収束ゾーンでのライフ: Life in the Convergence Zone

RFK, Jr.’s lawyer sued the Federal government to have the Polio vaccine taken off the market.

That’s the latest from the Party of Plague at this time of writing.

Bringing back polio is scary enough – and juuust enough people are still alive who remember it, like Mitch McConnell – that RFK, Jr. himself is having to talk about this one. He lies, saying he does not want to take the polio vaccine – or any other vaccine – off the market, he just wants to make sure it’s “thoroughly and properly studied.”

He’s lying, of course. He’s used that line a couple of times, and it’s his tell.

It already has been thoroughly and properly studied. It was studied before it was released, and we have decades and decades of proof that polio vaccination works, that it is safe and it is effective.

We have literal decades of the largest possible real-world experience – entire national populations of study – showing this.

You can tell by the way we don’t have polio around much anymore, and how directly that followed widespread adoption of the polio vaccine, and how it did not hurt those vaccinated!

But none of that matters to him, because none of it gives the answer he and his vaccine-denialist following want, which is so-called “studies” that say vaccination is not safe and it is not effective, all these decades of reality be damned. That’s their definition of “proper”: “says whatever we want.”

Just as a reminder, and for the record, he’s said this year that there is no such thing as a safe and effective vaccine.

Remember that statement when he lies about not being “an anti-vaxxer,” because when he says that, he is lying.

You might notice a parallel here between this and how rightists attack gender affirming care for trans people in general, and the Cass Report in particular. Admittedly, it’s fewer decades of use, but it’s still decades.

Trans health care is getting exactly the same treatment.

That’s because it’s exactly the same playbook.

I’ve written many, many times over the years about the fundamentalist definition of truth, and how it has to do with whatever conforms to what they’ve decided God Said, which just always happens to be exactly the same as their agenda.

I’ve written many, many times over the years about how this attitude completely subsumed the Republican party, starting in the late 1990s, as the fundamentalist movement became the Republican Party. What they will do is whip up a bunch of government-funded cardboard science – a pretend science, a cargo cult of it, something that emulates the shape and form but none of the actual function, something that is designed to look like science to an outsider who doesn’t know much and doesn’t care to, but which is not science, in that it is always, always, always dedicated to producing “results” that they want, all so they can use it to further their political agenda.

This is just as the fundamentalist movement has done my entire life, because they aren’t interested in the truth, they’re interested in what they already wanted to hear.

It’s exactly the same playbook. Every time.

You might notice a parallel here between this and their love of Bush II’s torture programme, because torture, like the tragic shadow-play perversion of fundamentalist “Biblical science,” is not about getting to the truth. It’s about getting people to say whatever you want them to say…

reality

be

damned.

Same playbook, team. Every time. Including here. Again.

And so now, the Republican Party of MAGA, the Republican Party of Trump, all of which is to say the entire Republican Party, is literally a party dedicated to bringing back plagues.

It’s dedicated to other things, sure. Absolutely. None of them are good – they’re huge fans of white supremacy racism, of misogyny, of looting as policy, and so on. So many more.

But one of them – and one that cannot be denied any longer – is the return of plagues.

Literal, actual, plagues, with literal, actual, death tolls.

And you really need to pay attention to that.

Because look…

…

…I don’t know whether H5N1 “bird” flu is going to break through and start going human-to-human. It’s gone from bird to human a few times; a human to human mutation is harder.

But as an article in Nature a couple of weeks ago said, if it’s ever going to, this is going to be the time, because it’s absolutely everywhere amongst avian populations – and more recently, in cattle. So we already know it’s capable of making the leap to at least some mammals; we just don’t know if it’s going to make it to humans.

But if it does, the incoming fascist administration is going to do absolutely fucking nothing to stop it, or even mitigate it.

How bad will it be? We don’t know now and we won’t know then. We’ll have no idea. Remember this, from COVID: “If you don’t test, you don’t have any cases. If we stop testing right now, we’d have very few cases, if any, but we do.”

There won’t be any testing, this time. There won’t be much data collection at all – nothing that gets under RFK, Jr.’s skin will be allowed.

They certainly won’t fast-track a vaccine. That was the one good thing Trump did the first time, and he’ll be damned if he’s going to make that same political mistake twice. They might even slow-roll or just outright block one – certainly anything but the oldest, slowest, traditional egg-culture version.

And no amount of mere reality will have the least bit of impact on that decision whatsoever.

So. Welcome to a new era of plagues, I guess. If one hits under the incoming administration, make sure the MAGAts in your sphere know that this is exactly what those stupid-ass motherfuckers were promised, and exactly what they voted for.

Oh, and it might be a good time to stock up on masks again, if you’ve stopped. Some of us recognise COVID hasn’t gone away, but most people pretend it’s gone. That may – and may not, we don’t know – be harder with H5N1.

But at the moment, at least, they’re quite affordable. If it turns out you’re gonna need them, that’ll change quickly.

Consider it… a dirt-cheap form of insurance. Hopefully one you’ll never need.

Unless vaccines go away.

Then you’ll definitely need it.

Posted via Solarbird{y|z|yz}, Collected.