Kennedy has said that vaccines should be tested against placebos. The horror! From Jenna McCarthy at jennasside.rocks:
“Wait, now you want to start testing drugs *before* giving them to billions of people?”
By all means, let’s all collapse onto fainting couches and demand a Level 5 Outrage Alert over Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s latest unthinkable move: In a burst of insanity rivaled only by that time someone suggested strapping babies into car seats instead of letting them roll around in the backseat like bowling pins, our deranged HHS Secretary has actually declared that we should start testing vaccines. Thoroughly and properly. You know, against placebos, like saline or sugar water. Oh, and also these new options shouldn’t contain the sketchy mRNA technology that teaches our cells to build spike protein like it’s a Lego kit from hell.
What’s next? Suggesting we wash our hands after handling feces and cook chicken all the way through?
If someone doesn’t name their band the Alarmed Health Experts, I’ll be so disappointed.
And just like that, the Earth cracked open and the ghost of Jonas Salk was seen sobbing into his microscope. According to modern virologists like Rachel Maddow, disliking mRNA is the equivalent of denying gravity or licking doorknobs during a flu outbreak. But is it really so unreasonable to prefer an old-school vaccine—one made with inactivated viruses—over a platform so new that its long-term effects are still officially filed under “TBD”?
What RFK Jr. is proposing is actually something that used to be called science: You give a thing. You compare it to not giving the thing. You track both outcomes. You repeat the test, refine the parameters, publish the data, and resist the temptation to flog anyone who points out any flaws in your work. But somewhere along the line, logic left the building, Science™ got sold to the highest bidder, and not-testing became the new black.
