Plain Talk

"It's a tragedy what's happening in Texas," Dr. Paul Carson said on this episode of Plain Talk, referring to that state's measels outbreak, which has already claimed the life of one child.

Carson is a medical doctor and an emeritus professor of the public health faculty at North Dakota State University. I wrote recently about North Dakota's statewide kindergarten vaccination rates for well-established vaccines for things like measels and chickenpox are worse than in Texas.

Dr. Carson said that means North Dakota is at risk "We have, as Rob alluded to in his article, we have counties in North Dakota that are significantly worse than the areas of Texas that we're talking about," he said. "It's often a matter of time before highly contagious viruses like measles get back into a community and circulate again."

"Thankfully most of us are vaccinated, but we've got counties in North Dakota where 20, 25, 30% of the kindergarteners aren't vaccinated," he continued. "If it kind of gets into one of those schools, you'll see it spread and that often shuts down a school and may shut down an entire school for weeks."

"It doesn't feel like we should be surprised if we see a news report that there's a measles case that pops up somewhere in North Dakota," he added.

Also on this episode, Dakota Rudesill, a professor of law at Ohio State University and a former legislative assisstant on national security to Sen. Kent Conrad, answered questions about the tense situation between the United States, Ukraine, and Russia.

Specifically, Rudesill spoke about Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's visit to, and subsequent ejection from, the White House.

"One of the things that happened there is that the president and the vice president really wanted Zelenskyy to adopt some of their talking points and parrot those or at least not contest them," he said, "and Zalinsky wasn't willing to do that. And that is very much like the baseline now which has emerged for people in the Trump administration or people who want Trump's favor which is you have to endorse false things that he says."

This extends, he argues, to people in Trump's orbit refusing to acknowledge something as verfiably true as Russia's invasion of Ukraine. "The nominees for the top jobs at the Department of Defense scrupulously will not acknowledge the fact that Russia invaded Ukraine," Rudesill said. "The closest we saw to that was the nominee for the under secretary of defense for policy. He said, you know, I understand from the president and vice president that words are very important and so I will not say anything to undermine the negotiations. He couldn't acknowledge the largest invasion since World War II even occurred."

This episode is presented by Dakota Resource Council. For nearly 50 years, DRC has worked across North Dakota to protect our land, water and future. Become a member, volunteer and take action, or donate today at www.DRCinfo.org.

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