RFK, Jr. got b**ch slapped this week. I’m not actually talking about the hilarious SNL parody of The Pitt. Mahaspital featured docs ordering beef tallow, bull semen, anal probiotics, and cold plunges in blue jeans rather than surgery or actual medication. The skit ends with an absurdly jacked RFK, Jr. (wearing jeans and no shirt) rolling a bear in on a stretcher.  I loved the sketch, but I feel it’s only fair to point out that the Daily Show did an equally funny parody called RFK Hospital last year. It also features the Secretary of Health in jeans and no shirt, makes references to the bear, and suggests beef tallow might be used as hand sanitizer. At RFK Hospital the Covid vaccine is blamed for all deaths and swimming in fecal matter is offered as a cure.  I recommend watching both because laughter really is the best medicine (see what I did there?). But the too-easy parodies of this ridiculous man are not enough, we need someone to stop the damage he is doing to our public health system. This week we got that, at least for now. On Monday Judge Brian E. Murphy, a federal district court judge in Massachusetts, put a hold on the many changes to vaccine recommendations that HHS and the CDC have announced since Kennedy took over. In a 45-page opinion, Murphy said that the administration did not follow longstanding rules meant to ensure that the scientific policy of the United States is, well, scientific. The case was brought by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) after RFK, Jr. unceremoniously fired all of the existing scientific advisors on the ACIP, hired new ones, and proceeded to overhaul the vaccine schedule without consulting any of them. The ACIP—Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices—is not a lawmaking body, but its opinions are very influential in determining which vaccines get recommended, how many doses are needed, and the age at which particular vaccines should be given. The committee’s decisions not only affect what health care providers recommend but also help determine what insurance companies will pay for. For pretty obvious reasons, this committee is usually made up of infectious disease specialists and vaccine experts. When RFK, Jr. took over, there were 17 members on the ACIP. He fired all of them and brought in his own people. Judge Murphy was unimpressed with the replacements who were hurriedly put in over two days without proper vetting. The Judge wrote that only six of the 15 panelists “appear to have any meaningful experience in vaccines — the very focus of A.C.I.P.” Oddly, even after stacking the committee with those who share his anti-science views, Bobby did not consult them before having the CDC issue a decree that overhauled the entire childhood vaccine schedule. Murphy didn’t like this either. He told Kennedy, “that’s not how it f**king works,” only using different words. He called it a “technical, procedural failure” and a “strong indication of something more fundamentally problematic: an abandonment of the technical knowledge and expertise embodied by that committee.” Unlike Kennedy, Judge Murphy seems to understand and appreciate the value of science. He referred to Carl Sagan when writing, “History is littered with once-universal truths that have since come under scrutiny… nevertheless, science is still ‘the best we have.’” He also noted that proper legal procedure is like the scientific process; it helps us evaluate conflicting data and rise above adversarial thought. He ruled to block Kennedy’s decisions in large part because proper procedures were not followed (also because the new rules are stupid, but he used different words to say that too). Murphy’s ruling is temporary, and the Trump administration has promised to appeal it. But in the meantime, all of changes to the vaccine schedule are blocked. This means pregnant women will be told they should, in fact, get a Covid vaccine and most babies will be given the Hep B vaccine before they leave the hospital. Murphy’s decision also vacated the appointments of the new ACIP committee members which is one way to cancel the meeting they were going to have next week. This is all great news, and we will take public health wins wherever we can get them. At the same time, if Kennedy’s goal was—and we know Kennedy’s goal was—to undermine faith in vaccines and create confusion about what shots to get, we’re sadly far down that road already. Ohio Lawmaker Introduces Atwoodian Pregnancy Registry BillIn a sea of bats**t crazy abortion laws, this one has to be one of the bats**ttiest. Ohio Representative Jean Schmidt (R-Loveland) introduced a bill (HB 754) on Monday that would require the state to be notified of every pregnancy that passes the fetal heartbeat mark and to be notified again if that pregnancy ends. The specifics are insane. Any medical professional who determines the presence of a so-called fetal heartbeat would have to file a “certificate of life” in the local records office within 10 days of the examination. A copy of that certificate would have to be given to the pregnant patient as well. Before we start talking about the required fetal death certificates, let me remind you about the anti-choice ploy that is the fetal heartbeat. At about six weeks into pregnancy, a sonogram can detect electrical activity in the cells that will develop into the heart. The sound you hear that resembles a human heartbeat however, is manufactured by the machine. The term “fetal heartbeat” is actually a double misnomer because those cells are nowhere near forming a heart and technically there’s not even a fetus yet. We’re still talking about the embryonic stage which lasts until eight weeks counting from the first day of your last period. Pregnancy loss at this stage is very common—it’s estimated that 10 to 15% of pregnancies end in miscarriages—though hard to track because many people won’t even know they’re pregnant yet. I understand that some expectant parents find the machine-produced thumping reassuring, and it can be a good sign that a pregnancy is progressing, but it’s still very early. If Schmidt’s law were to pass, anyone who had a miscarriage or an abortion after that first sonogram appointment would have to inform local officials about it. Fetal death would be defined as death prior to the “complete expulsion or extraction” of “a product of human conception,” regardless of the duration of the pregnancy. It’s on the physician taking care of the patient or performing an abortion to file this certificate within 48 hours. Physicians would be able to sign the “certificate of death” unless the fetus dies in a “violent, suspicious, unusual or sudden” manner. In that case, the death would need to be certified by the coroner or medical examiner. Ohio already has a law that requires fetal death certificates after 20-weeks’ gestation, when a fetus is getting closer to viability. Making every woman who miscarries in the first trimester—long before they’re showing, shopping for a crib, or telling their boss—file for a fetal death certificate is absurd and a little cruel. You’re not only punishing women who want to get abortions (which is clearly part of the point), you’re also making situations in which wanted pregnancies ended too soon that much more traumatic for everyone involved. As Jessica Valenti points out in Abortion Every Day, this law effectively sets up a registry of everyone in Ohio who is pregnant, miscarried, or had an abortion. This feels extremely Atwoodian (bring on the bonnets). It’s even more reminiscent of the Republic of Gilead—the totalitarian regime that controls most of the United States in The Handmaid’s Tale—when we remember that Ohio voters have made their position on these issues clear. In 2023, voters passed a constitutional amendment to protect abortion until fetal viability (around 22 or 24 weeks) and ensure that exemptions for the health of the mother are honored throughout pregnancy. The amendment specifically says that “The state shall not, directly or indirectly, burden, penalize, prohibit, interfere with, or discriminate against” an individual’s right to abortion. Proposing a s**t-ton of state interference despite this voter-passed amendment is yet another example of how Republican lawmakers have given up on caring about what their constituents actually want. The bill is unlikely to become law and would almost certainly be struck down by state courts if it did. (The courts recently struck down a law requiring clinics that conduct abortions to cremate and inter fetal tissue or remains at their own cost.) Still, the blatant embrace of a world in which the state is unapologetically all up in my uterus is pretty scary. We all need to join the MAFA movement: Make Atwood Fiction Again. (It’s a thing, or at least there’s merch.) Sex on Wednesday is free today. But if you enjoyed this post, you can tell Sex on Wednesday that their writing is valuable by pledging a future subscription. You won't be charged unless they enable payments.
|
MAFA: Make Atwood Fiction Again
0 comments:
Post a Comment