We Ran the Cdc: Kennedy Is Endangering Every American's Health

The most bloody obvious explanation is a natural origin, exactly like the first SARS. Did you forget about that was also a coronavirus outbreak, a close cousin of the COVID-19 (whose real name is SARS-cov-2) that was more lethal (but less contagious, and contained thanks to the heroic efforts of Hong Kong and south Korea)?

Given precisely that amount of information, sure. But people dig in further and it complicates things. We don't just go "ugh jeez isn't it obvious" and turn our brains off.

'coronavirus gain of function laboratory in Wuhan that's funded by the CDC' is misleading.

The particular lab (Wuhan Institute of Virology) is not a 'coronavirus gain of function laboratory', but an institute studying viruses, including the coronavirus, and including gain of function research. And, critically, "the viruses used in these experiments were not physically present but rather consisted of synthesized genetic sequences, meaning they were not complete, nor infectious viral particles capable of replication, and the pseudo-virus experiments conducted to test human cell entry lacked the ability to replicate." (https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12040609/).

It's possible that WIV did screw up and create, intentionally or otherwise, the virus responsible for the pandemic. And, WIV has been linked with military research programs. But, it's not a slam dunk, and the best/widest scientific consensus is still, in 2025, that the origin was natural/biological and came as a result of human/wild-animal contact.

So much this. It was hard to watch.

I don't know how you could read this story as anything other than complete vindication of the people who turn off their brains and refuse to listen to anything "MAGA" has to say. I wasn't in their camp, I thought Kennedy was going to be fine, and now he's working full time to make sure Americans get more diseases and fewer treatments.

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The original commenter got flagged for his response, so I'd like to ask you more politely. Dr. Fauci did not in fact work for the CDC, and as you acknowledge this statement does not even say that the lab leak hypothesis is untrue. Are you trying to argue in favor of the original commenter's assertion that "they branded the lab-leak hypothesis a conspiracy theory", or just trying to explain what comments people are interpreting in bad faith to support that assertion?

How is this quickly dismissing the idea that it was a lab leak as a conspiracy? The research showed (and still shows) that it's extremely plausible for the virus to have gone from animal -> human. I think currently there is a "missing" jump where the animal which was involved in transmission still isn't know but to say that Fauci citing the current research is "dismissal of lab leak as a conspiracy theory" is a bit absurd.

But your second link contradicts this story entirely! It's about a claim from the CDC director that other officials in other agencies froze him out because he wanted to consider the lab leak hypothesis.

>there was never broader discourse on if gain of function research is a good idea.

There has always been tons of discussions if GoF is a good idea, for years. You don't know anything about the topic you are commenting about, do you?

The problem was that it mostly started being brought up for the purpose of political propaganda. Trump's only use for the pandemic was as fuel to rail against China in support of his predetermined agenda. So "lab leak" was used to focus attention on the external enemy to fight, instead of taking care of our own country or asking why Trump was so dead set against that.

The whole time, it was obviously wrong to reject the lab leak theory out of hand. Yet people are stupid herd animals, and instead of tri-state "it is irrelevant in the current context" they argued that the theory was definitely wrong. That same fallibility applies to people working for institutions (see also the early CDC lie implying that masks weren't effective, based on wanting to keep the supply for the healthcare industry).

Then after the dust settles, people stay dug in and the politically-colored battle lines never go away. I'd say this kind of establishment-clearly-wrong but dissent-with-nothing-productive underlies most of the energy fueling the destructionists.

Again, the other comments indicate they didn't do anything of the sort. People have their own agenda for diminishing trust in the CDC.

What task have they failed in? And, more importantly, what is the better approach?

You've asserted 60% of Americans having at least one chronic condition is a failure and begged the question that it is a failure (instead of a reasonable expectation of the health of mortals, especially mortals in a population that starts to skew older as our birth rates fall relative to the baby boom... Or the consequence of accurate tracking and reporting on an ever-widening set of understood or recognized conditions). Start by convincing the room there is a problem to solve before asserting leadership has failed at it.

And even if there is a problem to solve: entropy being what it is, there are infinitely more worse ways to do things than there are better. Even if the CDC's approach has room for improvement, from whence comes the confidence that putting a debunked conspiracy believer (https://www.forbes.com/sites/saradorn/2024/11/15/rfk-jrs-con...) and anti-vaccination activist at its helm leads to improvement?

Have you read the list of remedial actions at the bottom of your source? What can the medical establishment do to enforce these actions?

And how will banning vaccines will help with any of the problems you pointed out?

You can’t pick your parents. ~40% of pregnancies every year in the US are unintended [1], and a similar percentage of births are paid for by Medicaid [2] (~50% in rural communities). Lots of kids born into some combination of poverty and parents who aren’t providing the nutrition and exercise kids need to not be pre-diabetic (poverty rates are highest for rural children). The only solution to that is to help everyone who doesn’t want kids to not have them (robustly accessible contraceptives) if we’re not going to provide robust social support to parents who need it to raise healthy children (all evidence points to “we are not going to do this” for the foreseeable future). Are you expecting the government to do something different? Because they were providing food assistance (SNAP) and child healthcare (Medicaid) which is getting reduced or removed (depending on state or circumstance) by this administration.

Like “Who pays the tariffs?” in this context the question is, “Who do you think has the primary responsibility of raising healthy children? And why aren’t they able to?” [3] [4] [5] I think it’s highly unlikely changing vaccination requirements is going to improve the outcomes you’re stating are the problems in this thread.

[1] https://www.guttmacher.org/fact-sheet/unintended-pregnancy-u...

[2] https://www.aha.org/fact-sheets/2025-02-07-fact-sheet-medica...

[3] https://www.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/parents-under-pressu...

[4] https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2023/12/poverty-rate-...

[5] https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/charts-of-note/chart-...

These aren't mentioned because Kennedy is against all of them.

"Butter" is in the quote I was referencing.

I covered corporate capture in the second half of my comment.

Dyes, glyphosate, seed oils... Yeah. I like olive oil, and don't want to eat glyphosate, but you're fixating on the tenuous unfalsifiable presumed linkage of their toxicity to population level health problems.

I would still put my money on a person eating a commodity, non-organic, seed oil rich diet that is sanely balanced and appropriate for their activity level being healthier on average than an overeating gluten free organic-everything only touched by hemp fiber vegan who never exercises.

>why aren't we handing out vitamin D tablets at school?

The current US administration, the one with Trump and RFK jr, is currently cutting free meal at school. The food was coming from local farms, not Big Ag.

Whatever the posters above are claming the CDC did wrong (when in fact it was undercut at every step by the Republican Party and the right wing of the Democrats), the cuzrrent administration is doing worse. Much worse.

https://www.edweek.org/policy-politics/trump-admin-cuts-prog...

Michele Obama tried to encourage physical activity, and was met with frothing-a-the-mouth backlash from the whole right-wing media personalities and Republicans who vehemently criticized related regulation as government overreach.

https://edition.cnn.com/2014/05/29/politics/michelle-obama-n...

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2025/06/14/michelle-o...

https://authorityhealth.org/irony-abounds-on-the-anniversary...

Do you have any long-term memory?

Look in the mirror: you are the corrupt one.