Webisode 57DHYAFZZFLHU March 23 2026    Potential Anti Vaccine Influencers as SG or CDC Chief

In this Webisode      1 United States    Potential Anti Vaccine Influencers          RAWSEP View        Casey Means and or the Next CDC chief possibly Ernie Fletcher  Daniel Edney or Joseph Marine  are or will be vetted soon        2 United States        Under the Trump administration  I have never seen an agency that is responsible for the health of 3 hundred forty million Americans be so willy nilly     RAWSEP View   Under the Biden Administration we relied on the CDC to develop and distribute COVID vaccines and the CDC accomplished that goal  thereby saving millions of lives  The CDC also encouraged the public to wear masks before a vaccine was available thereby saving many more lives       3 United States      Get an Electric Vehicle and You Can Stop Worrying About Five Dollar Gas     RAWSEP View      This article does not address the fact that Electric Vehicles are typically at least 6 thousand dollars than gas power vehicles in 2026 and Electric Vehicle rebates have been withdrawn by the Trump Administration      Individuals may want to buy an Electric Vehicle but it may be beyond their individual means now although there can be cost savings over time by using an electric vehicle         4 United States       Vertical Farms Tried to Compete With Open Field Farming    It Is not Going Well    The industry was a darling of the venture capital world ten years ago    With many farms out of business the remaining companies have scaled back           French Far Right Falls Short of Statement Win in Yardstick Local Races      The Far Right of France hoped for major gains in the Sunday municipal elections a key bellwether moment before a presidential election next year    Its results were mixed         5 United States      Top News    Iran      Israel      New York City      Airports      France      Denmark      Gas Prices       6 The Russian war against Ukraine     Ukrainian drones killing Russian troops faster than Moscow can replace them drone commander says    7 The Russian War against Ukraine       Fico backs Orban considers joining Hungary in blocking ninety billion EU loan for Ukraine    Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico said that Slovakia could consider blocking a ninety billion euro EU loan for Ukraine in the future while defending the Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban opposition to the measure      Main Content

1 United States    Potential Anti Vaccine Influencers          RAWSEP View        Casey Means and or the Next CDC chief possibly Ernie Fletcher  Daniel Edney or Joseph Marine  are or will be vetted soon        Excerpts edited for brevity and clarity by Residents Against Wood Smoke Emission Particulates a 501C3 nonprofit organization       KFF Newsletter Headlines      The Washington Post The Casey Means Surgeon General Bid Stalls With Key GOP Votes Uncertain      The nascent Make America Healthy Again movement got one of its biggest wins last spring Casey Means was selected to be the top doctor in the nation    But more than 10 months later the controversial surgeon general pick has yet to assume the position advising Americans on how to improve their health    Her nomination has stalled as some Republicans question her stance on vaccines her medical credentials and her pushes against the medical establishment    Weber and Roubein  March 23 2026      The Washington Post The CDC Next Chief Will Face Thorny Vaccine Politics    Here Are 3 Potential Picks    The White House may pick a former governor a state health director or a cardiologist who has been critical of repeated coronavirus boosters to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention    Former Kentucky governor Ernie Fletcher Mississippi health director Daniel Edney and Johns Hopkins cardiologist Joseph Marine are being considered to lead the preeminent public health agency in the nation according to several administration officials and others familiar with the discussions who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter    Sun Diamond and Roubein March 22 2026    2 United States        Under the Trump administration  I have never seen an agency that is responsible for the health of 3 hundred forty million Americans be so willy nilly     RAWSEP View   Under the Biden Administration we relied on the CDC to develop and distribute COVID vaccines and the CDC accomplished that goal  thereby saving millions of lives  The CDC also encouraged the public to wear masks before a vaccine was available thereby saving many more lives     Excerpts edited for brevity and clarity by Residents Against Wood Smoke Emission Particulates a 501C3 nonprofit organization       The New York Times      March 23  2026            I am an ER doc so I handle stress pretty well    But this was like being in a mass disaster nonstop for eight months    I do not think it is well understood that we are not going to see the outcomes of all of this until Trump is long gone     Forty three current and former CDC employees on the changes they say are replacing science with ideology and making Americans more vulnerable    Almost as soon as he recaptured the White House President elect Trump announced that he was choosing RFK Junior to lead the Department of Health and Human Services    Kennedy who had amassed a substantial following while spreading falsehoods about vaccines first through his nonprofit Children Health Defense and then through his Make America Healthy Again movement or MAHA endorsed Trump after ending his own presidential bid    Trump promised to let him go wild on health    Since his confirmation in February 2025 Kennedy has taken particular aim at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention a federal agency charged with safeguarding the public health of the nation    At least twenty four hundred employees or eighteen percent of the CDC staff have been fired or have resigned since January 2025    The CDC  which comprises more than twenty centers focused on a wide range of public health issues including infectious diseases food borne illness substance abuse and violence prevention  During the coronavirus pandemic the CDC who oversaw it put masks on our children and closed schools      Kennedy wants to move large parts of the agency to a new entity the Administration for a Healthy America while leaving the CDC to focus on monitoring infectious diseases    The reporter interviewed more than 40 people who work at the CDC or who left during the Trump second term    Many of them acknowledge that the initial Covid response of the CDC fell short    Its labs failed to develop reliable diagnostic tests its communications were confusing and sometimes contradictory and its disease surveillance efforts struggled to stay ahead of the spread of the virus    But they say that the CDC has made significant strides in the years since    Now they argue agency scientists are being sidelined political appointees are taking charge and a vital public health institution is being remade into a vehicle for ideologues    In June Kennedy fired all 17 voting members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices or ACIP a group of doctors and scientists that meets several times a year to develop vaccine recommendations for the nation and largely replaced them with people who share his views    The former CDC director Susan Monarez says she was fired for refusing to approve any changes to vaccine recommendations without first seeing the scientific evidence behind them    Monarez was the only permanent director to lead the agency in the past year    She lasted just 29 days    No one has yet been nominated to succeed her    May 20 to 27 2025 The F   D   A    commissioner Martin Makary and Vinay Prasad the director of the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research published a new framework for coronavirus vaccines in The New England Journal of Medicine indicating that only certain groups people over 65 and others with health conditions that put them at a higher risk for severe illness should receive the shot    A week later in a video posted on X Kennedy announced that the United States would no longer recommend coronavirus vaccines for healthy children or healthy pregnant women    The announcements upended longstanding public health norms Neither the secretary nor the commissioner had consulted with CDC scientists and ACIP had not held any public hearings on the changes    They also contradicted one another Kennedy said that healthy pregnant women should not receive the vaccine Makary and Prasad indicated that they should    Fiona Havers former medical epidemiologist in the respiratory viruses division wrote Our data shows clearly that children younger than 2 who get Covid are vulnerable    Their immune systems and lungs are not fully developed and their Covid hospitalization rates continue to be high even when they are otherwise healthy    The people at FDA used my data but lumped all 0  to 4 year olds together to say that for healthy kids the risks from Covid are low    They missed all the nuance    Debra Houry former chief medical officer wrote I saw a note from one of the RFK  junior policy directors saying You know pregnancy should not be on the website as a risk factor for Covid    And I thought I ca not change science for you    Demetre C    Daskalakis former director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases wrote I was sitting in a meeting of CDC leadership and my phone started to buzz with messages saying Did you see the changes to the childhood vaccine schedule ? I did not know what they were talking about and the childhood vaccine schedule lives under my center    The political appointees told us to change the schedule based on the RFK Junior video    I told them that if it is a secretarial directive to put it on paper    They promised to send supporting documents    We got two pages that differed from what the video said    The video said that no healthy kids or healthy pregnant women should get the vaccine for Covid    The memo said that no healthy children and no pregnant women period should get the vaccine    We had no idea what the justification was because our own data did not support those statements    I went through the general counsel at CDC and HHS trying to get additional data and they flat out refused to share it    We had let all the organizations that previously endorsed the schedule the Infectious Diseases Society of America the American Academy of Pediatrics and so on know that we were going to temporarily remove their names and would reach out to see if they wanted to be added back once they saw the changes    When they saw the changes every one of them said No thank you    June 9 to 25  2025 Kennedy fired all 17 voting members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices  claiming that they were a rubber stamp for industry profit taking agendas    A few days later he announced eight replacements most of whom were outspoken vaccine skeptics    The fired committee members and the relevant CDC directors found out about the changes through word of mouth or on social media    At their first meeting the newly installed advisory committee rescinded recommendations for any flu vaccines that contained the preservative thimerosal  without consulting staff scientists or inviting them to speak about it    Agency scientists had posted a report on ACIP web pages summarizing the evidence that shows thimerosal to be safe    Political appointees at the CDC quickly ordered that the report be removed    The committee would go on to change several additional vaccine recommendations including for the coronavirus hepatitis B and MMRVmeasles mumps rubella and varicella without consulting agency staff members    November 20 2025 The CDC altered its webpage on vaccines and autism    The header of the autism page still read Vaccines do not cause autism    But a new statement above it said The claim vaccines do not cause autism is not an evidence based claim because studies have not ruled out the possibility that infant vaccines cause autism    A footnote explained that an agreement with the Senate Committee on Health Education Labor and Pensions prevented officials from changing the header of the page     People can now point to the CDC website when spreading false information    And we all worry that by coopting the CDC webpage RFK Junio will ultimately pollute the algorithms that guide people online now    AI might not be able to sort the evidence based stuff from the trash    Vaccine specialist We have really worked to get across the message that you can still trust CDC scientists even if you cannot trust the agency    But that is a hard message to convey    Nothing I have worked on at a scientific level has been interfered with by our agency    But obviously the public is not reading what we publish in The Lancet or The New England Journal of Medicine    It is our public communications that the public turns to and that is what is been hijacked    March 16 2026     A federal judge temporarily halted the RFK Junior reconstitution of ACIP and the changes he made to the childhood vaccine schedule in January saying that Kennedy had violated the Administrative Procedure Act which governs how policy changes are evaluated and executed    The judge called the RFK Junior changes to vaccine recommendations arbitrary and capricious and noted that only six of ACIP 15 panelists appear to have any meaningful experience in vaccines the very focus of ACIP     This is a major victory but it is also temporary    ACIP and policy by decree are only two of several levers including regulatory processes and insurance programs that Kennedy can use to undermine vaccine access and uptake    As long as he is in charge of HHS vaccines will not be safe    Abby Tighe former public health adviser in the division of overdose prevention I do not think it is well understood that we are not going to see the outcomes of all of this until Trump is long gone    We are setting ourselves up for a generation of problems that we do not have to have    It is so hard to convey to people that just because you can access vaccines right now for yourself and your kids does not mean that your grandchildren will definitely have them   3 United States      Get an Electric Vehicle and You Can Stop Worrying About Five Dollar Gas     RAWSEP View      This article does not address the fact that Electric Vehicles are typically at least 6 thousand dollars than gas power vehicles in 2026 and Electric Vehicle rebates have been withdrawn by the Trump Administration      Individuals may want to buy an Electric Vehicle but it may be beyond their individual means now although there can be cost savings over time by using an electric vehicle         PM 2 point 5 from wood burning is not a greenhouse gas and is not a fossil fuel emission    But Wood burning emits 2 point 8 times the PM 2 point 5 and CO2 as the fossil fuel coal burning and wood burning emits 450 times the PM 2 point 5 as the fossil fuel natural gas burning     Wood burning emissions of PM 2 point 5 and CO2 also contribute to climate change     Top Excerpt      In reality all emissions matter    They accumulate in the atmosphere so every polluting emission whether PM 2 point 5 or CO2 makes the earth a little warmer    And anything you can do to reduce your emissions makes the problem a little easier to solve    How to motivate individuals to take individual responsibility and stop wood burning is the concern of Residents Against Wood Smoke Emission Particulates        Excerpts edited for brevity and clarity by Residents Against Wood Smoke Emission Particulates a 501C3 nonprofit organization       The New York Times       March 23 2026      War in the Middle East is once again exposing the downsides of our addiction to oil and gas    Transportation and electricity costs are soaring for ordinary families while multinational oil giants and Vladimir Putin reap windfalls    Then add in the usual planet heating greenhouse gas emissions    Understandably five dollar a gallon gasoline and other fallouts from the energy crisis are inspiring calls for America to reduce its dependence on fossil fuels    And though it has become unfashionable to say so individual Americans can also change our expensive and destructive gas guzzling ways    Yes the Trump attacks on electric vehicles renewable power and fuel efficiency rules are awful    But nobody is really stopping you from buying electric vehicles installing solar panels or using less fuel    Fossil fuel combustion is a form of atmospheric litter but for most Americans it is not yet uncool to create carbon pollution    And it is hard to imagine how to guilt or shame or even educate enough of them into going green without political change    But it is also hard to imagine how the modern green movement can persuade enough people to support political action to fight the climate crisis while simultaneously assuring them that their personal contributions to the crisis do not really matter    In reality all emissions matter    They accumulate in the atmosphere so every tank of gasoline cross country flight and fossil fueled load of laundry makes the earth a little warmer    And anything you can do to reduce your emissions makes the problem a little easier to solve once we collectively decide we want to solve it    Maybe if five dollar gas can inspire more individual Americans to change our leaders will eventually follow   4 United States       Vertical Farms Tried to Compete With Open Field Farming    It Is not Going Well    The industry was a darling of the venture capital world ten years ago    With many farms out of business the remaining companies have scaled back           Excerpts edited for brevity and clarity by Residents Against Wood Smoke Emission Particulates a 501C3 nonprofit organization       The New York Times        March 23 2026       Vertical farming businesses blossomed a decade ago promising an abundant cleaner source of fruits and vegetables    Today most of those start ups have withered    Constructed in opaque buildings like warehouses vertical farms resemble sterile manufacturing facilities more than farms    Crops are grown in trays stacked to the ceiling fed with hydroponic or aeroponic systems    Plants are bathed in white and purple LED lights to maximize photosynthesis    Owners of vertical farms once talked about their industry in almost messianic terms as a climate friendly solution to the ills they said plagued modern farming pesticide use water overconsumption long  distance trucking and labor exploitation    By the late twenty tens Silicon Valley was on board investing billions of dollars in companies promising to remake agriculture    Now that venture capital funding has gone up in flames most prominently the 9 hundred thirty eight million dollars raised by Bowery Farming and 7 hundred ninety two million dollars by App Harvest which are out of business    Just three years ago twenty three companies signed on to a Vertical Farming Manifesto and committed to goals like transforming food systems for the benefit of people and the planet    Today fewer than ten are in business    The farms and their investors were not fully prepared for what they would encounter in the agriculture industry where margins are already thin    New high tech vertical farms had to elbow their way into produce markets dominated by extremely efficient traditional farms    Any perceived edge that vertical farms may have had eroded when energy costs rose    Higher interest rates tightened the purse strings of venture capital firms and made it tougher for farms to get access to cash    Zelkind of Eighty Acres Farms one of the few mainstream players in the industry that has farms in several states and distributes its greens and salad kits across the country said that his farms were profitable but that his company was not once you take into account administrative and other centralized costs    He said that vertical farming would not replace conventional farming but that it would develop to produce the highest value and most perishable produce    He added that he thought placing vertical farms next to or inside regional grocery distribution centers made sense and that companies would pay a premium for the supply chain and off season flexibility vertical farms provided in an increasingly fragmented world    But the industry is reminded of its fragility daily    Aero Farms which raised more than 3 hundred million dollars said in December that its largest investor had withdrawn funding and that it would close    It obtained temporary financing and has since told city officials in Danville Virginia where it is based that it has a nonbinding letter of intent to sell the company but still could shut down this month    Even vertical farm evangelists then may need to fall back on a big  picture argument for its utility to the American food system rather than on the success of any individual company    5 United States      Top News    Iran      Israel      New York City      Airports      France      Denmark      Gas Prices       Excerpts edited for brevity and clarity by Residents Against Wood Smoke Emission Particulates a 501C3 nonprofit organization       New York Times Headlines     March 23  2026      Iran War Live Updates Power Outages Are Reported in Tehran as Israel Launches Strikes      Residents reported widespread power outages across the capital    The Israel military said it had begun a new wave of airstrikes targeting infrastructure in the city but did not provide further details    Live Updates LaGuardia Shut Down After Jet Collides With Vehicle      The airport was closed early Monday as emergency crews swarmed a damaged Air Canada Express plane on a runway    There were no immediate reports of deaths or injuries    ICE to Aid Airport Security Amid Partial Shutdown Border Czar Says      Tom Homan the Trump chief border official cast the operation largely as one to help ease long security lines    The Homeland Security Department said 14 airports across the country would be involved    World      Israel Thought It Could Spur Rebellion Inside Iran    That Has not Happened    The Trump hopes that an Israeli plan to ignite an internal uprising against the Iran theocratic government could bring the war to a swift end have so far been dashed    French Far Right Falls Short of Statement Win in Yardstick Local Races      The Far Right of France hoped for major gains in the Sunday municipal elections a key bellwether moment before a presidential election next year    Its results were mixed    In the Denmark Election How Will the Woman Who Took On Trump Fare?      Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen is the biggest force this country has seen in decades    The crisis in Greenland has energized her but are voters itching for change?      Politics      How the GOP and Democrats Are Talking About the Surge in Gas Prices      Republicans have largely been on defense against Democratic criticism    Here are five arguments advanced by figures in both parties  

6 The Russian war against Ukraine      Excerpts edited for brevity and clarity by Residents Against Wood Smoke Emission Particulates a 501C3 nonprofit organization      Kiev Independent      March 23 2026      People walk past a billboard on a city street advertising contract service for the war with Ukraine on March 22 2026 in Moscow Russia    The billboard reads Cash payments starting from 5 point 2 million rubles    Including payments from the Moscow Government and the Ministry of Defense    Contract service    US Ukraine delegations meet in Miami for second day of peace talks    US and Ukrainian officials met in Miami Florida on March 22 for a second day of talks aimed at brokering a peace deal with Moscow to end its four year war    Power outage hits parts of Kyiv after failure at Russian damaged facility    Parts of the Kyiv eastern bank and Kyiv Oblast were left without power on March 22 due to a failure at a facility that had previously been severely damaged by Russian attacks    Ukraine destroys Russian Buk air defenses in flurry of strikes military says shows footage    A Buk M3 surface to air missile system and a transporter loader vehicle of a Buk M2 system were destroyed said Robert Brovdi the commander of the Ukraine Unmanned Systems Forces    Russia attempting new offensives as weather warms Zelensky says    The only tangible outcome for the Russian army has been an increase in their losses  In just these seven days there have already been more than 8 thousand killed and seriously wounded Russian soldiers    Ukrainian drones killing Russian troops faster than Moscow can replace them drone commander says    We need to keep milking this cow the Russian army for everything it is worth exhausting it beyond its maximum capacity Robert Madyar Brovdi told the Economist    Russia resumes rocket launches from Baikonur Cosmodrome after liftoff site damaged in accident    Russia launched a rocket from Site 31 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome for the first time since the launch pad was damaged in an accident in November 2025 the Russian space agency Roscosmos reported on March 22    The Russian internet blackouts spread to Saint Petersburg residents say    The reports come a week after widespread restrictions to mobile internet in Moscow on March 13 as the Kremlin enforced a new whitelist system that only permits access to pro government social media outlets and official state websites  

7 The Russian war against Ukraine      RAWSEP View    Slovakian Fico considers joining Hungarian Orban to potentially block EU funding for Ukraine      Orban faces an election on April 12 2026         Excerpts edited for brevity and clarity by Residents Against Wood Smoke Emission Particulates a 501C3 nonprofit organization      Kiev Independent       March 22 2026     An aftermath view shows damage to Post Office No    8 following Russian airstrikes using K 250 guided bombs in Sloviansk Donetsk Oblast on March 21 2026 Ukrainian delegation meets Witkoff Kushner in Miami plan to continue talks on March 22    The latest round of negotiations comes over a month since their last face to face meeting in Geneva on February 17 to18 when trilateral talks between Kyiv Moscow and Washington were held    A follow up meeting scheduled for March 5 in Abu Dhabi was postponed after US Israeli strikes on Iran    Fire damage reported in Kyiv Oblast following Russian drone attack    Russian forces launched a drone attack on Kyiv Oblast overnight on March 22 damaging multiple homes and commercial buildings in the city of Brovary local officials reported    Ukraine launches nearly 3 hundred drones against Russia overnight hit Saratov oil depot and command post of elite Russian Rubikon drone unit in occupied Mariupol    The attacks targeted the cities of Saratov and Engels in Saratov Oblast and Tolyatti in Samara Oblast    The towns host key Russian military and industrial assets including the Saratov oil refinery and Engels 2 military airfield    Fico backs Orban considers joining Hungary in blocking ninety billion EU loan for Ukraine    Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico said that Slovakia could consider blocking a ninety billion euro EU loan for Ukraine in the future while defending the Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban opposition to the measure    Russian Intelligence targets American messaging app users FBI says    Hackers linked to Russian intelligence have been targeting messaging app accounts of high profile US users FBI Director Kash Patel said on March 20