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aroasshat.bsky.social
@aroasshat.bsky.social
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aroasshat.bsky.social
wanted to add the alt text for this b/c this is really important to know. bluesky didn't offer enough characters, so i reposted the image 3 times and broke up the alt text into 3 parts. images should be in order, but are labeled if not.
Title: Why RFK Jr. Is Dangerous. Summary Bubble: He advocated mass tort litigation that would ruin vaccine makers. Article Pt 1: President Trump nominated Robert F Kennedy Jr. as Health and Human Services [(HHS)] secretary in return for his presidential endorsement. But Senate Republicans have an obligation to scrutinize his giant closet of business conflict and dubious ideas. Mr. Kennedy is scheduled to appear before the Senate Finance Committee on Wednesday. Expect him to obfuscate about his ties to trial lawyers, anti-vaccine views, and support for sundry progressive causes. While presenting himself as a truth-teller and slayer of government corruption, he's as slippery as Anthony Fauci. *** Most troubling is his long record of anti-vaccine advocacy. In the past he has claimed that the measles vaccine causes autism despite reams of studies that have found no causitive link, and that the polio vaccine might have killed more than the actual virus. Deadly infectious diseases dissappeared because of better hygine, not vaccines, he asserts. He has tried to soften his vaccine skepticism since being nominated, and he now says he merely wants to ensure that vaccines are safe and thoroughly studied --- who doesn't? --- and that Americans have access to more information. In Mr. Kennedy's case, this means opening the industry to lawsuits by the trial bar. Mr. Kennedy's nomination disclosures show he's recieved millions of dollars from referring clients to Wisner Baum and Morgan & Morgan, law firms that have sued vaccine and drug makers. Wisner Baum spearheaded litigation against Merck over its Gardasil vaccine, which protects against the human papillomavirus [(HPV)] --- one of the biggest risk factors for cervical cancer. Continued in the alt text of next image. (Sorry, ran out of charcters, this dude's op ed is hella long) continued from alt text of the last image Article Pt2: Congress established the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program in 1986 for children's vaccines because an avalanche of litigation was driving manufacturers from the market. The program allows patients who believe they've been harmed by vaccines to file claims with the government for compensation, which are adjusted in special vaccine courts. Why do vaccines recieve more liability protection than medicines? For one, the population of potential plantiffs is much larger for children's vaccines than for other medical product. Juries are especially sympathetic when it comes to children, so the payouts and potential liability are also much larger. If patients don't like the vaccine court's judgement, they can still sue manufacturers in federal court. But they rarely do this since the standard for proving claims is higher in federal court. But as HHS Secretary, Mr. Kennedy could take action to assist his trial-lawyer pals. The HHS Secretary can add or remove vaccines from the compensation program, as well as specify injuries eligible for compensation. Removing vaccines from the program would open up manufacturers to mass torts based on weak evidence, including animal studies and scattered human cases that purport to link injuries to the shots. Profit margins on vaccines are typically thin, especially for those off-patent. Companies facing enormous legal expenses and potential damages might stop making vaccines, which is what happened in the 1980s. Making more injuries eligible for compensation despite lack of causitive evidence --- e.g., autism for measles --- would also invite more claims. This could bankrupt the program, which is funded by an excise tax on vaccines. That means Congress would have to increase the excise tax, which is paid by consumers, or backfill the compensation fund. continued in the alt text of the next image Article Pt3: Another danger is that Mr. Kennedy could turn over vaccine proprietary data in the Food and Drug Administration [(FDA)] filings to trial lawyers posing as vaccine safety advocates. Lawyers could use this information to claim that vaccines makers concealed evidence of side effects --- as plantiffs do in the Gardasil lawsuits --- even if the FDA concluded they weren't caused by the vaccine. It's true that some rare vaccine side effects come to light after approval. The FDA recently added Guillain-Barré Syndrome as a potential side effect of RSV vaccines --- with an increased incidence of roughly 1 in 130,000. The Trump HHS could build a better system, perhaps with private health groups like the Mayo Clinic, to monitor potential safety risks. But Mr. Kennedy's intimation that vaccines haven't been thoroughly studied and that the FDA is concealing safety information to protect manufacturers is false. Developers would have to enroll millions of patients in trials to identify very rare side effects, which would be impossible. The FDA recently halted enrollment in several infant RSV trials after Moderna found that babies who recieved its experimental jab became sicker than those with the placebo. This shows safety monitoring is working. *** This risk is high that Mr. Kennedy will use his power and pulpit at HHS to enrich his trial-lawyer friends at the expense of public health and medical innovation. It's telling that Mr. Kennedy hasn't agreed to stop taking payments from these allies in the Gardasil lawsuit. Senators would be wise to believe RFK Jr.'s career of spreading falsehoods rather than his confirmation conversions.
January 27, 2025 at 4:59 PM