No, RFK Jr. cannot diagnose people by looking at them

According to our crackpot Secretary of Health, RFK Jr., he can spot sick people by looking at them. That’s how he knows that we’re less healthy than we used to be: “I had eleven brothers and sisters, I had about 70 first cousins, and I never saw anybody with diabetes. I never knew anybody with a food allergy. I never knew anybody with autism. And I know what a healthy child is supposed to look like.”

No, he doesn’t. And know, he can’t tell. And while it’s true diabetes and (I believe) food allergies are more common than they used to be, they aren’t a radical new thing either: I’m four years older than he is and I developed a food allergy in college. I suspect Kennedy’s “never knew” is more that he never cared to ask, and that he cannot in fact spot sick people at a glance.

The idea us non-doctors can diagnose someone by looking at them is quite common (“My kid’s distracted, I know he has ADD, give him Ritalin.”). Unfortunately Kennedy’s in a powerful position over our health establishment and he’s too Dunning-Kruger to realize how ignorant he is.

And he can count on sanewashing from journalists who ignore the anti-vax stuff to focus on how RFK wants people eating healthier — he’s just like Michelle Obama (who was mocked for suggesting kids eat more veggies). While his “MAHA” movement is losing steam, that’s partly because Kennedy’s supporters want more vaccine bans, mRNA bans, etc., than he’s offered so far.

His ongoing attack on our healthcare systems was completely predictable. That makes Sen. Bill Cassidy (head of the Senate health committee, putting him in a position to fight the Kennedy nomination if he chose) declaring his concern over Kennedy’s positions very disingenuous and CYA. You knew what he was when you voted for him. If not, why didn’t you? Sen. Roger Marshall is a doctor so he should know too but he’s all in on covid and other medical lies. But apparently anti-vax has such a hold on the Republicans that even the necrotic toddler is saying maybe the vaccines he had developed were fakes.

Hell, right wing pundit Erick Erickson’s wife is dying, she can’t get the drugs she needs because of the state of the CDC — but he insists the left “built the foundation for Kennedy’s rise.” He’d probably blame them for Ron DeSantis may scrap school vaccination requirements.

While Cassidy dithers, Chuck Schumer — not someone I think of as a fighter — has come out calling for Kennedy lose his cabinet post. Meanwhile Rep. Buddy Carter of Georgia blames the CDC for everything that’s happening and implies Biden was to blame for mismanaging the pandemic (Biden was not, of course, president when it broke out). Carter also freaked out about former CDC vaccine chief Demetre Daskalakis, presumably because the latter said, quite truthfully, that “I’ve been worried for months. The firewall between science and ideology is completely broken down. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene is bullshitting (is she ever not?) that the covid vaccine is death!

Kennedy claims he can also spot the current health bugaboo, mitochondrial dysfunction. As explained at the link, there’s no clear cause and effect between our mitochondrial cell bodies and our health.

Kennedy talks about the horrors of ultraprocessed foods. Now for some reason he’s also upset with the government making sensible recommendations to eat more beans.

In the best “when you have nothing but a hammer, everything looks like a nail” tradition, Kennedy has decided since he doesn’t like drugs, maybe antidepressants cause school shootings. Like a good Republican, he’s never going to blame guns.

Using AI to vet whether someone’s medical needs are covered by Medicare? Yeah, I’m sure that will go well — but it will certainly cut what Medicare spends.

“Despite the many decades of evidence that the aluminum in vaccines is perfectly safe when used in appropriate doses, he believes it just can’t be true.” As noted at the link, a number of medical groups are telling Kennedy to pound sand.

But Kennedy still has a lot of clout, like only approving fall covid shots for people over 65 and other high-risk individuals.

The CDC had a drowning prevention program — that’s now shutting down. I can’t figure out who even benefits from something like that — Big Drowning? But hey, ivermectin’s going to become way more available.

“If you want to make foodborne disease go away, then don’t look for foodborne disease. And then you can cheerfully eliminate all of your foodborne disease regulations. My concern is that that is the path down which we appear to be heading.”

But if you think RFK is bad, here’s a shocker: a group of atheists claim the real threat to science is wokeness.

It’s a good thing some of the blue-state governors are starting stepping up.