The Thinking ‘Kat: Trump, Tylenol, and Blind Trust (Content Warning)
Recently, I provided information that ran contrary to the words and rhetoric offered up by US president Donald Trump. He had claimed that left-wingers and Democrats were responsible for more violence than their right-wing counterparts. Of course, Trump’s claims were not true, and easily debunked, but his supporters attempted to refute facts and information with personal stories, as though their anecdotes could override what the numbers say. Their dear leader spoke, and they deemed his word unquestionable, regardless of reality. Sadly, this appears to be a recurring theme.
Now that Trump has issued statements about the drug Tylenol and autism (and also issued statements about the MMR vaccine), his flock have accepted his word, without thought or due process. It matters not that experienced, expert opinion refutes Trump’s unqualified claims. The combined wisdom of various medical bodies around the world has been deemed irrelevant by Trump, so in the eyes of his worshippers, it is irrelevant.
These hyperbolic claims are not merely vapid and dishonest, they are dangerous. Tylenol is often the only drug capable of managing cases of serious fever in pregnant women. Fevers can cause various and serious health complications for the baby. Clearly medical advice should be followed with any and all medical treatments, and popping painkillers like candy is a bad idea, but the suggestion that pregnant women should not take a drug to combat illness, in defiance of evidence, is absurd and the reasoning for doing so is utterly misleading.
Why is it then, that so many conservatives accept Trump’s claims, without so much as a second thought? Is it a knee-jerk reaction, an agreement reached because Trump is seemingly rallying against the establishment, and defying the evil Democrats? Is it because of a rising tendency to favour outlandish conspiracies ahead of clear and decisive information? The rush to distrust expert guidance is a strange one. Blind trust is bad, but then again, conservatives seem to put so much blind trust in Trump! In one breath, they insist we must not accept the evidence, in another, they complain that Democrats are not accepting statements from Trump as gospel.
I wish I could understand this mentality, but it is beyond me.
The trend of the conservative right to defy reason and evidence becomes visible not only in the grim reality that Republican states are more dangerous than Democrat ones, but also in terms of health. The distrust of the establishment might be warranted in some cases, but certainly not when it comes to medical care, and certainly not in respect of maternity and neo-natal care. At the risk of going a little off-topic, there are further, and rather tragic, demonstrations of how sowing the seeds of distrust and misinformation can be very, very dangerous.
Infant Mortality
There are without a doubt a number of factors behind the terrible situations that give rise to infant mortality. It would be foolish to suggest that the entire matter rests on the availability of tylenol or vaccines, however it seems the evidence points to red states once again being the worst-performing states, and the question has to be asked: why? What makes the states that have routinely voted for Trump worse for infant mortality?
To provide information from the link (all info is from 2023):
| State | Mortality Rate (per 1,000 births) |
| Mississippi | 8.94 |
| Arkansas | 8.22 |
| Alabama | 7.64 |
| Alaska | 7.21 |
| Ohio | 7.16 |
| Louisiana | 7.14 |
| Oklahoma | 7.12 |
| Georgia | 6.99 |
| South Carolina | 6.96 |
| North Carolina | 6.95 |
The sad trend here is yet again, the worst states are Republican states. Nor is this the end of this awful trend.
Maternal Mortality
Once again, we need to dive deeper into this. Why is it that the worst US states for maternal mortality are Republican states? What is it that is seemingly innate to Republican states that renders them so dangerous, for a variety of reasons?
A Decline in Vaccination
Across the USA – and this cuts across Republican and Democrat states – people are turning away from vaccination. The rhetoric from Trump and Robert F. Kennedy Jr has unquestionably played a role in swaying people away from what is a tried-and-tested means of controlling harmful illnesses. Measles, once declared eliminated in 2000, has seen a resurgence in the USA. Whilst measles is not generally a debilitating disease, it can cause inflammation of the brain, blindness, and even death. Inaccurate statements about the polio vaccine from Kennedy Jr are misleading the public as it’s importance, potentially paving the way for a preventable disease that cripples and kills to return to the USA.
The misleading association between vaccines and autism is yet another mechanism by which parents might forgo vaccinating their children against measles, mumps and rubella. These illnesses are not necessarily fatal, but they can be, and they can cause other problems for children, and even adults. It is irresponsible for the likes of Trump and Kennedy Jr to issue the sort of rhetoric they have indulged in, and the evidence proves this.
Unfortunately, a lot of conservative Republicans are too wedded to the idea that Trump is not to be questioned. Their default assumption is that criticism of his policies and practices is merely out of spite, and they combine this with a strange sort of worship of their idol. The inability to critically examine Trump’s statements and positions is creating a deadly new reality, where disease is more likely to take hold. Combined with the preestablished fact that Republican states tend to be more violent, and that right-wingers are in fact responsible for more political violence in the USA, and you have a very sad state of affairs. It makes me sad and afraid for my American friends, and that includes those I know who are Republican.
