As an aside... I see in my profile that I haven't blocked anybody, but I don't see even a hint anywhere of how I can block something like "me antivaxxer" or whatever its ID is. So, how...?

I didn't bother to get checked but I just went ahead with an MMR in early March and followed up with the booster in early April. I had a pretty decent reaction (sore arm) so, at age 74, I probably needed it. Take this with a grain of salt but, a couple of weeks later, I had some minor skin rashes that I assumed to be eczema - dark red quarter-sized patches that were slightly sore and very itchy - which I treated with CeraVe, which didn't completely get rid of the discoloration. Coincidentally I had a appointment with the dermatologist who seemed convinced that this was a trivial Shingles outbreak and I should be happy that I had been fully vaccinated for Shingles or I could have had a real problem. I have doubts that the MMR shots could in any way be connected to the outbreak but am mentioning it as another good reason older readers should be up to date on Shingrix shots.

I noticed on CNN this morning that doctors in Texas report that some of their child measles patients exhibit the signs of liver toxicity due to overdoses of cod liver oil. Golly... who could have see that coming? Apparently not RFK.

I surprised that nobody seems to have pointed out that "megadoses" of vitamin A can be dangerous. It takes a lot to kill someone (explorers eating polar bear liver) but, if someone is sick and believes a little is good = a lot is better, there are some health risks here. If Kennedy actually had a brain he would have pushed carotenes instead.

Thank you for this, your summaries were missed.

Not yet, it seems like a lot of effort for what I at first thought was a trivial question. If RFK does start limiting vaccine access then this will be my next step, thanks.

Another point that the Christian far right doesn't seem to be aware of is the obvious implication that their ignorance and bigoted driven deification of Trump suggests that the middle eastern fanatics of 2000 years ago may also have had, uh, poor taste in their choice of messiahs. Some run of the mill rabbi decides he needs a gimmick, or possibly he was schizophrenic a'la Joan of Arc and, Ptoof... he pulls the Son-O-God rabbit out of his hat. One thing we do know for sure is, the guys who crucified him weren't overly impressed by his divinity and don't seem to have worried about retribution from his Daddy. Evangelicals need to remind themselves that they are representatives of their own beliefs and really need to try a novel approach with the rest of us... stuff like supporting "honesty" and "ethics", instead of their "God sent us a dirty spade to due a dirty job" BS.

A second point this article touches on, is the general moral and cognitive rot in a significant percentage of our population, something I've been been worried about, and generally met with eye-rolling over, since the second Bush term. Following WWII most of us were supposedly inoculated against Fascism... we should bloody well know, and recognize the social forces that enabled Franco, Mussolini and Hitler. And nothing more clearly illustrates the obvious insanity in our evangelical population than the near-worship of Trump who, twenty years ago, would have been an exact match for their concept of the anti-Christ. Another pet-peeve with me is the false equivalence between the effects of aging: Trump is a micro-manager who promised us the best minds in his cabinet and who actually made some minor effort to get people with brains. Those rational minds quickly branded him "a fucking idiot" and a nut job and left, to be replaced by the most cringe-worthy sycophants of any administration in our history. By contrast Biden seems to have picked good-to-great choices, smart people with integrity, and built a decent administrative machine. His White House could continue to govern well with Biden himself reduced to a drooling figurehead, while Trump's version will continue to degenerate into something approximating the Church of Scientology.

I'm a middle class white male boomer who, in the US public school system, read "1984", "Animal Farm", "The Prince" and other books under the guidance of teachers who had read "It can't happen here" and "All the Kings Men" etc. With WWII still in mind our History teachers explained fascisms' rise in Spain under Franco, Italy under Mussolini and Germany under the Big H. We were innoculated but, Hell... we were cut from different stuff than those European lemmings, we were individuals who could spot assholes from a mile a way and buck the dumbell groups that followed them. Roll forward about 50 years and... Trump!? Not only that but, and I swear I'm not making this up, the whole county lived under what felt like a four year Jerry Springer special on a trailer park trash circus lead by a pathological liar and sociopath who even _vogued_ as Mussolini and... wait for it, here comes the stupid part... 75 million of them voted to re-elect him.

btw, my "own research on credible medical sites" led me to generalize that both boosters and infections provide (1) decent protection from the ICU for 4 to 6 months and (2) getting a booster within that period yields a reduced response as well as a shorter period protection. I suspect your question will not have a clear cut answer even after you add in the additional personal data.

You may want to do your own research on credible medical sites, not social media, because your personal (age, weight and health) data is a contributing factor in your own perception of risk. In general, you had covid in September so you are approaching the possibility of getting it again although statistically it should be very mild. The longer you put off the booster the better your immune system response will be in addition to "kicking the can" that much further into the future mutation time frame when the bivalent booster could be most needed. In my lay opinion you haven't given any reason why you need to make a quick decision or get a booster for at least another month (but you need to give the booster 2 or more weeks to get up to full effectiveness) and there are indications that January will see a rise in the infection rate. I'm over 70, my last infection was in January and I have other reasons for being a bit risk adverse so I got the bivalent in mid October.

This should be a national topic and the introductory posting is an excellent foundation for further discussion in a larger forum... like MSNBC. As a retiree I saw the fascist disease, which in my view had come out of remission during the Karl Rove years after the turn of the century, finally gain the upper hand with the election of Trump and have been worrying about having to live through the coming "interesting times". The grifters will loot our 401K's and undermine social security while the MAGA crowd doubles down on trolling libtards and persecuting anyone who sets off their hair trigger xenophobia, becoming ever more vicious as they suffer a declining quality of life that they are mentally incapable of seeing as a consequence of their own actions. A major fear for me is that the military WON'T step in and kill 'em all,

Maybe nobody, aside from Trump and friends, have seen the documents because Trump stole them in the first place so he would have something to barter with if/when he flees the country. Trump isn't going to go to prison, and if he sees the walls closing in on him he will need to move fast to somewhere that can provide him with protection from extradition and allow him to live the high life for his remaining years. I suspect Trump put together a broad, classified, overview of our intelligence services that would appeal to our political enemies so he could buy himself protection using something more valuable and portable than money to dictators. This would explain why he took the material he took, why he is so angry that the FBI took it away - cutting down on his escape insurance - and why there is no evidence that he had already leaked any of it. It would also explain why he pulled his long range Boeing 757 out of mothballs in NY and is getting it refurbished in Louisiana to put back into service ASAP supposedly so he can use it for his 2024 campaign.

Got the 2 shot Pfizer in spring '21, a J&J in July and another in November, followed by a mild (but very unnerving) 16 day bout of Covid in January 22. It has been 9 months since my last booster so I just tried this week to get a Novavax and was told it isn't approved as a booster. Mulled that over for a day or two and tried to get a Moderna, only to be told that the CDC doesn't approve 3rd boosters. I think we all see the irony in punishing people who took this thing seriously by cutting them off from vaccination. I don't want to lie but I'm looking at having to wait a month or so for the covalent to be widely available and then "forgetting" to mention my previous J&J's. I'm hoping the situation changes for the better before then as others run into this limit, further complicated by evidence that 3rd boosters are of only short term benefit, ergo my interest in Novavax and Modernas covalent because uh, they are less like the J&J's.