I'm very glad the article contains an explanation of germ theory, miasma theory, and terrain theory. When talking to people in real life who have forgotten their middle school biology classes, I actually hear these theories referenced often but of course without the name. The idea that "diseases stem from imbalances in the internal 'terrain' of the body, such as malnutrition or the presence of toxic substances" sound plausible and intuitive, and is true to some extent, which is why people fall for it. I mean sure malnutrition causes diseases such as the lack of vitamin C causing scurvy, and substances like mercury cause poisoning; these are real. It's just that I found it astounding that both RFK Jr and several people I've met in real life would choose to believe these while discrediting germ theory.
mapmeld · 1h ago
When I've seen discussion of these in the past, belief is often connected to fear or guilt stemming from how bodies react differently to exposure and/or infection. There's an element of randomness whether you breathe in enough of a pathogen, or run into a super-spreader. It can be a relief to think that people are predisposed to do better or worse, and either you were already immune or you can control it.
binary132 · 51m ago
At the risk of playing devil’s advocate, I think it is very weird how differently different people responded to Covid. Some people barely got a cold. Others died. I really don’t think you can write it off to “well ${dead_person} just inhaled more of it”.
delichon · 1h ago
I was involved with the raw vegan community in liberal Santa Cruz California for a number of years, and this was a very common opinion there. In some presentations I felt like the local extremist for insisting that germ theory was a good thing that led to the advantages of modern medicine. I now travel more in conservative trending carnivore circles where I haven't heard germ theory denial. On the contrary they tend to take particular pleasure in referring to conventional studies, to counter accusations of their own extremism. From my own experience it seems that RFK has imported these views more from the left than the right. Do others have a different experience?
pogue · 1h ago
Does it matter where he got his viewpoint? He could have heard it on a bus going to Cucamonga for all we know. At this point, trying to trace back which side is at fault for RFK's incredibly absurd ideas is mute and irrelevant unless you're just looking to give some rational for why he came to those conclusions.
We need to educate people from an early age in media literacy, skepticism and science. Make The Demon-Haunted World a mandatory read for every high school student.
delichon · 55m ago
I see what you mean, if you're only interested in developing political weapons, rather than curious about the shape of the world, it isn't relevant.
mindslight · 20m ago
Trying to ascribe it to "the left" or "the right" is trying to form a political weapon. The shape of the world is that we now have a clown car administration of utter retards, each pushing their own strain of feel-good harmful nonsense. The root cause of what has allowed these moronic ideas to take hold and grow ultimately comes down to affluenza and anti-intellectualism. The political leanings of the pockets where each of these strains were allowed to fester doesn't particularly matter, because the overriding commonality is that they make believers feel good and special for knowing something "others don't".
spacemadness · 33m ago
He’s just a conspiracy theorist that deeply mistrusts the output of scientific research. If it counters medical science, it must be true. Why? Because there is a grand conspiracy at play trying to smother the truth or some such paranoid nonsense. And in true conspiracy theorist fashion, he is one of the chosen that is going to reveal the truth.
taylodl · 2h ago
Every member of this administration is thoroughly incompetent. It'd be funny if it didn't have dire consequences for the United States.
duxup · 1h ago
The scale of ignorance among those in charge of the federal government now is astonishing.
Even President Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Camacho deferred to smarter people.
viraptor · 1h ago
Not only that, he ran a program to actively find them and didn't exclude the prisoners. More clever and progressive than many real people.
ourmandave · 1h ago
Assuming you hadn't been laid off by DOGE, imagine having to work for this stupid clown.
Maybe the Emperor can appoint a Moon Landing Denier to run fucking NASA.
spacemadness · 28m ago
I can imagine being a stable minded MD right now, especially one working on policy, must be especially horrible.
The worm in RFK's head didn't die. It consumed all RFK's brain and replaced it. The worm is RFK! Its sole purpose is to get more worms into Americans' heads.
belter · 1h ago
It is entirely possible we are living a real timeline of the Men in Black. Now if you please look carefully at your screen please...While I make it flash remotely for a second...
josefritzishere · 2h ago
There is a very real possibility that RFK has brain damage from long-term drug abuse.
afavour · 1h ago
I don't know about drug abuse but the brain worm, the mercury poisoning... I'm certainly confident in saying he's not right in the head.
ketchupdebugger · 2h ago
not from the brain worm that ate part of his brain?
neaden · 2h ago
Drugs, worm, and mercury poisoning. None of it has been good for his brain.
CoastalCoder · 2h ago
FYI, the game "Plague, Inc." has a new game type: misinformation.
gryfft · 1h ago
Oh, to be Madagascar.
CoastalCoder · 1h ago
Or Greenland. Freaking Greenland.
I swear, it's like a ship goes there only once every two years, and the crew scrubs it down with bleach every day.
giraffe_lady · 1h ago
So? A lot of people have brain damage and don't pursue evil professionally. I myself have a TBI-related disability and yet have not rejected germ theory. I was a long term drug abuser as well! None of these are explanations for his policies.
FrustratedMonky · 2h ago
Same has been speculated about Trump. And Musk is pretty open about drug use.
The "just say no" party, is pretty baked.
Symmetry · 2h ago
Trump is a famous teetotaler so I'd be skeptical there.
When I started getting worried about Elon around 2018 the drugs were part of it but also the persistent sleep deprivation. But there's also the way his father went a bit crazy in his 40s which I only learned about recently.
jebarker · 1h ago
Just looked up why Trump is sober. I think this is the first time I've ever read anything about him and felt some admiration.
kstrauser · 1h ago
Yeah. Basically, his horrid, abusive father drove Don’s older brother, Freddie, to alcoholism. I read Mary Trump’s “Too Much and Never Enough” and it actually made me sympathetic toward Donald. That's not to say I forgive him or that he gets a free pass. But wow, I'm not sure how he could've ended up any different.
The world would be better if Fred Trump Sr were emotionally capable of saying “I love you, son.”
yapyap · 1h ago
Along with his ultra rich but antisocial upbringing and the exploitation he was exposed to from a young age with the mines, apartheid and everything I’d say there is no hope for him.
dowager_dan99 · 1h ago
He doesn't drink alcohol or do recreational drugs, but it's surprising that he's aligned with RFK because Trump seems to love fast food and refined sugar. His terrain must look pretty rough!
pogue · 1h ago
He doesn't care about a person's beliefs as much as he cares about their loyalty. RFK gave up his presidential run and endorsed Trump, so he proved his worth to get him into power and is rewarded with getting to do his dream job of dismantling agencies that have kept us safe for decades. His father must be spinning like a yo-yo in his grave.
iJohnDoe · 12m ago
We know there are crazy people out there. We know people have wild ideas and beliefs. Even smart and logical people can latch on to things that seems radical or don't follow common sense. It's part of being human.
The problem we face today is that the we no longer have adults or rational people in the US government. As a nation, the US did an okay-ish job at keeping people like Marjorie Taylor Greene out of government positions. We didn't let people like Musk take control over everything. The writing was on the wall for a while we were headed in this direction. They were quickly gaining ground to take control of everything. The Republican side during the Trump impeachments were a spectacle. There is obviously a very large population in favor of the spectacle.
The US has simply failed repeatedly to get out and vote and keep the wackos out power. Well, here we are. It truly is a shame and we're paying the price.
yapyap · 1h ago
“New president of US Space flight rejects the Newton’s law of gravity”
Eventually you hit a point where something or someone is so stupid you can’t comprehend that what they say is what they really think.
Like you may intellectually ‘know’ with near certainty that they are that stupid but the emotional centre of your brain can not accept it.
I hit that point with the politics of the US a long time ago, in the back of your head you think these are capable-ish people just grifting off the stupid people but that’d require such a malicious intent it’s from an emotionap standpoint nearly impossible again.
This is a paradox that will never be answered with certainty but given the track record of the current US president (and his pre political business ventures) I’d say it is stupidity, I’m nearly certain of it.
arisAlexis · 1h ago
Imagine a flat earther nasa president, it's kinda the same here
andrewclunn · 1h ago
The worst comments are the flagged ones. The most untrue are the dead ones. Trust the establishment to not falsely characterize their critics. Why woudl anyone call something that opens with, "With the rise of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., brain worms have gotten a bad rap..." a hit piece?
Oh baby, give me that big pharma K street revolving door propaganda! Empiricism is dead, credentialism gutted it to make a skin suit that academia now wears, so it's the science now! Preventative care is only legitimate if you pay the health industry for it! I look forward to the day when we can just label anyone who doesn't trust "the science" as insane so we can lock them up. Maybe if I'm a good boy they'll give me a weekly vaccine to protect me from misinformation. I wouldn't want to risk me having unapproved positions if I'm accidentally exposed.
No comments yet
billy99k · 1h ago
"Kennedy contrasts his erroneous take on miasma theory with germ theory, which he derides as a tool of the pharmaceutical industry and pushy scientists to justify selling modern medicines."
In 2010 or so, I worked in a very liberal town. I saw sign after sign against big pharma. When the political tide changed, these signs are nowhere to be found.
In fact, the new line of thinking is to trust big pharma and your doctor without question. I also remember grave stone decorations that stated this during covid.
Kennedy won a lawsuit after multiple years against big pharma when a vaccine caused severe brain damage in a child, who is now permanently disabled. Hit pieces on Kennedy won't change this.
Was this article funded by big Pharma?
knappa · 1h ago
As I recall, most of the complaints about big pharma were about price-gauging. This is entirely different.
kstrauser · 45m ago
I do so wish practical probability was a required class for all students.
Yes, vaccines — as with all medical procedures — have bad outcomes for some people. You can't inject everyone with saline without someone having a bad reaction, if only because it ended up stabbing a tendon or something.
However, the risk of injuries for all common vaccines are orders of magnitude less than the harm from the things they decrease. For ever 1 person harmed by a vaccine, 100 people don't get seriously ill from the disease it counters. And while it’s an enormous bummer for that 1 person, the other 100 experienced a modern miracle of public health.
No one’s ever said vaccines can't make you sick. (Well, they've said that they provably do not cause autism, but that's a different claim.) They've said that if you go to Vegas and have an option to bet where you have a 99% chance of winning $1000 and a 1% chance of losing $1000, you take that bet every time.
We need to educate people from an early age in media literacy, skepticism and science. Make The Demon-Haunted World a mandatory read for every high school student.
Even President Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Camacho deferred to smarter people.
Maybe the Emperor can appoint a Moon Landing Denier to run fucking NASA.
I swear, it's like a ship goes there only once every two years, and the crew scrubs it down with bleach every day.
The "just say no" party, is pretty baked.
When I started getting worried about Elon around 2018 the drugs were part of it but also the persistent sleep deprivation. But there's also the way his father went a bit crazy in his 40s which I only learned about recently.
The world would be better if Fred Trump Sr were emotionally capable of saying “I love you, son.”
The problem we face today is that the we no longer have adults or rational people in the US government. As a nation, the US did an okay-ish job at keeping people like Marjorie Taylor Greene out of government positions. We didn't let people like Musk take control over everything. The writing was on the wall for a while we were headed in this direction. They were quickly gaining ground to take control of everything. The Republican side during the Trump impeachments were a spectacle. There is obviously a very large population in favor of the spectacle.
The US has simply failed repeatedly to get out and vote and keep the wackos out power. Well, here we are. It truly is a shame and we're paying the price.
Eventually you hit a point where something or someone is so stupid you can’t comprehend that what they say is what they really think. Like you may intellectually ‘know’ with near certainty that they are that stupid but the emotional centre of your brain can not accept it.
I hit that point with the politics of the US a long time ago, in the back of your head you think these are capable-ish people just grifting off the stupid people but that’d require such a malicious intent it’s from an emotionap standpoint nearly impossible again.
This is a paradox that will never be answered with certainty but given the track record of the current US president (and his pre political business ventures) I’d say it is stupidity, I’m nearly certain of it.
Oh baby, give me that big pharma K street revolving door propaganda! Empiricism is dead, credentialism gutted it to make a skin suit that academia now wears, so it's the science now! Preventative care is only legitimate if you pay the health industry for it! I look forward to the day when we can just label anyone who doesn't trust "the science" as insane so we can lock them up. Maybe if I'm a good boy they'll give me a weekly vaccine to protect me from misinformation. I wouldn't want to risk me having unapproved positions if I'm accidentally exposed.
No comments yet
In 2010 or so, I worked in a very liberal town. I saw sign after sign against big pharma. When the political tide changed, these signs are nowhere to be found.
In fact, the new line of thinking is to trust big pharma and your doctor without question. I also remember grave stone decorations that stated this during covid.
Kennedy won a lawsuit after multiple years against big pharma when a vaccine caused severe brain damage in a child, who is now permanently disabled. Hit pieces on Kennedy won't change this.
Was this article funded by big Pharma?
Yes, vaccines — as with all medical procedures — have bad outcomes for some people. You can't inject everyone with saline without someone having a bad reaction, if only because it ended up stabbing a tendon or something.
However, the risk of injuries for all common vaccines are orders of magnitude less than the harm from the things they decrease. For ever 1 person harmed by a vaccine, 100 people don't get seriously ill from the disease it counters. And while it’s an enormous bummer for that 1 person, the other 100 experienced a modern miracle of public health.
No one’s ever said vaccines can't make you sick. (Well, they've said that they provably do not cause autism, but that's a different claim.) They've said that if you go to Vegas and have an option to bet where you have a 99% chance of winning $1000 and a 1% chance of losing $1000, you take that bet every time.