Latest news with #HealthandHumanService
Yahoo
15-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Leslie Jones Names Her Big Problem With Top Trump Folks, With A Brutal Twist
Actor and comedian Leslie Jones pulled no punches on her return to 'The Daily Show' on Wednesday, tearing into President Donald Trump's top allies with a blistering, R-rated monologue. Jones said her big problem with 'these Trump folks' isn't that they're 'corrupt,' 'evil,' or 'women-hating, racist, unqualified dickheads who couldn't run a Dunkin' Donuts without burning it down' but that they are 'goofy-ass motherfuckers.' 'I thought Reagan was bad, but at least he knew how to talk. I thought Bush was bad, but at least he has a hilarious name. But what do we have now?' she asked. 'JD Vance, RFK Jr. and Elon Musk. I cannot believe America is going to be ended by these fucking loser incels. That's not how I plan to go out.' Jones slammed Musk, the world's richest man who Trump tapped to gut the federal government via the unofficial Department of Government Efficiency, for his 'goofy shit,' called Health and Human Service Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. 'literally, a piece of shit' for his recent sewage-swimming stunt and rebranded Vice President JD Vance as 'JD 'Bitch Ass' Vance.' She then addressed Trump supporters directly: 'But seriously, this is to the people who voted this shit in. This cannot be what you mean by 'Making America Great Again.' This is a fucking circus. Other countries are laughing at us right now. We've got to get rid of MAGA because they're not making America great again. They're making America goofy asses.' Watch Jones' full monologue here: Stephen Colbert's Audience Absolutely Loses It Over 3 Little Words About Trump 'Daily Show' Spots Unwitting NSFW Moment In Trump's Qatari Jet Spin Huge Cost Of Military Parade On Trump's Birthday Is Revealed
Yomiuri Shimbun
15-05-2025
- Health
- Yomiuri Shimbun
US Health Chief Kennedy Clashes with Lawmakers over Vaccine Comments
Reuters Robert F. Kennedy Jr. speaks in the Oval Office of the White House, on the day he is sworn in as secretary of Health and Human Service in Washington, D.C., U.S., February 13, 2025. WASHINGTON, May 14 (Reuters) – Robert F. Kennedy Jr. came under fire on Wednesday from lawmakers who said he has made false statements over vaccine testing and safety since taking the nation's top health job. Kennedy made his first appearance in Congress since his confirmation as Health and Human Services Secretary in February, facing questions over everything from his mass layoffs at federal health agencies to his handling of a worsening U.S. measles outbreak. Some of the most heated exchanges centered on his remarks on vaccines. Kennedy has for years sown doubt about the safety and efficacy of vaccines, but pledged to maintain the country's existing vaccine standards to secure his appointment in the Trump administration. Republican U.S. Senator Bill Cassidy, a physician from Louisiana who helped pave the way for Kennedy's confirmation, corrected the secretary's assertion that the COVID-19 vaccine is the only shot tested against a placebo in clinical trials. 'The Secretary said no vaccines, except for COVID, have been evaluated against placebo. For the record, that's not true,' said Cassidy, who chairs the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions. 'Coronavirus, measles, and HPV vaccines have been, and some vaccines are tested against previous versions, just for the record,' said Cassidy, who chairs the Senate HELP Committee. Democratic Senator Christopher Murphy of Connecticut said Kennedy had not lived up to his commitment to Cassidy and the committee during his confirmation hearing. 'As soon as you were sworn in, you announced new standards for vaccine approvals that you proudly referred to in your own press release as a radical departure from current practice, and experts say that departure will delay approvals,' said Murphy. 'You also said, specific to the measles vaccine, that you support the measles vaccine, but you have consistently been undermining the measles vaccine,' Murphy said. 'You told the public that the vaccine wanes very quickly… and said that the measles vaccine was never properly tested for safety. You said there's fetal debris in the measles vaccine.' 'All true,' Kennedy shouted back as Murphy listed his comments. 'I'm not going to just tell people everything is safe and effective if I know that there's issues,' he said. The measles vaccine has been shown to be safe and highly effective at preventing infection and does not contain fetal debris. Kennedy has drawn condemnation from health officials for what they say is a weak endorsement of measles shots during an outbreak that has infected more than 1,000, mostly unvaccinated, people and killed three. Audience members at the HELP hearing wore stickers saying 'When Bobby lies, children die,' and 'anti-vax, anti-science, anti-America' in reference to Kennedy's vaccine views. Some protesters shouting opposition to Kennedy's positions, were dragged out by capitol police, including Ben Cohen, co-founder of Ben and Jerry's ice cream. 'You're killing poor kids in Gaza and paying for it by cutting Medicaid for kids here,' shouted Cohen, who had attended a pro-Palestine event with Democratic Representative Rashida Tlaib earlier on Wednesday, referring to Medicaid cuts proposed in the Republican spending bill and U.S. support for Israel's war in Gaza. 'UP TO ME' Kennedy has said his top priorities as health secretary include identifying the environmental contributors to autism and tackling rising rates of chronic disease. He has vowed to remake the nation's health agencies, including cutting 10,000 jobs at the Food and Drug Administration, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health. Wednesday's Senate hearing and one before a House Appropriations subcommittee earlier in the day were meant to review Kennedy's health-related spending plans under President Donald Trump's budget proposal, including an $18 billion cut to NIH funding and $3.6 billion from the CDC. Democrats and other critics have portrayed the cuts as a gutting of the country's public health infrastructure. Kennedy told the Appropriations Committee they would save taxpayers $1.8 billion per year and make the department more efficient. 'Our reductions have focused on aligning HHS staffing levels to reflect the size of HHS prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, which saw around a 15% increase in the number of employees,' Kennedy said in his opening statement to the House subcommittee. The cuts and firings were his decision, not edicts from Elon Musk, Kennedy said when asked about the billionaire Trump ally's involvement. Musk is leading the DOGE initiative to cut government funding and reshape the federal bureaucracy. 'Elon Musk gave us help in trying and figuring out where there was fraud and abuse in the department,' Kennedy testified. 'But it was up to me to make the decision, and there are many instances where I pushed back.' Kennedy said he was willing to work with Democrats on lowering prescription drug prices in response to a question from Senator Bernie Sanders, a Vermont independent who votes with Democrats. Trump signed an executive order on Monday directing drugmakers to lower their prices to align with what other countries pay that analysts and legal experts said would be difficult to implement.
Yahoo
07-05-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
States loosen vaccine rules — even as measles outbreak rages
The U.S. is on track to surpass 1,000 measles cases this year as the viral illness — once so rare that most young doctors don't recognize the telltale rash — makes an alarming comeback. The outbreak, which has spread to 29 states as of May 1 and claimed three lives, hasn't stopped some local lawmakers from considering or implementing policies that could make it even easier for parents to opt out of school vaccination requirements for their children. Idaho Gov. Brad Little signed into law last month an unprecedented ban on vaccine mandates for schools and businesses in the state, which already boasts the highest vaccine exemption rate for kindergarteners nationally. On his first day in office, West Virginia Gov. Patrick Morrisey issued an executive order permitting religious exemptions from school and day care immunization requirements — a major shift in one of the few states that had only allowed medical exemptions previously. And lawmakers in red states like Florida, Louisiana and Texas are weighing measures that would make it more difficult for health providers to deny care — from organ transplants to pediatric well visits — to people who aren't vaccinated. Those state efforts, alongside separate measures to limit or ban the use of messenger RNA vaccines like those developed for Covid, come amid longtime vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s ascent to power in Washington as Health and Human Service secretary. But they're hardly a new phenomenon — immunization coverage has declined nationally for kindergarteners since the 2019-2020 school year — and their roots can be traced back to a group of moms in Texas. The Lone Star state has been the cradle of domestic vaccine resistance for the last decade and is now the epicenter of an exploding measles outbreak that could end the U.S.' status as a country without sustained spread of the virus. 'The nation has caught up to Texas, because we have been dealing with this rhetoric and these little micromovements,' said Rekha Lakshmanan, chief strategy officer at The Immunization Partnership, which promotes vaccination in the state. Rebecca Hardy founded Texans for Vaccine Choice in 2015 to lobby against legislation to end religious and philosophical exemptions in the state. Since then, the group's clout has solidified, and more state lawmakers, predominantly Republicans, offer public support at events like its annual rally at the state Capitol building in Austin. 'A group of moms got together and basically said, 'Not on our watch,'' Hardy said. The social contract around vaccination — that individuals choose to get immunized to help protect their communities — in the U.S. is seemingly fraying as more parents survey social media to find pediatricians who won't force them to vaccinate their children. Parents increasingly question why their providers recommend so many shots for their kids when they didn't have to get anywhere near that number in the 1980s and 1990s. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data shows that national immunization coverage among kindergarteners in the 2023-2024 school year dropped to 93 percent, with exemptions from at least one vaccine increasing to 3.3 percent of those students. Fourteen states reported exemptions above 5 percent. That dip threatens herd immunity against highly contagious diseases, like measles and whooping cough, that demand coverage rates of at least 95 percent. Measles was officially eliminated in the U.S. in 2000, but that designation is now in jeopardy. Measles is no longer considered eliminated if a chain of infections lasts for more than 12 months, which public health officials expect to happen because of this latest outbreak. Public health experts fear that skepticism and the rising 'medical freedom' movement — which has dovetailed with Kennedy's 'Make America Healthy Again' mantle — will lead to more cases of vaccine-preventable illnesses in children, many of which can cause serious complications and even death. Measles, they say, is the proverbial canary in the coal mine for other sinister but lesser-known illnesses, like whooping cough and Hib disease. Some public health experts are now puzzling over who might be 'trusted messengers' to promote vaccination as scientific institutions are falling out of favor. 'Right now, we're losing trust in our institutions in general,' Dr. Seth Berkley, the former CEO of Gavi, a global vaccine alliance, said last month at a vaccine conference in Washington. A first-in-the-nation move The bill Little signed into law in early April prohibits Idaho schools and businesses from requiring a 'medical intervention' — like a vaccine — as a condition for enrollment or employment. The measure, which goes into effect July 1, was tweaked by legislators after the governor vetoed an earlier iteration that he said would have hampered schools' ability to send home children with communicable illnesses from measles to pink eye. The legislation Little ultimately endorsed includes explicit references to sections of Idaho law permitting both school immunization requirements and exemptions, as well as allowing schools to keep students with contagious diseases out of class. Richard Hughes, a vaccine law expert at Epstein Becker Green who advised on the changes, said they leave intact Idaho's existing infrastructure for mandates and exemptions. But the law also references Idaho's parental rights statute, making its full ramifications unclear. Hughes said he fears that, as a result, vaccine opponents could challenge any school that tries to keep its existing requirements intact. The Health Freedom Defense Fund, the group that says it wrote the original Idaho bill, said in a statement days after passage that the law ensures 'no Idahoan will ever again be compelled to undergo unwanted medical interventions as a condition of employment, education, or daily life.' Louisiana lawmakers are scheduled to consider similar legislation this week in committee. 'It was definitely disappointing to see that pass in Idaho, just to know it can be used to set a precedent for potentially doing things like that in other states,' said Jennifer Herricks, founder of Louisiana Families for Vaccines. While all 50 states permit medical exemptions to vaccine requirements, only five have prohibited exceptions on religious or personal grounds. But Morrisey in West Virginia has made his own move to overhaul the state's longstanding policy of limiting vaccine exemptions to medical reasons. Morrisey, a Republican, signed an executive order in January directing health officials to establish a process for residents to object to school or daycare immunization mandates on religious or conscientious grounds, citing a 2023 state religious protections law. But the state House rejected a Senate bill to codify his directive weeks before the legislature adjourned. 'I'm not a doctor — the experts that I rely upon absolutely are rock solid, rock solid, behind the fact that we need to be taking the vaccines,' GOP Sen. Jim Justice, Morrisey's predecessor who vetoed an earlier attempt to loosen vaccine policies there, told POLITICO last month. West Virginia's public health agency says it's still reviewing religious exemption requests. A webpage outlining its medical exemption process explains why — until the January order — the state didn't grant them previously. 'Non-medical exemptions have been associated with increased occurrence of vaccine-preventable disease outbreaks originating in and spreading through schools,' the state website for the Office of Epidemiology and Prevention Services says. Expediting exemptions In Texas, members of the state House's health committee spent nearly two hours considering testimony last month for and against Texans for Vaccine Choice-backed legislation to make it easier for parents to access vaccine exemptions from the state. The majority of the dozen-plus witnesses opposed the measure, which would allow guardians to print exemption affidavit forms at home instead of waiting for the state to mail them upon request. Overall, Texas' vaccination coverage of kindergarteners during the 2023-2024 school year was 94.4 percent for required immunizations. But there's wide variation across the state — nearly 100 private schools and public districts reported MMR vaccine rates below 75 percent. Some legislators suggested they were sympathetic to TFVC's perspective — that the bill would fix a paperwork and taxpayer burden and wouldn't necessarily increase the number of exemptions. 'This legislation doesn't affect whether kids can opt out of these vaccinations,' said Republican state Rep. Mike Olcott. 'It just has to do with the expediency of how quickly they can opt out.' But public health advocates and parents opposing it argued that's exactly what would happen — and that the state's raging measles outbreak clearly illustrates the consequences of exemption-friendly policies. 'Texas has given countless rights and protections to parents who choose not to vaccinate,' parent Heather Lacy Cook told the panel. 'I'm happy for that, but my rights are dwindling.'
Yahoo
28-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
GOP Rep. Mike Lawler braves boos at stormy suburban town hall
Republican Rep. Mike Lawler braved boos and jeers at a stormy town hall in suburban Rockland County as he seeks to bolster his standing in his suburban swing district. Hundreds of constituents turned up mostly to roast the self-styled GOP moderate Sunday night over his failure to push back against the right-wing agenda of President Trump in his second term. 'What are you doing to stand in opposition to this administration?' one woman asked to cheers from the crowd. 'What are you doing specifically that warrants the label 'moderate'?' a man asked. Lawler sought to burnish his image as a straight-talking problem solver who can work with everyone from Trump to Democrats to get things done. He vowed to fight to potential deep cuts to government programs spearheaded by the new administration. 'I have been very clear: I am not cutting benefits for any eligible recipient,' Lawler said. Showing off his trademark political combativeness, Lawler downplayed the importance of the recently passed GOP budget blueprint he voted for, which analysts say will force deep cuts in Medicaid. 'That is as good as the paper it's written on,' Lawler claimed, sparking a chorus of jeers. Lawler ticked off a laundry list of Trump policies he opposes, including the vaccine skepticism of Health and Human Service Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and the improper deportation to El Salvador of undocumented immigrant Kilmar Abrego Garcia. 'If you'd take the opportunity to listen rather than yelling, you might actually hear what you want to hear,' he told the angry audience. Despite the opposition, Lawler has vowed to hold live town halls in Westchester, Putnam and Dutchess counties, rejecting the advice of GOP leadership to skip the public meetings that have been lightning rods for raucous criticism of Trump's controversial agenda. Lawler, who could wind up running for governor, says he is running for a third term representing NY-17, an affluent and highly educated suburban district stretching north from White Plains. He's one of just three House Republicans elected in districts where Trump lost to Kamala Harris in the November election, making him a marquee target for Democrats as they aim to retake the House of Representatives. Rockland County Legislator Beth Davidson, Army veteran Cait Conley and anti-poverty activist Jessica Reinmann are planning Democratic challenges. Ex-Rep. Mondaire Jones, who represented the district for a single term before Lawler and lost to the Republican in 2024, has said he won't run again next year.
The Hill
17-04-2025
- Health
- The Hill
Florida Democrat chides RFK Jr. over ‘disrespectful' rhetoric around autism
Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.) criticized Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for comments he made Wednesday about autism. In a Wednesday press conference on a recent report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Kennedy said that 'autism destroys families.' 'More importantly, it destroys our greatest resource, which [is] our children,' he added. 'These are children who should not be, who should not be suffering like this. These are kids who, many of them were fully functional, and regressed because of some environmental exposure into autism when they're two years old.' 'And these are kids who will never pay taxes, they'll never hold a job, they'll never play baseball, they'll never write a poem, they'll never go out on a date,' Kennedy continued. 'Many of them will never use a toilet unassisted. And we have to recognize we are doing this to our children.' Frost criticized Kennedy in a post late Wednesday on the social platform X that featured a clip with the Health and Human Service secretary's comments. 'This is disrespectful and a flat out lie that further stigmatizes autism. It's not a virus or a disease – it's a neurological condition with a wide spectrum. Many Americans with autism work, pay taxes, and are living happy and healthy lives.' Frost said in his post. Kennedy also suggested with a lack of evidence Wednesday that 'environmental toxins' in food and medicine were behind rising autism rates. 'One of the things I think we need to move away from today is this ideology that the autism prevalence increases, the relentless increases, are simply artifacts of better diagnoses, better recognition, or changing diagnostic criteria,' Kennedy said. The Health and Human Services secretary also said there is not a genetic connection to autism, but the CDC's research in the past has found otherwise.
