Today the Washington Post presents us with the Top Ten RFK Jr. Conspiracy Theories. This is great service journalism, but it's too damn long for those of us with busy lives. So as a further service, here is Shorter RFK Jr, a brief compilation of just the conspiracy theories themselves:
- Kennedy has falsely linked vaccines to autism
- Kennedy falsely called the coronavirus vaccine the ‘deadliest vaccine ever made’
- Kennedy promotes raw milk, stem cells and other controversial or debunked medical treatments
- Kennedy argues government employees have an interest in ‘mass poisoning’ the American public
- Kennedy has falsely linked antidepressants to mass shootings
- Kennedy incorrectly suggests AIDS may not be caused by HIV
- Kennedy falsely argues children’s gender identity can be impacted by water
- Kennedy has falsely touted ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine as effective covid treatments
- Kennedy argued that covid-19 was ‘ethnically targeted’ to spare Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese people
- Kennedy claims 5G high-speed wireless network is used to ‘control our behavior’
The only one I wish they'd left off is the raw milk thing. It's true that raw milk has no benefits, but it's not really true that it's dangerous. Well, not very dangerous. It causes occasional illness and, according to the FDA, three deaths over 20 years. You're better off with pasteurized milk, which has all the same nutrients and no danger at all. But raw milk is safe enough that people should probably be left alone to drink it if they want to.¹
¹I welcome frenzied pushback on this point.
"Kennedy claims 5G high-speed wireless network is used to ‘control our behavior."
Can't argue with that one.
Saying the quiet part out loud.
Nice satire.
Glad you’re feeling better Kevin. I figured you must be, with the pithy posts and all.
Make it easier for people who want to drink raw milk to do so? I'm ok with that.
Make it harder to get pasteurized milk? Oh no. No, no, no.
What will he try to do? Who knows?
The availability of raw milk is already state law dependent, so any changes would be extending federal government reach
May raw milk be transported across state lines for sale?
Raw milk shouldn't be transported! That's the whole problem, it spoils too fast.
The problem with raw milk isn't getting it from a farmer - it's that people want to sell it at Wal-Mart where it'll spoil on the shelf faster and expose far more people to bacterial risk of a single mistake mixed into thousands of bottles.
Sorry, the problem with raw milk is contamination at the farm during milking, not that it spoils fast. And just like eggs are not safe (salmonella) in the US, raw milk is not safe. We were receiving raw milk from the milk man when I was a kid in Switzerland. Home pasteurization was recommended but the milk was safe. Pasteurized milk appeared in the stores only later.
What we are really missing here is that Trump may be insisting upon halfway measures. Let us hope that he completes his Make America Healthy again team. He needs Dr Oz for his miracle pill team. Dr Ben Carson for his miracle brain supplement teams. And since Alex Jones is out of work we can captain the media and advertisements team. Truly a team of MAGA/MAHA all stars!
Steve
Having spent a lot of time on a farm as a kid we used raw milk all the time. That being said, it was the 70s and we were mostly healthy. I wouldn’t want my immunocompromised wife drinking it.
Me too (and that stuff was really good, probably also because it was so fresh), but that was a farm where you knew how the cows were treated and the milk was handled and you were drinking it hours after it came out of the cow.
Raw milk is easy to get: Our farmer's market always has it. It's labeled "Pet Milk - Not for human consumption."
Milk from pets?
My cats loved milk.
I think I can explain where this one comes from. Phthalates and Bisphenols are endocrine disruptors, and are still used in many plastics. They leach into the environment, including groundwater. They mimic (female) hormones, and in studies on fish, all sorts of changes were seen including an imbalance of gender (more females than males).
These studies are done at very high concentrations of these chemicals. That's the part that RFK Jr. probably ignored, and he just assumed that such gender expressions and physical effects noted in fish also apply to humans.
You know what they say about assumptions.
They make an ass out of you and mptions?
TB is one of the diseases possible in raw milk. There's a separate microbe--https://www.cdc.gov/tb/about/m-bovis.html
In 1940s/50s there were government milk inspectors (NY state, not USDA) and government standards for handling the cows and milk (like requiring refrigeration of milk on the farm, later moving from milk cans to bulk tanks). This was, I believe, the peak of a long and successful effort to clean up the dairy industry.
I think you have oversimplified your description in number three. Or is it indeed the case that all stem cell treatments are snake oil?
'Stem cell treatments' are bunk.
You can't just inject them and assume they'll become the right kind of healthy cell.
They need to be genetically matched to the patient and disease, which is something entirely different.
Yes, the ones where they are matched to the donor for bone marrow reconstitution are legit. The ones where they isolate "stem cells" from your liposuction and reinject them into your knee are crap.
My guess is there isn't as many cases of illness associated with raw milk because it's not widely comsumed. The more popular it becomes the more likely you'll get more disreputable people who will sell it not caring to bother with proper handling and storing methods.
Exactly.
Mixing a bulk tank of it would mean one little bit of pathogen would multiply and hit thousands of bottles.
Because it can't really be safely stored more than a few days.
From an old employer: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2024/07/how-rfk-jr-falsely-denied-his-connection-to-a-deadly-measles-outbreak-in-samoa/
The Post has an article about that today, too:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/11/15/rfk-jr-global-health-samoa-kennedy/
The paper's resident MD, Dr Leana Wen, weighs in on RFKjr's more fundamental problem:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/11/15/rfk-jr-kennedy-nomination-hhs-trump/
Wouldn't Alex Jones be a great director of the CIA?
He wouldn’t need access to any real classified information, it all just comes to him through nature.
It would be a win for everyone.
Not to mention Greg GUTFELD!! for White House spokesMAN.
you should absolutely avoid raw milk if you are immunosuppressed. i have personally seen someone (on chemo) almost die from listeria meningitis because she drank unpasteurized milk
There are lots and lots of things people on chemo need to avoid. For someone on chemo to do that is way beyond reckless. No offense to your friend, but sheesh. She shouldn't even have been eating from the salad bar or drinking fountain drinks.
Anyone who knows someone who has had a need for an anti-depressant (as I do) or has had to take one themself know that in the right circumstance they are literally a life saver. Fuck that guy with a goddamn porcupine.
"I welcome frenzied pushback on this point."
Sorry to disappoint you for only getting a dozen or so responses on this semi-trollish point.
Is it normal for someone nominated for a senior cabinet post to still be soliciting donations and selling merchandise? https://www.mahanow.org/
My main concern with raw milk is that it will likely be given to a lot of small children due to its "health benefits." But that's an extremely risky group to be giving it to.
We developed pasteurization for a reason, and it wasn't because scientists were bored.
Raw milk is great, if you trust the source, just a little pricey, but not too much more than goat milk, which is my normal go-to, and certainly never should have been mentioned on this list.
People are getting weird in this late-industrial period. Pasteurization is what it is, and for the mass market will remain the main avenue, but if you like to take the side roads into raw dairy, this isn't controversial or new.
I grew up drinking raw milk. Well, not all the time. But my mother bought it from our local Amish. Made yogurt a fair bit, and she'd separate off the cream to make various things.
So I guess I mostly see it as a temperamental cooking ingredient. If you're in to that sort of cooking, go for it. If you're not competent to consume it, well, it almost certainly won't kill you, and you won't make that mistake twice.
I like the concept of this tribe being in a frenzy. Yup, when Kevin pushes the right buttons it explodes. It can even include name calling.
How about irradiated milk? Allegedly shelf stable without refrigeration for years, never subjected to the heat that advocates of raw milk say ruins the flavor?
1. Is the flavor comparable to the joys of raw?
2. What does Robbie Junior think of it?
This was, let's recall, Obama first pick for running the EPA:
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/robert-f-kennedy-environm_n_141454
And he wasn't chosen, not because of his crazy opinions (already in full flower in 2008) but because of his heroin possession arrest. His crazy opinions were just, at that time, coded left. (And mostly still are, in terms of how he thinks of environmental issues, or minority issues, or foreign affairs.)
"
Then United States Chamber of Commerce lobbyist William Kovacs said that Kennedy's nomination "would speak volumes as to where Obama is going with his appointments... A Kennedy appointment is as liberal as you can possibly get... There is no one [candidate] based firmer in extremes."[206] Republican Senator Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma also criticized the proposal, saying Kennedy was too radical and would further a left-wing agenda if appointed.[206]
"
So, yeah, unless you were criticizing him and Obama in 2008, you're a full-on hypocrite.
OTOH if the fallout of having him head of HHS is that Dems all pivot to building out more communications infrastructure, supporting nuclear power, and advocating for hydroelectricity, I'll take it! That would be a great side effect of this 2024 election.