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#england#country#trump#vaccine#health#scotland#wales#hep#https#measles
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Discussion (204 Comments)Read Original on HackerNews
- Syphilis
- Hep B
- Hep C
- HIV 1 and 2 and P24
- Chlamydia
- Gonorrhoea
[1] https://www.mantotman.nl/
It’s unfortunate that your early providers dropped the ball. I wonder if they assumed you had already been tested for some reason?
It wasn't until the trump administration that I started to suspect that they're actively tampering with human politics.
The lead Fox News "article" plainly stated that the COVID shots cause an 87% miscarriage rate.
This has nothing to do with reality -- and they absolutely do not care about fighting "fair."
https://www.yahoo.com/news/politics/article/rfk-jr-says-pare...
"The order recommends that all shots be given at separate medical visits, a frequent point Trump has made despite the safety, ease and lower costs of giving vaccines together."
'“Together, there could be a possibility they’re quite lethal,” Trump said of the MMR vaccine at the signing of the order on Monday.'
'Asked if he had evidence that the combined MMR vaccine was “lethal”, Trump said: “No. What I’ve heard is that there are some people who say it is that way.”'
Antivax fundamentally has its contemporary roots in Andrew Wakefield's fraudulent anti-MMR campaign.
So directing by executive order and by his own admission without evidence that the MMR vaccine be split up into separate shots is, very clearly, an antivax action. This is the first victory that Wakefield (a man who had a patent on a single measles vaccine!) wanted, and RFK Jr was pursuing.
But this is Trump saying this and signing it. So as of yesterday, it now has everything to do with Trump, sorry. He has handed the anti-MMR movement its ultimate victory and in so doing validated the entire antivax worldview.
It's still not too late for anyone who is unvaccinated to get the vaccine! Hopefully the next administration undoes this change, but the really important part is managing to shrink the anti-vax movement (which, if you look at the data in my other comments, you can see has been a problem since before Trump).
Canada: https://health-infobase.canada.ca/measles-rubella/archive/20...
They have 10% our population and had twice the cases last year (admittedly, we're starting to catch up). But the truth is that there are huge lag times when it comes to measles / antivax. This is a symptom of a problem that started 10-20 years ago.
Back in the early 90s this wasn't much of a problem. Childhood vaccine requirements weren't some hot-button topic then. Most people would just get them when faced with the requirement. Most opposition was isolated to people who were otherwise contrarians already.
The difference now is that the internet is full of these isolated contrarians who are now influencing gullible people who don't know who to trust.
Since you seem very emotionally opposed to Trump and his administration: I also don't like Trump or RFK! However, to solve a problem, you have to find the root cause of the problem, and pointing at the most recent politician you hate will never help anyone.
I have not been following measles in Canada, so I can't address that.
The reason I bring up Canada is as counterevidence; if it was Trump or RFK'S fault, Canada should be doing just fine. They had twice the cases last year in 1/10 the population. The truth is this is a problem with people believing stupid things, and it's going to take a lot more than Trump going out of office to fix.
Not in Canada but unfortunately US nonsense spreads globally pretty quickly these days. The amount of Trump support in the UK is both bizarre and surprising. When someone with the worlds largest megaphone lies about vaccines, unfortunately people everywhere listen.
I can't help but feel this is ragebait or a bot.
Well not nothing. But it predates him and he adopted the movement early in his political career. When I was in high school (2004-8) antivax sentiment was generally associated with liberal Democrats in places like Marin County. This was a favorite retort of conservatives when confronted with their own backwardness on scientific understanding of evolution and climate change. In 2015 Trump began courting the anti-vaccine crowd and the political valence of that flavor of woo-woo nonsense flipped seemingly overnight. It was surreal to see it happen in real time. By 2020 he had lost control of the monster he helped create and the crowd booed him when he said they should get the Covid vaccine.
From today:
Both Trump and Kennedy made repeated mentions of autism throughout the order signing, emphasizing a scientifically unproven link between vaccines and the condition. Dozens of studies show no link between the two.
“Today we’re proud to officially announce the United States of America’s gold standard childhood vaccination recommendations. That has to do with many subjects including autism in particular,” Trump said at the beginning of the order signing.
“I’ve seen proof of it, where they have a vaccination where it looks like the size of a bottle of soda, poured into a little child’s body and bad things happen in too many cases,” Trump later said on breaking up each shot into an individual medical visit, before adding: “This is an explosion, it’s an epidemic,” in an apparent reference to autism.
It’s a strange global phenomenon and I don’t think there is one single root cause. MAGA/MAHA definitely jumped on to the anti-vax train as it became popular, but many forget that Trump presided over the rushing of the COVID vaccine into availability and production. He hasn’t done vaccination any favors in recent years, but I’m skeptical that the widespread rise of vaccine skepticism can be attributable to this administration alone.
I think there’s a bigger story about the cyclical nature of how the dangers of threats that previous generations faced is slowly lost over time, combined with the rise of contrarianism and conspiratorial thinking on social media.
Assuming that the US was the root of the current surge of anti-vax idealism is not supported by the facts.
Now that we have the blame let's talk about the punishment.
At least in my area, there are pockets of (relatively) new immigrants that have MMR vaccination rates at around 30% (that's very low, much lower than the anti-vaxxer population could account for imo), and the reasons for that have nothing to do with MAGA/MAHA as far as I can tell.
It's an entirely different problem (that needs solving), and pretending that this is simply the by-product of uneducated crazies on the internet feels like it's over indexing on a loud and flashy but ultimately small part of the problem.
I'm certainly a part of that group. For instance I ended up doing extensive research on e.g. MMR before deciding to vaccinate my kids for it. If this were a decade ago, I almost certainly would have done it without a second thought, just as I took all recommended vaccines before traveling without a second thought. So I'm obviously not anti-vaccine in the least, but I no longer trust public messaging on the topic.
It was just another (of the increasingly endless) examples of governments/companies pursuing short-term interests while ignoring long-term consequences. When it comes to what people put in their bodies, trust is more important than literally anything else.
[1] - https://xcancel.com/ITGuy1959/status/1581034815700488192
When more ethical entities take over their business I will gladly start using them once again, as I did back in the day before they turned evil.
For some people the COVID vaccine(s) were rushed to market, with limited clinical trials, intended to vaccinate the entire adult population, with limited data as to their immediate effectiveness and with no data about long term effects. You can debate whether the above points are valid or not, but for some people they certainly raised a safety flag.
I completely agree that the vaccine scepticism around the COVID vaccines is now carrying over into other, well tested, well understood and very, very beneficial vaccines.
All four nations NHSes work with a single charity, the Hep C Trust.
They're all following the WHO targets for elimination -- you're hearing about this now soon after World Hepatitis Day (July 28th, as conceived of by the WHO).
https://www.hepctrust.org.uk/blog/2026/07/four-nations-on-th...
As for progress:
- July 2026: Wales doesn't have percentage-of-population counts but here's its latest report: https://phw.nhs.wales/reports/trends-in-the-prevention-diagn...
- November 2025: Scotland believes it has identified and is treating 85% of chronic sufferers: https://publichealthscotland.scot/publications/surveillance-...
- January 2021: Northern Ireland doesn't publish stats, but has a 2021-2025 plan (there's no 2026- plan issued as far as I know) https://www.health-ni.gov.uk/publications/northern-ireland-h...
Oddly, Public Health Scotland is part of NHS Scotland; but Public Health England is not part of NHS England, it's a parallel department.
https://crukcancerintelligence.shinyapps.io/CancerStatsDataH...
The three jobs are divided up differently, though still between too few people. You have a Figurehead, the Head of State, which here is King Charles and in the US is Donald Trump. That's the part Trump most likes, you get free gold stuff, you're allowed to do whatever you please, everybody is supposed to suck up to you, hooray. Farage would not get that job.
Next you've got Executive leader. Trump doesn't enjoy this as much. People keep trying to blame him for the fact he's bad at it. He appointed people he saw on TV to run things, how is it his fault they're not brilliant? This would be half of Farage's job as Prime Minister and he likes being asked to account for his incompetence even less than Trump.
Finally Head of the Legislature, in the US this isn't Trump's job, Mike Johnson is in the House and John Thune in the Senate. Farage would get this job in full as the Prime Minister. Even before he resigned he was rarely actually in Westminster, it's boring and you need to be good at actual politics, so of course he's not there, he gets paid more to be somewhere else.
I also don't think Nigel can put together the numbers. Trump has Mike and John to try to make the numbers work, and Farage wouldn't have that. "My way or the highway" is what Farage would say, and that doesn't make the numbers work. That's how you lose a Confidence motion and you're back on your arse in six weeks.
[Edited to correct the Senate leader, mistake pointed out by ragnese below]
So, it's Mike Johnson for the House and John Thune for the Senate.
Not everything has to be rewritten in Rust! Hepatitis is a virus, C is much better suited for that kind of project, Rust is for fungal diseases, not viruses.
Trigger me, thought you meant Tony Blair for a minute!
> The target of treating 80% of all known cases has already been met, and deaths from the virus have fallen by 36% in the last decade, just short of what is needed by 2030.
What is needed by 2030? There is no mention prior to this statement.
Later:
> NHS England says that since 2015, more than 100,000 people have been diagnosed and treated for hepatitis C, meaning the country is already meeting that target.
Again, what target are we talking about??
Much later:
> Prof Frankie Swords, NHS national medical director, added: "England is now leading the world in the mission to eliminate this disease and on course to beat the WHO's 2030 target, but we are determined to keep up the momentum and finish the job.
Finally a target!
FUCK AI
> Style Assist helps BBC journalists quickly adapt trusted content into BBC News house style, speeding up the publication of high-quality local stories. It uses a BBC-trained AI model to generate a draft, which is always reviewed and edited by journalists before publication. This helps save time while maintaining accuracy, tone and editorial standards. Find out more in an article from Rhodri Talfan Davies.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/aboutthebbc/reports/policies/what-were...
LDRS articles are made free to everyone in the scheme (including the BBC), but because the content is written primarily for their home news org the articles that end up being published by the BBC need to be modified to comply with the BBC's editorial guidelines and for style reasons.
Hence, Style Assist.
(Seriously you couldn't google that?)
Thanks to RFKjr and friends, we know what country will be one of the last to do so. Or even worse, the US could end up being a reservoir for HepC.
What has RFK Jr specifically said for/against HepC?
I do not know why some people think the current US regime will follow England with all evidence pointing to doing the exact opposite.
RFK Jr. is an anti-vax crackpot, but Hep C isn't vaccine-preventable. On the other hand, we can absolutely blame RFK Jr. for our rising Hep A, B, and D rates.
If it requires a vaccine you can be sure HEP C will be kept alive and well via MAHA in the US
okay here is a much better article
* https://www.england.nhs.uk/2026/08/100000-people-receive-tre...
> "Treatment involves a free course of antiviral tablets lasting 8 to 12 weeks, which cures more than 95% of cases."
must be nice to have a government that actually cares about its citizens health, we're still waiting DECADES for that Republican health care plan (other than "just die quietly")
“Taking antiviral tablets for 8 to 12 weeks can cure more than 95% of cases.”
Same here! I had one symptom -intermittent somewhat abnormal liver enzyme results- that was very easy to explain away with the fact that I'm nearly always somewhat dehydrated because I have trouble forcing myself to drink enough water. I had to run into a doc who was in the habit of running the test "just in case" because she had seen a ton of Hep C cases before the culprit was discovered.
Honestly, I'm really glad I didn't get diagnosed much earlier than I did... it's my understanding that interferon treatment is really awful to go through and has like a 50% success rate for Hep C infections. When I got diagnosed Harvoni was quite new, but it worked on the strain I had, and there were absolutely no side effects that I noticed. Its list price was shockingly expensive (something like 150k USD) but that's way cheaper than a new liver and -as is often the case with these sorts of things- financial "wizardry" meant that I paid like 5 USD.
So indeed diagnosing the cases is leading directly to deaths prevented.
This is not what the title claims. The title claims that hepatitis C is to be eliminated, aka 0%. This is not possible; anyone with a basic 101 virology knows why. BBC lies here via the title.
> Drug users have a range of
The title does not even mention drug users.
The title refers to the hepatitis C virus. That virus existed way before drug users did.
Not in this context, no. It means the same thing as being cured of Hep C means... there's a little bit still lingering around, but the systems that keep it under control mean that it doesn't cause any problems. The world and one's body are environments that are way too large to get rid of 100% of something without utterly obliterating them.
> That virus existed way before drug users did.
I'm skeptical. Living things have been drug users for approximately forever.
Anyway, a fun fact that I learned when I was getting my Hep C diagnosis and treatment is that the three most common ways to get it are
1) Be an IV drug user who's not extremely careful about their needles
2) Share your toothbrush with someone else
3) Have had a blood transfusion prior to ~1992, when they started screening the blood supply for Hep C
It turns out that -for the sex-havers that aren't into blood play- sex is one of the least effective methods of Hepatitis transmission.
> England is now leading the world in the mission to eliminate this disease and on course to beat the WHO's 2030 target, but we are determined to keep up the momentum and finish the job.
Seems fairly unambiguous to me
I usually think of a country as equal to a nation, and as far as I know, Wales and Scotland have not split off yet? Is the term "country" not actually that sharply defined?
EDIT: Thanks people, I just asked a question to better understand the terminology, you know ...
Guess only England was meant. That would insinuate they don't care about scotland though.
If I read an article from them about crime in London, quoting the Metropolitan Police, I don't immediately think that they don't care about, say, the West Midlands.
The bit that gets me is that people often refer to the UK but actually mean GB or vice versa.
James VI/I (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_VI_and_I) was king of _both_ England and Scotland and only later did the Union https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Union combine the two. You might notice I've neglected Wales which was (considered?) part of England.
In any case, England is a country, yes. Also the UK is a country.
For instance, England and Wales share a legal system, but Scotland and Northern Ireland have their own. There’s bunch of special things about Northern Ireland and its relation to Ireland. And all of the constituent countries have their own parliament / assembly except for England (the parliament in London is for the whole of the UK where MPs for all constituent countries can vote).
In this particular case, the constituent countries have their own health systems, so it’s normally England we would be talking about, not the UK.
It is not a sovereign country, but instead is a part of the constituents comprising the UK state.
For example in Germany one would say there are 16 states, but one wouldn't say that there are 16 countries. Never heard anyone claim that. So state seems to be different from country, at least here. Would people in the UK say that Scotland or Wales are "nations"? Or is at least that term very clearly only for units that could participate under a flag in lets say the olympics? (I assume here, that Scotland and Wales are not separately competing, but are under UK flag.)
Team GB enters the Olympics but as you may have noticed it was England who came Third in the World Cup recently, and likewise England play international rugby, including against Wales and Scotland.
As an English person I would say that Scotland and Wales are nations and countries; constituent countries of the country that is the UK.
If that’s a bit eccentric, well this is the same place that refers to Europe as a different place even though France borders the UK by automobile road.
People in the UK would refer to England as a country and most people would actually be confused if you referred to the UK as a country, even though it technically is. People in England don’t really think of the UK as anything other than “the UK”. People from Scotland, Wales, and Ireland have more nuanced takes.
You might get a tedious person saying something like "actually, Wales is a principality".