In the final installment of our MOCHA REDUX series, Jamie and Melissa Anne break down one of the most contentious sections of the MAHA report: gender-affirming care. This episode explores how the Trump administration and MAHA frame gender-affirming care as “child chemical and surgical mutilation”. This is a phrase echoed in a 2025 CMS press release that warned hospitals about “irreversible” interventions for gender dysphoria. We provide an update to this section of the MAHA report in light of their MAHA Strategy report released in September 2025, and reiterate that this rhetoric misrepresents transgender healthcare and ignores both medical and nursing guidelines and clinical realities.

For more information, visit Nursingthenation.substack.com

In this episode, Jamie and Melissa Anne revisit MAHA's claim that American children are dangerously overmedicalized. While acknowledging real problems like antibiotic overuse and chronic illness, we argue that the MAHA report manipulates data and misses the bigger picture. We debunk misleading claims about ear tube surgeries, ADHD treatment, and psychiatric medication use in children and adolescents, and call out how evidence is selectively used to fit an ideological narrative.

Ultimately, Jamie and Melissa Anne emphasize that improving children’s health requires more than cutting prescriptions or regulating drug ads. It all comes back to social determinants of health like addressing housing, food access, insurance barriers, and other inequities. We also highlight what’s missing from MAHA’s plan: any mention of the leading causes of child death in the U.S., like firearms and motor vehicle accidents. This episode urges listeners to look beyond oversimplified solutions and engage in real, evidence-based dialogue about what children need to thrive.

Remember to take a look at our companion Substack notes on this updated episode. Nursingthenation.substack.com

Today's Soapbox, Jamie talks about one of the most misunderstood issues in public health: vaccine exemptions. With vaccination rates slipping below herd-immunity thresholds in several states, and outbreaks making a comeback, we break down what religious, medical, and philosophical exemptions actually mean, and why the “religious objection” argument doesn’t hold up under scrutiny.

Despite rising claims of faith-based exemptions, major religious authorities across the world, including the Vatican, leading Jewish organizations, Islamic juristic bodies, and the Dalai Lama, all support vaccination as a moral responsibility that protects life and community. So where is the resistance coming from?

Jamie goes deeper, sharing her own early-2000s brush with vaccine skepticism, the impact of misinformation, and what she learned as a CDC public health nurse during the COVID-19 pandemic. We also look at how state laws shape vaccination rates and how nurses end up stuck in the middle of a highly politicized debate.

Most importantly: how do we talk about vaccines in ways that actually reach people? How do we respond to concerns without pushing families further away? And what happens when national leaders use their platforms to undermine trust in science?

Join the conversation on our Substack: Nursingthenation.substack.com

In this episode, we revisit the MOCHA report and unpack major updates in the U.S. vaccine landscape. Since July, ACIP has begun implementing MAHA’s “risk-benefit recalibration” of the childhood vaccine schedule, while a growing national lawsuit argues the administration is violating federal public-health mandates. Several states warn these changes could destabilize school-entry vaccine laws and access to care. Jamie and Melissa Anne also break down early insurance shifts, rising vaccine misinformation, and the growing patchwork of state-by-state immunization policies. Nurses and major medical organizations are speaking out and we’re here to explain what it all means for families and children’s health.

Make sure to head to Nursingthenation.substack.com for more information.

On September 9, 2025, the MAHA commission released their strategic plan as the expected follow up for their initial report Make Our Children Healthy Again back in May of this year. Today, Jamie reminds us that much like the MOCHA report, the MAHA strategy is full of plans that contradict each other when examined under a nursing lens.

Whether you want to review the topic with our experienced nurse perspective or if you are new to us and want to catch up to speed- we hope you will find our REDUX MOCHA series informative.

Further information and resources can be found at Nursingthenation.substack.com

On September 9, 2025 the MAHA commission released their strategic plan as the expected follow up for their initial report Make Our Children Healthy Again back in May of this year. Jamie provides a short intro of this episode's topic in light of the strategic plan and the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. Jamie and Melissa Anne are working on the nursing analysis of this strategic plan and will have an episode covering this in the near future.  In the meantime, we thought it would be a great opportunity for us to revisit the series that launched our podcast in the summer of 2025.  Whether you want to review the topic with our experienced nurse perspective or if you are new to us and want to catch up to speed- we hope you will find our REDUX MOCHA series informative.

Visit our Substack at Nursingthenation.substack.com.

On September 9, 2025 the MAHA commission released their strategic plan as the expected follow up for their initial report Make Our Children Healthy Again back in May of this year. Jamie and Melissa Anne are working on the nursing analysis of this strategic plan and will have an episode covering this in the near future.  In the meantime, we thought it would be a great opportunity for us to revisit the series that launched our podcast in the summer of 2025.  Whether you want to review the topic with our experienced nurse perspective or if you are new to us and want to catch up to speed- we hope you will find our REDUX MOCHA series informative.

Visit our Substack at Nursingthenation.substack.com.

In this episode, Jamie and Melissa Anne speak with nurse scholar Dr. Donna Perry about the war in Gaza, the resulting famine, and why we must view war as a public health crisis. Dr. Perry shares her peace work with Israelis and Palestinians, reframes the conflict through human dignity, and offers ways everyone can advocate for nonviolence and solidarity.

For more information and resources, check out Nursingthenation.substack.com

In this episode, Jamie and Melissa Anne look beyond the Tylenol–autism headlines to explore how autism is framed in society, from “cure” narratives to the neurodiversity movement. They unpack RFK Jr.’s rhetoric, the history of medical misogyny, and why autistic voices and women’s autonomy must be at the center of the conversation.

For more information, please visit Nursingthenation.substack.com

RFK Jr. loves to tout “gold standard science,” but his definition twists real research into dangerous rhetoric. From Jonas Salk’s polio trial to today’s vaccines, true gold-standard studies have already saved millions of lives. Now, political power is being used to dismantle that legacy. It’s up to us to push back.

Head over to nursingthenation.substack.com for more info, resources, and more.