Martin Michaelis (he/him)How can anyone consider voting for a party that spreads #misinformation? Abandoning #facts and #evidence is a straight route into disaster and will cause deaths. Please read up on #Lysenkoism, if you do not believe this. #ReformUK #Democracy #PostTruth
Levka"Cancelling mRNA studies is the highest irresponsibility
The rest of the world is not following the US government’s dangerous path, and will stick with the technology that helped the world out of the COVID-19 pandemic.
A technology that played a key part in saving millions of lives during the COVID-19 pandemic1 should be feted to the skies. Instead, US health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr announced last week that the US federal government is terminating 22 grants worth nearly US$500 million for projects researching messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccines.
This is the technology that, in his first term (2017–21), US President Donald Trump included in Operation Warp Speed: the federal government’s $18-billion programme to procure COVID-19 vaccines for US populations in record time2. It is also the technology that is showing potential for treating cancers3, autoimmune diseases and inherited conditions such as sickle cell disease. But now, in a statement accompanying the grant cancellations, Kennedy stated that 'these vaccines fail to protect effectively against upper respiratory infections like COVID and flu'. And in an article for The Washington Post, Jay Bhattacharya, director of the US National Institutes of Health, wrote that mRNA technology 'failed to earn the public’s trust', which fuelled vaccine hesitancy.
Shock and disbelief does not even begin to describe the reaction from mRNA and public-health researchers. The Alliance for mRNA Medicines, which represents companies and universities, said in a statement: 'Secretary Kennedy’s unscientific and misguided vilification of mRNA technology and cancellation of grants is the epitome of cutting off your nose to spite your face.'
True words. Yet this announcement is not unexpected. Kennedy’s views on vaccination are well known, and outside the research consensus. As Nature’s news team and others have reported for months, the Trump administration is busy removing independent specialists and replacing them with political appointments in many cases. This has happened in science and public-policy domains including health, economic statistics and the environment.
Often, where the world’s one-time science superpower has led, others have keenly followed. But not in this instance. There is no queue of countries lining up to adopt the Kennedy doctrine. One reason is that most countries appreciate that the mRNA manufacturing platform can be repurposed for different uses. Predicting how many vaccines to stockpile for an emergency has always been a huge headache for governments, as has been the cost of keeping manufacturing facilities open when they are not in use. With mRNA, when a platform isn’t being used to make vaccines, it will not just sit idle, racking up costs, but instead has the potential to be used to manufacture other therapeutics."
"US health secretary and vaccine sceptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr has called for the retraction of a Danish study that found no link between aluminium in vaccines and chronic diseases in children — a rare move for a US public official. Aluminium has been used for almost a century to enhance the immune system’s response to some vaccines. But some people claim the ingredient is linked to rising rates of childhood disorders such as autism.
Public-health officials in Kennedy’s position rarely request that studies be retracted, says Ivan Oransky, a specialist in academic publishing and co-founder of the media organization Retraction Watch. Through this request, 'Secretary Kennedy has demonstrated that he wants the scientific literature to bend to his will', says Oransky."
Norbert_R 🦣
🐘#SGU #TheSkepticsGuideToTheUniverse
The Skeptics Guide #1039 - Jun 7 2025
Interview with #EmilySchoerning; Quickie with Bob: #Prepping for Q-Day; News Items: #Seed_Oils, Lead into #Gold, American #Lysenkoism, The #Screwworm is Coming, Galactic #Collision; Who's That #Noisy; Your Questions and E-mails: Dream Learning; #Science or Fiction
Webseite der Episode: https://www.theskepticsguide.org/podcast/sgu
Mediendatei: https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/skepticsguide/skepticast2025-06-07.mp3
csThe Soviet Era's Deadliest Scientist Is Regaining Popularity in Russia
Trofim Lysenko’s spurious research prolonged famines that killed millions. So why is a fringe movement praising his legacy?
By Sam Kean (2017)
#Lysenkoism
“Make America Healthy Again”: The new #Lysenkoism | Science-Based Medicine
https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/make-america-healthy-again-the-new-lysenkoism/
kravietz 🦇A live example[^1] why I like the #Lysenkoism reference[^2] to #MAGA even more:
Kennedy recently told Fox News that by letting the highly pathogenic bird flu spread through flocks, farmers could “identify the birds, and preserve the birds, that are immune to it.”
What RFK says is an obvious reference to the pseudo-scientific social darwinism[^3], an idea that is very popular among rich MAGA supporters because it explains why they are rich. What we see here is an unintentionally ironic transposition of the social darwinism from the society onto other aspects of civilisation, in this case food industry.
Why ironic? Because there’s nothing further from the biological evolution than the mass poultry farms, which are one of the primary targets - and causes - of zoonotic diseases such as the bird flu. If RFK actually understood what he’s talking about, he would simply call for letting all the millions of birds free so that they can combat the disease on their own. But then the problem of bird flu would solve itself simply because one of its primary causes is overcrowding and poor sanitary conditions in the arms.
What we’re now seeing in statements like RFK is a really bizarre mix of distorted ideas from actual science, happily mixed and filtered through arbitrary religious beliefs. That is literally what Lysenkoism was all about, except Marxism-Leninism took over the role of religion there.
[^2]: https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/make-america-healthy-again-the-new-lysenkoism/
How pseudo-science drives out science when powered by quasi-religious ideology? This is a very good long-read about the similarities between 1920’s #Lysenkoism and today’s #MAHA movement.
https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/make-america-healthy-again-the-new-lysenkoism/
On a personal note, in early 2000’s I got interested in #Marxism specifically through Lysenkoism - I simply couldn’t believe how apparently educated people could, for a quarter of century, aggressively push pseudo-scientific nonsense that visibly contradicted the physical, observed reality. This article explains very well how that happened, and how it’s happening again.
Doug Bostrom"...in the process of airing the administration's grievances, the document specifically calls out a Smithsonian display for accurately describing our current scientific understanding of race. That raises the prospect that the vice president will ultimately demand that the Smithsonian display scientifically inaccurate information."
Marc SomssichIf you need some inspiration, have a look at this article by #PlantTransformation pioneer Csaba Koncz about the great #PlantScience Legend, Hungarian 🇭🇺 György Pál Rédei:
"Dedication: George P. Rédei - Arabidopsis Geneticist and Polymath"
Rédei fled communism & #Lysenkoism & created the Col-0 line.
Dedication: George P. Rédei Ar...
Dedication: George P. Rédei Ar...