25- Fox in the henhouse

Could you hear me screaming at the radio on the way to pick up my friend from the airport when I heard the vaccine shenanigans.

I write, of course, of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) who voted today to recommend NOT giving newborn babies a hepatitis B vaccine. Routine hep B immunization for newborns has been on the vaccination schedule for THIRTY years.

Instead they recommend that only babies born to women who test positive for hep B get the vaccination. But what about the women who are so newly infected with hep B that it doesn’t show up on a blood test, a la HIV. What about their babies?

This is not the final vote, this is just a recommendation.

This recommended change was strongly objected to by the actual medical experts in the room, many of whom were not allowed to speak or give evidence. The medical community points out that this 30 year recommendation has VASTLY decreased hep B rates in children. Hepatitis B can lead to chronic liver problems, liver cancer, and even premature death.

The council sounded very paternalistic when saying that parents need to carefully consider whether to vaccinate their newly born child. To me this puts the blame on whatever happens to the infant squarely on the parents. And the verbal poison the parents are being exposed to on social media via “mommy groups”.

How did we get here?

Oh, so many reasons. MAHA, the influencers who want to see the world burn, those who want to control women and babies.

It is a tale as old as time. Control the babies, control the women. But at the black heart of it is control the women because, they, as CIS men, know best. But the 6 men and women on the committee that voted for this monstrosity of a recommendation will be dead when the first babies, who will be born shortly, starts showing the liver damage.

There was a paper written on the “Economic evaluation of delaying the infant hepatitis B vaccination schedule”. The paper was written by Eric W. Hall, Prabhu Gounder, Heather Bradly, and Noele P. Nelson and published in medRxiv on November 25, 2025. Citation at the end of the post.

Each of the delayed vaccination scenarios were modeled on a Markov model to simulate lifetime health outcomes for babies who have the vaccine, those who have a delayed vaccine, and those who have no vaccine, among others. The costs of the attendant liver problems skyrocketed, as did the infections and possible/probably early death.

The conclusion of this paper is that even brief delays in hep B vaccine initiation exacts a wide cost to the person (baby) being vaccinated. The cost cited is hep B infections, chronic liver problems, including cirrhosis, and cancer, decrease in life years (meaning the possibility of early death), and the list goes on. This points a number to what will happen if the hep B vaccination schedule is disrupted.

I found this brief paper very stark and it tells a devastating tale of possible disease and possible death for babies that aren’t vaccinated at birth.

My personal feelings on this are the same as when RFK Jr. came in and cleaned house. This means he fired all the responsible medical type people who were previously on ACIP. It is like when you let the fox in the henhouse and they fire all the roosters who protect the hens and the fox hires other foxes to protect the hens, why are we surprised when the hens all end up dead?

This will end badly and all the culprits will be dead by the time the damage is assessed.

Hall, E. W., Gounder, P., Bradley, H., Nelson, N. P., Hall, E. W., Gounder, P., Bradley, H., & Nelson, N. P. (2025). Economic evaluation of delaying the infant hepatitis B vaccination schedule. bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory). https://doi.org/10.1101/2025.11.24.25340907

Tuesday Top of Mind 11/25/25- Just a little prick

Yes, there are multiple meaning to the phrase. No I didn’t click all the links that were shown. Be careful looking up stuff on the internet.

But it does include the time on South Park in 2019 that Cartman didn’t want to get his vaccination shot. Which leads to him almost being thrown out of school (remember those days?), and he uses this to negotiate the exclusive use of the volleyball for the next six months.

Of course, he escapes the doctor trying to give him his shots. Again.

Why do people hate shots and vaccinations?

25% of [ep[;e are terrified of the needles.

Some people are afraid of the pain.

I’ve had many, many, many, many, many vaccines and I can tell you my experience.

Many.

In fact the last 2 I got were the Shingles second shot in October, and the flu shot in October.

Let’s talk about the fear of needles. While tatted with full sleeves and choker.

Sometimes it is an irrational fear.

Sometimes it does hurt.

But the hurt always goes away. The hurt is cause by the inflammation of the immune system response to what it thinks as an invader.

The hurt is a good thing. It means that the immune system is activated and will learn the often inactive microbe that was in the vaccine.

When I was giving covid vaccine shots in 2020 and 2021 many people were afraid of the needle.

But they still rolled up their sleeves.

Often I would administer the shot and the patient would ask when would I give the shot. Only to be amazed that it was already done. For the very fearful, I advised them to close their eyes.

These vaccine clinics often led to the how much is it going to hurt question.

Fair enough question.

I would engage in conversation with these people and ask them if they had ever had a tetanus shot, specifically the Tdap, or a flu shot. When they indicated they had, I would tell them that the covid shot hurt less than the tetanus shot and more than a flu shot. With a point of reference, they would nod and allow me to administer the hot.

There is another reason for mentioning the Tdap.

Babies are dying.

According to an article from CIDRAP from the University of Michigan, three infants have died of pertussis aka whooping cough in Kentucky. They were not vaccinated. This is the loss of herd immunity as overall vaccination rates are 90%, well under the herd immunity threshold of 95%.

There have been 2 dead babies in Texas. For the same reason.

The first thing I looked for in the X location transparency that dropped this week was the location of anti-vaxxer bots.

Okay, first I giggled and then I looked.

There wasn’t a lot of information. Most of it was around the bots in the red hats. There were some bots in blue hats. All are to blame here. But the red hatted bots WAY outnumbered the blue hatted bots and from such interesting locations as Asia and African countries.

This 99% accuracy as touted by X is stunning.

But, like most things these days, take with a grain of salt.

But babies are dying because of the inaction of their parents and doctors, fueled by lies from the department of health and human services secretary. They have a new accomplice in the CDC. Which takes vaccine providers to task by not being able to prove a negative.

But babies are dying and will continue to die because of misinformation and lies that have been passed down like grandmothers’ wedding china.

Just like women who are continuing to die under draconian anti abortion laws.

This is nothing to laugh at.

After all, a vaccination is just a little prick.

Tuesday Top of Mind 9/16/25- Thank you, Governor Stein, for not kotowing to the CDC

Did you get your covid booster shot in May like I told you? You know after RFK Jr. started his bs at the department? When the department first announced that boosters were only for those 65 years and older or those with preconditions but had not yet enacted it?

My husband immediately got an appointment and the booster. I immediately got an appointment and the booster. We both got boosters on May 21 of this year.

Do I remember exactly what spooked me about this entire situation? Apparently the FDA came out on May 20 with an article that I saw in Stat News.

The shenanigans are afoot again. Always, forever…

Now that the CDC has approved the new booster shot for the flu/covid season 2025 there is a discrepancy of which states will give you a vaccine/booster without a prescription. Or even with a prescription.

It is a hot icky mess.

Just as was designed by HHS.

Some states have come out as needing a prescription. If the pharmacy even has it.

Some states have not.

Nine states require individual prescriptions for a vaccine. At least at the writing of my source article from PBS dated September 12, 2025. In the four days since this article was written 3 other states have issued orders to make the covid vaccine available to their citizens. These are Arizona, Maine, and North Carolina. Hence the reason I am thanking Josh Stein in the post title.

To look on the bright side 41 do not. Soon to be 44. Six states that still require a prescription for even those eligible for the vaccine are Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Oregon, Utah, and West Virginia, plus D.C.

That’s even if the pharmacies are stocking the vaccine.

Rather a game of three card monte. Here a vaccine for the prescribed, there a vaccine for anyone who meets the threshold. Everywhere a vaccine. Confusing right?

Trust me, that is the entire fucking point. It’s as if the CDC wants to make it so confusing that people will throw up their hands and give up.

Too bad, CDC and HHS, those of us who’ve lived and survived since March 2020 know better. We know that this virus is a killer. We know that this virus disables through Long Covid. And we do not wish that on our worst enemy.

We are tired of the dead and the double speak and the ghoul in charge of it all.

Tuesday Top of Mind 9/2/25- Kudos to the pediatricians out there denying the DHHS over the covid boosters for children or why covid is still trying to kill you

I will be frank- Covid is still circulating and still killing people, including children. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) 194 people died of covid weekly in August 2025. Of course this number is highly suspect as many states stopped reporting covid deaths. I suspect that the true number is higher.

To many people, covid is dead and none of the protections need to happen anymore.

Vaccine? Yeah, I got one three years ago and then I stopped getting them.

Yeah, I got covid four times last year but I’m okay.

Other people are not okay after getting covid-19.

To think that covid no longer affects the US or you is highly privileged. This means it hasn’t affected you personally YET.

I think that a lot of the conversations about covid are missing the qualifier “YET”.

I think you mean to say that covid hasn’t given you long covid symptoms YET. I think you mean to say that you got the first vaccine series and don’t think you can get covid YET. I think you mean to say that covid hasn’t impacted or killed your child YET.

See how easy that was?

The CDC finally came out with its covid recommendations in the beginning of June. The recommendations are for adults 18-65 to have an optional covid vaccine but for those over 65 it is highly recommended. They said that they were not recommending the covid vaccine to children or to pregnant women.

The American Academy of Pediatrics said “Bet” and did not change their vaccine recommendations to reflect what the CDC says. The AAP recommends the covid vaccine to children over the age of 6 months. In order to decrease the likelihood of serious illness and covid complications.

Because, and I cannot shout this enough, covid is still out there and still killing.

The most current FDA recommendation is that adults greater than 65 years of age continue to get the vaccine. The vaccine is not recommended for anyone under the age of 65 unless you have one medical condition that puts them at higher risk of a serious covid complication.

But, Kate, that is awfully vague, what kind of medical conditions?

The list I pulled from the FDA website was cancer, obesity defined as BMI greater than or equal to 20, or greater than the 95th percentile in children, diabetes I and diabetes II, asthma, cerebral vascular disease, chronic kidney disease, chronic lung disease, chronic liver disease, cystic fibrosis, Down syndrome, mental health conditions, dementia and Parkinson’s, physical inactivity, pregnancy, smokers current and former, TB, those who have had a solid organ or stem cell transplant, use of corticosteroids such as prednisone, and being unvaccinated or not up to date on your vaccinations (interesting). This is not an exhaustive list.

The point is you are going to have to fight and justify your need for the covid vaccine if you under 65. If you can find one, if you can afford it. But that’s an issue for another day.

I think they are playing Russian roulette with people’s lives. Especially children who are still growing and don’t have the mature respiratory system.

Tuesday Top of Mind 5/25/25- Be careful, germs are still trying to kill you

In a stunning surprise to no one who is interested in anything other than pursuing power and strengthening the echo chamber in which they live, this past however many days it has been since the inauguration and the shameful confirmation of an avowed anti-vaxxer to the chair of HHS has been an exercise in what the fuck.

Seriously though, is this man and his ilk interested in anything besides the cockamamie bullshit they believe, to the detriment of, well, everyone in the US.

Let’s count the says his administration of HHS has gone.

Number one is his insistence that, against all medical judgement and against swift action of diseases that we know are trying to kill us, that all vaccines must have an extra layer of blinded nonsense, a placebo barrier. The only thing that ‘obecalp’ ever did was kill people. (that is placebo spelled backward, they came up with this nonsense in the 1990s. It is basically a sugar pill to make you think you are being treated. Additional nonsense is up to and including the appointment of a known vaccine skeptic and all around terrible human and has no medical degree, David Geier, to investigate for the umpteenth time the debunked, but very real in their heads, link between vaccines and autism.

Maybe this time they will get an answer they think proves what they think. Spoiler alert, doing research with a foregone conclusion in your head is a terrible way to go about doing research.

THREE HUNDRED Americans are dying and will continue to die every week because of covid.

Yeah, still.

Bet you didn’t hear about that.

That is over one thousand a month.

Last week when the news broke that they were no longer recommending updated covid vaccines to those under 65, I immediately, without hesitation, made a covid appointment for the very next day. Not only that, I immediately texted my husband to make his own appointment. Again, for the very next day. This nonsense was released on Wednesday and by noon on Thursday we both had been vaccinated.

Other vaccine recommendation changes include that the vaccine is not recommended if you are under 65. Unless you have a concurrent comorbidity and are over 50, luckily obesity in the US is 40.3%. Otherwise you are out of luck. Today, they announced a stop to recommending that healthy children are no longer to get the covid vaccine. Never mind the one thousand and eighty six children who died from covid during what they consider the active pandemic. Taken against the estimated number of children in the US of 73,602,753, this comes out to a mortality rate of 0.0015%.

Not significant but not immaterial. Especially to the one thousand and eighty six families.

And whose definition of healthy?

Nothing was ever gained by denial and thrusting our heads into the sand.

Today HHS also came out against recommending the covid vaccine for pregnant women. Why? No idea. Because we know there is a link between covid infection and miscarriage. According to a study in the Lancet that Covid infection before or during pregnancy was associated with a two- to threefold increase in risk of miscarriage before 20 weeks. And since we already know that 1 in 4 pregnancies end in miscarriage, I feel that this is vastly short sighted.

Par for the course.

Of course, covid data is HARD to come by.

As if no one wants us to look at it.

Gee, I wonder why? (this is heavy sarcasm)

Congratulations to us! After canceling the meeting to decide on the 2025 flu vaccine, the FDA got their heads out of their collective asses and chose three viruses to include in the vaccine. Of course, selecting the viruses to be included is always a crap shoot. Just ask the 20,000 Americans who died of the flu in the 2024/2025 flu season.

Let me tell you, as a working nurse in the hospital during flu season and one who monitors bed usage and ER bed availability in my spare time, this last season was the worst one in years.

Tuberculosis remains a threat to school children in Kansas. Why is this important to know? TB kills the most people per year around the world. True it is most common in crowded living conditions. Like in jails or the new housing model for gen z. This is also known as pod living where you rent a bed (pod) in a house with other gen zers.

This most current outbreak in Kansas is still of concern. But you don’t hear of it, do you?

This bring us the third disease in our merry go round of death in America 2025, measles. There have been one thousand and forty six known cases in 31 states. Slightly less than the children who died of covid since 2020 (that we know of) but there have only been three deaths in this latest outbreak. Of course, two of them were children.

Yep, still a thing. Still spreading like wildfire because it is the most contagious illness in the world.

It is as if they want the immuno-compromised to die. After all, we spend sooooooooooooooooooooooooo much money on the chronically ill in America. According to the NIH, over ONE TRILLION dollars a year.

Do you see why medical professionals like me are concerned?

No.

Okay, well get your vaccinations. While you can.

I turn 50 in July and 50 is the age they offer the shingles vaccine. You bet I will be getting it the first week.

Idle question that popped into my head as I was finishing this, what happens if the autism rate goes up without vaccines? Or are they just “kidding”.

Tuesday Top of Mind 12/17/24- Your grandparents would be rolling over in their graves if they knew!

I am not going to ask how we got here. It’s bad enough that we are here.

By that I mean the rampant feeling by some LOUD segment of the population that vaccines aren’t important. So unimportant that they don’t want them and, furthermore, their children don’t want them. Yes, I know that is grammatically incorrect.

They feel that the diseases that are currently being vaccinated against are a thing of the past. After all, THEY never heard of anyone getting whooping cough, or tetanus, or measles. And THEY certainly never had it themselves.

Now the anti-vaccinator himself, RFK Jr., has ingratiated himself into an essential job at the government level. He will be handed control of the Health and Human Services. This is a man who caused a fatal outbreak of measles in Samoa tby peddling his snake oil and misinformation about vaccines.

This man is not a doctor.

Like the yummy mummies on social media who are anti-vaxers and never expose their precious offspring to “chemicals” like di-hydrogen monoxide, that’s water, by the way. Until one of their children comes out with a PREVENTABLE disease, like influenza or measles, and dies. Then comes the rending of the clothes and the gnashing of the teeth and the wailing and fake tears. And the claims that no one told them that precious little Timmy-kins could die. After all, they just wanted to fit in with Tiffiny and Karin.

Spare me.

I’ve only read examples of death by tetanus. This is where your muscles lock up so tightly because of the toxin. The muscles are so rigid that bones break. Sounds horrible and not something I’d wish on my worst enemy. If I had any enemies, that is.

My great, great-aunt died of pertussis in the 1930s, even though a vaccine had been developed in 1914. The vaccine wasn’t widely used until the 1940s.

The DTP (diphtheria, pertussis, and tetanus) vaccine is a 3 vaccine for 1 shot deal. The caveat is that it only lasts for 10 years.

The flu shot is widely available, beginning in the fall. This is a yearly vaccine that everyone should get. After all, 28,000 people died of the flu in 2023 and the young, the old, and the immunocompromised are at risk, even with a vaccine.

Is this ringing a bell?

Same things we said about the covid vaccine and there were still millions of people who died worldwide. How many? We don’t know because they STOPPED collecting/reporting the data.

Your grandparents and great-grandparents lost children to what we can now prevent and would look at you in disappointment when you decide to listen to disgraced doctor Andrew Wakefield and his many, many, many, many times disproven paper that linked vaccines and autism.

Double spare me.

Better yet, spare your kids.

Tuesday Top of Mind 2/13/24-color me surprised, the articles about mifepristone were retracted by publisher

Shocked, I am shocked. This is heavy sarcasm.

Does anyone remember the debunked articles by Andrew Wakefield that began the most recent wave of anti-vaxers nonsense with a widely exposed fraudulent article in the Lancet conflating autism with childhood vaccines? And how every parent clutched their child to their breast and decided then and there that of course the man was telling the truth. With nothing underneath him but air? Yeah, him.

Healthcare workers, such as myself, have been educating parents about how safe vaccines are ever since. But the idea was like an earworm and refused to die. As a society, we are still dealing with the fallout and the consequences of this. Current measles outbreak numbers do not lie.

Herd immunity works very well. But the public has to be 1) vaccinated for it to work and 2) be protective of those who cannot get vaccinated, like the very young, the people who are anaphylactically allergic to the vaccines, or those who cannot otherwise take the vaccines.

Think of what the planet just went through with covid and you have a good idea of how damaging and heartless this was. People who didn’t get the widely available and FREE covid vaccines extended the pandemic.

To be blunt, autism is NOT caused by vaccines. To mislead the public into believing that was a gross malpractice on the former Dr. Wakefield’s part.

Well.

The 2021 paper that the Texas judge used in a ruling against the use of mifepristone has been yanked. By the publisher. Retracted by the publisher. What the judge did was bend the facts to make his ruling that mifepristone was dangerous and should be stopped. And his ruling was appealed and stayed and overturned. Which is what was the intention.

The case that is in front of the U.S. Supreme Court right this very second.

I’ve said it before, over and over again. This lunacy is a war against women and is about trying to control more than half of the population. Control is at the root of this.

Will they care that the original ruling was based on a retracted by the publisher paper?

It remains to be seen. I have an idea about what will happen. Don’t you?

I hope I am wrong.