He has continued pushing long disproven stuff like the MMR autism link.
That alone is sufficient to consider him a nutter. And given the size of his platform he is a wildly dangerous one causing immense harm.
That alone is sufficient to consider him a nutter. And given the size of his platform he is a wildly dangerous one causing immense harm.
These are complex issues, yet your language speaks of authoritative dismissal, and a reductive binary stance. Such oversimplification is hard to argue as credible.
The "appeal to harm" could equally be made in the opposite direction, but the speed at which you go to it only compounds the "without merit" signaling of your reductive simplifications.
This feels like an extreme position to me. Just because you have one or 10 nutty beliefs, that doesn’t make you a nutter. I don’t know where the threshold lie, but as an example, didn’t Newton believe in alchemy?
That's a lot less nutty, relatively speaking, than believing in something like adrenochrome harvesting or Jewish space lasers or flat earth or reptilians today. Or even alchemy.
I mean "Jewish space lasers" hahah where are you even getting this? Hahahah great material by the way. Can you upload a YT vid, I want to see your comedy bit! :) hahaah
Plenty can be said about Newton, but his belief in alchemy given the time was far more reasonable than RFKjr's insistence on continuing to do harm by pushing those false claims.
Your willingness to paint something you dislike as "dangerous" "harm", and your reduction to binary opposites with no discussion of nuance speaks to an authoritarian, "Witch hunt" mindset.
This suggests you are uniquely incapable of dealing with the issues in a scientific or rational way, making you equally unqualified to judge anybody.
I think the attitude displayed in your comment, is what's dangerous. I'm not saying JFK is "not dangerous", but not in the way you think, perhaps. And I'm not going to reduce people, or issues, to simplistic moral fables. Such a flawed model can never represent reality, so anyone wielding it can neither be said to be in touch with reality, nor capable of deciding anything that matters.
But the willingness to hate, is a dangerous thing. Think on it! Hahaha :)
It _does_.
> I don’t know where the threshold lie, but as an example, didn’t Newton believe in alchemy?
Yes; particularly in his later years, Newton was a nutter, though not in a particularly harmful way. (It was a lot more _forgivable_ back then; pretty much everyone was.)
Essentially appointing yourself chief inquisitor and decide who the heretics are. Sure, we all love power, but actually owning up to that in a bad way and trying to implement that with a partition into "nut" and "non nut", over complex nuanced topics, speaks to a kind of mind control, a disrespect of other people's views, an unwillingness to engage on the real issues, an awareness perhaps that you have to silence the opposition as you know your own views do not withstand scrutiny, but basically, an: authoritarian simplistic reduction of the complexity of the world to "good" v "bad", making you or that attitude, uniquely incapable of dealing with the said issues. Hahaah! :)
Look into the indirect connection between vaccines causing gastro-intestinal problems, and autists with gut/biome problems.
You can not scientifically state "there is no connection between autism and vaccines". Not even legally (look at vaccine court cases). Only from a "public health" and big pharma perspective is such a statement defensible.
> Overall, microbiome differences in ASD may reflect dietary preferences that relate to diagnostic features, and we caution against claims that the microbiome has a driving role in ASD.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34767757/
A casual skim of the research literature indicates the opposite correlation - ASD itself may influence the gut biome. If you have specific literature indicating otherwise I'd love to see it but arguing that ASD is caused by the gut microbiome bears the burden of proof.
In the wider topic regarding RFK, claims about the cause of autism is absolutely flooded with bad research and has a tendency to be related with acceptance of really bad research.
> You can not scientifically state "there is no connection between autism and vaccines".
I absolutely can. There is no high quality, widely accepted research that indicates that indicates causation of autism by vaccines. The original research was deeply fraudulent and has not been superceded by good research. If you disagree then shoot over a link to a study on pubmed.
ASD being caused by gut inflammation or damage is called the leaky gut theory. Leaky gut is theorized to worsen or speed up symptoms of both ADHD and autism.
How do you yourself see a causal pathway from ASD to influenced gut biome? Small children being picky about their diet?
Both MMR vaccine and Covid experimental treatments have (rare) side effects of affecting gut biome. Both leaky gut and vaccine side effects are studied, without explicitly stating the causal chain and having one's reputation destroyed, but it becomes apparent when combining both types of research: vaccine leads to bowel inflammation. Bowel inflammation affect neural pathways. Affected neural pathways worsen or speed up onset and symptoms of autism.
RFK did not cite research as much as desperate parents coming to him with their stories. Research on connection between autism and vaccines is bad, not "bad" as in bad quality, but "bad" as in taboo and damaging to public health (which cares about vaccination rates more than individual health).
You can not state there is no connection, just that research indicates no causation, correct. The original research was not deeply fraudulent, nor had bad motives, but was legit scientific inquiry. There were some problems though with the ethics and methodology, but finding these was required to blackball the entire research. Wakefield's book is interesting for another perspective.
Some older research: prevalence of chronic gastrointestinal symptoms in children with autism and autistic spectrum disorders. Combine with literature study on modern research and vaccine side-effect research (preferably before Covid, since that made vaccine side-effect research similarly taboo).
Thanks for engaging. It is more common to be completely dismissive and not entertain perceived fools or quacks.
I can state categorically that no evidence has been provided linking the MMR vaccine with autism, despite RFKjrs claims otherwise, and that the total amount of claims of harms of all types from the MMR vaccine makes it a wildly extraordinary claim to suggest there such a link and that even if there were, given the amount of reported claim it'd even them be morally reprehensible and massively harmful to stir up fear about it.
Anyone parroting his claims really ought to look at the rates of claims made vs. deaths pre-vaccines and consider the morality of amplifying his bullshit.
> even if there were, ... be morally reprehensible and massively harmful to stir up fear about it.
Exactly. This is why "no evidence has been found" is a weak substitute. An unbiased look at gathering evidence could mean the end of your carreer and reputation. It is not science, but closer to politics, sociology, and PR for public health. Also why Wakefield was attacked so hard: the science itself was not so bad or harmful, but the interpretation and fears of the general public were.
If there are answers that can not be questioned, then science and scientific integrity is in danger. Attacking research for "amplifying bullshit" or "stoking fears", not by merit, that is immoral. Not giving a voice to desperate parents who come to you to share their story that no medical authority will accept, that is immoral.
As for parroting: try to find unbiased interpretations or objective word-for-word claims by RFK on vaccine harms. Incredibly hard. Consider the morality of supressing or strawmanning anecdotes or research.
JFK engaging with the science and advocating for safety, and nuance in the face of a clear interest by big pharma to suppress that, is not dangerous. But you spreading your simplistic reductions is dangerous. Can you not see that your simplistic reductions and emotional judgements, are doing the very thing that you are accusing others of doing?
I think you need to think about that! Hahahaha! :)