The Medical Rabbit Hole

 

President Biden has not seen a neurologist outside his annual physicals, White House physician Kevin O’Connor said in a letter released Monday night addressing visits to the White House by a Parkinson’s disease expert. https://t.co/eXNQBIAePZ

— NBC Politics (@NBCPolitics) July 9, 2024

The White House released a letter from President Biden's physician explaining that he has no signs of Parkisonism and that has had no neurological exams outside of his regular physicals. You might think that would be enough, but as it happens--nothing is ever enough. James Comer will need to examine what dealings the doctors may have had with the "the Biden crime family."  Armchair experts will determine what news spots show video of "real Biden" and when there is a double with a Biden mask being used (this is a real Qanon thing already).

People will make jokes like "Cannard--there's a quack." Etc. The "fine people" who brought us Swift boating, Benghazi, "but her emails..." etc. just don't sleep. The effort spent "debunking" half the time spreads the bunk. Like Obama's birth certificate didn't "really" end birtherism, once rumor and lies get spread about anything, it's hard to get the toothpaste back in the tube.

There's something for the people who diagnosed Biden from their mainstream media jobs to chew on. 

James Ho's Very Unaesthetic Decision

 

I guess there was no reason at all to expect a better comment in the mifepristone case from James Ho, seen in the picture above being sworn in by Justice Clarence Thomas at billionaire Harlan Crow's house because why the heck not?  

But while the overall decision is mixed (the abortion pill remains available with some notable restrictions, such as ordering it by mail) I just need to point to the language of Judge Ho's creepy dissent:

In his concurrent opinion, Ho wrote that the doctors will also suffer an “aesthetic injury” if the pills remain on the market.

“Unborn babies are a source of profound joy for those who view them,” he wrote. “Expectant parents eagerly share ultrasound photos with loved ones. Friends and family cheer at the sight of an unborn child. Doctors delight in working with their unborn patients — and experience an aesthetic injury when they are aborted.”

Prego fetishists love to see the rounded bellies of pregnant women--do they have standing? I experience an aesthetic injury when I see pregnant people's human rights to make health care choices for themselves violated as a person who theoretically (although probably requiring a late-life miracle like Sarah in the Bible) could still get pregnant myself. Where's my consideration? I experience profound discomfort when I see people forced to experience labor at unwanted pregnancies or to carry pregnancies that will negatively affect their well-being. (Should I go looking for some pro-cancer motherfuckers who find tumors beautiful to go ruin oncology? Of course not. Should a lover of gigantic breasts have veto power over breast reductions--"aesthetic injury!" I mean, why not mandate implants for their sake? If we're imposing upon people, after all.) 

Are we just giving every SOB with an opinion credit for it these days? I consider the poor baby-lover who is sad about abortions as being like the dingus white-supremacist child's opinion of being "traumatized" by diversity: tough actual shit. You live on a planet where people have actual lives that ain't yours, buddy--cope. 

And yeah, a lot of doctors love those unborn babies, but also know very well why abortions are necessary and should stay safe and available. Wanted children are a joy. But we know that pregnant people are discriminated against, that they are targeted for violence and murder by partners, that they may have pre-existing conditions including substance abuse and mental illness that make safely carrying a child (and not running afoul of laws that make murderers of women for activities that could harm fetuses) very difficult. Some patients are prone to miscarriage and fetal abnormalities. Sometimes pregnancies are not a joy. It is possible to celebrate both choices, to honor a patients' will in all cases. 

Zealots and ideologues are poor judges. I think that really, a safe and easily available method for ending a pregnancy is something that should remain lawful with little restriction. And no one should have standing over what happens with a pregnancy until viability but the pregnant person. 

(Nota bene--Josh Hawley's wife Erin of the ADF was counsel in this lawsuit. She is what I would call a "sister-shafter"--she does not give one fuck about female-bodied human rights.)

What in the Slap-Happy Hell?

 

Power Slap—the series developed by UFC prez Dana White—drew in nearly 300K viewers in its debut on Wednesday. The TBS show outperformed the Young Sheldon reruns that took its place last week after White exchanged slaps with his wife on NYE. My @FOS story. https://t.co/uTDbEdjEVy

— A.J. Perez (@byajperez) January 20, 2023

I have a hard time watching football anymore because of the issues regarding CTE.  A lot of good athletes and decent people have experienced brain trauma that changed their personalities, caused serious life repercussions, even cost players their lives and the lives of people around them. 

I grew up loving professional wrestling. Sadly, professional wrestling also has a reputation for being a sport where people can experience a shortened life span, and a lot of that has to do with the toll constant physical trauma has on--well, just every damn part on one's life, from pain management to potential brain damage. The incredibly talented Chris Benoit was found to have had CTE after he killed his wife and child and himself. I've seen too many people die young who are associated with that sport, as well. 

So, call me a killjoy, but I just don't see any joy in a so-called sport that revolves around rattling the fuck out of someone's brainpan and subjecting yourself to getting your own skull rocked. In any fighting discipline, it's true that you can learn how to take bumps in a way that protect your neck and head and minimize the damage your extremities experience. 

There Was a Rally in Wilkes-Barre

 

The picture above isn't from the rally Trump held in Wilkes-Barre, PA for Doug Mastriano (insurrectionist) and Dr. Oz (snake oil salesman) but from May of this year, when it was all about the primary. Sure, Trump was already a one-term, twice impeached former president, who incited an insurrection riot and had already had 15 boxes of stuff taken from his Mar-A-Lago country club/domicile at the time. But his support was enough to boost Dr. Oz over the top in the GOP primary. 

Trump has since had a lawful search warrant served back in August to have even more classified and other documents horked out of his increasingly dodgy-seeming resort, once referred to as the "Winter White House". It might look bad, and I suspect the reason why is bad. But why would Mastriano and OZ turn down such valuable assistance? 

The Devil's Lettuce Made Them Do It!

 

Fox's Laura Ingraham blames mass shootings on “regular pot use”https://t.co/bDkOQVbxix

— Media Matters (@mmfa) July 6, 2022

I wonder a bit at Ingraham's rant that pot use is behind the mass shooting phenomenon in the US--is she trying to excuse mass murderers with moral trolling or will any opportunity to moral troll do? I'm skeptical that there's a path from Cheech and Chong to Klebold and Harris, myself. Also, I presume that Laura Ingraham does not herself partake of the jazz cigarettes, so what exactly accounts for her dead-eyed sociopathy?

Ha, I kid. (Do I?) Her fellow Fox News talker, Tucker Carlson. blames taking psychiatric meds and mean mommies, and the latter might be a bit of a personal issue. I have to question that, too--knowing how many mass shootings have begun with family abuse and violence against women, it seems to me Carlson is really just on-board with misogyny. Also, once again, just as with hosting COVID-19 disinfo, Carlson is making medical pronouncements he's highly unqualified to make. 

My own theory is that young men stew in a nihilistic environment in which they are baited into a vague sense of outrage and hopelessness by people who don't give a shit about right or wrong, whether in terms of truth and morality. They are told by soul-less media figures that they are put-upon, and that violence is a solution. They are even given plenty of hints at who to blame for their problems. 

It's just a theory.

So, What Are the Anti-Vaxxers Up To?

 

Well, besides getting sick and dying, which I am going to preface is obviously very terrible and every man's death diminishes me etc., etc. (does it though?) and learning that COVID-19 is definitely not anthrax, they are branching out from bleach cocktails to drinking their own pee. 

You know, I will say that if you are skeptical about what's in the things you eat or drink, one thing I can say for drinking your own pee is that you have, basically, made it yourself. Christopher Keys, the individual promoting this, states there is "tons and tons of research" on this, which just makes me wonder: "Dude, how much of your own pee have you drank, already?" 

So of course, because I am a responsible blogger, I looked into drinking pee and searching "drink urine" indicates that OMG people are really doing this for lots of stuff. It's a little like the apple cider vinegar thing where it will do everything from treat rashes to jellyfish stings to like, making you thinner and smarter, except it's obviously deeply fucked up and this isn't Waterworld. And when Keys suggests taking the piss with a grain of salt (see what I did there?) like, obviously, pee is already pretty salty, but I advise drinking water is actually really good for your immune system. Just not, um, your own water. 

I mean, your body is excreting it for a reason. Are you eating your boogers, too?

But if that isn't floating your boat, some of the new hotness in treating COVID-19 is definitely testosterone blockers, you know, in case hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin aren't getting the job done.  (Maria Bartiromo says she knows for a fact these two things work, which makes me wonder if she is doing a residency at Batshit General Hospital and where she finds the time.)  Anyhow, fine. If anti-vaxxers want to take test blockers I might even encourage them to take it to reduce the sequelae of "long covid". After all, Tucker Carlson ensures us COVID-19 is "feminizing" anyway. (Is this why Trump has been on the rag since November 2020?) I understand spirolactonone can cause salt cravings, so again, grain of salt. 

This might not be the favorite strategy of the, I swear I am not making this up, anti-vax group in the UK called Alpha Males Assemble. An anti-vax paramilitaryish thing. Their leader of course is down with COVID-19 at the mo', and also is named John O'Looney and is a funeral director. That is a whole Monty Python skit worth of fucking absurd. 

But if you think all of this is obviously crazy, there is someone who almost agrees with you: Dr. Bob Malone went on Joe Rogan's podcast to tell us that vaccines (which we all got for measles, mumps, rubella, polio and the like and tetanus anytime you jack yourself up badly enough to go to ER) are a form of mass formation psychosis, which may not even be a thing, let alone a thing that makes people feel like vaccines work. Because they do--since people who are vaxxed may get breakthrough cases but have way lower incidences of hospitalizations and death. 

It is very interesting to me that Joe Rogan fans might think that masses of people can be hypnotized by social encouragement into believing extremely wacky things, right? I mean really! Masses of people--believing wacky things! Despite all evidence and study to the contrary! Not that I'm giving credence to the idea of mass psychosis formation--but I'm just asking questions and it makes you think right? After all, if people can try to tell you masks covering your faceholes doesn' t prevent germs from getting in your faceholes, what other weirdly counterintuitive things can wankers get you to believe?

As Always, WTF, Florida?

 

As Omicron surges, Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo says the state is working to "unwind" the COVID "testing psychology" that the federal government has prioritized. pic.twitter.com/cju0o1uVJm

— The Recount (@therecount) January 3, 2022

You know, for the rest of my life, I am going to hear Donald Trump saying "Slow the testing down!" in my head. I thought then, and I think now, that this is a kind of criminal negligence. It's a wretched game to pretend that we don't really have a problem because we have very determinedly "not looked" at it for political reasons. It's the same game played when people try that "people dying with COVID-19, not of COVID-19". They are trying to minimize the problem by asserting "Oh well, people are always dying of something." Just like blaming the death toll on olds, disableds, and fats, instead of recognizing that disease strikes communities and communities needs to protect themselves and have a good defense.

Clearly, Ron DeSantis' Surgeon General is a problematic person to opine on matters regarding COVID-19, and that is, apparently, why De Santis chose him. Sure, he's lizard-people curious and demon-sperm adjacent, but that's no reason to discriminate against his very considered opinion, right?

And it seems really superfluous to requirements that Ladopo is anti-testing anyway, since DeSantis has already made every attempt to try and quash proper recording of Florida's COVID-19 statistics in order to look good. But DeSantis is a man on a mission.

How else would I explain Gov. DeSantis' disappearance from the public eye to emerge at a COVID-19 hootenanny? With his wife in tow, undergoing cancer treatment and presumed immunocompromised?  Clearly, DeSantis is firmly in the party of "giving exactly zero shits whatsoever about COVID-19" except for maybe asking for more monoclonal antibodies, please. But this is what he subjects his family to, for political reasons (and I see no gun to the Florida First Lady's head, so maybe this is her bag, too? After all, she let this man use her babies as political props, so whatever, right?) 

When I look at Ron DeSantis, I see a man who would cap his own parents if he thought being an orphan would benefit him in the slightest. This is only marginally an exaggeration. I would exaggerate a little bit about COVID-19 just to be fair, but it outdoes itself on the regular so I don't have to bother. 

Anyway he's a very distant 2nd to Trump in any 2024 primary showdown pregaming and I actually hope he gets tossed out as governor this year. There is no reason his calculated destructiveness should pay off. 

UPDATE: It would be mean for me to speculate about this, but "be nicer" was absolutely not one of my New Year's resolutions.

Here is a second angle of Ron DeSantis struggling with breathing problems during his event today. The longer this clip goes on, the worse it gets. pic.twitter.com/J9Jr55x8Py

— MeidasTouch.com (@MeidasTouch) January 5, 2022

700,000: The Pandemic of Choices

 

Breaking News: Over 700,000 Americans have died of Covid-19. This pandemic is the deadliest in U.S. history, overtaking the toll from the influenza pandemic of 1918 and 1919. Every age group under 55 saw its highest death toll of the pandemic this August. https://t.co/mNP4pysUKq pic.twitter.com/X9FhcZFtey

— The New York Times (@nytimes) October 1, 2021

It didn't have to be this way. For crying out loud, it didn't have to be this way even before vaccinations were even available--we could have have done a true shutdown and imposed mask mandates in a way that would make masking up seem like no real big thing if Delta flared up here and there. We could have had this thing more in check.

But not getting it in check is clearly a choice, in some ways that have been campaigned for.  Anti-vaxxers want to scoff about "Big Pharma", but there is big money for some reason behind the anti-mask revolt happening in school districts, and people are profiting off of the various snake oil substitutes being touted as alternatives to getting vaxxed. It's a choice 

Anti-vax and ivermectin are pimped by Guo Wengui, a Steve Bannon associate. Anti-vax and anti-mask stuff is promoted anywhere stupid Q memes are sold, because of course it is. Lin Wood tried to stage an anti-hospital intervention for one anti-vax person (now deceased for reasons obvious to people with any kind of sense) but then again he also thinks the 9/11 planes were CGI. Sidney Powell and Mike Flynn were early-adopters of the "segregation" meme that the unvaccinated would be persecuted. (Of course the simple fix is--get vaccinated! Shit. If we're all doing it, is it really unsafe? It isn't like people are being asked to change their religion, political party, or any other thing--just get a shot like one did for measles, mumps and rubella, and all.)

Researching Your Ginormous Balls Off

 

Maybe it's wrong of me to doubt that Nicki's cousin's best friend's balls blew up (at 31 Flavors, so I guess it's pretty serious) but unless the vax came with a side of chlamydia, I'm guessing that the wedding was called off because friendo was raw-dogging karma and it bit back. I only snark here to make a point--she is saying "pray on it and make sure you're comfortable" and isn't saying she won't get the vaccine ever, just not now and appreciated that some people do have to get it for their job. That's not anti-vax, and it's definitely respectful to people who have reservations, but...

I'm so tired of the vaccine hesitancy because the worst case scenarios of the virus are just way worse than the anecdotal evidence out there about any problems the vaccine might have. I'm talking about parents passing it to their little kids and losing them so young. Or families with young children suddenly becoming orphans. Pediatric COVID-19 deaths in the US have remained in the few hundreds, so it's rare, but we don't know what the long-term effects on these kids could be. The US is 4th in the world for children orphaned by COVID-19, with well over 100,000 kids with lost parents. 

So I guess what I'm getting at is, doing research sounds smart--the rational thing to do, and all. But I think people who start to research what might be wrong with the vaccine start to forget to weigh it against what we definitely know is wrong with COVID-19, and it's a hell of a lot. 

Like, for one thing, it is definitely killing people. Contrary to what the hardcore hospital-protesting crazies want to say, which seems to be that somehow, health care workers are actually contriving COVID-19 deaths for their own nefarious ends. 

(I have never been a fan of turning rubber hoses on protestors, but you know...they pose a risk to public safety and welfare and are interfering with the care of all kinds of sick and injured people, so I see what they are doing as basically terrorism against patients and healthcare workers. But once we allowed anti-abortion protesters space to harass healthcare workers and patients at clinics, this is the creep you get.) 

It has also caused increased lost pregnancies and loss of maternal life or increased risk of serious illness for obstetric patients.  And while there's no evidence the vaccines cause reproductive sterility, there is a risk that COVID-19 can. 

Does It Work on Brain Worms?

 

Hydroxychloroquine is apparently old news, because the real hot new thing going on in Covid Country is taking horse paste, or Ivermectin, as either a preventative (I am aware of no immune-boosting abilities associated with shitting one's brains out) or as a treatment (I am aware of no virus-fighting abilities associated with shitting one's brains out--actually screwing up your intestinal flora sounds pretty goddamn bad). 

Senator Rand Paul, who is board certified eye doctor-adjacent, says people are blocking research into this valuable treatment because they are haters. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who mainstream media but especially conservative media try to make seem smarter and less psychopathic than he actually is, is being advised by an Ivermectin-supporter. And the same kind of idiot anti-vax dumbfucks who gave us the Nuremberg Codes talking point includes this dumbfuck who was testing Ivermectin on actual prisoners. 

Swell. There's a vaccine and some pretty basic hygienic protocols out there, but okay--people are going to take an anti-parasitic  for basically no good reason other than they don't trust the gummit or the pointy headed so-called "experts". And they are basically poisoning themselves to spite "The System".  And supposedly, you should try to talk these people down without implying they are dumbfucks. 

Sorry. That is not going to happen here. I am going to go ahead and call people dumbfucks for engaging in hardcore dumbfuckery. Because straight talk is not always nice. This is a thing called grandmotherly kindness. 

(Consider this the image of what my blog is always for.)

I'm not dancing on the graves of Joe Manning, or Marc Bernier, or Caleb Wallace.  To paraphrase a certain book, they preyed on a street corner and got their reward. And maybe, to compound the tragedy of their deaths, they even believed in the thing--the disinformation, that killed them. And also maybe not, because that's how disinfo works. Wretched people are wretched. They lie for all kinds of reasons, including attention. Social media gives us a very specific and nasty kind of anti-science geek. 

I get that people want to think they can fix themselves up for damn near nothing. There's tons of people out there who want to believe that mechanics and repairmen will fuck you over for the price of like, six bucks you could just get some washers and a gasket and do yourself a job in an afternoon, and why isn't medicine the same way? After all you had a body your whole life and so did cavemen, so why can't a remedy be simple and cheap? 

Why can't you just disinfect yourself with a little bleach or something? And of course people want to believe cleanliness is the end-all and be-all of warding off a plague. Be healthy--don't be  fat or disabled. Don't coddle yourself with masks or limiting yourself, they say--breathe the same fresh air as all the other gaspers and gapers around you. 

It just doesn't work, is all. So people are taking horse paste, and thinking they are passing rope worms when they are actually shitting out part of their own intestines, under the mistaken belief that something in their own digestive system is toxic--just like weirdos who "cleanse" or whatever (expensively) in the mistaken belief that you're just one weird trick from being thin, or young-looking, or knocking boots like you were in your twenties. The kind of hope in a bottle thinking conservative social networks are sadly primed for. 

But nothing is that simple. Things fall apart because entropy increases, but our society is both complex and fragile.  A hurricane happens in the midst of a pandemic, full ICUs and nowhere to evacuate patients. Children are orphaned. The world is untidy and cruel. Get vaccinations, boosters, accept masks and social distancing. Unhaunt your head. We are living in a time of trial and tribulation, but these aren't some fucking end times. They are just bad times, and need good people to step the hell up and do the right things. 

Soup of the Day

Today, Trump most strenuously denied that he had had a series of mini-strokes, and got a doctor to back him up on that, and I am personally not the one to claim otherwise, because for one thing, I can't retrace the scoop that Michael Schmidt choose to put in a book about the president's abrupt trip to Walter Reed from last year, and for another, I choose to grant the occupant of the White House some measure of privacy regarding what might actually just be a minor health kerfuffle that is merely embarrassing.

I mean, like, let's say he got himself caught in his zipper? Or had a perfectly normal bagel-cutting mishap? Is that actually necessarily for everyone's public consumption?

What Do You Call It--

Months into the pandemic, President Trump has added a new voice to his circle of coronavirus advisers: Dr. Scott Atlas, a frequent TV guest who echoes Trump on reopening schools, lockdowns & college football. Limbaugh says Atlas is "countering Fauci."https://t.co/Er6B27s9NQ

— Kaitlan Collins (@kaitlancollins) August 12, 2020

What do you call it when someone appears to be doctor-shopping and is very excited by the prospect of finding a new drug?

I don't know how responsible this looks to you, but, it's not very.

Things I Know That I Know: One Pence Worth

I don't know this for an actual fact, but seeing VP Pence at the Mayo Clinic without a mask, when he was certainly told they had a policy about mask-wearing, makes me fairly sure he's not wearing one because we all know Trump isn't wearing one anywhere. It's a case of "Flunky see, flunky do."

UPDATE: Apparently, Mayo Clinic Tweeted about it--then deleted it, but not before it could be screen-capped:

We Saw You

Was just informed that the Fake News from the Thursday White House Press Conference had me speaking & asking questions of Dr. Deborah Birx. Wrong, I was speaking to our Laboratory expert, not Deborah, about sunlight etc. & the CoronaVirus. The Lamestream Media is corrupt & sick!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 25, 2020

The "Fake News" had him speaking to Dr. Birx, or did our own lying eyes, since the whole thing was televised? Is he just as clueless about how tv cameras work as he is about, well, everything else? He also spoke to the "Laboratory expert" (I think he means William Bryan?), but you know what? This makes it clear that he was not speaking to reporters (especially ones that were not there) sarcastically. I'm not even 100% sure he knows what sarcasm means. I think he means when you say a thing that isn't true as a prank but doesn't get that if it were an actual joke, it would be because everyone would get that what was said was obviously untrue. But we don't get that when Trump says something that's obviously untrue that he's being in any way sarcastic, because he says things that are wrong because he's dumb as hell, and also, he lies a whole lot. He also isn't known for his sparkling wit. Occam's Razor: he's just ignorant.

Dr. Birx herself tried to pull his ass out of the mire of his own making, explaining that he just likes to talk out new information as it's received. A lot of people, including the shiny new White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany, tried to say he was being taken out of context, before he was suddenly "sarcastic". And really, how sad is saying he was being sarcastic? Right. He meant to do that.

Whatever.

Hard not to believe @realDonaldTrump was being sarcastic about bleach drinking. He just does deadpan better than most reporters.
And if anyone really would heed that bleach-drinking advice, odds are they have other issues.

— Geraldo Rivera (@GeraldoRivera) April 25, 2020

So when Trump's disgraceful Fox News friends perform the extremely servile act of licking his cold adult diaper pee from the floor, what exactly are they getting out of it? Does it make the country better to have them do that? Do they think it is a noble sacrifice to pretend that Trump isn't flea-fucking stupid? Are we all better off pretending he isn't incompetent? Or do they get something, anything at all, for their fecal ablutions, their constant laundering of shit Trump says that isn't so, and isn't even reasonable?

They might want folks to forget how low we are, that chemical companies and Poison Control centers had to push out disclaimers about the foolish thing the president actually let drop from his face, but no, that won't happen. We saw him. We saw it. It happened. And we see you, too, Trump defenders. In the most disgusting positions.

UPDATE: As a postscript, I want to point out that Fox is still touting the unproven hydroxychloroquine for COVID-19, even though studies have suggested it can do more harm than good. Trials and unwarranted demand for this drug is taking availability away from people with autoimmune disorders whose actual disease symptoms outweigh the side effects, and rely on the drug for managing their flares. My dad has RA, and while he doesn't use this particular treatment, if there were any medication that alleviated his discomfort I would want that available for him, not used for some kind of weird political posturing on people (not for people) to wage a kind of SCIENCING WAR!!!! on snowflakes. The worst culprit lately seems to be Laura Ingraham, and I think it's because she heard that more of Hannity's viewers were dying of COVID-19 and felt competitive. She has a bad case of snakes in her head.

Just Disinfect Them

Here is Dr. Birx's reaction when President Trump asks his science advisor to study using UV light on the human body and injecting disinfectant to fight the coronavirus. pic.twitter.com/MVno5X7JMA

— Daniel Lewis (@Daniel_Lewis3) April 24, 2020

Sometimes listening to Trump takes on a kind of surreal, trippy feeling, as if one weren't watching the actual elected president of the United States, but instead watching a very bad, very overt satire of one. I know I harp on the subject of his manifest density a lot, but it is deeply worrying to me that he performs stupidity fairly publicly and the people who surround him mostly either defend his stupidity or lie about what he actually said.

I mean, really. Windmill cancer. Buying Greenland. Nuking hurricanes. Injecting disinfectants or hitting people with a little UV radiation feels like it's all of a piece with his general lack of understanding of how things work. It's that thing he has (he thinks) called "common sense" after all. The people are infected, right? So just disinfect them. That's just science.

The rub is, even if it's explained to him it isn't good science, he'll double down on the product of his "very good brain." We're probably days away from him explaining "You can just take a little Lysol, or as I like to call it, lung sanitizer, and boom! It kills germs on contact. They're getting smarter, the germs, but not smarter than me." And his fiercest defenders will be onboard. After all, some of them are already taking a little bleach for the 'rona, anyways. After all, people bought and even ingested aquarium cleaner because Trump suggested a similar-sounding chemical could be effective (not proven, and recent studies do cast some doubt on it). Even though Trump is obviously not qualified to recommend a medical treatment, because he is both a) not a doctor and b) kind of godawful stupid.

The alliance of stupidity, fraud and bad faith never fail to shock me. And while I try to understand how people working with and within this Administration try to somewhat ameliorate things, and that given all we know of Trump's basic mode of operation, he does not stand for contradiction, maybe it might be healthier if people were a bit more direct about admitting, that, sweet jumping criminy, this guy is dangerously stupid.

UPDATE: In a tweet, The New York Times managed to bothsides drinking bleach:

by posting "At a White House briefing, President Trump theorized--dangerously, in the view of some experts--about the powers of sunlight, ultraviolet light and household disinfectants to kill the coronavirus", giving the disturbing impression that maybe, out there, exist experts who are like "Shoot, gargle battery acid, anything's worth a try."

That's not helping, people.

I Want to Buy Your Rock

What have you got to lose if you take a drug and weren't going to die anyway and then miraculously don't die. and what would anyone else have to gain? (I mean, what do you have to lose except maybe your hair or vision or life or whatever.) The thing with a certain kind of con artistry isn't that the con artist believes everyone is dumb, it's that they know there are always some people who want to believe.

I think it would be great if there was a good, not terribly expensive treatment. It's that I'm hearing a hard sell approach that makes me extra-skeptical (oh, yeah, and the source of the hard sell). But I'm cheesed off at people who say that people urging caution are "fearmongering" or "just don't want it to work". Drugs aren't magic. They also aren't like sports teams--they don't work better if people are rooting for them. That's just weird.

Considering the Pills

I have to go old school on this female-bodily autonomy piece, just to get to my point--we know that access to reproductive choice can influence not just quality of life but long-term health. It makes sense for female-bodied people to have access to a wide range of options that mean preventing conceptions and even considering termination of pregnancy (but also, most certainly can include, optimal pre-natal care for wanted children). Family planning is not solely about abortion services, but it can and should include those as an option. So I guess that's why I want to talk about a difference that isn't really one to go to war about--but is a discussion we need to have.

I've been a little cold on Buttigieg regarding his kind of centrist views, and how he's a friend of Faceberg and the whole McKinsey thing. But I will say I'm taking his point regarding "unintended consequences" for expansion of medical abortion--because I really take what he's saying to heart. In red states, they are just looking for ways to screw people up for seeking reproductive choices. Local laws can certainly be put into place that criminalize certain abortions, so this can also happen for seeking out medical intervention and acquiring them, or the laws that shield people who put roadblocks in the way of people who seek birth control can be expanded to include medical abortion.  Courts take time, and yet, fertility has its own schedule.

An Inaccurate Refrain or a Vicious Lie?

Trump in Green Bay reiterated a vicious thing directed at mothers of dying babies, which should seem so outstandingly cruel and inappropriate to politicize that he would be blasted from pillar to post, but we have accepted as so commonplace a lie regarding women's fertility and the fragility of neonates that perhaps it was not countered as efficiently as it needed to be when first bruited. 

The disgraceful start to this rant (based on medical knowledge Trump does not appreciate) has to do with comments taken way out of context by VA Gov. Ralph Northam, which aren't actually even wrong in themselves. 

If an induced labor resulted in a live birth, when a still birth was expected, in a fatally at risk pregnancy, where the expectation of survival was small to non existent, yes, despite the delivery being of an alive child, the expectation that death would occur is not only plausible, but a responsible conversation. Because the diagnosis of that child would already be some condition incompatible with life. So that, even if the child was resuscitated, they would never know the sound of their name. So that, even if the child was resuscitated, they would never make the sound of a word. So that, even if they were resuscitated, they would not crawl. So that, even more than they knew the feel of the skin of their mother, they would know pain.

To what kind of life is this child resuscitated? And to what purpose is it kept alive? To know what? and experience what? Pain, gasping, suffering. How can it be that there is no understanding that sometimes, an easy passing is all the mercy a parent can grant, and that intervention is a greater curse than a small body deserves?

This choice is terrible and personal, and not to be used to smear entire families and their doctors for culture war points. It is a vicious lie that Trump is making, not a mistake. Because he does not acknowledge the mothers who have undergone this choice, and would rather demonize the doctors that mercifully brought them through the death of their carried to term, or near to term, wanted children.  Because there is no woman carrying this baby 40 weeks or very nearly, through all the changes of her body, and the potential for harm to herself, and judgment, and the knowledge of all who see her swelling form, who means to terminate at the very last moment for no good reason.

This child would have been loved. Sometimes the only decent love is letting go--and that has to be okay, too. And politicizing this makes me want to fight for all these slurred and maligned mamas.

He never had a right to use you and your babies to demonize those who support abortion rights. I support the choice of all obstetric patients to do what is best for themselves and their potential kids. It is not the government's right to dictate this reproductive process. Assuming people who are bereaved are murderous is just gross and bizarre.

Yes, People Die from Lack of Access to Health Care

I don't want to oversimplify things here, but I'm not even sure what the Idaho congressman thinks health care is for. If getting medical attention wasn't for, um, our health, are we just being weird wanting people to see us nekkid and giving us random tests for entertainment's sake? Of course we go to doctors for our health because we want to live and think something has gone wrong with our bodies. What else are we looking for? Who has a disconnect between health services and the desire to keep on living?

That's a really special kind of stupid he has, right there.

More than that, before the ACA, there was a study that found that 45,000 deaths per year were attributable to people just not being financially able to access health services because they weren't covered. These were people who had conditions that might be curable or manageable, and could have lived quite alright lives. They just couldn't afford to...live. They didn't have the money to see the right doctors and get the right care. They died because they never got their sugar regulated, their blood pressure sorted, that wound looked at. They died because that cough never did go away, or that thing on their neck never bothered them so much.

I buried my mother-in-law today, and her passing was made better because of excellent care covered by Medicare. She lived longer because she had access to insulin and Metformin and blood thinners and blood pressure medications, but when that was not enough, she had access to rehabilitation care for stroke treatment and hospice. Even when death is inevitable, the access to specialized treatment and care is essential and valuable and an absolute gift for the loved ones of the patient.

Discounting this reality is weird and a terrible lie. Of course health care matters. From the obstetrics ward to hospice. We are mortal, and our time here is fragile and fraught with mortal perils. We benefit from doctors, from their slapping our just-born bottoms and jabbing us with vaccines, to setting our bones and seeing to our various ailments.

It is just true. We would die earlier without such care. We just would.

Bad Medicine Is What They Need!

As near as I can tell, the Trump Administration would like to get a "repeal and replace" thing done very quickly because they need a win--but I really don't think they care at all what is in it, because the original version didn't even fulfill Trump's campaign promises regarding health care. He even went so far as to imply that not voting for the repeal and replace measure could cost GOP House members their seats.

VP Mike Pence worked on them, too, but so many members simply failed to be as ecstatic as Speaker Paul Ryan was over the prospect of 24 million Americans losing their coverage and several millions more having their premiums go up.

So what are they doing? Why, they are diluting the mandatory coverage so that premiums stay low enough for people to accept weak tax credits for shittier coverage, meaning that tax money will go to providing people with the kind of coverage that should be a shame to offer at any price. No one at this rate will know what exactly is in the bill until it passes, and it's guaranteed to still cover less people and do less for them. But to what extent we won't know, because there will be no CBO score on that at all.

And for all I know, this crazy unhealthy unpopular nonsense might even succeed. Not that I think congresspeople up for re-election should want getting this wrong on their c.v. But didn't Trump tell them this was important? And to never mind the people showing up at their townhalls?

I am interested in the outcome--not in the same way a person with pre-existing condition(s) is, or who knows someone or is someone who could easily exhaust a cap right at the beginning of a year, or who has health care only because the exchanges plus a subsidy were available to them. Not in the same way a person who might be penalized by Medicaid by having to pay back benefits for having a body with leukemia tastes on a laryngitis budget would. But as a person who really wants to know who will take the leap with Trump and Ryan over this bad medicine bill. And who wonders just where that will get them.