Latest / 5 minute updates on the latest Trump actions by Prof Christina Pagel / Spotlight on health, sciene and immigration: 3 weeks in Trump’s America

Transcript

Spotlight on health, sciene and immigration: 3 weeks in Trump’s America · 5 minute updates on the latest Trump actions by Prof Christina Pagel

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: So, hi.
• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's actually been
• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: three weeks since my last update, so there's loads to potentially get through.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm just going to concentrate on two themes that I think
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: have been underreported over the last few weeks.
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  SPEAKER_00: And the first is Science and Health.
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  SPEAKER_00: And the second one is Immigration.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: So on science and health.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: Let me start with vaccines.
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  SPEAKER_00: On the 18th of September in the Oval Office with RFK Junior,
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  SPEAKER_00: the health secretary, beside him,
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  SPEAKER_00: Trump said that the administration would demand that vaccine
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: makers split some childhood vaccines into five separate doses,
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: each for a fifth of the overall amount, to be given six months apart.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: So Trump said that this would bring, in his words, a massive reduction in autism.
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  SPEAKER_00: He gave no evidence and he didn't even say which vaccines he meant.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: Now, the idea that vaccines cause autism has been rigorously
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  SPEAKER_00: and repeatedly studied, and there is absolutely no evidence
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: that vaccines are associated with autism.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: We do know that vaccines save lives,
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  SPEAKER_00: and vaccine experts say that splitting doses like this
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  SPEAKER_00: basically just leaves children unprotected for longer,
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: because it's taking them longer to get the right dose.
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  SPEAKER_00: And it also reduces the number of children who will receive all the shots
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  SPEAKER_00: they need.
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  SPEAKER_00: Because the more visits you need, the fewer people go.
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  SPEAKER_00: At the same time, the updated Covid vaccines for children
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: this Autumn are not getting to as many children as they should be.
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  SPEAKER_00: The FDA,
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  SPEAKER_00: so the Food and Drug Administration, approved the vaccines in August,
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  SPEAKER_00: but the CDC has not opened them up for ordering through the Vaccines
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: for Children program, and that covers about half of all American children.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: So in at least 11 states and one U.S.
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  SPEAKER_00: territory, which buy vaccines for every child through that program,
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  SPEAKER_00: it means that children currently cannot get updated shots.
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  SPEAKER_00: Officials have not said when or whether that is going to change.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: So a former senior CDC official described it as testing the waters and said
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  SPEAKER_00: there's nothing really stopping the CDC doing the same with other vaccines.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: So that’s quite a roundabout way of trying to restrict
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  SPEAKER_00: who's got access to vaccines.
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  SPEAKER_00: On the 17th of September, Health Secretary RFK Junior
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: spoke at the convention of Children's Health Defense.
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  SPEAKER_00: Now, the Children's Health
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  SPEAKER_00: Defense is a campaign group against vaccines that he himself founded.
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  SPEAKER_00: And in the speech, RFK told them that
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: they had, in his words, a strong and steadfast friend at the White House.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: The next day, RFK Junior named a new chair for the federal committee
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: that coordinates autism research, and the new chair is a man called
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  SPEAKER_00: John Gaitanis, who has long promoted a drug called Leucovorin
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  SPEAKER_00: as a treatment for autism.
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  SPEAKER_00: But there's absolutely no real evidence that this is a good treatment.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: John Gaitanis also co-founded a telehealth company
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  SPEAKER_00: offering that treatment to families of autistic children,
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  SPEAKER_00: and he has repeatedly been paid as an expert witness in cases claiming
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: injury from vaccines, including MMR.
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  SPEAKER_00: So that means that the person who's now coordinating federal autism research
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  SPEAKER_00: has a commercial interest in an unproven treatment
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  SPEAKER_00: and a history of giving evidence against vaccines.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: The second thing I want to kind of cover in this area
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  SPEAKER_00: is kind of who's deciding which science gets done.
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  SPEAKER_00: So the National Institutes of Health
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  SPEAKER_00: is the largest public funder of medical research in the world.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: And on the 20th of September, it was reported that Trump has told
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  SPEAKER_00: his budget director, Russ Vought, to draft an executive order,
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  SPEAKER_00: which creates a new board to decide which NIH grants are funded.
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  SPEAKER_00: The board would include Vought and the NIH
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  SPEAKER_00: director, and its decisions would have to be unanimous.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: So it's only a draft, but if it goes ahead, the White House Budget Office
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  SPEAKER_00: then effectively gets a veto over what medical research is done in the US.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: And the third thing I want to cover is what's getting counted.
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  SPEAKER_00: So at the start of September, the CDC stopped using the system
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  SPEAKER_00: that states use
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  SPEAKER_00: to report cases and deaths as they happen during a disease outbreak.
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  SPEAKER_00: So, for instance, there's currently a measles outbreak.
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  SPEAKER_00: The CDC switched to a different system, which is run by the National Center
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  SPEAKER_00: for Health Statistics, which is built to track mortality trends
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  SPEAKER_00: over years and works on a much kind of slower time scale.
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  SPEAKER_00: That system had no records for 2026 listing measles
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  SPEAKER_00: as the underlying cause of death for many weeks, and has only just updated
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  SPEAKER_00: to have one death for measles, with no details on where that death happened.
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  SPEAKER_00: Meanwhile, we know that Pennsylvania has already confirmed four deaths
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  SPEAKER_00: from measles in this outbreak, two of them babies.
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  SPEAKER_00: A former chief medical officer at the CDC called the change puzzling
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  SPEAKER_00: because the system that they're using was never meant
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  SPEAKER_00: to confirm individual cases during an active outbreak.
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  SPEAKER_00: And members of Congress have now asked for an immediate briefing
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  SPEAKER_00: on what's happened.
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  SPEAKER_00: A very similar thing is happening in education.
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  SPEAKER_00: So the National Center for Education Statistics is the main source
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  SPEAKER_00: of national data for how American students are doing at schools.
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  SPEAKER_00: And it was one of the agencies hit really hard by DOGE last year,
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  SPEAKER_00: where its staff went from about 100 people down to four people.
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  SPEAKER_00: It's now gone back up, but only to 12.
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  SPEAKER_00: And according to tracking by the American Statistical Association,
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  SPEAKER_00: most of the data used to collect has now been stopped or cut back.
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  SPEAKER_00: So now on immigration, I'm going to start with just two things
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  SPEAKER_00: that happened on the 20th of September.
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  SPEAKER_00: So firstly, in Austin, Texas, an ICE
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  SPEAKER_00: officer shot Wilbur Rafael Garcés Perez,
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  SPEAKER_00: a 28 year old Venezuelan man who was delivering food for DoorDash.
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  SPEAKER_00: Exactly what happened is disputed.
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  SPEAKER_00: So he'd been ordered deported after missing an immigration hearing
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  SPEAKER_00: and officers were moving to arrest him.
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  SPEAKER_00: So his lawyer said that he asked, you know, can I pull the car over,
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  SPEAKER_00: and be
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  SPEAKER_00: detained and was refused and then an ICE vehicle then hit his car.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: Homeland Security says that he drove off and didn't stop.
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  SPEAKER_00: So what we do know is that the video released by the Austin Police Chief shows
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  SPEAKER_00: his car had already stopped with an agent at the window
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  SPEAKER_00: before a pursuit started again, and he was shot in the torso.
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  SPEAKER_00: His lawyer says that he had no criminal record and came into the U.S.
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  SPEAKER_00: lawfully.
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  SPEAKER_00: The officer who shot him had been issued a body camera but
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: wasn't wearing it, and reports say that the officer had only been hired last year.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: So Garcés Pérez was shot in the torso, and about four hours later
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  SPEAKER_00: he was moved from hospital to an ICE detention center
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  SPEAKER_00: with the bullet still in his back.
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  SPEAKER_00: His wife and his lawyer were then not told where he was.
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  SPEAKER_00: His lawyer says he has since been back in hospital for treatment of paralysis
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  SPEAKER_00: on his left side.
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  SPEAKER_00: Now Homeland Security say that he was stable and in custody
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  SPEAKER_00: pending removal and disputes his account of receiving poor medical care.
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  SPEAKER_00: Now the local District Attorney has asked that he be kept in the country
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  SPEAKER_00: because he's witness in their criminal investigation into the shooting.
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  SPEAKER_00: The same morning on September
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  SPEAKER_00: the 20th in Evanston, just outside Chicago, federal agents in plain clothes
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  SPEAKER_00: tried to arrest a man that they thought was a fugitive.
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  SPEAKER_00: He was a US citizen on his way to a pharmacy.
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  SPEAKER_00: Now, witnesses heard him shouting that he was a US citizen.
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  SPEAKER_00: Police later found him on the ground with injuries to his head, neck and teeth,
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  SPEAKER_00: and he was taken to hospital by ambulance.
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  SPEAKER_00: Homeland Security said that he resembled their target, would not identify himself
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  SPEAKER_00: and that the officers relied on their training.
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  SPEAKER_00: Now, these two cases are public because they happened
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  SPEAKER_00: on the street in front of people who had phones and can film it.
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  SPEAKER_00: So what's actually happening inside the detention facilities?
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: So ICE runs an online locator
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  SPEAKER_00: so that lawyers and families can find out where someone is being held.
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  SPEAKER_00: But on the 15th of September, without any announcement,
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  SPEAKER_00: it took everyone with a final deportation order off the locator.
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  SPEAKER_00: Now that's thousands of people.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: So in July alone, nearly 16,000 people in ICE attention had final orders.
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  SPEAKER_00: Lawyers say that their clients have simply vanished from the system.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: And the change only became public
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  SPEAKER_00: because current and former ICE officials had told the Associated Press.
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  SPEAKER_00: What's quite chilling about it is that immigration lawyers
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  SPEAKER_00: point out that if you can't find someone, you can't
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  SPEAKER_00: then file a last minute challenge in court before they are put on a plane.
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  SPEAKER_00: And there are other areas where information is disappearing, too.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: So after a freedom of information request from the Guardian, ICE said it has no
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  SPEAKER_00: data on miscarriages among pregnant women in detention after October last year.
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  SPEAKER_00: So almost a year
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  SPEAKER_00: now of no data because of a change in its medical accounting system.
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  SPEAKER_00: And then when the Texas congresswoman Veronica Escobar
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  SPEAKER_00: went to inspect the largest ICE attention center in the country,
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  SPEAKER_00: she says she was not allowed to speak to any of the people held there.
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  SPEAKER_00: And her request for surveillance footage has not been answered.
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  SPEAKER_00: We do know that conditions inside are meant to be awful.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: So in one of the rare official looks inside, a report
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  SPEAKER_00: from Homeland Security's own Inspector General
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  SPEAKER_00: on the Floridan Detention Center known as Alligator Alcatraz, which is now shut,
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  SPEAKER_00: the report said that people
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  SPEAKER_00: there were held in highly restrictive cages against ICE’s own rules.
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  SPEAKER_00: There was overcrowding and phones didn't work so that people couldn't
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  SPEAKER_00: reach lawyers or their family, and there was poor food hygiene.
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  SPEAKER_00: There were also children in detention.
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  SPEAKER_00: So children who arrive in the US on their own are meant to be cared for
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  SPEAKER_00: by the Health Department in licensed shelters
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  SPEAKER_00: and placed with vetted relatives where possible.
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  SPEAKER_00: But according to an analysis of immigration court data
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  SPEAKER_00: shared with the Guardian, over 80% of these children who got new
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  SPEAKER_00: court cases in July and August this year were sent to shelters in Texas.
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  SPEAKER_00: Now, shelters in Texas are not licensed by the state,
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  SPEAKER_00: and there are far fewer immigration lawyers there.
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  SPEAKER_00: So the administration has not explained why they've done this, and advocates
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: fear that it is being set up to move children quickly through to deportation.
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  SPEAKER_00: The Guardian also reported that Stephen Miller,
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: Trump's deputy chief of staff, is personally leading a push
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: across several departments to speed up the removal of migrant children,
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  SPEAKER_00: using tactics that critics say are cruel and in some cases break federal law.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: And once they do deport people, where do they deport them to?
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: So for more than a year now, the administration has been sending people
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: to countries, many in Africa, that are not their own.
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  SPEAKER_00: Under deals that are often secret.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: On the 18th of September, an appeals court ruled that this policy is unlawful.
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  SPEAKER_00: Days later, ICE was still preparing to send a Peruvian man
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: to the Central African Republic.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: Now, the Peruvian man had already been
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_00: granted protection from being returned to Peru because of a risk of torture.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: His lawyers had to go back to court and at 11:30 that night, the court issued
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: a three sentence order spelling out that its ruling applied immediately.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: So at that point,
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: the administration did comply, and a flight with 70 people on board
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: bound for Burundi, Rwanda and the Central African Republic was canceled.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: But Homeland Security called this ruling reckless, and the administration
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: has now gone to the Supreme Court to fight the appeal court’s ruling.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: And finally, what refugees are welcome in the US?
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: Well, on the 22nd of September, the administration told Congress
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_00: it would admit up to 17,500 refugees over the next year,
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  SPEAKER_00: but primarily white Afrikaners from South Africa.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: This year, of nearly 5000 refugees admitted,
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: all but three were South African, white South African.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: Two years ago, the US took more than 100,000 refugees from dozens of countries.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: The State Department says Afrikaners face land seizures and discrimination
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  SPEAKER_00: and that they will, in its words, fully assimilate.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: The South African government denies that they are persecuted at all.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: So that's kind of my roundup for now.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: Again, all actions and more are on the TrumpActionTracker.info,
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: and I'll be back in a week or two.