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The truth about combination vaccines

The campaign to sow doubt and confusion around vaccines uses several different lies. One is the facially absurd notion that combination vaccines can overwhelm the immune system.  A healthy infant's immune system responds to thousands of antigens from their environment daily, far exceeding the number found in modern vaccines.  Moreover, decades of experience the world over testifies to the safety and efficacy of combination vaccines.     ‘For Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, a former head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's immunization program who recently resigned, the proposal reflects politics rather than science.    "This isn't about safety. It's about ideology," he said. "We've already seen directives issued without data to back them up."    “Dr. Debra Houry, who recently resigned as the CDC's chief science and medical officer, echoed the concern.    "The talk about separating MMR into individual components wasn't coming ...

Jerbs

“ ADP also revised the August jobs number down, saying that the private sector   lost 3,000 jobs   that month. Ultimately, that means the private sector has lost jobs in   three out of the last four months , per ADP estimates.   “What's more, since the start of April, when Trump first announced his moronic " Liberation Day " tariffs, the private sector has added only 135,000 jobs on net, per ADP's   reports —a paltry number that is not nearly enough to keep up with the needs of the American labor market.” Republicans elected Trump because of his track record as a businessman. LOL! The man bankrupted a casino*, FFS. *   Companies controlled by Trump filed for bankruptcy multiple times for their casino properties in Atlantic City.  While Trump himself never filed for personal bankruptcy, the companies he oversaw used Chapter 11 bankruptcy to restructure their significant debt.   https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/10/1/2346365/-Trump-s-economy-is-...

Medical quackery is everywhere

When we moved to Rhode Island, we chose the location to be near high end healthcare. In addition to being only an hour from Boston, we were close to clinicians affiliated with Brown University, the local Ivy League university. But that affiliation is no guarantee against quacks: “A population-based retrospective study from South Korea is being touted as evidence that COVID-19 vaccines may cause cancer, but epidemiologists were quick to highlight the study's numerous flaws and caveats. “Over the weekend, Wafik El-Deiry, MD, PhD, of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, who is a member of the CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) workgroup on COVID vaccines, shared the study from  Biomarker Research  in a post on X “But several experts said El-Deiry should have known better than to promote a study that has several flaws, including not controlling for confounders such as healthy user bias.” That’s not the only problem with the study. “In a similar...

The art of the deal

Until this year, China has been a major consumer of US soybeans. But Trump’s trade war with China has resulted in a shutdown of that major market for American farmers and billions of dollars in lost sales. Trump has promised federal dollars to farmers to compensate for the loss of the Chinese markets. So taxpayers are paying for the Trump trade war. Meanwhile, Trump has announced a $20 billion currency swap line to prop up the failing Argentine currency. The prime minister is a right-wing politician.  And then there’s this: “ Chinese buyers booked at least 10 cargoes of Argentine soybeans after Buenos Aires scrapped grain export taxes, three traders said on Tuesday, dealing another setback to U.S. farmers already shut out of their top market and hit by low prices.” So US tax dollars will help subsidize the sale of Argentine soybeans to replace those formerly purchased from US farmers.  Is America great yet? <a href=" https://www.reuters.com/world/china/chinese-buyers-book-l...

Goodall spots the chimp in Trump

The late Jane Goodall has, on multiple occasions, noted the primitive simian behavior adopted by Donald Trump and admired by the Trumpenproletariat: “In order to impress rivals, males seeking to rise in the dominance hierarchy perform spectacular displays: stamping, slapping the ground, dragging branches, throwing rocks,” she said, adding that the “more vigorous and imaginative the display, the faster the individual is likely to rise in the hierarchy, and the longer he is likely to maintain that position.” I’ll only add that chimps don’t take Adderall. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/jane-goodall-donald-trump-analysis-viral_n_68de3301e4b028d81f307b9d?origin=home-latest-news-unit  

Anti-Trump lawsuit ROI

Trump has threatened to withhold federal funds generated in part through NYC taxpayer dollars from New York City if they don’t elect Mario Cuomo as mayor. Zohran Mamdani claps back: “I look for examples across this country that showcase the best way to respond to Donald Trump’s... threats rather is responding with strength,” he continued. “And what we see in California is an attorney general of the state has estimated that for every dollar they spent on lawsuits against the federal government’s threats to withhold funding, they won more than $30,000 in what would otherwise have been lost.” Even if he’s exaggerating by two or three fold, that’s still a great return on investment for California and a terrible business model for Trump. Of course, it’s our tax dollars that Trump is burning up on his futile attempts to bully blue cities and states. Remember this when you read the inevitable NYT and WaPo navel-gazing editorials about the federal deficit and national debt.  https://w...

All your tax money belongs to Trump now

Trump is unhappy with the mayor’s race in New York City. His designated candidate may not win.   “Trump then claimed that Mamdani “needs the money” from him .   “Remember, he needs the money from me, as President, in order to fulfill all of his FAKE Communist promises,” he continued. “Trump added: “He won’t be getting any of it, so what’s the point of voting for him? This ideology has failed, always, for thousands of years. It will fail again, and that’s guaranteed!” So all the taxes paid by NYC voters and the rest of us are now his money? Who knew? “Last week, New York state   scored a win   in its   lawsuit   against the Department of Homeland Security for withholding disaster relief from the state due to its immigration enforcement policies. “If Trump were to withhold federal funds allocated to New York City, similar legal challenges would likely follow.”   https://www.huffpost.com/entry/donald-trump-zohran-mamdani-new-york-mayor-race-cut-funding_n_...