Donald Trump the Megathread part II - Mod Warning updated in OP 12/2/26

eightieschewbaccy · 23-09-2025 12:51PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123843183#Comment_123843183

And that's including via cuts so the CDC and other organizations have concluded it makes sense, they've gauged the risk. And my point stands, there's absolutely no evidence vaccines cause autism. You seem to be intent on rationalizing what amounts to RFK and Trump pushing conspiracy theories about vaccines.

https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/why-are-hepatitis-b-vaccines-given-newborns-2025-09-19/

ancapailldorcha · 23-09-2025 01:10PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123843247#Comment_123843247

I would disagree with your concluding paragraph. Any debate would have to be based on evidence which will cost millions of dollars to generate and this regime isn't going to fund such fact checking. Not a chance.

We can't have scientists investigating baseless claims that emanate from this toxic parasite. For one thing, there aren't enough of us on the planet for that. For another, there are too many actual problems that require urgent investigations and solutions.

If Paracetamol caused autism, almost everyone would be autistic. That's all the investigation that's needed. If Trump said that the moon is made of cheese, we don't send up a set of independent research teams to gather and analyse samples. We dismiss it as yet more deranged drivel.

aloyisious · 23-09-2025 01:24PM

I'm waiting for Trump to behave as usual when he addresses the U.N General Assembly today after some countries allied to the U.S. took individual decisions to recognize Gaza as an independent nation contrary to his wishes. Rumours from the bush say he wants to talk about how "globalist institutions have significantly decayed the world order". He's supposed to be meeting the leaders of several Arab countries, including Saudi Arabia and Qatar, while at the U.N. at a separate meeting.

CelticRambler · 23-09-2025 01:25PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123842951#Comment_123842951

He's been vocal in highlighting the dangers of pesticides in the last few months

I think you'll find that he's gone quiet on those (potential) dangers in the last few months - pretty much as soon as he got himself into the Health Secretary seat. And to get that seat :

"I have said repeatedly throughout this process, that we cannot take any step that will put a single farmer in this country out of business," Kennedy said at a hearing of the Senate Appropriations Committee. "There's a million farmers who rely on glyphosate. 100% of corn in this country relies on glyphosate. We are not going to do anything to jeopardize that business model."

Source (May 2025):

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/rfk-jr-tells-farmers-gop-not-to-worry-pesticides-report/

Specifically on RFK vs Autism vs Pesticides (Sept 2025)

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/2025/09/autism-pesticides-rfk-jr/684227/

In summary : all talk and no meaningful action, now that he's in a position to actually do something.

briany · 23-09-2025 01:28PM

@ancapailldorcha

If Paracetamol caused autism, almost everyone would be autistic. That's all the investigation that's needed.

I would be as sceptical of the Trump administration's claim as anyone, but you could refute the cigarette-cancer link in the same way, i.e. 'If smoking causes cancer, almost every smoker would have cancer'.

From what I can tell, there is at best an observational, correlational link between paracetamol during pregnancy and autism from some studies, but there is nothing like a smoking gun piece of evidence proving any kind of causation that rules out other possible explanations in the studies done which suggest the link.

aero2k · 23-09-2025 01:29PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123843262#Comment_123843262

You seem intent on misunderstanding me - I'm not intent on rationalising anything. I'd suggest ignoring anything Trump says, or alternatively bearing in mind that in his case past performance is a fairly reliable guide to future performance. I'm actually trying to advocate for a world where we can have more trust in healthcare in general and drugs in particular. To do that, we need to have a look at whether there's any merit in things being proposed, without dismissing them out of hand because of the source. Some people (not you) want to pretend that all drugs and vaccines are 100% safe and effective, and when pharma company executives like Bourla are allowed to say things that turn out not to be true it's really damaging to public confidence. (In case there's any doubt I've had 3 shots of Covid vaccine, I don't see much value in having any more). I'd love to think that no drug would be marketed if it wasn't known to be safe, but examples like Vioxx show that's just not the case. Merck marketed that drug despite being fully aware of the problems with it and at least 70,000 people died as a result.

RFK does seem to like saying some mad sh1t, but the MAHA EO is very uncontroversial and there's plenty of evidence behind the assertions in it.

Your linked article says that Hepatitis B infection rates have dropped from 9.6 to 1 per 100,000. It doesn't say how many people have to be vaccinated to prevent one infection, or explore the situation in countries like Denmark, which I reckon it's safe to say has a better health system than the US by any metric.

Ozymandius2011 · 23-09-2025 01:29PM

WH looking at introducing the right-leaning Classical Learning Test for admissions to military academies. Emphasises historical and religious documents.

J Mysterio · 23-09-2025 01:31PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123843398#Comment_123843398

How do you replace text with a link?

fly_agaric · 23-09-2025 01:42PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123843128#Comment_123843128

The message here (of doubt & scepticism) is insidious and pretty dangerous though. Particularly with vaccines, which may depend on a certain % of the susceptible population taking them up to avoid outbreaks of the disease they innoculate against.

A lot of public health (and other medical stuff) does have to be taken on trust to a certain level, that the experts and (without scare quotes) institutions (serious/real ones like the govt. healtcare and medical regulators and the national health services etc.) giving out recommendations are providing best advice they can based on state of current knowledge.

I do have a scientific background but I admit I do not have the expertise or the time available to actually "do my own (exhaustive) reasearch" on all vaccines or other medicines my doctor or these bodies might recommend I take. Very few people have that capacity, realistically IMO.

(edit: if either Trump or that RFK "make Amercia sick again" fellow recommended to do or do not do something health-wise, I think I'd be inclined to consider the opposite!…)

Penn · 23-09-2025 01:44PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123843405#Comment_123843405

Highlight the text you want to change into a link, a formatting bubble should pop up to change text to Bold, Italics etc, last one should be a link symbol. Click it, and it'll ask you for the URL you want to link to.

aero2k · 23-09-2025 01:45PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123843335#Comment_123843335

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123843392#Comment_123843392

And cigarette smoke contains about 4,000 substances, many of them highly toxic. For many years the association between smoking and ill health was acknowledged, but it took decades to prove cause and effect. For substances with low level effects, it's a much more difficult task. In the Vioxx example I mentioned earlier, millions took the drug, but only a subset of them died. That didn't in any way disprove the fact that Vioxx caused some people to die.

Field east · 23-09-2025 01:46PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123843380#Comment_123843380

Has Quatar and Saudi Arabia come down on the side of the two state solution. I would assume that all Arab/islamic/ Muslim states/leaning states would do likewise.

Field east · 23-09-2025 01:46PM

Leading to further US isolation

banie01 · 23-09-2025 01:49PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123843380#Comment_123843380

Interesting that he's meeting with Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries.
The "Abraham accords" not that they were ever much more than cover for the US shifting embassy to Jerusalem, are finished.
Saudi pivoting to alternative security guarantees speaks volumes as to the death of trust in the USA.
Other than via threat or perhaps a complete buckling to Saudi demands?
I don't see what he might achieve or how.

Given Saudi's recent mutual defence treaty with Pakistan and the subsequent extension of Pakistan's nuclear umbrella, the Saudi warning that any further West Bank annexations would be a red line? Certainly take on an entirely new and very dangerous dimension.

Couple that with continuing rumours of Egypt moving long range Air Defence into the Sinai and a chilling of Egypt-Israeli relations.
Israel is managing to unite the Arab world in a way not seen since the United Arab Republic.

https://themedialine.org/headlines/saudi-warns-of-fallout-if-israel-annexes-west-bank-coalition-weighs-move-after-palestinian-state-recognition/

https://www.trtworld.com/article/42ec7a30759b

https://defencesecurityasia.com/en/egypt-hq9b-deployment-sinai-israel-air-defence-china/

aero2k · 23-09-2025 01:49PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123843383#Comment_123843383

Thanks for that - my post was informed by a New York Times article from May (RFK was appointed in Feb) but I'll accept your statement as the Atlantic is fairly reliable. I wonder if you and I can come up with any reason as to why RFK has gone quiet on the subject?

aloyisious · 23-09-2025 02:21PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123843468#Comment_123843468

I've been watching with interest Qatar being the "go-to" Arab country of choice for Trump's U.S when Saudi Arabia has been the "go-to" country for several past U.S Administrations for getting peace deals involving Israel and it's neighbours. I was beginning to think it was by arrangement that Qatar was the "go-to" intermediate, letting Saudi Arabia take a back seat but after Netanyahu decided to attack the mediating country to kill the Hamas negotiating team, I think he deliberately put peace and any notion of Trump and the Arabs getting a deal done in the bin. They've been watching the brazen-faced political dealings between Trump and the Netanyahu Israeli Govt, as has the world courtesy of Trump, while they've remained non-aggressive towards Israel honouring the deals they made with Israel in Camp David and at the White House over several presidencies. I regret to say Netanyahu has given the Israeli state the "we shall not go back" doctrine with little room to manoeuvre due to what probably amounts to an unmovable distrust of the world, especially the Western World countries. I keep in mind that he lost his older brother in the wars, the officer who commanded the raid on Entebbe rescue mission. His meeting with Qatar and Saudi Arabia might be with the intent of getting what he would describe as a ~~casus belli~~ legitimate complaint from them on the international stage. Trump has partly set the stage by denying the Palestinian Authority people visas to attend this U.N meeting and they are not Hamas.

aero2k · 23-09-2025 02:22PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123843434#Comment_123843434

Are you accusing me of being insidious? I am sceptical, and I think I have a very good reason for that. I worked in the engineering field for over 30 years including the medical device industry. I'd have a good grasp of basic statistics, and I was very familiar with how devices were designed and tested, and the steps taken to protect patients from harm. I assumed the pharma industry was subject to the same rigour. For reasons I won't go into, I became interested in adverse drug effects, and I did a fair bit of reading on that topic. I found some very astonishing facts emerged from my research. I had assumed double blind RCTs were very reliable - I'd have used similar methodology in my career, but based on widgets, not people. It turns out they're very problematic. Take the case of antidepressants. Let's say you recruit 2000 people for a trial, and randomise them 1000 to placebo, 1000 to the trial drug. Given that the participants need to be depressed in the first place, what you have done is cause drug withdrawal effects (these are well documented) in the placebo wing of the trial. Also, most people can tell if they get the drug or placebo, as the drugs tend to cause a dry mouth etc. The journal articles reporting these trial results are mostly ghost written, with many of the purported authors seeing the raw data. And there's other shenanigans - a wash-out period before the trial proper, so participants reporting adverse effects can be excluded, recording suicidality as "emotional lability", and an actual suicide as "death by burns" - the trial participant had doused himself in petrol and set himself on fire. Even with all that, the reported drug benefit is barely statistically significant, and probably not clinically significant.

I'd suggest having a look at Kim Witczac's site for an insight into how "serious" regulatory organisations work. The FDA had the data relating to increased risk of suicide for SSRIs for over 10 years before they required labels to carry a black box warning. Industry had the data for 20 years. There is also the revolving door between the FDA and industry. FDA actually regards drug safety as a matter between doctors and patients. Clinical trials are designed to show a benefit compared to placebo (I think the comparison should be between treatment and no treatment, though there might be ethical problems with that) rather than efficacy as such, and they are designed to conceal rather than expose adverse effects. Also, most regulatory bodies receive the bulk of their funding from industry - there are no independent bodies doing large-scale testing of drugs for efficacy or safety.

I can understand your difficulty regarding the time needed to research drug / vaccine safety. There's a case to be made for having raw data from trials more widely available, and for much better disclosure of financial conflicts of interest. They could do a much better job with databases like VAERS as well - it's estimated that only 1% of adverse drug effects are properly reported, and it's not easy to access the information.

The problem with "experts" is that many of them say things like "the data shows" or "it's clear from research" but when questioned it becomes clear that their belief is based on trust rather than science. Also, many of them tend to be 100% certain about things where the statistical analysis is done on the basis of 95% confidence.

You mentioned the government - do you trust them with medical stuff? Scoliosis, Hepatitis C, Cervical check, Nursing homes…..

Quin_Dub · 23-09-2025 02:29PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123843392#Comment_123843392

There is a correlation but absolutely no Causative link .

People don't take Paracetamol for the craic. They take it to manage symptoms of something else.

It's the multitude of "something elses" that are the potential causative contributors to Autism along with an extremely large helping of genetics.

This is lazy barstool bollocks talk masquerading as Government policy.

Deeply dangerous and just opens the floodgates for more and more unhinged conspiracy theories to get Government support

aloyisious · 23-09-2025 02:32PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123843448#Comment_123843448

Possibly. I don't think the closest of the Arab nations, Jordan, will be a winner in any form. It is going to get another slap today as Israel seems ready to block the Allenby (what a throwback name) Bridge to prevent traffic going to and from the West Bank, apparently as part of its settler programme.

ancapailldorcha · 23-09-2025 02:53PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123843392#Comment_123843392

Well, no. You're not comparing like with like. Cigarette toxicity affects everyone differently so not everyone who smokes gets lung cancer but virtually everyone with lung cancer is either a smoker or former smoker. Tobacco companies worked hard to bury this.

Trump's thesis is that Paracetamol causes autism. Therefore, everyone with autism would have a mother who took Paracetamol during pregnancy. Now, I don't have data to hand but I would think that that's a heck of a lot of women.

If an actual health expert had mooted the idea, yes, we would need studies. Since it's the gibbering parasite at it again, I'll ignore it.

RickBlaine · 23-09-2025 03:17PM

I'd say Democrat healthcare providers are losing their minds with anger at Trump at the moment.

As for Republican healthcare providers who know Trump is wrong, if they continue to vote for Trump enabling politicians, they are also part of the problem.

Leg End Reject · 23-09-2025 03:21PM

Mod - this is a discussion site, folks, you're going to see opinions you disagree with or find offensive. This doesn't give anyone the right to personally abuse or openly discuss other posters. Anyone doing so can expect pointed warnings and a ban.

banie01 · 23-09-2025 03:24PM

Trump is now using the UNGA to complain about both not getting the contract to renovate the UN complex and the sleight against him and the US due to his not winning a Nobel peace prize yet 🤦

banie01 · 23-09-2025 03:38PM

Now he is waffling about COVID being man made.
Recycling the BioWeapon CT and oddly, providing no evidence, again.
He wants to create an AI led programme to manage and assess bioweapons.
Before segueing to his and PeeWee German's favourite topic of mass migration.
Laying the blame completely at the feet of the UN.

He has claimed once again that the EU has fallen to the immigrant hordes.
That London has "a terrible mayor" and is under Sharia law.
Absolute clown show of ill informed and divisive hate.

Thelonious Monk · 23-09-2025 03:47PM

It's like having some ranting taxi driver who watches YouTube videos and just did a line of coke addressing the UN. How did we get here?

gigantic09 · 23-09-2025 03:49PM

Tremendous Oil,that hasn't been found yet 🤔

johnny_ultimate · 23-09-2025 03:50PM

Ah, Sharia law - among the most nonsensical of the ‘the West is falling’ boogeymen.

A hostile takeover of the city by Pret-a-Manger is more of a threat to London than any imminent risk of the city falling under Sharia law.