CDC vaccine panel realizes again it has no idea what it’s doing, delays big vote
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Do you suppose that Trump is offering some gigantic reward to the lackey who manages to do the absolute stupidest thing during the first year of this administration?
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The NYT article on the meeting (gift link):
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/04/...e_code=1.6E8.V3Zb.OIBDgTq1EtgL&smid=url-share
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/04/...e_code=1.6E8.V3Zb.OIBDgTq1EtgL&smid=url-share
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It is sad state of affairs when the best news we can hope for is "They haven't fucked it up yet!".
Yanno, there are legitimate questions about what is the best schedule for vaccinations and how can we make them even safer than they are and what should be the next disease tamed by vaccination. But this bunch of clowns is completely unable to articulate the questions, much less answer them.
In many ways, they remind me of toddlers who kick over other people's sand castles simply because they don't know how to make one themselves.
Yanno, there are legitimate questions about what is the best schedule for vaccinations and how can we make them even safer than they are and what should be the next disease tamed by vaccination. But this bunch of clowns is completely unable to articulate the questions, much less answer them.
In many ways, they remind me of toddlers who kick over other people's sand castles simply because they don't know how to make one themselves.
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This has got to be a new low. A committee so inept and incompetent that it can't even screw up properly.
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Wow, “before realizing it didn’t know what it was doing” is a commendable amount of self-awareness and humility in the real world. In this administration, it’ll probably get them fired quickly…
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Dr. Mole:
In December 2025, on the health beat that you cover, what, if anything, can you be optimistic about?
No snark intended.
In December 2025, on the health beat that you cover, what, if anything, can you be optimistic about?
No snark intended.
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Every time I read one Beth's articles on this committee, and their indecisiveness, it makes me think about "the dog that caught the car". Like the dog, they never gave one iota of thought to what they would do once they caught it (power).
Anti-vaccine activists are con artists, and they all fucking know it. They don't actually WANT to get power and, more importantly, the responsibility that comes with making the decisions. They just want lots of money and attention. Unfortunately for these hucksters (and the rest of the country) their constant campaigning to get the power and authority necessary to alter vaccine policy has actually worked! Now they are saddled with the culpability for making decisions that end children's lives through bad policy, and they are panicking.
They'd like to spend the next 4 years holding meetings where they trot out their BS, to raise their individual profiles (and as a result, their invited speaker fees), without actually doing anything. But they cannot actually do that. Both because policy does need to be set, and their supporters will see their lack of action, and turn on them. At the same time, it is (finally) dawning on them that this is real. If they change policy, and kids die, it will be their fault. With no wiggle room to blame anyone else.
These people are all going to end up murdering kids.
Anti-vaccine activists are con artists, and they all fucking know it. They don't actually WANT to get power and, more importantly, the responsibility that comes with making the decisions. They just want lots of money and attention. Unfortunately for these hucksters (and the rest of the country) their constant campaigning to get the power and authority necessary to alter vaccine policy has actually worked! Now they are saddled with the culpability for making decisions that end children's lives through bad policy, and they are panicking.
They'd like to spend the next 4 years holding meetings where they trot out their BS, to raise their individual profiles (and as a result, their invited speaker fees), without actually doing anything. But they cannot actually do that. Both because policy does need to be set, and their supporters will see their lack of action, and turn on them. At the same time, it is (finally) dawning on them that this is real. If they change policy, and kids die, it will be their fault. With no wiggle room to blame anyone else.
These people are all going to end up murdering kids.
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So, basically the only thing saving us from their malice is their incompetence?
Sigh.
Sigh.
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Captain Dunsel
Wise, Aged Ars Veteran
How long until we might have adults in charge again?
Whatever the answer, it's too long. God, this is depressing.
Whatever the answer, it's too long. God, this is depressing.
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I had to jump through the legal hoops to fill out my son's vaccine exemption forms this morning and get them turned into his school before the deadline... he is immunocompromised and cannot get some vaccines. Vaccines being attacked in the USA is affecting me and my family. It's truly unbelievable that something that is as close to an actual real miracle as you can get in the actual real world is under attack like this. My son (and everyone else like him) needs others to be responsible and conscious of the fact that they do have a societal obligation to protect each other using this as-close-to-a-miracle-as-you-can-get invention to keep each other safe and it asks so little of everyone... it's exasperating. I'm just at a loss for words at this point but wanted to get my 2 cents in.
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Three more years of this, and then we spend the next century paying the price for this egregiously self inflicted wound, even if the country comes to its senses and never reelects another administration like this one for as long as any of us lives.
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Just waiting for someone to stand up and shout that "vaccines got electrolytes."
Idiocracy used to be hilarious. Now it's haunting.
Idiocracy used to be hilarious. Now it's haunting.
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I read this stuff and it is so sad. My analytical policy brain says "this will resolve itself by creating vaccinated/unvaccinated subgroups in the population, and then when enough of the unvaccinated group's kids die from preventable diseases, they move on the flat earthism or something."
But how many thousands of kids die to make that point? Tens of thousands? How many million adult deaths would be convincing evidence? Six figures of excess Covid deaths due to vaccine denialism didn't seem to make much of a difference.
But how many thousands of kids die to make that point? Tens of thousands? How many million adult deaths would be convincing evidence? Six figures of excess Covid deaths due to vaccine denialism didn't seem to make much of a difference.
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"garbage anti-vaccine presentations" doesn't sound very open-minded
/s
And, just in case I'm not being clear enough, we're paying these idiots? I have to give them credit, in less than a year, they've completely dismantled the world's leading disease fighting organisation. Not that I'd want that on my resume, but it is quite an accomplishment.
/s
And, just in case I'm not being clear enough, we're paying these idiots? I have to give them credit, in less than a year, they've completely dismantled the world's leading disease fighting organisation. Not that I'd want that on my resume, but it is quite an accomplishment.
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Mind so open the brain fell out..."garbage anti-vaccine presentations" doesn't sound very open-minded
/s
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Trump is too cheap. It’s some other conservative billionaire monster. I could see Musk.
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Try FoxReplace for FireFox. Suggest Replacing MAHA with Death Cult.
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Church has a monopoly on miracles. It's a violation of their rights for others to have access to that without signing their EULA. State is negotiating a licencing agreement.
/s
My partner is immunocompromised. She can get vaccines, but that doesn't mean they work for her. Currently she's had mumps and rubella although having had the MMR vaccine and we live in hope that she doesn't get exposed to measles.
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Leaving the anti-vax nonsense aside, I've been in positions working with teams of people whose responsibility, prior to a meeting like this, is to make sure that everyone gets the same copy of any proposals ahead of time, that presentations are vetted ahead of time, etc.
It's not just the people in front of the microphones who are failing here, this is what a breakdown in the civil service looks like, in the beginning. And as much as I want to end this with a joke about what happens at the end, Swan Lake is somehow a lot less funny than it was last year.
It's not just the people in front of the microphones who are failing here, this is what a breakdown in the civil service looks like, in the beginning. And as much as I want to end this with a joke about what happens at the end, Swan Lake is somehow a lot less funny than it was last year.
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I am not exaggerating about presentations being vetted, by the way, from citations to having the proper agency logo on powerpoint slides. I cannot stress enough that government meetings and committees are as much like the theatre productions I've worked on as anything in government.
So yes, if a committee descends into a complete circus for reasons other than external people and events, that falls entirely on the competence of the people who planned it every bit as much as a theatre production where Romeo walks on-stage wearing Juliet's dress and tells Juliet to "get thee to a nunnery", from Hamlet.
So yes, if a committee descends into a complete circus for reasons other than external people and events, that falls entirely on the competence of the people who planned it every bit as much as a theatre production where Romeo walks on-stage wearing Juliet's dress and tells Juliet to "get thee to a nunnery", from Hamlet.
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Well, for some of them. For the others it's a case of their incompetence saving us from their malice.
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Silent rebellion by staff members, maybe? Malicious compliance, basically.
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I'm showing signs of fatigue and irritability after listening to and reading about these idiots. Is that already encephalitis?
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I first read that as "Cody Meissner, a pediatrician and vomiting member", which would have been an appropriayte response.
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How did someone with any qualifications get onto this committee? Screw up on RFKJr’s part or someone else’s?
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I was about to say something about these people looking at Hanlon's Razor and going "por qué no los dos?", but then I realized the only kind of razor they might be familiar with is the one kept in the bathroom.
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This is another corroboration that Trump is a Soviet sleeper agent, placed in the US in the 1950s, charged with destroying the United States. He is remarkably effective at that goal.
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