r/publichealth • u/tag24news • 2d ago
NEWS Robert F. Kennedy Jr. lashes out at CDC over Covid response after firing its director
https://www.tag24.com/politics/politicians/robert-f-kennedy-jr/rfk-jr-lashes-out-at-cdc-over-covid-response-after-firing-its-director-3415704209
u/megthegreatone 2d ago
This has been genuinely the worst year of my life and I don't know how much more of it I can take as a CDC employee.
I'm tired, boss.
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u/AppropriateScience9 2d ago
I bet. I'm in a state agency and my nerves are fried just dealing with the funding roller coaster. I can only imagine what you're going through.
We appreciate you, though. All of you. We know you're doing your best to do the right thing while working for people who literally despise you.
It's not fucking fair. None of it is.
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u/supercleverhandle476 1d ago
I left Public health after a decade in February.
I can most aptly describe my daily mindset as “survivors guilt.”
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u/mudpiechicken 2d ago edited 2d ago
Yes, you’re angry about being inconvenienced during a worldwide emergency… where people DIED. Oh no, you had to wear a mask and didn’t look like a tough guy. I’d blame the worm for eating the part of your brain with any empathy but clearly that’s not possible because it would mean most Republicans have brain-worms at this point and unlike Bobby I don’t make up epidemics.
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u/quaglady 2d ago
His reaction certainly makes sense considering he shut down so many research and data gathering functions under hhs first. Im still fuming about NIOSH and that's not even what I do.
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u/Soggie1977 2d ago
More spray tan?
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u/OysterPickleSandwich 1d ago
Starting to wonder if he thinks the worm in his brain needs to be fed by spray tan, only he thinks its melange (spice) from Arakis and the worm is shai-hulid (sandworm) from Dune.
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u/bluewhale3030 1d ago
Is it a spray tan or is he one of those people who believes sunscreen is what actually gives you skin cancer, not the sun? Because that would not surprise me one iota
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u/37Philly 2d ago
Bobby just trying to help his grift. He made a lot of money from pseudo science and dumb conspiracy theories related to Covid-19.
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u/quaglady 2d ago
Yep, foodnet stopped tracking
severalparasites(edit I was wrong its just cyclospora, but still; there's going to be so much money made in ivermectin now!). Public health is secondary to the grift.
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u/bd2999 2d ago
I wish there was someone there to confront these lies. They did mess up testing initially but they got it under control fairly quickly. There were private companies that also had initial lack luster testing. My knock on the CDC test initially was it was needlessly complex for what it was and prevented easily increasing throughput of assays. They should have done better but they did correct the mistake, it is not like they were wrong the whole time or even most of it.
The other stuff is an outright lie. The social distancing, masking and so on were all based on actual science and are not controversial. Just because some people didn't want to do it is another story. If anything there is evidence that social distancing was not far enough, but at the start there was nothing else to do and there was alot of evidence that these things helped. Even logically, it makes sense. It is not perfect but if someone sneezes the farther you are the less chance you get a concentrated burst and many large droplets are caught by the mask reducing your odds. And the data supported that.
The school closing I still think was a good idea at the time. The issues were not just on the CDC though. As schools are potential incubators spreading virus and those kids exposing more at risk people at home. And kids still do get sick from it, sometimes very sick. The downside was the lost education time and having to go virtual learning on the fly. Which highlighted regions by income and resources, which CDC does not control.
For sure it was a trade off and it could be tweaked in hindsight but people like RFK Jr. and others acting like this was all perfectly knowable at that point in time is a lie. The people complaining mostly made political arguments and cherry picked studies to show things. And their preferred methods had less support and more risk.
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u/grandmawaffles 2d ago
If they funded school during the summer for the year after kids would have made up what was lost.
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u/IamDollParts96 2d ago
We're F-ed unless prominent people in power speak up and act en masse.
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u/37Philly 2d ago
Mostly true. But there are more of us than MAGA. The Heritage Foundation cannot prevail in their goal to destroy democracy.
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u/Icy-Map9410 1d ago
I’m not so sure about that. A group of billionaires tearing shit down and dismantling important organizations, a group who owns everyone and everything, is not foreshadowing anything good for this country….and this circus has only been in town for 8 months. They could easily complete their P2025 agenda of destruction by 2028.
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u/IamDollParts96 1d ago
If you believe that democrats are protectors of democracy, this is why you keep losing.
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u/bluewhale3030 1d ago
Can we focus on the subject at hand, the dangerous fascists trying to turn our country into techno-Gilead?
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u/StLdogmom72 2d ago
Email your rep and senators now. We all want food safety, preventive medicine and vaccines and we want him out.
The CDC clap out today was amazing and is being covered. Raise your voices now!
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u/Designer-Contract852 2d ago
He needs to be stopped. In a sane administration he should be dragged in front of a committee to answer for his insane thoughts and mismanagement and then impeached. I'm sure trump is threatening the lives of members of congress and their families to go along with all this insanity 🙄
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u/Icy-Map9410 1d ago
You’re correct. Trump’s got everyone that could potentially interfere effectively muzzled.
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u/Remote_Nectarine9659 1d ago
A psychopath intent on mass murder is mad at the people trying to slow down his mass murder.
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u/Clean_Lettuce9321 1d ago
The only thing dumber than taking Robert Kennedy’s medical advice is taking Donald Trump’s political advice. Neither of them has a clue, they’re just blowing smoke up each other’s ass, and Americans are going to pay the price. This is the most idiotic administration of my lifetime... and I survived Bush Jr. and Quayle.
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u/Significant_Cow4765 1d ago
*Quayle was H W's...W. gave us Darth Vader Cheney
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u/Clean_Lettuce9321 1d ago
It was never my intention to connect the two, just to bring up how incredibly stupid they both were.
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u/andorianspice 2d ago
This is all just so awful. It was an unprecedented and unpredictable situation and people did the best they could with the knowledge we had at the time
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u/ViolettaQueso 2d ago
He’s incredibly spun in his head. That the main demented one keeps him on staff is terrifying for all of us.
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u/ScrauveyGulch 1d ago
The Trump vaccines 😄
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u/bluewhale3030 1d ago
Trump etc always conveniently forget that it was his administration that oversaw the production and release of covid vaccines. Of course that only happened because sane people were in charge of our public health systems.
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u/Theoretical_Phys-Ed 1d ago
As someone who studies diseases, including Covid, I think I hate him more than trump.
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u/Health_Wellness9227 21h ago
I never ever thought I could hate anyone more than Trump, but RFK is doing just as much damage to the country, and possibly more when you considered number of lives potentially lost. I’m starting to question my own sanity…is this really happening?
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u/EnvironmentalRock827 2d ago
Joke is on him and his lack of a degree