January 10, 2017

Donald Trump and Robert Kennedy Jr Team Up to Spread Nonsense About Vaccines

This is the bad kind of bipartisanship.

A cat and dog dance around a pot of boiling human children on a cloud as they excitedly prepare to feast. Photoshop by Ben Dreyfuss

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Bipartisanship comes to the Trump administration!

Surprise! It’s evil bipartisanship! This is the most anti-science Republicans joining the most anti-science Democratic to push dangerous anti-vaxx lunacy.

Vaccines work and they don’t cause autism. Them’s the facts.

There are real costs to this nonsense. Look at this map that Kevin Drum wrote about in 2014:

Use of the MMR vaccine plummeted during the aughts, as vaccine-autism hysteria was spread by charlatans and the ignorati. Needless to say, this did nothing to affect the incidence of autism, but it sure had an effect on measles and mumps. To this day, though, I don’t think any of the vectors of this hysteria have so much as apologized. It’s shameful.

Trump has a long history of spreading anti-vaxx bullshit. So, too, does RFK Jr (when he’s not slinging insane theories about Diebold and Ohio). More than 10 years ago he went on the Daily Show and, in one of Jon Stewart’s most shameful moments, was allowed to spew his brand of anti-vaxx crack-pottery. Liberals like RFK Jr because liberals like love RFK, but Robert the Younger is loony tunes on vaccines. He’s in the same boat as Jenny McCarthy.

Vaccine exemptions are bad, quoth the AMA, common sense, and anyone who has ever bothered to Google the term “herd immunity.” (Read this, if you don’t believe me.) We seemed to be making progress slowing the anti-vaxx lemmings but with Trump set to enter the White House on January 20 there is a real chance that vaccine hysteria will spread like measles. Vaccines should not be political. But elections have consequences. And once people believe this nuttery, you can’t really change their minds. People who believe crazy things do not respond to well to facts.

Even the Catholic Church, not known as a bastion of scientific forward-thinking, says you need to vaccinate your kids.

Don’t listen to lunatics even if they do come bearing the seal of the President.

Vaccinate. Your. Kids.

Update 7:20pm Tuesday 1/10/2017: Trump spokesperson Hope Hicks has denied the report that they’re tapping RFK Jr to be on a vaccine commission, so maybe it’s not true! But RFK Jr has confirmed the report so maybe it is true! Maybe RFK Jr was confused? Maybe Trump is backing off it in the face of predictable criticism? Neither Trump or RFK Jr live in the world that actually exists so who the hell knows what’s going on. Vaccinate your kids.

Update 2: 1:45pm Thursday 1/12/2017: Unnwayed by Hope Hick’s denial, Robert Kennedy Jr told his environmental group Wednesday that he expects to take a leave of absence to work on Trump’s bullshit vaccinations commission. It remains unclear if this commission will also look into chemtrails or get the truth about everlasting gobstoppers.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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