State & Local Public Health Departments Must Make Their Stand
Modern Medicine's Rubicon Has Been Crossed
Next week, June 25-26th, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will be striking a critical blow against the vaccines which have saved countless American lives - especially children. After purging the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), RFK Jr. has cherrypicked a gaggle of depraved and sadistic cranks including grifter Robert Malone, who declared public health mitigations to be a form of "mass formation psychosis" equivalent to Nazi Germany (something the FDA's Vinay Prasad repeated in 2021) and Martin Kulldorff, a Great Barrington Declaration co-author who declared it was your civic duty to seek out COVID-19 infection in Spring 2020 before gleefully celebrated children being hospitalized by a SARS-CoV virus in February 2022. Virologist Angie Rassmussen has prepared an extensive breakdown on this depraved mockery of modern medical science:
The demolition of one of America's most essential public health institutions, the Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices, by Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. (RFK Jr.) is a completely horrific act of malpractice that will get children killed in the ensuing chaos. The most important gains of life expectancy in the past century came from the same vaccines which are now under attack by once-fringe extremists who exploited the COVID-19 pandemic to make their derangement mainstream. Without these vaccines, we risk a return to the Victorian era, more specifically: graveyards filled with tiny coffins.
To truly understand the gravity of this crisis, we must revisit a critical moment in history, over two thousand and seventy years ago across the lands of what we now call the European Union.
I. Parallels Across Millenia
You are likely familiar with the phrase "crossing the Rubicon," referring to when General Caesar marched his armies across the river and seized Rome in what many call the genesis of fascism. What you may not understand is that Rome was birthed seven centuries prior, and an incredible amount of resources and energy were dedicated to ensuring this very outcome could never come to pass. A rigorous system of checks and balances ensured that no one man could amass such an obscene, unchecked amount of power over the rest of Roman society - and drive the Republic over the edge of a cliff towards collapse.
Say, does this sound vaguely similar to anything happening in our modern world yet?
Albeit dramatized for the sake of entertainment, HBO's classic miniseries Rome remains an accessible summary of the major events in question.
As Caesar made his decision to seize the Roman Republic and declare himself dictator, there was quite some time before his armies breached the walls of the capital proper. As messengers carried news back and forth across the Empire, the Senate had received fair warning that Caesar and his legionnaires were en route. As an old wives' tale puts it, there was one senator who knew the great Rome he once took for granted was under grave threat - but as he looked across the river at dusk, he took comfort in the fact that the great institutions which safeguarded the Republic's stability for centuries would intervene before it was too late.
The sun rises. The sun falls. Caesar's legion draws ever closer. A lingering anxiety begins to fester in the Senator's heart. Surely, the noble institutions of Rome will save us in time!
Caesar crosses the Rubicon into Italy bearing arms, a totally unprecedented act of treason the likes of which the Roman Republic has never known. The Senator realizes the noble institutions of Rome have no real contingency plan for this scenario, but *surely* they'll think of something before it's too late! They simply cannot fail!
Well…in the dead of night, the leadership of Rome inevitably flee the capital before Caesar's arrival. Without an ounce of resistance, the political establishment surrenders the world's leading superpower to militant fascists. The Roman Republic was effectively dead without the throwing of a single spear. Say, doesn't this sound vaguely similar to recent events?
While it would be another five centuries before the last vestiges of what was once a "global" empire finally faded from the world, the failure to stand and resist Caesar's crossing of the Rubicon launched a period of decline that inevitably collapsed Rome upon itself. As it stands, public health in America is repeating this very same fable, right before our eyes. Would thou surrender this nation to the uncaring legions of pestilence, as a token of respect to norms and tradition?
II. Honor & Duty in a Time of Crisis
America is broken up into fifty states, who are sworn to stand united to face any crisis, foreign or domestic. Fifty states have fifty separate state health departments, of which fifty directors stand at the helm. Between these few dozen souls, hundreds of millions of lives are their responsibility to safeguard against pestilence, including tens of millions of children. These men and women are tasked with one of the most critical responsibilities of our civil society.
“The HHS document is willful medical disinformation—so far out of left field that I find it insulting to our members of Congress.” -Dr. Mark Turrentine for NPR
Yet with the barbarians at the gates, and our federal public health agencies corrupted into what is effectively a rogue entity that serves at the behest of Pestilence, one of the Four Horsemen that have collapsed countless civilizations throughout millennia, these 50 sentries entrusted to stand atop the walls of science & medicine largely remain pitifully silent. This is indefensible cowardice. Silence in this critical time is a passive endorsement of the horrors RFK Jr. and his goons seek to unleash.
While certain states may be a lost cause, such as Florida and Louisiana, we should be able to get at least forty state health departments on board with a joint statement condemning Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., his gaggle of cranks - including Marty Makary, Jay Bhattacharya, and Vinay Prasad - and their perversions. Hell, I'd settle for 35. Left unchallenged, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. will only grow bolder in his machinations towards leaving America's children undefended against threats which we once bravely vanquished in our history. Measles alone is set to become endemic soon.
Surely, America's doctors would not be so weak-willed and feeble as to be intimidated by a roadkill-eating wretch? Whom amongst us doesn't seek the glory of standing against a villain so indisputably detestable, exploitative, and uniquely destructive to our social fabric? Regardless, we all share in the responsibility to defend our community's children against such perverse charlatans, who openly *celebrate* viruses such as SARS-CoV-2 infecting their young developing bodies - only to turn a blind eye to harms caused.
Undercutting the authority and credibility of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and his most trusted henchmen, compromising whatever authority they might wield against us, is now our central responsibility. Every day we sit idle, is another day our enemies work to dismantle the levees which hold back the rising tides of pestilence. While liberal public health influencers such as Ashish Jha, Neil Stone, and Gideon "Health Nerd" M-K have already pre-emptively surrendered to the anti-vaccine crusade by insisting children shouldn't be vaccinated against SARS-CoV-2, this will only embolden our enemies to go further, as the demolition of the ACIP shows.
It's long past due we as Americans started going on the offense.
III. Forward, Into the Breach
An ideal scenario would be the overwhelming majority of state health departments putting aside partisan politics and uniting in a joint statement declaring our federal public health agencies to be a rogue entity. This statement would be a formal denouncement of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. for his horrific, unprecedented antics. With the help of NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya, FDA Commissioner Marty Makary, Vinay Prasad, Tracy Beth Høeg, Kevin Bardosh, Martin Kulldorff, and Robert Malone - it is important to name names, so that they may be condemned forever in the annals of our nation's history - they have destroyed whatever advantages America once had in the world of science and medicine.
These narcissistic exploiters of the COVID-19 pandemic are so blinded by radicalism that they are physically unable to conceive of the destruction their recklessness has wrought. These charlatans have no legitimacy, and no American should heed their "guidance" - state health departments have a sacred obligation to inform the public of this clear and present danger to their health. Enough is enough.
While there is talk of an independent replacement for the ACIP is in the works, it's important that we do not stop there. As Jeremy Faust writes for Inside Medicine, the ongoing lack of a CDC Director is a loophole Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is happily exploiting:
As such, states need to be moving forward with legislation which firmly acknowledge the rogue entity and their crusade against the vaccines which safeguard our children's health. Insurance companies cannot be denying coverage for these vaccines based on the unscientific whims of an irrational tyrant. From COVID-19 to measles to HPV to flu, the entire arsenal of vaccines that defend American lives is under threat. No serious person believes women be condemned to die of vaccine-preventable cancer for the perverse satisfaction of detestable old men:
At the behest of corporate America, the Biden Administration's willful mismanagement of the COVID-19 pandemic spurred the birth of the People's CDC, an independent organization which still operates to this day. An independent organization, their central mission is safeguarding Americans' health - why not have state health departments use the People's CDC to coordinate messaging and resources? Putting a middle finger in the face of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and his machinations is an essential step if we are to move forward.
States cannot stop there. The larger deregulatory agenda of the Trump Administration will create new opportunities for harm, including proposals to bring back asbestos. States will have to pass legislation to cover these gaps, and if state health departments were too coordinate with a central organization such as People's CDC to draft model legislation, this process might be automated. With these bills should come with continued denouncements of the corrupted federal public health institutions who have abandoned their obligations to the American people - further undercutting HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.'s legitimacy.
As of now, this cowardly subservience to RFK Jr. and his wretched gallery of public health saboteurs will only send us down a very dark road which threatens the incredibly strained fabric which holds this nation back from falling into collapse. When the histories are written, would we be remembered as the cowards who fled Rome in fear of a tyrant? Or instead, a formidable resistance, who threw wrenches in the grand schemes of a nefarious pestilence-wielding tyrant?
We start by writing to the directors of our respective state & local health departments & demanding answers on how they plan to safeguard the health of their constituents from Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.'s war on vaccines. Demand a statement denouncing RFK Jr.'s corruption of the ACIP, and that the previous vaccine schedule remains in good standing. Most of all, demand that your state and local health departments accept the responsibility that the federal government has chosen to abandon.
Every day we stand idle, our enemies plunge this nation deeper into the Dark Ages.
