Friday, December 13, 2024
Six Childhood Scourges We’ve Forgotten About, Thanks to Vaccines - The New York Times
Six Childhood Scourges We’ve Forgotten About, Thanks to Vaccines
"Most Americans, including doctors, have no memory of the devastating diseases that routinely threatened children until the 1960s.
Some of President-elect Donald J. Trump’s picks for the government’s top health posts have expressed skepticism about the safety of childhood vaccines. It’s a sentiment shared by a growing number of parents, who are choosing to skip recommended shots for their children.
But while everyone seems to be talking about the potential side effects of vaccines, few are discussing the diseases they prevent.
It has been half a century or more since many of the inoculations became routine in the United States, and the experience of having these illnesses has been largely erased from public memory. Questions today about the risk-benefit ratio of vaccines might just be a product of the vaccines’ own success.
Here is what people should know about six once-common illnesses that vaccines have contained for decades.
Measles
Measles, a viral infection often spread by a cough or sneeze, is extraordinarily contagious: Nine out of 10 people around an infected person will catch measles if they have not been vaccinated. Measles can be contracted in a room up to two hours after a person with the disease has left it.
Measles is not a mild illness, particularly for children under 5. It can cause a high fever, coughing, conjunctivitis and rashes, and if it leads to pneumonia or encephalitis — brain swelling — it can quickly become lethal. Before the vaccine was licensed in the United States in 1963, almost every child had contracted measles by age 15. Tens of thousands of measles patients were hospitalized each year, and between 400 and 500 of them died.
Two doses of the MMR vaccine together are about 97 percent effective at preventing measles. But epidemiologists say a 95 percent vaccine coverage rate is necessary to prevent transmission of the virus in a community. Over the past four school years, the kindergarten vaccination rate has fallen below that threshold — in some communities, far below.
About 280,000 kindergarten students in the United States are now unprotected, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and measles — which was eliminated from the United States in 2000 — has since seen a resurgence. There have been 16 measles outbreaks in 2024, compared with four outbreaks in 2023. In communities where the spread is rampant, even a vaccinated child can occasionally contract the disease, though their symptoms are generally less severe.
Diphtheria
The Greek word diphthera means leather — a fitting reference for a bacterial infection that creates a thick, gray membrane over the throat and tonsils, suffocating its victims. There was a time in the United States when up to eight children in a single family suffered that fate — a burden so grave that a science historian called it “childhood’s deadly scourge.”
The toxin driving the disease is produced by a strain of bacteria in respiratory droplets and works by killing healthy tissues, which can lead to difficulty breathing and swallowing, especially among young children with smaller airways. It can also gravely damage the cardiac and nervous systems, resulting in heart failure or paralysis.
Even with treatment, one in 10 people who have respiratory diphtheria die from it, according to the C.D.C.
The infection is now preventable in young children through multiple DTaP vaccine doses, and preteens and adults get boosters called Tdap. Thanks to vaccinations, cases in the United States have gone from more than 100,000 per year in the 1920s to — on average — less than one.
Tetanus
A fully developed tetanus infection can be an alarming sight: fists clenched, back arched, legs rigid from extreme, excruciating muscle spasms that last several minutes. Extreme fluctuations in blood pressure. A racing heart. Neck and stomach muscles tight enough to impair breathing.
Treatment for tetanus must be immediate, and up to 20 percent of people who become infected will die.
It all starts with a bacteria that lies dormant in soil and animal feces until it enters the body through broken skin like a cut. The microbe begins to grow, divide and release a toxin that impairs nerves.
Vaccines containing the tetanus toxoid began being administered to children in the U.S. in the 1940s, when there were more than 500 cases per year. Children are now protected through multiple doses of the dTap vaccine, which also guards against diphtheria and pertussis (also known as whooping cough). Since 2000, the annual number of cases has been below 50.
Mumps
The mumps virus, spread through saliva and respiratory droplets triggers a fever and swollen salivary glands in the ears — which is why patients often have a puffy jaw and cheeks — and can, in severe cases, cause deafness.
The disease is dangerously insidious: It can lie dormant for up to a month before symptoms appear, and most people are infectious before their salivary glands begin to swell. Complications are more common in adults than children, but they can include inflammation in the ovaries and testicles — which can cause infertility or sterility — or in the brain and spinal cord, which can put patients at risk of seizures and strokes.
The United States began vaccinating against mumps in 1967 and subsequently saw a 99 percent decrease in cases. But annual cases in the United States — which previously hovered between 200 and 400 — have surpassed 1,000 nine times since 2006. On three occasions, they surpassed 6,000.
Rubella
The first sign of rubella is often a rash on the face, and while the infection often remains mild in children, it can prove devastating for pregnant women whom the children infect.
When passed on to a fetus, rubella can cause a miscarriage or lead to severe birth defects, such as heart problems, liver or spleen damage, blindness, and intellectual disability. At least 32,000 babies worldwide are born annually with congenital rubella syndrome. About a thirdof them die before their first birthday.
Rubella is transmitted through coughing and sneezing, and up to half of people who spread the infection do not know they have it. Most women who contract rubella in adulthood say they experience arthritis. In rare cases, rubella can also cause brain infections and bleeding problems. There is no specific treatment.
Before a vaccine was licensed in the United States in 1969, rubella was common among young children, with surges occurring on a six- to nine-year cycle. In 2004, the United States declared the disease eliminated. Infections are now mostly imported from other parts of the world; annual cases fell from about 47,000 before the vaccine to just six in 2020.
Polio
Parents in the early 1950s lived with a terror few could later imagine: the substantial prospect that their child could touch the wrong toy and end up in a wheelchair, an iron lung or a grave.
Polio epidemics, which had been occurring for decades, had gained new magnitude by the middle of the 20th century, killing or paralyzing more than half a million people worldwide each year. Families were avoiding public spaces and turning down summertime play dates, knowing that the malady struck fast: In the words of the historian and author Richard Rhodes, “One day you had a headache and an hour later you were paralyzed.”
In some parts of the world, the disease is still a major threat. It is transmitted by exposure to fecal matter, such as on contaminated foods or objects. Most people who contract the virus have no visible symptoms, though they can still pass it on. About a quarter develop common flu symptoms such as a sore throat, fever and nausea.
In severe cases, polio can affect the nerves and brain, causing meningitis and paralysis. When the muscles responsible for breathing are affected, the case can be lethal. And even decades after a resolved polio infection, people can experience muscle weakness and atrophy, which is referred to as post-polio syndrome.
In the United States, vaccines drove paralytic polio cases down from more than 21,000 in 1952 to just one in 1993. But in 2022, the C.D.C. confirmed a new case in Rockland County, N.Y., which had low vaccination coverage. The agency called the single case a public health emergency.
Emily Baumgaertner is a national health reporter for The Times, focusing on public health issues that primarily affect vulnerable communities. More about Emily Baumgaertner
RFK Jr.’s Lawyer Has Asked the FDA to Revoke Polio Vaccine Approval - The New York Times
Kennedy’s Lawyer Has Asked the F.D.A. to Revoke Approval of the Polio Vaccine
"Aaron Siri, who specializes in vaccine lawsuits, has been at Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s side reviewing candidates for top jobs at the Department of Health and Human Services.
The lawyer helping Robert F. Kennedy Jr. pick federal health officials for the incoming Trump administration has petitioned the government to revoke its approval of the polio vaccine, which for decades has protected millions of people from a virus that can cause paralysis or death.
That campaign is just one front in the war that the lawyer, Aaron Siri, is waging against vaccines of all kinds.
Mr. Siri has also filed a petition seeking to pause the distribution of 13 other vaccines; challenged, and in some cases quashed, Covid vaccine mandates around the country; sued federal agencies for the disclosure of records related to vaccine approvals; and subjected prominent vaccine scientists to grueling videotaped depositions.
Much of Mr. Siri’s work — including the polio petition filed in 2022 — has been on behalf of the Informed Consent Action Network, a nonprofit whose founder is a close ally of Mr. Kennedy. Mr. Siri also represented Mr. Kennedy during his presidential campaign.
Mr. Kennedy, President-elect Donald J. Trump’s choice for health secretary, has said that he does not want to take away access to any vaccines. But as he prepares for his confirmation hearing and plans a fresh health agenda, his continuing close partnership with Mr. Siri suggests that vaccine policy will be under sharp scrutiny. It is a chilling prospect to many public health leaders, especially those who recall the deadly toll of some vaccine-mediated diseases.
At the Trump transition headquarters in Florida, Mr. Siri has joined Mr. Kennedy in questioning and choosing candidates for top health positions, according to someone who observed the interactions but insisted on anonymity to disclose private conversations. They have asked candidates about their views of vaccines, the person said.
Mr. Kennedy has privately expressed interest in having Mr. Siri serve in the Health and Human Services Department’s top legal job, general counsel. However, Mr. Siri has suggested he may have more influence outside the administration. At his law firm, Siri & Glimstad, he oversees about 40 professionals working on vaccine cases and policy.
“Somebody on the outside needs to be petitioning them,” he said on a podcast in late November.
Either way, it’s clear that his voice will be heard at the highest levels.
“I love Aaron Siri,” Mr. Kennedy said in a clip played on a recent episode of a podcast hosted by Del Bigtree, who is Mr. Kennedy’s former campaign communications director and the founder of the Informed Consent Action Network, which describes itself as a “medical freedom” nonprofit. “There’s nobody who’s been a greater asset to the medical freedom movement than him.”
Like Mr. Kennedy, Mr. Siri insists he does not want to take vaccines away from anyone who wants them. “You want to get the vaccine — it’s America, a free country.” he told Arizona legislators last year after laying out his concerns about the vaccines for polio and other illnesses.
He did not mention the petitions he has lodged on behalf of ICAN with the Food and Drug Administration, asking regulators to withdraw or suspend approval of vaccines not only for polio, but also for hepatitis B.
Mr. Siri is also representing ICAN in petitioning the F.D.A. to “pause distribution” of 13 other vaccines, including combination products that cover tetanus, diphtheria, polio and hepatitis A, until their makers disclose details about aluminum, an ingredient researchers have associated with a small increase in asthma cases
Mr. Siri declined to be interviewed, but said all of his petitions were filed on behalf of clients. Katie Miller, a spokeswoman for Mr. Kennedy, said Mr. Siri has been advising Mr. Kennedy but has not discussed his petitions with any of the health nominees. She added, “Mr. Kennedy has long said that he wants transparency in vaccines and to give people choice.”
If the Senate confirms Mr. Kennedy as health secretary, he will oversee the F.D.A. In that capacity, he could take the rare step of intervening in the F.D.A.’s review of the petitions.
Vaccines undergo extensive testing before they are approved, and are monitored for safety after they come on the market. The process of taking an established drug off the market can be lengthy. The F.D.A. would need to outline a new safety concern in writing and give the vaccine’s maker a chance to respond. The F.D.A. would then hold a hearing and render a decision. If the company did not agree with the outcome, it could sue.
Mr. Trump and Mr. Kennedy have spoken about vaccines, the president-elect told Time magazine in an interview published Thursday. Mr. Trump pledged to do “very serious testing” and to get rid of some vaccines “if I think it’s dangerous, if I think they are not beneficial.”
During an appearance last weekend on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Mr. Trump said he was open to a review of vaccines and autism. But he singled out the polio vaccine as a potential exception.
“The polio vaccine is the greatest thing,” Mr. Trump said. “If someone told me get rid of the polio vaccine, they’re going to have to work really hard to convince me.”
Public health experts describe the polio petition as troubling. In 2022, an unvaccinated man in New York became paralyzed after contracting polio, and experts say the virus is still circulating worldwide.
“It’s an airplane ride away,” warned Dr. Kathryn Edwards, a Vanderbilt University vaccine scientist who was subjected to one of Mr. Siri’s lengthy depositions.
Some vaccine scientists credit Mr. Siri for drilling into the details of vaccine research that he cites to make his arguments. In some cases, he aligns with vaccine scientists, including a team that in 2004 called for an independent body to review vaccine safety outside agencies that fund or approve them.
Dr. Daniel Salmon, director of the Institute for Vaccine Safety at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, said Mr. Siri raises “points that are worthy of exploration,” such as his concern about the safety of aluminum in vaccines.
“There are issues that he raises, such as this one, that really deserve to be studied carefully,” Dr. Salmon said. “But it’s got to be done carefully — it’s hard to do.”
Yet Mr. Siri’s ascent is concerning to some doctors, who note that it comes at a time of falling vaccination rates in the United States and a rise in cases of measles and whooping cough. His detractors say he twists snippets of science to make questionable claims that will deepen vaccine hesitancy, threatening the system of childhood vaccines that is credited with saving millions of lives.
One critic is Dr. Stanley Plotkin, who in the 1960s invented the vaccine that eliminated rubella, a disease that killed thousands of newborns. Dr. Plotkin, who was subjected to a nine-hour deposition as an expert witness in a lawsuit brought by Mr. Siri, said having Mr. Siri in a position of influence “would be a disaster.” He added: “I find him laughable in many ways — except, of course, that he’s a danger to public health.”
A fruitful alliance
Mr. Siri first made news in a vaccine case in New York City in 2015, challenging a rule that required preschool children to get an annual flu shot. He delayed the rule for several years, but lost the case on appeal.
The work caught the attention of with Mr. Bigtree, a former television producer who was winding up a national bus tour for the movie “Vaxxed: From Cover-Up to Catastrophe,” which was pulled from the Tribeca Film Festival over the concerns of public health leaders.
Mr. Bigtree has said on his podcast that he had realized that he needed a capable lawyer to advance his campaign challenging vaccine safety. Through his nonprofit, which flourished during the coronavirus pandemic, Mr. Bigtree began funding Mr. Siri’s legal efforts, paying his law firm $5.3 million in 2022, the most recent year records are available.
Over the years, Mr. Siri has helped clients avoid vaccination requirements. He won a case seeking a religious exemption from vaccines in Mississippi schools, and convinced a judge to strike down a Covid vaccine mandate in a San Diego public schools.
In 2017, Mr. Siri and Mr. Bigtree joined with Mr. Kennedy to meet with the government’s top vaccine experts, including Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, who has since retired from government service, and Dr. Francis Collins, then director of the National Institutes of Health.
Afterward, N.I.H. leaders worked through Mr. Kennedy’s relatives to introduce him to Dr. Peter Hotez, a vaccine expert who had a daughter with autism. Dr. Hotez said he tried to explain that researchers believe autism is largely genetic and is observed in early fetal development, before vaccines are administered. “R.F.K. Jr. was deeply dug in,” Dr. Hotez said. “He wasn’t interested in information and the science.”
In 2018, Mr. Siri’s star rose with vaccine skeptics after he deposed two renowned vaccine scientists: Dr. Plotkin and Dr. Edwards, who helped create vaccines for whooping cough and flu and one to prevent infection with a deadly bacteria, Haemophilus influenzae type B.
Mr. Siri grilled them each for more than eight hours for two separate cases, one in Tennessee, the other in Michigan. Mr. Bigtree later posted snippets of both depositions online, which made the doctors pariahs among vaccine skeptics.
“You’re taking the leaders in vaccinology,” Dr. Edwards said, “the people that have spent their whole lives studying these vaccines and seeing their impact, you’re marginalizing and making them look like they are prostitutes of pharma.”
Mr. Kennedy, who is also a lawyer, joined Mr. Siri and others in pushing the Tennessee case forward, accusing a doctor of malpractice for giving a boy a measles, mumps and rubella shot in 2001 that they claimed caused his autism. They sought $75 million to cover his lifetime care.
Mr. Kennedy sat through the trial and at the end, in early 2022, delivered closing arguments to the jury. He lost: The jury ruled in favor of the doctor.
As Mr. Kennedy campaigned for the presidency in 2023 and this year, Mr. Siri remained at his side as his personal lawyer, exhorting federal officials to provide Mr. Kennedy with a security detail and working to remove Mr. Kennedy’s name from ballots in the final days before the election.
The placebo issue
One of Mr. Siri’s arguments against vaccines is that some, including the polio and hepatitis B vaccines, have not been tested against placebos in randomized, double-blind clinical trials — the gold standard for medical research, in which some patients get inert vaccines and doctors don’t know which patients get which.
He has called in his petitions for the shots to be pulled from the market until placebo-controlled trials — which would deny some children polio shots — can be completed. Given the known risks of polio causing paralysis that can seize major organs and kill people, such work is considered unethical.
“You’re substituting a theoretical risk for a real risk,” said Dr. Paul A. Offit, a vaccine expert at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. ”The real risks are the diseases.”
Mr. Siri’s petition to withdraw the polio vaccine also claims that the manufacturer “only assessed safety for up to three days after injection,” and therefore did not meet the F.D.A.’s standard for safety.
Ayman Chit, head of vaccines for North America at Sanofi, which makes the polio vaccine that is subject to the petition, said the vaccine has been widely used in North America and Europe and studied carefully in trials with as long as six months of safety follow-up.
Dr. Chit said development of the vaccine began in 1977 and included more than 300 studies before and after it was approved. He said more than 280 million people had received the vaccine worldwide.
Mr. Siri has also pushed to eliminate secrecy around government decision making. Last week, in response to a lawsuit he filed in 2021, a federal judge ordered the F.D.A. to turn over records related to authorization of the Pfizer Covid shot.
The agency said in court filings that it has processed more than 1.2 million pages of records, spending more than $3.5 million on “unprecedented and extraordinary operations” to comply with Mr. Siri’s requests.
“This is a way to hobble a public health agency like the F.D.A. — you can just drown them in paperwork so they can’t do their work,” said Lawrence O. Gostin, an expert in public health law at Georgetown University.
Mr. Siri has indicated he has no intention of stopping. This week, on behalf of ICAN, he sent an “official demand” letter to Xavier Becerra, the current health secretary, instructing the health agency and all of its divisions, including the C.D.C. and F.D.A., to “preserve all documents.”
It ended with a warning: “Note that we will contact the Department of Justice and the Inspector General if there is any evidence that any records are destroyed, deleted, modified in any manner before January 21, 2025.”
Christina Jewett covers the Food and Drug Administration, which means keeping a close eye on drugs, medical devices, food safety and tobacco policy. More about Christina Jewett
Sheryl Gay Stolberg covers health policy for The Times from Washington. A former congressional and White House correspondent, she focuses on the intersection of health policy and politics. More about Sheryl Gay Stolberg"
Wednesday, December 11, 2024
Six veterans on Pete Hegseth and Trump’s emerging military policy
Six veterans on Pete Hegseth and Trump’s emerging military policy
“Army, Coast Guard, Navy and Marine Corps vets debate plans for the new administration.
As a former U.S. Army officer, I know I am not alone in feeling concerned about the path President-elect Donald Trump is taking with respect to the branches of the military we veterans served in.
Pete Hegseth is unsuited for command of the Defense Department. He has plans to fire those serving as generals or in the flag ranks whom he deems “woke,” and an outside group has assembled a list of specific targets. As The Post reported, it was several soldiers who served with Mr. Hegseth who flagged him as possibly unfit to work at President Joe Biden’s inauguration. A Defense Department under Mr. Hegseth would be dysfunctional. He lamented the fact that “we bend over backwards as Americans to provide for the welfare of these radical Islamic terrorists” detained at Guantánamo Bay.
I also detest the fact that Mr. Trump is thinking about ways to go after officers he believes are responsible for the botched withdrawal from Afghanistan, exploring whether they could be court-martialed on charges including treason. While the U.S. withdrawal did indeed leave much to be desired, one must ask what an ideal departure from the country would have looked like. A group of people sitting in a secure room in D.C. might monitor combat in a theater of operations halfway around the world, but the decision to commit troops to combat or to remove them is not made by people who are in uniform, much less under arms. That decision is made by the civilian leadership of our government.
In this case, the decision to leave Afghanistan was made by Mr. Trump.
I am afraid that Mr. Trump and Mr. Hegseth would attempt to punish military officers for a botched mission that was doomed to fail because it was impossible to begin with. That would be dangerous. Instead, we need more honest conversations about the nature of what happened in Afghanistan and more officers like H.R. McMaster, who, before he rose to the rank of lieutenant general and served as Mr. Trump’s national security adviser, wrote the best-selling book “Dereliction of Duty.” Mr. McMaster held senior military officers of the generation before ours responsible for not persuading the political leadership at the White House, Congress, and the Defense and State departments that the war in Vietnam was never winnable.
The withdrawal from Afghanistan was no more of a surprise to me and a number of other former soldiers than the failure to prevail in Vietnam was to those who came before us. The after-action reports that were written about Kabul will be studied, and as time passes there will be a diminishing amount of reflection on what happened, especially if punishment obscures who is really responsible.
We can do better. We must.
Roland Nicholson Jr., Towson, Maryland
The writer is a retired U.S. Army officer.
Like most of us who served, Pete Hegseth showed dedication, competence and ability, which is exactly what we need after all this woke nonsense. Mr. Hegseth has a size 12 boot to kick out all of the incompetent fools who have infested our government and military.
Lewis Brackett, San Diego
The writer is a veteran of the U.S. Coast Guard.
Pete Hegseth might be qualified for many Cabinet roles, but defense secretary is not one of them. The defense secretary, along with the president, is part of the National Command Authority. The NCA is responsible for all decisions involving the utilization of nuclear weapons. Clearly, both members of the NCA must be sober and available at all times.
Grant Gary Jacobsen, Woodbridge
The writer is a retired U.S. Marine Corps colonel.
The standard “good order and discipline” is a fundamental military imperative that governs an individual’s behavior while serving. Army Regulation 670-1 includes a prohibition against extremist tattoos (more explicitly defined in the regulation) on the grounds that they “are prejudicial to good order and discipline.” Soldiers with banned tattoos can be subject to punitive action, including removal from military service.
President-elect Donald Trump’s intended nominee for defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, served as a commissioned officer in the National Guard, for which he has been lauded. He was decorated with two Bronze Star Medals during his active-duty service and rose to the rank of major.
Mr. Hegseth also has several tattoos. One is a Jerusalem cross. Another is the words “Deus Vult,” a Latin phrase meaning “God wills it.” As The Post has reported, when a number of military personnel saw a photo with Mr. Hegseth’s tattoos, they reported him to the Antiterrorism and Force Protection Team of the D.C. National Guard. Mr. Hegseth had been placed on active duty with the National Guard to provide security during President Joe Biden’s inauguration. But after researching the matter and applying the Army regulation, the AFPT informed Maj. Gen. William Walker of the D.C. National Guard that the phrase is associated with white supremacist groups. Mr. Hegseth was told he was not needed for inauguration duty.
Mr. Hegseth’s response to this reporting is revealing. In a recent podcast, he proudly showed part of the Jerusalem cross and said it was “just a Christian symbol.” He has characterized the response to his tattoos as “anti-Christian bigotry.” But the written record suggests that it was the “Deus Vult” tattoo that prompted at least one superior officer to lose confidence in Mr. Hegseth.
As a former Marine Corps officer, I believe Mr. Hegseth fails to understand and appreciate the standards of “good order and discipline” such as those explicitly defined by the Army. For the good of the military, Mr. Hegseth should not be defense secretary. Our military personnel deserve much better.
James Haugen, Livermore, California
The writer is a former U.S. Marine Corps officer.
A serious Navy secretary
John Phelan, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to lead the greatest naval force in the world, has no military experience.
Rather, the potential secretary of the Navy is a businessman and an art collector. Perhaps his most important qualification is that he hosted a fundraiser for the incoming president at his home, which has been featured in Architectural Digest, over the summer.
Instead of a candy bar for a reward, Mr. Phelan gets to be the person ultimate responsible for hundreds of ships and hundreds of thousands of sailors.
Contrast the résumé of Mr. Phelan with that of John Lehman, the secretary of the Navy I served under in the 1980s.
Mr. Lehman, appointed by President Ronald Reagan, had decades of military service, including serving in A-6 Intruders as a bombardier-navigator and commander.
To further illustrate the respect Mr. Lehman earned as a member of our armed forces, a warship bearing his name has been announced. I look forward to the day when the USS John F. Lehman will join our revered fleet in service of our nation.
John Phelan, you are no John Lehman.
Vin Morabito, Scranton, Pennsylvania
Don’t pardon Edward Snowden
Regarding the Dec. 5 news article “Trump advisers renew push for a pardon of Snowden”:
I gave four years of my life to the intelligence community while serving in the Navy from 1965 to 1969. I took my job seriously and did it to the best of my ability. Betraying my country by revealing its most sensitive secrets never crossed my mind.
Now there is talk in support of pardoning one of America’s most egregious traitors, Edward Snowden. The decision will rest in the hands of President-elect Donald Trump. Yes, the same Donald Trump who waves the flag every chance he gets and constantly espouses his love for America.
I would like all of you loyal patriots and Trump supporters to explain to me why he would even consider such a shameful act.
William D. Markert Jr., Warminster, Pennsylvania
Give Ukraine Russia’s money
In his Dec. 5 op-ed, “How Trump can end the war in Ukraine for good,” Marc A. Thiessen correctly states that we must increase military aid to Ukraine that does not require U.S. taxpayer support. However, he does not mention the obvious solution that the Biden administration has purposely avoided to date: seizing Russian sovereign assets that are held overseas.
Ukraine needs more economic support beyond the Group of Seven’s promised loan to ensure its long-term economic viability. If President Joe Biden does not seize all Russian sovereign assets in the United States to aid Ukraine at no cost to U.S. taxpayers, then President-elect Donald Trump should. This will be a litmus test for him: He either protects American taxpayers by using Russian assets first, or he shrinks from his peace-through-strength posture and fails to make Vladimir Putin pay for his illegal aggression against a peaceful neighbor.
Although the amount of Russian assets in the United States remains classified by the Treasury Department, the total is probably significant and could materially help Ukraine, especially if other nations join us in doing likewise. The global total is estimated to be as much as $300 billion.
If the United States and its allies want to send a strong message to dictators that naked aggression does not pay, then the consequences must be clear and certain. All peace-loving nations should seize these Russian assets immediately to help Ukraine.
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