In deze post, die ik regelmatig zal aanvullen met nieuwe artikels, ga ik op zoek naar een antwoord op de vraag: vanaf hoeveel slachtoffers mogen we spreken van een doodscultus?
Op 13 februari 2025 postte Steven Arrazola de Oñate een vreugdekreet: Robert Francis Kennedy Jr. werd op die dag officieel aangesteld als minister van Volksgezondheid en Sociale Zaken in de VS.
Enkele jaren daarvoor bestempelde een organisatie als The Center for Countering Digital Hate RFK Jr. als één van de Desinformation Dozen, één van de 12 belangrijkste verspreiders van desinformatie op het gebied van vaccinaties. Vandaar waarschijnlijk de uitbarsting van euforie bij Steven ProVariola de Oñate.
Het dossier dat CCDH toen opstelde is nog steeds pertinent en lezenswaardig. De ondertitel “Why platforms must act on twelve leading online anti-vaxxers”, en bedoeld werden vooral Facebook en Twitter, is door de actuele gebeurtenissen hopeloos en volledig achterhaald.
De jonkheer en triple ex-politicus Steven Tribunala de Oñate (ex-Open VLD, ex-Vrijheid, ex-Relego) wierp zich vol enthousiasme in de strijd tegen de COVID-maatregelen, waarbij hij niet naliet om jarenlang te blíjven oproepen tot volksopstanden en lynchpa … ik bedoel volkstribunalen waarbij medische en andere experts berecht zouden moeten worden door de sterkhouders en fakkeldragers van de COVID-rebellie.
Schitterend! Fantastisch!
17/04/2025
Mother Jones: RFK Jr. Says There Are No Autistic Poets. We Asked an Autistic Poet.
It’s completely dehumanizing. He didn’t lead with poet. He led with they’ll never pay taxes, they’ll never have a job. It’s just “useless eaters” rhetoric. And then he fluffs it up with, they’re they’ll never have a poem. They’ll never play baseball. Some people won’t, some people have higher support needs. They are still people. They have a right to live and a right to dignity. And that’s not what he wants for us. He is using the straight-up eugenicist playbook.
16/04/2025
Science: Claiming autism ‘epidemic,’ RFK Jr. describes NIH initiative to find environmental causes
But Kennedy asserted the opposite in his remarks. “We need to move away from … this ideology, that the autism prevalence increases, the relentless increases, are simply artifacts of better diagnoses, better recognition, or changing diagnostic criteria,” he said. “This is a preventable disease. We know that it’s an environmental exposure.”
Prevalence does not signal an ‘epidemic’ as narratives are claiming—it reflects diagnostic progress,” the Autism Society of America said in a statement.
16/04/2025
FactCheck.org: Hits and Misses in RFK Jr.’s Comments on Food Dyes
“I think there’s a good process in place to review whether the … dyes cause cancer,” Kleinman said. “For all of those that have been approved, we can be pretty certain at this point that there is no evidence that they cause cancer and move on.”
13/04/2025
New York Times: The Many Ways Kennedy Is Already Undermining Vaccines
The health secretary has chipped away at the idea that immunizing children against measles and other diseases is a public health good.
11/04/2025
Daily Beast: Staffers Walk Out of RFK Jr.’s Slur-Ridden Speech About Deep State
“It’s not, you know, just George Soros and Bill Gates and a bunch of nefarious individuals sitting together in a room and plotting the, you know, the destruction of humanity,” said Kennedy, pushing the conspiracy theory that a shadowy network of liberal elites and bureaucrats is working behind the scenes to undermine President Donald Trump and the MAGA agenda.
11/04/2025
Politico: RFK Jr. says Deep State ‘is real,’ called FDA employees ‘sock puppet’ of industry
Kennedy, in largely off-the-cuff remarks, asserted that the “Deep State” is real, referenced past CIA experiments on human mind control and accused the employees he was speaking to of becoming a “sock puppet” of the industries they regulate.
10/04/2025
NPR: HHS will review guidance on the addition of fluoride to drinking water
Kennedy has erroneously called fluoride “an industrial waste” and blamed its addition in drinking water on health issues including arthritis, bone fractures, bone cancer, IQ loss, neurodevelopmental disorders and thyroid disease. Health experts widely agree that fluoride — a common, naturally occurring mineral — at regulated levels is a major benefit to public health.
10/04/2025
10/04/205
The Atlantic: What RFK Jr. Told Grieving Texas Families About the Measles Vaccine
Yet there’s ample reason to believe that Kennedy hasn’t really changed his views: “I have worked with Bobby for many years, and I can confidently say that he has a heart that is incapable of compromise,” Del Bigtree, the communications director for Kennedy’s independent presidential campaign, said on X, in an effort to reassure some angry and confused supporters. “He is at a poker table with the slyest serpents in the world,” he added; “we should not ask him to show his cards.” (Bigtree also called the MMR vaccine “one of the most effective ways to cause autism,” despite the fact that study after study has disproved the link.)
09/04/2025
Stat+: National public health group calls for RFK Jr. to resign, citing ‘complete disregard for science’
Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association, said in a statement on Wednesday that concerns raised during Kennedy’s confirmation hearing last month have been realized, followed by massive reductions in staff at key health agencies.
09/04/2025
NBC: Kennedy draws from misinformation playbook by touting an inhaled steroid to treat measles
Kennedy has been sharply criticized by medical experts for weeks for spreading misinformation about the measles vaccine and failing to encourage parents to vaccinate their children.
09/04/2025
Experts Push Back on RFK Jr’s Infection Comments
In an apparent effort to encourage FDA employees to stay true to their mission of making Americans healthier, Kennedy later also referenced the CIA’s Project MKUltra — a notorious human experimentation program from the 1960s — and the Milgram experiment, a well-known study meant to test people’s willingness to obey authority even if it meant inflicting pain on others.
09/04/2025
Daily Beast: RFK Jr. Has Stunning Response to Cuts to Vital Public Health
CBS News chief medical correspondent Dr. Jon LaPook asked the secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) on Wednesday if he had personally approved the more than $11 billion proposed cuts to programs addressing mental health, infectious diseases, addiction, and childhood vaccination. Kennedy, however, alleged that he had no knowledge of them.
07/04/2025
The Guardian: Robert F Kennedy Jr claims anti-vax physicians healed ‘some 300 measles-stricken children’
Kennedy’s tweet said Bartlett had used “aerosolized budesonide and clarithromycin” to treat children with measles, two drugs Bartlett reportedly previously claimed were also ingredients in his “magic bullet” treatment for Covid-19. Bartlett, who ran a short-lived congressional campaign in 2019, has something of a checkered past. During a lengthy medical career that he has said was “a calling from God”, patients complained of receiving “unnecessary diagnostic tests, medications or treatments”.
06/04/2025
CNBC: U.S. sees third measles-related death amid outbreaks
A second school-age child who was hospitalized with measles is the third measles-related death in the U.S. since the virus started ripping through West Texas in late January.
The child, a patient at UMC Health System in Lubbock, Texas, was unvaccinated and being treated for measles complications.
06/04/2025
New York Times: Kennedy Attends Funeral of Texas Girl Who Died of Measles
The health secretary has faced harsh criticism for his handling of the outbreak, embrace of alternative treatments and tepid endorsement of vaccination.
28/03/2025
ProPublica: The CDC Buried a Measles Forecast That Stressed the Need for Vaccinations
In an aborted plan to roll out the news, the agency would have emphasized the importance of vaccinating people against the highly contagious and potentially deadly disease that has spread to 19 states, the records show. A CDC spokesperson told ProPublica in a written statement that the agency decided against releasing the assessment “because it does not say anything that the public doesn’t already know.”
26/03/2025
New York Times: Remedy Supported by Kennedy Leaves Some Measles Patients More Ill
Doctors in West Texas are seeing measles patients whose illnesses have been complicated by an alternative therapy endorsed by vaccine skeptics including Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the health secretary.
14/03/2025
NBC News: Newborn babies exposed to measles in Texas hospital
Public health officials are casting a wide net in an effort to contact everyone who may have been exposed to this particular patient. Viral particles can live in the air or on surfaces for up to two hours.
It’s a setback for public health officials on the front lines trying to stop the escalating outbreak.
12/03/2025
TruthOut: RFK Jr. Spreads Dangerous Lies About Measles as Texas Outbreak Tops 220 Cases
Kennedy claimed that higher doses of Vitamin A — including cod liver oil — could help in treating measles. Vitamin A is pushed in other countries as a helpful treatment, but usually only when a person’s body is experiencing a deficiency in that vitamin. Cod liver oil contains Vitamin A, but, according to FactCheck.org, it “isn’t advised at all for measles — and would need to be consumed in a potentially dangerous amount to get the recommended dosage of the vitamin used during an infection.”
Telling viewers to consider those options could discourage them from seeking professional medical treatment if they or their family members get sick, and could also cause harms unrelated to the virus itself.
12/03/2025
Daily Beast: RFK Jr.: It Would Be Better if ‘Everybody Got Measles’
“There are adverse events from the vaccine. It does cause deaths every year. It causes all the illnesses that measles itself cause, like encephalitis and blindness, etc., so people ought to be able to make that choice for themselves,” [RFK Jr.] said, while adding that the vaccine does “stop the spread of the disease.” (…)
Nonprofit organization Encephalitis International reported that between one and two of 1,000,000 children who had a vaccination will develop encephalitis from it—less than the incidence of all types of encephalitis.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that any side effects from the MMR vaccine are usually “mild” and “go away on their own.”
11/03/2025
NPR: RFK says most vaccine advisers have conflicts of interest. A report shows they don’t
Frieden, the former CDC director, agrees that conflicts of interest are cause for concern. “It is important to avoid impropriety and the appearance of impropriety. It is important that any potential conflict of interest that may unduly influence a recommendation be investigated,” he says.
But, Frieden says Kennedy’s misleading statements “can undermine confidence in what is a very transparent, fact-based process,” in which the committee debates and makes vaccine policies in public live streamed meetings.
11/03/2025
The Atlantic: His Daughter Was America’s First Measles Death in a Decade
The death of his daughter, Peter told me, was God’s will. God created measles. God allowed the disease to take his daughter’s life. “Everybody has to die,” he said. Peter’s eyes closed, and he struggled to continue talking. “It’s very hard, very hard,” he said at last. “It’s a big hole.” His voice quavered and trailed off. “Our child is here,” he said, gesturing toward the building behind him. “That’s why we’re here.”
10/3/2025
ProPublica: National Cancer Institute Employees Can’t Publish Information on These Topics Without Special Approval
Vaccines. Fluoride. Autism. Communications involving these and 20 other “controversial, high profile, or sensitive” topics will get extra scrutiny under Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
07/03/2025
Vaxpedia: How Anti-Vaccine Influencers are Responding to the Second Measles Death of the Year
To begin with, they are pushing the narrative that they died “with measles,” instead of “from measles.”
And if that doesn’t work, they want you to understand that if measles did in fact kill them, then there had to be some extraordinary circumstance, like doctors or hospitals making a mistake.
Of course, none of that is true.
07/03/2025
06/03/2025
CNN: Kennedy touts unconventional therapies for measles linked to disciplined Texas doctor
One of the doctors Kennedy praised, Dr. Richard Bartlett, has a history of using unconventional treatments. Bartlett faced disciplinary action from the TexasMedical Board more than two decades ago for “unusual” prescribing of antibiotics and steroids in five patients, including two children. None of the patients had measles; they came in with a variety of complaints including diabetes, back and neck pain, sinus pressure, inflamed tonsils and other cold symptoms, obesity and uncontrollable hunger, according to the medical board’s investigation.
06/03/2025
New Republic: How to Decode RFK Jr.’s Dog Whistle Messages on the Measles Vaccine
Kennedy does not seem to be changing his stance on vaccines so much as cloaking it in code words. Sleights of hand like this are a good indicator of how he intends to transform health agencies, the recommendations they make, and the availability of—and trust in—vaccines in the United States.
05/03/2025
Mother Jones: RFK Jr.’s Former Anti-Vax Group Is Running a Mysterious Online Measles Fundraiser
Children’s Health Defense, the anti-vaccine group that he helmed for a decade, hasn’t fallen in line with their former leader. Instead, an online fundraiser has appeared to collect donations that it says will be “used to defray the cost of essential vitamins, supplements, and medicines necessary to treat children enduring complications from the measles virus and other illnesses.”
04/03/2025
CBS News: Measles case reported at Miami Palmetto Senior High School
A student at Miami Palmetto Senior High School in Pinecrest has been diagnosed with measles, the first reported case in Miami-Dade County this year, prompting health officials to offer free vaccinations, according to an email obtained by CBS News Miami.
The email, sent to parents, stated that while the risk of transmission is considered low for vaccinated individuals, the school is working with local health authorities to take necessary precautions.
04/03/2025
The Guardian: RFK Jr sparks alarm after backing vitamins to treat measles amid outbreak
In response to a measles outbreak in Texas, which resulted in the first American measles death in nearly a decade, Kennedy wrote for Fox News about the benefits of “good nutrition” and vitamin A – but did not explicitly recommend highly effective vaccines.
04/03/2025
CNN: CDC says it’s on the ground in Texas as measles outbreak grows to 159 cases
Speaking to Fox News on Tuesday, US Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. described delivering vitamin A and providing ambulance assistance from Gaines County. He also described treatments with a steroid, budesonide, and an antibiotic, clarithromycin, as well as cod liver oil.
03/03/2025
Truthout: This HHS policy shift may allow harmful policies to be fast-tracked without public input
ealth and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced a new policy on Friday that ends over 50 years of public involvement in the department’s rulemaking process by eliminating public comments in certain cases.
Under this policy, the department is no longer required to hold a public notice-and-comment period after publishing proposed rules on matters “relating to agency management or personnel or to public property, loans, grants, benefits, or contracts.”
03/03/2025
02/03/2025
Paul Offitt: A Death in Texas
RFK Jr. also tried to dismiss the nearly two dozen hospitalizations in West Texas by claiming that they were “mainly for quarantine,” when in fact children were hospitalized for severe measles pneumonia. RFK Jr. apparently doesn’t understand that children exposed to measles are quarantined at home, not in the hospital.
01/03/2025
Reuters: US Health Secretary Kennedy calls for end to deadly Texas measles outbreak
“Ending the measles outbreak is a top priority for me and my extraordinary team,” Kennedy said in a post on X. The secretary, who has for years sown doubts about the safety and efficacy of immunization, said the Department of Health and Human Services would send Texas 2,000 doses of the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine through its immunization program.
27/02/2025
USA Today: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said two died in measles outbreak. His agency says it was only one.
The White House and health officials aren’t answering questions about the discrepancy. […] “We are following the measles epidemic every day. I think there’s 124 people who have contracted measles at this point, mainly in Gaines County, Texas, mainly, we’re told in the Mennonite community,” Kennedy said. “There are two people who have died, but we’re watching it.”
27/02/2025
Vaxopedia: Measles Myths We Are Seeing in the Texas Outbreak
In this measles outbreak, as in all others, we find that:
- cases are caused by a wild-type strain (the D8 strain has been found in the Texas outbreak, not the vaccine strain)
- nearly all cases are in the unvaccinated
- most outbreaks start when someone travels out of the country and returns with measles
- measles is rarely mild, with typical symptoms including a high fever, irritability, cough, and a risk of death
Yes, a risk of death, as we have seen in Texas, as an unvaccinated child has tragically died.
26/02/2025
26/02/2025
Bloomberg: Measles Outbreak Was Entirely Avoidable
Members of Kennedy’s Make America Healthy Again inner circle have dismissed the measles threat. Health care entrepreneur Calley Means, who is helping to shape and implement the MAHA agenda, complained on CNN last week about the media’s focus on the Texas outbreak. “Day after day, it’s breathless — it’s breathless coverage of five measles cases,” he said, suggesting chronic disease is meanwhile being ignored.
26/02/2025
New Rublic: RFK Jr. Has Horrific Response to Measles Death
Kennedy’s nonchalant approach to managing the spread of the disease is particularly alarming, as the virulent conspiracy theorist has made millions of dollars off his dangerous anti-vax rhetoric, tying autism rates to the jab.
26/02/2025
Statnews: Texas measles outbreak marks first fatality as more cases reported
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the nation’s health secretary and a longtime critic of the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine, appeared to try to downplay the news in a press conference after a Cabinet meeting in the White House.
26/02/2025
Texas Tribune: First measles death reported in West Texas outbreak
A school-aged child has died in Lubbock from measles, the first death reported in an ongoing outbreak that has infected more than 120 people in West Texas since January, Texas Department of State Health Services confirmed on Wednesday.
25/02/2025
NBC News: As Texas measles outbreak grows, parents are choosing to vaccinate kids
“We’ve vaccinated multiple kids that have never been vaccinated before, some from families that didn’t believe in vaccines.”
22/02/2025
NYT: Measles Outbreaks in Texas and New Mexico Sicken Nearly 100 People
“If you have been vaccinated with two doses of vaccine as per routine, you have a 95-plus percent chance of being completely protected throughout your life,” Schaffner says.
22/02/2025
CDC: Measles Cases and Outbreaks
As of February 20, 2025, a total of 93 measles cases were reported by 8 jurisdictions: Alaska, California, Georgia, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York City, Rhode Island, and Texas.
21/02/2025
NPR: Measles cases are rising in the U.S. Do adults need a vaccine booster?
“If you have been vaccinated with two doses of vaccine as per routine, you have a 95-plus percent chance of being completely protected throughout your life,” Schaffner says.
21/02/2025
USAToday: Which states have reported measles cases in 2025? See map
As Texas continues to battle a growing measles outbreak largely among its unvaccinated children, six other states have confirmed cases, as well. They include New Mexico, Alaska, Georgia and New York.
21/02/2025
Reuters: US CDC reports five-fold increase in weekly measles cases as Texas outbreak grows
95% of the cases were in individuals who either had not been vaccinated or had an unknown status, with 4% of the total patients receiving one dose of the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine, and none getting the two doses the agency recommends.
18/02/2025
Dr. Andrea Love: Measles is not a harmless illness — complications include brain damage, immune amnesia, and death
The current outbreak in Gaines County, Texas, is the worst measles outbreak seen in the state in thirty years. In 2 weeks, 2 cases grew to 48. Today, 58 cases have now been confirmed. 13 are hospitalized, and nearly all cases are among unvaccinated individuals (or vaccination status is unknown). 83% of the cases are among children under 18.
14/02/2025
FOX 26 Houston: Texas measles outbreak 2025: Dozens of cases reported in last 3 weeks
In the last three weeks, 48 cases of measles have been identified, sending 13 patients to the hospital, according to the Texas Department of State Health Services. The number of cases has doubled since Tuesday, Feb. 11.
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