Your Independent Journal from the Heartland
The new American tragedy: The Bully Reigns. nnThe bully — that high school big guy, with a lot of muscle, fewer brains, and an overriding zeal to lord over weaker students — is a staple of films. Think “Back to the Future,” or “The Christmas Story”, or “The Karate Kid”.
The one attribute of bullies, at least in filmdom, is that they don’t prevail. Smarter, kinder “victims” emerge to quash the bully.
Let’s see whether this Bully prevails.
Typically, the bully is a failing student, in contrast to the weaker A+ eggheads quivering before him.
This Bully follows that pattern, as he disparages education. All those experts dictating what is important, what isn’t — ridiculous. All that book learning — useless. Stupid and smart: the meanings shift. This Bully has enthusiastically embraced home-grown wisdom, or stupidity, depending on vantage. And in today’s political world, the Bully’s worldview prevails. This government showcases either an embrace of home-grown wisdom, or embrace of stupidity, again, depending on vantage. Consider the new flouting of all those public health recommendations. Vaccines: don’t trust them. Complicated scientific research: who knows what it is? Who cares? Autism: let’s blame Tylenol.
In films, the bully stands alone. In this political world, the Bully is backed by government. Consider Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’s scathing attack on “scientific consensus,” or the “overwhelming majority of experts.” In his concurring opinion in United States v. Skrmetti (2025) Justice Thomas declared: “so-called experts have no license to countermand the ‘wisdom, fairness, or logic of legislative choices.” Or consider President Trump’s zeal to divert research money from the Ivy League to trade schools, as though plumbers will find the cure for cancer. In short, let non-scientists, non-physicians prevail.
The CDC has long been the bastion of sound medical advice; President Trump has proposed cutting the CDC budget by more than half, eliminated 60 programs and thousands of jobs. The people overseeing chronic disease prevention, gun injury research, and surveillance systems for diseases like HIV and cancer have felt the Presidential ax. Crucially, the President overruled “scientific wisdom” on COVID: specifically, the CDC adopted its advisory committee’s recommendation to pull broad support for COVID-19 shots, especially for younger people. Vaccination for those under 65 who do not have risk factors should be a “shared clinical decision” between the patient and their provider.
The upshot of this ignore-the-experts mindset: the emergence of an internet-fueled cabal of conspiracy alarmists. And the balkanization of health policy. Where once the notion of “modernity” led to a centralization of healthcare decisions, overseen by the CDC, now states craft their own policies.
Abortion is one example of state wisdom run amok. Abortion is Illegal in Idaho, legal in some instances in Montana. In many states obstetricians fear prosecution, or suspension. Those laws that purportedly outlaw abortion, with “medical exceptions,” prove baffling to physicians who must weigh their states’ laws against their patients’ diagnoses. In states that allow abortions for fatal fetal anomalies, physicians must contend with fetal cardiac activity. In states that set gestational age limits, physicians must wonder about those fatal anomalies detected late in pregnancies. The obstetrician must navigate between Scylla and Charybdis, between the state legislature and the Hippocratic oath. As for pregnant patients, they may need to cross state lines quickly, before they die.
COVID vaccines showcase a similar regulatory hodgepodge. In the lockdown past, as the death toll rose, many Americans rushed to get vaccinated, even people who hoped that clean-living, or righteous beliefs, protected them. The government recommended them for anybody older than six months., and they were “free” (meaning that insurers or government paid). Nobody had to get vaccinated (though the restaurant vaccine “passports” and employer and school requirements nudged many people). Now the government has made it harder to get a COVID vaccine. The government has approved them for people age 65 and over, and only for children and younger adults who have asthma or obesity. Depending on age, or health, or state, you may need a prescription. You may need to pay. Some Americans may bow out. The probable upshot: more cases. (https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/these-states-are-taking-steps-to-ease-access-to-covid-19-vaccines).
The measles vaccine, once basic, once behind the rarity of cases, is now no longer mandated, no longer even recommended. The upshot: decades of more sick children.
The latest bully-fiat: divide the traditional MMR (measles, mumps, and rubella) vaccine into three components, to be given at separate visits. No reason, though some critics speculate that the reason lies in a now-discredited paper that linked the three-part shot to autism. The upshot: fewer children will be protected from all three diseases.
Even polio has come under the Bully’s fire. Zealous to ban all vaccine mandates, Florida has included polio. The state Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo explained: “Who am I to tell you what your child should put in your body?” “I don’t have that right. Your body is a gift from God.” In the best of all worlds, divine guidance, if not medical guidance, will encourage parents to vaccinate their children against polio, declared extinct except for Afghanistan and Pakistan, but certain to crop up in the United States if more states follow Florida’s lead.
The Bully, abetted by government, is making us sicker. The question: who will stop this Bully?
Joan Retsinas is a sociologist in Providence, R.I., who writes about health care. Email joan.retsinas@gmail.com.
