Wednesday, May 21, 2025

Crackpots unleashed!

With the Trump 2.0 regime putting RFK, Jr., a huge fan of woo-woo crackpot pseudoscience and quack medicine, in charge of the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), we need good sources that debunk pseudo-science and woo-woo medicine.

One that has been doing that job for a while is Science Based Medicine.

Jonathan Howard recently offered this analysis of the current unhealthy trend symbolized by RFK, Jr.:
We here at Science Based Medicine will be keeping close tabs on our new Medical Establishment for as long as they are in power. We won’t be the only ones, however. Though they have an entirely different agenda, anti-vaxxers and crackpots of all sorts will be watching too, and their power and influence has grown mightily over the past 5 years. Mainstream doctors relentlessly shared their beliefs and talking points. In so doing, they validated and normalized anti-vaccine thought, rhetoric, and techniques. Chief of these was spreading fear, uncertainty, and doubt.

Dr. Marty Makary, for example, spent the past 4 years making common causes with such cranks and encouraging their mistrust of the Medical Establishment. In one particularly noxious speech, seated next to his fellow misinformation superspreader Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, Dr. Makary said, “that the greatest perpetrator of misinformation during the pandemic has been the United States government.” He was upset that his predecessors didn’t join him in glorifying “natural immunity” and treating vaccine side-effects as a fate worse than death. (1) [my emphasis]

Howard provides links to several stories about what a collection of crackpots and cranks HHS is greenlighting now.

And he reminds us that such folks are particularly inclined to bicker intensely with each other.

Howard concludes with this observation: “There’s not going to be much to cheer about for the next 4 years. But watching MAHA turn on itself and the doctors they empowered will provide an opportunity to kick back, pull out the popcorn, and enjoy the circular firing squad.”

Another popularly accessible to substantive source on pseudoscience matters is Skeptical Inquirer. They recently noted:
On February 14, 2025, a memo from the National Institutes of Health shared the plan to cut over 5,000 employees. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration also announced mass firings. These agencies, all under the Department of Health and Human Services, were guided by the new Department of Government Efficiency to cut back on staff to save money. Days later, the National Science Foundation, an independent government agency, also announced the plan to dismiss about 10 percent of employees. The long-term fallout of these mass firings is yet to be determined, but the short-term consequences for the affected scientists are potentially devasting. (2) [my emphasis]

Notes:

(1) Howard, Jonathn (2025): Doctors Who Rose to Power Bashing the Medical Establishment Are Now the Medical Establishment. Good Luck With That. Science-Based Medicine 05/16/2025. <https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/letthemfight/> (Accessed: 2025-17-05).

(2) Huff, Stephen & Radford. Benjamin (2025): News Bites: From Earhart Plane Pareidolia to Mass Firings at Science Agencies. Skeptical Inquirer 49:3, 7.

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