Conspiracy theorists dash hopes for cancer vaccines

When I was just in my early to mid-twenties, I remember President Nixon promising to find a cure for cancer during his term as President.  Sadly, some 56 years later that promise has yet to come to fruition, and my departed wife was a testimony to that. There have been many conspiracy theories circulated about why this hasn’t occurred. The most prominent one being that drug companies do not wish to find a cure or prevention because that would kill their ‘golden goose’ of the tremendous profits they reap from the cost of their cancer treatment drugs.  And added to that theory is the fact that some of the recent ground breaking research regarding the treatment of cancer comes mainly from foreign countries.

However, recently there had been a new ray of hope in the prevention of cancer, but it too has most likely been doomed to failure by conspiracy theorists. The COVID epidemic lead to a new way of developing vaccines.  It is known as the mRNA technology.  Basically in the past, immune responses to diseases were created in our bodies through the use of vaccines putting a weakened or inactivated germ into our bodies. The first step of this procedure involved the actual growing of the disease in the lab, which was time consuming.  However, under ideal conditions this type of vaccine triggered our body’s immune system to develop a resistance to this disease, resulting in a total prevention or a less severe case.

In contrast, mRNA vaccines use a genetic code to tell the body’s cells to produce proteins that train the immune system to produce protection.  mRNA technology allows researchers to develop vaccines quickly since labs don't have to initially grow copies of the virus. It is important to note that both procedures involve the process of injecting a foreign substance into the body.

However, since the mRNA substance was not naturally grown, but instead manufactured in a lab, the conspiracy folks have had a field day.  Without going into a lengthy debate about the safety and total lack of understanding these folks had about the mRNA technology used in the development of the COVID vaccines, one simply needs to look at the data from Israel. They vaccinated early on more people with all versions of these vaccines than any country, and carefully monitored these folks.  Additionally, these new vaccines were used world-wide. According to the World Health Organization,13.64 billion people or 67% world-wide were initially vaccinated. This is far more extensive than any use in the U.S. and  provides significantly more data regarding their safety. They were safe, but of course some did experience side effects as do some with conventionally developed vaccines, but these side effects never received the same sensationalized media coverage that the mRNA side effects did.

However, one of the greatest benefits of this emerging mRNA technology was that it could finally lead to the development of cancer preventing vaccines.  But, sadly we can forget about that dream, because the present administration has just cut all funding for mRNA vaccines research.  Half a billion dollars had already been spent on this research development at various laboratories and universities, and now that background work has been thrown out and shut down.  However, ironically, China has increased support for this technology.

So hooray for the anti-vax, conspiracy theorists that President Trump has now infiltrated into the Department of Health and Human Services, along with Louisiana congressman Bill Cassidy and other Trump political loyalists, for they have successfully insured the continual survival of cancer in the U.S.  And you would think, of all loyalists, Rep. Steve Scalise would know better. Thanks ‘For Making America Great Again.’

A Time for Worry?

Should I be concerned? Two recent media reports that were pretty much glossed over started me thinking about what might be really happening in our country.  Last week the Smithsonian Institute removed from its display about the history of American Presidents all references to Donald Trump’s impeachment proceedings that occurred in 2019 and 2021. The impeachment proceedings reporting for former presidents Bill Clinton and Andrew Jackson were left in place. To make matters worse, some of the text elsewhere in the exhibit still mentions that 3 U.S. Presidents went through impeachment proceedings, but the factual historical information detailing who they were now includes only two.

So are we now to the point of countries like China and Russian who forbid the mentioning of any historical events that run counter to the image the ruling power wishes to advocate.  China did this when it removed all references to its 2019 slaughter of pro-democratic demonstrators in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square.  All references to this incident are forbidden and lead to immediate arrest if mentioned publicly.  Additionally, in Russia, officials who opposed Joseph Stalin’s agenda were not only removed from their government positions but also from all photographs and history books.  And others just quietly disappeared entirely.

While Smithsonian Officials have denied that they received any pressure from the White House to make this change, Trump’s officials do control the funding for this institution, and in March, the US president signed an executive order to remove “improper ideology” from the Smithsonian Institution’s properties and deny funding for exhibits that “degrade shared American values.”   Whatever that means!

The other media reporting that caught my eye was the abrupt firing of the commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics after her reporting of the latest monthly job figures.  These figures indicated, contrary to what the present administration has been advocating, that the economy is back sliding, not flourishing.  This information comes from surveys returned by actual employers. The commissioner simply reports the numbers tabulated from these surveys, and contrary to what the present administration would like us to believe they are not simply pulled out of thin air. There is a factual paper trail. And often the previous month’s figures are revised due to the late submission of the employers’ surveys.  The commissioner has little control over this. So the fact that the two previous months’ job figures were revised downwards further showing continued back sliding doesn’t support the excuse that the commissioner was fired due to previous errors made because she changed the figures.   No errors were made, just 3 months of backsliding after late submissions were included.

I can only guess this was just too much for the present administration to bear, so as is usually the ‘persecuted soul ‘ game plan, Trump called the figures ‘fake news’ and ‘politically motivated’ just to make him look bad, and sought to remedy the situation by putting someone in there that will issue (manufacture) the "correct" positive ones that support  his claims.

In closing, should I be concerned that more and more instances of dictatorial, authoritarian tactics are being implemented by our President on our American institutions? After all, just look what has happened to my beloved "Sesame Street."