MAHA's autism spectacle
Since it was first named in 1911, autism has been the topic of intense debate and discussion. Long thought to be a subtype of schizophrenia, autism didn’t become its own diagnosis until 1980. Every DSM since has changed its diagnosis, helping deepen our understanding of what it is, how it operates, and how to treat it—if it requires treatment.
Robert F Kennedy Jr went on Dr Phil yesterday to double down on his autism rhetoric. Besides rehashing old rhetoric about chemtrails and sexual dimorphism, he tried to rebut all the haters by saying of course he was referring only to those with profound autism, which is not what he said at the infamous press conference.
Kennedy’s promise to “discover a cause” of autism by September, which he’s certain is “environmental toxin,” is laughable, especially since we can see the slow-moving train coming right at us. To further cement that the “cause” will be vaccines, Kennedy is putting known anti-vaxxers and mRNA critics in charge of research.
Walker Bragman breaks down the latter over at Important Context.
[Martin] Kulldorff is no less contrarian. The biostatistician is a longtime collaborator of Bhattacharya’s. The pair co-authored the Great Barrington Declaration in October 2020, calling for the abandonment of COVID lockdowns in favor of pursuing herd immunity through widespread infection of the healthy population. Kulldorff too has waded into anti-vaccine territory over the years, questioning the necessity and safety of COVID vaccines. He and Bhattacharya have even advocated against the jabs together.
Did you know you’re huffing gasoline when eating cereal? That’s right: synthetic food dyes are made from petroleum!
If you spend too much time in wellness land, the above claim will make perfect sense. Not science, mind you, but the vibe is right.
Never mind the fact that, as Dr Andrea Love breaks down, petroleum is a natural substance used in countless products, including—supplements! That’s right, vitamins A, D, and E, along with a host of other vitamins and minerals, use petroleum in the manufacturing process.
There’s another inconvenient petroleum-based product that might not sit well with the MAHA crowd…
And guess what? That methylene blue that RFK Jr. enthusiastically ingests and touts as a wellness panacea (and is not regulated for safety like food dyes are) also comes from petroleum.
Ultra-processed foods are sucking all the oxygen out of conversations about health right now. As many experts I follow—including epidemiologist Gideon Meyerowitz-Katz—regularly state, it’s sort of a duh moment: eating foodstuffs with lots of sugar and ingredients isn’t the best option.
In recent years, wellness influencers present the idea as if it’s a revelation. Instead of discussing the social determinants that often lead to such purchasing decisions, they’ve concocted an elaborate scandal about a government-corporation partnership designed to make us all sick. (Note: this is different than the very real influence of corporate lobbyists.)
Meyerowitz-Katz discusses the complexities of UPFs in his latest column. He brings up the reality for most people: changing your diet isn’t easy. When MAHA stans rage against consumer decisions, they’re pretending that lifestyle changes can be accomplished in the blink of an eye—and suggesting that people have the time and resources to do it.
Substituting one food for another, particularly at a societal level, is very difficult. Even if we ignore the questions about how much of this association is causal, and whether ultra processed is a useful descriptor, the issue here is that everyone already knows the problem. If you got rid of everything that my mother told me as a 5 year old was “junk” food from your diet, you’d be close to 0% ultra processing in your life.
Let’s end on some good news: cancer vaccines!
As STAT reports, a trial run at the National Cancer Institute found that a single dose of the HPV vaccine might be as effective as two doses. That’s a really big development.
The result could transform efforts to reach the three-quarters of children globally who should receive the vaccines but don’t. The shots prevent cervical cancer and also anal, penile, and some head-and-neck cancers. Worldwide, 350,000 women die from cervical cancer, the most common HPV cancer.
Of course, nothing good in American science is immune from the ravages of anti-vaxxers.
At Children’s Health Defense, the nonprofit group where he served as founder and chairman for years, Kennedy filed more than two dozen lawsuits over the vaccine.
Sorry, I tried to end on good news, and I believe these vaccines hold a lot of promise—provided MAHA doesn’t get in the way of yet another important scientific development.
