Tariff policy has been a contentious issue since the founding
of the United States. Hamilton clashed with Jefferson and Madison over
tariff policy in the 1790s, South Carolina threatened to secede from the
union over tariff policy in 1832, and the Hawley-Smoot tariff generated
outrage in 1930. Currently, Trump is sparking heated debates about his
tariff policies.
It
is the second confirmed measles death in the U.S. in a decade. If the
outbreak continues at the current pace, the nation may lose its
elimination status.
A billboard in Seminole, Texas, in February. Nearly 500 cases of measles have been reported since January in West Texas
The
measles crisis in West Texas has claimed the life of another child, the
second death in an outbreak that has burned through the region and
infected dozens of residents in bordering states.
The
child, an 8-year-old girl, died early Thursday morning of “measles
pulmonary failure” at a hospital in Lubbock, Texas, according to records
obtained by The New York Times. Her death is the second confirmed from
measles in a decade in the United States.
The hospital, part of UMC Health System, said on Sunday that the girl was unvaccinated and had no underlying health conditions.
The first death in the West Texas outbreak was an unvaccinated child who died in February. Another unvaccinated person died in New Mexico after testing positive for measles, though officials have not yet to confirm that measles was the cause of death.
Since
the outbreak began in late January, West Texas has reported 480 cases
of measles and 56 hospitalizations. The outbreak has also spread to
bordering states, sickening 54 people in New Mexico and 10 in Oklahoma.
If
the virus continues to spread at this pace, the country risks losing
its measles elimination status, a hard-fought victory earned in 2000.
Public health officials in West Texas have predicted the outbreak will continue for a year.
Shortly after the 8-year-old’s death, a prominent figure in the anti-vaccine community blamed the death on the hospital, which he claimed had “improperly medically managed” the case.
Children’s
Health Defense, an anti-vaccine group that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. helped
establish years before he became health secretary, also claimed that a
“medical error” at a different hospital in Lubbock had led to the
state’s first measles death.
These
claims incensed experts, who emphasized that the measles, mumps and
rubella vaccine is extremely effective at preventing measles infections
and their complications.
“These are
not medical errors,” said Dr. Michael Osterholm, who is an
epidemiologist at the University of Minnesota and a former official in
the Department of Health and Human Services. “This sits squarely on the
back of anti-vaccine voices that have continued to spread
disinformation.”
According
to doctors in Texas, Mr. Kennedy’s endorsement of alternative
treatments has contributed to patients’ delaying critical care and
ingesting toxic levels of vitamin A.
“This
is a tragedy, an absolutely needless death,” said Dr. Peter Marks, who
was the nation’s top vaccine regulator until he resigned last week from
the Food and Drug Administration, in part because of Mr. Kennedy’s
handling of the measles outbreak.
“To
date, the federal response to the ongoing measles outbreak has been
inappropriately focused on distracting and ineffective alternatives to
the only truly effective prevention — measles vaccine,” he said.
Experts
also fear that the Trump administration’s recent decisions to dismantle
international public health safeguards and pull funding from local
health departments have made large, multistate outbreaks more likely.
On
Sunday, Senator Bill Cassidy, a Louisiana Republican who is a medical
doctor and cast a critical vote to confirm Mr. Kennedy, encouraged the
public on social media to get vaccinated, adding that “top health officials should say so unequivocally b/4 another child dies.”
Measles
is one of the most contagious pathogens. The virus can linger in the
air for up to two hours after an infected person has left the room and
spreads when a sick person breathes, coughs or sneezes.
Within
a week or two of being exposed, those who are infected may develop a
high fever, cough, runny nose and red, watery eyes. Within a few days, a
telltale rash breaks out as flat, red spots on the face and then
spreads down the neck and torso to the rest of the body.
In
most cases, these symptoms resolve in a few weeks. But in rare cases,
the virus causes pneumonia, making it difficult for patients, especially
children, to get oxygen into their lungs.
It may also cause brain swelling, which can leave lasting problems, like blindness, deafness and intellectual disabilities.
For
every 1,000 children who get measles, one or two will die, according to
the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The virus also harms
the body’s immune defenses, leaving it vulnerable to other pathogens.
SCHACHTER'S RESPONSE - We created another club to counter the other club ---- SHAMEFUL SHGATZIM!
Yeshiva University’s inexcusable surrender
The
prohibition against the homosexual act is clearly stated in the Torah.
While that does not mandate ostracizing anyone, allowing an LGBT club is
tantamount to approval of a way of life that is forbidden.
Yeshiva University
On
Thursday, Yeshiva University (YU) caved to leftist lawfare and will now
permit an LGBT club to operate on campus. I am not surprised – nor
should anyone else be who has followed developments at YU in recent
years.
After all:
• From 2008-2021, YU employed a transgender professor.
• It currently employs a Bible(!) professor who has publicly advocated that we ignore Judaism’s stance on homosexual “marriage.”
• In 2022, its social work graduate school held a pro-abortion event.
• That same year, it featured a lecture by a female Reform "rabbi."
YU safe zone
In
short, either YU lacks principles or, to borrow a line from President
Theodore Roosevelt, it has the backbone of a chocolate eclair. Most
likely, a combination of both.
YU’s surrender to students who
demanded an LGBT club on campus is particularly inexcusable in the wake
of Donald Trump’s victory in November and the concomitant cultural shift
to the right. For the first time in decades, the LGBT movement is on
the defensive. The federal government officially recognizes only two
genders now and is pulling funding from any university that allows
cross-dressing male students to play in female sports.
Even before
Trump’s victory, the LGBT movement had suffered a setback with support
for homosexual “marriage” in 2024 declining for the first time since
2015, according to mainstream news reports. Had YU continued battling
the radical LGBT activists demanding a club, it very likely would have
won in the Supreme Court considering the court’s 6-3 conservative
majority.
Instead of fighting, though – instead of making a kiddush Hashem (sanctification of G-d's Name) before Christian and conservative America – it decided to make a chillul Hashem (Desecration
of His Name). It decided to please the forces attacking Biblical
morality rather than those defending it. Just as the LGBT movement was
beginning to suffer losses on the cultural battlefield, YU decided to
throw it a lifeline and give it a stunning victory and fresh impetus to
fight further.
I
don’t mean to give the impression that YU is entirely spineless. It is
not. When it comes to the “far right,” it can be intransigent. For years
now, it has refused to allow me to sell books by Rabbi Meir Kahane,
z"l, even religious ones, at its annual Seforim (Book) Sale. You would
think that October 7 might have softened its stance. But you would be
wrong. YU is so angry that I protested its decision to ban Rabbi
Kahane’s books from the Seforim Sale in 2016 (the same year it sold
books by Mordechai Kaplan, the founder of Reconstructionist Judaism)
that it won’t permit me to sell any books at the sale anymore.
If
YU is going to ban books from the sale, you would think it would at
least explain and permit an appeal of its decision. And surely, you
would think, its decision-making process would be transparent since we
all know that transparency is the hallmark of liberal institutions. But
you would be wrong again. YU bans books without explanation, and the
names of the people doing the banning are unknown.
I
have appealed YU’s decision in the most respectful of tones many times.
I have gotten nowhere. And when I distributed flyers on campus last
year publicizing the university’s decision, YU reacted by banning me
from campus.
I once liked Yeshiva
University. I was frustrated by some of the close-mindedness I had
experienced growing up in black-hat (haredi, non- Zionist) schools and
found YU to be a breath of fresh air when I arrived on campus in 2002.
But it turns out that YU is just as close-minded as the black-hat world.
The only difference is that the black-hat world is intolerant of ideas
it considers spiritually dangerous. YU is intolerant of ideas that violate the post-modern liberal ethos.
So Kahane? Absolutely forbidden. The LGBT agenda? Come right on in.
This
is a disgrace and it is a shame that we, the Nation who received the
Torah at Sinai, will have to look to the Southern Baptists, the Vatican,
and Muslim clerics for integrity on this matter. Opinion.
