RFK Jr. excoriates Dana Bash: "You're talking nonsense. You're making assertions. You can't support it. And then when I call you on them, they're you're telling me I'm arguing...."

"Do you see your job as ending vaccine hesitancy or do you see your job as telling the truth to the American people?... All you know how to do is repeat things that people told you and say trust the experts. That's what you do.... Now we know that Anthony Fauci, who was the expert, was lying about everything about masks, about social distancing, about natural immunity, about the transmission from the vaccine, about the source of COVID. He was lying. And you were punishing people for not trusting the experts. And now you're rolling out the experts again to talk about something that you have no personal knowledge of...."

MAHAspital.

"Today, the Trump Administration is proud to announce the United States of America’s updated Childhood Vaccination Schedule."

"This Schedule is rooted in the Gold Standard of Science, and widely agreed upon by Scientists and Experts all over the World. Effective today, America will no longer require 72 'jabs' for our beautiful, healthy children. We are moving to a far more reasonable Schedule, where all children will only be recommended to receive Vaccinations for 11 of the most serious and dangerous diseases. Parents can still choose to give their children all of the Vaccinations, if they wish, and they will still be covered by insurance. However, this updated Schedule finally aligns the United States with other Developed Nations around the World.... Many Americans, especially the 'MAHA Moms,' have been praying for these COMMON SENSE reforms for many years...."

Writes Trump, on Truth Social.

"Nobody got angry. You were angry at people that didn't want to get vaccinated and you didn't get angry at the person who used science..."

"... to create a horrible disease that was completely avoidable. And that killed who knows how many people. That didn't make you mad."

Said Joe Rogan, on his recent podcast with Adam Carolla.

Carolla: "Where's the anger over finding out that it was made in China at a lab... and then where's the anger over being forced or being vaxxed or all this misinformation being used?... I realized they don't want to say anything 'cause they're ashamed

"It's too much liquid."

Trump: Break it up, because it's too much liquid, too many different things are going into that baby at too big a number, the size of this thing, when you look at it, it's like 80 different vaccines pic.twitter.com/bBHjLBqTj9

— Acyn (@Acyn) September 22, 2025

WaPo moderates anti-Trump hysteria with the headline "New FDA coronavirus vaccine rules bring U.S. closer to other countries."

Subheadline: "But confusion over who can get shots and resignations by officials who say the Trump administration is undermining vaccine science have few parallels elsewhere."

Who is sowing this confusion? If the Trump administration is aligned with what other countries are doing, why are "officials" resigning and performing outrage? 

"It has become clear that truth and transparency are not desired by the secretary, but rather he wishes subservient confirmation of his misinformation and lies."

And: "This man doesn’t care about the truth. He cares about what is making him followers." 

Said Dr. Peter Marks, the Food and Drug Administration’s top vaccine official, about Robert F. Kennedy Jr., quoted in "The top F.D.A. vaccine official resigns, citing Kennedy’s 'misinformation and lies'" (NYT).

10 things I've asked Grok in the last 2 or 3 days.

1. Is it honest for me to say: I have no idea whether Trump has any idea whether Mitch McConnell had polio?

2. What poet had a beard, round glasses and wore a "poet’s hat"?

3. What is the origin of the phrase "take up the mantle"?

4. What have smart people had to say about the tendency to see images in words, including things that are not really relevant to the etymology of the word? For example, one might imagine that "ostracize" is connected to "ostrich" or "marginalize" relates to "margarine."

5. What is the argument that the crows in "Dumbo" are not a racist stereotype?

6. Does RFK Jr. speak of himself in terms of "Camelot"?

7. What is that famous saying about remaining silent because I was not X, Y, etc.?

8. Why do some people say you shouldn't use "impact" as a verb?

9. What is the episode of "Leave it to Beaver" where June and Ward Cleaver are turning over a mattress and Ward asks if it's mattress-turning day?

10. What if you had to argue that "The fog comes /on little cat feet" is actually very depressing and pessimistic?

RFK Jr. advocated banning prescription drug advertising on TV. Would that destroy mainstream TV news?

I asked Grok: What has RFK Jr. said about prescription drug advertising on TV? Answer: "Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has been vocal about his opposition to prescription drug advertising on television."

I'm sure he's been "vocal... on television," but Grok is clearly trying to say that he strongly opposes "prescription drug advertising on television." I'm not going to spend my time teaching Grok grammar.

Now, I'm thinking about this topic this morning because I heard Joe Rogan — here — talking about prescription drug advertising on television. It was very interesting. But the guest, Adam Curry falls prey to what I believe is a misreading of a statistic. Curry says: 

Although we have stopped tobacco advertisements and there's all kinds of things that have been done throughout the years, but what happened with television is all the money. I mean, really 60, 70, maybe 80% of all the advertising income is from pharmaceutical companies. That's why there's also no reporting. Like, we're not gonna bite the hand that feeds us. 

Would RFK's plan to ban this advertising wreck mainstream television news?

But going back and forth with Grok, I think I figured out how the numbers got twisted. I, not Grok. But Grok gave me what I needed to see the problem. There was a report from Statista that showed "the pharmaceutical industry spent 4.58 billion U.S. dollars on advertising on national TV in the United States, which accounted for 75% of the total ad spend for that year." But people in social media have been "suggesting that 75% of cable TV advertising revenue comes from the pharmaceutical industry."

Does your human brain see the problem?

"Are you supportive of these onesies?"

Bernie Sanders prying damaging admissions from RFK Jr.:

The highlight of the day!!!😂 pic.twitter.com/JtFPOlOD0z

— Patrick Metzgar (@patmetzgar) January 30, 2025

Context (video):

"When the topic turned to vaccines, the discussion was not about banning the product...."

"Kennedy spoke about the need for better study of the vaccine dosing schedule for newborns and the rise in chronic disease, while also rattling off statistics about the increase in autism rates despite multiple studies that have shown no link between vaccines and the disorder and World Health Organization estimates that immunizations have saved 154 million lives.... Here Trump redirected the conversation... while backing up Kennedy’s desire for more research.... He suggested to the drug company executives that they had nothing to fear from further investigation of the causes of autism, saying Kennedy could help put to rest vaccine hesitancy if no connection was found. The aftermath of the dinner, which ended by all accounts with surprising warmth on all sides, has become the stuff of mini-legend in the week that has followed. Trump called it 'a little unusual' in a recent NBC News interview. 'At a point I thought, I can’t believe I am doing this,' another participant said, expressing a sentiment echoed by others."

That's The Washington Post admiring Donald Trump!

The article is "How Donald Trump broke the ice between RFK Jr. and drug company CEOs/The president-elect’s choice for health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., is meeting with senators in Washington this week" (free-access link).

Do I need a new tag? Something like "Trump the Great Uniter"? Wouldn't it be funny... I mean, wouldn't it be nice if the old press template — Trump the Divider — failed? And who doesn't want it to fail?! Who doesn't want good things to happen?

"[T]he idea that today’s vaccines are overtaxing children’s immune systems is fundamentally flawed, experts said."

"Vaccines today are cleaner and more efficient, and they contain far fewer stimulants to the immune system — by orders of magnitude — than they did decades ago. What’s more, the immune reactions produced by vaccines are 'minuscule' compared with those that children experience on a daily basis, said Dr. Yvonne Maldonado, a pediatrician at Stanford University who advises the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on vaccines. Children harbor trillions of bacteria, more than the number of their own cells, and encounter pathogens everywhere — from caregivers and playmates; in kitchens, bathrooms and playgrounds; on toys, towels and sponges. 'That’s just the normal course of growing up, is to have fevers and develop immunity to all of the organisms that are in the environment around you,' Dr. Maldonado said. 'We are built to withstand that.'..."

From "Are Childhood Vaccines ‘Overloading’ the Immune System? No. Vaccines today are more efficient and contain far fewer stimulants to the immune system than some used decades ago" (NYT).

"In most states, children must be vaccinated against about a dozen diseases, a schedule that typically adds up to about 17 doses, administered before they begin kindergarten... Each of the shots contains about 10 antigens. Older vaccines packed a much bigger punch, having up to 300 times as many...."

Headline writers blithely omit "a" and "the," but there's a big difference between "the polio vaccine" and "a polio vaccine."

The Washington Post splashes this in our face: "RFK Jr. ally filed petition to revoke FDA approval for polio vaccine."

I suspect that many readers experience alarm — Oh, no, it's crazy to take away the polio vaccine! — and read no further.

But it's not the polio vaccine. It's a polio vaccine. From the text of the article:

An ally of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. petitioned the government in 2022 to reconsider its approval of a widely used polio vaccine, which is credited with staving off a debilitating virus that can result in permanent paralysis.

The petition is about one polio vaccine, not all polio vaccines. 

Aaron Siri — a lawyer with a history of seeking to expand exemptions to vaccines — asked the Food and Drug Administration to suspend or withdraw approval of Sanofi’s polio vaccine for children.... In the 2022 petition, [Siri] raised questions about the safety of the polio vaccine and argued for more studies to be conducted.

I've added the boldface. That "the" in "the polio vaccine" refers to Sanofi's vaccine, and if you go to the link on "petitioned the government" you'll see Sanofi's vaccine distinguished from other polio vaccines.

The Washington Post has a subheadline with the word "the":

"We’ve marched so much. We’re tired of doing the same thing over and over...."

Said David Hogg, "who was among the students in Parkland, Fla., who mobilized on behalf of gun control legislation," quoted in "'Get Somebody Else to Do It': Trump Resistance Encounters Fatigue/Donald J. Trump’s grass-roots opponents search for a new playbook as they reckon with how little they accomplished during his first term" (NYT).

“We need to be positioned to bring a new generation into office so we’re not just protesting and marching,” Mr. Hogg said. “We can’t be outside looking in.”

The NYT usually tells us how old people are. We're told a random "nurse from Virginia" is 45. But I had to look up how old Hogg is. It mattered to me, because he's going on about having done "so much... over and over." Hogg is 24. 

Interesting correction on this article: "An earlier version of this article referred incorrectly to a type of treatment that helped save the lives of many gay men. It was medications, not a vaccine." There's never been a vaccine for AIDS. The NYT ought to know that. This idea that people ought to be given what they want reasonably quickly if they get out and protest — life doesn't work like that. It's not as if those in power have all the solutions and are simply peevishly withholding them out of unjustified hatefulness.

To be fair to Hogg: He moves from complaining about the ineffectiveness of protesting to the topic of running for office. He says: "After the election, I got several texts saying, 'Screw it. People in power don’t know what they’re doing and I need to run.'"

"It felt like the world's largest mosquito."

Said Donald Trump, quoted in "In Leaked Phone Call, Trump Tries to Coax Kennedy Into His Camp/Robert F. Kennedy Jr. apologized for a leaked video of the phone call, in which Donald Trump offers anti-vaccine messaging and says the wound to his ear  'felt like the world’s largest mosquito.'" 

A leaked video of Donald J. Trump calling Robert F. Kennedy Jr. offered a behind-the-scenes look into the former president’s efforts to coax Mr. Kennedy out of the presidential race and into his camp. On Mr. Kennedy’s speaker phone, Mr. Trump, the Republican nominee, can be heard offering up the kind of anti-vaccine message that Mr. Kennedy is known for. Mr. Trump also reveals details of his call with President Biden, saying “it was very nice.” And he tells Mr. Kennedy, seemingly in an effort to win his support: “I would love you to do something. And I think it’ll be so good for you and so big for you. And we’re going to win.”

Kennedy tweets that he's "mortified" and should have "ordered the videographer to stop recording immediately." Hmm. This gets my "things not believed" tag.

"When I ask my patients if they have any concerns or questions about the Covid vaccine... ... [t]here’s just a vague hedge..."

"... or an abashed, 'I don’t know, I just don’t.' As I try to suss out what’s on my patients’ minds, I can feel their own slight sense of surprise that there is no specific issue causing their discomfort about getting the updated Covid vaccine. It’s as though they have a communal case of the heebie-jeebies. Health professionals everywhere are hearing this kind of hesitance.... It can be a revelation to some patients when they realize that they may be reacting to a sense of the waters being muddied rather than specific information or misinformation."

From "My Patients Used to Be Gung-Ho About the Covid Vaccine. What Changed?" Danielle Ofri (NYT).

"The Nobel Prize in medicine was awarded Monday to two scientists whose research laid the groundwork for messenger RNA vaccines that transformed the threat of the coronavirus pandemic."

From "Nobel Prize in medicine awarded to scientists who laid foundation for messenger RNA vaccines" (WaPo).

Early in her career, Katalin Kariko, 68, a Hungarian-born scientist, saw mRNA’s medical potential and pursued it with ferocious and single-minded tenacity that exiled her to the outskirts of science. After a chance meeting over the photocopier at the University of Pennsylvania 25 years ago, she worked closely with Drew Weissman, 64, an immunologist who saw the potential for the technology to create a new kind of vaccine.... Together, Kariko and Weissman’s complementary knowledge helped to unravel a way to chemically tweak messenger RNA, turning basic biology into a useful medical technology ready to change the world when the pandemic struck.

If you've had all the Covid shots, how many shots have you had?

Former Democratic congressman says that he is going on his SEVENTH Covid vaccine when he gets his booster shot this fall.

He's had Covid THREE times. This is just too funny. pic.twitter.com/NLuLJNveXy

— Kyle Becker (@kylenabecker) September 2, 2023

Challenge RFK Jr. to his face — call him an anti-vaxxer — and see what happens.

I wasn't surprised by the strength of Kennedy's response, because I'd heard him say much the same thing (and more) on the Joe Rogan podcast. I said on June 10th:

Is Peter Hotez winning the I-won't-debate debate?

Encountering his tweet this morning, I don't think so:

Joe Rogan wants a scientist to “debate” a vaccine denier. Turning him down was the right thing to do. ⁦@voxdotcom⁩ https://t.co/ouuuFuk1f4

— Prof Peter Hotez MD PhD (@PeterHotez) June 22, 2023

1. Hotez doesn't know how to reach us emotionally. The photograph overwhelms the text, and it's a dramatic, dignified presentation of Joe Rogan. The text is then read and absorbed under the influence of the photograph of the strong, serious man who is only asking for debate.

2. The text relies heavily on putting the word "debate" in scare quotes. It seems as though Hotez is making the scared-child argument that he doesn't have to debate — indeed, shouldn't debate — because what Rogan is calling a debate wouldn't really be a debate. My reaction is: Engage with Rogan over the terms of the debate so that it can be a real debate.

3. You won't even name your antagonist. He's just "a vaccine denier." First, say his name: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. He's a real person, and many of us feel drawn to him. Second, it's not accurate to call him a "vaccine denier." What does that even mean? He doesn't deny that vaccines exist and have an effect. He's concerned about side effects, inadequate testing, and corruption in the relationship between government and the pharmaceutical industry. Are you not concerned about these things? If not, I can call you a "denier." See how glib and infuriating that is?