{"id":1543736,"date":"2025-06-25T21:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-06-26T01:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/?p=1543736"},"modified":"2025-06-25T21:00:00","modified_gmt":"2025-06-26T01:00:00","slug":"the-rfk-effect","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/the-rfk-effect\/1543736\/","title":{"rendered":"The RFK Effect"},"content":{"rendered":"

The RFK Effect<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Authored by Clayton Baker, MD, via The Brownstone Institute,<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Over the last couple of weeks, a remarkable sequence of events involving two US Senators has unfolded that demonstrates the profound and positive influence that HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., is exerting on Washington, DC, which extends far beyond the halls of the CDC, FDA, and NIH.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

On June 12, 2025, Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) announced a dramatic course correction.<\/p>\n

Four months after aggressively attacking Kennedy at his Senate confirmation hearings (and subsequently voting against him), Sanders has co-sponsored a bill named the \u201cEnd Prescription Drug Ads Now Act<\/a>\u201d with Senator Angus King (I-ME), to outlaw direct-to-consumer pharmaceutical advertising in the United States.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

On his website, Sanders\u00a0states<\/a>\u00a0that \u201cthe bill would also answer Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.\u2019s repeated calls to end prescription drug advertising, a position he promoted while campaigning for President Trump in 2024.\u201d<\/p>\n

As an increasing number of Americans have learned \u2013 and as Sanders notes \u2013 Pharma advertising is currently permitted in only two countries on Earth: the United States and New Zealand. <\/strong>This allows the pharmaceutical industry to effectively buy off the entire US mainstream media, silencing media criticism of its practices and products while bombarding the public with a constant stream of pro-Pharma propaganda and advertisements.<\/p>\n

Sanders\u2019 website does not hold back in its valid criticism of Pharma\u2019s stranglehold on the media, stating:<\/p>\n

Last year, the 10 largest drug companies made more than $100 billion in profits while the pharmaceutical industry spent over\u00a0$5 billion<\/a>\u00a0on television ads. Prescription drug commercials now account for more than 30% of commercial time on major networks\u2019 evening news programs. In the first three months of this year, Big Pharma spent more than $725 million advertising just 10 drugs.<\/p>\n

Now, let us rewind to late January, back to the days of now-HHS Secretary Kennedy\u2019s confirmation hearings.<\/strong> During the\u00a0Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions<\/a>\u00a0(HELP) hearings, ranking committee member Sanders launched into a harsh attack on now-Secretary Kennedy that veered into the comical. At one point, Sanders posted photos of some baby onesies that Children\u2019s Health Defense, Kennedy\u2019s former nonprofit organization, had been selling online.<\/p>\n

Barking furiously in his trademark Brooklyn accent (and growing increasingly unhinged as he went along), Sanders repeatedly demanded of Kennedy,\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cAre you supportive of these onesies<\/a>?\u201d<\/p>\n

Later, Kennedy\u00a0called out<\/a>\u00a0Sanders for the Senator\u2019s Big Pharma campaign receipts, stating, \u201cBernie, you were the single largest acceptor of pharmaceutical dollars.\u201d<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

And yet, a mere four months pass, and\u00a0voila<\/em>, Bernie Sanders sponsors the End Prescription Drugs Now Act, and name-checks Kennedy and Trump in his supporting arguments for the bill.<\/p>\n

Has Senator Sanders had a 180-degree change of heart? Is Bernie suddenly supportive of those onesies?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Well, not so fast.<\/p>\n

One day after the bill was announced, on June 13, Sanders wrote a\u00a0letter<\/a>\u00a0to HELP Committee Chair Bill Cassidy (R-LA). In the letter, he states:<\/p>\n

As you know, last week, in a dangerous and unprecedented decision that will have a profoundly negative impact on the lives of the American people, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. fired all 17 members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)\u2026<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

I am requesting that we immediately initiate a bi-partisan investigation into these firings and conduct serious oversight into the actions Secretary Kennedy has taken to mislead the American people about the safety and effectiveness of vaccines and erode public health.<\/em><\/p>\n

Of course, Sanders makes no mention whatsoever of the extensively documented\u00a0conflicts of interest<\/a>\u00a0that numerous prior members of the ACIP committee possess. <\/strong>Many received significant funding from relevant pharmaceutical companies. Others held patents on the products voted upon by the committee.\u00a0Videos<\/a>\u00a0of past proceedings of ACIP meetings have been posted online, and they reveal the ACIP committee to be an embarrassing rubber stamp\/kangaroo court composed of feckless functionaries.<\/p>\n

Sanders\u2019 pen pal from across the aisle, Bill Cassidy, has also been a staunch opponent of Kennedy\u2019s efforts at reform. This may be explained by the fact that once Cassidy assumed the role of chairman of the HELP committee in 2023, he rapidly received a windfall of Pharma contributions, as evidenced by the April 2023 STAT news\u00a0article<\/a>\u00a0entitled, \u201cPharma executives shower Bill Cassidy with Campaign Cash.\u201d According to\u00a0Open Secrets<\/a>, Cassidy received over $290,000 from pharmaceutical Political Action Committees in 2023-4.<\/p>\n

While Cassidy was harshly critical of Kennedy during the Senate confirmation, and while he insisted on Kennedy having monthly meetings with him once confirmed, Cassidy ultimately voted in favor of Kennedy to lead HHS. However, in other vital respects, Cassidy has continued to obstruct Kennedy\u2019s work.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Cassidy teamed with another Republican Senator on the HELP committee, Susan Collins of Maine, to effectively block Trump and Kennedy\u2019s nominee for CDC Director, former Congressman David Weldon, from even coming before the committee.<\/strong> (Weldon has deep knowledge of the problems surrounding the vaccine approval process.) Ultimately, Weldon\u2019s nomination was\u00a0withdrawn<\/a>\u00a0on March 13.<\/p>\n

Thanks to Cassidy, Trump\u2019s replacement nominee to lead CDC, Susan Monarez, still awaits confirmation hearings, which according to the HELP website, are scheduled for June 25, 2025, more than 3 months after Cassidy forced the Weldon nomination to be pulled, and ironically on the\u00a0same day<\/a>\u00a0as the upcoming and much-anticipated ACIP meetings. Multiple other key HHS positions remain unfilled to date due to similar Senate delays in the confirmation process.<\/p>\n

Suddenly \u2013 literally as this essay is going to press \u2013 on June 23, 2025, STAT News has\u00a0reported<\/a>\u00a0that Cassidy has called for a delay of the ACIP meeting, claiming that \u201cadvisers picked by RFK lack experience, and may be biased against some shots.\u201d\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

You literally cannot make this nonsense up. Bernie and Bill, these Keystone Cop Senators, their hair flagrantly afire, are riding off furiously in all directions, at the bidding of their Big Pharma owners, to do whatever they can to impede the will of the electorate.<\/p>\n

The correct and absolutely necessary response, of course, is for Secretary Kennedy and his eminently qualified and morally unhindered (and yes, they are both) panel to proceed as scheduled, and render an honest and reasonable appraisal for the first time in the modern history of ACIP.<\/p>\n

Cassidy, meanwhile, had better watch himself. He faces a reelection minefield in 2026, including a wide open primary from two experienced\u00a0challengers<\/a>, and reform of the state primary system that may work to his disadvantage. Cassidy\u2019s decision to vote in favor of President Trump\u2019s\u00a0impeachment<\/a>\u00a0in February 2021 has already soured him with MAGA voters. Cassidy\u2019s obstructionism toward Kennedy has alienated even more Louisianans.<\/p>\n

As Cassidy\u2019s reelection problems suggest, a Venn diagram of President Trump and Secretary Kennedy\u2019s supporters would likely show far more overlap than most would have guessed a year ago.<\/p>\n

Kennedy has only been HHS Secretary since February 13, 2025 \u2013 a little over 4 months. He has received more scrutiny in that brief period than perhaps all other HHS Secretaries combined since the office was created in 1980.<\/p>\n

Based on Bernie Sanders and Bill Cassidy\u2019s recent behaviors, Secretary Kennedy is having effects that reverberate well beyond the halls of the CDC, FDA, and NIH. <\/strong>His opponents don\u2019t quite know what to do with themselves. It\u2019s no longer possible to just do Big Pharma\u2019s bidding in secret. Everyone\u2019s watching now. And they\u2019re not just watching Kennedy, but also the people trying to undermine and destroy him. And they consider attacks on Kennedy to be attacks on the President as well.<\/p>\n

Could it be the progress that Trump and Kennedy\u2019s NIH Director, Jay Bhattacharya, have made against deadly Gain-of-Function research, which we all now know to have been the source of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, that is driving this consensus? After all, what sane person wants our Deep State continuing to create superbugs at taxpayer expense?<\/p>\n

Could it be the measured, step-by-step progress Kennedy has led toward reform of the US\u2019s utterly corrupt vaccine approval and recommendation process \u2013 despite the opposition of Sanders, Cassidy, and the like? What sane person thinks the increase from 7 recommended childhood vaccines in the 1980s to 23 today promotes health, especially when American children today are dramatically less healthy? (In fact, much of the criticism Kennedy has faced from ordinary Americans is that this process of vaccine reform is happening too\u00a0slowly<\/em>.)<\/p>\n

These trends in public opinion should surprise nobody.<\/strong> Only the most wicked and diabolical of people would impose an endless stream of toxic injections, medications, fake foods, ubiquitous pesticides, geoengineered weather, and the patenting, corporatization, and denaturing of life itself onto their fellow humans and the entire planet, while propagandistically denouncing a healthy, natural lifestyle for children and future generations.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Ordinary citizens \u2013 be they MAGA, MAHA, reformed \u201cBernie Bros,\u201d or common sense Cajuns \u2013 learned during the Covid years that these threats to their families and futures are not imaginary boogie men. They are the\u00a0modus operandi<\/em>\u00a0of the real and destructive people and organizations that Secretary Kennedy \u2013 and by extension, President Trump \u2013 have taken on, on behalf of we the people.<\/p>\n

While not nearly complete and very much a work in progress, the efforts and successes of the Kennedy-Trump alliance are real and significant. The recent confusion, mixed messages, and bloviations of Bernie and Bill are evidence that we are moving in the right direction. I\u2019m not holding my breath, but may they and everyone see the light and join on board.<\/strong><\/p>\n

In the meantime, may Secretary Kennedy, President Trump, and their team at HHS stay the course.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Tyler Durden<\/a><\/span>
\nWed, 06\/25\/2025 – 17:00<\/span><\/p>\n

\u200bhttps:\/\/www.zerohedge.com\/medical\/rfk-effect<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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