John Oliver kicked off his Sunday night episode of Final Week Tonight by acknowledging the demise of Pope Francis on the age of 88 final Monday. Francis died “only a day after assembly with JD Vance – which, actually, relatable”, he quipped.
The host speculated on who might exchange Francis, together with potential candidates Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Cardinal Matteo Zuppi and Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, “whose final title apparently interprets to pizza dance”. “And I do know that it sounds virtually offensively Italian,” stated Oliver, “however do have in mind each final title in Italy means pizza dance.
“Now, would electing a Pope Pizzadance immediately restore the fame of the Catholic church? Clearly the reply is we gained’t know till we attempt,” he continued. “So JD Vance, you keep the fuck away from Cardinal Pizzadance. You don’t meet him, you don’t go close to him, you don’t even take into consideration him.”
In his fundamental phase, Oliver seemed into the decimation of the US public well being system underneath Donald Trump’s well being and human providers secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr. RFK, as he’s usually identified, has overseen the “radical downsizing of HHS”, with 10,000 layoffs and one other 10,000 individuals who retired or resigned and gained’t get replaced. “Which is alarming,” stated Oliver, “as a result of HHS is a fully very important company with nearly each high-stakes job associated to well being you might consider.”
Among the many companies HHS oversees are the Nationwide Institute for Well being, the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention, the Meals and Drug Administration, the Middle for Medicare & Medicaid Companies and plenty of others, accounting for 28% of all federal spending. “So these cuts are going to have a huge effect on our day-to-day lives.”
The cuts, which Kennedy labeled “Administration for a Well being America” or “AHA”, had been “as sudden as they had been merciless”, stated Oliver. They included chopping research that couldn’t be restarted, not telling employees who discovered they had been fired when their badges stopped working, and slashing funding for diabetes analysis – which Kennedy was knowledgeable of by a information reporter. “The foundations for restructuring HHS needs to be the identical as those for a bris,” stated Oliver. “It’s crucially essential to know precisely what you might be chopping. Pace is simply not a very powerful factor.”
The cuts have notably devastated the NIH, by far the world’s largest public funder of biomedical analysis and infrequently known as the crown jewel of American science – “which, if something, is understating it, as a result of it’s clearly higher than a crown jewel”, stated Oliver. “These issues don’t actually do a lot in addition to bedazzle a fluffy hat that we sometimes stability on high of a set of recessive genes.
“The NIH, nevertheless, is absolutely essential. And it’s now in bother,” because it stopped contemplating new grants totally weeks into Trump’s new administration, which has since reduce about $750m in HIV-targeted grants, amongst different cuts to research affecting minority teams. HHS has additionally abruptly canceled greater than $12bn in federal grants to states for his or her well being providers, inflicting injury that may’t be undone.
Moreover, Kennedy is a longtime promoter of “rabid” conspiracy theories, together with that psychiatric medicine make faculty shooters and that Anthony Fauci was engaged in a coup towards western democracy, in addition to going barefoot to the lavatory on industrial flights. “I do know, I actually simply stated 9/11 out loud” – which RFK stated he “gained’t take sides” on – “however RFK dragging his urine-soaked free-range piggies by way of firstclass is actually the worst factor to ever occur in American airspace,” Oliver joked.
Oliver additionally known as bullshit on a few of Kennedy’s broadly acknowledged “statistics”, corresponding to falsely claiming that the US buys 70% of pharmaceutical medicine on Earth, or that half of the inhabitants in China has diabetes. He famous that emailing diabetes researchers about that declare was extra embarrassing than earlier inquiries, together with asking for touch upon Vance’s much-memed sofa intercourse insinuation. One response from a health care provider known as Kennedy’s assertion “ludicrous”, including: “these stats is perhaps associated to the worm in his mind.”
“If you get key details about issues that unsuitable, you’re in all probability going to fuck up any try at an answer,” Oliver surmised. “And that’s not even the largest challenge with Kennedy’s strategy, as a result of for all his loud speak of ‘making America wholesome once more’, a few of the cuts he’s overseeing are going to do the precise reverse of that.” Kennedy made an enormous present of eliminating eight synthetic meals dyes within the US, whereas quietly firing everybody on the CDC’s workplace of smoking and well being, which one former company head known as “the best reward to the tobacco business within the final half-century”.
And regardless of promising in any other case in his affirmation listening to, Kennedy has continued to sow doubt about vaccines, sought knowledge for conspiracy theories that doesn’t exist and peddled worry round a nonexistent “autism epidemic”.
“Most individuals agree the overwhelming majority of the rise in autism diagnoses is because of there being extra analysis, higher consciousness and extra entry, so individuals can get a extra correct prognosis,” Oliver famous. “That’s what can occur while you put money and time into well being providers. However RFK has continued in treating the rise in diagnoses as a tragedy. And the best way he talks about autistic individuals typically could be completely dehumanizing.”
Kennedy’s vaccine skepticism is already having dire penalties: the US has skilled the primary pediatric measles demise in 22 years, whereas whooping cough circumstances soar and specialists elevate considerations about hen flu spreading amongst animals.
Oliver concluded by acknowledging that the system pre-RFK wasn’t good, citing a number of Final Week Tonight segments about shortcomings inside HHS. “However our resolution was at all times it must be strengthened” and never “let’s reduce its finances and put a dipshit screaming AHA in cost.
“Sadly, it feels proper now like we’re all about to get a harsh lesson about what every a part of our well being system does because it will get taken away,” he stated. “Which is type of like discovering out what every of your organs does as somebody removes them one after the other.”
Oliver reminded that they talked to many, many individuals for this phase, all of whom had been “shattered” and stated unequivocally that the cuts will lead to unnecessary demise. Kennedy “must go and by impeachment, if obligatory”, stated Oliver.
“It is a man who’s clearly in method over his worm-riddled head,” he concluded. “He doesn’t know what he’s doing, he doesn’t know who he’s fired, he doesn’t even know what number of diabetic individuals there are in China. And if that wasn’t unhealthy sufficient, he’s at present spreading harmful nonsense and gutting life-saving analysis, all whereas bringing in a basement quack. RFK on this job is harmful.”
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