Normal view

Received yesterday — 12 December 2025

Liam Neeson denies anti-vax views after narrating Covid documentary

11 December 2025 at 19:23

Taken star lends his voice to a film that questions the legitimacy of vaccines and includes interview with RFK Jr

Liam Neeson has lent his voice to a new documentary that questions the legitimacy of vaccines and praises Donald Trump’s health and human services secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr.

The film, called Plague of Corruption, is narrated by the Taken actor and based on a bestselling book co-authored by Judy Mikovits, a disgraced former scientist who gained notoriety during the Covid pandemic. She claimed Covid was caused by a bad strain of the flu vaccine and urged people not to get vaccinated.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Tristar Media/WireImage

© Photograph: Tristar Media/WireImage

© Photograph: Tristar Media/WireImage

Received before yesterday

Sean Duffy wants ‘civility’ in air travel … so why is he doing pull-ups at the airport? | Arwa Mahdawi

10 December 2025 at 17:07

Transport infrastructure in the US is a hot mess – and the guy in charge thinks ‘wellness spaces’ are going to solve the problem

Sean “Dog” Duffy is a legend in the lumberjack world: a three-time world champion in the 90ft lumberjack speed climb who is renowned for his prowess in mounting and rolling big bits of wood. Not just a lumberjack, Duffy also made waves on late-90s reality TV shows The Real World: Boston and Road Rules: All Stars. And now Duffy is parlaying his experience on Road Rules into his role as US transportation secretary.

Duffy has got a lot on his big lumberjack hands: transport infrastructure in the US is, to use the technical term, a hot mess. More than a third of the country’s bridges need major repair work or replacement. There has been little historical investment in railways and the country lags behind the rest of the industrialized world when it comes to high-speed trains. Meanwhile, there’s a chronic air-traffic-controller shortage, which was exacerbated by the recent government shutdown when a number of controllers, fed up with the dysfunctional system, took early retirement.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Heather Diehl/Getty Images

© Photograph: Heather Diehl/Getty Images

© Photograph: Heather Diehl/Getty Images

Impeachment articles filed against RFK Jr., claiming abuse of power

10 December 2025 at 10:11

Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Mich.) filed articles of impeachment against Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Wednesday, accusing him of abusing the powers of his office and undermining public health, putting Americans’ lives at risk.

He “has got to go,” Stevens said in a video announcing the impeachment articles. In an accompanying press statement, she said Kennedy, who rose to prominence as an ardent anti-vaccine activist, “has turned his back on science, on public health, and on the American people—spreading conspiracies and lies, driving up costs, and putting lives at risk.”  She called him the “biggest self-created threat to our health and safety.”

It is very unlikely that an impeachment push will gain traction in the Republican-controlled Congress. No other Democratic lawmakers are backing the articles.

Read full article

Comments

© Getty | Andrew Harnik

American Canto by Olivia Nuzzi review – insufferable filler that sidesteps the real issues

9 December 2025 at 07:00

The reporter’s alleged affair with Robert F Kennedy Jr raises a whole host of questions, few of which get answers in this pretentious memoir

Did he take me seriously?” Olivia Nuzzi wonders in the midst of her infamous alleged affair with Robert F Kennedy Jr. Nuzzi, then Washington correspondent for New York magazine, has just learned that she and the Politician, as she calls RFK Jr in her new book, may overlap during a visit to Mar-a-Lago. Nuzzi, worried Donald Trump will catch on and start spreading rumours, convenes an emergency meeting with the Politician to strategise. RFK Jr – who has denied having an affair with Nuzzi – doesn’t see the big deal.

So, she agonises “Did he take me seriously?” and reflects that she had “little cause to consider the question before now.”

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Stefani Reynolds/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Stefani Reynolds/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Stefani Reynolds/AFP/Getty Images

Without evidence, RFK Jr.’s vaccine panel tosses hep B vaccine recommendation

5 December 2025 at 12:06

Federal vaccine advisors hand-selected by anti-vaccine Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. have voted to eliminate a recommendation that all babies be vaccinated against hepatitis B on the day of birth. The decision was made with no evidence of harm from that dose and no evidence of any benefit from the delay.

Public health experts, medical experts, and even some members of the panel decried the vote, which studies and historical data indicate will lead to more infections in babies that, in turn, will lead to more cases of chronic liver disease, liver cancer, and premature death.

“I will just say we have heard ‘do no harm’ is a moral imperative. We are doing harm by changing this [recommendation],” Cody Meissner, a pediatrician and voting member of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), said as he voted against the change.

Read full article

Comments

© Getty | Tim Clayton

CDC vaccine panel realizes again it has no idea what it’s doing, delays big vote

4 December 2025 at 15:56

The panel of federal vaccine advisors hand-selected by anti-vaccine Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has once again punted on whether to strip recommendations for hepatitis B vaccinations for newborns—a move it tried to make in September before realizing it didn’t know what it was doing. The decision to delay the vote today came abruptly this afternoon when the panel realized it still does not understand the topic or what it was voting on.

Prior to today’s 6–3 vote to delay a decision, there was a swirl of confusion over the wording of what a new recommendation would be. Panel members had gotten three different versions of the proposed recommendation in the 72 hours prior to the meeting, one panelist said. And the meeting’s data presentations this morning offered no clarity on the subject—they were delivered entirely by anti-vaccine activists who have no subject matter expertise and who made a dizzying amount of false and absurd claims.

“Completely inappropriate”

Overall, the meeting was disorganized and farcical. Kennedy’s panel has abandoned the evidence-based framework for setting vaccine policy in favor of airing unvetted presentations with misrepresentations, conspiracy theories, and cherry-picked studies. At times, there were tense exchanges, chaos, confusion, and misunderstandings.

Read full article

Comments

© Getty | Elijah Nouvelage

Meet CDC’s new lead vaccine advisor who thinks shots cause heart disease

2 December 2025 at 12:57

When the federal vaccine committee hand-picked by anti-vaccine Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. meets again this week, it will have yet another new chairperson to lead its ongoing work of dismantling the evidence-based vaccine recommendations set by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

On Monday, the Department of Health and Human Services announced that the chairperson who has been in place since June—when Kennedy fired all 17 expert advisors on the committee and replaced them with questionably qualified allies—is moving to a senior role in the department. Biostatistician Martin Kulldorff will now be the chief science officer for the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE), HHS said. As such, he’s stepping down from the vaccine committee, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP).

Kulldorff gained prominence amid the COVID-19 pandemic, criticizing public health responses to the crisis, particularly lockdowns and COVID-19 vaccines. He was a co-author of the Great Barrington Declaration that advocated for letting the deadly virus spread unchecked through the population, which was called unethical by health experts.

Read full article

Comments

© Getty | Elijah Nouvelage

❌