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1 day ago | 
popularrationalism.substack.com | James Lyons-Weiler
In a move that quietly signals the beginning of a major regulatory realignment, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced on May 13, 2025, its intent to remove concentrated ingestible fluoride prescription drugs for children from the market. The decision, initiated under the direction of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., marks a decisive turn against decades of inertia in public health policy. Though not accompanied by fanfare, this reversal is far from trivial.
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1 day ago | 
popularrationalism.substack.com | James Lyons-Weiler
Too many of our articles go to some people's s , p , a , m folders. To prevent this, please add the email address from the sender of this message as a contact in your email contacts! It’s easy. And it helps others see our work. And did you know you can reply to Substack articles and view them online and comment? Your engagement matters. We want to hear from you!Popular Rationalism is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
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2 days ago | 
popularrationalism.substack.com | James Lyons-Weiler
Choose G0022Be sure to mention “Establishment of a Public Docket; Request for Comments—2025–2026 Formula for COVID–19 Vaccines for Use in the United States”Here's the LinkThis is your chance - tell them what YOU KNOW!Share
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2 days ago | 
popularrationalism.substack.com | James Lyons-Weiler
In December 2020, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted Emergency Use Authorizations (EUAs) for the first SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccines—Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna—based on interim data from large-scale Phase III trials.
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2 days ago | 
popularrationalism.substack.com | James Lyons-Weiler
Physicians and patients do not succeed because hospitals profit. That model has been disproven. Our counterproposal to this brazen MedPage Today article calling for breath-holding until corporate profit is assured is called the Regulatory Revenue Ratchet. The American Medical Association (AMA) is a professional association chartered to represent the voice and values of American physicians.
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3 days ago | 
popularrationalism.substack.com | James Lyons-Weiler
The newly appointed FDA leadership has stirred a wave of hopeful optimism among healthcare professionals and public health observers. And rightly so: Marty Makary, a long-time critic of pharmaceutical excess, has taken the reins with calls for transparency and patient-centered thinking. His early remarks promoting "streamlined pathways" for mRNA biological products have excited those eager to see faster medical innovation, but they also have made health freedom warriors nervous.
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3 days ago | 
popularrationalism.substack.com | James Lyons-Weiler
The continued use of mRNA vaccines in the United States remains one of the most politically and medically contentious issues of our time. As public awareness grows around adverse event profiles and the questionable regulatory processes that ushered these products into global use, many are now asking an urgent question: why hasn’t HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. acted to revoke them?
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6 days ago | 
popularrationalism.substack.com | James Lyons-Weiler
In recent years, “efficiency” has taken on a dangerous new meaning in biomedical science. Once a term denoting thoughtful optimization—doing more with less without sacrificing quality—it has been rebranded to justify collapsing regulatory safeguards, abbreviating scientific protocols, and sidelining transparency in favor of speed. This shift has not made medicine better. It has made it brittle.
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1 week ago | 
popularrationalism.substack.com | James Lyons-Weiler
In May 2025, a new peer-reviewed article by Jeremy R. Hammond, Jeet Varia, and Brian Hooker delivered a long-overdue and thorough postmortem on the 2019 observational study by Hviid et al., which had claimed to finally put to rest the alleged link between MMR vaccination and autism. That study was widely celebrated by regulators, the media, and industry-linked scientists as definitive. It was no such thing. The Hammond et al.
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1 week ago | 
popularrationalism.substack.com | James Lyons-Weiler
We must move from reactive suppression of disease to proactive cultivation of resilience. In 2021, the dominant public health messaging surrounding COVID-19 vaccination was framed as an all-or-nothing proposition: Get vaccinated to protect yourself and others. Full stop. This approach assumed uniform benefit across all ages, health statuses, and exposure scenarios.
