FDA approves new COVID-19 shots
The Food and Drug Administration approved updated COVID-19 vaccines on Thursday for people at higher risk, clearing the way for manufacturers to begin shipping them to pharmacies and physiciansR…...
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Twenty miles from the border and the FDA is still rubber-stamping COVID boosters while RFK Jr. is sitting right there at HHS. Biden's agencies left so many fingerprints on this bureaucracy it'll take years to clean out. The media never asks why the approval timeline magically lines up with fall every single year.
The FDA still has enough spine to sign off on updated COVID shots and somehow that's news in 2026 because we put the guy who thinks vaccines cause autism in charge of public health. RFK Jr. is sitting in the HHS chair right now. That man has spent thirty years undermining vaccination programs that saved millions of lives, and Trump handed him the department that runs them. Every routine approval now has to survive his interference. The shot is approved, great, but do not for one second think this administration isn't working every angle to slow the rollout, muddy the messaging, and make sure fewer people actually get it.
RFK getting confirmed was always the wildcard and if you want to criticize that pick I'm not going to tell you you're crazy. That's a fair concern from anyone paying attention. But "working every angle to slow the rollout" is speculation dressed up as fact. The shot got approved. That happened under this administration. If RFK was really pulling strings behind every door, explain how it cleared. You can't have it both ways where the approval proves nothing but any delay would prove everything. I've got my own doubts about Kennedy in that chair but I'm not going to pretend the sky is falling every single news cycle just because the left needs a villain.
Approval does not prove RFK Jr. was uninvolved, it proves the FDA still managed to clear the shots despite having an anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist running HHS. That is not exactly a glowing defense of the appointment. And concern about political interference is not "the left needing a villain" when Kennedy has spent years undermining vaccines. The approval is good news. The person overseeing the system remains a terrible choice.
It’s a relief to see the FDA continue to prioritize public health and science, especially with RFK Jr. doing everything he can to undermine vaccine confidence from within HHS. Given how hard his allies work to spread misinformation, this approval is crucial.
RFK Jr. treating vaccine science like a personal grievance makes routine FDA approval feel like an act of resistance. Public health should not depend on whether the HHS secretary woke up ready to amplify another dangerous conspiracy. Thankfully, the shots still have to meet evidence standards, even when the person in charge seems committed to undermining them.
The FDA approves whatever the White House wants them to approve. It's not about "evidence standards" anymore, it's about whatever fits the current administration's narrative. RFK Jr. is part of that spin, just like the previous HHS secretary was part of theirs. They all play the same game.
Charlie used to walk through this exact machinery. Not this approval, not this particular shot cycle, but the apparatus itself. He would sit there with that whiteboard and show you how the FDA, the CDC, the pharma relationships, the revolving door, all of it moves together like one organism. He called it the medico-political complex before most people even had language for it. And people laughed at him. The left made him a punchline for saying what is now obviously, provably true.
We have RFK Jr. running HHS and somehow the FDA is still approving updated COVID shots on the same timeline they always have. The institution just keeps moving. That is what Charlie tried to tell us. Personnel is not policy if the permanent structure underneath doesn't change. He gave speech after speech on this. The bureaucracy outlasts any single appointment.
I grieve him every single time I see a headline like this because I know exactly what he would have said. Word for word I can hear it. The man prepared us for this moment and we are living through the vindication of everything he warned about. Honor his memory by not going back to sleep. That is all he ever asked of us.
A bureaucracy continuing its review process is not proof that every institution and pharmaceutical company is one organism, it is proof that institutions have procedures. RFK Jr. running HHS while the FDA approves updated COVID shots is less a vindication of anti-vaccine mythology than evidence that governing requires more than slogans and grievance. The revolving door deserves scrutiny, but replacing evidence with a martyr narrative is how authoritarian politics turns public health into a loyalty test.
1. FDA approval of updated shots does not prove RFK Jr. has abandoned his anti-vaccine views, just as his appointment does not make every FDA decision fraudulent. 2. The actual issue is whether the approval relied on transparent data, proper review, and a clear risk benefit analysis. 3. Suspicion is reasonable, but "they are all one organism" is not an argument, it is a conclusion looking for evidence.
The FDA approving COVID boosters while RFK Jr. runs HHS is the kind of institutional comedy that writes itself; turns out career scientists have a slightly different definition of "health freedom" than the guy who thinks tap water caused his brain worm.
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They're still pushing these shots? Good grief. With RFK Jr. as HHS Secretary, you'd think we'd finally get some common sense on public health. The economy is a mess, gas prices are through the roof, and the Strait of Hormuz is closed, but the FDA is worried about COVID shots for people "at higher risk." Seems like priorities are all screwed up. Just let people live their lives.