jpedmd2026-09-15T11:43:51-05:00September 15th, 2026|

Writing in the NYT, Thomas Edison lays out the obvious evidence of a president in mental decline in his opinion piece Trump Has Untethered Himself From Reality.  An excerpt:

 “On April 30 of this year Senators Sheldon Whitehouse and Jack Reed, Democrats of Rhode Island, placed in the Congressional Record a statement by 36 prominent medical specialists questioning Trump’s mental fitness for office: ‘We are compelled to warn of a president of the United States who is increasingly a danger to the public.'”

As further evidence, see his DJYT’s social media post from today, September 15, one day after the Supreme Court ruled against his efforts to suborn the midterms in United States Postal Service v. California et al:

“It is a Court that will go down as having rendered some of the most destructive, hurtful, and damaging decisions in our Country’s history,” he wrote.

Yes, Donald, it will – but not for this ruling. Rather, see Trump v. United States, one giving him almost unlimited immunity for actions as president, and one that will surely go down in infamy as the principal enabler of this corrupt narcissist’s terrible actions.

jpedmd2026-09-05T14:47:00-05:00September 5th, 2026|

From a review of the 2026 Ig Nobel Awards by Adam Kovac, writing in Scientific American:

“Because of concern for the safety of international winners, this was the first time the awards bash occurred outside the U.S.”

Ref. https://improbable.com/2026/03/10/the-ig-nobel-prize-ceremony-is-moving-to-europe-after-35-years-in-the-usa/

The denigration of normal scientific discourse is this country is profoundly disturbing.

• These, of course, are only a few of the broken promises from the Drumpf. Save Rattner and Taylor Maggiacomo document 11 of the larger ones in the NYT here.

• Leaving aside the evident ignorance (?idiocy) implicit in T***’s comments when presenting his executive order on immunizations (e.g. “bottle of soda”, “gallons”, “possibility they’re quite lethal”, “nothing bad can happen from what we’re doing”, “72 shots”, etc.), there was no discussion of any cost/benefit analysis.  Robert Shpiner MD does a good job explaining in his Medpage Today perspective Trump’s Vaccine Order Will Show Up in My ICU. Some excerpts:

“The order recommends that childhood vaccines be given at separate visits. The president was explicit at the signing: “at 1 year, you should have five separate visits for vaccines rather than getting them all in the same day.” It also says the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine should be split into separate shots for each disease, even though no such versions are licensed in the U.S. The order also reduces the number of universally recommended childhood vaccines, placing hepatitis A and B vaccines, meningococcal B and ACWY vaccines into the high-risk only category, and moving flu and COVID shots to shared decision-making.”

The costs:

“This is arithmetic any of us can run — and a calculation the government should have run. Based on the existing schedule, U.S. children need roughly 25 injectionsopens in a new tab or window by age 6 (not including annual flu shots), delivered today across seven visits or so. One at a time, they would need 25 individual visits. That would mean nearly four times the time spent traveling to and enduring doctor’s visits; four times the co-pays that too many families already can’t afford; four times the complaints from the child who fears needles. More visits would mean more missed visits. Hours for each visit — between travel, time in the pediatric waiting room, and the visit itself — are hours of pay that would not appear in a parent’s paycheck.

None of this appears in the order. Sections 1 through 5 say nothing about cost, Medicaid, or resources, and the supplementary White House fact sheet is similarly silent.”

Of course, right now it’s impossible to accurately compute the additional costs of controlling future outbreaks related to a decline in vaccine-induced herd immunity, or medical care for the many possible delayed medical issues related to decreased immunizations (liver failure from congenitally acquired Hepatitis B, brain damage or death due to meningococcal meningitis, congenital rubella syndrome, increased pediatric admissions for influenza and COVID, etc., etc.).

The benefits: The only one cited was fewer shots in one pediatric visit — which of course will likely result in increased costs rather than any benefit.

• Anthony Ha hosts a good interview with Jill Lepore in TechCrunch discussing her upcoming book The Rise and Fall of the Artificial State. Hint: she’s not a fan of that construct.  I’m always a fan of Dr. Lepore, and I look forward to her book.