Are vaccines good for public health? Absolutely.
Does Jill Stein believe this? Probably, but her stance has always been a little ambiguous, perhaps in an effort to get those sweet, sweet anti-vaxxer votes.
Today, in a meeting with the Washington Post editorial board, Dr. Stein once again attempted to clarify her position, saying:
Vaccinations are a critical part of our health infrastructure and we badly need them, so I think what I have raised questions about is just influence peddling in the FDA. Right now there’s a lot of distrust for government agencies and for government in general. That’s another reason to stop the revolving door, for example, between Monsanto lobbyists who then wind up as heads of major departments...
Nice pivot, Dr. Stein. Nice-ass pivot.
This is basically the line Dr. Stein has been using throughout the election, which is that vaccinations are fine or whatevz, but there’s corruption at the FDA. While that may be true, Jezebel’s Anna Merlan points out that “vaccines have been routinely, repeatedly and rigorously tested by scientists who don’t have ties to big pharma.” Why Stein repeatedly links these two issues remains unclear.
In her interview with the Washington Post, she also let the voters know the following:
On the presidency: “I don’t believe that it is rocket science.”
On her campaign: “For me, there’s not a lot of difference between running for office and what I do in my every day life.”
On how to get your election information: “Don’t rely on big media for this, get in touch with the Green Party.”
On how Cuba getting off fossil fuels (and the country’s economic collapse) helped reduce obesity and diabetes: “Overnight, they had the move to a healthy food system, and their pollution went away. Right? Because they didn’t have any more fossil fuels to burn. So suddenly they are biking, walking and taking buses.”
On her competition: “We’ll have two fossil fuel-funded candidates who are continuing to fan the flames of the burning planet.”
On that dank kush: “[S]cience would argue that marijuana is less dangerous than alcohol and tobacco and should not be on the list of scheduled substances, so we could move away from this catastrophic war on drugs and the mass incarceration that has surrounded it.” See, she does occasionally have good ideas about the world. Go Jill!
On how to end war: “I would certainly push to see other countries divesting from their militaries and putting their dollars into our true area of conflict, which is generally about fossil fuels and their routes of transportation... We can make that conflict obsolete by intensifying our efforts to transition to one hundred percent clean renewable energy, all of us, and we could do a much better job of challenging them to do that.”
Still no word on whether wi-fi is hurting our children! Fossil fuels, on the other hand, undoubtedly are.
Question for our beloved readers: Is making fun of Jill Stein punching down? Tell me, in the comments.