> Kennedy's proposal is also very unlikely to work the way he's claimed it would — the birds that provide eggs and meat on farms are descendants of separate breeding populations and do not breed themselves. So even if there were a population of resilient birds that survived H5N1 infection, that doesn't mean they're passing on their genetic traits to a subsequent generation.

Seems like a rather devastating flaw.

If we have learned anything from this administration, even RFK Jr. specifically, is how lazy they are in pushing their agenda.

They published a "report" claiming that vaccines cause autism that was lazily created with ChatGPT that had fake citations, or citations that actively go against what they're saying. Everything in the administration is half-assed.

"Letting the virus spread to pass on the genes" seems like an idea that would come from a conversation when two drunks who are discussing how they'd solve all the world's problems.

There's no reason to put effort into crafting some convincing argument when your audience is predisposed to obey. This obedience to dictatorial authority is the great asymmetry between parties.

They are fundamentally absolute fucking goofballs.

This administration is the best argument for DEI I’ve ever seen in my life, if it had anything to do with avoiding this.

Just the other day, RFK’s top vaccine nutjob (new chair of ACIP, Robert Malone) tweeted something to suggest that the Amish’s existence despite waves of infectious disease and ~no~ low vaccination is evidence that vaccines aren’t necessary.

Apparently ignorant[0] of the fact that the Amish are notoriously cloistered and isolated from the rest of society.

[0] By “ignorant” I don’t mean “has never heard the idea,” but that the degree of motivated reasoning has rendered his mind actually incapable of integrating this fact — like many others — into his world view. I’m drawing this distinction because I don’t think this is a matter of smart people pretending to believe stupid things. They are actually, at rock bottom, very stupid people, rendered such by their own ideological commitments if nothing else.

"no vaccination" is incorrect. The Amish do have lower vaccination rates than the general population, but many do vaccinate.

In the spirit of HN I will only point out here this fact: RFK Jr's attack book on Fauci was extremely poorly produced. Specifically, the text rolled up to the top and bottom edges of the pages as well as the sides. As a bookseller this was a big red flag for me: either the book was poorly self-published, or no-one big (and sometimes reputable) wanted to publish it, and it looked like they were trying to save paper and ink. Also, it has an inordinate amount of footnotes which makes it very difficult to imagine a person following them all. I didn't read the book. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58063409-the-real-anthon... 4.49/5.0 on Goodreads with 8.5K reviews.

[edit]: misspelled "imagine"

babymetal states "the text rolled up to the top and bottom edges of the pages as well as the sides. As a bookseller this was a big red flag for me: either the book was poorly self-published, or no-one big (and sometimes reputable) wanted to publish it, and it looked like they were trying to save paper and ink."

Also babymetal admits he didn't read the book. How can anything he says of the book be trusted?

I read the book. Actually there are two stories in the book, the first mostly about Fauci and COVID-19 and the second about Fauci and AIDS. FWIW I'm glad RFK is in power now.

It's not meant to be read. The people who produced it don't care what's inside, only that the book exists. The book existing is enough for the target audience to accept that there are valid arguments within. The target audience does not need to read the book, they've already been told what they need to know.

The producers and the audience prefer it that way. It's less effort for everyone involved.

As an animal rights activist, this will do wonders for the movement. As chicken farms become unprofitable due to all the birds dying, prices will go up. This gives people like me an edge to talk about alternatives. We already do this with egg alternatives due to the increases in egg prices. Hopefully companies like JUST Egg can capitalize on this.

> become unprofitable due to all the birds dying

Isn't this just switching from, if you detect any infections you're required to kill your flock, to if you have any infections your flock will die of illness? Your flock is still dead either way.

I'm not sure what's going to happen here, but I'm never going to be eating "JUST Eggs"(tm). Sorry.

I'd like to see a world where animals are treated better though. I don't really understand why food and food production has to be so shit.

It's cheaper, and most shoppers aren't willing to pay enough extra to cover better treatment. (It's not the shoppers' fault that most of the labels aren't very meaningful? Well no, that means it's not cost-effective to ensure people are aware of that.)

Won't this put the price of eggs way, way in the opposite direction to what Trump wants them to go?

It risks the entire local US chicken / egg production industry. They'd have to re-onshore it.

I guess what does he care... he's vegan, right?

He is not a vegan. Here's him drinking raw milk recently: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/PzSe0z6gH0M

>eugenics but for chickens

So... animal husbandry?

The same for every species that has been domesticated. Corn, horses, dogs, even yeast.

This even happens to species we don’t intend to practice “eugenics” on. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vavilovian_mimicry

Too bad about the human race though, I guess.

It's actually impressive that Trump managed to appoint the absolute worst possible person to be Secretary of Health and Human Services.

I know nothing about biology, I know that I know nothing, so if someone decided for whatever reason to appoint me to the position it would be fairly harmless because I would defer extremely heavily to people who actually know about this stuff.

If he had appointed someone with proper medical or biological training, that would be fine because they actually know about stuff and can make informed decisions.

RFK Jr. is the absolute worst person because he thinks he knows a lot about biology, but he actually knows nothing, and is largely informed by a lot of conspiratorial nonsense, meaning he has the potential to cause a lot of irreparable to the US healthcare system. He's not going to defer to actual expertise, he's going to defer to idiotic blog posts filled with anecdotes about how a friend of a friend of theirs got a vaccine and it was bad.

I cannot imagine that this attempt at chicken eugenics will work as intended. I suspect that if this were a good idea, it would have been tried already.

I'm convinced very little of these folks beliefs are anything more than pantomimed poll results. Oh look at me I'm anti establishment, opposing those that made you wear masks during COVID. Whatever polls well there gives you a lifelong set of supporters.

“Worst possible person” isn’t accurate but “worst person ever in the role” probably is.

Within some degree of reason I think it still holds. Yes, if you actively appointed a doomsday cult leader who wants to exterminate the human race, then that would be worse, but that kind of feels like a contrived example.

Within the scope of "people who would realistically actually be appointed", he is the absolute worst case scenario.

Picking the absolute worst person for a particular job is Trump’s MO. Trump selects for either compromised individuals, or people with an ax to grind against the organization they are appointed to head. The reason is because compromised people are going to be dependent on his good graces, and hence absolutely loyal to him personally.

> defer extremely heavily to people who actually know about this stuff.

in a system with high regulatory capture, you would be defering your power to the industry's interests.

"The experts work in the industry they are experts in" does not necessarily mean the experts are bringing incorrect information, or that the outsiders have better information.

Which would still be better than defunding all our scientific research and telling people to eat Five Guys fries because they're fried with beef tallow.

Appointing a know-nothing conspiracy theorist doesn't have that exact issue, yes … but in a way where the cure is significantly worse than the disease.

You can cultivate state capacity and independent expertise to reduce regulatory capture, not replace it with a kakistocracy where regulatory capture is instead by woo-woo morons.

This is one of the most darkly funny things I have read this week. Just want in the fuck is going on.

Hey! I'm American and I think RFK Jr. is a moron and a dangerous person to give power with anything involving human health.

Trump has never had a majority of the votes, just a plurality. The majority of voters did not want this.

I would argue the majority of voters did actually want this. Anyone who voted third party in the presidential race was at the very least fine with this. By not casting a vote for the only person who could possibly defeat Trump, Trump became our President.

They got to keep their ideological purity though. I guess that will keep them warm at night when it's their turn to get rounded up.

I think a lot of people, for reasons that will forever remain unclear to me, didn’t genuinely think Trump would do any of the stuff he said he would do. I heard a lot of people say that he wasn’t serious about tariffs for example.

But I don’t want to pretend I understand what compels people to vote for people that I don’t like. Maybe the majority of people really did want to have RFK Jr. in charge all of our health stuff.

2024 voting-eligible population: 244.6M Voted for Trump: 77.3M Voted for Harris: 75M Voted for other candidates: 2.6M Eligible to vote, but didn't vote: 90M

Unfortunately, the largest constituency continues to be the "can't be fucked to vote" party.

While I don't really agree with political assassinations, and you are likely to get flagged for this, it's not like the US government hasn't done similar stuff to leaders that we thought were harmful.

The CIA tried to kill Castro a bunch of times [1], presumably because they felt that him being in power was harmful and killing him was a net good. It's not like this kind of stuff is unprecedented.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_assassination_attempts_on_...