Topic: Health Care
“Exceptions for individuals who are already predisposed to require medical treatment (for example, HIV positive or suffering from gender dysphoria) should be removed, and those with gender dysphoria should be expelled from military service.”
Yikes. It’s interesting that he specifically sites HIV and gender dysphoria (gotta cover the homophobic and transphobic bases, I suppose.) “Requiring ongoing medical treatment” applies to people with cancer, lupus, diabetes, arthritis, asthma, pregnancy, and so much more. It’s also important to note that military leadership does not support removing transgender individuals from their ranks.
Full contextual analysis of Section 2.1: Department of Defense here.
“Under the Trump Administration, USAID focused on ending the need for foreign aid by placing countries onto a Journey to Self-Reliance. The Administration restructured the agency to reflect this strategic approach to development, streamlined procurement procedures to diversify its partner base, increased awards to cost-effective local (including faith-based) organizations, and improved internal governance. It instituted pro-life and family-friendly policies. It promoted international religious freedom as a pillar of the agency’s work and built up an unprecedented genocide-response infrastructure.”
This requires some nuance to fully explain. Visit the link below for full context and an unpacking of this statement.
Full contextual analysis of Section 2.6: Agency for International Development here.
“The Biden Administration has deformed the agency by treating it as a global platform to pursue overseas a divisive political and cultural agenda that promotes abortion, climate extremism, gender radicalism, and interventions against perceived systemic racism.”
This is a grotesquely exaggerated and partisan interpretation of reality. Yes, the Biden administration rescinded the disastrous Mexico City Policy. (And it should be noted here that USAID still follows U.S. federal law, which prohibits using federal funds directly for abortions in most cases and has since 1973 – see the Helms Amendment.)
Full contextual analysis of Section 2.6: Agency for International Development here.
“In addition, the next conservative Administration should rescind President Biden’s 2022 Gender Policy and refocus it on Women, Children, and Families and revise the agency’s regulation on “Integrating Gender Equality and Female Empowerment in USAID’s Program Cycle.” It should remove all references, examples, definitions, photos, and language on USAID websites, in agency publications and policies, and in all agency contracts and grants that include the following terms: “gender,” “gender equality,” “gender equity,” “gender diverse individuals,” “gender aware,” “gender sensitive,” etc. It should also remove references to “abortion,” “reproductive health,” and “sexual and reproductive rights” and controversial sexual education materials.”
Apparently, he’s taking a page from Russ Vought’s book where he appears to believe that if you don’t say the words that talk about a thing, then that thing ceases to exist. I touch on that in Section 1.2, but suffice it to say, this is not a policy position grounded in reality. Moreover, the term “reproductive health” is radical to him? That’s not the position of a normal person. Henceforth, I will be referring to this phenomenon as the “Bruno Strategy,” because?
Full contextual analysis of Section 2.6: Agency for International Development here.
“The continued high rate of maternal and infant mortality is a persistent global tragedy. Contrary to current publicity, this problem is not solved by abortion.”
Literally nobody is arguing that abortion “solves” maternal and infant mortality. This is, quite frankly, an insane statement. Fact: Maternal mortality in the U.S. far outstrips that of other industrialized nations (nearly three times that of France, which is the next highest.) [Source]
“The reasons for mortality are manifold. Most cases are due to inadequate medical care or obstetric care. Complications often occur as early as during pregnancy and the risk of death for mothers and their babies increases during the delivery due to a lack of professional help on site. A lack of education and poor nutrition also increase the risk of mortality.” [Source]
Additionally, the CDC found that more than 80% of pregnancy-related deaths in the U.S. were preventable. I recognize that this feels like a digression from Primorac’s original statement, but I’m unclear on how to effectively counter outright insanity.
Full contextual analysis of Section 2.6: Agency for International Development here.
“HHS is home to Medicare and Medicaid, the principal drivers of our $31 trillion national debt.”
Are Medicare and Medicaid really the principal drivers of our national debt? Only when you combine them. Social Security by itself is the largest driver, followed by the interest on the national debt, followed by the military, health spending, and Medicare, who are all tied at around 13% of our total spending. (Social Security is 22%, net interest is 14%.) [Source] Veterans’ benefits and services account for 5%.
This statement is laying the groundwork for the writer to argue for cuts to these programs.
Full contextual analysis of Section 3: The General Welfare here.
“All along, it was clear from randomized controlled trials – the gold standard of medical research – that masks provide little to no benefit in preventing the spread of viruses and might even be counterproductive.”
This is an outright lie. Study after study after credible study has proven that masks help control the spread of viruses. There’s a reason that surgeons and doctors have been wearing them for decades. But fair enough – if you refuse to believe the CDC or the NIH, here’s a Mayo Clinic Study9, a study from PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America10, an article from Yale Medicine that essentially says make your own choices, but wearing a mask in public indoor spaces is the smart thing to do11 if you’re at risk, an article from Johns Hopkins12, and an article from UCSF13, all in support of masking up. The UCSF article goes into the science behind it.
From the PNAS study:
“The preponderance of evidence indicates that mask wearing reduces transmissibility per contact by reducing transmission of infected respiratory particles in both laboratory and clinical contexts. Public mask wearing is most effective at reducing spread of the virus when compliance is high.”
I’m not sure what the endgame of lying about the efficacy of masks is, given the overwhelming evidence to the contrary, but I suspect something akin to “freedom.” To which I say, you’re being asked to wear a mask, not a Nickelback T-shirt. Suck it up and be part of the solution, not part of the problem.
Full contextual analysis of Section 3: The General Welfare here.
“Severino writes of the National Institutes of Health, “Despite its popular image as a benign science agency, NIH was responsible for paying for research in aborted baby body parts, human animal chimera experiments”—in which the genes of humans and animals are mixed, “and gain-of-function viral research that may have been responsible for COVID-19.”
Yes, the NIH has historically funded research involving fetal tissue from elective abortions (and with consent only after an abortion was already chosen – there are ethical constructs in place.) It’s a subject of debate, but it has also contributed to advances in vaccines, treatments for various diseases, and understanding human development. The Trump administration put restrictions on this in 2019, and the Biden administration lifted them again in 2021. Specific advancements we’ve made from the use of fetal tissue in research and development have included the polio vaccine, the rubella vaccine, and the hepatitis A vaccine, which was derived from a fetus aborted in the 1960’s, as was the rubella vaccine. Also Adenovirus, chicken pox, Ebola, rabies, and shingles vaccines. [Source] The rubella vaccine has prevented literal millions of birth defects and fetal deaths worldwide, and rubella is the leading vaccine-preventable cause of birth defects.
Additionally, fetal tissue has helped us study how congenital disabilities occur, given us insight into HIV/AIDS, and may eventually provide treatments for blindness, spinal cord injuries, neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s, Zika virus, and more. Fetal tissue has also been used as a source of stem cells, which can develop into a wide variety of tissues, which has broad implications for regenerative medicine and gene therapy, potentially treating osteoarthritis, heart disease, diabetes, and certain types of cancer. [Source]
The NIH has also funded some research involving the mixing of human cells with animals, typically to study diseases or develop therapies. They’re referred to as “chimera” experiments. A prominent example of these is the creation of “human-pig chimeras”, which involves injecting human cells into pig embryos, aiming to grow organs like hearts or kidneys that can be transplanted into humans without being rejected due to their partially human cell composition. This is focused on organ shortage issues – a truly pro-life policy.
We have no definitive proof yet of where COVID-19 originated (and how), so the author has no reason to speculate that it had something to do with gain-of-function research.
Full contextual analysis of Section 3: The General Welfare here.
“If the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) were a separate country, its approximately $1.6 trillion budget would rank as the world’s fifth-largest national budget.”
,p>Is this true? More or less. The HHS budget is slightly higher now. [Source for the country rankings]
Full contextual analysis of Section 3.5: Department of Health and Human Services here.
“Under President Trump, HHS was dedicated to serving “all Americans from conception to natural death, including those individuals and families who face…economic and social well-being challenges.”
WOW. The ellipsis is his, by the way, not mine. “We even cared about the poors!” The notion that the Trump administration cared about any Americans’ health and well-being is not supported by any evidence. There is, however, an abundance of evidence to the contrary. Under Trump:
- More than 450,000 Americans are dead from COVID-19, in part because of his lying and mishandling of it. COVID-19 mortality in the U.S. was 40% higher than the average of the other wealthy nations in the G7.
- Life expectancy fell by 1.13 years, the biggest decrease since World War II.
- Regulatory rollbacks resulted in 22,000 excess deaths from such hazards in 2019 alone.
- Trump pushed through a $1.9 trillion tax cut for the wealthy, creating a budget hole that he then used to justify cutting food and housing assistance for the needy.
- He tried, but failed, to repeal the ACA, then made every effort to undermine it, pushing up the number of uninsured Americans by 2.3 million.
- He denied entry to refugees fleeing violence, abused immigrant detainees, and penalized immigrants for accessing basic social services.
Full contextual analysis of Section 3.5: Department of Health and Human Services here.