The Trump administration is, of necessity, the stupidest in history, and probably the most malign as well. Mainly because nobody with sense would serve under him, and he wouldn’t allow anyone to outshine him intellectually, an extremely low bar. The worst of the bunch is probably Robert Kennedy Jr, Trump’s health secretary. Listening to him talk, you would be forgiven for thinking he’s a very ill man. He croaks and warbles as if he’s about to expire at any moment, hardly an example of good health. That, however, isn’t the biggest problem; it’s not how he speaks but what he says that worries people. He’s got some bizarre ideas about all sorts of things related to matters of health but Kennedy is best known as a vaccine sceptic and a crank. He announced on Tuesday this week that he was cutting $500 million from 22 research projects into mRNA-based vaccines.
Kennedy, who is certainly not an expert - he’s barely a layman, - says he has reviewed the science on mRNA vaccines, concluding that the "data show these vaccines fail to protect effectively against upper respiratory infections like COVID and flu". Experts dismiss his claims.
The Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines are mRNA-based, and in the EU, the vast majority (89%) of the 917 million doses administered were produced by those two companies. They are perfectly safe and effective for most people as far as I can tell. I have received several injections of mRNA Covid vaccines with zero ill effects. In any case, mRNA (messenger RNA) occurs naturally in every cell in our bodies and is used in the process of making the proteins that we need.
Prof Adam Finn, a vaccine researcher at Bristol University of Bristol, says ditching mRNA technology is "stupid" and potentially a "catastrophic error". He argues that mRNA vaccines were "overhyped" during the pandemic to the exclusion of other approaches, "But to swing the pendulum so far that mRNA is useless and has no value and should not be developed or understood better is equally stupid, it did do remarkable things."
The US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) - a department under Kennendy's control - still seems to sing the praises of mRNA vaccines. One big advantage is that they can be developed in the laboratory much quicker than conventional vaccines.
During Kennedy's Senate confirmation hearing in February, it's claimed he pledged to Senator Bill Cassidy (Republican, Louisiana), who was holding out on approving him, that if confirmed, he would "maintain the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices’ recommendations without changes."
In June, he replaced all 17 members, and replaced them with his own anti-vaccine lackeys. I assume this was because the original experts would never have cut the research funding, which is what he wants and has now done. It is absolute madness.
Asked about it at one of his rambling - ask me anything - press conferences, Trump said: "We're onto other things," whatever that means:
REPORTER: You were the driving force behind Operation Warp Speed, these mRNA vaccines that are the gold standard. Now your Health Secretary is pulling back all the funding for research ... what is going on? TRUMP: Research into what? REPORTER: mRNA vaccines TRUMP: We're onto other things— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 6 August 2025 at 22:48
For the near $30 trillion US economy, $500 million over several years is a flea bite, but could save millions of lives if another virus struck.
Robert Kennedy Jr. has admitted to a heroin addiction as a teenager that led to a criminal conviction in 1983. Also, he has some neurological condition that causes muscle spasms and voice tremors, which some have speculated might be related to Parkinson's disease. He allegedly once severed the head of a washed-up whale with a chainsaw – and drove home with it strapped to his car’s roof.
This is the kind of person making decisions about America's health.
Russia, Russia, Russia ‘hoax’
At the same time, Trump’s Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard is pressing on with a crazy investigation to try and disprove the damning and carefully researched conclusions of the Mueller and the Senate Intelligence Committee reports that Russia definitely interfered to help Trump win in 2016.
She apparently overrode CIA officials to release classified information that helps to support her preposterous claim that Barack Obama conspired with others to falsely show Trump in a bad light. This is utter nonsense, as the US Intelligence Community knows, but it’s the sort of thing authoritarian regimes do to deflect blame, invert the truth, and confuse things so that nobody trusts anybody.
They are trying to rewrite history. I can't help but start thinking the conspiracy theorists who say this is all to deflect from Trump's connection to the Epstein scandal may be onto something.
