vox--2020-12-11--The world’s problems overwhelmed me. This book empowered me.

In 2009 , the philosopher Peter Singer published a book called The Life You Can Save , which contained a restatement of one of his most famous arguments : that you should help people , if it ’ s not exceptionally costly to you .
His original argument , which he introduced in a paper published in 1972 , goes like this : Imagine you ’ re on your way to an important meeting , when suddenly you see a child drowning in a pond you ’ re walking by .
You could save them , but doing so would @ @ @ @ @ @ @ morally , to save the child ?
Almost everyone says yes .
But Singer contends that our world already presents opportunities to save lives that are about as straightforward and low cost as his hypothetical .
They aren ’ t right in front of us ; the children who die if we ignore them are mostly far away , born to families we might never meet .
But if you don ’ t think that matters ( and Singer doesn ’ t ) , then shouldn ’ t we be , well , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ compelling argument , precisely because it ’ s not all that complicated .
Singer is a utilitarian — a school of philosophy that holds that actions should be evaluated based on their consequences , and that you ought to do whatever maximizes overall utility or well-being — but he doesn ’ t expect his readers to share that worldview .
Instead , he argues , they just need to be people who would rather save a life than not .
Singer ’ s thought experiment has been provoking people for decades , but @ @ @ @ @ @ @ than thought-provoking : it got people to act .
The book played a powerful role in birthing the effective altruist movement , built around the principle that charities should take a rigorous approach to doing as much good as possible .
It inspired major donors to give more effectively .
And it inspired thousands of people to take the Life You Can Save pledge , to give what they can afford to save lives elsewhere .
This year , Singer and his publisher released The Life You Can Save for free as both @ @ @ @ @ @ @ rerelease in these formats ( following an update in 2019 ) seems like a good occasion to reflect on the book ’ s far-reaching influence .
Very few authors can claim to have seeded actual movements .
Singer , who is also the author of the seminal 1975 book Animal Liberation that helped launch the animal rights movement , can now say it twice .
Revisiting The Life You Can Save offered more than just a refresher course on Singer ’ s argument — it felt like rediscovering first principles .
Michael Schur @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and one of the book ’ s major fans , writes in the preface to the 2019 edition , “ At its core , Singer ’ s book asks us to consider a very simple truth : a life is a life , no matter where that life lives .
A human being over there is no less valuable than a human being over here.
” It can be intimidating and demoralizing , Schur admits , to read an argument that we should do much more than we ’ re doing for other @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s another way to look at it : Read the book and “ you will have , bouncing around in your head , the thought that there may be something simple you can do to help.
” The Life You Can Save , summarized Peter Singer is an Australian philosopher , a professor of philosophy at Princeton , and one of the major public intellectuals of our time .
Over the years , he has pushed for animal rights , made the case for utilitarianism , and advocated for more — and more @ @ @ @ @ @ @ been at times a controversial figure in modern ethics , alienating many in the disability community with what they ’ ve called his simplistic and horrifying takes on intellectual disabilities .
Since the early 1970s , one of his primary fixations has been getting the population of rich countries to think about the global poor .
He did that first in a 1972 essay inspired by the plight of Bengali war refugees , where he laid out the drowning child argument for the first time .
Though that essay introduced Singer ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Save gave it its fullest expression .
I first read the book in 2011 , when I was 17 , and found it bracingly straightforward : People are dying , we know how to fix that , we just have to donate money and tell everyone else to do so as well .
And while as an adult it ’ s obvious that many of the details of how to fix the world are more complicated than that , the simple core remains , and speaks loudly and clearly to the sort of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ world could be better , and you can make it that way .
The Life You Can Save starts almost identically to that 1972 essay .
After presenting the opening hypothetical , Singer then presents some non-hypotheticals : the story of the death of a girl in China who was hit by a car , of a boy in Ghana who died of measles .
“ If you ’ re like most people , you are probably saying to yourself right now : ‘ I wouldn ’ t have walked past that child @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ Perhaps you would have ; but remember that , as we have already seen , 5.4 million children under 5 years old died in 2017 , with a majority of those deaths being from preventable or treatable causes.
” ( This snippet is from the 2019 edition . )
The basic challenge has hardly changed since 1972 .
What has changed — dramatically — is how much we know about what can be done for the global poor .
There are now more global health charities that do extensive tracking of their @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ever to know exactly how far your dollar goes .
There ’ s the effective altruism movement — tens of thousands of people worldwide who ’ ve pledged money or committed their efforts to doing good in the world as effectively as possible .
That means that the book — especially the 2019 edition , updated with new statistics on charitable effectiveness that make its message even more convincing — at last has a strong answer to some of the major objections to charity , namely that it doesn ’ t actually work @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that if they could significantly improve or save a life for a few thousand dollars , they should do that , but they have a sense that international charity is flawed , corrupt , imperialist , or ultimately counterproductive .
And certainly some of it is — but “ charity ” is not a monolith but a number of specific interventions , many of them known to work well .
At the risk of oversimplifying — and The Life You Can Save is perpetually courting the risk of oversimplifying , because the core @ @ @ @ @ @ @ people die if we can save them is in fact simple , and Singer prefers to present it that way — malaria prevention saves lives .
Giving people money means they don ’ t go hungry .
Sure , there are bad charities , but there are plenty of good ones , and we know more than ever which ones those are .
What stood out in my rereading of The Life You Can Save is its stubbornness .
Singer has over the decades seen dozens of counterarguments : The version in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ distills everything I ’ ve learned over the years about why we give , or don ’ t give , and what we should do about it.
” Whole sections are devoted to presenting objections you might have , from “ this is too demanding ” to “ I quite reasonably care more about people close to home than people far away ” to “ wouldn ’ t it destroy the global economy if everyone took you seriously ” — and finds that the book ’ s core logic holds anyway .
If @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a lot of your money , Singer argues , then give away some of your money .
Surely it is not too demanding to give away any of your money , privileged as we are by living in the richest society in human history .
If everyone cared about ending global poverty , we could do it comfortably with lots of money left over , so doing that would not destroy the global economy .
And while people do care about those close to them , it seems importantly unprincipled to let a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , when you agree that you would have saved them had they been dying in pain nearer by .
At times , this relentlessness can make The Life You Can Save irritating .
But it ultimately renders the book refreshing .
Singer trusts that if his audience really thinks about it , they ’ ll do something .
I end up walking away from the book hoping I don ’ t disappoint him .
Over just the 10 years between the first edition of the book in 2009 and the 2019 anniversary edition @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 2009 , the book told readers that , in the most recent year for which data was available , 9.7 million children died preventably before they reached their fifth birthday .
In 2019 , 5.4 million children died preventably .
That ’ s considerable progress .
Since the 1970s , extreme poverty has more than halved , and while the exact scope of the gains depends on how we measure them , there ’ s no disputing that people are living longer , healthier , safer lives than ever before .
At the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ we know more about how to help them .
The biggest change between the first edition and the second , Singer told me , was that “ we ’ ve learned more about fighting global poverty.
” In 2009 , Singer was left mostly speculating about which among the popular aid interventions of the time was most promising .
The movement to rigorously test the answer to that question was just getting off the ground .
We should probably not give money directly to the global poor , Singer argued in the first @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that we donate to health and education programs to help them more effectively .
Since then , data has come in that has changed his mind on direct cash transfers .
“ GiveDirectly has changed my attitude to giving money to the poor .
It clearly does have positive effects , ” he told DevEx .
Singer ’ s book inspired real changes in the charity sector , too — many of them reflected in the second edition .
Facebook billionaire Dustin Moskovitz and his wife , Cari Tuna , were reportedly influenced @ @ @ @ @ @ @ committed billions of dollars to effective charity , through GiveWell ( featured in the first edition of the book ) , its sister organization the Open Philanthropy Project , the effective-charity incubator Evidence Action , and others .
( In past years , I have donated money to GiveWell and Evidence Action . )
In many ways , The Life You Can Save is a straightforward success story .
Singer made his case for helping people , and thousands of people listened , changing the global development world and promoting the growth of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ helping people .
But in 2020 , that success story should be — at least slightly — qualified .
The year-over-year decline in global poverty will reverse this year because the coronavirus has caused economic disruptions worldwide .
Compounding that is the overwhelming feeling of exhaustion that many of us feel after such a trying period .
We ’ ve all made very real sacrifices this year for our own safety , the safety of our families , and the safety of others .
It feels almost unfair to ask for anything more @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the matter of morale .
For those who have been giving regularly , it was encouraging to participate in a movement to drive down global poverty and needless death year after year after year .
2020 has been the opposite of encouraging .
Instead of getting better , many things got worse .
But the core message of The Life You Can Save actually matches some of the lessons of 2020 .
When you can save someone ’ s life with steps that might not be easy but are not overly burdensome , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ we face might feel overwhelming , but the steps we can take are quite concrete and simple .
If wearing a mask saves lives , you should wear a mask .
If donating $ 50 or $ 100 or $ 500 or 10 percent of your income — whatever you can reasonably give — to the poorest people in the world saves lives , you should do that if you can afford it .
You don ’ t need a grand theory of how you ’ ll solve the whole problem to save @ @ @ @ @ @ @ when the whole world is on your side , and when the whole world is ignorant and ignoring you .
Here ’ s where the stubbornness of The Life You Can Save ceases to feel like a shortcoming of the book , and starts to feel like its greatest virtue .
In many ways , the worst thing about 2020 has been the helplessness .
And The Life You Can Save is a book that persistently , repeatedly , point by point refutes all our justifications for helplessness .
There are problems that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ may want to believe they couldn ’ t possibly be our problems .
But the challenges that the world ’ s poorest face — infectious disease , malnutrition , extreme poverty — are easy to beat if the organizations fighting them have the resources they need .
And we have the power to help in that fight .
The Life You Can Save is intimidating because it argues you should help people .
But it is empowering because it argues that you can help people .
At the end of a year shaped @ @ @ @ @ @ @ epiphany is a gift .

In 2009, the philosopher Peter Singer published a book called The Life You Can Save, which contained a restatement of one of his most famous arguments: that you should help people, if it’s not exceptionally costly to you.
His original argument, which he introduced in a paper published in 1972, goes like this: Imagine you’re on your way to an important meeting, when suddenly you see a child drowning in a pond you’re walking by. You could save them, but doing so would ruin your suit. Ought you, morally, to save the child?
Almost everyone says yes. But Singer contends that our world already presents opportunities to save lives that are about as straightforward and low cost as his hypothetical. They aren’t right in front of us; the children who die if we ignore them are mostly far away, born to families we might never meet. But if you don’t think that matters (and Singer doesn’t), then shouldn’t we be, well, saving them?
It’s a compelling argument, precisely because it’s not all that complicated. Singer is a utilitarian — a school of philosophy that holds that actions should be evaluated based on their consequences, and that you ought to do whatever maximizes overall utility or well-being — but he doesn’t expect his readers to share that worldview. Instead, he argues, they just need to be people who would rather save a life than not.
Singer’s thought experiment has been provoking people for decades, but The Life You Can Save was more than thought-provoking: it got people to act. The book played a powerful role in birthing the effective altruist movement, built around the principle that charities should take a rigorous approach to doing as much good as possible. It inspired major donors to give more effectively. And it inspired thousands of people to take the Life You Can Save pledge, to give what they can afford to save lives elsewhere.
This year, Singer and his publisher released The Life You Can Save for free as both an ebook and an audiobook. Its rerelease in these formats (following an update in 2019) seems like a good occasion to reflect on the book’s far-reaching influence. Very few authors can claim to have seeded actual movements. Singer, who is also the author of the seminal 1975 book Animal Liberation that helped launch the animal rights movement, can now say it twice.
Revisiting The Life You Can Save offered more than just a refresher course on Singer’s argument — it felt like rediscovering first principles. Michael Schur, the creator of The Good Place and one of the book’s major fans, writes in the preface to the 2019 edition, “At its core, Singer’s book asks us to consider a very simple truth: a life is a life, no matter where that life lives. A human being over there is no less valuable than a human being over here.”
It can be intimidating and demoralizing, Schur admits, to read an argument that we should do much more than we’re doing for other people. But he says there’s another way to look at it: Read the book and “you will have, bouncing around in your head, the thought that there may be something simple you can do to help.”
The Life You Can Save, summarized
Peter Singer is an Australian philosopher, a professor of philosophy at Princeton, and one of the major public intellectuals of our time. Over the years, he has pushed for animal rights, made the case for utilitarianism, and advocated for more — and more effective — giving. He has also been at times a controversial figure in modern ethics, alienating many in the disability community with what they’ve called his simplistic and horrifying takes on intellectual disabilities.
Since the early 1970s, one of his primary fixations has been getting the population of rich countries to think about the global poor. He did that first in a 1972 essay inspired by the plight of Bengali war refugees, where he laid out the drowning child argument for the first time.
Though that essay introduced Singer’s core idea, The Life You Can Save gave it its fullest expression. I first read the book in 2011, when I was 17, and found it bracingly straightforward: People are dying, we know how to fix that, we just have to donate money and tell everyone else to do so as well. And while as an adult it’s obvious that many of the details of how to fix the world are more complicated than that, the simple core remains, and speaks loudly and clearly to the sort of people who become effective altruists: The world could be better, and you can make it that way.
The Life You Can Save starts almost identically to that 1972 essay. After presenting the opening hypothetical, Singer then presents some non-hypotheticals: the story of the death of a girl in China who was hit by a car, of a boy in Ghana who died of measles. “If you’re like most people, you are probably saying to yourself right now: ‘I wouldn’t have walked past that child. I would have stopped to help.’ Perhaps you would have; but remember that, as we have already seen, 5.4 million children under 5 years old died in 2017, with a majority of those deaths being from preventable or treatable causes.” (This snippet is from the 2019 edition.)
Related Peter Singer on the lives you can save
The basic challenge has hardly changed since 1972. What has changed — dramatically — is how much we know about what can be done for the global poor. There are now more global health charities that do extensive tracking of their work, making it more straightforward than ever to know exactly how far your dollar goes. There’s the effective altruism movement — tens of thousands of people worldwide who’ve pledged money or committed their efforts to doing good in the world as effectively as possible.
That means that the book — especially the 2019 edition, updated with new statistics on charitable effectiveness that make its message even more convincing — at last has a strong answer to some of the major objections to charity, namely that it doesn’t actually work. A lot of people certainly agree that if they could significantly improve or save a life for a few thousand dollars, they should do that, but they have a sense that international charity is flawed, corrupt, imperialist, or ultimately counterproductive. And certainly some of it is — but “charity” is not a monolith but a number of specific interventions, many of them known to work well.
At the risk of oversimplifying — and The Life You Can Save is perpetually courting the risk of oversimplifying, because the core argument that we shouldn’t let people die if we can save them is in fact simple, and Singer prefers to present it that way — malaria prevention saves lives. Giving people money means they don’t go hungry. Sure, there are bad charities, but there are plenty of good ones, and we know more than ever which ones those are.
What stood out in my rereading of The Life You Can Save is its stubbornness. Singer has over the decades seen dozens of counterarguments: The version in the book today, he writes, “distills everything I’ve learned over the years about why we give, or don’t give, and what we should do about it.” Whole sections are devoted to presenting objections you might have, from “this is too demanding” to “I quite reasonably care more about people close to home than people far away” to “wouldn’t it destroy the global economy if everyone took you seriously” — and finds that the book’s core logic holds anyway.
If it is too demanding to give away a lot of your money, Singer argues, then give away some of your money. Surely it is not too demanding to give away any of your money, privileged as we are by living in the richest society in human history. If everyone cared about ending global poverty, we could do it comfortably with lots of money left over, so doing that would not destroy the global economy. And while people do care about those close to them, it seems importantly unprincipled to let a child die in pain, far away, when you agree that you would have saved them had they been dying in pain nearer by.
At times, this relentlessness can make The Life You Can Save irritating. But it ultimately renders the book refreshing. Singer trusts that if his audience really thinks about it, they’ll do something. I end up walking away from the book hoping I don’t disappoint him.
A decade-later retrospective
Over just the 10 years between the first edition of the book in 2009 and the 2019 anniversary edition, a great deal changed.
In 2009, the book told readers that, in the most recent year for which data was available, 9.7 million children died preventably before they reached their fifth birthday.
In 2019, 5.4 million children died preventably. That’s considerable progress. Since the 1970s, extreme poverty has more than halved, and while the exact scope of the gains depends on how we measure them, there’s no disputing that people are living longer, healthier, safer lives than ever before.
At the same time — and not unrelatedly — we know more about how to help them. The biggest change between the first edition and the second, Singer told me, was that “we’ve learned more about fighting global poverty.”
In 2009, Singer was left mostly speculating about which among the popular aid interventions of the time was most promising. The movement to rigorously test the answer to that question was just getting off the ground. We should probably not give money directly to the global poor, Singer argued in the first edition of the book, instead urging that we donate to health and education programs to help them more effectively. Since then, data has come in that has changed his mind on direct cash transfers. “GiveDirectly has changed my attitude to giving money to the poor. It clearly does have positive effects,” he told DevEx.
Singer’s book inspired real changes in the charity sector, too — many of them reflected in the second edition. Facebook billionaire Dustin Moskovitz and his wife, Cari Tuna, were reportedly influenced by the books, and have since committed billions of dollars to effective charity, through GiveWell (featured in the first edition of the book), its sister organization the Open Philanthropy Project, the effective-charity incubator Evidence Action, and others. (In past years, I have donated money to GiveWell and Evidence Action.)
In many ways, The Life You Can Save is a straightforward success story. Singer made his case for helping people, and thousands of people listened, changing the global development world and promoting the growth of new charities that are even better at helping people.
But in 2020, that success story should be — at least slightly — qualified. The year-over-year decline in global poverty will reverse this year because the coronavirus has caused economic disruptions worldwide.
Compounding that is the overwhelming feeling of exhaustion that many of us feel after such a trying period. We’ve all made very real sacrifices this year for our own safety, the safety of our families, and the safety of others. It feels almost unfair to ask for anything more. Beyond that, there may be the matter of morale. For those who have been giving regularly, it was encouraging to participate in a movement to drive down global poverty and needless death year after year after year. 2020 has been the opposite of encouraging. Instead of getting better, many things got worse.
But the core message of The Life You Can Save actually matches some of the lessons of 2020. When you can save someone’s life with steps that might not be easy but are not overly burdensome, you should do so. The challenges we face might feel overwhelming, but the steps we can take are quite concrete and simple. If wearing a mask saves lives, you should wear a mask. If donating $50 or $100 or $500 or 10 percent of your income — whatever you can reasonably give — to the poorest people in the world saves lives, you should do that if you can afford it. You don’t need a grand theory of how you’ll solve the whole problem to save a life. You can do it when the whole world is on your side, and when the whole world is ignorant and ignoring you.
Here’s where the stubbornness of The Life You Can Save ceases to feel like a shortcoming of the book, and starts to feel like its greatest virtue. In many ways, the worst thing about 2020 has been the helplessness. And The Life You Can Save is a book that persistently, repeatedly, point by point refutes all our justifications for helplessness. There are problems that seem so vast and confusing that we may want to believe they couldn’t possibly be our problems. But the challenges that the world’s poorest face — infectious disease, malnutrition, extreme poverty — are easy to beat if the organizations fighting them have the resources they need. And we have the power to help in that fight.
The Life You Can Save is intimidating because it argues you should help people. But it is empowering because it argues that you can help people. At the end of a year shaped by forces beyond our control, that epiphany is a gift.


vox--2020-12-11--A doctor on 9 things that could go wrong with the new vaccines

Think of the achievement .
Within a month of the emergence of SARS-CoV-2 — the coronavirus that causes Covid-19 — its genome was sequenced .
Three months later , the first vaccine candidates were being injected into human volunteers in clinical trials .
Now , less than 12 months after the first case was identified in Wuhan , China , the US is slated to initiate the largest mass-vaccination program in its history .
Few achievements in modern science rival the speed and the audacity of the coronavirus vaccine program .
With the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine ’ s imminent emergency use @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Administration , it feels as though the long dark of the pandemic — which has claimed over 283,000 American lives and more than 1.5 million worldwide — will soon be relegated to the litany of global tragedies , a thing of the past .
As a physician , clinical researcher , and epidemiologist , I am thrilled with the vaccine data so far .
The 95 percent efficacy of the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna mRNA vaccines is unprecedented and better than any of us hoped for .
But we need to be careful .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ the acknowledgment that the vaccine is a weapon we may not be fully prepared to wield .
A lot can still go wrong .
I lay out my worries here not as a wet blanket , but because I am a worrier .
And , like all the worriers out there , one of the reasons I worry is to ensure the things I worry about don ’ t actually come to pass .
By worrying together , we can prevent much of this from happening .
I ’ m providing my worries @ @ @ @ @ @ @ low probability to high .
Though mRNA vaccines have never been used in a broad-scale vaccination effort before , in theory , there ’ s not a ton that can go wrong here .
The mRNA molecule is incredibly unstable — it ’ s so easy to break down it needs to be transported in super-cold conditions .
It has no ability to integrate into DNA , so there ’ s no risk of sci-fi human/coronavirus mutants cropping up .
Some scientists have raised concerns that an immune reaction to RNA could lead @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ) down the road , but extensive human testing has not shown this yet .
2 ) There won ’ t be enough vaccine for everyone ( probability : low ) We ’ re likely in good shape here , if we define vaccine as “ that stuff that goes in a vial and eventually into your arm.
” One of the key advantages of the mRNA vaccines is that they are pretty easy to scale up .
In fact , you can make about 1 million doses in a bioreactor the size @ @ @ @ @ @ @ don ’ t have to depend on the mRNA vaccines alone .
AstraZeneca ’ s vaccine ( which contains a bit of coronavirus genetic material wrapped in an adenovirus shell ) has suffered some setbacks recently but is still likely to join the fight in the next few months .
Johnson & Johnson ’ s vaccine — notable for being a one-dose regimen — may receive an emergency use authorization in early 2021 .
And the pipeline is full : There are currently 13 vaccines in phase 3 trials ( not including the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 2 , and a slew of others still in the early stages of testing .
Many of these vaccine candidates target the coronavirus spike protein — the same target that has led to high efficacy rates in the frontrunners .
If these trials can recruit participants quickly , our armamentarium will increase dramatically .
But there is one concern : The existence of effective vaccines ( like Pfizer/BioNTech ’ s and Moderna ’ s ) may dampen recruitment in ongoing trials .
Enrollment in a trial means you have a typically 50 percent @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a vaccine .
Will individuals continue to volunteer when an effective vaccine may soon be on the market ?
We ’ ll know soon enough .
Am I too Pollyannaish on this one ?
I can ’ t imagine that Republicans , who are desperate to reopen society at any cost , would look the vaccine gift horse in the mouth .
Nevertheless , the current leader of the Republican Party has been a “ vaccine skeptic.
” That said , the vaccine may prove to be the most broadly popular achievement of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I encourage him to take credit — his crowing about the vaccine may increase vaccination rates among his supporters , many of whom are increasingly skeptical of science and have “ low social trust.
” 4 ) There won ’ t be enough vaccine supplies ( probability : medium ) This is more of a problem .
Vaccines require glass vials , needles , alcohol swabs , and — in the case of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine — an amazing amount of dry ice .
Pfizer has actually cut its vaccine delivery estimates in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ products .
These products are generally not produced by the vaccine manufacturer and need to be sourced from other companies .
Despite the success of Operation Warp Speed at accelerating vaccine development , the federal government has resisted calls to invoke the Defense Production Act to increase the supply of these critical components of the vaccination program .
So we face the possibility that we may have plenty of vaccine in freezers but not enough needles to get them into enough arms .
This would slow the vaccine rollout , prolonging the pandemic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are nothing new — measles , mumps , rubella ( MMR ) , rotavirus , and tetanus are all multi-dose regimens .
But those are routine childhood vaccines , and parents tend to be a bit more obsessive about their children ’ s health than they are about their own .
Parallels to seasonal flu vaccine aren ’ t helping either .
Getting a yearly flu shot is easy because it ’ s only one shot .
And , to be frank , we ’ re not even that good at getting our @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of US adults got their flu vaccine in the 2018-2019 flu season ) .
How many of us will remember to go back three weeks later for the booster Covid-19 shot ?
This has a few real consequences .
First , people may feel protected when they aren ’ t — leading to behavior ( crowded post-vaccine dinner parties ? )
that will spread the virus even faster .
But there ’ s a bigger concern here .
Several virologists have suggested that inadequate vaccinations may allow the virus to develop “ vaccine @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a partially vaccinated person may get a low-grade infection , and selection pressures within that individual will favor viruses that can evade the vaccine-induced immune response .
I asked Yale immunologist Akiko Iwasaki about the possibility : “ It is conceivable that people who have only one shot of the vaccine … can become infected , resulting in an escape mutant , ” she said .
“ This is purely hypothetical at this time , as we have yet to see such escape mutants arise from naturally infected people who have suboptimal immunity.
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ get people their second shot ?
Here are some ideas , from Vox ’ s Dylan Scott .
6 ) Doctors will bend the truth to help their patients get a vaccine faster ( probability : medium ) Until vaccines are ubiquitous , we ’ ll need to prioritize who gets them first and who has to wait .
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has released its initial guidance , focusing on health care workers and residents of long-term care facilities for the first phase of the rollout .
Phase 2 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ don ’ t have great clarity yet , but it is likely that the vaccine will be reserved for those with preexisting conditions ( like older age , diabetes , and maybe even obesity ) .
How will your local CVS know that you have these comorbidities ?
Your doctor will most likely have to vouch for you .
This will create some perverse incentives for doctors like me , who often think more about the benefit to individual patients than we do to society at large .
Should I check that blood @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I can make a hypertension diagnosis ?
Should I check the “ obesity ” mark on the vaccine form even if the patient is just overweight ?
And lest you think doctors are immune from this type of behavior , let me remind you how often we give our patients antibiotics for no rational reason — 30 percent in the largest study to date .
We want to keep our patients happy .
That ’ s not always the right thing to do .
There ’ s certainly an unfairness issue , but @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to “ high risk ” is the inappropriate allocation of scarce vaccine resources to those who would likely do okay without it .
While vaccines are scarce , it ’ s critical that we vaccinate the actual highest-risk groups , not the individuals that doctors can make look high risk .
7 ) Vaccines will exacerbate inequality in the health care system ( probability : high ) This is really a corollary to No .
3 , but something that keeps me up at night .
There are currently 80 million people in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ doctor ’ s care , many of whom have significant comorbidities that no one is documenting .
These are predominantly people of color and of lower socioeconomic status .
These are also the people who have suffered most during the Covid-19 pandemic .
In other words , they are the people who would most benefit from the vaccine .
And they may be left behind .
To prevent this , we need targeted vaccination programs in low-income and underresourced communities .
We also need to waive comorbidity restrictions among those without access to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ proposal to consider “ historical injustice ” to vaccine allocation is not far off the mark .
Ninety-five percent efficacy is nothing to sneeze at .
At that level of efficacy , even if people loosen up , go out to dinner , and wear masks less after they get vaccinated , we should still see a dramatic decline in infections .
The problem with the false sense of security is not societal , it ’ s individual .
When a vaccine is 95 percent effective , everyone who gets it assumes they @ @ @ @ @ @ @ one thinks they are in the 5 percent , but 5 out of every 100 people are .
If those five people stop engaging in behaviors like social distancing and mask-wearing before the pandemic ends , they may still suffer the gravest consequences of Covid-19 .
9 ) Anti-vaxxers amplify and misrepresent side effects ( probability : almost certain ) This is already happening .
The real worry is how much it will affect the broad-scale vaccination effort .
We need to get about 70 percent of the population vaccinated ( or infected @ @ @ @ @ @ @ wrong ) for herd immunity to end the pandemic .
That ’ s a high bar , and the power of social media to amplify false or misinterpreted messages and spread them far and wide is huge .
I ’ m not worried about the “ microchip tracking devices ” nonsense .
I ’ m worried about anecdotes .
I remember a story Paul Offit , a vaccine expert at the University of Pennsylvania and member of the FDA vaccine advisory committee , told me once when I was in residency .
He @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the MMR vaccine .
Five minutes before he gave the vaccine , the child had the first seizure of his life .
Can you imagine what would have happened if that seizure occurred five minutes after he gave the vaccine ?
We ’ re going to vaccinate hundreds of millions of people .
Someone is going to have a seizure after they get the vaccine .
Someone is going to have a heart attack .
Someone will get into a car accident , and someone will die by suicide .
These stories will @ @ @ @ @ @ @ And remember that anecdote and evidence are not the same thing .
Are there other things to worry about ?
Absolutely .
The thing that derails the whole effort may be something none of us has thought of yet .
It will be important to stay flexible , stay optimistic , confront the challenges as they come , and keep hope alive so we can keep each other alive .
F. Perry Wilson , MD MSCE is an associate professor of medicine at the Yale School of Medicine and director of Yale ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ He writes a weekly column on Medscape.com and is the creator of the free online course “ Understanding Medical Research : Your Facebook Friend Is Wrong .
”

Think of the achievement. Within a month of the emergence of SARS-CoV-2 — the coronavirus that causes Covid-19 — its genome was sequenced. Three months later, the first vaccine candidates were being injected into human volunteers in clinical trials.
Now, less than 12 months after the first case was identified in Wuhan, China, the US is slated to initiate the largest mass-vaccination program in its history. Few achievements in modern science rival the speed and the audacity of the coronavirus vaccine program. With the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine’s imminent emergency use authorization from the US Food and Drug Administration, it feels as though the long dark of the pandemic — which has claimed over 283,000 American lives and more than 1.5 million worldwide — will soon be relegated to the litany of global tragedies, a thing of the past.
As a physician, clinical researcher, and epidemiologist, I am thrilled with the vaccine data so far. The 95 percent efficacy of the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna mRNA vaccines is unprecedented and better than any of us hoped for.
But we need to be careful. We need to temper our enthusiasm with the acknowledgment that the vaccine is a weapon we may not be fully prepared to wield.
A lot can still go wrong.
I lay out my worries here not as a wet blanket, but because I am a worrier. And, like all the worriers out there, one of the reasons I worry is to ensure the things I worry about don’t actually come to pass.
By worrying together, we can prevent much of this from happening. I’m providing my worries in a convenient list format, from low probability to high.
1) Unexpected long-term side effects (probability: low)
Though mRNA vaccines have never been used in a broad-scale vaccination effort before, in theory, there’s not a ton that can go wrong here.
The mRNA molecule is incredibly unstable — it’s so easy to break down it needs to be transported in super-cold conditions. It has no ability to integrate into DNA, so there’s no risk of sci-fi human/coronavirus mutants cropping up. Some scientists have raised concerns that an immune reaction to RNA could lead to some autoimmune diseases (like lupus) down the road, but extensive human testing has not shown this yet.
2) There won’t be enough vaccine for everyone (probability: low)
We’re likely in good shape here, if we define vaccine as “that stuff that goes in a vial and eventually into your arm.” One of the key advantages of the mRNA vaccines is that they are pretty easy to scale up. In fact, you can make about 1 million doses in a bioreactor the size of a Coke bottle.
But we don’t have to depend on the mRNA vaccines alone. AstraZeneca’s vaccine (which contains a bit of coronavirus genetic material wrapped in an adenovirus shell) has suffered some setbacks recently but is still likely to join the fight in the next few months. Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine — notable for being a one-dose regimen — may receive an emergency use authorization in early 2021.
And the pipeline is full: There are currently 13 vaccines in phase 3 trials (not including the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine), 17 in phase 2, and a slew of others still in the early stages of testing. Many of these vaccine candidates target the coronavirus spike protein — the same target that has led to high efficacy rates in the frontrunners. If these trials can recruit participants quickly, our armamentarium will increase dramatically.
But there is one concern: The existence of effective vaccines (like Pfizer/BioNTech’s and Moderna’s) may dampen recruitment in ongoing trials. Enrollment in a trial means you have a typically 50 percent chance of receiving a placebo instead of a vaccine. Will individuals continue to volunteer when an effective vaccine may soon be on the market? We’ll know soon enough.
3) Vaccination becomes politicized (probability: low)
Am I too Pollyannaish on this one? I can’t imagine that Republicans, who are desperate to reopen society at any cost, would look the vaccine gift horse in the mouth. Nevertheless, the current leader of the Republican Party has been a “vaccine skeptic.”
That said, the vaccine may prove to be the most broadly popular achievement of Donald Trump’s presidency. And I encourage him to take credit — his crowing about the vaccine may increase vaccination rates among his supporters, many of whom are increasingly skeptical of science and have “low social trust.”
4) There won’t be enough vaccine supplies (probability: medium)
This is more of a problem. Vaccines require glass vials, needles, alcohol swabs, and — in the case of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine — an amazing amount of dry ice. Pfizer has actually cut its vaccine delivery estimates in half because of unspecified shortages of these products. These products are generally not produced by the vaccine manufacturer and need to be sourced from other companies.
Despite the success of Operation Warp Speed at accelerating vaccine development, the federal government has resisted calls to invoke the Defense Production Act to increase the supply of these critical components of the vaccination program.
So we face the possibility that we may have plenty of vaccine in freezers but not enough needles to get them into enough arms. This would slow the vaccine rollout, prolonging the pandemic despite approved vaccine candidates.
5) People won’t get both doses (probability: medium)
Multi-dose vaccines are nothing new — measles, mumps, rubella (MMR), rotavirus, and tetanus are all multi-dose regimens. But those are routine childhood vaccines, and parents tend to be a bit more obsessive about their children’s health than they are about their own.
Parallels to seasonal flu vaccine aren’t helping either. Getting a yearly flu shot is easy because it’s only one shot. And, to be frank, we’re not even that good at getting our yearly flu vaccine (only 45 percent of US adults got their flu vaccine in the 2018-2019 flu season).
How many of us will remember to go back three weeks later for the booster Covid-19 shot? This has a few real consequences. First, people may feel protected when they aren’t — leading to behavior (crowded post-vaccine dinner parties?) that will spread the virus even faster.
But there’s a bigger concern here. Several virologists have suggested that inadequate vaccinations may allow the virus to develop “vaccine resistance.” The idea here is that a partially vaccinated person may get a low-grade infection, and selection pressures within that individual will favor viruses that can evade the vaccine-induced immune response.
I asked Yale immunologist Akiko Iwasaki about the possibility: “It is conceivable that people who have only one shot of the vaccine … can become infected, resulting in an escape mutant,” she said. “This is purely hypothetical at this time, as we have yet to see such escape mutants arise from naturally infected people who have suboptimal immunity.”
So what do we do to get people their second shot? Here are some ideas, from Vox’s Dylan Scott.
6) Doctors will bend the truth to help their patients get a vaccine faster (probability: medium)
Until vaccines are ubiquitous, we’ll need to prioritize who gets them first and who has to wait. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has released its initial guidance, focusing on health care workers and residents of long-term care facilities for the first phase of the rollout.
Phase 2 is where it gets tricky. We don’t have great clarity yet, but it is likely that the vaccine will be reserved for those with preexisting conditions (like older age, diabetes, and maybe even obesity). How will your local CVS know that you have these comorbidities? Your doctor will most likely have to vouch for you.
This will create some perverse incentives for doctors like me, who often think more about the benefit to individual patients than we do to society at large. Should I check that blood pressure one more time to see if I can make a hypertension diagnosis? Should I check the “obesity” mark on the vaccine form even if the patient is just overweight? And lest you think doctors are immune from this type of behavior, let me remind you how often we give our patients antibiotics for no rational reason — 30 percent in the largest study to date.
We want to keep our patients happy. That’s not always the right thing to do. There’s certainly an unfairness issue, but the bigger problem with doctors upgrading people to “high risk” is the inappropriate allocation of scarce vaccine resources to those who would likely do okay without it. While vaccines are scarce, it’s critical that we vaccinate the actual highest-risk groups, not the individuals that doctors can make look high risk.
7) Vaccines will exacerbate inequality in the health care system (probability: high)
This is really a corollary to No. 3, but something that keeps me up at night. There are currently 80 million people in the US with no regular access to doctor’s care, many of whom have significant comorbidities that no one is documenting. These are predominantly people of color and of lower socioeconomic status. These are also the people who have suffered most during the Covid-19 pandemic.
In other words, they are the people who would most benefit from the vaccine. And they may be left behind.
To prevent this, we need targeted vaccination programs in low-income and underresourced communities. We also need to waive comorbidity restrictions among those without access to quality health care. California’s proposal to consider “historical injustice” to vaccine allocation is not far off the mark.
8) A false sense of security develops (probability: high)
Ninety-five percent efficacy is nothing to sneeze at. At that level of efficacy, even if people loosen up, go out to dinner, and wear masks less after they get vaccinated, we should still see a dramatic decline in infections.
The problem with the false sense of security is not societal, it’s individual. When a vaccine is 95 percent effective, everyone who gets it assumes they are in the 95 percent. No one thinks they are in the 5 percent, but 5 out of every 100 people are. If those five people stop engaging in behaviors like social distancing and mask-wearing before the pandemic ends, they may still suffer the gravest consequences of Covid-19.
9) Anti-vaxxers amplify and misrepresent side effects (probability: almost certain)
This is already happening. The real worry is how much it will affect the broad-scale vaccination effort. We need to get about 70 percent of the population vaccinated (or infected with Covid-19, which would be ethically wrong) for herd immunity to end the pandemic. That’s a high bar, and the power of social media to amplify false or misinterpreted messages and spread them far and wide is huge. I’m not worried about the “microchip tracking devices” nonsense. I’m worried about anecdotes.
I remember a story Paul Offit, a vaccine expert at the University of Pennsylvania and member of the FDA vaccine advisory committee, told me once when I was in residency. He was about to vaccinate a child with the MMR vaccine. Five minutes before he gave the vaccine, the child had the first seizure of his life. Can you imagine what would have happened if that seizure occurred five minutes after he gave the vaccine?
We’re going to vaccinate hundreds of millions of people. Someone is going to have a seizure after they get the vaccine. Someone is going to have a heart attack. Someone will get into a car accident, and someone will die by suicide. These stories will burn through social media like wildfire. And remember that anecdote and evidence are not the same thing.
Are there other things to worry about? Absolutely. The thing that derails the whole effort may be something none of us has thought of yet. It will be important to stay flexible, stay optimistic, confront the challenges as they come, and keep hope alive so we can keep each other alive.
F. Perry Wilson, MD MSCE is an associate professor of medicine at the Yale School of Medicine and director of Yale’s Clinical and Translational Research Accelerator. He writes a weekly column on Medscape.com and is the creator of the free online course “Understanding Medical Research: Your Facebook Friend Is Wrong.”


vox--2020-12-11--The high rate of executions during Trump’s last weeks in office, explained

Editor ’ s note : Brandon Bernard was executed by lethal injection on Thursday for crimes he committed at age 18 .
This piece was originally published on December 1 .
When five Black and Latino teenagers were wrongfully convicted of the rape of a jogger in New York City ’ s Central Park in 1989 , prominent businessman Donald Trump bought newspaper advertisements calling on New York state to “ bring back the death penalty ” in the wake of the attack .
Little did the country know , Trump ’ s views on capital punishment then would inform @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , the Trump administration reinstated the death penalty at the federal level after a 17-year hiatus .
The return of federal executions demonstrates an unprecedented and grim picture of Trump ’ s legacy in contrast to previous administrations .
The Washington Post ’ s editorial board described it as a “ sickening spree of executions.
” To put it in perspective , only three people had been executed by the federal government in the past 50 years .
Meanwhile , in less than five months , eight people have already been put to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , with five more executions scheduled to happen before Trump leaves office .
“ The Trump administration ’ s policy regarding a death penalty is just historically abhorrent , ” said Robert Dunham , executive director of Death Penalty Information Center , a bipartisan organization that does not take a position for or against the death penalty , but rather is critical of the way capital punishment is administered .
If the remaining executions in December are carried out — making a total of 10 for 2020 — it will mark more civilian @ @ @ @ @ @ @ any other presidency in the 20th and 21st centuries .
“ No one has conducted this number of federal civilian executions in this short period of time in American history , ” Dunham added .
Of the five upcoming federal executions during the lame-duck period , four of them are Black men , while the fifth will be the first woman to be executed by the federal government in nearly 70 years .
These federal executions come in concert with the rallying cry for racial justice and an overhaul of America ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ left a disproportionate number of Black people arrested , jailed , convicted , and dead .
More than 44 percent of the remaining 54 people on federal death row are Black , according to the Death Penalty Information Center , even though Black people make up only 13 percent of the US population .
“ The fact that we ’ re having a record-high number of federal executions , at the same time that we ’ re near a record low in state executions , in the middle of a pandemic , shows @ @ @ @ @ @ @ out of touch or that it can not resist gratuitous acts of cruelty , ” Dunham said , adding that only seven state executions will occur this year — the lowest since states began carrying out executions in colonial times .
“ Nobody needs to carry out an execution during a pandemic.
” Just last week , the Justice Department also published a rule that would allow other methods for capital punishment , such as firing squads , lethal gas , and electrocutions ; Attorney General Bill Barr is currently racing to finalize @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for additional methods and a number of federal executions will be part of his presidential legacy and highlights a stark divide between the administration ’ s actions and dwindling support for the death penalty among Americans .
Four Black men are scheduled for federal execution weeks before Trump leaves office On November 19 , Orlando Hall , a Black man sentenced to death for kidnapping , rape , and murder in 1994 , became the eighth and latest inmate to be executed by the federal government since it reinstated federal executions this summer @ @ @ @ @ @ @ more than a century to be put to death during a lame-duck period .
Shortly before Hall was executed by lethal injection , the US Supreme Court had denied his request to stop the execution — with new Justice Amy Coney Barrett joining the majority ruling .
While Hall is the second Black man to be executed out of the eight so far since July , the remaining men scheduled to be put to death are all Black .
“ In an apparent effort to forestall criticism that the federal executions were racist @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , ” Dunham said ; the executions were reinstated as racial justice protests broke out across the country this summer .
“ What ’ s striking about that , though , is that it still tells us a lot about whose lives matter because only one of the people executed so far was convicted for killing an African American.
” Brandon Bernard , convicted of kidnapping and murder , is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection on December 10 .
Bernard , who is also Black , was only 18 years old @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the deaths of a young white married couple in 1999 .
But five of the nine surviving jurors who supported the death penalty at the time now believe it is inappropriate .
Even Angela Moore , the federal prosecutor who helped put Bernard on death row , wrote an op-ed in the Indianapolis Star making a case for why the federal government should let him live .
“ I always took pride in representing the United States as a federal prosecutor , and I think executing Brandon would be a terrible stain on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Moore wrote .
During his time in prison , Bernard has been a model prisoner , mentoring at-risk youth .
“ Having learned so much since 2000 about the maturation of the human brain and having seen Brandon grow into a humble , remorseful adult fully capable of living peacefully in prison , how can we say he is among that tiny group of offenders who must be put to death ?
” Moore wrote .
Alfred Bourgeois , a Black truck driver in Texas who was convicted of abusing and killing his @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for execution the day after Bernard .
Bourgeois ’ s execution was originally scheduled for January 2020 but was halted by a federal judge who blocked the Trump administration ’ s early moves to bring back the federal death penalty .
Bourgeois ’ s lawyers then argued to suspend his death sentence on the grounds that he ’ s entitled to an intellectual disability evaluation under the Eighth Amendment .
The next two inmates on death row are scheduled for execution in 2021 just a few days before Biden ’ s inauguration .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ murdering seven people during a drug trafficking operation in Richmond , Virginia , is scheduled for lethal injection on January 14 .
Like Bourgeois , Johnson ’ s lawyers argue that there is overwhelming evidence that Johnson has intellectual disabilities .
On January 15 , Dustin Higgs is scheduled to be put to death for a crime committed in 1996 .
The Justice Department claims that Higgs kidnapped and murdered three women , but the Daily Beast reports that while he was present at the scene of the crime , witnesses confirm that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Willis Haynes fired the shots , but the Justice Department argues that Higgs coerced his friend Haynes into committing the crime .
But Haynes , who was sentenced to life in prison , confirmed through a signed affidavit that Higgs did not coerce him , saying , “ the prosecution ’ s theory of our case was bullshit .
Dustin didn ’ t threaten me .
I was not scared of him .
Dustin didn ’ t make me do anything that night or ever.
” The other person on the Justice Department @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , the only woman on federal death row and the first woman set to be federally executed in nearly 70 years .
In 2004 , Montgomery killed a pregnant woman and then attempted to pass off the baby as her own .
Montgomery , who Dunham said has severe mental illness due to an abusive past , was initially scheduled for execution by lethal injection on December 8 , but it was delayed due to her lawyers contracting Covid-19 .
The Justice Department is fast-tracking new rules on the death penalty before Biden @ @ @ @ @ @ @ president in 17 years to reinstate federal executions , despite a recent poll showing that a record-low number of Americans consider the death penalty “ morally acceptable.
” Even across party lines , the death penalty has been a historically contentious issue .
Since the US Supreme Court revived capital punishment in 1976 , state governments have been doing most executions , though those have declined in the past two decades , too .
In addition to pushing through federal executions over the past five months , the Justice Department published a new @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that would allow the use of other methods for capital punishment .
The new regulation reintroduces the use of firing squads and electrocutions for federal executions in addition to lethal injections .
The new rule is set to go into effect in 30 days instead of the generally allotted 60 days .
As it stands for the remaining inmates awaiting execution , only Higgs appears not to have a method of execution stated on the Justice Department ’ s schedule — the rest are marked for lethal injection .
The Trump administration ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is another thing President-elect Biden — who has signaled at various times that he would end the federal death penalty — will have to face once in office .
Biden , a political veteran , has repeatedly addressed criticism during his presidential campaign over the role he played in passing the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act , also known as the 1994 crime bill , signed by President Bill Clinton .
The bill allowed the expansion of crimes eligible for the federal death penalty , which aided the conviction of some @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ( Hall was only eligible for the death penalty because the crime bill added kidnapping resulting in death to the list of crimes . )
The Trump administration is trying to cut corners and fast-track dozens of rules that range from oil-drilling in the Arctic to immigrant restrictions , as well as the death penalty rule , before Biden takes over .
If the rules are finalized , the new administration would have to go through a convoluted process to roll them back .
But since Biden has pledged to abolish the death @ @ @ @ @ @ @ states to follow the federal government ’ s example , the new death penalty rule may virtually not be of use in his administration .
“ Unlike the environmental regulations or policies making it more difficult to negotiate on trade or world safety , the Biden administration can take as much time as it wants to undo this regulation , ” Dunham said .
“ Undoing it isn ’ t that difficult .
I believe the regulation is intended to make it easier for the Trump administration to carry out the remaining lame-duck @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Biden ’ s administration will transform a historically racist criminal justice system while also healing the wounds brought by the Trump administration .
“ The Trump administration ’ s conduct , when it comes to criminal legal issues , has been highly political , and mostly out of step with the direction that most of the United States is heading , ” Dunham said .
“ When push came to shove , it reverted to policies that are more extreme in their cruelty and the arbitrariness of their application than anything else we @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The Trump administration ’ s push for federal executions , while the country has been preoccupied with the election and the pandemic , is no different .

Editor’s note: Brandon Bernard was executed by lethal injection on Thursday for crimes he committed at age 18. This piece was originally published on December 1.
When five Black and Latino teenagers were wrongfully convicted of the rape of a jogger in New York City’s Central Park in 1989, prominent businessman Donald Trump bought newspaper advertisements calling on New York state to “bring back the death penalty” in the wake of the attack. Little did the country know, Trump’s views on capital punishment then would inform his presidency decades later: In July, the Trump administration reinstated the death penalty at the federal level after a 17-year hiatus.
The return of federal executions demonstrates an unprecedented and grim picture of Trump’s legacy in contrast to previous administrations. The Washington Post’s editorial board described it as a “sickening spree of executions.” To put it in perspective, only three people had been executed by the federal government in the past 50 years. Meanwhile, in less than five months, eight people have already been put to death by Trump’s Justice Department, with five more executions scheduled to happen before Trump leaves office.
“The Trump administration’s policy regarding a death penalty is just historically abhorrent,” said Robert Dunham, executive director of Death Penalty Information Center, a bipartisan organization that does not take a position for or against the death penalty, but rather is critical of the way capital punishment is administered.
If the remaining executions in December are carried out — making a total of 10 for 2020 — it will mark more civilian executions in a single calendar year than any other presidency in the 20th and 21st centuries. “No one has conducted this number of federal civilian executions in this short period of time in American history,” Dunham added.
Of the five upcoming federal executions during the lame-duck period, four of them are Black men, while the fifth will be the first woman to be executed by the federal government in nearly 70 years. These federal executions come in concert with the rallying cry for racial justice and an overhaul of America’s policing and criminal justice systems that has left a disproportionate number of Black people arrested, jailed, convicted, and dead. More than 44 percent of the remaining 54 people on federal death row are Black, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, even though Black people make up only 13 percent of the US population.
“The fact that we’re having a record-high number of federal executions, at the same time that we’re near a record low in state executions, in the middle of a pandemic, shows how much the Trump administration is either out of touch or that it cannot resist gratuitous acts of cruelty,” Dunham said, adding that only seven state executions will occur this year — the lowest since states began carrying out executions in colonial times. “Nobody needs to carry out an execution during a pandemic.”
Just last week, the Justice Department also published a rule that would allow other methods for capital punishment, such as firing squads, lethal gas, and electrocutions; Attorney General Bill Barr is currently racing to finalize that rule.
Trump’s push for additional methods and a number of federal executions will be part of his presidential legacy and highlights a stark divide between the administration’s actions and dwindling support for the death penalty among Americans.
Four Black men are scheduled for federal execution weeks before Trump leaves office
On November 19, Orlando Hall, a Black man sentenced to death for kidnapping, rape, and murder in 1994, became the eighth and latest inmate to be executed by the federal government since it reinstated federal executions this summer. He is also the first in more than a century to be put to death during a lame-duck period. Shortly before Hall was executed by lethal injection, the US Supreme Court had denied his request to stop the execution — with new Justice Amy Coney Barrett joining the majority ruling.
While Hall is the second Black man to be executed out of the eight so far since July, the remaining men scheduled to be put to death are all Black. “In an apparent effort to forestall criticism that the federal executions were racist, the administration selected white prisoners first,” Dunham said; the executions were reinstated as racial justice protests broke out across the country this summer. “What’s striking about that, though, is that it still tells us a lot about whose lives matter because only one of the people executed so far was convicted for killing an African American.”
Brandon Bernard, convicted of kidnapping and murder, is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection on December 10. Bernard, who is also Black, was only 18 years old when he committed crimes that resulted in the deaths of a young white married couple in 1999. But five of the nine surviving jurors who supported the death penalty at the time now believe it is inappropriate. Even Angela Moore, the federal prosecutor who helped put Bernard on death row, wrote an op-ed in the Indianapolis Star making a case for why the federal government should let him live.
“I always took pride in representing the United States as a federal prosecutor, and I think executing Brandon would be a terrible stain on the nation’s honor,” Moore wrote.
During his time in prison, Bernard has been a model prisoner, mentoring at-risk youth. “Having learned so much since 2000 about the maturation of the human brain and having seen Brandon grow into a humble, remorseful adult fully capable of living peacefully in prison, how can we say he is among that tiny group of offenders who must be put to death?” Moore wrote.
Alfred Bourgeois, a Black truck driver in Texas who was convicted of abusing and killing his 2-year-old daughter in 2002, is scheduled for execution the day after Bernard. Bourgeois’s execution was originally scheduled for January 2020 but was halted by a federal judge who blocked the Trump administration’s early moves to bring back the federal death penalty. Bourgeois’s lawyers then argued to suspend his death sentence on the grounds that he’s entitled to an intellectual disability evaluation under the Eighth Amendment.
The next two inmates on death row are scheduled for execution in 2021 just a few days before Biden’s inauguration. Cory Johnson, who was convicted of murdering seven people during a drug trafficking operation in Richmond, Virginia, is scheduled for lethal injection on January 14. Like Bourgeois, Johnson’s lawyers argue that there is overwhelming evidence that Johnson has intellectual disabilities.
On January 15, Dustin Higgs is scheduled to be put to death for a crime committed in 1996. The Justice Department claims that Higgs kidnapped and murdered three women, but the Daily Beast reports that while he was present at the scene of the crime, witnesses confirm that Higgs did not kill anyone. Co-defendant Willis Haynes fired the shots, but the Justice Department argues that Higgs coerced his friend Haynes into committing the crime.
But Haynes, who was sentenced to life in prison, confirmed through a signed affidavit that Higgs did not coerce him, saying, “the prosecution’s theory of our case was bullshit. Dustin didn’t threaten me. I was not scared of him. Dustin didn’t make me do anything that night or ever.”
The other person on the Justice Department’s execution schedule is Lisa Montgomery, the only woman on federal death row and the first woman set to be federally executed in nearly 70 years. In 2004, Montgomery killed a pregnant woman and then attempted to pass off the baby as her own. Montgomery, who Dunham said has severe mental illness due to an abusive past, was initially scheduled for execution by lethal injection on December 8, but it was delayed due to her lawyers contracting Covid-19.
The Justice Department is fast-tracking new rules on the death penalty before Biden’s inauguration
Trump is the first president in 17 years to reinstate federal executions, despite a recent poll showing that a record-low number of Americans consider the death penalty “morally acceptable.” Even across party lines, the death penalty has been a historically contentious issue. Since the US Supreme Court revived capital punishment in 1976, state governments have been doing most executions, though those have declined in the past two decades, too.
In addition to pushing through federal executions over the past five months, the Justice Department published a new rule to the Federal Register on Friday that would allow the use of other methods for capital punishment. The new regulation reintroduces the use of firing squads and electrocutions for federal executions in addition to lethal injections. The new rule is set to go into effect in 30 days instead of the generally allotted 60 days. As it stands for the remaining inmates awaiting execution, only Higgs appears not to have a method of execution stated on the Justice Department’s schedule — the rest are marked for lethal injection.
The Trump administration’s move, among many others, is another thing President-elect Biden — who has signaled at various times that he would end the federal death penalty — will have to face once in office. Biden, a political veteran, has repeatedly addressed criticism during his presidential campaign over the role he played in passing the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, also known as the 1994 crime bill, signed by President Bill Clinton. The bill allowed the expansion of crimes eligible for the federal death penalty, which aided the conviction of some of the inmates now awaiting execution. (Hall was only eligible for the death penalty because the crime bill added kidnapping resulting in death to the list of crimes.)
The Trump administration is trying to cut corners and fast-track dozens of rules that range from oil-drilling in the Arctic to immigrant restrictions, as well as the death penalty rule, before Biden takes over. If the rules are finalized, the new administration would have to go through a convoluted process to roll them back. But since Biden has pledged to abolish the death penalty at the federal level and incentivize states to follow the federal government’s example, the new death penalty rule may virtually not be of use in his administration.
“Unlike the environmental regulations or policies making it more difficult to negotiate on trade or world safety, the Biden administration can take as much time as it wants to undo this regulation,” Dunham said. “Undoing it isn’t that difficult. I believe the regulation is intended to make it easier for the Trump administration to carry out the remaining lame-duck executions.”
The bigger question is how Biden’s administration will transform a historically racist criminal justice system while also healing the wounds brought by the Trump administration.
“The Trump administration’s conduct, when it comes to criminal legal issues, has been highly political, and mostly out of step with the direction that most of the United States is heading,” Dunham said. “When push came to shove, it reverted to policies that are more extreme in their cruelty and the arbitrariness of their application than anything else we have seen in modern American history.”
The Trump administration’s push for federal executions, while the country has been preoccupied with the election and the pandemic, is no different.


vox--2020-12-12--The fight over Joe Biden tapping Tom Vilsack as agriculture secretary, explained

On Thursday , the Joe Biden transition team announced that it was asking a number of influential Obama administration officials to return to government — including Tom Vilsack , the only member of Obama ’ s Cabinet to keep his role for two full terms , who will be renominated for a third term as secretary of agriculture .
Vilsack ’ s nomination is unusual , to say the least .
Cabinet members are rarely asked back to their old posts by subsequent administrations .
But precisely because Vilsack has already served as secretary , and so recently , farmers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of what kind of secretary he ’ ll be .
It ’ s revealing , then , that his nomination has sparked immediate controversy and consternation among civil rights , animal , anti-monopoly , and family farm advocates who were disappointed in his prior tenure — and with the fact that he ’ s spent the past four years working for Big Agriculture , earning a $ 999,421 annual salary as head of the US Dairy Export Council , a dairy industry group .
He has defenders ; one veteran of the Vilsack @ @ @ @ @ @ @ making “ real efforts to improve program delivery ” of the department ’ s crucial loan programs to farmers .
But while other Cabinet picks have prompted choruses of praise from progressives , Vilsack has mostly prompted concern .
Groups like the Independent Black Farmers coalition and the Family Farm Action Alliance have strongly criticized Vilsack ’ s record , with the former ’ s president Michael Stovall telling Politico , “ When it comes to civil rights , the rights of people , he ’ s not for that.
” “ Vilsack @ @ @ @ @ @ @ or improve the department ’ s treatment of black farmers , and oversaw the approval of high-speed slaughter , ” Leah Garcés , president of the animal welfare group Mercy for Animals , said in a statement .
Playing into these worries is progressives ’ disappointment that Rep. Marcia Fudge ( D-OH ) , who was backed by a number of progressive groups to serve as secretary of agriculture , was not selected .
Instead , Biden has chosen her as secretary of housing and urban development , although Fudge , who has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Committee in the House and is a widely admired expert on food stamps policy , has no real record to speak of on housing .
The assignment of Fudge to HUD , despite her being much more obviously qualified for the agriculture job , also has unfortunate racial overtones .
“ We ’ re going to have to stop looking at only certain agencies as those that people like me fit in , ” Fudge , who is a Black woman , told reporters mere days before her HUD appointment .
“ You @ @ @ @ @ @ @ we want to put the Black person in Labor or HUD.
’ ” ( Fudge later told a reporter for The 19th , “ Everybody knows how passionate I am about feeding hungry children … I can do so much of the same things with HUD.
” ) But the furor over Vilsack is about more than disappointment about Fudge .
You can divide concerns over Vilsack into four broad categories .
Civil rights groups are angry over what they see as his failure to adequately root out discrimination against Black farmers , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Shirley Sherrod in 2009 .
Animal advocates are concerned he did not do enough to improve living standards for farmed animals .
And farmworker and anti-monopoly advocates are disappointed by his failure to fight monopolistic practices among chicken growers despite pledges to do so , and for a weak record on worker safety .
The USDA is a big , sprawling agency , and a complete assessment of Vilsack ’ s record would stretch beyond these issues .
The food writer Michael Pollan , for instance , has argued that Vilsack ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it comes to fighting greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture .
But treatment of Black farmers , treatment of animals , and treatment of Big Ag companies ( and the workers and growers they oversee ) have emerged as the main issues at stake in his nomination .
The USDA , while a crucial agency for the 35 million-plus Americans on food stamps and millions of farmers and farmworkers , doesn ’ t make headlines in the mainstream press that often .
An exception came on July 19 , 2010 , when a misleadingly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ department ’ s Georgia state director of rural development , was posted by far-right provocateur Andrew Breitbart .
The clip showed Sherrod , during a speech at a local NAACP event , recalling a time she helped a white farmer in 1986 ; Breitbart edited the clip to make it sound as though she initially refused to help him because he was white .
Before the day was out , Sherrod was forced to resign .
The White House told reporters it was “ 100 % Vilsack ’ s call ” to force @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , it became clear that the video had been taken wildly out of context ; the white farmer in question went on CNN to defend Sherrod .
By Wednesday , Vilsack admitted he had been taken in by a scurrilous right-wing hit job and offered Sherrod a new position at the USDA , telling reporters , “ This is a good woman , she ’ s been put through hell and I could have and should have done a better job.
” Civil rights leaders critical of Vilsack see the incident as illustrative @ @ @ @ @ @ @ racial discrimination .
In a conference call with Biden , NAACP president Derrick Johnson made the point in terms of the upcoming Georgia Senate elections , telling the president-elect , “ former Secretary Vilsack could have a disastrous impact on voters in Georgia .
Shirley Sherrod is a civil rights legend , a hero.
” But Sherrod is only the beginning of racial equity concerns regarding Vilsack .
A 2019 investigation by Nathan Rosenberg and Bryce Wilson Stucki in the publication The Counter painted a devastating picture of Vilsack ’ s civil rights @ @ @ @ @ @ @ discrimination cases until they reached the statute of limitations and no longer needed resolution , and foreclosed on Black farmers six times as often as white farmers .
“ The department sent a lower share of loan dollars to black farmers than it had under President Bush , then used census data in misleading ways to burnish its record on civil rights , ” they add .
Vilsack ’ s defenders highlight places where he did make progress .
A veteran of the Vilsack USDA noted he reformed the Farm Service Agency ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of community consultation .
Committees used to have non-voting “ minority advisers ” to address racial equity concerns , and Vilsack successfully pushed to give those representatives voting rights .
For his part , Vilsack told Rosenberg and Stucki , “ It is amazing to me that anyone would be critical of the Obama Administration in connection with civil rights claims.
” Another source familiar with the president-elect ’ s thinking defended Vilsack ’ s record on civil rights , citing his department ’ s increase in microloans to historically disadvantaged farmers .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ the record .
Under Vilsack ’ s leadership , the USDA did make some strides toward improving animal welfare on farms .
Garcés of Mercy for Animals credits him with the USDA ’ s move to require “ organic ” labeled meat products to meet animal welfare guidelines ( the Trump administration rescinded the proposed rule ) .
But generally , Vilsack had a fairly dismal record on animal protection .
In 2015 , a coalition of major organizations — the Animal Legal Defense Fund , Compassion Over Killing , Farm Forward , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals — submitted a petition to the Food Safety and Inspection Service ( FSIS ) demanding new rules that would compensate for the agency ’ s failures to adequately enforce laws requiring humane slaughter of animals .
The petition documented cases when FSIS inspectors witnessed farms slaughtering animals by shooting them in the head and letting them slowly bleed out , yet declined to suspend the plants in question .
It also documented 32 cases of abuse worthy of criminal indictment ( like electrically prodding an @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not prosecuted .
Vilsack ’ s USDA did not even respond to the petition , much less enact the rules suggested .
Under Vilsack , the USDA also moved forward with two related major changes in meat processing regulation , which served to make the process more dangerous for workers and animals , and less costly for producers .
The first reduced the number of federal inspectors at poultry plants and delegated more authority over inspections to meat companies , over the protests of food safety groups ; advocates argued this made the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ old process relied too much on in-person inspectors visually inspecting livestock , which is a crude way to test for pathogens in food .
The second effort proposed an increase in line speeds at poultry plants , from 140 birds per minute to 175 .
The Vilsack USDA proposed that change in 2012 but reversed course in 2014 after overwhelming pressure from safety and workers ’ rights groups , who argued the change would be immensely dangerous for workers in these plants .
The Trump administration later picked up where Vilsack ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ higher line speeds for multiple species of farm animal .
In short , this is not the kind of record that animal advocates , hopeful for a USDA that could serve as a partner in working to shrink factory farms and their abuses , are looking for in a secretary .
Early in Vilsack ’ s tenure at USDA , the agency and the Justice Department conducted an extensive listening tour talking to chicken growers about the ways in which large poultry companies control their businesses .
Chicken growing largely operates on a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of chicks from a major chicken supplier , like Purdue Farms or Pilgrim ’ s Pride .
They are then required to grow those chickens to an exact weight demanded by the supplier , and compensated when the chickens are picked up for slaughter .
But growers often don ’ t know what the suppliers will ultimately pay , making their financial situations precarious .
“ One year I worked 12 months and made $ 3,000 , ” grower Craig Watts told my colleague Byrd Pinkerton when she reported a story on antitrust @ @ @ @ @ @ @ companies typically don ’ t compete in each other ’ s regions , growers usually can ’ t switch to another supplier to get a better deal .
It ’ s an issue that advocates for small growers , and anti-monopoly advocates , have been flagging for years as an antitrust concern .
The listening tour suggested Vilsack would oversee a change on the issue — but he didn ’ t .
The USDA issued a widely praised draft rule to increase protections for growers in 2010 , but it was never implemented @ @ @ @ @ @ @ newly Republican House had passed a rider gutting the new rules , and critics like antitrust expert Lina Khan have argued the Obama administration did little to resist the backlash .
Ultimately , “ Vilsack only completed them in the administration ’ s final days , and even then in weakened form , ” David Dayen , a frequent writer on monopoly issues and leading Vilsack critic , has written .
“ Because they hadn ’ t taken effect yet , the Trump administration swiftly nullified the rules.
” To his critics , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was never really interested in standing up to Big Agriculture , an impression he has not done much to rebut in his own statements .
In a podcast in 2019 , he attacked Democratic presidential candidates Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders for criticizing large agriculture companies , saying , “ there are a substantial number of people hired and employed by those businesses here in Iowa .
So you ’ re essentially saying to all of those folks , you might be out of a job.
” He argued the focus on anti-monopoly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ tanks in urban centers who have had very little experience , if any , with rural places.
” The USDA veteran sympathetic to Vilsack whom I spoke with argued that critics need to have more patience .
“ I imagine that it is one of those items that in hindsight that a lot of folks would agree more can and should be done , ” the official says .
“ There is a huge wave of momentum.
” For animal , civil rights , and antitrust advocates , that is the hope — @ @ @ @ @ @ @ factory farms , and the abuses and discriminatory practices they perpetrate , will be enough to change Vilsack ’ s policies during a second tenure as secretary .
But right now , the odds look fairly grim .

On Thursday, the Joe Biden transition team announced that it was asking a number of influential Obama administration officials to return to government — including Tom Vilsack, the only member of Obama’s Cabinet to keep his role for two full terms, who will be renominated for a third term as secretary of agriculture.
Vilsack’s nomination is unusual, to say the least. Cabinet members are rarely asked back to their old posts by subsequent administrations. But precisely because Vilsack has already served as secretary, and so recently, farmers and activists have an extremely strong sense of what kind of secretary he’ll be.
It’s revealing, then, that his nomination has sparked immediate controversy and consternation among civil rights, animal, anti-monopoly, and family farm advocates who were disappointed in his prior tenure — and with the fact that he’s spent the past four years working for Big Agriculture, earning a $999,421 annual salary as head of the US Dairy Export Council, a dairy industry group. He has defenders; one veteran of the Vilsack USDA praised the secretary to me for making “real efforts to improve program delivery” of the department’s crucial loan programs to farmers.
But while other Cabinet picks have prompted choruses of praise from progressives, Vilsack has mostly prompted concern. Groups like the Independent Black Farmers coalition and the Family Farm Action Alliance have strongly criticized Vilsack’s record, with the former’s president, Michael Stovall, telling Politico, “When it comes to civil rights, the rights of people, he’s not for that.”
“Vilsack failed to enact protections for slaughterhouse workers or improve the department’s treatment of black farmers, and oversaw the approval of high-speed slaughter,” Leah Garcés, president of the animal welfare group Mercy for Animals, said in a statement.
Playing into these worries is progressives’ disappointment that Rep. Marcia Fudge (D-OH), who was backed by a number of progressive groups to serve as secretary of agriculture, was not selected. Instead, Biden has chosen her as secretary of housing and urban development, although Fudge, who has a long track record on the Agriculture Committee in the House and is a widely admired expert on food stamps policy, has no real record to speak of on housing.
The assignment of Fudge to HUD, despite her being much more obviously qualified for the agriculture job, also has unfortunate racial overtones. “We’re going to have to stop looking at only certain agencies as those that people like me fit in,” Fudge, who is a Black woman, told reporters mere days before her HUD appointment. “You know, it’s always ‘we want to put the Black person in Labor or HUD.’” (Fudge later told a reporter for The 19th, “Everybody knows how passionate I am about feeding hungry children … I can do so much of the same things with HUD.”)
But the furor over Vilsack is about more than disappointment over Fudge. You can divide concerns over Vilsack into four broad categories. Civil rights groups are angry over what they see as his failure to adequately root out discrimination against Black farmers, and for his firing of USDA employee Shirley Sherrod in 2009. Animal advocates are concerned he did not do enough to improve living standards for farmed animals. And farmworker and anti-monopoly advocates are disappointed by his failure to fight monopolistic practices among chicken growers despite pledges to do so, and for a weak record on worker safety.
The USDA is a big, sprawling agency, and a complete assessment of Vilsack’s record would stretch beyond these issues. The food writer Michael Pollan, for instance, has argued that Vilsack’s USDA was asleep at the wheel when it comes to fighting greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture. But treatment of Black farmers, treatment of animals, and treatment of Big Ag companies (and the workers and growers they oversee) have emerged as the main issues at stake in his nomination.
Vilsack’s record on Black farmers
The USDA, while a crucial agency for the 35 million-plus Americans on food stamps and millions of farmers and farmworkers, doesn’t make headlines in the mainstream press that often. An exception came on July 19, 2010, when a misleadingly edited clip of Shirley Sherrod, the department’s Georgia state director of rural development, was posted by far-right provocateur Andrew Breitbart. The clip showed Sherrod, during a speech at a local NAACP event, recalling a time she helped a white farmer in 1986; Breitbart edited the clip to make it sound as though she initially refused to help him because he was white. Before the day was out, Sherrod was forced to resign. The White House told reporters it was “100% Vilsack’s call” to force her to quit.
Quickly, though, it became clear that the video had been taken wildly out of context; the white farmer in question went on CNN to defend Sherrod. By Wednesday, Vilsack admitted he had been taken in by a scurrilous right-wing hit job and offered Sherrod a new position at the USDA, telling reporters, “This is a good woman, she’s been put through hell and I could have and should have done a better job.”
Civil rights leaders critical of Vilsack see the incident as illustrative of the department’s inaction on racial discrimination. In a conference call with Biden, NAACP president Derrick Johnson made the point in terms of the upcoming Georgia Senate elections, telling the president-elect, “former Secretary Vilsack could have a disastrous impact on voters in Georgia. Shirley Sherrod is a civil rights legend, a hero.”
But Sherrod is only the beginning of racial equity concerns regarding Vilsack. A 2019 investigation by Nathan Rosenberg and Bryce Wilson Stucki in the publication The Counter painted a devastating picture of Vilsack’s civil rights record, finding that he dragged out discrimination cases until they reached the statute of limitations and no longer needed resolution, and foreclosed on Black farmers six times as often as white farmers. “The department sent a lower share of loan dollars to black farmers than it had under President Bush, then used census data in misleading ways to burnish its record on civil rights,” they report.
Vilsack’s defenders highlight places where he did make progress. A veteran of the Vilsack USDA noted he reformed the Farm Service Agency’s county committees, a key form of community consultation. Committees used to have non-voting “minority advisers” to address racial equity concerns, and Vilsack successfully pushed to give those representatives voting rights. For his part, Vilsack told Rosenberg and Stucki, “It is amazing to me that anyone would be critical of the Obama Administration in connection with civil rights claims.” Another source familiar with the president-elect’s thinking defended Vilsack’s record on civil rights, citing his department’s increase in microloans to historically disadvantaged farmers.
The Biden transition team declined to comment on the record.
The Vilsack USDA on animals
Under Vilsack’s leadership, the USDA did make some strides toward improving animal welfare on farms. Garcés of Mercy for Animals credits him with the USDA’s move to require “organic” labeled meat products to meet animal welfare guidelines (the Trump administration rescinded the proposed rule).
But generally, Vilsack had a fairly dismal record on animal protection. In 2015, a coalition of major organizations — the Animal Legal Defense Fund, Compassion Over Killing, Farm Forward, Farm Sanctuary, Mercy for Animals, and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals — submitted a petition to the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) demanding new rules that would compensate for the agency’s failures to adequately enforce laws requiring humane slaughter of animals.
The petition documented cases when FSIS inspectors witnessed farms slaughtering animals by shooting them in the head and letting them slowly bleed out, yet declined to suspend the plants in question. It also documented 32 cases of abuse worthy of criminal indictment (like electrically prodding an animal’s genitals) that were not prosecuted.
Vilsack’s USDA did not even respond to the petition, much less enact the rules suggested.
Under Vilsack, the USDA also moved forward with two related major changes in meat processing regulation, which served to make the process more dangerous for workers and animals, and less costly for producers. The first reduced the number of federal inspectors at poultry plants and delegated more authority over inspections to meat companies, over the protests of food safety groups; advocates argued this made the inspection process more efficient and claimed the old process relied too much on in-person inspectors visually inspecting livestock, which is a crude way to test for pathogens in food.
The second effort proposed an increase in line speeds at poultry plants, from 140 birds per minute to 175. The Vilsack USDA proposed that change in 2012 but reversed course in 2014 after overwhelming pressure from safety and workers’ rights groups, who argued the change would be immensely dangerous for workers in these plants. The Trump administration later picked up where Vilsack’s 2012 rule left off and pushed for higher line speeds for multiple species of farm animal.
In short, this is not the kind of record that animal advocates, hopeful for a USDA that could serve as a partner in working to shrink factory farms and their abuses, are looking for in a secretary.
Vilsack on Big Agriculture
Early in Vilsack’s tenure at USDA, the agency and the Justice Department conducted an extensive listening tour talking to chicken growers about the ways in which large poultry companies control their businesses.
Chicken growing largely operates on a contract model where small growers get tens of thousands of chicks from a major chicken supplier, like Purdue Farms or Pilgrim’s Pride. They are then required to grow those chickens to an exact weight demanded by the supplier, and compensated when the chickens are picked up for slaughter. But growers often don’t know what the suppliers will ultimately pay, making their financial situations precarious.
“One year I worked 12 months and made $3,000,” grower Craig Watts told my colleague Byrd Pinkerton when she reported a story on antitrust issues in chicken growing. Because the companies typically don’t compete in each other’s regions, growers usually can’t switch to another supplier to get a better deal. It’s an issue that advocates for small growers, and anti-monopoly advocates, have been flagging for years as an antitrust concern.
The listening tour suggested Vilsack would oversee a change on the issue — but he didn’t. The USDA issued a widely praised draft rule to increase protections for growers in 2010, but it was never implemented. But by November 2011, the newly Republican House had passed a rider gutting the new rules, and critics like antitrust expert Lina Khan have argued the Obama administration did little to resist the backlash. Ultimately, “Vilsack only completed them in the administration’s final days, and even then in weakened form,” David Dayen, a frequent writer on monopoly issues and leading Vilsack critic, has written. “Because they hadn’t taken effect yet, the Trump administration swiftly nullified the rules.”
To his critics, this seems like an indication that Vilsack was never really interested in standing up to Big Agriculture, an impression he has not done much to rebut in his own statements. In a podcast in 2019, he attacked Democratic presidential candidates Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders for criticizing large agriculture companies, saying, “there are a substantial number of people hired and employed by those businesses here in Iowa. So you’re essentially saying to all of those folks, you might be out of a job.” He argued the focus on anti-monopoly measures came from “folks in think tanks in urban centers who have had very little experience, if any, with rural places.”
The USDA veteran sympathetic to Vilsack whom I spoke with argued that critics need to have more patience. “I imagine that it is one of those items that in hindsight that a lot of folks would agree more can and should be done,” the official says. “There is a huge wave of momentum.”
For animal, civil rights, and antitrust advocates, that is the hope — that the momentum behind their critiques of factory farms, and the abuses and discriminatory practices they perpetrate, will be enough to change Vilsack’s policies during a second tenure as secretary. But right now, the odds look fairly grim.