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November 15, 2024 - 5:30pm
Last night, Donald Trump signalled a seismic shift in American science and public health. Fulfilling his campaign promise, he endorsed Robert F. Kennedy Jr as secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the largest federal department with a $1.7 trillion annual budget and over 80,000 employees. Kennedy’s statement in response vows to “bring together the greatest minds in science, medicine, industry, and government to put an end to the chronic disease epidemic”, as well as to “clean up corruption” and return the health agencies to “gold-standard, evidence-based science”.
Left-leaning outlets, such as the Atlantic, Washington Post, PolitiFact, and Forbes — as well as the predominantly Left-leaning medical establishment — were quick to lambast the choice, using selective quotations and a narrow focus to smear Kennedy. But establishment mandarins who focus on his sometimes eccentric scientific claims, from vaccines to AIDS, overlook the single most important factor in his success: the anti-science, authoritarian policies of the Covid years. As a result, they miss what matters most in the Kennedy phenomenon: his broadly appealing, and thoroughly centrist, reform agenda.
This knee-jerk reaction hides the dilemma that members of the medical establishment face: do they position themselves as defenders of an increasingly untenable status quo, or do they embrace the opportunities of RFK Jr.’s reform agenda, much of which aligns with values and concerns that they have been raising for years?
Medical officials failed badly in the Covid era by supporting lockdowns, school closures, toddler masking, and mandates. Their championing of anti-science policies has caused massive health and social harm, which reverberates today. The 2024 US election was a vote against the establishment and in favour of fundamental reforms; it is unsurprising that the same establishment which endorsed lockdowns and mandates now fights kicking and screaming against oncoming change.
The rot, having accumulated over decades, was plain for all to see. The National Institutes of Health (NIH), whose annual budget is $45 billion, orchestrated under the leadership of Francis Collins and Anthony Fauci a massive suppression of scientific debate and research. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) exaggerated risk and issued policy guidance with little evidence in support of unprecedented vaccine mandates. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA)’s conflicts of interest with the pharmaceutical industry meant vaccines and therapeutics were approved with little to no evidence, sometimes based on faulty modelling. And the Biden administration pushed all of this with orchestrated PR campaigns, spreading falsehoods and misinformation.
Clearly, the status quo is no longer tenable. Trust in American physicians and hospitals dropped from 71% to 40% between 2020 and 2024, according to a July study in JAMA. A Covid-era political realignment facilitated Trump’s electoral win last week, with a coalition that included disenchanted Left-liberals who rejected the centralised power of scientific bureaucrats and found an ally in Kennedy. Yet the officials continue to deny their own culpability, avoiding a long look in the mirror.
Kennedy can be that mirror. A successful environmental lawyer and erstwhile darling of the centre-left — so much so that Barack Obama floated him to lead the Environmental Protection Agency in 2008 — he is the most high-profile figure to tackle these problems head-on. His rebranding of MAGA to Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) can carry broad appeal for Americans.
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SubscribeNot a word out of place. People distrust the institutions – not because of misinformation and disinformation – but because the institutions have utterly failed the people they serve.
I disagree. It is precisely because of misinformation and disinformation – pretty much all of it purveyed by our “trusted” government institutions.
So it couldn’t be that chronic illness, obesity, and ever-rising medical costs are devilishly difficult problems with no miracle cure? The health agencies under two presidents did make some mistakes during the pandemic, that’s true. But the pandemic is over. I am not sure those lessons tell us much about what to do now.
If that were true, then you have to explain how it’s so much worse in America than many other countries, developed and otherwise. If these are just devilishly difficult problems, then they should be devilishly difficult problems for everyone.
Go on unherd. You are nearly there but then you sort of make it sound like mass medication with known neurotoxic effects ( flouride) and an insane vacvine schedule for infants are ok and kennedy is some kind of maverick for questioning this nonsense. Move ( or open !) the overton window a bit more ! We can handle the truth
RFK Jr is a breath of fresh air who will revitalize the NIH, CDC and FDA, and hopefully restore sense into the medical establishment that has gone so far out of left field that even many democrat politicians are now acknowledging.
Let’s just call the campaign against Kennedy: Kennedy derangement syndrome.
This article mirrors my own assessment – much more articulately, of course. But I don’t think the medical-industrial-complex is going to go down without a fight. They are one of (many) reasons members of both houses of Congress are elected either middle-class or moderately wealthy but come out retired with utterly inexplicable increases in net worth.
I’ve listened to countless podcasts which list the obscene amount of that is spent by big pharma on lobbying. It is a disgrace.
The disinformation campaign against RFK Jr in the past few days shows that he is right over the target.
Thank you for the first fair article I’ve read since his nomination.
He is a true Patriot.
There was a particularly slimy one in the Telegraph this morning, sponsored by ‘Global Health Security’. Well Bill Gates has an awful lot to lose doesn’t he? Even if you forget the Epstein files.
To continue the conversation we were having over on the other article, I think Bobby Kennedy is a terrible choice for a cabinet position, particularly one that would put him in charge of the nation’s public health. He is not qualified for two big reasons:
— He has no expertise in public health, not having studied the subject or worked in the field. In fact, he has no background in science or medicine at all. None. That shows. He lies about important things regarding medicine and health. (This article lists several, and let me add the “wifi breaks down the brain-blood barrier” lie that he told Joe Rogan that we talked about in the other article’s comments.) He is a trial lawyer, and he makes his career out of misleading judges and jurors, not basing judgments on facts.
— He has no experience managing any group of people. Look at his resume. He has never built or run a business or any other organization. He is a trial lawyer. Trial lawyers disrupt and destroy, they don’t build or create. He does not know how to work with people. Trial lawyers don’t work with people, they attack them. And he has the big ego and slick style that most trial lawyers have that makes them poor leaders. And now he would manage 80,000 people.
To make Bobby Kennedy the head of the department of health would be disruptive, that’s true, but disruptive in a largely bad way. It would be like putting Greta Thunberg in charge of United States energy policy, to let her rant and rage in an ignorant and inexperienced way. We can do a lot better.
What are the medical and scientific qualifications of the lawyer Xavier Becerra, the current HHS secretary?
As far as I know, Xavier Becerra doesn’t have any medical or scientific qualifications. But unlike Bobby Kennedy, he doesn’t pretend to have any expertise in those fields or lie about medical and scientific studies. He leaves the opining on those topics up to the doctors and scientists in the department.
And Xavier Becerra has a long career in government. He spent a lot of time in the House working on healthcare policy, like the Affordable Care Act. As California’s attorney general (he replaced Kamala Harris), he sued Big Pharma and was active with healthcare. He’s experienced at politics and management.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m no fan of Xavier Becerra. I live in California and as a lawyer (and scientist) like to keep a close eye on what the attorney general does. His work on illegal immigration bothered me a lot.
Were you thinking that RFK Jr will run the FDA, CDC and NIH single-handedly?
I haven’t heard the same. I am sure he will appoint appropriate professionals with the requisite expertise and competence to run them, individuals free from the malign influence of Big Pharma and Big Food.
He is on a mission to root out corporate capture and corruption, which is his legal expertise. I am sure you wouldn’t want the status quo to continue, would you?
Becerra’s “long career in government” and connection with the Affordable Care Act is exactly why he needs to go. America doesn’t need career politicians. We need true patriots to realign our government with Constitutional obligations and duties. American government is over bloated with bureaucracy. It’s time to realign government to it’s core functions.
So let’s carry on with the status quo, in which Americans are the most unhealthy, overweight people with the highest-cost medical care and worst health outcomes in the Western world. That’s your solution?
The jury is out on all Trump’s appointments, just as it was out on the new Labour government until the budget demonstrated conclusively – by taxing productive activity in order to subsidise more freeloading – that they are still the party of the metropolitan graduate class.
For myself, I will grant Trump a pass if he carries out his promise to dismantle the US Dept of Education – because the centralised control of education is what enables parasitism to flourish everywhere in the West.
Editors forgot to mention that Jay Bhattacharya was a co-author of the Great Barrington Declaration, which says a lot about his honesty as a scientist and courage as a man!
And remember how this declaration was pilloried by so many of their colleagues. Am so pleased I was AWAKE during the Covid fiasco. Now I’m still awake, but even more angry.
But that is the problem with making serious changes to policies of huge organisations.
Most people in medical establishment are against changes Kennedy is advocating.
So where does he find qualified people who are willing to fight the system?
Knowing that would derail their careers even if Vance and Repyblicans win future elections.
Amen!
What does this mean? Looking back, the GBD was clearly the most sensible response.
The question: “What does this mean?”
.
The answer: “Bhattacharya has spent years being vilified by the media over his dissenting views on the pandemic. As one of the signatories of the 2020 Great Barrington Declaration, he was canceled, censored, and even received death threats” quoted from «Dr. Jay’s Slam Dunk: Blacklisted Scientist Receives Prestigious Award for “Intellectual Freedom“»
https://jonathanturley.org/2024/10/29/224756/
.
Any question? Of course, looking back…
Quite. Jay Bhattacharya is a courageous citizen speaking truth to power, and a fearless scientist standing by science in defiance of “the narrative”.
A true American hero.
I was unaware of this Declaration. Thank you for bringing it to my attention. The article itself is good and more positive on RFK Jr. than those from the usual suspects. Children and women first.
The costs of medical care have ballooned in recent decades, while people’s health has declined. Why is this? RFK Jr. is asking the questions that need to be asked. Good for him!
You can answer your question with your own words –
“While people’s health has declined in recent decades the costs of medical care have ballooned”
So health is just about spending less money for more health services? I don’t think so, it goes much deeper than that, but for sure access to more preventive health care would be very valuable, but for now most people can’t afford. But America has huge health problems that requires simply spending less or no money at all, whether on all types of drugs, excessive foods, whacky internet lifestyles and who knows what else. It’s more of a social psychological problem than anything, it goes to the heart of American lifestyle. Also roads and commuting, barely anyone walks as a fact of life (of course some people walk recreationally). So yes spending money on revolutionising infrastructure would be worth spending big money on to get healthier.
That’s not my point at all. SR states that America’s healthcare costs have grown and implies, by the order of his statement, that this has caused a reduction in general health. I just pointed out that causality is the other way – the increased costs are due to the reduced levels of general health.
So I agree with you – in essence, eat fewer McD’s and get more exercise. And if that’s what RFK Jr will get you doing then great. But ill health is not caused by increased healthcare costs.
Bobby Kennedy is hardly unique in asking those questions. Nor does he offer any answers.
Oh really? Which other prominent US political figure is asking those questions?
Government meddling has a lot to do with it
RFK definitely has said some far out things I don’t agree with, or would need evidence to support, but he is one of the few politicians who seems to genuinely want to make people’s lives better and be willing to take on powerful vested interests in his efforts to do so. Nobody could ask for more, or offer more, than attempting to enshrine unbiased evidence based medicine at the core of nationa healthcare.
Kennedy’s problems isn’t that he doesn’t want to “make people’s lives better”. His problem is that he’s completely mad.
So you think he doesn’t want to make peoples’ lives better?
The thing is, I disagree with a lot of what RFKjr says. But it’s better to have diverse views than have an echo chamber. And there’s so much wrong, that a non establishment person is necessary to, at least, clean house. I had though he was a nutter over fluoridation, but it turns out he’s right. What other things is he right about? Let’s find out.
I think that’s right. Let’s see what happens. I’m for these people shaking things up. I feel like we’ve been shut up in a dark room for a long time where ideas are not allowed to thrive. I also think it’s the individual who makes a difference, even if they’re not completely right.
Most European countries don’t have fluoride in the water. They also have better food and better health outcomes for their populations despite spending a lot less on health than America does. Americans have had a very unhealthy lifestyle for decades and they have spread these habits all over the globe. You only have took at the UK – faithful follower in terms of UPF consumption. It is the power of advertising that needs looking at too. What Kennedy wants to do is laudable but I very much doubt he will be allowed to do it. I foresee a nasry accident coming his way -if Trump does not sack him first.
If RFK Jr takes the US health system off in the wrong direction, then let those who stand against him speak honestly, but also they must co-operate with any positive new directions which appear to be correct, after review and critical analysis. The people can only benefit, and it may save the medical / drug industries if they can co-operate with reforms and not fight to shore up their power.
It may there is an argument for a dissenter view on some big public health policy trends. Shaking things up, looking again at the consensus, can be positive.
But you want the dissenter to not be a bit of clown on about brain worms and dumping dead bears in odd places. You want some innate competency. You want, smart people to want to work with them as you get v little done alone. You want the focus on the policy not the odd-job leading things.
For now jury out about what RFK might actually be capable of getting done. And remember anything good for which RFK gets public praise will just piss off the Boss.
Particularly as the Boss considers the Big Mac to be one of the main food groups.
You are what you eat. Check out the fresh fruit and vegetable markets in Italy & France. If RFK can get Americans eating fresh food he’s half way there.
And the chances of that are? I’ve been to America. I know what Americans eat.
Typical solipsistic view of the world. You know what the people you saw eat, not what Americans eat.
Most of the ones I saw were quite fat too.
Sure. What do you think the percentage of the population you saw was and where was it?
As a practising Pediatrician for 50 yrs I personally saw the benefits of childhood vaccinations.Extensive research has proven vaccines to be safe and effective, with the World Health Organization estimating that global immunization efforts have saved at least 154 million lives in the past 50 years.Medical experts emphasize that the risks from diseases far outweigh the risks from vaccines. Kennedy has made several concerning statements about childhood vaccinations:In a 2023 podcast, he declared that “There’s no vaccine that is safe and effective”.He urged people to “resist” CDC guidelines on childhood vaccination schedules in a 2021 podcast. Allegedly,Kennedy recounted telling a parent on a hiking trail, “Better not get them vaccinated,” referring to their baby. In his effort to improve the deficiencies of the US health system, I certainly hope, metaphorically, that he doesn’t throw out the baby with the bath water!!R. Bruni, MD, FAAP
First job on his list is to disengage the Pharmaceutical’s hold over the Health Agencies and get rid of the “you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours” between them.
Second is to make them liable for vaccine damage particularly after the fiddling that went on in the Covid 19 trials.
Third is to initiate autopsies on sudden deaths and make the findings public.
Fourth is to investigate why the novel mRNA gene vaccines have not been suspended given that 34500 deaths have been recorded under VAERS and FAERS reporting. Nothing comes anywhere near this number for either drug or vaccine withdrawals. Take the Swine Flu Vaccine of 1976 which was withdrawn after 56 deaths.
I’m hoping the actions they need to take above will concentrate the minds of the UK health regulators who took their orders from “I am the Science” Anthony Fauci. Such a corruption of Ethical Medical Peer reviewed Science.
Bobby Kennedy is supposed to return the health agencies to return the health agencies to “gold-standard, evidence-based science”? That’s so perverse it’s almost funny, in a sad sort of way. Bobby Kennedy is exactly the sort of quack that the secretary of health is supposed to protect us from.
Is this the RFK who thinks that covid was ethnically targeted to avoid Jews and Chinese people?
Big pharma won’t be reformed by putting a bug eyed loon in charge of the US healthcare system, trust me on that
Right on cue and straight from Central Casting.
Are you denying he said that? While also acknowledging my movie star charisma and good looks?
CS, you have a really nice face for radio.
Biden clearly thinks the better option for health is grown man who dresses like woman and is about 50 lbs overweight. I’ll take my chances with RFK.
You’d do anything Trump said, wouldn’t you? I’ve never been in a cult – what’s it like? Do you guys do pot lucks and stuff? Or just sit around talking about how hot Trump looks in that tent-size suit and his over long red tie?
High on your own supply. Of projection to be specific.
Sounds to me that you’ve been part of a cult for a long while and are in denial. Even AOC and the head of finance at the DNC realize this and are beginning to sound like Trump Republicans!!!
Can’t say we’ve missed your argument-free ad hominem attacks. Have you been hiding under a rock?
You forget, we need evidence to demonstrate a loon won’t be able to reform Big Pharma. I’m sure in time all the people downvoting will have the humility and grace to admit they were wrong about RFK Jr and not immediately pivot to “well, not THAT loon of course, but this loon…”.
trust me on that
Really? I’m not sure I could trust you about anything.
Not quite what you alleged;
“I have never, ever suggested that the COVID-19 virus was targeted to spare Jews,” Kennedy wrote. “I accurately pointed out — during an off-the-record conversation — that the US and other governments are developing ethnically targeted bioweapons and that a 2021 study of the COVID-19 virus shows that COVID-19 appears to disproportionately affect certain races since the furin cleave docking site is most compatible with Blacks and Caucasians and least compatible with ethnic Chinese, Finns and Ashkenazi Jews.”
I like how the authors try to glean over all of the alarming beliefs RFK Jr holds.
“The central argument against Kennedy from the medical establishment pertains to some of his scientific claims, for example about vaccines, wireless radiation and cancer, raw milk, and neurodevelopmental disorders caused by water fluoridation.“
Yeah, sounds exactly like someone who listens to evidence-based science and changes his opinions accordingly!!!
So according to you drinking raw milk is bad. Interesting then that it is allowed in the UK as well as many other european countries. As for fluoridation, there are European countries such as Germany that don’t fluoridate their water. There is absolutely no need if one gets fluoride applied to one’s teeth during one’s yearly dentist visit.
Most states in the US allow raw milk to be sold as well, usually under strict regulations. That’s why people like Gwyneth Paltrow and Bobby Kennedy can drink and promote it. But it is more risky than pasteurized milk, and there’s no evidence that it’s any better for you.
The argument is that Bobby Kennedy should not be put in a position where he can put his unscientific beliefs into practice, as he plans to do. No more than the Surgeon General should be an untrained quack.
there’s no evidence that it’s any better for you.
Not quite true;
” … research shows that people who grow up drinking raw milk tend to be less likely to develop certain health conditions, such as asthma, allergies, and atopy, a genetic tendency to develop allergic diseases.8
Scientists think this may be because people who grow up drinking raw milk are exposed to pathogens from a young age, which may build up their immune systems and protect them from developing immune-related conditions later in life.8
One study involving 983 infants from rural areas of five European countries found that, compared to pasteurized milk, infants who consumed raw milk during the first year of life were about 30% less likely to develop respiratory tract infections and fever at 12 months of age. The infants fed raw milk were also less likely to develop rhinitis (congestion and stuffy nose) and ear infections. The study also found that the children who drank raw milk had lower levels of the inflammatory marker C-reactive protein (CRP).” https://www.health.com/raw-milk-vs-pasteurized-milk-8656536
That research is a statistical study. Statistical studies are not scientific evidence, though they are often presented as evidence by people like you. You may have heard the saying, correlation is not causation. That’s what that means. Scientists with any credibility understand the difference, and know that the scientific method requires experiments (not statistics) to prove hypotheses. Or when experiments cannot be done, at least the rigor of causal inference.
I’ve made the same point several times in this comment section and I must sound like a schoolmarm or a scold, but it’s a very important point. People like Bobby Kennedy can sound very persuasive even when they are spouting nonsense. That’s why he is a successful trial lawyer. That’s why he sells so many books. That’s why he could get donations to run for president and why he won the nomination for health secretary.
But Bobby Kennedy can’t deliver on his promises because they are false promises. He will not improve the nation’s health because he doesn’t know how. But even if he fails some people will defend him to the bitter end and drink the Kool-Aid. He’s another Jim Jones.
I don’t disagree with you but I’m not prepared to dismiss out of hand alternative doubts about the status quo. Some people certainly don’t help by capitalising on these things for their own interests. I also do get tired of statistical studies being used to push ideas. On the other hand I get tired of the intolerance by those who hold established ideas about these things.
If his “beliefs” are so unscientific, how come he keeps winning law suits on the basis of the evidence?
Bobby Kennedy wins in court because he is a skilled trial lawyer. Trial lawyers are not interested in presenting the truth but in winning their cases. They blatantly lie about evidence but they make it seem like they are telling the truth. People want to believe them, so they do.
Contrary to popular belief, judges and jurors have no special ability to determine facts. Just look at the cases involving Donald Trump that went to trial this past year. Anyone looking at the facts dispassionately knows that Donald Trump should not have been convicted of keeping false business records. They know he did not commit fraud in his real estate deals or rape Jean Carroll. But judges and juries didn’t dispassionately decide based on the facts.
Trial lawyers don’t usually make good politicians because they tend to be found out. Like John Edwards, the vice-presidential nominee in John Kerry’s run for the presidency in 2004. He won many verdicts on medical malpractice that were based on emotion not fact, ruining doctors for his personal gain. He was the same slick type of a trial lawyer as Bobby Kennedy, admired by many but finally outed by the National Enquirer (of all places).
It’s not hard to tell Bobby Kennedy is a fraud. Just look at all the bizarre things he has said in his life and even in this campaign. There’s a reason he never got traction in the polls. He’s a kook. But he’s a very persuasive kook — the worst kind. He should never be given any government power.
(That said, I don’t mean to judge Bobby Kennedy on his personal life. I know he has had a difficult life in some respects — his uncle and father being assassinated, his drug use, his wife’s suicide — but I don’t know enough about him to judge. What I can say is that in his professional life he blatantly lies for gain because I have heard him do it with my own ears.)
Better than somebody who believes that 6 foot barriers work, masks work, mandates work, Covid vaccines stop transmission, it’s OK to lie to the citizens who pay your salary, beagles need to have their vocal cords cut out and then have sandflies poured all over them to bite the crap out of them, it’s a good idea to supercharge viruses in foreign labs, I could go on for days. I’ll take someone who believes in the dangers of Wi-Fi and fluoridated water.
I am sorry but no one knows what the next four years will bring. RFK Jr. may sow chaos also.
For example, the conflict of interests at the FDA were caused by Congress not wanting to fund the agency and they let the rooster in to the hen house by making industry fund it. I don’t see a Republican Congress funding the agency now, so we could end up with an FDA that can’t do its job at all.
When he tries to take a hatchet to NIH employees there will be pushback by labor unions, Congress and the courts leaving the agency in disarray and the country even less prepared for another pandemic.
If the Republicans slash discretionary spending neither agency will have the funds to hire a new set of scientists to do what Bhattacharya and Bardosh envision.
Where Trump supporters and haters of the status quo see a rosy future, I see incompetence and chaos. The health agencies and the health care system need reform badly I just don’t think Trump and RFK Jr. will be able to get it done.
We can speculate all we want, everyone always does when a new administration comes in, but the fact is we will not know which way things will go for some time yet.
Fine. Another pandemic will weed out liberals
With respect to the NIH, realizes that the vast majority of NIH employees are bureaucrats and administrators, not scientists. The number of scientists on the NIH campus in Bethesda is actually quite small compared to the total. The administrative side of things could easily be cut by 75% and nobody would notice any untoward effects. In fact it would result in a vastly improved administration more concerned with supporting the scientists than worrying about pronouns and DEI.
No untoward effects? Well if some of those six-figure administrators get fired, then one effect would be the two richest counties in America would not be those on either side of Washington DC! I guess that’s not terribly untoward is it 🙂 I guess they can learn to code!
Interesting that Bobby Kennedy says we need to return the health agencies to “gold-standard, evidence-based science”. His own views on health are not based on evidence or science. He believes, for example, that transmitting radio waves for cell phones and Wi-Fi causes diseases like cancer and Alzheimer’s. But he provides no evidence or science to back that up.
The general position on radio waves from phones and wi-fi is that there is not enough evidence to prove its harmful effects. But they also say that the research is not enough to completely refute it, that very few long-term, peer reviewed studies have been conducted specifically on wi-fi radiation’s health effects on humans.
By odd coincidence this is a subject I know a lot about, as my father spent his career in bioelectromagnetics researching exactly that. Radio waves are non-ionizing radiation, without enough energy to cause changes in DNA (and possibly causing cancer) or affecting the permeability of the brain-blood barrier and potentially causing diseases like Alzheimer’s.
The only known effects of radio waves on the human body are thermal, which are well-understood and not a problem with wi-fi or cell phones operated normally, and induced electrical microcurrents in nerve tissue, which my father’s research focused on at one point.
As you say, some scientists do believe that radio waves can cause cancer or break down the blood-brain barrier, but they have no evidence to support that, either from experiments or epidemiological studies. The idea that this possibility has not been extensively studied is false.
Bobby Kennedy says that radio waves are increasing autism, food allergies, asthma and chronic illnesses by degrading the mitochondria and the blood-brain barrier. That’s pure speculation without any basis.
The idea that this possibility has not been extensively studied is false.
“Very few long-term, peer-reviewed studies have been conducted specifically on Wi-Fi radiation’s health effects on humans, experts told PolitiFact. And there is no conclusive research on how Wi-Fi radiation may affect the blood-brain barrier, said Henry Lai, a University of Washington emeritus bioengineering professor, and Joel Moskowitz, director of the Center of Family and Community Health at the University of California, Berkeley.”https://www.politifact.com/article/2023/jul/10/rfk-jrs-wi-fi-claim-about-human-blood-brain-barrie/
Personally I don’t know enough to dispute any of this. But to say it’s “pure speculation” sounds pretty weak. Maybe this is the nature of science. If so then challenging views are a genuine aspect of science.
Sorry, this is the link.
https://www.health.com/raw-milk-vs-pasteurized-milk-8656536
Ignore that. Total confusion.
Sure, scientists should keep an open mind. Radio waves may affect the blood-brain barrier in humans. There is no evidence that they do, and expert scientists (including my father) have been carefully looking for any evidence that they do since the 1960s. But radio waves still might have some as yet unknown power to affect biology. And if someone discovers that they do, that person will win a Nobel prize. It’s that important.
So when Bobby Kennedy told Joe Rogan that “Wi-Fi radiation opens up your blood-brain barrier, so all these toxins that are in your body can now go into your brain,” that made my ears perk up. Joe Rogan’s too. We are all immersed in Wi-Fi radiation. Is that damaging our health?
Bobby Kennedy says so, but does he produce evidence of it? No. He told Joe Rogan that there are hundreds of studies out there, peer-reviewed studies, that show that. But that was a lie. There are not 100s of studies. There is not even one.
Joe Rogan’s staff member found one study that talked about the topic, but that was a speculative piece and not peer-reviewed science. It is worthless as evidence, similar to the papers you can find in the literature on topics like ESP. They are written by the same kind of people as those who wear tinfoil hats.
Do you want the top health official in the United States to be pushing for things like regulations on Wi-Fi or cell phones that have no support in science? Because that is what you get with Bobby Kennedy. He is a trial lawyer, and he doesn’t hesitate to blatantly and knowingly lie to press his case.
This Wi-Fi case is just one example that shows Bobby Kennedy is a quack, and a very harmful quack at that. No way should he be involved in leading the nation’s health policy.
Unfortunately people have lost faith in the institutions that are meant to represent them, in this case in health. There has been so much deception and blatant lying that people look for alternatives because they no longer trust what they’re told. The people themselves did not create the situation, the authorities did. People no longer feel the authorities have their interests at heart; Covid did most of the convincing. I’m guessing Kennedy is there because of a deal he made with Trump by switching from Democrat support to Trump. He may be what you say, but previous administrations have done no better.
“That’s pure speculation without any basis“. I’d go further. It’s pure crackpottery.
You’re right, it’s crackpottery or quackery or whatever you want to call it.
People who believe things like this are literally tinfoil hat conspiracy theorists. The tinfoil hat is supposed to protect the brain against electromagnetic radiation like wifi and cell phones produce.
You can tell people wearing tinfoil hats believe what they are saying–why else would they open themselves up to ridicule by looking so stupid?
But Bobby Kennedy doesn’t wear a tinfoil hat. He doesn’t protect himself against this harmful radiation that is all around us. Joe Rogan reacted to Bobby Kennedy’s remarks with initial skepticism because they were sitting in a room with wifi bouncing all over.
So I think he knows that’s all a lie but says it anyway. Why? The man has a giant ego. He thinks he’s great. And he is charismatic and persuasive. Even his raspy voice lends him some gravity once you get used to it.
I don’t worry much anymore what Bobby Kennedy will do if he gets confirmed as secretary of health. We have safeguards in place against charlatans. He won’t be able to do much damage with ideas that are clearly so silly as his. He’s not competent enough to do damage, and he may even do some good by shaking up a staid bureaucracy.
But Bobby Kennedy’s nomination is worst for what it says about Donald Trump. He’s shown that he is the abuser of power his enemies claimed he was. I’m disappointed to see that, and I regret I voted for him. He’s made Steve Bannon happy, but made me irate.
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. The truthful position is one of uncertainty. Which is why lying about the minimal efficacy of a vaccine to prevent transmission, or the low comparative risk of hospitalization for covid versus for heart myocarditis in young men, is so despicable. Americans should have been told the risks, like they are with every other drug in the market. That is science.
I am not saying that the absence of evidence proves anything. I’m saying that Bobby Kennedy claims that he has evidence. He claims that 100s of peer-reviewed papers show that Wi-Fi radiation breaks down the blood-brain barrier. He lied. There aren’t 100s of papers. There’s not even one.
You forgot the white amyloid clots that they were flushing out when deceased people were being embalmed. A totally new pathology. Not a word has been said about it. Coroners refuse to comment or do autopsies. An establishment cover up on a grand scale. Batch testing of Covid vaccines has shown both DNA and DNA plasmids in some batches that shouldn’t be there.
Whoever thought it was a good idea to have Billions of nano particles travelling to every part of your body causing what you describe. They did say the vaccine would stay in your arm. And with 34500 deaths attributed to this dreadful vaccine it is time to say enough is enough.