Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and the charlatans now shaping policy at the highest levels of HHS represent the most sustained assault on American public health since COVID-19 itself. That’s not hyperbole. What we have lived through over the past year is not merely a partisan squabble, but the delayed consequence of a simple, ugly fact: a bare majority of Americans spent years actively resisting factual information, and only recently began paying the price.

RFK Jr Caricature.  It's not easy to make a man look more absurd than he does in real life. CC by DonkeyHotey.

We now inhabit a country where routine childhood vaccination against measles, mumps, and rubella is controversial. Not debated at the margins, not questioned by cranks in comment sections, controversial in national polling. This alone should set off alarm bells.

There is, however, a brutally simple way for anyone under the age of about 55 to evaluate whether the MMR vaccine is safe. Look at the people you went to school with from kindergarten through eighth grade. Ask yourself: did they die of measles, mumps, rubella, or the vaccine itself? The answer, overwhelmingly, to a probability on the order of 99.998%,is no. That cohort is your massive, randomized, longitudinal safety trial. No amount of YouTube videos or Substack posts outweighs that empirical fact.

And yet here we are.

From Vaccines to Seed Oils: Magical Thinking Replaces Physics

The same epistemic rot shows up everywhere else. We live in a moment where some people sincerely believe that frying food in seed oils is what makes them fat, rather than consuming excess calories and avoiding physical activity.

This belief isn’t just wrong; it is incoherent. “Calories in, calories out” is not a diet slogan, it is the law of conservation of energy. Every physical process we know obeys it. If you consume less energy than you expend, you lose weight. Full stop.

GLP-1 drugs work for exactly one reason: they reduce hunger, which causes people to eat fewer calories. That’s it. There is no metabolic loophole where seed oils override thermodynamics. Eating fries cooked in tallow will not make you leaner than fries cooked in vegetable oil if the calorie content is the same. The solution remains boring and immutable: eat less, move more, and if you care about body composition, lift heavy things so those calories turn into muscle instead of fat.

Reality does not negotiate.

Tylenol, Autism, and the Collapse of Basic Reasoning

Then there’s the Tylenol-causes-autism claim—a hypothesis so intellectually bankrupt it deserves to be called out plainly. Acetaminophen has been one of the most widely used medications on Earth for decades. If it were a major causal driver of autism, the signal would be deafening and unmissable across multiple independent datasets worldwide. It isn’t.

Autism diagnoses rose because diagnostic criteria expanded, awareness increased, and services became available—not because parents suddenly started poisoning their children with over-the-counter pain relievers. The willingness to entertain this idea anyway is not skepticism; it’s pattern-seeking untethered from evidence. It’s what happens when “question everything” mutates into “believe anything.”

Transgender Healthcare and the Politics of Vibes

Now to the one area where today’s policymakers occasionally gesture at something resembling reason: banning gender-related surgeries for children. In principle, there is a legitimate discussion to be had about age, consent, and irreversible medical decisions.

But that is not the discussion being had.

The politicians driving these bans are not operating with a consistent or rational definition of childhood. They are operating on vibes. Transgender people make them uncomfortable, and discomfort is being laundered into law.

Consider the contradictions. There are proposals to ban certain surgeries under age 19, after legal adulthood begins at 18. Meanwhile, in thirteen states there is no minimum age for trying a teenager as an adult in criminal court. Child marriage remains legal in many states, including several with no minimum age at all. And somehow, the same political class that claims deep concern for protecting minors remains conspicuously relaxed about the involvement of their ideological heroes—left and right—in the Epstein files.

This is not about protecting children. It is about selectively redefining adulthood to suit emotional preferences.

If we were serious, we would adopt two clear thresholds. Around age 13, with parental or guardian involvement, individuals should have meaningful agency over healthcare decisions, education paths, and limited employment. At 18, full adulthood, no hedging, no special carve-outs.

If society believes someone is mature enough to be tried as an adult for a felony, then that same age should govern tattoos, medical autonomy, and bodily consent. Consistency is not radical; it is the bare minimum.

A narrowly defined surgical ban with an age cutoff around 12 could be defended rationally. It would align with how we treat decision-making capacity in other domains. That is not what is on the table.

The level of discourse about this issue is an argument over which Wojack is better to use 

 or   .
The discourse on this is that braindead.  

Why 2025 Was a National Embarrassment

This is the core problem with American governance in 2025: policy is no longer being driven by evidence, consistency, or physical reality. It is being driven by fear, resentment, and a growing tolerance for magical thinking.

Vaccines don’t become unsafe because people are anxious. Calories don’t stop counting because someone dislikes seed oils. Biology doesn’t bend to moral panic. And rights do not vanish because a minority group makes others uncomfortable.

Reality still exists.  Vaccines are a medical miracle, eating too much makes you heavier, and transgender healthcare ALL healthcare is a matter for doctors and patients.  The question is whether we are willing to acknowledge it again before the damage becomes irreversible.

If not we will live in a world where what is true is defined not by principles of science or values of freedom but by whichver jerk wins an election. 

If you like my writing check out my Substack.  I cross post most things to both places these days.