Formatting errors lolololol
RFK Jr advisor, Calley Means, is doing damage control.
Instead of addressing the fact that seven studies in the MAHA Commission Report were invented whole cloth—and that the updated report contained fresh errors—he reverted to his common defense position: deflection.
Means went on Fox News to call the fake studies “footnote corrections” while claiming that the “substance” of the report should be the focus. An ironic statement from someone who, along with a chorus of MAHA leaders now in power, keep claiming they want “gold standard science.”
The reality: science is the substance of any HHS report. Inventing studies isn’t science. It’s propaganda.
Which is what MAHA has always been, because that’s what Kennedy has long spread. You don’t write a report then identify research to support it, especially when that research doesn’t exist. Yet Kennedy and Means are quiet effective at redirecting the conversation with completely irrelevant statements like: what, you don’t care about the health of children?
Another irony: the questioners do care about children’s health, an impossible task with MAHA in power. And so journalists and medical professionals must keep pointing out their many errors and contradictions: they’re certain to happen and certainly not slowing down.
Just look at this week.
The Trump administration (including Kennedy’s HHS) has canceled or delayed 2,500 grants, many focused on chronic diseases—the supposed raison d'etre of MAHA’s existence.
Since late February, the government has publicly announced the cancellation of 1,389 N.I.H. awards. The agency scoured grants for key words and phrases like “transgender,” “misinformation,” “vaccine hesitancy” and “equity,” ending those focused on certain topics or populations, according to a current N.I.H. program officer, who asked not to be identified for fear of retribution.
You would think Kennedy cares about equity given how much race and income are predictors of health outcomes. Yet as I pointed out Monday, no MAHA leader appears capable of reading a map.
These cuts are not about gold-standard science or have anything to do with health. As doctoral student Katherine Bogen says in regards to her research in post-traumatic stress and violence against bisexual women:
“I get this letter that tells me, ‘Your research is not science. Not only is it ascientific, it’s a useless drain on resources, and, in fact, your research could be used to discriminate against ‘actual’ Americans or ‘regular’ Americans,’ or whatever they mean.”
Which squares with the maps above: a number of canceled grants were specific to Latino, Black, Asian American, low-income, and rural communities.
Those are the canceled grants. New reporting shows that the “big, beautiful bill” Trump is trying to ram through Congress would shut down the CDC’s global immunization program. Not only will this destroy programs targeting polio, measles, and other vaccine-preventable diseases, it will also withdraw support for Gavi, a global alliance that buys vaccines from at-risk children in developing nations.
It’s not just Trump hampering health efforts. As The Hill reports, Kennedy is hellbent on fulfilling his promise to anti-vaxxers by upending the “vaccine status quo.” Kennedy’s rhetoric about “just caring about vaccine safety” has always been a red herring. Now in power, he’s focused on limiting or denying vaccine access broadly—and not just Covid vaccines.
Kennedy made an end run around the traditional process to change the recommendations about who should get a COVID-19 vaccine. He threatened to bar government scientists from publishing in leading medical journals, and his office revoked hundreds of millions of dollars pledged to mRNA vaccine maker Moderna to develop, test and purchase shots for pandemic flu.
The FDA did, however, approve Moderna’s lower-dose Covid vaccine, mNexspike. Kennedy rushed to defend it on Twitter, writing that the “FDA will monitor and collect data throughout the trial for every adverse outcome.” An odd deflection: the approval was for the vaccine’s actual usage, not a clinical trial. His anti-vax stans aren’t buying it, however, with some pointing out his hypocrisies.
That’s not the only switcharoo Kennedy is involved with. He’s has long attempted to make inroads with indigenous populations in America. Now that he’s overseeing their health care, his promises of protection are falling flat.
Kennedy has repeatedly promised to prioritize Native Americans’ health care. But Native Americans and health officials across tribal nations say those overtures are overshadowed by the collateral harm from massive cuts to federal health programs.
MAHA adjacent: Finally, I recommend this article by epidemiologist Gideon Meyerwitz-Katz about a recent report on pesticides and tampons. Once again, fear-mongering media sounded an alarm about glyphosate residue. As Meyerwitz-Katz unpacks, the methodology is problematic; even more bafflingly, the authors compared tampon standards with drinking water standards in the UK and EU, which, he writes, “is absurd,” calling the report “misleading.” This makes sense, given it was written by an environmental group and is not a clinical trial or review.
