RFK Jr alarms medical experts with vaccine ‘placebo testing’ plans • FRANCE 24 English

RFK Jr alarms medical experts with vaccine ‘placebo testing’ plans • FRANCE 24 English

Dipy is back with us today from her holidays with the press review. Um she’s starting in Spain. Lots of scrutiny around renewable energies after that shop nationwide power outage that hit Spain and Portugal this week. Dipy. Yeah, that’s right. Stuart Lavan Gradia Spanish paper today asking on the front page of its website perhaps a question that everyone is asking. Who or what is responsible for what they call the great blackout? Was it a photovalttaque plant that shut down? Was there a French disconnection? a poorly designed IT system or overconfidence in the systems infallibility. Well, we don’t know what exactly is uh what exactly caused that blackout. Many have though been quick to blame renewable energy for the systems failure. in Lavanguadia’s edition today on its website. Uh they’ve actually interviewed uh the head of a research group, an energy research group uh he energy research group, Jose Luis Dominguez, who says Spain needs to continue investing in renewable energy. He though he does concede though that the blackout does highlight uh the need for adjustments in regulation and company oversight when it comes to renewable energy and that what he calls a low inertia of solar and wind energy means that more investment and innovation is needed to ensure that these kind of unforeseen circumstances like what we saw on Monday don’t happen again. And that’s really the message that’s echoed also in uh this Reuters article. don’t blame renewables for Spain’s power outage. The writer says that Monday’s blackout should be a warning to government that investments in things like the power gr uh in things like power storage and grid upgrades are just as important as renewable energy projects. Going to talk about vaccines on the program now. The US Department of Health is planning to change the way that vaccines are tested. Critics saying though it could undermine public trust in immunization. Yeah, that’s right. Officially, the Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. uh says this move to shift vaccine testing aims to increase transparency, but he’s also a well-known vaccine skeptic. Now, the Washington Post reports in this article here that uh the change in question is that uh Kennedy Jr. wants to impose placebo testing in all new vaccines in which people receive either the vaccine or a placebo placebo most most likely in the form of a saline shot. Placebo testing is common place for new pathogens but not for well researched diseases like measles and polio. And this is what he wants to do. He wants to extend it to all um diseases. Now, medical experts say this could actually be unethical because the placebo group would not have access to a known effective intervention against a disease. Since his appointment as head of health, Kennedy has really shaken things up. The US top vaccine regulator Peter Marx resigned under pressure and Kennedy Jr. himself has continued to express skepticism around vaccines even amidst that ongoing deadly measles outbreak in the US. Now to the investigative journalism nonprofit collective, Forbidden Stories, which France 24 works with as well, released a report detailing the shocking treatment of Ukrainians in a Russian prison. Yeah, that’s right. Now, Forbidden Stories, for as a reminder, is a collective of journalists and uh it’s a nonprofit group who aim to continue the investigative reporting of journalists who’ve been silenced. Now, Project Victoria is named for Ukrainian journalist Victoria Rashina’s efforts to document the war in Ukraine. Now, on her fourth trip in 2013, as you see in this article here, uh she never came back and earlier this year, what was identified by authorities as her body was returned to Ukraine. Now, Forbidden Stories explains uh in their coverage today in this latest chapter that uh she was um became a prisoner of war and indeed ended up at the notorious Tagen Rug prison. Uh this is a prison described by the article as being synonymous with the most violent types of treatment imaginable uh reminiscent of the worst Soviet gulags. And uh in their testimony here, according to former inmates, beatings, uh torture, food deprivation were all common place at the prison. They also faced punishment for speaking Ukrainian. Some inmates were ultimately led to commit suicide to avoid the torture. Fully from Deputy Steven Spielberg, he has revealed what he thinks is the greatest film of all time. Well, Steven Spielberg is a legend in his own right, right, Stuart? and many of his own movies are up there with the greatest of all times. But uh according to Screen Rant, uh Spielberg says Francis Ford Copa’s 1972 The Godfather is the greatest film of all time. In fact, he says it was so good that it shook his confidence as a budding director and almost made him not want to become a director. A few years after The Godfather though, Jaws came out and Spielber Spielberg was uh indeed cemented as a star of Hollywood. Um, I do want to end on a little bit of tennis and romance though, Stewart. Uh, Australian tennis man, um, let’s see if I can bring you this. Yeah, here it is. Uh, Australian tennis man Alex De Minor and his Italian rival Lorenzo Mouseti were warming up for their round of 16 match at the Madrid Open on Wednesday when attention turned to a man in the stands. Uh here he is a fan proposing to his partner. Uh luckily she said yes to it because it would have been very awkward to sit through a game with someone who just rebuffed you. But in any case, it does bring new meaning to a loved game and you can see the crowd really cheering them on. And that’s Meti even cracking a smile before a very tense match. Oh, how sweet. What a what a chance that they happen to be on them just at the right moment. I can imagine them all going in the gallery. No, go to them. Go to them. Go to there. Focus on the couple. Congratulations to them from everyone at France 24. I’m sure they’ll have a very happy life together.

PRESS REVIEW – Thursday, May 1: The Spanish papers continue to wonder what – or who – was responsible for the Great Blackout that plunged Spain and Portugal into darkness this week. Is renewable energy to blame? Also: US Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr alarms medical experts over his plans to impose placebo testing of vaccines. Plus: Steven Spielberg reveals what he thinks is the greatest film of all time.
#vaccines #RFK Jnr #measles

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