Episode #55 Deep Dive – "Under-babied and over-medicated"
A deep dive into this week's episode of Paging America
››› Alito extends stay on Fifth Circuit’s mifepristone ruling
As we talked about with Katie Keith on last week’s show, Supreme Court justice Samuel Alito stayed a Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that effectively banned the telehealth prescribing of the abortion pill mifepristone and stopped it from being available at pharmacies. The stay was only until this past Monday and briefs were required by the previous Thursday. On Monday, Alito extended the stay until Thursday of this week so things may have changed by the time you listen to this show. As of now, however, mifepristone remains available by telehealth and at pharmacies.
Strangely, the Trump administration declined to weigh in with a brief of its own.
[T]he Department of Justice, which represents the Food and Drug Administration, did not file anything by the deadline defending the agency’s 2023 rule.
This is notable because the FDA is the actual defendant in the case and the FDA’s power to regulate prescription medicine is a key issue at stake.
“It’s wild that DOJ is taking no position on whether a federal regulation should or should not be blocked for the duration of this case,” said Steve Vladeck, a professor at the Georgetown University Law Center, in a social media post.
››› You can’t fire Marty Makary because HE QUITS!
At the end of last week, it was being reported that Trump was considering firing FDA chief Dr. Marty Makary. Trump was apparently grumpy that Makary dragged his feet on approving fruit-flavored nicotine vapes.
From reporting by The Hill:
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Tuesday approved marketing for four flavored vapes made by the company Glas Inc. in what the agency says is an effort to tamp down on underage use of these products.
The FDA said the products will be age-restricted through the use of age verification with a government-issued ID and Bluetooth connection with one’s smartphone.
This action comes shortly after The Wall Street Journal reported that President Trump had reprimanded FDA Commissioner Marty Makary for not approving flavored vape and nicotine products fast enough.
“By helping to prevent youth use, device access restrictions are a potential game changer,” Bret Koplow, acting director of the FDA’s Center for Tobacco Products, said in a statement.
On Tuesday, before Trump could fire him, Makary resigned. This is from The New York Times:
Dr. Marty Makary, the commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, resigned on Tuesday after weeks of pressure and rumors that President Trump was planning to fire him.
Dr. Makary ultimately left over concerns about the administration’s decision to authorize fruit-flavored e-cigarettes, an action he opposed, according to four people familiar with the matter. Dr. Makary told those close to him that he could not in good conscience approve flavored vapes, given their appeal to young people, and would not do something he did not believe in.
››› Hantavirus outbreak shows failure of US public health system
A deadly outbreak of hantavirus aboard a cruise ship has revealed cracks in public health infrastructure in the US, largely due to massive cuts to HHS. The Andes hantavirus variant can be passed from human to human.
The Americans [aboard the ship] are now back on U.S. soil, and three states are monitoring them; none have shown symptoms so far. That information came on Wednesday — not from the [CDC] or from the State Department…but from the medical news publication MedPage Today…More than four hours after the news emerged, the C.D.C. issued its first public statement about the outbreak…It was only a day earlier, on Tuesday, that the agency had set up a team to respond to the outbreak, nearly a month after the first patient had died. [...]
To some public health experts, the alarming thing about this situation is not the hantavirus… It is that the administration’s sluggish response and lack of communication suggest the United States is ill prepared for a larger health crisis, such as another pandemic.
Days later, The Hill reports, RFK Jr. claimed the U.S. has the hantavirus “under control”, that “we’re not worried about it”, and that “we’ve had CDC teams on it from day one.”
The US left the World Health Organization (WHO) after Trump took office, an organization specifically set up to deal with this type of public health crisis. When asked about it, Trump said he was “glad” to have left the WHO because he believes the U.S. was paying too much into the organization.
The incident also shows the harm DOGE has done to our public health infrastructure.
[The outbreak] brought attention to an eyebrow-raising decision by the Trump administration made almost exactly a year ago. Targeted by sweeping cuts like other agencies as part of Elon Musk’s crusade to gut federal spending, the [CDC] cleared out almost its entire Vessel Sanitation Program, a key group that ensures ships are properly sanitized to prevent them from becoming the type of plague frigate the world is now dealing with.
››› RFK Jr. explored a ban of some widely used antidepressants
In exclusive reporting by Reuters, we are now learning the RFK Jr. is coming after your depression meds:
U.S. health department officials last week explored whether they could ban certain drugs in a widely prescribed class of antidepressants as Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. prepared to roll out a plan to reduce their use, according to two people familiar with the discussions.
Their interest centered on specific treatments within a class known as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, or SSRIs, such as Zoloft, Prozac and Lexapro, which have been available in the U.S. for decades, one of the people said. The sources did not say which drugs were being examined for restrictions or how far the inquiries about them had advanced. [...]
Kennedy has…, without evidence, linked SSRIs to violence, including mass shootings, and said they pose a risk to fetuses when women who are pregnant take them. Kennedy in November said the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was studying whether SSRI therapies contribute to mass violence, but has not provided details on that effort.
HHS says the reporting is “false.’’
The reporting comes as RFK Jr. is rolling out a plan to end what he calls the “overmedicalization” of mental health treatment.
US Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced a plan to reduce “overprescribing” of psychiatric medications and support alternative treatment options and discontinuation of medications when needed.
“Today, we take clear and decisive action to confront our nation’s mental health crisis by addressing the overuse of psychiatric medications, especially among children,” Kennedy said Monday at a MAHA Institute summit on mental health and overmedicalization.
Speaking to The New York Times, Dr. Marketa Wills, the chief executive and medical director of the American Psychiatric Association said, “We may take issue with this blanket ‘overprescribing’ hypothesis that underpins the secretary’s statements. There is probably overprescribing and underprescribing in all parts of medicine, and mental health care is no different. And there are people who still can’t access care at all who need it.”
››› Meanwhile, Kennedy has a secret research effort underway to prove vaccines are dangerous
It was revealed in exclusive reporting by The New York Times that, even as he has toned down his rhetoric about vaccines to appease the White House, RFK Jr. has a sprawling investigation underway to prove his beliefs that vaccines are dangerous:
Working behind the scenes, Mr. Kennedy is spearheading an intense push, across health agencies under his purview, for government scientists and federal data contractors to examine his long-held theory that vaccines are helping to fuel an epidemic of chronic disease, according to multiple people familiar with the effort.
They said the wide-ranging inquiry is a top priority for Mr. Kennedy, who sees vaccines as a “potential culprit” in various neurological and autoimmune disorders, including asthma and allergies. It resurrects research into a number of ideas Mr. Kennedy has espoused, including whether vaccines are linked to autism and whether thimerosal, a preservative that has largely been removed from vaccines in the United States but remains in some flu shots, is dangerous.
The investigation is being led by former Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) member Dr. Martin Kulldoff, now a member of the FDA’s Drug Safety and Risk Management Advisory Committee.
››› Dr. Oz is worried about too many urban babies
At an Oval Office event on Monday to roll out the new government website Moms.gov, a government website for expectant mothers, Dr. Oz made a truly remarkable statement. You can watch the clip HERE.
TRANSCRIPT: “The reality [is] that one in three Americans are under-babied. What does under-babied mean? That means that you either don’t have any children or you have less children than you would normally want to have. We have a crisis that’s causing our fertility rate to drop below 1.5. Replacement rate is 2.1. So, we’re way below what we need just to even replace the people that we have in America.”
Oz seems very worried that brown (”urban area”) people are going to replace white (”rural America”) people. “[O]ne of the challenges is that rural America, where there’s 60 million people, has a maternal mortality rate, when they have babies, that’s about 30 percent higher than if you live in an urban area.”
He also referenced how TrumpRx is bringing down the cost of fertility drugs and how that’s going to help. “For [the cost of fertility drugs] to drop by 90% dramatically changes the equation,” he said. “As the services get better, we make them more affordable, we’ll have more Trump babies.”
He went on to say, “MAHA is probably vital to this effort. You have to get moms healthy enough to do the most creative thing the universe knows, which is making babies.”
RFK Jr. used the event to talk about sperm. “In 1970, men had twice the sperm count as our teenagers do today,” he said. “This is an existential crisis for our country.”
Links for a deeper dive on Episode #55
The Hill: Supreme Court extends pause on abortion pill restrictions through Thursday
NPR: With legal briefs in, Supreme Court weighs telehealth access for the abortion pill
The Hill: FDA approves some flavored vapes after reports of Trump pressure
The New York Times: F.D.A. Commissioner Marty Makary Resigns After Weeks of Pressure
The New York Times: Hantavirus Response Shows How Trump Cuts Have Compromised U.S. Preparedness
The Hill: RFK Jr.: ‘We’re not worried’ about hantavirus spreading after cruise ship outbreak
NBC News: U.S. departure from WHO could hinder hantavirus response
Futurism: The CDC Fired All Its Cruise Ship Inspectors Before the Hantavirus Outbreak
Reuters: Kennedy’s health officials explored US ban of some widely used antidepressants
CNN Health: RFK Jr. launches plan to address ‘overuse’ of psychiatric medications
The New York Times: Kennedy Starts a Push to Help Americans Quit Antidepressants
The New York Times: Kennedy Is Driving a Vast Inquiry Into Vaccines, Despite His Public Silence
Dr. Oz’s “under-babied” comments are HERE
Dr. Oz’s “Trump babies” comments are HERE
PEOPLE: RFK Jr. Says Men in the ‘70s Had Twice as Much Sperm as Teenage Boys Today: ‘Existential Crisis’