Right. Let’s trust the amateurs, the hucksters and the “do your own research” fools to be in charge of scientific research. Maybe we can find some witch doctors and voodoo priests to weigh in as well. Lord knows we don’t need any educated, knowledgeable scientists involved. They’re totalitarians. Because they think you should use the scientific method for research instead of the gut feelings of wellness gurus and conspiracy theorists.
Let’s try a little human sacrifice and see if that works, shall we?
I feel like I dodged a bullet as an older person by not getting COVID during those horrible first and second waves. I know people who did, some of whom have never been the same. Some died. These same people didn’t want anyone to wear masks or socially distance and if they’d been in charge at the time, the death toll would have been even more monstrous. As it was the U.S. alone lost 1.2 million people.
I’ve said before that I feel as if the vaccine gave me my life back. When I finally got the bug it was perfectly manageable with Paxlovid and I am convinced that my ability to get the vaccine over these past few years was key. I continued to wear a mask (I still do when in airports because I learned that I could avoid all kinds of illnesses by doing that) and I keep my eye on the surges as they happen. But the scientific advances that came about during the pandemic were literally life-savers and the idea that this worm-addled weirdo is being allowed to run roughshod over medical science because we elected a similarly addled moron to the presidency is almost too much to bear.
Casey Means … Donald Trump’s new nominee for surgeon general, announced yesterday, is a Stanford-trained doctor who is well-spoken and telegenic. Most important, she clearly knows how to draw attention to health issues. Good Energy, the book she published last year with her brother, Calley (who, by the way, is a special adviser in the Trump administration), is Amazon’s No. 1 best seller in its “nutrition” and “aging” categories. She regularly posts on Instagram, where she has more than 700,000 followers.
In many other ways, however, Means is far from perfect. A leading voice in Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s “Make America healthy again” movement, she has a habit of trafficking in pseudoscience and at times can be hyperbolic, to put it lightly. Means has said that America’s diet-related health issues could lead to a “genocidal-level health collapse” and that “all of us are a little bit dead while we are alive” because of what she calls “metabolic dysfunction.” She has also written about taking part in full-moon ceremonies and about how talking to trees helped her find love—though she admitted that the rituals were “out there.” And Means (who didn’t respond to a request for comment) has used her platform to promote “mitochondrial health” gummies, algae-laden “energy bits,” and vitamins she described as her “immunity stack.”
Means was not Trump’s top choice for surgeon general. His first nominee, Janette Nesheiwat, was pulled out of contention yesterday amid allegations that she had misrepresented her medical training. Presuming the Senate confirms Means as the next surgeon general, she will be another one of RFK Jr.’s ideological compatriots who have joined him in the Trump administration. National Institutes of Health Director Jay Bhattacharya and FDA Commissioner Marty Makary are both also skeptics of the public-health establishment. Earlier this week, Vinay Prasad, another prominent medical contrarian, assumed a top job at the FDA. Now the “MAHA” takeover of the federal health agencies is all but complete. Earlier today, Trump told reporters that he tapped Means “because Bobby thought she was fantastic.”
I think we’re literally entering a new dark age.