated!

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founding

I have been terrified of what this election result will mean for public health. Please keep doing what you are doing because the list of people we feel like we can trust is dwindling.

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How about just...leaving? No discussion of "What now?" is complete without that being on the table. Anyone who is in a position to claim citizenship in another country should do so. Now. If you want to stay and fight the good fight, great - I respect that. But it's also OK at this point to prioritize one's own survival.

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The idea that listening and empathy will work is beautiful but in this world we now live in, it doesn’t work. We need something stronger. I’m a non violent person, a pacifist really, but I’m so tired of being the thoughtful listener in the face of evil motivated by a desire to gain power and control. We are doomed unless we find a way other than listening and understanding…I’m open to all ideas and I’m all about “when they go

low, we go high” but we need more. Tuesday made that clear.

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Thank you with all my heart for the work you do.

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Katelyn, I appreciate your strategy for how to move forward by engaging with each other respectfully and with the intent on really listening.

I think it is wonderful that you are willing to respond to concerns and questions the public has. You have continually cited RFK Jr. as the biggest threat to public health because of the misinformation he spreads. I can understand why you would be very concerned about the possibility that he may play a large role in reshaping our agencies of public health.

I'm a physician who has played a significant role in the content that CHD has been creating over the last three years. In this article I offer you and your audience another way to look at what we have been through and why the public is supporting Bobby and folks like Dr. Ladapo (who, by the way has held academic positions and published dozens of peer reviewed papers). It would be great to know how you would respond to this:

https://madhavasetty.substack.com/p/your-local-epidemiologist-is-worried?utm_campaign=reaction&utm_medium=email&utm_source=substack&utm_content=post

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Dr Setty,

I am not qualified to understand the article you linked, but I would be very interested in Dr Jetelina’s response.

The fact that both the Trump and Biden administrations played hide-the-ball with important facts (and the existence on important, unresolved questions, and a plan for answering them) has done much to erode trust in public institutions, including public health.

In my own work, “I don’t know, but I will find out” is an answer that fosters trust and respect far more than evasion or deceit does.

I have some questions, if you would be kind enough to answer them:

What would RFK Jr do to inform and protect the public, if the bird flu becomes dangerous to humans? Will he put in place adequate monitoring to detect if the situation becomes a threat to humans?

Will he support continued, updated Covid vaccines (especially in older formats like Novavax uses)?

Will he acknowledge that Covid is still a threat to the immune compromised and other vulnerable people (who, added together, make up a substantial percentage of the population)? Will he support research into treatments and prevention for those people, as well as those currently disabled by long Covid (who yearn to return to their jobs, or simply enjoy previously banal things like being able to walk around the block)?

If reasonable medical minds disagree, will he be honest with us and let us hear out all the experts, and then explain why he thinks a certain choice is the better one?

In the past, he has enjoyed the freedom to seek (or avoid) therapies he feels are wrong for him or those he loves, and to explain his reasoning. If large portions of the public desire something he would not choose, will he still allow those people the freedom to access the things he would not choose, since he has known what it feels like to swim upstream and understands the desperation of not being respected?

My understanding is that many people with poorly understood conditions (such as chronic Lyme) have been shamed, shouted down, and forced to find their own way, in a manner it seems Mr Kennedy might really relate to.

If Mr Kennedy will be transparent and in good faith make good information available (including opposing opinions), so that the public has the full information and resources to make the choices best for each individual, that would be very helpful to know.

Thank you in advance for your reply.

Respectfully,

C

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