The Dictatorship

Experts question Trump and RFK Jr.’s ‘gold standard’ science

Published

5 months ago

November 23, 2025

Experts question Trump and RFK Jr.’s ‘gold standard’ science

The message is hammered over and over, in news conferences, hearings and executive orders: President Donald Trump and his health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., say they want the government to follow “gold standard” science.

Scientists say the problem is that they are often doing just the opposite by relying on preliminary studies, fringe science or just hunches to make claims, cast doubt on proven treatments or even set policy.

This week, the nation’s top public health agency changed its website to contradict the scientific conclusion that vaccines do not cause autism. The move shocked health experts nationwide.

Dr. Daniel Jernigan, who resigned from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in August, told reporters Wednesday that Kennedy seems to be “going from evidence-based decision making to decision-based evidence making.”

It was the latest example of the Trump administration’s challenge to established science.

U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. speaks during the Western Governors' Association meeting Thursday, Nov. 20, 2025, in Scottsdale, Ariz. (AP Photo/Rebecca Noble) — U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. speaks during the Western Governors’ Association meeting Thursday, Nov. 20, 2025, in Scottsdale, Ariz. (AP Photo/Rebecca Noble)

In September, the Republican president gave out medical advice based on weak or no evidence. Speaking directly to pregnant women and to parents, he told them not to take acetaminophen, the active ingredient in Tylenol. He repeatedly made the fraudulent and long-disproven link between autism and vaccines, saying his assessment was based on a hunch.

“I have always had very strong feelings about autism and how it happened and where it came from,” he said.

At a two-day meeting this fall, Kennedy’s handpicked vaccine advisers to the CDC raised questions about vaccinating babies against hepatitis Ban inoculation long shown to reduce disease and death drastically.

“The discussion that has been brought up regarding safety is not based on evidence other than case reports and anecdotes,” said Dr. Flor Munoz, a pediatric infectious disease expert at Baylor College of Medicine and Texas Children’s Hospital.

During the country’s worst year for measles in more than three decades, Kennedy cast doubt on the measles vaccine while championing unproven treatments and alleging that the unvaccinated children who died were “already sick.”

Scientists say the process of getting medicines and vaccines to market and recommended in the United States has, until now, typically relied on gold standard science. The process is so rigorous and transparent that much of the rest of the world follows the lead of American regulators, giving the OK to treatments only after U.S. approval.

This April 1, 2025 photo shows the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention building in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Ben Gray, file)

Gold standard science

The gold standard can differ because science and medicine is complicated and everything cannot be tested the same way. That term simply refers to the best possible evidence that can be gathered.

“It completely depends on what question you’re trying to answer,” said Dr. Jake Scott, an infectious disease physician and Stanford University researcher.

What produces the best possible evidence?

There are many different types of studies. The most rigorous is the randomized clinical trial.

It randomly creates two groups of subjects that are identical in every way except for the drug, treatment or other question being tested. Many are “blinded studies,” meaning neither the subjects nor the researchers know who is in which group. This helps eliminate bias.

It is not always possible or ethical to conduct these tests. This is sometimes the case with vaccine trials, “because we have so much data showing how safe and effective they are, it would be unethical to withhold vaccines from a particular group,” said Jessica Steier, a public health scientist and founder of the Unbiased Science podcast.

Studying the long-term effect of a behavior can be impossible. For example, scientists could not possibly study the long-term benefit of exercise by having one group not exercise for years.

Instead, researchers must conduct observational studies, where they follow participants and track their health and behavior without manipulating any variables. Such studies helped scientists discover that fluoride reduces cavities, and later lab studies showed how fluoride strengthens tooth enamel.

But the studies have limitations because they can often only prove correlation, not causation. For example, some observational studies have raised the possibility of a link between autism risk and using acetaminophen during pregnancy, but more have not found a connection. The big problem is that those kinds of studies cannot determine if the painkiller really made any difference or if it was the fever or other health problem that prompted the need for the pill.

Real world evidence can be especially powerful

Scientists can learn even more when they see how something affects a large number of people in their daily lives.

That real-world evidence can be valuable to prove how well something works — and when there are rare side effects that could never be detected in trials.

Such evidence on vaccines has proved useful in both ways. Scientists now know there can be rare side effects with some vaccines and can alert doctors to be on the lookout. The data has proved that vaccines provide extraordinary protection from disease. For example, measles was eliminated in the U.S. but it still pops up among unvaccinated groups.

That same data proves vaccines are safe.

“If vaccines caused a wave of chronic disease, our safety systems — which can detect 1-in-a-million events — would have seen it. They haven’t,” Scott told a U.S. Senate subcommittee in September.

The best science is open and transparent

Simply publishing a paper online is not enough to call it open and transparent. Specific things to look for include:

— Researchers set their hypothesis before they start the study and do not change it.

— The authors disclose their conflicts of interest and their funding sources.

— The research has gone through peer review by subject-matter experts who have nothing to do with that particular study.

— The authors show their work, publishing and explaining the data underlying their analyses.

— They cite reliable sources.

This transparency allows science to check itself. Dr. Steven Woloshin, a Dartmouth College professor, has spent much of his career challenging scientific conclusions underlying health policy.

“I’m only able to do that because they’re transparent about what they did, what the underlying source resources were, so that you can come to your own conclusion,” he said. “That’s how science works.”

Know the limits of anecdotes and single studies

Anecdotes may be powerful. They are not data.

Case studies might even be published in top journals, to help doctors or other professionals learn from a particular situation. But they are not used to making decisions about how to treat large numbers of patients because every situation is unique.

Even single studies should be considered in the context of previous research. A new one-off blockbuster study that seems to answer every question definitively or reaches a conclusion that runs counter to other well-conducted studies needs a very careful look.

Uncertainty is baked into science.

“Science isn’t about reaching certainty,” Woloshin said. “It’s about trying to reduce uncertainty to the point where you can say, ‘I have good confidence that if we do X, we’ll see result Y.’ But there’s no guarantee.”

Doing your own research? Questions to ask

If you come across a research paper online, in a news story or cited by officials to change you r mind about something, here are some questions to ask:

— Who did the research? What is their expertise? Do they disclose conflicts of interest?

— Who paid for this research? Who might benefit from it?

— Is it published in a reputable journal? Did it go through peer review?

— What question are the researchers asking? Who or what are they studying? Are they making even comparisons between groups?

— Is there a “limitations” section where the authors point out what their research cannot prove, other factors that could influence their results, or other potential blind spots? What does it say?

— Does it make bold, definitive claims? Does it fit into the scientific consensus or challenge it? Is it too good or bad to be true?

___

AP Medical Writers Lauran Neergaard in Washington and Mike Stobbe in New York contributed to this report.

___

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

The Dictatorship

Dispatch from inside Vatican bubble during remarkable exchange between pope and president…

Published

7 hours ago

April 17, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Dispatch from inside Vatican bubble during remarkable exchange between pope and president…

ABOARD THE PAPAL PLANE (AP) — There is an odd sense of isolation when you are covering Pope Leo XIV from inside the Vatican’s traveling press pool: Escorted from venue to venue with police motorcades that clear even the most congested of traffic jams, it’s a membership that has many privileges.

But during Leo’s epic four-nation trip to Africabeing inside the Vatican “bubble” has been an almost surreal experience, as an unprecedented back-and-forth plays out between U.S. President Donald Trump and history’s first American pope.

Every morning this week, waking up to developments in Washington from the evening before, the questions have abounded: Will Leo bite? How will he address the latest criticism, if at all, while focusing on the Africa program he has planned?

That was certainly the case on Wednesday, as Leo, the Vatican delegation and a pool of around 70 accredited reporters boarded the ITA Airways charter for the second leg of Leo’s 11-day odyssey — the flight from Algiers, Algeria to Yaounde, Cameroon.

Much to the reporters’ delight, Leo had responded head-on to Trump at the start of the trip when he gamely came to the back of the plane and greeted journalists traveling April 13 from Rome to Algiers. He responded to those who asked him about Trump’s Truth Social post a day earlier, in which the U.S. president had accused him of being soft on crime, cozy with the left and owed his papacy to Trump.

Trump was responding to Leo’s calls for peace, in reference to the Iran war, and comments that Trump’s threat to annihilate Iranian civilization were “truly unacceptable.”

Stopping to chat as he made his way from row to row that first day, Leo had told journalists that he was merely preaching the Gospel when he called for peace and criticized war, and that he didn’t fear the Trump administration.

A comment about peace

On Tuesday, on the short flight from Algiers to Annaba, the ancient city of Hippo, Leo stayed in the front of the plane where the Vatican delegation sits, dashing the Vatican pool’s hopes for another Trump vs. Leo news cycle.

On Wednesday, with a five-hour flight ahead of us to Cameroon, excitement grew in economy class when Vatican personnel came to the back of the plane, readied the microphone and did sound checks to make sure the whole cabin could hear.

Emerging from behind the curtain, Leo didn’t take questions from reporters and kept his remarks focused on his just-concluded visit to Algeria, where he honored the legacy of his spiritual inspiration, St. Augustine of Hippo.

In brief remarks standing at the front of the cabin, Leo didn’t refer to war or Trump. But he spoke in terms that could suggest the latest overnight lobs from Washington certainly hadn’t gone unnoticed. Perhaps tellingly, he spoke exclusively in English.

Trump had kept up the criticism on Truth Social, while U.S. Vice President JD Vance, a Catholic convert, said that Leo should “be careful” when speaking about theology.

For starters, Leo noted the sign of “goodness,” “generosity,” and “respect” that the Algerian government showed him in welcoming him on the first-ever papal visit. He said that the Algerian honors had included a full military aerial escort of the papal plane through Algerian airspace.

He also recalled his visit to the Great Mosque in Algiers, which he said was a significant way to show that “although we have different beliefs, we have different ways of worshipping, we have different ways of living, we can live together in peace.”

He said that St. Augustine’s message of searching for God, searching for truth, building bridges and seeking unity and community “is something which the world needs to hear today and that together we can continue to offer in our witness as we continue on this apostolic voyage.”

A papal press pool

Like other heads of state, the pope travels internationally with both his own media team as well as a group of external news organizations that pay, oftentimes handsomely, to have their reporters travel aboard the papal plane and have special access to cover his events. The Associated Press is always on the plane, paying for as many as four journalists per trip.

Being inside the Vatican bubble has journalistic advantages and disadvantages. You get the best access and are traveling under the Vatican’s security umbrella, meaning there’s little or no hassle from local security organizers. The Vatican facilitates visas and local SIM cards in advance, and arranges hotels and local transportation, allowing reporters to focus on the news rather than logistics.

Journalists in the bubble get the pope’s speeches ahead of time and have occasional access to delegation members, as well as other information in real time from the Vatican spokesman.

But the real reason news organizations choose to spend thousands of dollars per journalist, per trip, to be on the papal plane is to be on hand for the pope’s news conferences. The only time a pope holds such briefings with journalists is at an altitude of 35,000 feet (around 10,000 meters)

Who could forget Pope Francis’ famous line on his maiden trip as pope, in 2013 to Rio de Janeiro, when he uttered the line “Who am I to judge,” when he was asked about a purportedly gay priest.

The downside of being in the Vatican bubble is obvious for many of the same reasons it’s helpful: You are removed from local reality, whether in Algeria or Alaska, and rarely have time to do the type of on-the-ground reporting that makes a news report balanced.

Those news organizations that have the resources have teams on the ground producing such content, or journalists within the bubble break away to do their own reporting, so that the end result is a healthy combination of official Vatican information and local input.

But when the real drama involving the pope is occurring thousands of miles and time zones away, being in the Vatican bubble is a somewhat jarring experience. The news everyone wants to know isn’t necessarily what the pope has on his agenda.

But on this trip, the first by an American pope to Africa, being in the Vatican bubble certainly had its advantages. The next stop is Angola. Who knows what Leo will have to say.

___

Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

The Dictatorship

Iran negotiator or private investor? Raskin launches investigation into Jared Kushner.

Published

17 hours ago

April 17, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Apr. 17, 2026, 5:00 AM EDT

House Judiciary Democrats are launching a new investigation into President Donald Trump’s son-in-law — and Iran ceasefire negotiator — Jared Kushner, citing his “glaring and incurable conflict of interest.”

In a letter obtained first by MS NOW, Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., writes that Kushner’s dual roles as Trump administration peace envoy and leader of a private equity firm have “been haunting American foreign policy since President Trump returned to Washington in 2025,” with the Iran war only compounding concerns that Kushner’s financial work could distort his priorities.

“Your client Saudi Arabia,” Raskin writes, “wants to see a continuation and escalation of President Trump’s Iran war, but the American people have an interest in minimizing the loss of American lives and treasure in this conflict.”

“To whom do your professional obligations and fiduciary duties belong?” Raskin asks in the letter, which was sent to Kushner, his firm, and the State Department on Thursday.

Kushner, who is married to Trump’s eldest daughter Ivanka, founded the investment firm Affinity Partners in 2021 after serving as a senior adviser during Trump’s first administration.

Affinity’s largest and earliest investor, according to The New York Timesis Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, which is led by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. The fund invested roughly $2 billion after the first Trump White House ended. Sovereign wealth funds tied to other Gulf nations, such as Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, have also invested.

Affinity has earned a 25% rate of return since 2021, according to a person familiar with the firm’s internal dynamics.

Since Trump returned to the White House, Kushner has taken on the role of peace envoy, working on negotiations between Ukraine and Russia, Israel and Hamas and, most recently, the U.S. and Iran. The latter two, critics note, are in the region that is the source of sizable investments in Kushner’s firm.

“You cannot both be a diplomat and a financial pawn of the Saudi monarchy at the same time,” Raskin writes in the letter. “You cannot faithfully represent the United States with billions of dollars in Saudi and Emirati cash burning a hole in every pocket of every suit you own.”

In a statement shared with MS NOW, Ian Brekke, chief legal officer for Affinity, said Kushner “has complied with all applicable laws and requirements and has always operated in the best interests of the United States.”

“Jared is not raising funds and has not done business in Gaza, Ukraine or Iran and has no intention to do so,” Brekke said.

In response to a March report in The New York Times that Kushner had taken recent steps to raise money for his firm from governments in the Middle East, Brekke wrote, “Affinity had early conversations with its anchor investor and does not intend to take in any additional capital while Jared is volunteering for the government.”

And in a statement to MS NOW, White House spokesperson Anna Kelly said Kushner had “sacrificed time with his family and livelihood” to work on the Trump administration’s initiatives overseas. She called Raskin “an attention-seeking loser who has saved zero lives and hasn’t accomplished anything.”

As part of the new House Judiciary investigation that Democrats are unilaterally launching, Raskin is asking Kushner to hand over a trove of materials tied to his work for Affinity and with the government.

The documents Raskin wants include: records of his communications with Saudi, Emirati, Qatari, and Israeli officials and their state-linked investment funds dating back to 2022; the financial records detailing all investors in his Affinity investment fund; records of meetings with investors dating back to July2024; and all communications relating to financial investments in Gaza, Ukraine, Iran, and other areas where Kushner has played a role as a negotiator.

Raskin is also requesting Kushner’s communications with the White House and the Trump campaign, including with Trump himself, dating back to July 2024 regarding his role in the new administration.

While Kushner is unlikely to play ball with Democrats — and as long as Republicans don’t side with Democrats, Raskin doesn’t have the unilateral ability to subpoena Kushner — the inquiry is a bit of a preview of the investigations Democrats will launch should their party win control of the House.

As the midterms approach, Democrats are pledging to make rooting out corruption in the Trump administration a central focus. And while Kushner could ignore Raskin now, that would be much more difficult next year if Democrats take back the committee gavels.

For Raskin, this is the latest step in a yearslong effort to review Kushner’s activities.

In 2023, while serving as ranking member of the House Oversight Committee, Raskin wrote to Kushner questioning whether his business interests may have influenced his work during the first Trump administration.

In 2024, Raskin and Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., called on the Department of Justice to appoint a special counsel to review possible violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act.

Kevin Frey is a congressional reporter for MS NOW.

The Dictatorship

House extends surveillance powers until April 30 after late-night revolt sinks GOP plan

Published

17 hours ago

April 17, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

House extends surveillance powers until April 30 after late-night revolt sinks GOP plan

Apr. 17, 2026, 2:38 AM EDT

WASHINGTON (AP) — The House early Friday approved a short-term renewal until April 30 of a controversial surveillance programused by U.S. spy agencies in a post-midnight vote after Republicans revolted and refused President Donald Trump’s push for a longer extension.

GOP leaders rushed lawmakers back into session to late Thursday with a series of back-to-back votes that collapsed in dramatic failure, before they quickly pushed ahead the stopgap measure as they race to keep the surveillance program running past Monday’s expiration date.

First they unveiled a new plan that would have extended the program for five years, with revisions. Then they tried to salvage a shorter 18-month renewal that Trump had demanded and Speaker Mike Johnson had previously backed. Some 20 Republicans joined most Democrats in blocking its advance.

Shortly after 2 a.m. they quickly agreed to the 10-day extension, which was agreed to on a voice vote without a formal roll call. It next goes to the Senate, which is gaveling for a rare Friday session, as Congress races to keep the surveillance program running.

“We were very close tonight,” said Johnson after the late-night action.

But Democrats blasted the middle-of-the-night voting as amateur hour. “Are you kidding me? Who the hell is running this place?” said Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., during a fiery floor debate.

At the center of the standoff that has stretched throughout the week is Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act,which permits the CIA, National Security Agency, FBI and other agencies to collect and analyze vast amounts of overseas communications without a warrant. In doing so, they can incidentally sweep up communications involving Americans who interact with foreign targets.

U.S. officials say the authority is critical to disrupting terrorist plots, cyber intrusions and foreign espionage.

Surveillance program fight is a debate over privacy and security

Its path to passage has teetered all week in a familiar fight, as lawmakers weigh civil liberties concerns against intelligence officials’ warnings about national security risks.

Opponents of the surveillance tool point to past misuses. FBI officials repeatedly violated their own standards when searching intelligence related to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol and racial justice protests in 2020, according to a 2024 court order.

Trump and his allies had lobbied aggressively all week for a clean renewal of the program, without changes.

A group of Republicans traveled to the White House on Tuesday, and on Wednesday CIA Director John Ratcliffe spoke directly with GOP lawmakers. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise said Thursday there had “been negotiations late into the night with the White House and some of our members.”

“I am asking Republicans to UNIFY, and vote together on the test vote to bring a clean Bill to the floor,” Trump wrote on Truth Social this week. “We need to stick together.”

The result of days of negotiations

Thursday’s proceedings came to a standstill as lawmakers retreated behind closed doors and Johnson reached for an agreement to resolve the standoff.

Shortly before midnight GOP leaders announced a new proposal, a five-year extension, with revisions. The changes were designed to win over skeptics of the surveillance program who have demanded greater oversight to protect Americans’ privacy.

Among the changes are new provisions to ensure that only FBI attorneys can authorize queries on U.S. persons, and to require the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to review such cases, said Rep. Austin Scott, R-Ga., during the debate.

But the final product, a 14-page amendment, did not go far enough for some holdouts in either party.

With Johnson controlling a slim majority, he has little room for dissent. As the Republicans fell short on both efforts before the short extension, a handful of Democrats stepped in to try to help them advance the longer extensions, but most Democrats were opposed.

“We just defeated Johnson’s efforts to sneak through a 5-year FISA authorization tonight,” said Democratic Rep, Ro Khanna of California. “Now, they will have to fight in daylight.”