RFK Jr.’s Billionaire Running Mate Is Making a Comedy About the Pandemic + More
Source: Children’s Health Defense
RFK Jr.’s Billionaire Running Mate Is Making a Comedy About the Pandemic
Covid contrarians tight with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. are pitching Hollywood on an unlikely leading man: National Institutes of Health Director Jay Bhattacharya. Nicole Shanahan, Kennedy’s running mate in the 2024 presidential campaign, is searching for investors to fund a movie that pokes fun at the pandemic response with a star based on Bhattacharya, who rose to prominence with his anti-lockdown manifesto and relentless tweets opposing social distancing.
The script for the satirical comedy, “The Rash,” is by renowned author Walter Kirn, who wrote the novel “Up in the Air” that became an Oscar-nominated movie starring George Clooney. The new Kirn screenplay stars a “no-nonsense” public health professor at a Stanford-like California university — mirroring Bhattacharya — who speaks out against mass hysteria amid a mysterious outbreak of a contagious skin condition.
The story of the pandemic is one “of great heroes who stood up and said no” to “dangerous scientific experiments mixed with misleading propaganda, mass psychosis, and outright lies,” says the Brownstone Institute in a recent appeal sent to potential funders of the film. The think tank that once counted Bhattacharya as a senior scholar added that “investors are terrified of the topic and Hollywood elites don’t even want it made.”
US CDC’s Ralph Abraham Becomes Second Top Official to Leave This Month
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Principal Deputy Director Ralph Abraham has stepped down, the agency said on Monday, announcing the exit of its second top official this month. The CDC, which is temporarily being run by Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, said the departure was effective immediately and attributed it to unforeseen family obligations. It did not comment on who would replace Abraham.
His exit follows that of Jim O’Neill, who was acting CDC director since August in addition to him functioning as Deputy Secretary of Health and Human Services. Abraham, second in command at the agency, started at the CDC on January 5 and was most recently Surgeon General of the state of Louisiana where he led a move to stop promotion of mass vaccination and criticized the COVID shots.
The CDC has been hit by budget cuts, staff losses and a series of controversies under Health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime vaccine skeptic who fired the director he had appointed, Susan Monarez. Monarez was removed in August after she resisted changes to vaccine policy advanced by Kennedy that she believed contradicted scientific evidence.
Bhattacharya’s Growing Power in Trump’s HHS Worries Health Experts
Public health experts and former federal staffers are uneasy over National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director Jay Bhattacharya’s rising influence over U.S. health policy as he temporarily takes on the added role of leading the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
The Trump administration announced the leadership shake-up this week, with former interim CDC Director Jim O’Neill being moved out of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). “Candidly, this is someone who very clearly has an ax to grind with science and the scientific community in general,” Kayla Hancock, director of Protect our Care’s Public Health Watch project, said of Bhattacharya.
“We’ve seen with his record already at NIH and his history of Covid denialism before he even took this office that this is just not the kind of person that we need at the helm of our key public health and medical research institutions.” Bhattacharya, confirmed as NIH director in March of last year, was a Stanford University professor of medicine before joining the Trump administration. He was also one of the lead authors of “Great Barrington Declaration,” a 2020 open letter calling for COVID-19 lockdowns to be rolled back.
How Does the FDA Really Feel About Psychedelics? We Could Soon Find Out.
With a new batch of favorable phase 3 results under its belt, Compass Pathways is setting its sights on an FDA approval for a psilocybin-based drug. But whether COMP360 will win the first nod for a “classic” psychedelic remains to be seen amid signs of internal discord at HHS.
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and FDA head Dr. Marty Makary have made public statements signaling enthusiasm for psychedelic options, but there are also signs of reticence among other regulatory officials, who may take a more conservative view of the drug class. In October, the psilocybin therapy, which has been in late-stage trials for treatment-resistent depression, was abruptly removed from the list of sponsors chosen for a new voucher program just before it was announced, according to Stat News.
The selection would have accelerated the standard 10-to-12-month FDA review timeline. Compass said it now plans to submit the new drug application for COMP360 between October and December. If the FDA does sign off on the drug, it could offer a new option for patients with limited treatment options.
Trump Administration to Stand by Tough Biden-Era Mandates to Replace Lead Pipes
The Trump administration said Friday it backs a 10-year deadline for most cities and towns to replace their harmful lead pipes, giving notice that it will support a tough rule approved under the Biden administration to reduce lead in drinking water. The Environmental Protection Agency told a federal appeals court in Washington that it would defend the strongest overhaul of lead-in-water standards in three decades against a court challenge by a utility industry association.
The Trump administration has typically favored rapid deregulation, including reducing or killing rules on air and water pollution. On Friday, for example, it repealed tight limits on mercury and other toxic emissions from coal plants. But the agency has taken a different approach to drinking water.
“After intensive stakeholder involvement, EPA concluded that the only way to comply with the Safe Drinking Water Act’s mandate to prevent anticipated adverse health effects ‘to the extent feasible’ is to require replacement of lead service lines,” the agency’s court filing said.
E.P.A. Weakens Limits on Mercury From Coal Plants
The Environmental Protection Agency on Friday weakened pollution limits for coal-burning power plants, allowing them to release more heavy metals including mercury, a powerful neurotoxin linked to brain damage. The move was one of many efforts by the Trump administration to revive the declining U.S. coal industry, despite overwhelming scientific evidence that burning coal is harming public health and driving dangerous levels of global warming. Coal is the dirtiest of the fossil fuels.
Senior E.P.A. officials announced the move during a trip to the Mill Creek Generating Station, a coal plant in Louisville, Ky., along with Republican lawmakers from the state.
“The Biden-Harris administration’s anti-coal regulations sought to regulate out of existence this vital sector of our energy economy,” Lee Zeldin, the E.P.A. administrator, said in a statement.
Mr. Zeldin said the E.P.A. was not eliminating limits on mercury and other toxic pollutants from coal plants. Rather, it was repealing stringent limits that the Biden administration set in 2024 and returning to looser restrictions that took effect in 2012.
Nearly all coal plants in the United States have already met the 2012 requirements by installing new pollution controls, experts said. Many that didn’t make those investments have shuttered.
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