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But How Does It Affect ME??

Writer's picture: Dr. Bow TieDr. Bow Tie

I just saw yet another post about not vaccinating against influenza because the person is “young and healthy” and when reminded that vaccinating also helps protect more vulnerable folks, she doubled down about focusing on her own family (she homeschools her kids, but also said nothing about keeping them from other public interactions).


It reminded me of this Facebook comment I received back in 2021 when I was encouraging people to get vaccinated against COVID-19. It came from a nurse I liked working with, but it frustrated me. I’ve saved the screenshot since then.



This was a comment on a post I made explaining why healthcare workers were (justifiably and correctly) mandated to get the COVID-19 vaccine. I had literally explained in the post why vaccinating ourselves would be important even if we were “young and healthy” because especially in the hospital, but in any healthcare setting, we often see patients at their most vulnerable. Not to mention many of us would be exposed to a LOT of COVID before all was said and done (it still isn’t done).


I spent a LOT of hours over the course of 2021-2022 talking to reluctant healthcare workers about the importance of vaccination and the necessity of mandates. This was mostly about COVID-19, but sometimes the conversation spilled over into the flu vaccine, which some nurses had deferred for years, instead choosing to wear a mask when required by the hospital.


A different nurse, who remains one of the only healthcare workers I know personally who had to leave their job due to not following the mandate, spent a long time doing Olympic-level mental gymnastics to justify not getting the vaccine, even though she did not wish to give up her job. I treated this conversations with the gravitas and seriousness they deserved, though I will never forget having to force myself not to laugh when she tried to talk about how she doesn’t like “putting things in her body” and then acknowledged, when I asked, that she drank alcohol and I saw the realization creep across her face.

Why am I talking about conversations from 2021?


We are now just over a week into Trump Part Deux, and multiple fears have been confirmed. Multiple parts of Project 2025, despite Trump apologists mocking anyone who pointed out his connections to the Heritage Foundation, already seem to be coming to fruition. We have an anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist demonizing food dyes and the FDA instead of addressing real healthcare and food access issues (see my previous post about contacting your Senators to oppose RFK Jr’s nomination/confirmation as HHS secretary), a grifting fraud (who once said that sacrificing 2-3% of school children to COVID-19 was worth opening schools) nominated to lead CMS, a new Secretary of State whose own mother denounced him because of his sexual assault history, among other non-merit-based choices. And we have a freeze on federal funding for scientific research (not just what MAGA deems frivolous because they don’t understand it, but even things they claim are good to research like children’s disease and cancer - we’ve had to stop that, too), just as he also pulls us out of the WHO and orders our agencies to stop working with them - which is already putting people at risk of losing jobs and life’s work.


But don’t worry, he didn’t just stop there - he ordered a federal funding freeze that affects so many programs that help people who need it most. Medicaid, Headstart, WIC, SNAP, school meals, meals on wheels, and more are now potentially unable to be funded.


According to secondhand info from Republican Congresspeople, payments shouldn't be affected. Yet Medicaid portals are broken in multiple locations and Medicaid and Headstart report inability to access federal funding at the moment. Which is important because if you break the system so that organizations can't access funding, THAT STOPS PAYMENTS.


(Since my first draft of this, the Trump administration rescinded the memo that announced the order for the funding freeze to try and ward off the court cases being filed…but also said that officials were still going to carry out Trump’s orders, so I’m not sure it changes things. And no one else is sure, either.)


We have arrived at this point as these grifters and the man who was voted President have led their fans to believe that selfish motivations should reign supreme and that educating ourselves about the details and effects is wasteful or uncool. They claim that the scientific experts and consensus are a conspiracy against their fanbase because they know that education usually leads to empathy, which does not help their power growth.


The party in charge is disrupting people's healthcare, people's student loans, children's meals, and more, in the name of phantom abortions (which don't get federal funding, no matter how many times they say it) and a minority of transgender folks (who deserve healthcare like anyone else).

Oh, and don’t forget the VA:



This Tweet, which has since been deleted, amidst a feed of constant regurgitation of spin articles trying to make MAGA and Trump look like they’re popular, circles back to my original point.


At some point this will affect all of us. That point is probably closer than we think, given how many are already seeing monetary and programmatic losses. People who voted for Trump are getting shafted or are poised to.


Just like people who don’t think “the young and healthy” need to vaccinate, many people who voted for Trump did so assuming it would not affect them. Or they did so thinking Trump would make it better. Some of them still buy that propaganda - I saw at least one MAGA account crowing about how all the “useless research about mice having gay sex” would have to stop now - because they don’t understand how rigorous and important research grants and their requirements are. Some are just doing the same mental gymnastics they’ve always done to excuse Trump’s actions even when he goes directly against anything they claim to stand for.


But the one thing on which Trump is consistent is that he screws everyone over. His “friends,” his allies, his devoted fanbase, the politicians supposedly in his party - everyone.

I need to write a whole other post aimed at the spinelessness of the Democratic Party leadership, who need to do far more in the next 2-4 years than superficially say “we’re not Trump.” They need to listen to all the voices calling for more progress (including members of their own party who have been getting shafted), and instead of being just a “less farther right” party, we need to actually move the country in a better direction, and candidates willing to defy the status quo will get more votes.


For now, though, we regular people need to think of each other and not just ourselves. That applies to vaccines, the way we vote, and who we accept in leadership positions. Assuming someone’s policies will not apply to you is no longer a good enough reason, because with this administration, everyone is at risk. Still, leaving that aside, if we are to progress as a nation, we must think of other people and actually listen to expertise and educators (real ones, not podcasters and grifting supplement hockers).


Voting selfishly is negatively impacting America’s health in every way. We must change.


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