RFK Jr. War on Vaccines continues as he puts anti-vaxxer in charge of vaccine review

ACIP member critical of COVID and mRNA vaccines to lead review

Lisa Schnirring, Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, University of Minnesota

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) vaccine advisory group has long had a work group in place to review the latest COVID-19 vaccine science, including weighing the risks and benefits, but a newly constituted group will launch a sweeping new review of the vaccines led by a member who has opposed COVID vaccines.

The Brownstone Institute on August 22 reported that Retsef Levi, PhD, one of seven members appointed to the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) by US Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has been appointed to lead the COVID vaccine review. On August 20, the CDC posted updated terms of reference for the COVID vaccine work group, which is lengthy. Some of the topics include impacts from repeated boosting and mapping policies in other countries.

Retsef Levi spent 12 years as an intelligence
officer in the IDF - Israeli Defense Forces

Levi does not have a biomedical degree or clinical medicine experience. He has a doctorate in operations research and is a professor of operations management at MIT Sloan School of Management. On social media, Levi has called mRNA vaccines dangerous and said they should be removed from the market. 

Scaled-back involvement of CDC staff

Levi told the Brownstone Institute that the work group hasn’t been fully formed yet but will include fellow ACIP members Robert Malone, MD, and James Pagano, MD. Malone is a vaccinologist and scientist who was involved in early mRNA vaccine research and an outspoken critic of mRNA COVID vaccines. Pagano is a retired emergency medicine physician.

The new terms of reference said CDC staff will not serve as members of the work group but may provide administrative support or technical support as needed and that work group leadership and others will ensure that there is no undue influence from the CDC or any special-interest group. 

News of the shift in the COVID vaccine work group is the latest in efforts to steer ACIP toward taking on topics pushed forward by anti-vaccine groups. 

At the first meeting of the newly appointed group in June, the leaders of the group signaled there will be changes to the ACIP work groups and that two more will be added: one on the cumulative effect of vaccines on the recommended CDC vaccine schedule for children and adolescents and the other to have another look at vaccines that have been on the market for more than 7 years, such as the measles, mumps, rubella, and varicella (MMRV) vaccine in children younger than 5 years.

A month later, the HHS announced that ACIP’s nonvoting liaison groups from medical and public health organizations are barred from participating in ACIP work groups, saying that they are expected to be biased, based on their constituencies. Groups such as the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists have often assisted with efficacy and safety reviews, along with risk-benefit analyses. 

Concerns about more data misrepresentation under Kennedy 

Some experts are casting doubt on whether the new COVID vaccine review will be rigorous and sound. In making unilateral vaccine recommendations and changes to vaccine recommendations, Kennedy and his surrogates have cherry-picked and misrepresented data to fit their anti-vaccine narratives. 

Jake Scott, MD, an infectious disease physician and clinical associate professor at Stanford University who has published responses to Kennedy’s critiques on vaccines, including claims that led the HHS to cancel 22 mRNA vaccine projects, told the New York Times, “I'm concerned that it won't be rigorous science, that it's going to be more statistical manipulation.” 

Scott is also involved with the Vaccine Integrity Project at the University of Minnesota's Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRAP), publisher of CIDRAP News.

HHS spokesman Andrew Nixon told the Times that though individual group members may have initial personal views, “the task force's work will be guided by data, transparency, open-mindedness and open deliberation—not by any single opinion.”

DOGE dopes may have dumped your Social Security number and info onto the internet

Whistleblower Warns of Possible Risks to Americans’ Social Security Information 

The Government Accountability Project submitted a protected whistleblower disclosure to the Office of Special Counsel and congressional committees with grave allegations of data security lapses that put over 300 million Americans’ social security information at risk. 

Whistleblower Charles Borges, the Chief Data Officer (CDO) at the Social Security Administration (SSA), disclosed reports that Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) officials employed by SSA have created a live copy of the country’s Social Security information in a cloud environment that circumvents oversight. 

Should bad actors gain access to this cloud environment, Americans may be susceptible to widespread identity theft, lose vital healthcare and food benefits, and the government could be responsible for re-issuing every American a new Social Security number. 

Charles Borges began serving as the CDO of SSA and leading the Office of Analytics, Review, and Oversight on January 27, 2025, responsible for the safety, integrity, and security of the public’s data at SSA. His position requires full visibility into data access, data exchange, and cloud-based environments. 

Since DOGE’s founding in January 2025, DOGE officials have sought to access the American public’s Social Security data, purportedly to address claims of fraud. A lawsuit was filed to stop DOGE’s access to the data which resulted in the court issuing a temporary restraining order on March 20, 2025 that was in effect until June 6, 2025. 

Mr. Borges’ disclosure describes multiple instances of wrongdoing at SSA progressing from a circumvention of the court’s order in March 2025 to approval of high-risk activities outside of normal review and approval procedures by July 2025. 

Mr. Borges details how DOGE personnel appeared to have given themselves authorization to create a copy of SSA’s entire live set of data on the American public without any independent security or oversight mechanisms in place. 

Rhode Island celebrates Labor Day with anti-fascist solidarity

South County does its part

Steve Ahlquist

EDITOR’S NOTE: My compliments to Steve Ahlquist for his great coverage of yesterday's actions. In the interest of space, I have taken extracted some of the best shots he took of rallies in Westerly and Richmond. There are lots more photos as well as statewide coverage at SteveAhquist.News. I urge you to join me in subscribing to Steve’s unique journalism.  – Will Collette

WESTERLY, RHODE ISLAND

In events across the state, Rhode Islanders observed Labor Day by demanding that the federal government put “Workers over Billionaires.” At 3 pm in Westerly, around 150 people gathered at the corner of Franklin Street and Airport Road, lining the sidewalk outside the CVS/Stop & Shop Plaza.

“I think that we all need to be standing up, more and more as time goes on, because our country is being attacked by fascists,” said Janine Harrington, one of the Westerly organizers. “Unless the people rise up, because there’s more of us than there are of them, nothing will be done to stop it.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

RICHMOND, RHODE ISLAND

A sister event took place further north, outside the Richmond Town Hall. Nearly 175 people occupied both sides of Richmond Townhouse Road by the rotary.

“Traditionally, Labor Day is to support the unions, and we’re glad to come out and support workers’ rights,” said Chris Kona, one of the organizers. “There’s been a lot of challenges, especially at the federal level against workers’ rights, particularly the effort to disenfranchise the federal workers’ unions. We’re here to show solidarity.”

“It’s important that we all do our part to save our democracy,” said Jana Ina Stanley, another Richmond organizer. “We are dangerously close to being in a very bad place. My sign has two sides. One side says, ‘You don’t need to believe our signs. Do a search for the signs of fascism, and I think you’ll see some of the things.” My other sign is important for communities stereotypically thought to be red, but are technically purple. It says, ‘I’m holding the sign for your rights to, regardless of how, or if, you voted,’ because we have to work together to defeat this.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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NOT MAKING THIS UP: Trump tries to fundraise off rumors of his own death

That gold coffin is going to be expensive!

Trump's America

This banner hangs from the US Department of Labor Building in Washington, DC while occupying troops look on

How RFK Jr. celebrated Labor Day

Cop killed at the CDC by guy likely agitated by vaccine misinformation peddled by Bobby Jr.

Time for RFK Jr. to resign or be removed

Andy Miller, Healthbeat and Rebecca Grapevine, Healthbeat 

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention workers whose jobs have been reinstated after dizzying Trump administration disruptions say they remain stuck in a budgetary, political, and professional limbo.

Their work includes major agency priorities such as HIV testing and monitoring, as well as work at the nation’s leading sexually transmitted infections lab. And while employees are back, many projects have been canceled or stalled, as funding disappears or is delayed.

“For a while, work was staring at a blank screen,” an HIV scientist said. “I had a couple of projects before this. I’m trying to get them restarted.”

“We don’t know what’s happening or what to do,” said an HIV prevention researcher who was fired then rehired.

These employees voiced deep concern over the future of the agency and its work on HIV and other threats. The unprecedented downsizing could lead to loss of life and higher spending on medical care, they say. Their uncertain employment status has sunk morale. Many worry about the future of public health.

On Aug. 8, a gunman identified by Georgia authorities as Patrick Joseph White fired shots at CDC buildings in Atlanta. A first responder on the scene, DeKalb County police officer David Rose, was killed. White, who was found dead, was possibly motivated by his views on vaccines, according to news reports.

Ozempic’s surge in popularity for weight loss has sparked new concerns over its potential effects on muscle mass and strength.

Research Shows Surprising Muscle Loss

By University of Utah Health

The widely used diabetes and weight-loss medication Ozempic has seen a rapid rise in popularity, and with it, mounting questions about its potential side effects. One concern is the reduction of “lean mass” (body weight that is not fat), which has led to speculation that the drug could be lowering muscle mass and strength.

A recent study in mice found that muscle size did not decrease as much as expected, yet some muscles still became weaker. This finding underscores the need for clinical trials to better understand the drug’s full impact in people.

“If we want to really help the individuals who may be losing muscle mass, then we need to know that they’re actually losing muscle mass,” says Katsu Funai, PhD, associate professor of nutrition and integrative physiology in the University of Utah College of Health and the senior author on the study. “We have data in mice that suggest that things are not as straightforward as they might seem.”

The results appear in Cell Metabolism.

Health leaders, medical groups: CDC leader exodus puts nation's health at risk

Americans will die due to Bobby Junior's destruction of the agency

Lisa Schnirring

As news broke lof the ouster of newly confirmed Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Susan Monarez, PhD, and the resignations of some of the agency's top scientists, reactions came fast and furious from public health leaders, professional groups, and lawmakers.

The upheaval at the CDC comes just weeks after a gunman attacked the campus, reportedly fueled by grievances about the COVID vaccine. 

The CDC has also been rocked by watered-down COVID vaccine recommendations that came from Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his surrogates who have announced new reviews of autism causes and COVID vaccines, both hot-button issues of Kennedy and other vaccine critics.

Michael Osterholm, PhD, MPH, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRAP) at the University of Minnesota, publisher of CIDRAP News, said the loss of top CDC staff is the result of failed leadership of extremists at HHS, which oversees the CDC. "These departures are a serious loss for America. They make our country less safe and less prepared for public health emergencies." 

Trump Is Breaking the Promise Our Nation Made to Military Veterans

How the administration is dismantling and privatizing the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Peter Montague for Common Dreams

Donald Trump is famous for calling our military veterans “suckers” and “losers,” so you won’t be surprised that the president is now breaking the nation’s promise to veterans and active service members by dismantling and privatizing the Department of Veterans Affairs, or the VA.

In 1865, during the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln called for the nation “to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphan." Today the motto of the VA reads, “To fulfill President Lincoln’s promise to care for those who have served in our nation’s military and for their families, caregivers, and survivors.”

The VA provides over 18 million veterans and their dependents and caregivers with a multitude of services—healthcare, a Veterans Crisis Line for urgent assistance, disability payments and rehab, education assistance, career counseling, support for veteran-owned businesses, home loans, life insurance and financial services, help for caregivers to the disabled, burial in national cemeteries, and more.

And, of course, the nation has promised those same VA benefits to the 2 million men and women currently serving in the armed forces (1.3 million on active duty and another 761,000 in the reserves) after they retire from service.

The plan to privatize the VA was hatched during the first Trump administration. By 2024 a real plan was ready. Project 2025—the MAGA [“Make America Great Again”] blueprint for the authoritarian takeover of the United States—strongly favored private healthcare for veterans.

The VA’s own healthcare system includes 170 hospitals and nearly 1,200 clinics spread across the country. It is the nation’s largest integrated healthcare system. Since 2014, the VA has also had a private side, now known as “community care.” If a veteran lives too far from a VA healthcare facility or needs a service the VA can’t provide, they may be eligible for “community care” from a private local doctor or clinic, paid for by the VA.

The Trump administration is expanding privatized “community care.” The “VA Mission Act of 2018,” enacted during the first Trump administration, nearly doubled the VA’s budget for private “community care” from $15 billion in 2018 to $28.3 billion in 2023.

Trump’s 2025 VA budget proposal increases total VA spending, but 75% of the increase (or $14.4 billion) doesn’t go to the VA at all—it goes to private medical providers. This represents a 67% increase for privatized care.

Many see the growing private healthcare budget as a stealth way to eventually privatize the VA’s entire system. Every dollar devoted to private care is a dollar denied to the VA’s own doctors and nurses, ultimately undermining the entire VA system. Doctors and nurses see the handwriting on the wall and leave. Their likely replacements see an agency under siege and stay away.

So far in 2025, the VA lost 600 doctors and 1,900 nurses. During the first three months of the year, about 40% of doctors who were offered jobs declined—four times the rejection rate a year earlier.

DISCLOSURE: Peter is a valued old friend. We collaborated often when I was organizing director at the organization now known as the Center for Health and Environmental Justice especially on issues that involving fighting corporate crime. - Will Collette

Sept. 3 in Westerly: fight back against MAGA attack

Trump rips off deployed National Guard troops. Not just a fascist, but a cheap fascist

On one thing, Trump has been consistent: He cheats workers

What do Starbucks, Home Depot, Walmart, Lowe's and Amazon have in common?

CEOs Are Getting Richer. Everyone Else Is Falling Behind.

By Sarah Anderson 

The gap between CEO compensation and median worker pay at Starbucks hit 6,666 to 1 last year.

In other words, to make as much money as their CEO made in 2024, typical baristas would’ve had to start brewing macchiatos around the time humans first invented the wheel.

Starbucks is the worst offender, but jaw-dropping gaps are the norm among America’s leading low-wage corporations. CEOs of the 100 S&P 500 firms with the lowest median wages — a group I call the “Low-Wage 100” — have enjoyed skyrocketing pay over the past six years.

As a group, these CEOs now earn 632 times more than their median employees, I found in a new report for the Institute for Policy Studies. Their pay has risen nearly 35 percent since 2019 in absolute terms, while their median worker pay hasn’t even kept up with the U.S. inflation rate.

CEOs are in effect getting richer while their workers fall further and further behind.

Grocery Chains Are Passing Trump' National Sales Tax on to US Consumers With Higher Prices

Tariffs are hitting grocery shelves while Trump is in denial

Stephen Prager for Common Dreams

As leading grocery chains increase prices on essentials, they are blaming Donald Trump's tariffs for raising the cost of living for households across the country.

According to the Consumer Price Index, the price of food has increased by 3% in the past year, with meats, poultry, fish, and eggs getting 5.6% more expensive from June 2024 to June 2025.

In a poll published this month by the Associated Press and the National Opinion Research Center, 90% of Americans reported that they considered the cost of groceries a source of stress, with 53% describing it as a "major" source of stress.

In earnings calls and public statements, executives of many of America's largest and most profitable grocery retailers are citing Trump's tariffs as justification for passing on the costs to consumers, according to a new report released on Tuesday by Accountable.US.

From that radical left-wing magazine Forbes

In a first-quarter earnings call in May, Walmart CEO Doug McMillon said that while the company was better positioned than others to absorb the cost of tariffs, they would still "result in higher prices" for consumers. 

Since then, some grocery items at America's largest retailer have shown 40% hikes that have outraged consumers, fueling calls for a boycott.

On another call, McMillon said, "We've continued to see our costs increase each week, which we expect will continue into the third and fourth quarters."

"Trump's tariffs are making groceries more expensive," said Accountable.US. "Everyday Americans pay the cost while corporations and the wealthy profit."

Costco's chief financial officer, Gary Millerchip, told shareholders in May that the company "saw inflation as a result of tariffs because we import certain fresh items from Central and South America."

Support for Labor Unions Near Historic High as Trump Trashes Working Class

As Trump and Republican Congress pummel unions, the more people rise in support

Jon Queally for Common Dreams

Winning the long, tough strike at Butler Hospital showed
what strong unions can do

A new poll reveals that Americans continue to support organized labor at historic levels, even as the Trump administration and its Republican allies in Congress take a battering ram to union rights and the nation's working class.

Gallup's annual survey, released Thursday, shows more than two-thirds of people in the US (68%) approve of labor unions and the economic security and prosperity they provide working families. The popular support matches record-high numbers of recent years after a long decline from the 1960s through the early 2000s.

As Gallup notes:

When Gallup first measured Americans’ ratings of labor unions in 1936, 72% approved. Approval reached the record high, 75%, in 1953 and 1957 and ranged between 63% and 73% from 1958 through 1967. Then, from 1972 through 2016, approval was lower, with few readings over 60%, including the 48% all-time low recorded in 2009. This was the only time approval fell below the majority level. Since 2017, approval has been above 60%, the longest period at this level since the 1960s.