NIH – R&R – Reachout and Rebuild

Trump’s Science Denialism

David Posnett — Wed, 02 Sep 2020 19:32:34 +0000

“People don’t seem to understand that public health is a critical element of national security,” said Randall Larsen, a retired Air Force colonel.

“To argue with a person who has renounced the use of reason is like administering medicine to the dead”. —THOMAS PAINE

In just over three years the Trump administration has decisively diminished the influence of science in its priorities and policies.

Throughout his time in office Mr.Trump has proposed sweeping budget cuts at a variety of science based federal agencies like the National Institutes of Health, the Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation among others.

In 2017, he cut Health and Human Services (HHS) funding, which oversees the Center for Disease Control (CDC), by 18%, Already considered “woefully” underfunded by many, CDC funding has been cut every successive year.

.—In 2018 he shut down the National Security Council’s Pandemic Preparedness & Global Health Security Office which was charged with preparing for when, not if, another pandemic would hit the nation. The elimination of this office, along with Trump’s proposed budget cuts for the CDC, suggests that he saw the fact based pandemic threats not worth his attention.

He shut down the National Guideline Clearinghouse (NCG) which informed the nations health care system on current medical advances along with science based practice guidelines.

In 2019 he ignored a joint HHS/FEMA/DHS exercise termed “Crimson Contagion Simulation”

which anticipated gross health care infrastructure preparedness problems, shortages of medical supplies, overwhelmed hospitals, and economic deterioration.

Three months before Covid-19 went global Trump ended the Pandemic Early Warning System (PREDICT).

in January and February, alone He was warned over a dozen times by researchers of a potential global pandemic and ensuing national security threat.

He calls the Pandemic the “Democrat’s new hoax…It is what it is…It’ll just go away…We’re in great shape…Don’t believe what you see…!”

Meanwhile Trump abruptly dismissed Nancy Messonie MD, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, for declaring the immanent dangers of Covid-19 and then demoted Dr. Rick Bright, one of the nation’s leading vaccine specialists, from the National Institute of Health. Their critical messaging, heralding science for the common good, clashed with Trump’s myopic political and economic priorities.

Our country is sorely reeling from this administration’s astounding and dangerous ignorance and incompetence.

To date over 175000 Americans, have fallen to Covid-19 largely due to failed, if not absent, leadership.

Last April Trump announced defunding the World Health Organization. We still have no national testing plan, no protective equipment distribution plan.

Trump’s science denialism reflects on this entire Republican party. All GOP candidates supporting this ruinous administration are accountable and should be definitively removed from office.

We need more Science and expertise in Government:
Vote Nancy Goroff PHD to replace Lee Zeldin (R).

James Ewing, Water Mill, NY

Exposing Lee Zeldin’s Record on Healthcare

David Posnett — Thu, 05 Mar 2020 17:15:21 +0000

Remember the Graham Cassidy bill?

By Perry Gershon

Representative Lee Zeldin (R-NY1) is a master at telling half-truths. He goes to great lengths to tell his constituents that he supports healthcare coverage for people with pre-existing conditions and lowering prescription drug prices, but his voting record says differently. Zeldin voted against coverage for pre-existing conditions, and just recently shot down a bill for prescription drug coverage reform and prescription drug coverage reform. He even has the audacity to take credit for programs he voted against. A quick look at his record, however, is quite revealing.

Lee Zeldin voted to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA). He has cast several such votes in his three terms in office, most recently May 2017 (and he openly urges the courts to overturn the ACA now). The federal requirement to provide coverage for people with pre-existing conditions comes directly from the ACA, so Zeldin’s opposition to coverage for pre-existing conditions is right there in his votes! Zeldin and Trump claim to offer ACA-replacement legislation that provides for pre-existing condition coverage, but these bills do not protect consumers, especially those with pre-existing conditions. They provide no requirement that these individuals will not be penalized in pricing and availability of coverage.

When Congress, in December 2019, passed its bill to make prescription drugs more affordable, Lee Zeldin voted against the bill (HR-3). His position on this critical issue is again demonstrated by his vote. The only effective way to control the cost of prescription drugs is to let Medicare, the largest consumer, negotiate drug prices directly with the manufacturers. It’s no surprise that Zeldin continues to prohibit Medicare from negotiating because much of his campaign contributions come from drug makers and their affiliates. This isn’t me saying this, it’s right there in his campaign finance reports that he is legally obligated to file with the Federal Election Commission. Given Zeldin’s benefactors, it’s no wonder he opposes true prescription price reforms.

Zeldin takes credit for funding medical research at Stony Brook. His most recent February “newsletter” stated that he secured $3 million of new NIH grants to Stony Brook for medical research, and he cites a bi-partisan letter he signed requesting a budget increase specifically for NIH research. What Zeldin does not tell you is that when the actual budget came to a vote on July 25, 2019, he voted against it. His own voting record proves that Zeldin did not vote to increase NIH appropriations or increased funding for Stony Brook.

But Zeldin’s biggest deception of all is that he is has listened and knows what his constituents need for their healthcare. Again, the facts belie that. Zeldin’s last public town hall was in April 2017, before his vote to repeal the ACA. He has not held one since then. He has no idea what his constituents want or need!

Town halls are meant to be open to ALL constituents who want to attend. There should be no prescreening of questions or questioners (to exclude critics) or else it is not really a true town hall. I know this from first-hand experience.

I have held five open town halls since last September and I will hold five more before the end of June. I take questions from Democrats, Republicans – whoever attends and wants to ask a question. As a matter of fact, I take each and every question asked of me and I give truthful fact-based answers. There is no pre-screening and no spin at my town halls.

People on Long Island deserve a representative who will listen to them when they speak out about healthcare. I want to see universal healthcare for everyone – and I believe we can do it with the ACA supercharged with a public option. We need to allow Medicare to negotiate drug prices to achieve true pricing reforms. This November, we have a chance to give NY-1 a representative who will fight for us in Washington and tell us the truth here at home.

Originally published in the Village Times Herald

Don’t vote Republican: it is a Matter of Life or Death

David Posnett — Sat, 24 Feb 2018 21:25:35 +0000

Photo credit: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/02/parkland-shooting/553778/

Letter to the Editor in the Southampton Press, Feb 22nd 2018, by James Ewing:

The Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, was the 239th school shooting since Sandy Hook in 2012 and overall there have been more than1600 mass shootings since then. On average, two dozen children are shot every day in the United States, and in 2016 more youths were killed by gunfire — 1,637 — than during any previous year this millennium.

Americans make up about 4.4 percent of the global population but own 48 percent of the world’s guns, estimated at more than 330 million—roughly one firearm for every citizen.
From 1966 to 2012 more than 31% of mass shootings worldwide —in which four or more people were killed—were by Americans. Only Yemen has a higher rate of mass shootings among countries with more than 10 million people and Yemen has the world’s second-highest rate of gun ownership after the United States.

A 2015 study by the NIH estimated that only 4 percent of American gun deaths could be attributed to mental health issues, suggesting that mass shootings were better explained by a society’s access to guns than by a false correlation with mental health or any inherent cultural baseline violence. “Epidemiologic studies show that the large majority of people with serious mental illnesses are never violent. However, mental illness is strongly associated with increased risk of suicide.”

According to this analysis of 130 studies from 10 countries around the world it was concluded that gun control legislation tends to reduce gun murders.

Between 1999 and 2015 the Center for Disease Control claims there were 533,879 gun related deaths. That’s an average of 33,367 killed every year.

So what is preventing our Government from enacting sensible gun control legislation if the correlation between gun access and gun violence is so well understood? What is the status of the debate right now? How are we doing?

The National Rifle Association gave $5,900,000 to Republican candidates and $106,000 to Democrats in the 2016 election cycle. The debate is governed by the obvious players and persuasions. “Republicans will never do anything on gun control.” says Rep. David Jolly, (R-Fla.).

Don’t vote for Republicans. Republican control of the government ensures that nothing is done to address a problem that kills more than 30,000 people every year. Don’t vote Republican.