#makary

#Bhattacharya for #NIH, #Makary for #FDA, the latter with some (D) votes. Fuuuuuck.

#Makary testified before the #Senate #health cmte Thurs morning as he seeks confirmation to helm the arm of the #HHS charged w/making decisions touching the lives of every American. The ~$7B agency has a wide mandate, overseeing the #safety of things such as #vaccines, #InfantFormula & tobacco products. It regulates #pharmaceuticals as well as the majority of the US #food supply, both of which involve industries that have come under frequent fire from #RFKJr, HHS secy.

#PublicHealth #USpol #FDA

#Trump’s #FDA nominee, #MartyMakary

In 2021, #Makary took to FoxNews & blasted the FDA. In an op-ed, he called for an overhaul of leadership & culture at the agency that he said was “broken” & “mired in politics & red tape.”

Nearly 4 years later, the Johns Hopkins surgeon is in a position to lead the very agency he lambasted.

#PublicHealth #USpol
https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2025/03/06/fda-confirmation-hearing-makary/

#Marty #Makary, MD, MPH, rose to national attention by
skewering the medical establishment in books and papers and bashing the federal response to COVID-19 on TV.

Now the Johns Hopkins University surgeon and researcher has been
nominated to lead the FDA.
The agency -- responsible for regulating products ranging from toothpaste to vaccines -- is famously understated, issuing carefully worded statements devoid of opinion or scientific speculation.
https://synopsi.medpagetoday.com/article/408492/marty-makary-who-made-his-name-bashing-the-medical-establishment-may

Trump White House Cites Fringe Doctor to Defend Research Cuts

UCSF professor Vinay Prasad emerges as rationalizer-in-chief for Trump’s NIH cuts

#Prasad #Bhattacharya #Makary

https://www.importantcontext.news/p/trump-white-house-cites-fringe-doctor

The many doctors who are just now realizing that misinformation wasn't
"COVID hysteria nonsense"
have a lot of catching up to do to understand how the forces they've legitimized led to this moment.

When he’s not busy spreading Orwellian doublespeak, saying less money is more money,
Dr. Vinay Prasad is busy celebrating cuts to researchers,
as well as mass purges of scientists and the ascension of RFK Jr.

Dr. #Prasad, along with his friends and ideological compatriots
Drs. Jay #Bhattacharya and Marty #Makary, are now the embodiment of the medical establishment,
and their vision is being realized.

They wanted RFK Jr. to “disrupt the US medical establishment”
and that’s what he’s doing.

Anyone who either legitimized these doctors or defended them by baselessly smearing their critics contributed to this moment.

https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/ucsfapathy/?utm_source=feedly&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=ucsfapathy

- @pluralistic

https://pluralistic.net/2024/12/20/clinical-trial-by-ordeal/

Realistically, few people are going to read a 900-page group work of neofeudalist fanfic shit out by the most esoteric Fedsoc weirdos the world has ever seen.

But one person who did read Project 2025 was the leftist historian Rick Perlstein, who was the first person to really dig into what a fucking messthat thing is:
https://pluralistic.net/2024/07/14/fracture-lines/#disassembly-manual
Perlstein's excellent analysis doesn't claim that Project 2025's authors aren't sincere in their intentions to wreak great harm upon the nation and its people;
rather, his point is that Project 2025 is filled with contradictory, mutually exclusive proposals written by people who fundamentally disagree with one another,
and who each have enough power within the Trump coalition that all of their proposals have to be included in a document like this:
https://prospect.org/politics/2024-07-10-project-2025-republican-presidencies-tradition/
Project 2025 isn't just a guide to the masturbatory fantasies of the worst people in American politics
– far more importantly, it is a detailed map of the fracture lines in the GOP coalition, the places where it is liable to split and shatter.
This is an important point if you want to do more about Trumpism than run around feeling miserable and scared.
If you want to fight, Project 2025 is a guide to the weak spots where an attack will do the most damage.
Perlstein's insight continues to be borne out as the Trump regime makes ready to take power.
In a new story for KFF News, Stephanie Armour and Julie Rovner describe the irreconcilable differences among Trump's picks for the country's top public health authorities:
https://kffhealthnews.org/news/article/trump-rfk-kennedy-health-hhs-fda-cdc-vaccines-covid-weldon/
The brain-worm-infected-elephant in the room is, of course, RFK Jr, who has been announced as Trump's head of Health and Human Services.
RFK Jr is a notorious antivaxer, chairman of Children’s Health Defense, a notorious anti-vaccine group.
Kennedy's view is shared by Trump's chosen CDC boss, Dave Weldon, a physician who has repeated the dangerous lie that vaccinations cause autism.
Mehmet "Dr Oz" Oz, the TV "physician" Trump wants to put in charge of Medicare/Medicaid, calls vaccines "oversold" and advocates for treating covid with hydroxychloroquine, another thoroughly debunked hoax:
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2024/12/17/hydroxychloroquine-study-covid-19-retracted-trump/77051671007/
However, other top Trump public health picks emphatically support vaccines.
#Marty #Makary is Trump's choice for FDA commissioner;
he's a Johns Hopkins trained surgeon who says vaccines "save lives" (but he peddles the lethal, unscientific hoax that childhood vaccines should be "spread out").
#Jay #Bhattacharya, the economist/MD whom Trump wants to put in charge of the NIH, supports vaccines
(he is also one of the country's leading proponents of the eugenicist idea of accepting the mass death of elderly, sick and disabled people rather than imposing quarantines during epidemics).
Then there's #Janette #Nesheiwat, whom Trump has asked to serve as the nation's surgeon general; she calls vaccines "a gift from God."

Like "Bidenism," Trumpism is a fragile coalition of people who thoroughly and irreconcilably disagree with one another.
During the Biden administration, this resulted in self-inflicted injuries like appointing the brilliant trustbuster Lina Khan to run the FTC,
but also appointing the pro-monopoly corporate lawyer Jacqueline Scott Corley to a lifetime seat as a federal judge,
from which perch she ruled against Khan's no-brainer suit to block the Microsoft-Activision merger:
https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/judge-rules-for-microsoft-mergers
The Trump coalition is even broader than the Biden coalition.
That's how he won the 2024 election.
But that also means that Trumpism is more fractious and off-balance, and hence will be easier to disrupt,
because it is riven by people in senior positions who hate one another and are actively working for each others' political demise.

"In their criticism of #Covid19 policies, alternative policies were proposed by many current #HHS picks, including #Bhattacharya and #Makary. These positions may signal how they would handle future outbreaks, such as H5N1 if it becomes a pandemic.

"However, these positions often lacked evidence, and their predictions did not bear out."

https://yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com/p/hhs-picks-the-house-subcommittee

#TrumpCabinet

One of my favorite physician-influencers, #PeterAttia on reforming medicine:

#MartyMakary, a Johns Hopkins physician and NYTimes best selling author, explores how a new generation of doctors is challenging long-held medical practices by asking critical new questions.

He explains the urgent need for reform in medical education and the major barriers standing in the way of innovative medical research. Dr #Makary offers insightful reflections on where medicine has succeeded and where there’s still room to challenge historic practices and embrace new approaches."

#blindspots #medicine #healthcare
https://peterattiamd.com/martymakary3/