Democrats so enjoyed forcing Americans to do silly things during COVID, like starving their children of oxygen and letting Grandma die alone, that they leapt right back to their hectoring at the Senate hearing this week with Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Blithely unaware that public health authorities have become objects of seething hatred throughout the land, Democrats -- and a few Republicans -- harangued Kennedy for not trusting "science" and "experts."
Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., began the idiot-fest by accusing RFK of prevaricating during his confirmation hearing when he claimed to be "pro-safety and pro-science." In fact, Inspector Clouseau charged, the secretary was promoting "fringe conspiracies."
Where have we heard about "fringe" theories before? As I recall, the last time was at the beginning of the pandemic, when actual experts (Martin Kulldorff, Harvard Medical School biostatistician, Jay Bhattacharya, doctor and public health economist at Stanford, and Sunetra Gupta, infectious disease epidemiologist at Oxford) published the Great Barrington Declaration, calling for focused protection for the vulnerable (old people) while leaving the rest of us alone.
As everyone now knows -- other than short-haired Karens in Manhattan claiming to have "long COVID" -- that is exactly what we should have done.
But at the time, National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins called the authors "fringe epidemiologists." The government's top infectious disease expert, Anthony Fauci, assured The New York Times that the idea was "unscientific, dangerous and 'total nonsense.'" The Union of Concerned Scientists piped in, saying GBD was a "dangerous fringe theory."
Sweden followed this unscientific "dangerous fringe theory," imposing no lockdowns, no school closures, no masks and no social distancing. It ended up with the fewest excess deaths of all major European countries -- not to mention far, far fewer excess deaths than the U.S.
Suggestion: When getting on your high horse to sneer at RFK's staff, maybe choose an adjective other than "fringe."
In June 2020, months after millions of children across Europe had been back at school with no increase in infections, the know-it-alls at the Centers for Disease Control were still recommending that kids in the U.S. attend school only every other day, fully masked -- beginning at age 2 -- and kept 6 feet apart, with playgrounds and cafeterias padlocked.
Which reminds me of one of the best exchanges at the hearing:
Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga.: "Did you say that the CDC was, quote, 'The most corrupt federal agency in the history of the world?'"
Kennedy: "Not the history of the world, but definitely within HHS."
Warnock: "Did you say that?"
Kennedy: "I did not say that, but I did say it's the most corrupt agency at HHS and maybe the government."
The Republican approach to RFK was to lavish praise on Donald Trump for Operation Warp Speed, then dare Kennedy to disagree with them, imagining they could corner him into supporting COVID vaccines for 6-month-olds.
(No, it doesn't make any sense to me, either.)
First, the Trump suck-uppery:
Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy (speaking "as a doctor" -- and also as a pompous ass): "President Trump deserves a Nobel Prize for Operation Warp Speed ... an incredible accomplishment ... the president deserves a tremendous amount of credit."
Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming: "one of President Trump's greatest achievements ... he didn't back down ... it saved many, many lives ... a model of American ingenuity and public-private partnership."
Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina: "I, for one, think that it was a signature accomplishment of President Trump."
Even a Democrat tried to set the Operation Warp Speed trap, with her nimble and wide-ranging vocabulary:
New Hampshire Sen. Maggie Hassan: "a monumental national achievement ... a monumental achievement ... this life-saving accomplishment ... a monumental national achievement ... a monumental achievement."
Then, after RFK agreed, they would pounce with some version of: Then how dare you viciously undermine Trump's signature accomplishment by limiting the booster recommendation to those over 65 or with health conditions?
As Kennedy explained in the 1.2 seconds allotted to him, fleshed out by Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kan. (also a doctor), when COVID first hit, our immune systems had never seen anything like it. But by now, everyone's had the disease a dozen times. Also, after four years living with the virus, we know that the average age of those killed by COVID is about 120. (The COVID survival rate for patients under 70 is 99.95%.)
So the Warp Speed talking point was not the jujitsu attack they thought it was. Yes, developing a vaccine in 10 months was incredible, but most people don't need it anymore, if they ever did.
Artificial limbs, or for that matter the penis pump, were monumental achievements, too -- that doesn't mean the government should be recommending them for everyone, even those with perfectly healthy appendages.
All Democrats and some Republicans acted as if Kennedy and his vaccine advisory group are about to ban the polio vaccine. This is idiotic. I promise you, no one is going to oppose vaccinating kids against measles, mumps, rubella, diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, polio and smallpox. (If I'm wrong, I'll get the booster shot.)
But there's no reason for 99% of people under age 65 to get another COVID shot and no reason for every baby born in the U.S. to get a hepatitis B shot, unless Mom's smoking in the delivery room.
You can only get hep B (as we aficionados call it) through unprotected sex, intravenous drug use or otherwise sharing blood or semen -- including being born to an infected mother.
Like almost every other ill besetting our nation (including COVID), this is mostly a problem of immigration. Only 0.5% of babies in the U.S. are born to hep B-infected mothers, and a disproportionate number of those are immigrants. Although about 20% of babies are born to immigrants (WELCOME, ANCHOR BABIES!), 60% of hep B mothers are immigrants.
Why are we forcing all American mothers to shoot up their newborns with a hep B vaccine? So the immigrant mothers don't feel bad?
I'll tell you why.
In 1991, the CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) recommended the vaccine for all infants within 24 hours of birth.
ACIP is the vaunted panel the senators raked Kennedy over the coals for clearing out by firing 17 members and hiring eight actual experts -- including Kulldorff, who was removed from the ACIP's COVID-19 Vaccine Safety Technical Work Group under Joe Biden for publicly disagreeing with its decision to pause the Johnson & Johnson COVID vaccine, despite its being perfectly safe for older people. (Days later, the CDC adopted his proposal.)
As Kennedy said, "Senator, I didn't politicize ACIP, I de-politicized it."