In a Congressional hearing on Wednesday, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) directly confronted anti-vaccine Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on his rejection of germ theory—the unquestionable scientific idea that specific pathogenic microbes cause specific diseases. After Kennedy defended his fringe view, Senator Bill Cassidy fact-checked and debunked Kennedy’s denialist arguments in real time.
The exchanges mark a rare instance in which Kennedy’s dismissal of germ theory has been raised in such a high-profile public setting, in this case, a hearing of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions. Kennedy, who has no background in science, medicine, or public health, is well known as an ardent anti-vaccine activist and peddler of conspiracy theories. But his startling rejection of a cornerstone theory in biomedical science has mostly been underreported.
As Ars Technica reported last year, Kennedy wrote about his germ theory denialism explicitly in his 2021 book The Real Anthony Fauci. In it, Kennedy maligns germ theory as a tool of pharmaceutical companies, scientists, and doctors to promote the use of modern medicines. Instead of accepting germ theory, Kennedy promotes a concept akin to the discarded terrain theory, in which diseases stem not from germs, but from imbalances in the body’s inner “terrain.” Those imbalances are claimed to be caused by poor nutrition and exposure to environmental toxins and stressors. (In his book, Kennedy erroneously labels this as “miasma theory,” but that is a different theory that suggests diseases derive from breathing bad air, vapors, or mists from decaying or corrupting matter. The idea was supplanted by germ theory, while terrain theory was never widely accepted.)
…
Literal medieval doctor levels of medical understanding.
But he still gets to keep his job, because Congress won’t remove him
yikes, dude is gonna be draining the four humors.
Who’s the barber here? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edIi6hYpUoQ
What was only recently satire is an actual position.
They will kill you and your kids.
I bet he doesn’t wash his hands after using the bathroom. Also, does he not visit the dentist? He should stop getting his teeth cleaned/checked if he thinks germs don’t cause disease.
Pete Hegseth bragged on TV that he had not washed his hands in 10 years, because “germs are not a real thing.” These are stupid people.
These are people that believe that if you say something with enough arrogance, it makes it true.
Wowwww, somehow that honestly surprises me that even one of these magats could be this blindingly moronic
These are stupid people.
And yet they were able to fully take over the United States government. Really says something about the movements and institutions opposing them.
Says more about the fragility of democracies. For other countries, the warning should be clear: do not fucking defund public education, do not restrict education.
Unfortunately, we keep electing people who defund education, because it’s expensive, and then cry that people vote for morons who waste away tens or hundreds of billions of dollars…
The rules mistakenly assumed that politicians would always be intelligent people with the interests of the nation in mind.
They didn’t account for people voting for moronic crooks who openly intended to pillage and rape the nation for their own profit.
That they are complicit, yeah.
How is that even something I have to Read? Fuck these morons.
This guy is in charge of the CENTER FOR DISEASE CONTROL. Not only responsible for the health of the nearly 400M US Citizens, but really globally in many ways. And this failson thinks you can sweat away ebola with some fucking supplements… that he happens to peddle.
I’d like to challenge him to prove it. Ebola is a messy way to go so I wouldn’t want to be in the same room, but I guess that’s what cameras are for.
I love the term “failson”. It’s such an apt description for these grifting fuckups.
Except for the way they keep succeeding 😐
Doctors I trust more than Doctor Oz, Doctor Phil, Pete Hegseth, or RFK Jr.
Doc Brown
Doc Gooden
Doc Holiday
Doc Hollywood
Doc Johnson
Doc McStuffins
Doctor John Becker
Doctor Bombay
Doctor Bronner
Doctor Claw
Doctor Demento
Doctor Detroit
Doctor Dirty
Doctor Dolittle
Doctor Doofenshmirtz aka Dr. D or just “Doof”
Doctor Doom
Doctor Drake Ramoray (“Days of Our Lives”)
Doctor Evil
Doctor Hubert J. Farnsworth
Doctor Feelgood
Doctor Frankenstein
Doctor Girlfriend
Doctor Hannibal Lecter
Doctor Horrible
Doctor Douglas “Doogie” Howser
Doctor Gregory House
Doctor Jekyll
Doctor Johnny Fever
Doctor Kevorkian
Doctor Kildare
Doctor Richard Kimble
Doctor Leonard H. “Bones” McCoy
Doctor Martens
Doctor Moreau
Doctor Nick
Doctor Otto Octavius
Doctor Pimple Popper
Doctor Scholl’s
Doctor Orin Scrivello
Doctor Seuss
Doctor Zachary Smith
Doctor Spaceman
Doctor Spock
Doctor Strange
Doctor Strangelove
Doctor Teeth
Doctor Theopolis
Doctor Watson
Doctor Marcus Welby
Doctor Who
Doctor Zaius
Doctor Zhivago
Doctor Zoidberg
Dr. Dre
Dr. Enuf
Dr. Hook
Dr. J (Julius Erving)
Dr. Octogonapus (DOCTOROCTAGONAPUSBLURRR)
Dr. Otto Octavius
Dr. Pepper
Dr. Donald D. Rose
Dr. Tedros
Dr. Tran
Rug Doctor
Spin Doctors
The Doctor (Star Trek: Voyager)
Even Nurse Ratchet
LOL TWO downvotes. Must be Dr. Oz and Dr. Phil because Pete and RFK can’t read.
Can’t help but notice that you have Doc Oc in there twice but you don’t have Dr Ruth even once…
Once as Dr. and once as Doctor. I’ll have to figure out which one is most common.
Dr. Ruth! How could I have missed her??? THANKS!
The Silent Hill nurses.
At least they’re predictable
Such a tragic family history with so many promising people lost over the years. Kind of makes you question survival of the fittest.
Alligators looking pretty darn close to how they did millions of years ago is a nice indicator for survival of the fittest. I think fittest probably involves social paradigms with humans, and being recognized as fit might present an interesting intellectual challenge where you are more likely to find yourself surrounded by sycophants who soonest reenforce your own bias. Perhaps even, you’re looking at decades of that toxin in its effects. But, I am not a researcher on this field so I digress.
This is all an attempt by the rich to reduce numbers of poor people. They need more people dying, so they’re going to pull out all the safety features we’ve built into our society to prolong life.
Less “reduce the number,” and more “make the poor more tractable.” The rich still need human carpet to walk on, they just need it to be uneducated, fecund, and desperate to get under their feet.
This contradicts their insistence that children should have children to stop population decline
Right-wing politics has always been an incoherent ragbag of momentarily convenient positions, insincerely held.
To reduce the number of non-working poor people. Or “useless eaters” as the psychotic, billionaire class calls them.
Or “useless eaters” as the psychotic, billionaire class calls them.
More projection, I see
Is that why they’re trying to restrict birth control and sex education while saying people need to have more kids, so there will be fewer poor people?
Which is short sighted as a healthy populace is what lead to the US economic growth in industry prior to it being redefined as being based entirely on stock market gambling vibes. A strong and healthy populace was a big part of the post WWII boom.
That’s not what Putin told him. You gotta do what the boss says.
Short-sightedness is like their chief feature
It is insane to think that he is endorsing a theory that was widely rejected even by Miasma guys in the 19th century.
The miasma advocates were wrong, but they still did many things that were beneficial. The first water treatment plants that provided the first safe drinking water were advocated for by miasma advocates, and the London sewer system, one that is still being used today was also built by them.
Terrain theory? They did jack shit. Just a bunch of crazy nuts who rejected both miasma and germ theory in the late 19th century.
To be fair, miasma theory made sense and was completely logical, before microscopes.
They knew about actual lethal gases, and ones that had different effects on the body. They knew there were gases they couldn’t yet detect, as they were still discovering new ones. They knew rotting stuff produced all kind of gases and stenchs.
Hell, the theory is still pretty much valid for radon, though for reasons they couldn’t have possibly imagined.
And at the same time, the idea that animals could get small enough to be invisible, and to invade the human body, was absurd.
It came as quite a surprise when the microscope was invented and every single drop of water turned out to be a whole ecosystem teeming with life, and we turned out to be precariously balanced colonies of microscopic cells, also inhabited by a whole bacterial ecosystem teeming with both friends and foes.
And then came viruses, which are downright absurd to the point that we’re still figuring out where they fit in the tree of life, and whether they’re alive or not.
And prions, which are the stuff of horror science fiction yet completely logical when you think about how proteins work, and how easily they might sometimes not.
Miasma theory wasn’t correct, sure, but it was definitely simpler, and made much more sense than the mess reality turned out to be.
The Horseman known as Pestilence.
A kind of Terry Pratchett, Good Omens version, absolutely. “We don’t actually have to make new plagues, we just convince enough people that the natural plagues they’ve already got don’t exist, or the causes aren’t what they’ve been told, or that the treatments do greater harm than the disease. In fact, we don’t even have to deceive that many. A handful of posts to alternative medicine, conspiracy, and mom’s net forums, and human nature will do the rest.”
I need to read that one. Terry was a goddamn genius who got taken from us too soon.
There’s also already a horseman for War. Who would be Death and Famine I wonder?
Famine, whoever is in charge of cutting funds for humanitarian projects the USA were supporting and threatening millions of lives.
We truly live in the golden age of the moron.
These kinds of things are available to watch and honestly, with this current adminstration, they’re incredibly interesting imo. If you care to watch the whole thing:
If you just want Bernie Sander’s question it’s the second star at about 24:00
It was interesting for me decades ago before i realized these politicians just make shit up all the time and it’s boring now. Yes trump admin is definitely the dumbest one ever but idk it just bores me now, this was all stuff us teenagers were crying about under bush and now it’s just worse.
Those imbalances are claimed to be caused by poor nutrition and exposure to environmental toxins and stressors.
So, like swimming in streams polluted with sewage?
Or having brain worms?
Or getting whale carcass juice on you?
Or handling a dead bear?
Or cutting off a dead raccoon’s dick?
This guy is trying so hard to be patient zero in the next plague, and he’s not even trying to hide it.
people let him off easy because he can’t talk well. heard he’s invested in supplement sales. like snake oil guy of yesteryear
People didn’t let him off easy. They outright rejected him. So he sold himself to Trump for the position he has. He’s a morally compromised whore for money and power so he doesn’t have to face the harm he has caused to countless people.
Don’t hold your hand (or god forbid, elbow) in front of your mouth when you sneeze, it’s actually racoon penis slime coming out and that is totally fine.
It’s extremely poor hygiene to sneeze into your hand fyi
“You cover your mouth with the inner part of your elbow—it’s called the vampire cough!”
“Oh-no!”
“No, it’s all right—there’s no real vampires!”
(From The Office, I forget which episode.)
This. Because we all know you’re going right back to touching everything and getting your sneeze germs everywhere.
It’s better than just letting it fly. You can at least wash your hands after (and you obviously should).
I have never in my life seen someone cough into their hands, and not just carry on immediately touching everything as usual.
Okay you’re right. All people are like the people you’ve seen. I’m just lying, I definitely don’t wash my hands immediately if that happens. Because you know, it makes total sense for me to respond and lie here. Typical moronic Internet response, Jesus Christ.
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Yes desperately stopping a sneeze from flying on other people a certain way because you know you can wash your hands afterwards is exactly like sticking you fingers into shit in your own asshole. Exactly the same.
I think this wins “stupidest Internet argument” for the year for me. Maybe you win “most judgy, least understanding weird scolder” for the year too.
Stop sneezing into your hand you nasty bastard
Is it? Like it seems like it could be worse than just sneezing down towards tje floor or something, people sneeze into their hands and then touch things everyone else will touch like doorknobs and table surfaces.
“sneezing down toward the floor” allows trillions of fine mist particles to go airborne, rather than get washed off your hand. Soap and water work.
