What does a TRUMP presidency look like?

[crazy canuck]

Kimmel will be back tomorrow.

The number of subscription cancellations must have changed the business decision to toady up to Trump.

[Tonitrus]

Doubtless he will say something about the whole business...will it be an "explainer", or a groveling apology...or a kinda conciliatory/subdued mix (trying to clarify his original wording while also defending free speech) of both?

[Iormlund]

In good news, Donald J. Trump has stopped autism:

The Trump administration is expected to link autism to Tylenol use during pregnancy

Of course there are some spoilsports:

Meanwhile, groups like the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine have stood by recommendations to use acetaminophen to treat fever and pain in pregnant women. The group argues that untreated fever, for example, can cause grave harms such as miscarriage, birth defects or premature birth, especially early in a pregnancy.

But, as Homer J. Simpson put it best:  Has science ever kissed a woman? Or won the Super Bowl? Or put a man on the moon? This is what I think of your precious science!

And not only has he found the prevention, he has the cure:

The administration is also expected to say in its report that leucovorin or folinic acid — a form of vitamin B that is sometimes used to treat deficiencies caused by chemotherapy — could prevent or treat the disorder. The use of leucovorin is based on research suggesting that many people with autism have a metabolic difference that could reduce the amount of folate that reaches the brain. Leucovorin appears to offer a way around that metabolic roadblock.

And although leucovorin affects a system that is important for brain and nervous system development and is sometimes prescribed off-label as a treatment for autism, the evidence that it works is scant.

These guys are geniuses. Acetaminophen is pretty much the only painkiller women can take while enduring a famously painless process. So if most mothers of autistic children have taken it, one can only conclude it causes autism!

[mongers]

Kimmel will be back tomorrow.

The number of subscription cancellations must have changed the business decision to toady up to Trump.

Maybe we should all just unsubscribe from trump?

[The Minsky Moment]

I have a child with autism who takes leucovorin.  It's no miracle cure, that's for sure.  If it has any effect, it has not been visibly discernible.  Doesn't seem to hurt though, and apparently there is at least some science behind it, so well above average compared to a typical MAGA influenced quack remedy.

It's truly awful to prey on people's hopes like that, but it's Trump and Kennedy, so truly awful is just a basic day's work.

As for the acetaminophen part, embracing pseudo-science to cause pointless pain and agony to innocent women seems very on brand for both those villains. I'll let J&J take care of their business on that.  Good luck!

[Tonitrus]

I'll let J&J take care of their business on that.

They should follow Trump's own example and sue him for $10 billion. 

[HVC]

I'll let J&J take care of their business on that.

They should follow Trump's own example and sue him for $10 billion.

It's not worth the trip to El Salvador for the board members

[Tonitrus]

It's all ok...after the Rapture tomorrow takes away most of MAGA, we can start putting things back to normal.

[garbon]

Kenvue and not J&J has had Tylenol for a few years now.

I guess it was nice of Trump to admit that most of his comments on vaccines were just his gut feeling and not based on any medical guidance.

[Syt]

These guys are geniuses. Acetaminophen is pretty much the only painkiller women can take while enduring a famously painless process. So if most mothers of autistic children have taken it, one can only conclude it causes autism!

I'm sure mothers of autistic children also inhaled oxygen and consumed H2O during pregnancy. Maybe investigate that link, too!

[Josquius]

It is something that warrants further study from what I understand. There is a correlation between high paracetamol users and autistic kids.
What there isn't is any hint whatsoever there's a causation there.
It could be pure coincidence.
Though there could also be something in the middle there, perhaps a chain of factors, that has a more causal relationship to both.
There is pretty good evidence that some infections during pregnancy have more of a causal relationship to autism- and seems quite elementary these would also lead to taking paracetamol.

[Norgy]

I am old enough to remember the thaladomid scandal.

This just looks like fear-mongering and Kennedy's brain-worm speaking.

And what is autism really? We are all on the spectrum, really. There is no "normal", nor should there be.
This pisses me off. People are people.

I agree with Minsky that there are no miracle drugs. For anything, really. I have tried anti-depressants, various forms of benzodiazepines. None have really had much effect except in dulling what was once a sharp brain.

Kennedy has been spouting this bullshit about vaccines and whatnot for decades. He can't even bring clean drinking water now.

There is a point when George Best, one of the best footballers/soccer players ever was laying on a bed with a heap of money and two women and a journalist asks "Where did it all go wrong?". I ask the same about RFK junior. Your dad was someone who united, and did an impromtu speech after Martin Luther King was assassinated on the back of a trailer. He should probably have been the Democratic candidate that year. But Sirhan-Sirhan made sure that did not happen.

The road to autocracy is nicely paved and ready for high speed now.

[Sheilbh]

Yeah total historical aside - but I'd add RFK is one of the most fascinating figures in that era because I think there's so much dark and light. He gave the speech in Indianapolis, he was the Attorney General who signed off on Hoover's wiretapping of Martin Luther King and was very interested in the output. He worked for McCarthy (an old friend of the Kennedys) and was not above using the leverage of his position as Attorney General to advance purely political ends for his brother (and that, in itself, is striking in the era of, say, Merrick Garland).

I think his story is in part about trying to unite himself. I think the second half of his public life (which I really admire) is as much as anything an atonement (literally unifying, an at-one-ment) with the first half.

But I'm a big Bobby fan of all the Kennedys. I think he's really interesting.

[Norgy]

My mum admired him for his looks. Really. She loved Bobby Kennedy.

That the Kennedys in general did not have clean hands, well, that is well-proven, and maybe that Catholic guilt changed RFK. The president that never was.

Junior did some good things early in life, but his trajectory really changed.

[HVC]

I don't think he changed, he was just a seasoned opportunist. When being underhanded served him that's where he went, and conversely when playing the moral savior was the winning hand that's the hand he played.