- Syphilis
- Hep B
- Hep C
- HIV 1 and 2 and P24
- Chlamydia
- Gonorrhoea
It ’s unfortunate that your early providers dropped the ball. I wonder if they assumed you had already been tested for some reason?
In the UK once you've had your childhood vaccinations it's entirely possible you'd simply never see a doctor again in your life until you're ready for your prostate exam in older life.
There are no regular checkups or preventative care on the NHS for mid life adults unless you're proactive
There are real trade-offs with screening, and screening too much has harms as well as too little, although I'm not qualified to make a judgement on where that line sits relative to where it is in the UK.
Doctors won't see me unless I'm dying, or at least tell them I am. And I am, if I understand things correctly, which I might not tbh, in a high risk group for prostate cancer, given that I was diagnosed with chronic prostatitis at 22. I've even asked for checkups but was denied. And where I live you can't really pay for health care (but you can pay to skip the line, which I guess is almost the same thing).
I am in the US with health insurance through my employer and I get blood tests every 6-12 months to check for abnormalities as well as a standard interview for how I'm feeling and whatnot. Also have a few prescriptions that require 3-month checkins.
When I lived for a while in the UK, my GP strongly suggested close monitoring for a couple of things, and we saw improvements in some measures with lifestyle changes. Others were “we’ll keep an eye on it, if it gets bad, off you go for an inpatient visit to get you an extra 10 good years”.
Back in the Netherlands I have to get pushy and even a bit obnoxious at my GP before they even consider the concern, let alone schedule a blood test.
But it's not true. We get regular bowel cancer screening - you get it every 2 years once you hit 50 - https://www.nhs.uk/tests-and-treatments/bowel-cancer-screeni...
And there are also regular health checks available once you hit 40 - https://www.nhs.uk/tests-and-treatments/nhs-health-check/
Not everyone chooses to get them, of course. But ACA insurance plans here offer at least one annual physical exam free of charge (considered preventative care).
The NHS isn't perfect, but one of the things it does well because of it's structure is minimise costs holistically. It's cheaper to treat conditions early, so usually implements appropriate screening to catch things. If they don't do regular checkups like this it's because they're of minimal value.
In the US case specifically, I always wonder how much of the benefit is just “here’s a free appointment with a doctor once a year”.
The idea behind physicals is they're considered preventative care... catching problems early, often before there's any overt symptoms. For example, checking your cholesterol and A1c levels before they progress to heart failure or diabetes.
Once you're showing symptoms, you've left the realm of preventative care and it's now diagnostic/treatment for a established issue.
(ACA only provides 100% free coverage for visits that are 100% within the "preventative care" box.)
I think I'd prefer the UK system where if you worry something is wrong you can see a doctor free of charge.
I think that there's a working assumption amongst US folk that because the NHS is is publicly funded, it must be terrible.
US healthcare plans offer an annual physical exam every year at all ages. Looking at the UK NHS website, it seems to be only offered there after age 40, and limited to once every 5 years? Am I reading that right?
I thought it was relatively uncontroversial that the major problem with US healthcare is not quality but cost. And the UK NHS is widely regarded as one of the lower quality implementations of single payer in any modern social democracy [0].
[0] https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/rankings/health (#23, but Canada is actually worse!)
> it's entirely possible you'd simply never see a doctor again in your life until you're ready for your prostate exam in older life
Local councils are responsible for arranging invitations for those not currently registered with GPs, so it ought to be more or less universal - though there are inevitably a few people who'll slip through the net.
It's pretty basic, but the evidence suggests it's been reasonably effective at dealing with the "he didn't see a doctor for 40 years and then just dropped dead from a heart attack" stereotype.
Fixing hole in tooth is far cheaper than replacing a full tooth, for example.
It is not customary in the UK to see a doctor at regular intervals for checkups?
It's entirely possible to do this in the US, too, but it's not the default path. I know some people who think it's a point of pride to brag that they haven't been to a doctor in 20 years. I know other people who never miss their annual checkup and are frustrated that their doctors won't order every test they hear about from their podcasts. The US approach to healthcare is varied and confusing to outsiders, even if you remove all of the unreasonably complex insurance stuff from the equation.
> There are no regular checkups or preventative care on the NHS for mid life adults unless you're proactive
If you wanted to request an annual checkup, could you ask for one and get it without problem? Or would they require a specific reason to visit?
That advertising is illegal in almost all other first world countries.
Is it? If find it to be very much in line with the "personal freedom above all else" which permeates US culture.
There are about four incentives altogether, and the money is loaded on a Prepaid Visa card that is branded by the insurance carrier. The funds are not restricted, and you can spend them on anything where Visa is accepted. The cards are sometimes cycled out and replaced, but I do not know if the funds had an expiration date. There were no fees to hold the funds, and no fees to spend them.
This isn’t quite true. There is a free “NHS Health check” for adults aged 40-72, which you’re supposed to do every 5 years and includes basic checks like blood pressure and cholesterol. I certainly get messages from my GP nagging me about it from time to time.
The current tests would result in a substantial fraction of the population running around thinking they have a highly stigmatized STI that they in fact do not have with little to zero ways of getting a more accurate test.
Seems like both HSV-1 and HSV-2 seroprevalences are actually rather low in the Netherlands.
As for STI testing: Serological testing is pretty meaningless regarding infection risk and direct viral detection is only done on visible lesions for differential diagnostics AFAIK. You can shed the virus without lesions, HSV-1 can be contracted without direct mucosa contact, and while HSV-1 is associated with oral herpes and HSV-2 with genital herpes, both types can cause lesions anywhere on the body. Sure someone without positive antibody status very likely can't transmit it, but that's a very small minority of people of relevant age.
I believe talking to Americans about "herpes" can be misleading, as it's weirdly stigmatized over there and people seemingly conflate visible "cold sores", genital herpes and antibody status.
Incidentally, genital herpes and HSV-2 in general is more common in the US, which may be a direct outcome of this cultural dynamic. Due to lower incidences of early oral HSV-1 infections, compared to most western Europe, Americans are more likely to get infected with genital herpes of either type, but in particular HSV-2, too. Prior oral HSV-1 infections are somewhat protective.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epidemiology_of_herpes_simplex
- It's not commonly transmitted sexually
- It can definitely be transmitted sexually
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hepatitis_C#Sexual_intercourse
https://www.labcorp.com/tests/144050/hepatitis-c-virus-hcv-a...
https://crukcancerintelligence.shinyapps.io/CancerStatsDataH...
All four nations NHSes work with a single charity, the Hep C Trust.
They're all following the WHO targets for elimination -- you're hearing about this now soon after World Hepatitis Day (July 28th, as conceived of by the WHO).
https://www.hepctrust.org.uk/blog/2026/07/four-nations-on-th...
As for progress:
- July 2026: Wales doesn't have percentage-of-population counts but here's its latest report: https://phw.nhs.wales/reports/trends-in-the-prevention-diagn...
- November 2025: Scotland believes it has identified and is treating 85% of chronic sufferers: https://publichealthscotland.scot/publications/surveillance-...
- January 2021: Northern Ireland doesn't publish stats, but has a 2021-2025 plan (there's no 2026- plan issued as far as I know) https://www.health-ni.gov.uk/publications/northern-ireland-h...
Why it was done like that, I'm not sure, but I suspect it was a combination of Scotland having its own legal system and laws (guaranteed by the Acts of Union of 1707) and existing ministerial division of responsibility (where public health in Scotland fell within the purview of the Scottish Secretary, along with Scottish education and a bunch of other areas that had their own distinct Cabinet ministers for England and Wales).
And while the Welsh NHS was originally part of the same NHS as operated in England, control over the NHS in Wales passed from the Health Secretary to the Welsh Secretary with the creation of the Welsh Office in 1969, and then to the devolved Welsh government in 1999.
Northern Ireland already had devolution (or to be precise, home rule) when the NHS was created in 1948, and the Northern Irish equivalent -- the Health and Social Care service -- is a direct creation of the Parliament of Northern Ireland rather than of the UK Parliament.
There's no anything. Getting to Wales is easier than getting to Devon for most of England. You can do it accidentally.
If they emigrated to the EU and want to travel to the UK then I could see that.
If you want to get to Glasgow from Campbelltown it can take you as long as three hours for example, and that's before you hit the motorway. Trying to get from west Sutherland to London is worse. Trying to get there from the Hebrides or Northen Isles even more so.
The borders between Scotland, England, and Wales are effectively like state borders in the US. Unless you see a street sign, you wouldn't know you crossed it.
NI is physically on a different island, so requires a boat or plane ride.
And all of the UK (ignoring the territories and ex-colonies) is on islands. And require a valid passport, passing through customs/immigration checks, and either a plane, boat, or train ride.
Tens of thousands of people live on islands other than Britain and Ireland. Much of Scotland is not even considered UK mainland by delivery firms, even major places such as Perth.
I can understand Lewis and Harris or the Shetlands (they're separate islands without bridge links), but Perth doesn't make much sense. And I would have assumed Skye was considered "mainland" as well, at least now that there's a bridge.
There was a controversy about Perth in this regard a while back. I'm not even talking about Blairgowrie or Dunkeld or outlying places but someone trying to get deliveries to an industrial estate within the city of Perth itself.
The way things are going, maybe only the Central Belt will get preferential delivery fees.
The UK consists of a number of islands. We have hundreds in Scotland with tens of thousands of people living on the other ones. England and Wales have significant ones such as the Isle of Wight, Ynys Môn and Lindisfarne. The IOW has at least 100,000 on it.
Oddly, Public Health Scotland is part of NHS Scotland; but Public Health England is not part of NHS England, it's a parallel department.
I'm British by birth (well, UAE, but they don't do jus soli), but been in the US since kindergarten and naturalized since college.
The three jobs are divided up differently, though still between too few people. You have a Figurehead, the Head of State, which here is King Charles and in the US is Donald Trump. That's the part Trump most likes, you get free gold stuff, you're allowed to do whatever you please, everybody is supposed to suck up to you, hooray. Farage would not get that job.
Next you've got Executive leader. Trump doesn't enjoy this as much. People keep trying to blame him for the fact he's bad at it. He appointed people he saw on TV to run things, how is it his fault they're not brilliant? This would be half of Farage's job as Prime Minister and he likes being asked to account for his incompetence even less than Trump.
Finally Head of the Legislature, in the US this isn't Trump's job, Mike Johnson is in the House and John Thune in the Senate. Farage would get this job in full as the Prime Minister. Even before he resigned he was rarely actually in Westminster, it's boring and you need to be good at actual politics, so of course he's not there, he gets paid more to be somewhere else.
I also don't think Nigel can put together the numbers. Trump has Mike and John to try to make the numbers work, and Farage wouldn't have that. "My way or the highway" is what Farage would say, and that doesn't make the numbers work. That's how you lose a Confidence motion and you're back on your arse in six weeks.
[Edited to correct the Senate leader, mistake pointed out by ragnese below]
So, it's Mike Johnson for the House and John Thune for the Senate.
Not everything has to be rewritten in Rust! Hepatitis is a virus, C is much better suited for that kind of project, Rust is for fungal diseases, not viruses.
If I say I'm going to borrow a needle and just look at it, you should just trust me. If I use it, I make sure to sterilize it before returning it.
it's expected
if you could delve into what supports your arguments that'd help more than "trust me instead"
I personally am skeptical of many things, including pharma, but I'm not going to claim that vaccines don't work when historically they have, and I'd have to do a bunch of research to prove an internet argument wrong.
do I think that covid vaccines were/are 100% safe and totally not rushed due to the pandemic? no.
Which is to say, it’s not so much the liberal/left causing a problem here - I think they’re just holding the ground they’ve always had - that vaccines are generally safe and generally a good thing.
Have you read the discussions on vaccine stories? See, for example, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26629234 – chosen arbitrarily using the search box at the bottom of the page. I've not read anyone pretending this.
> shut up
People are being dismissive of you, but nobody has told you to shut up in this thread. (The closest thing is flagging the comments which started with broad-spectrum insults, but this only occurred after you wrote this.) Despite its tone, I'm going to have to second GP's assessment that you're responding to imagined slights.
But you've got to weigh those risks against the risk of dragging our feet on rolling out new vaccines. It's likely that many autoimmune diseases are caused by pathogens which are either undiscovered, or which are known, but whose link to the autoimmune disease is undiscovered. This is because there is evolutionary pressure encouraging pathogens to resemble self-antigens. If a pathogen has markers that cause it to resemble the human liver, the human adaptive immune system won't typically attack it because it wants to avoid attacking its own liver. So the pathogen is safe. This is called molecular mimicry. But the mimicry isn't perfect, so sometimes the immune system does become sensitized to the pathogen, attacks it, clears it, and starts slowly attacking the liver (or whichever tissue bears the same epitope as the mimic). It shows up years later as an autoimmune disease, but the data just isn't there to isolate its cause to that pathogen.
So the best strategy, if we can pull it off, is to vaccinate against the original pathogen (or prevent it via other means... clean food and water, etc), but to target epitopes which do not resemble any human tissues, and with adjuvants that do not sensitize the immune system against any human tissues.
As for how long adjuvants stay in the body, it's definitely worth studying more, but their whole function is to sound the alarm, so I'd expect that they're cleared rather quickly. Anything that fails to do that is by definition not an adjuvant. But assuming that an inappropriate response was triggered in the first place, you'd see the same effects whether or not the adjuvant was still around: If the initial exposure has triggered clonal replication of whichever B and T cells attack the antigen, self or otherwise, they'll stick around in your lymph nodes for years and years, and they'll re-up their numbers with each subsequent exposure.
Currently we have a measles outbreak in Brazil brought from the US, so everybody is getting vaccinated (even those who already were, like me) to try to stop the spreading and protect those who can’t get vaccinated.
Really would love for US social and media networks to get their shit together and stop spreading misinformation in the name of profit…
It’s a strange global phenomenon and I don’t think there is one single root cause. MAGA/MAHA definitely jumped on to the anti-vax train as it became popular, but many forget that Trump presided over the rushing of the COVID vaccine into availability and production. He hasn’t done vaccination any favors in recent years, but I’m skeptical that the widespread rise of vaccine skepticism can be attributable to this administration alone.
I think there’s a bigger story about the cyclical nature of how the dangers of threats that previous generations faced is slowly lost over time, combined with the rise of contrarianism and conspiratorial thinking on social media.
Assuming that the US was the root of the current surge of anti-vax idealism is not supported by the facts.
Anti-vax culture was prominent in the UK, Australia, Canada, and many other countries at the same time. I'm not seeing any strong reason to blame the US as the root or solo cause.
Hmmm. By that logic, does it mean the US can also take credit for most trends?
This also involved, whether he pushed it or it was organic, the tabloid press of the UK.
Eventually this filtered back to the US, despite already being largely debunked and retracted, but that didn't matter to the early 2000s celebrities looking for whatever confirmation bias sources they could.
The histeria started in the UK, slowly crept over the atlantic to the US, and now has filtered back, all while it was based on absolute fraud and lies, the exact criticism all these morons insist applies to real scientists.
The modern anti-vaccine movement was nearly entirely started by a doctor fraudulently publishing fake science to make money. The supporters of course refuse to see that, because it would burst their bubble, so only their enemies can possibly be guilty of it.
Even the 12 or so parents involved in that fraudulent "study" cried foul, as he literally put words in their mouths and made up testimony from them to support his scheme. Actual autistic children continue to suffer from his bullshit, entirely made up illness.
> Andrew Jeremy Wakefield (born 3 September 1956[a]) is an English fraudster and anti-vaccine activist. Formerly a senior surgeon, he was struck off the British medical register in 2010 for "serious professional misconduct" due to his involvement in the fraudulent 1998 Lancet MMR autism report, (wikpedia)
Sadly debunking fraud doesn't seem to stop the misinfo on social media. "Vaccines cause autism!" gets more clicks than the truth and so you get JFK Jr.
But the King of Graft installing the halfwit RFK to run HHS is next level and I assume fellow grifters are making serious bank off this shit.
Reminder, the vengeful Orange also installed a climate change denier to run NOAA after he lost the election, who posted bogus claims on the official NOAA website which grifters used to give legitimacy to their bullshit.
America made one of his adherents the Secretary of Health and Human Services.
Wakefield arguably assaulted his patients (most of whom were children, IIRC) when conducting his research. What do you do with people who arguably assaulted someone? You get the Crown to make that argument. Why didn't that happen?
Also worth noting: according to the logic upon which the British system of government is based, no lesser a party than God Himself put a major believer in homeopathy on the throne of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
I'd love to see Wakefield go to jail for fraud, nor am I a fan of Charles even if he's on my passport. But Charles doesn't set UK health policy, or UK policy at all.
You're correct. He lives off the civil list and lets his nonce brother crash at a luxury home. But someone else does set UK health policy, and someone else does prosecute crimes, and since that's the case, then why didn't someone else in the UK with the ability to charge him do so?
If that happens, there is no adherent in charge of the DHHS. There are no kids dying of easily-preventable diseases in the UK, US, or anywhere else. Just a quack sitting in a jail cell.
I'll still take "no longer a doctor" over "gets to set American health policy".
I like pancakes and waffles, in other words.
Probably more on a per-capita basis than Americans have impact on what DHHS does, though. Especially if it became something focused on by the British public. Which, strangely, it hasn't. Not since 2010 when he was struck off.
> I'll still take "no longer a doctor" over "gets to set American health policy".
You really should aim higher. The man performed colonoscopies and biopsies on autistic children to support a scientific fraud with the hopes of becoming wealthy off of it. In other words, at the very least, he committed battery on disabled kids. That should earn more than getting struck off after twelve years. It should earn prison. It's purely on the British government that it hasn't. And since doing that would have prevented his scientific fraud from reaching the heights it is at now, modern antivax can be pinned on the UK and the lack of action from His Majesty's government.
... and the USA did it too, trying to discredit China’s Sinovac: https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-covi...
All this "natural something" and antivax movement certainly is the other direction. Maybe it's subconscious population control, maybe informational warfare... maybe people just got a little detached from reality by not dying all the time, as you suggested.
>in a 1722 sermon entitled "The Dangerous and Sinful Practice of Inoculation", the English theologian Reverend Edmund Massey argued that diseases are sent by God to punish sin and that any attempt to prevent smallpox via inoculation is a "diabolical operation"
Vaccines date from about 1800.
Now that we have the blame let's talk about the punishment.
They managed to get plenty of visibility long before computers.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-leicestershire-50713991
> There followed a 100-year battle between the authorities and an often sceptical, sometimes aggressive, public. In Britain, a succession of laws made vaccinations free, then compulsory - backed by fines and even imprisonment. While riots flared in some towns, there was also more restrained opposition in the form of anti-vaccination leagues. For an increasingly literate population, pamphlets were produced with titles like "Vaccination: its fallacies and evils", "Vaccination, a Curse" and the suitably Gothic "Horrors of Vaccination".
Once the barrier came down and the floodgates of "average intelligence" were opened, it was over.
At least in my area, there are pockets of (relatively) new immigrants that have MMR vaccination rates at around 30% (that's very low, much lower than the anti-vaxxer population could account for imo), and the reasons for that have nothing to do with MAGA/MAHA as far as I can tell.
It's an entirely different problem (that needs solving), and pretending that this is simply the by-product of uneducated crazies on the internet feels like it's over indexing on a loud and flashy but ultimately small part of the problem.
So to answer your question, I don't personally think it helps or hurts in any significant amount relative to other cultural drivers.
the whole rollout and lockdowns, Fauci, etc. were a perfect storm to cause skepticism towards vaccines
[1] - https://xcancel.com/ITGuy1959/status/1581034815700488192
Unfortunately, they are the only ones like that I know. Most other I encountered just peddle products for their financial gain. Snake oil salesmen.
I am aware I live in a dictatorship which drove a lot of smart and good people away from the country, skilled doctors and nurses were among the first to go. Hopefully it'll get better once we overthrow the dictator.
I'm certainly a part of that group. For instance I ended up doing extensive research on e.g. MMR before deciding to vaccinate my kids for it. If this were a decade ago, I almost certainly would have done it without a second thought, just as I took all recommended vaccines before traveling without a second thought. So I'm obviously not anti-vaccine in the least, but I no longer trust public messaging on the topic.
It was just another (of the increasingly endless) examples of governments/companies pursuing short-term interests while ignoring long-term consequences. When it comes to what people put in their bodies, trust is more important than literally anything else.
[1] - https://xcancel.com/ITGuy1959/status/1581034815700488192
For some people the COVID vaccine(s) were rushed to market, with limited clinical trials, intended to vaccinate the entire adult population, with limited data as to their immediate effectiveness and with no data about long term effects. You can debate whether the above points are valid or not, but for some people they certainly raised a safety flag.
I completely agree that the vaccine scepticism around the COVID vaccines is now carrying over into other, well tested, well understood and very, very beneficial vaccines.
The entire "I looked at the data and found it insufficient" thing is by and large cover for people that lack the tools to evaluate the data. They play that card so they can pretend that they're actually intelligent skeptical adults and not easily manipulated idiots or malicious grifters.
They're the equivalent of a random person that hasn't done algebra in 20 years emailing a physicist at CERN about how they've discovered a perpetual motion machine.
I don't really understand what people's expectations were for a new vaccine intended to combat an ongoing global pandemic.
https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/practically-a-book-review-r...
To the extent that there can ever be a "smoking gun" in this debate, this is it for me. Given the mutation rate of covid, the lab leak requires that two lineages transferred to the same area a week apart by mere accident.
A "Red Flag" (or Safety Signal) is an actual, observed increase in adverse events in real-world data.
What he was discussing in the text was a theoretical risk.
A "Theoretical Risk" is a hypothetical concern based on known biological mechanisms (e.g., "high fevers can cause miscarriages, so a vaccine-induced fever might do the same").
…unlike the risk from catching Covid itself
Should have said “no heightened risk”. Looks like it’s impossible to edit or delete now.
It's been a growing movement, not something that kicked off when RFK assumed the HHS role.
The entire reason I made my original comment is because it's important to recognize that this is not a Trump thing, and getting rid of Trump / MAGA will not suddenly convince people that vaccines are good.
If you don't see this as an enormous amplification, I don't think you're operating in good faith.
1. https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/10/well/trump-vaccines-fact-...
Only after Trump did people start lumping them in with right wing.
The left wing libs types are far more recent, and i would lump them more in with the wellness brigade.
This is from Mother Jones, a very liberal web site.
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2020/06/the-anti-vax-mo...
so, exactly RFK's type :)
Also why not blame politicians doing the wrong thing?
And yes, we should blame them for the things they do. T But the comment I was responding to was acting as if MAGA was the reason for measles outbreaks, which is false. I'm an incredibly strong believer in the truth. An example of why I think this is an important separation: imagine you tried to fix the measles outbreak and miraculously got every single American to hate Trump and got Trump out of office. The problem would still not be fixed! People would still be dying of measles! The effort would have been almost completely wasted!
My personal belief is that there a lot of people who believe stupid things out there (and it's all only amplified by the news and social media), and for anti vaxxers especially I don't think an authority figure saying 'You have to get the measles vaccine!' is going to help much, unfortunate as it is. :(
We managed to cut the smoking rate pretty dramatically, including in about half over the last decade. Public policy is not ineffective, we just need competent people to wield it.
Also smoking smells and has other negative externalities, which doesn't hurt.
Kennedy was already pushing bullshit during the UK Measles vaccine fraud/scare, back in 2005. He was doing this along with a few other celebrities.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/politics/article/rfk-jr-says-pare...
He's not anti vax. If nobody can challenge science, then it's not science.
Vaccines continues to help us, but that doesn't mean they are perfect and don't cause side effects on certain individuals. Hopefuly the future brings us highly personalized medicine instead of a 1 size fits all.
If someone has spent some time actually learning science then of course they can challenge science.
If they are a lazy halfwit parroting crap they listened to on the latest podcast (because reading is hard!)... no. Not so much.
(Well, it's way worse that that, but I didn't want to invoke Godwin's law.)
He is not "challenging science" with measured arguments and carefully controlled peer-reviewed research to back his claims. He's deliberately trying to silence science because of a completely unsupported brain fart.
And no, it's not about "timing". It's about spreading baseless FUD to discourage any form of vaccination, because he believes (with no actual evidence, and despite vast amounts of research to the contrary) that vaccination causes autism.
"The order recommends that all shots be given at separate medical visits, a frequent point Trump has made despite the safety, ease and lower costs of giving vaccines together."
'“Together, there could be a possibility they’re quite lethal,” Trump said of the MMR vaccine at the signing of the order on Monday.'
'Asked if he had evidence that the combined MMR vaccine was “lethal”, Trump said: “No. What I’ve heard is that there are some people who say it is that way.”'
Antivax fundamentally has its contemporary roots in Andrew Wakefield's fraudulent anti-MMR campaign.
So directing by executive order and by his own admission without evidence that the MMR vaccine be split up into separate shots is, very clearly, an antivax action. This is the first victory that Wakefield (a man who had a patent on a single measles vaccine!) wanted, and RFK Jr was pursuing.
But this is Trump saying this and signing it. So as of yesterday, it now has everything to do with Trump, sorry. He has handed the anti-MMR movement its ultimate victory and in so doing validated the entire antivax worldview.
It's still not too late for anyone who is unvaccinated to get the vaccine! Hopefully the next administration undoes this change, but the really important part is managing to shrink the anti-vax movement (which, if you look at the data in my other comments, you can see has been a problem since before Trump).
Also, trump, as a representative, represents a large group of people. It's colloquial to refer to political parties by their leaders.
(And let's be clear: Operation Warp Speed was an enormous success even if Trump is an ignoramus)
Some of that might have been expediency — Biden was catching shit from the antivax and healthcare-skeptical movement and moving in on that would be easy — but Trump has always been vulnerable to being influenced by people and RFK Jr appears to be generally so much more persuasive than bears thinking about, so he was a factor later on.
Trump #2 (47) is fully an anti-vax presidency; even Hegseth backed away from flu vaccine mandates, only to have an outbreak in an Army (IIRC?) facility.
Canada: https://health-infobase.canada.ca/measles-rubella/archive/20...
They have 10% our population and had twice the cases last year (admittedly, we're starting to catch up). But the truth is that there are huge lag times when it comes to measles / antivax. This is a symptom of a problem that started 10-20 years ago.
Since you seem very emotionally opposed to Trump and his administration: I also don't like Trump or RFK! However, to solve a problem, you have to find the root cause of the problem, and pointing at the most recent politician you hate will never help anyone.
Do you really think RFK appeared out of the ether? What do you think he's spent the last 2 decades doing?
I have not been following measles in Canada, so I can't address that.
The reason I bring up Canada is as counterevidence; if it was Trump or RFK'S fault, Canada should be doing just fine. They had twice the cases last year in 1/10 the population. The truth is this is a problem with people believing stupid things, and it's going to take a lot more than Trump going out of office to fix.
Probably true, but it's nevertheless a necessary condition.
Back in the early 90s this wasn't much of a problem. Childhood vaccine requirements weren't some hot-button topic then. Most people would just get them when faced with the requirement. Most opposition was isolated to people who were otherwise contrarians already.
The difference now is that the internet is full of these isolated contrarians who are now influencing gullible people who don't know who to trust.
The problem is not with the technology but those that control it. (Some would probably say, the fact that any one actor controls it in the first place.)
Our only means of communication in modern society are a few advertising platforms in hands of even fewer owners, and the engineers hired to run it are busy engagementmaxxing.
... and that's right when social media gained majority adoption among US adults.
Not in Canada but unfortunately US nonsense spreads globally pretty quickly these days. The amount of Trump support in the UK is both bizarre and surprising. When someone with the worlds largest megaphone lies about vaccines, unfortunately people everywhere listen.
I can't help but feel this is ragebait or a bot.
From today:
Both Trump and Kennedy made repeated mentions of autism throughout the order signing, emphasizing a scientifically unproven link between vaccines and the condition. Dozens of studies show no link between the two.
“Today we’re proud to officially announce the United States of America’s gold standard childhood vaccination recommendations. That has to do with many subjects including autism in particular,” Trump said at the beginning of the order signing.
“I’ve seen proof of it, where they have a vaccination where it looks like the size of a bottle of soda, poured into a little child’s body and bad things happen in too many cases,” Trump later said on breaking up each shot into an individual medical visit, before adding: “This is an explosion, it’s an epidemic,” in an apparent reference to autism.
Well not nothing. But it predates him and he adopted the movement early in his political career. When I was in high school (2004-8) antivax sentiment was generally associated with liberal Democrats in places like Marin County. This was a favorite retort of conservatives when confronted with their own backwardness on scientific understanding of evolution and climate change. In 2015 Trump began courting the anti-vaccine crowd and the political valence of that flavor of woo-woo nonsense flipped seemingly overnight. It was surreal to see it happen in real time. By 2020 he had lost control of the monster he helped create and the crowd booed him when he said they should get the Covid vaccine.
I view this as a wonderful "they don't report in and the coroner doesn't check" type of elimination
> Estimates indicate 84.6% of those living with hepatitis C have been diagnosed - just short of the 90% target.
How do they know there are that many Hep C patients if they haven’t been diagnosed?
> The target of treating 80% of all known cases has already been met, and deaths from the virus have fallen by 36% in the last decade, just short of what is needed by 2030.
What is needed by 2030? There is no mention prior to this statement.
Later:
> NHS England says that since 2015, more than 100,000 people have been diagnosed and treated for hepatitis C, meaning the country is already meeting that target.
Again, what target are we talking about??
Much later:
> Prof Frankie Swords, NHS national medical director, added: "England is now leading the world in the mission to eliminate this disease and on course to beat the WHO's 2030 target, but we are determined to keep up the momentum and finish the job.
Finally a target!
FUCK AI
> Style Assist helps BBC journalists quickly adapt trusted content into BBC News house style, speeding up the publication of high-quality local stories. It uses a BBC-trained AI model to generate a draft, which is always reviewed and edited by journalists before publication. This helps save time while maintaining accuracy, tone and editorial standards. Find out more in an article from Rhodri Talfan Davies.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/aboutthebbc/reports/policies/what-were...
LDRS articles are made free to everyone in the scheme (including the BBC), but because the content is written primarily for their home news org the articles that end up being published by the BBC need to be modified to comply with the BBC's editorial guidelines and for style reasons.
Hence, Style Assist.
Trigger me, thought you meant Tony Blair for a minute!
“Taking antiviral tablets for 8 to 12 weeks can cure more than 95% of cases.”
Same here! I had one symptom -intermittent somewhat abnormal liver enzyme results- that was very easy to explain away with the fact that I'm nearly always somewhat dehydrated because I have trouble forcing myself to drink enough water. I had to run into a doc who was in the habit of running the test "just in case" because she had seen a ton of Hep C cases before the culprit was discovered.
Honestly, I'm really glad I didn't get diagnosed much earlier than I did... it's my understanding that interferon treatment is really awful to go through and has like a 50% success rate for Hep C infections. When I got diagnosed Harvoni was quite new, but it worked on the strain I had, and there were absolutely no side effects that I noticed. Its list price was shockingly expensive (something like 150k USD) but that's way cheaper than a new liver and -as is often the case with these sorts of things- financial "wizardry" meant that I paid like 5 USD.
Hep A outbreaks are relatively frequent at restaurants (in my state).
Every state in the US has an immunization registry (they're all hosted by WebIZ) so they all look the same and produce the same sort of document. Checking states I've lived in, some of the records go back to 2008. My insurance pays for all vaccines except for "travel vaccines".
Shopping list:
https://www.fda.gov/vaccines-blood-biologics/vaccines/vaccin...
What has RFK Jr specifically said for/against HepC?
https://youtu.be/G4vP4GdHhoA?t=293
> Trump said "vats" of vaccines are pumped into children's bodies.
https://www.npr.org/2026/08/10/nx-s1-5927313/trump-rfk-jr-va...
This makes all children turn purple and explode just like Violet Beauregarde.
I do not know why some people think the current US regime will follow England with all evidence pointing to doing the exact opposite.
RFK Jr. is an anti-vax crackpot, but Hep C isn't vaccine-preventable. On the other hand, we can absolutely blame RFK Jr. for our rising Hep A, B, and D rates.
So indeed diagnosing the cases is leading directly to deaths prevented.
This is not what the title claims. The title claims that hepatitis C is to be eliminated, aka 0%. This is not possible; anyone with a basic 101 virology knows why. BBC lies here via the title.
> Drug users have a range of
The title does not even mention drug users.
The title refers to the hepatitis C virus. That virus existed way before drug users did.
Not in this context, no. It means the same thing as being cured of Hep C means... there's a little bit still lingering around, but the systems that keep it under control mean that it doesn't cause any problems. The world and one's body are environments that are way too large to get rid of 100% of something without utterly obliterating them.
> That virus existed way before drug users did.
I'm skeptical. Living things have been drug users for approximately forever.
Anyway, a fun fact that I learned when I was getting my Hep C diagnosis and treatment is that the three most common ways to get it are
1) Be an IV drug user who's not extremely careful about their needles
2) Share your toothbrush with someone else
3) Have had a blood transfusion prior to ~1992, when they started screening the blood supply for Hep C
It turns out that -for the sex-havers that aren't into blood play- sex is one of the least effective methods of Hepatitis transmission.
(Seriously you couldn't google that?)
- Don't live in California
- Risks are considered, but you will never be satisfied
- Long-term risks have been studied with very good methodology.
People were "skeptical" of vaccines. Then they did science. Now they aren't. Then, yes, people like the guy trying starting this thread who will never be convinced and cannot change his mind.
Then they hyperventilate about irrelevant details (like California) and other readers of the thread see what the whining is really about.
> England is now leading the world in the mission to eliminate this disease and on course to beat the WHO's 2030 target, but we are determined to keep up the momentum and finish the job.
Seems fairly unambiguous to me
There is a difference between elimination and eradication.
As usual you fail to understand nuance.
I usually think of a country as equal to a nation, and as far as I know, Wales and Scotland have not split off yet? Is the term "country" not actually that sharply defined?
EDIT: Thanks people, I just asked a question to better understand the terminology, you know ...
Guess only England was meant. That would insinuate they don't care about scotland though.
If I read an article from them about crime in London, quoting the Metropolitan Police, I don't immediately think that they don't care about, say, the West Midlands.
The bit that gets me is that people often refer to the UK but actually mean GB or vice versa.
> That would insinuate they don't care about Scotland though.
You forgot the other states of the United Kingdom: Wales and Northern Ireland. But I disagree, it says nothing at all about Scotland - this seems like the "I like pancakes!" "So you hate waffles?" faulty reasoning. (2)
If you disagree, why don't you care about Wales? /s
1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NHS_England https://www.england.nhs.uk/about/
2) https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/no-bitch-dats-a-whole-new-x-w...
James VI/I (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_VI_and_I) was king of _both_ England and Scotland and only later did the Union https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Union combine the two. You might notice I've neglected Wales which was (considered?) part of England.
In any case, England is a country, yes. Also the UK is a country.
For instance, England and Wales share a legal system, but Scotland and Northern Ireland have their own. There’s bunch of special things about Northern Ireland and its relation to Ireland. And all of the constituent countries have their own parliament / assembly except for England (the parliament in London is for the whole of the UK where MPs for all constituent countries can vote).
In this particular case, the constituent countries have their own health systems, so it’s normally England we would be talking about, not the UK.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:British_Isles_Venn_D...
The green circles are each a single island. The yellow circle are a bunch of islands.
2) The monarchies in the Commonwealth countries are ruled by different crowns; but, for historical reasons, most of those crowns are worn by the same physical head. (But not all of them. The King of Malaysia is a different natural person from the King of the UK, for example.)
If that’s a bit eccentric, well this is the same place that refers to Europe as a different place even though France borders the UK by automobile road.
It is not a sovereign country, but instead is a part of the constituents comprising the UK state.
For example in Germany one would say there are 16 states, but one wouldn't say that there are 16 countries. Never heard anyone claim that. So state seems to be different from country, at least here. Would people in the UK say that Scotland or Wales are "nations"? Or is at least that term very clearly only for units that could participate under a flag in lets say the olympics? (I assume here, that Scotland and Wales are not separately competing, but are under UK flag.)
Team GB enters the Olympics but as you may have noticed it was England who came Third in the World Cup recently, and likewise England play international rugby, including against Wales and Scotland.
† The exact rules are complicated, but they don't depend on where on the island you were born or stuff like that.
Except when they play as part of the British & Irish Lions!
So in modern English they may be states, but there sure is a lot of overlap between "country" and "state".
As an English person I would say that Scotland and Wales are nations and countries; constituent countries of the country that is the UK.
People in the UK would refer to England as a country and most people would actually be confused if you referred to the UK as a country, even though it technically is. People in England don’t really think of the UK as anything other than “the UK”. People from Scotland, Wales, and Ireland have more nuanced takes.
You might get a tedious person saying something like "actually, Wales is a principality".
It's like if you put four boxes in a box, it's not too confusing that the outer box is still a box.
The NI thing is different, involving a peace treaty between the UK and Ireland.
The Scottish referendum did not use neutral international observers, and had extremely biased coverage by state media. The BBC itself even tried to stir up forms of violent unionism. (Look up the so called "passionate Highlander", a drunken loyalist type who talked about defending the union to the death "in the name of Jesus Christ".)
"The 45" has a resonance in Scottish history and it is a bit of a coincidence the Yes vote was stuck at that rather than 47 or 44.
Having neutral international observers was a no brainer, but the SNP often seems to trust the system they're trying to break up much more than it should.