> Kennedy's proposal is also very unlikely to work the way he's claimed it would — the birds that provide eggs and meat on farms are descendants of separate breeding populations and do not breed themselves. So even if there were a population of resilient birds that survived H5N1 infection, that doesn't mean they're passing on their genetic traits to a subsequent generation.
That's not even the worst of it, either. Viruses evolve faster than birds; allowing the disease to spread unchecked is likely to result in more virulent strains emerging. This could potentially include strains which can infect other species, including humans.
Yeah, that's what I thought as well. Isn't that the reason we need a new flu vaccine every year? Because viruses can mutate and adapt faster than animals can?
I don't know anything about biology so admittedly I'm speaking out of my ass here, but that's certainly what it seemed like to me.
If we have learned anything from this administration, even RFK Jr. specifically, is how lazy they are in pushing their agenda.
They published a "report" claiming that vaccines cause autism that was lazily created with ChatGPT that had fake citations, or citations that actively go against what they're saying. Everything in the administration is half-assed.
"Letting the virus spread to pass on the genes" seems like an idea that would come from a conversation when two drunks who are discussing how they'd solve all the world's problems.
There's no reason to put effort into crafting some convincing argument when your audience is predisposed to obey. This obedience to dictatorial authority is the great asymmetry between parties.
Do you think that makes the Republicans stronger than the Democrats? Or weaker?
I think it makes them stronger in the short term, but much weaker in the long term. (Of course, we have to survive the short term to get to the long term...)
They are fundamentally absolute fucking goofballs.
This administration is the best argument for DEI I’ve ever seen in my life, if it had anything to do with avoiding this.
Just the other day, RFK’s top vaccine nutjob (new chair of ACIP, Robert Malone) tweeted something to suggest that the Amish’s existence despite waves of infectious disease and ~no~ low vaccination is evidence that vaccines aren’t necessary.
Apparently ignorant[0] of the fact that the Amish are notoriously cloistered and isolated from the rest of society.
[0] By “ignorant” I don’t mean “has never heard the idea,” but that the degree of motivated reasoning has rendered his mind actually incapable of integrating this fact — like many others — into his world view. I’m drawing this distinction because I don’t think this is a matter of smart people pretending to believe stupid things. They are actually, at rock bottom, very stupid people, rendered such by their own ideological commitments if nothing else.
> This administration is the best argument for DEI I’ve ever seen in my life
Right, they've essentially implemented reverse DEI: always hire the agreeable white man, no matter what. Which was essentially the status-quo in the fucking 60s.
Now we have a bunch of old white men who can drink more than they can read running our government into the ground. They're all very horribly unqualified. But, they are essentially breathing doormats, which I think is vital to an authoritarian regime.
Empirically the system I have seen criticized as putting incompetent people in power due to their skin/sexuality/etc has yielded far far far better outcomes than the system that has been described as “hiring the most competent regardless of X…”
Perhaps the criticisms of the former and the descriptions of the latter were not accurate.
Can you describe specifically where/when you’re referring to that implemented your ideal system and achieved a good track record?
I generally hear everyone insisting that they themselves are "hiring the most competent regardless of X", it's just that pro-DEI assumes the baseline rate of competence is all groups are about the same really and anti-DEI assumes that rich == competent and oh look at the distribution of money in ${insert country here because it's not actually limited to America where it's white men with most of the money}.
Yeah, too much of the vibe around autocracies is that people don't like 'em because they're big ol' meanie heads. No. They're bad because they're literally bad at governing. They make bad decisions.
Democracy isn't good because it makes people feel good, but because in the long run democracies make far more adaptive decisions, and just hobbling along imperfectly over long periods is how you actually achieve growth.
The problem is that when the going gets tough, people think they’re willing to accept big ol’ meanie heads in order to get good outcomes.
They are not aware that even if you were okay with that, that’s not the trade off that autocracy gives you.
And inversely, being “good” does not imply someone is incompetent. In general, the reverse is true because being good is such a powerful tool to achieve things (i.e. to be competent).
One is a precursor for the other. Being mean and inflexible is their means of avoiding personal growth, which leads to the incompetence. Of course, they are exceptionally competent at being mean and inflexible because it’s what they practice in their lives.
But I think the point they’re making is that it’s moot that they are mean and inflexible if those traits make a good government. It is at least more relevant that they are incompetent at governing; even if both points are likely to fall on deaf ears and even if one naturally follows the other.
> Just the other day, RFK’s top vaccine nutjob (new chair of ACIP, Robert Malone) tweeted something to suggest that the Amish’s existence despite waves of infectious disease and no vaccination is evidence that vaccines aren’t necessary.
What a strange argument. Did anyone suggest that people would stop existing if there weren’t vaccines? We haven’t had vaccines throughout most of human history.
People just (correctly) think that not being vaccinated will lead to a lot of unnecessary deaths.
Unfortunately it involves too many multisyllabic words for Kennedy— or anyone else in this administration— to understand it, so expect them to plow ahead regardless.
As an animal rights activist, this will do wonders for the movement. As chicken farms become unprofitable due to all the birds dying, prices will go up. This gives people like me an edge to talk about alternatives. We already do this with egg alternatives due to the increases in egg prices. Hopefully companies like JUST Egg can capitalize on this.
>> As an animal rights activist, this will do wonders for the movement.
The article says allowing the virus to rip through flocks could kill "billions of birds" [1]. Is that really OK with the movement?
___________
[1] Allowing widespread infection of commercial flocks would kill billions of birds, drive poultry and egg prices up, as well as destabilize local economies and global trade through import restrictions imposed on U.S. products, the authors wrote. Simultaneously, it could also foster reservoirs of H5N1, increasing the virus' odds of making the leap to humans — and gaining the ability for human-to-human infection.
The birds are dying anyway. So instead of their bodies being used for profit to continue the industry, they will die with hopefully little to no government bailouts, forcing farmers to change what they do for a living.
I'm guessing the movement figures the birds' 1st choice for their future, a career in the food service industry, isn't going to work out much better for the birds anyway.
Isn't this just switching from, if you detect any infections you're required to kill your flock, to if you have any infections your flock will die of illness? Your flock is still dead either way.
you're wrong here... eggs will become obscenely profitable, because of the sheer demand for the things.
Backyard/black market and over seas eggs will be worth an order of magnitude more than before.
And guess what, America will have next to no say in the animal welfare of the source of the eggs.
JUST Eggs aren’t the only alternative, through: seeds, beans, mushrooms, grains…
I guess you know that the reason of shitty treatment is price, would you rather buy 20x priced eggs ? There’s many family farms that would be happy to deliver them anywhere at that rate.
It's cheaper, and most shoppers aren't willing to pay enough extra to cover better treatment. (It's not the shoppers' fault that most of the labels aren't very meaningful? Well no, that means it's not cost-effective to ensure people are aware of that.)
Since I don't think that the shitshow is going to slow down, I suspect that basically all the damage done in 2025 will be forgotten by most voters. Democrats might do a bit better in 2026, and I certainly hope that that's the case, but I doubt we'll get anywhere near the super majority required to override the president.
If you live in the USA, just as the Democrat Party shouldn't rely on it being bad enough to be remembered, individuals shouldn't rely on it being mild enough to be forgotten
It might be either, but on a personal level, there's multiple things this administration is actively proud of doing/having done that are so bad I expect a noticable reducion in aggregate US life expectency.
The culled birds definitely arent producing. The proposal here is to let sick birds recover from their flu instead of being killed. True, you can effectively stop the spread of the flu if all the animals are dead, but the flu has a high survivability rate, and so once birds recover from their flu, they'll still be laying eggs (instead of being dead). That seems to be the proposed approach. It matches what we did for covid (we didnt cull the infected to stop the spread--it might have worked though).
It's actually impressive that Trump managed to appoint the absolute worst possible person to be Secretary of Health and Human Services.
I know nothing about biology, I know that I know nothing, so if someone decided for whatever reason to appoint me to the position it would be fairly harmless because I would defer extremely heavily to people who actually know about this stuff.
If he had appointed someone with proper medical or biological training, that would be fine because they actually know about stuff and can make informed decisions.
RFK Jr. is the absolute worst person because he thinks he knows a lot about biology, but he actually knows nothing, and is largely informed by a lot of conspiratorial nonsense, meaning he has the potential to cause a lot of irreparable to the US healthcare system. He's not going to defer to actual expertise, he's going to defer to idiotic blog posts filled with anecdotes about how a friend of a friend of theirs got a vaccine and it was bad.
I cannot imagine that this attempt at chicken eugenics will work as intended. I suspect that if this were a good idea, it would have been tried already.
I'm convinced very little of these folks beliefs are anything more than pantomimed poll results. Oh look at me I'm anti establishment, opposing those that made you wear masks during COVID. Whatever polls well there gives you a lifelong set of supporters.
Within some degree of reason I think it still holds. Yes, if you actively appointed a doomsday cult leader who wants to exterminate the human race, then that would be worse, but that kind of feels like a contrived example.
Within the scope of "people who would realistically actually be appointed", he is the absolute worst case scenario.
It was realistic in the sense that Trump was always going to appoint an unqualified politician for the role. He chose the worst possible one he could from that set.
It's... hard to imagine someone worse, in this particular case. Possibly someone who was actively malicious (vs just delusionally insane, which seems to be the case here)?
Picking the absolute worst person for a particular job is Trump’s MO. Trump selects for either compromised individuals, or people with an ax to grind against the organization they are appointed to head. The reason is because compromised people are going to be dependent on his good graces, and hence absolutely loyal to him personally.
> It's actually impressive that Trump managed to appoint the absolute worst possible person to be Secretary of Health and Human Services.
It's a legitimate and popular republican strategy, I forgot the exact name. They did the same thing with the EPA during the last Trump administration - appointing an actual oil tycoon to head it. I imagine it's pretty difficult to just find an oil tycoon. The idea is to derail the agency from the inside out.
"The experts work in the industry they are experts in" does not necessarily mean the experts are bringing incorrect information, or that the outsiders have better information.
You failed to address the capture of the experts I was referring to. Most experts have conflicts of interest, and only very few of them actually declare them.
Not at all. I do say there's a spectrum. I don't think everything a corporation-employed scientist does is necessarily tainted by the priorities of their employer. Similarly, I don't think every corporate priority is necessarily malicious in intent, or must come with negative societal outcomes.
Which would still be better than defunding all our scientific research and telling people to eat Five Guys fries because they're fried with beef tallow.
While true, that's still an improvement on being a conspiracy theorist.
My mum was New Age type who regularly gave me homeopathic tablets labelled "sodium chloride" and "titanium dioxide", and later Bach flower remedies.
Someone in the pocket of, say, Big Tobacco is going to downplay smoking risks; but that's still not as bad as suggesting replacing all pharmacies with table salt and white sand.
Appointing a know-nothing conspiracy theorist doesn't have that exact issue, yes … but in a way where the cure is significantly worse than the disease.
You can cultivate state capacity and independent expertise to reduce regulatory capture, not replace it with a kakistocracy where regulatory capture is instead by woo-woo morons.
While I would agree with your overall synopsis, RFK Jr. actually has some conflicts of interest with regards to the anti-vax stuff. He directly profits from anti-vax lawsuits, and if he's in charge of the CDC and FDA he has the motivation to try and publish fake reports from (previously) respected departments.
> but in a way where the cure is significantly worse than the disease.
Since the US has by far the sickest human population on Earth (it's not even debatable), I guess the current system has been a spectacular failure. I don't think that RFK is the right answer either, but "continuing on the same path as before" is a bad idea just as well.
> independent expertise to reduce regulatory capture
What is independent expertise exactly? Where do you find virgin experts completely devoid of external influence? I have yet to meet any expert who has never had grants or speaker engagements.
> Since the US has by far the sickest human population on Earth (it's not even debatable)
I am having trouble finding evidence for this claim that you said is “not debatable”. I found some articles that the US is the sickest in the developed world, but that’s pretty different than “sickest human population on earth”.
I would argue the majority of voters did actually want this. Anyone who voted third party in the presidential race was at the very least fine with this. By not casting a vote for the only person who could possibly defeat Trump, Trump became our President.
They got to keep their ideological purity though. I guess that will keep them warm at night when it's their turn to get rounded up.
I think a lot of people, for reasons that will forever remain unclear to me, didn’t genuinely think Trump would do any of the stuff he said he would do. I heard a lot of people say that he wasn’t serious about tariffs for example.
But I don’t want to pretend I understand what compels people to vote for people that I don’t like. Maybe the majority of people really did want to have RFK Jr. in charge all of our health stuff.
The majority of people did nothing to stop him and still, day after day, does nothing to stop him. The whole Republican party feels unthreatened enough by being voted out by "the majority of Americans" that they enable Trump.
Where are your second amendment guys? Still in full support of tyranny? The only guys trying to get a shot at your politicians are psychos and dumb idiots who want to become famous. Not a single hint of politics - except as a show - in their empty head.
His idea is eugenics but for chickens. Just let it spread it through all the birds and the ones that get infected will die and the ones that are immune will survive and breed and the chicken race will be stronger for it.
Yes the idea is that birds that recover from bird flu will keep producing. You end up with more live birds than culling entire flocks. Some of the birds survive, because of their genetics.
This is a dude who saw a a dead bear on the highway and decided for some reason to pick it up and put it in the back of his van. Then he realized that he'd forgotten he was supposed to have dinner in Manhattan, so he dumped the bear in Central Park. People that expect anything reasonable from someone like this are absolutely delusional. It's just going to be chaos.
In the spirit of HN I will only point out here this fact: RFK Jr's attack book on Fauci was extremely poorly produced. Specifically, the text rolled up to the top and bottom edges of the pages as well as the sides. As a bookseller this was a big red flag for me: either the book was poorly self-published, or no-one big (and sometimes reputable) wanted to publish it, and it looked like they were trying to save paper and ink. Also, it has an inordinate amount of footnotes which makes it very difficult to imagine a person following them all. I didn't read the book. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58063409-the-real-anthon... 4.49/5.0 on Goodreads with 8.5K reviews.
It's not meant to be read. The people who produced it don't care what's inside, only that the book exists. The book existing is enough for the target audience to accept that there are valid arguments within. The target audience does not need to read the book, they've already been told what they need to know.
The producers and the audience prefer it that way. It's less effort for everyone involved.
not just that, it provides an easy vector of corruption - random rich people or think tanks / lobby groups funded by rich people can just buy (or say they buy) pallets of said book, directly transferring cash to the "author".
1. babymetal didn't attack any person; they criticized a book's production.
2. babymetal claims to be a bookseller and, if true, they offered a specialist's insight into the quality of the information disseminated by a person being discussed at HN. (Though, their observation was off topic -- like most comments in most HN discussions.)
3. You want HN users, who are mostly code monkeys, to criticize a proposal to address viral diseases?
babymetal states "the text rolled up to the top and bottom edges of the pages as well as the sides. As a bookseller this was a big red flag for me: either the book was poorly self-published, or no-one big (and sometimes reputable) wanted to publish it, and it looked like they were trying to save paper and ink."
Also babymetal admits he didn't read the book. How can anything he says of the book be trusted?
I read the book. Actually there are two stories in the book, the first mostly about Fauci and COVID-19 and the second about Fauci and AIDS. FWIW I'm glad RFK is in power now.
“I trust the guy who published a paper on White House letterhead with hallucinated citations in some instances, and conclusions in complete contradiction of the cited paper in other instances, and who expressed no remorse for such errors.”
It’s just so incredibly dumb to listen to recurrent (and especially unrepentant) liars. Even if you know they’re lying, your brain subjected to that will break down. Propagandists and conmen through all of history have discovered it. All you’ve gotta do is say it over and over again and hope there are people dumb enough not to stop listening the first 15 lies.
Indeed, the power of McLuhan's "We become what we behold" is not to be underestimated.
It's why Fox News works, it's why "flood the zone" is a shrewd tactic, and why "alternative facts" was Yet Another Milepost along our journey to the full-blown post-truth America of today.
"I'm glad (the guy who drove to the beach to cut of a stranded whale's head with a chainsaw) is (in charge of our health) now"
"I'm glad (the guy who dumped a dead bear cub in Central Park and threw a bicycle on top to put the blame on those pesky bikers after doing a photo-op with his hand in the dead cub's open mouth) is (responsible for medical research programs) now"
"I'm glad (someone who has been thriving financially on bogus claims to disparage vaccines) is (overseeing vaccination policies in the US) now"
"I'm glad (another incompetent creep) is (joining the gang of criminals known as The Trump Admin) now"
While I don't really agree with political assassinations, and you are likely to get flagged for this, it's not like the US government hasn't done similar stuff to leaders that we thought were harmful.
The CIA tried to kill Castro a bunch of times [1], presumably because they felt that him being in power was harmful and killing him was a net good. It's not like this kind of stuff is unprecedented.
It am not calling for a "political" assassination. The problem with him is not that we disagree on policy matters. It is that he is an idiot and that he will kill millions of people at random out of sheer stupidity. I am calling to kill him because as an idiot, he can't be "convinced" to do otherwise. There is no debate nor discussion nor negociation possible.
> Kennedy's proposal is also very unlikely to work the way he's claimed it would — the birds that provide eggs and meat on farms are descendants of separate breeding populations and do not breed themselves. So even if there were a population of resilient birds that survived H5N1 infection, that doesn't mean they're passing on their genetic traits to a subsequent generation.
Seems like a rather devastating flaw.
That's not even the worst of it, either. Viruses evolve faster than birds; allowing the disease to spread unchecked is likely to result in more virulent strains emerging. This could potentially include strains which can infect other species, including humans.
Yeah, that's what I thought as well. Isn't that the reason we need a new flu vaccine every year? Because viruses can mutate and adapt faster than animals can?
I don't know anything about biology so admittedly I'm speaking out of my ass here, but that's certainly what it seemed like to me.
Yes. This is also why in Europe we can predict the efficiency of the vaccine in a given year by looking at how it worked in Australia.
Unfortunately there is not enough time to adapt the vaccine between these two seasons
If we have learned anything from this administration, even RFK Jr. specifically, is how lazy they are in pushing their agenda.
They published a "report" claiming that vaccines cause autism that was lazily created with ChatGPT that had fake citations, or citations that actively go against what they're saying. Everything in the administration is half-assed.
"Letting the virus spread to pass on the genes" seems like an idea that would come from a conversation when two drunks who are discussing how they'd solve all the world's problems.
There's no reason to put effort into crafting some convincing argument when your audience is predisposed to obey. This obedience to dictatorial authority is the great asymmetry between parties.
Do you think that makes the Republicans stronger than the Democrats? Or weaker?
I think it makes them stronger in the short term, but much weaker in the long term. (Of course, we have to survive the short term to get to the long term...)
Agree on both counts, not sure they'll be able to hold it together without Trump, often immitated, never duplicated (I hope).
Unfortunately definitiely duplicated: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Johnson
They are fundamentally absolute fucking goofballs.
This administration is the best argument for DEI I’ve ever seen in my life, if it had anything to do with avoiding this.
Just the other day, RFK’s top vaccine nutjob (new chair of ACIP, Robert Malone) tweeted something to suggest that the Amish’s existence despite waves of infectious disease and ~no~ low vaccination is evidence that vaccines aren’t necessary.
Apparently ignorant[0] of the fact that the Amish are notoriously cloistered and isolated from the rest of society.
[0] By “ignorant” I don’t mean “has never heard the idea,” but that the degree of motivated reasoning has rendered his mind actually incapable of integrating this fact — like many others — into his world view. I’m drawing this distinction because I don’t think this is a matter of smart people pretending to believe stupid things. They are actually, at rock bottom, very stupid people, rendered such by their own ideological commitments if nothing else.
> This administration is the best argument for DEI I’ve ever seen in my life
Right, they've essentially implemented reverse DEI: always hire the agreeable white man, no matter what. Which was essentially the status-quo in the fucking 60s.
Now we have a bunch of old white men who can drink more than they can read running our government into the ground. They're all very horribly unqualified. But, they are essentially breathing doormats, which I think is vital to an authoritarian regime.
There is a third way - hire the most competent regardless of skin shade, sexuality and so on. It has quite a good track record.
Empirically the system I have seen criticized as putting incompetent people in power due to their skin/sexuality/etc has yielded far far far better outcomes than the system that has been described as “hiring the most competent regardless of X…”
Perhaps the criticisms of the former and the descriptions of the latter were not accurate.
Can you describe specifically where/when you’re referring to that implemented your ideal system and achieved a good track record?
I generally hear everyone insisting that they themselves are "hiring the most competent regardless of X", it's just that pro-DEI assumes the baseline rate of competence is all groups are about the same really and anti-DEI assumes that rich == competent and oh look at the distribution of money in ${insert country here because it's not actually limited to America where it's white men with most of the money}.
Autocracies notoriously value loyalty and compliance over competence.
Yeah, too much of the vibe around autocracies is that people don't like 'em because they're big ol' meanie heads. No. They're bad because they're literally bad at governing. They make bad decisions.
Democracy isn't good because it makes people feel good, but because in the long run democracies make far more adaptive decisions, and just hobbling along imperfectly over long periods is how you actually achieve growth.
Well, I mean, it's _both_.
The problem is that when the going gets tough, people think they’re willing to accept big ol’ meanie heads in order to get good outcomes.
They are not aware that even if you were okay with that, that’s not the trade off that autocracy gives you.
And inversely, being “good” does not imply someone is incompetent. In general, the reverse is true because being good is such a powerful tool to achieve things (i.e. to be competent).
One is a precursor for the other. Being mean and inflexible is their means of avoiding personal growth, which leads to the incompetence. Of course, they are exceptionally competent at being mean and inflexible because it’s what they practice in their lives.
But I think the point they’re making is that it’s moot that they are mean and inflexible if those traits make a good government. It is at least more relevant that they are incompetent at governing; even if both points are likely to fall on deaf ears and even if one naturally follows the other.
> This administration is the best argument for DEI I’ve ever seen in my life
I'm going to steal and re-use this beautifully succinct observation in as many ways as I appropriately can.
100 internet points to you.
> Just the other day, RFK’s top vaccine nutjob (new chair of ACIP, Robert Malone) tweeted something to suggest that the Amish’s existence despite waves of infectious disease and no vaccination is evidence that vaccines aren’t necessary.
What a strange argument. Did anyone suggest that people would stop existing if there weren’t vaccines? We haven’t had vaccines throughout most of human history.
People just (correctly) think that not being vaccinated will lead to a lot of unnecessary deaths.
"no vaccination" is incorrect. The Amish do have lower vaccination rates than the general population, but many do vaccinate.
This idea definitely came from a tweet he read, and involved no extra consideration.
Unfortunately it involves too many multisyllabic words for Kennedy— or anyone else in this administration— to understand it, so expect them to plow ahead regardless.
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As an animal rights activist, this will do wonders for the movement. As chicken farms become unprofitable due to all the birds dying, prices will go up. This gives people like me an edge to talk about alternatives. We already do this with egg alternatives due to the increases in egg prices. Hopefully companies like JUST Egg can capitalize on this.
I’d rather eat an actual egg than some hyper processed, plant based “alternative”.
>> As an animal rights activist, this will do wonders for the movement.
The article says allowing the virus to rip through flocks could kill "billions of birds" [1]. Is that really OK with the movement?
___________
[1] Allowing widespread infection of commercial flocks would kill billions of birds, drive poultry and egg prices up, as well as destabilize local economies and global trade through import restrictions imposed on U.S. products, the authors wrote. Simultaneously, it could also foster reservoirs of H5N1, increasing the virus' odds of making the leap to humans — and gaining the ability for human-to-human infection.
The birds are dying anyway. So instead of their bodies being used for profit to continue the industry, they will die with hopefully little to no government bailouts, forcing farmers to change what they do for a living.
I'm guessing the movement figures the birds' 1st choice for their future, a career in the food service industry, isn't going to work out much better for the birds anyway.
> become unprofitable due to all the birds dying
Isn't this just switching from, if you detect any infections you're required to kill your flock, to if you have any infections your flock will die of illness? Your flock is still dead either way.
you're wrong here... eggs will become obscenely profitable, because of the sheer demand for the things. Backyard/black market and over seas eggs will be worth an order of magnitude more than before.
And guess what, America will have next to no say in the animal welfare of the source of the eggs.
I'm not sure what's going to happen here, but I'm never going to be eating "JUST Eggs"(tm). Sorry.
I'd like to see a world where animals are treated better though. I don't really understand why food and food production has to be so shit.
JUST Eggs aren’t the only alternative, through: seeds, beans, mushrooms, grains…
I guess you know that the reason of shitty treatment is price, would you rather buy 20x priced eggs ? There’s many family farms that would be happy to deliver them anywhere at that rate.
It's cheaper, and most shoppers aren't willing to pay enough extra to cover better treatment. (It's not the shoppers' fault that most of the labels aren't very meaningful? Well no, that means it's not cost-effective to ensure people are aware of that.)
It's more of an assumption that people wouldn't want better food, maybe even more a statement about our culture in general.
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What an absolute clown show this administration is. We’ve had enough pandemics for one lifetime, thanks.
The midterms can’t come soon enough. That is our only hope of putting some real checks on this administration any time soon.
Since I don't think that the shitshow is going to slow down, I suspect that basically all the damage done in 2025 will be forgotten by most voters. Democrats might do a bit better in 2026, and I certainly hope that that's the case, but I doubt we'll get anywhere near the super majority required to override the president.
If you live in the USA, just as the Democrat Party shouldn't rely on it being bad enough to be remembered, individuals shouldn't rely on it being mild enough to be forgotten
It might be either, but on a personal level, there's multiple things this administration is actively proud of doing/having done that are so bad I expect a noticable reducion in aggregate US life expectency.
I guess what does he care... he's vegan, right?
He is not a vegan. Here's him drinking raw milk recently: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/PzSe0z6gH0M
Won't this put the price of eggs way, way in the opposite direction to what Trump wants them to go?
It risks the entire local US chicken / egg production industry. They'd have to re-onshore it.
The culled birds definitely arent producing. The proposal here is to let sick birds recover from their flu instead of being killed. True, you can effectively stop the spread of the flu if all the animals are dead, but the flu has a high survivability rate, and so once birds recover from their flu, they'll still be laying eggs (instead of being dead). That seems to be the proposed approach. It matches what we did for covid (we didnt cull the infected to stop the spread--it might have worked though).
From the article it doesn't sound like H5N1 really has a "high survivability rate":
>> What's more, the mortality rate of H5N1 is extremely high among common poultry, reaching 100% in domestic chickens.
It's actually impressive that Trump managed to appoint the absolute worst possible person to be Secretary of Health and Human Services.
I know nothing about biology, I know that I know nothing, so if someone decided for whatever reason to appoint me to the position it would be fairly harmless because I would defer extremely heavily to people who actually know about this stuff.
If he had appointed someone with proper medical or biological training, that would be fine because they actually know about stuff and can make informed decisions.
RFK Jr. is the absolute worst person because he thinks he knows a lot about biology, but he actually knows nothing, and is largely informed by a lot of conspiratorial nonsense, meaning he has the potential to cause a lot of irreparable to the US healthcare system. He's not going to defer to actual expertise, he's going to defer to idiotic blog posts filled with anecdotes about how a friend of a friend of theirs got a vaccine and it was bad.
I cannot imagine that this attempt at chicken eugenics will work as intended. I suspect that if this were a good idea, it would have been tried already.
I'm convinced very little of these folks beliefs are anything more than pantomimed poll results. Oh look at me I'm anti establishment, opposing those that made you wear masks during COVID. Whatever polls well there gives you a lifelong set of supporters.
“Worst possible person” isn’t accurate but “worst person ever in the role” probably is.
Within some degree of reason I think it still holds. Yes, if you actively appointed a doomsday cult leader who wants to exterminate the human race, then that would be worse, but that kind of feels like a contrived example.
Within the scope of "people who would realistically actually be appointed", he is the absolute worst case scenario.
>"people who would realistically actually be appointed"
But really it wasn't all that realistic. Sure it happened, but just 'cause it happened doesn't make it realistic.
It was realistic in the sense that Trump was always going to appoint an unqualified politician for the role. He chose the worst possible one he could from that set.
It's... hard to imagine someone worse, in this particular case. Possibly someone who was actively malicious (vs just delusionally insane, which seems to be the case here)?
Picking the absolute worst person for a particular job is Trump’s MO. Trump selects for either compromised individuals, or people with an ax to grind against the organization they are appointed to head. The reason is because compromised people are going to be dependent on his good graces, and hence absolutely loyal to him personally.
> It's actually impressive that Trump managed to appoint the absolute worst possible person to be Secretary of Health and Human Services.
It's a legitimate and popular republican strategy, I forgot the exact name. They did the same thing with the EPA during the last Trump administration - appointing an actual oil tycoon to head it. I imagine it's pretty difficult to just find an oil tycoon. The idea is to derail the agency from the inside out.
It's actually impressive that Trump managed to appoint the absolute worst possible person to be Secretary of Health and Human Services.
And the republicans in the senate approved the halfwit because they all fear getting primaried.
> defer extremely heavily to people who actually know about this stuff.
in a system with high regulatory capture, you would be defering your power to the industry's interests.
"The experts work in the industry they are experts in" does not necessarily mean the experts are bringing incorrect information, or that the outsiders have better information.
You failed to address the capture of the experts I was referring to. Most experts have conflicts of interest, and only very few of them actually declare them.
I was pointing out that you failed to make a strong point in the first place.
Are you suggesting regulatory capture is not a thing?
Not at all. I do say there's a spectrum. I don't think everything a corporation-employed scientist does is necessarily tainted by the priorities of their employer. Similarly, I don't think every corporate priority is necessarily malicious in intent, or must come with negative societal outcomes.
You seem to come from a different presumption.
Which would still be better than defunding all our scientific research and telling people to eat Five Guys fries because they're fried with beef tallow.
While true, that's still an improvement on being a conspiracy theorist.
My mum was New Age type who regularly gave me homeopathic tablets labelled "sodium chloride" and "titanium dioxide", and later Bach flower remedies.
Someone in the pocket of, say, Big Tobacco is going to downplay smoking risks; but that's still not as bad as suggesting replacing all pharmacies with table salt and white sand.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeopathic_hospitals_in_the_N...
Appointing a know-nothing conspiracy theorist doesn't have that exact issue, yes … but in a way where the cure is significantly worse than the disease.
You can cultivate state capacity and independent expertise to reduce regulatory capture, not replace it with a kakistocracy where regulatory capture is instead by woo-woo morons.
While I would agree with your overall synopsis, RFK Jr. actually has some conflicts of interest with regards to the anti-vax stuff. He directly profits from anti-vax lawsuits, and if he's in charge of the CDC and FDA he has the motivation to try and publish fake reports from (previously) respected departments.
https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-health-news/2025/01/22/nx...
> but in a way where the cure is significantly worse than the disease.
Since the US has by far the sickest human population on Earth (it's not even debatable), I guess the current system has been a spectacular failure. I don't think that RFK is the right answer either, but "continuing on the same path as before" is a bad idea just as well.
> independent expertise to reduce regulatory capture
What is independent expertise exactly? Where do you find virgin experts completely devoid of external influence? I have yet to meet any expert who has never had grants or speaker engagements.
> Since the US has by far the sickest human population on Earth (it's not even debatable), I guess the current system has been a spectacular failure
I suspect everyone affected by the sub-Saharan AIDS epidemic would disagree very strongly, even despite the improvements over the last 20 years.
More generally, the US may be an outlier among industrialised nations, but the floor for health in general is much lower than the USA.
This also means you have a long way further to fall if you allow incompetent leadership.
> Since the US has by far the sickest human population on Earth (it's not even debatable)
I am having trouble finding evidence for this claim that you said is “not debatable”. I found some articles that the US is the sickest in the developed world, but that’s pretty different than “sickest human population on earth”.
So instead we should listen to the "health influencers" that surround people like RFK Jr?
Are they independent?
I'm not giving you a solution, I am simply observing that the current system is utterly broken. So continuing as is is not an option, obviously.
You're throwing out the baby with the bathwater, and handing control to insane people in the process.
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Hey! I'm American and I think RFK Jr. is a moron and a dangerous person to give power with anything involving human health.
Trump has never had a majority of the votes, just a plurality. The majority of voters did not want this.
I would argue the majority of voters did actually want this. Anyone who voted third party in the presidential race was at the very least fine with this. By not casting a vote for the only person who could possibly defeat Trump, Trump became our President.
They got to keep their ideological purity though. I guess that will keep them warm at night when it's their turn to get rounded up.
2024 voting-eligible population: 244.6M
Voted for Trump: 77.3M
Voted for Harris: 75M
Voted for other candidates: 2.6M
Eligible to vote, but didn't vote: 90M
Unfortunately, the largest constituency continues to be the "can't be fucked to vote" party.
Might be useful to put some commas or something. I thought you were saying that 244 million voted for Trump.
Fixed. Forgot HN eats single newlines.
I think a lot of people, for reasons that will forever remain unclear to me, didn’t genuinely think Trump would do any of the stuff he said he would do. I heard a lot of people say that he wasn’t serious about tariffs for example.
But I don’t want to pretend I understand what compels people to vote for people that I don’t like. Maybe the majority of people really did want to have RFK Jr. in charge all of our health stuff.
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The majority of people did nothing to stop him and still, day after day, does nothing to stop him. The whole Republican party feels unthreatened enough by being voted out by "the majority of Americans" that they enable Trump.
Where are your second amendment guys? Still in full support of tyranny? The only guys trying to get a shot at your politicians are psychos and dumb idiots who want to become famous. Not a single hint of politics - except as a show - in their empty head.
This is one of the most darkly funny things I have read this week. Just want in the fuck is going on.
His idea is eugenics but for chickens. Just let it spread it through all the birds and the ones that get infected will die and the ones that are immune will survive and breed and the chicken race will be stronger for it.
>eugenics but for chickens
So... animal husbandry?
The same for every species that has been domesticated. Corn, horses, dogs, even yeast.
This even happens to species we don’t intend to practice “eugenics” on. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vavilovian_mimicry
Yes the idea is that birds that recover from bird flu will keep producing. You end up with more live birds than culling entire flocks. Some of the birds survive, because of their genetics.
You forgot about the part where the virus mutates and jumps to humans.
Too bad about the human race though, I guess.
This is a dude who saw a a dead bear on the highway and decided for some reason to pick it up and put it in the back of his van. Then he realized that he'd forgotten he was supposed to have dinner in Manhattan, so he dumped the bear in Central Park. People that expect anything reasonable from someone like this are absolutely delusional. It's just going to be chaos.
In the spirit of HN I will only point out here this fact: RFK Jr's attack book on Fauci was extremely poorly produced. Specifically, the text rolled up to the top and bottom edges of the pages as well as the sides. As a bookseller this was a big red flag for me: either the book was poorly self-published, or no-one big (and sometimes reputable) wanted to publish it, and it looked like they were trying to save paper and ink. Also, it has an inordinate amount of footnotes which makes it very difficult to imagine a person following them all. I didn't read the book. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58063409-the-real-anthon... 4.49/5.0 on Goodreads with 8.5K reviews.
[edit]: misspelled "imagine"
It's not meant to be read. The people who produced it don't care what's inside, only that the book exists. The book existing is enough for the target audience to accept that there are valid arguments within. The target audience does not need to read the book, they've already been told what they need to know.
The producers and the audience prefer it that way. It's less effort for everyone involved.
not just that, it provides an easy vector of corruption - random rich people or think tanks / lobby groups funded by rich people can just buy (or say they buy) pallets of said book, directly transferring cash to the "author".
Remember when a slew of SV execs lined up behind his presidential campaign? That was way back when he was a Democrat.
> In the spirit of HN I will only point out here this fact: RFK Jr's attack book on Fauci was extremely poorly produced.
It's in the spirit of hn to attack the person rather than the specific proposal?
1. babymetal didn't attack any person; they criticized a book's production.
2. babymetal claims to be a bookseller and, if true, they offered a specialist's insight into the quality of the information disseminated by a person being discussed at HN. (Though, their observation was off topic -- like most comments in most HN discussions.)
3. You want HN users, who are mostly code monkeys, to criticize a proposal to address viral diseases?
babymetal states "the text rolled up to the top and bottom edges of the pages as well as the sides. As a bookseller this was a big red flag for me: either the book was poorly self-published, or no-one big (and sometimes reputable) wanted to publish it, and it looked like they were trying to save paper and ink."
Also babymetal admits he didn't read the book. How can anything he says of the book be trusted?
I read the book. Actually there are two stories in the book, the first mostly about Fauci and COVID-19 and the second about Fauci and AIDS. FWIW I'm glad RFK is in power now.
They said they're a bookseller and spoke only about the physical aspects of the book.
I thought their fairly brief comment was pretty clear.
“I trust the guy who published a paper on White House letterhead with hallucinated citations in some instances, and conclusions in complete contradiction of the cited paper in other instances, and who expressed no remorse for such errors.”
It’s just so incredibly dumb to listen to recurrent (and especially unrepentant) liars. Even if you know they’re lying, your brain subjected to that will break down. Propagandists and conmen through all of history have discovered it. All you’ve gotta do is say it over and over again and hope there are people dumb enough not to stop listening the first 15 lies.
Indeed, the power of McLuhan's "We become what we behold" is not to be underestimated.
It's why Fox News works, it's why "flood the zone" is a shrewd tactic, and why "alternative facts" was Yet Another Milepost along our journey to the full-blown post-truth America of today.
"I'm glad (RFK) is (in power) now"
"I'm glad (the guy who drove to the beach to cut of a stranded whale's head with a chainsaw) is (in charge of our health) now"
"I'm glad (the guy who dumped a dead bear cub in Central Park and threw a bicycle on top to put the blame on those pesky bikers after doing a photo-op with his hand in the dead cub's open mouth) is (responsible for medical research programs) now"
"I'm glad (someone who has been thriving financially on bogus claims to disparage vaccines) is (overseeing vaccination policies in the US) now"
"I'm glad (another incompetent creep) is (joining the gang of criminals known as The Trump Admin) now"
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While I don't really agree with political assassinations, and you are likely to get flagged for this, it's not like the US government hasn't done similar stuff to leaders that we thought were harmful.
The CIA tried to kill Castro a bunch of times [1], presumably because they felt that him being in power was harmful and killing him was a net good. It's not like this kind of stuff is unprecedented.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_assassination_attempts_on_...
It am not calling for a "political" assassination. The problem with him is not that we disagree on policy matters. It is that he is an idiot and that he will kill millions of people at random out of sheer stupidity. I am calling to kill him because as an idiot, he can't be "convinced" to do otherwise. There is no debate nor discussion nor negociation possible.
I would argue that that is still political. “Political” does not imply “wrong” or anything.