Category: Science and the Media
Does public health “need” MAHA? No more than medicine “needs” CAM!
Last week, The Atlantic published an embarrassingly contrarian piece about how public health "needs" the "make America healthy again" movement. Public health needs MAHA only if it "needs" to integrate antivax and quackery into medicine and public health. Sound familiar?
Will NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya stand up for scientists censored by the American Diabetes Association?
Last Friday, the American Diabetes Association censored diabetes researchers at its annual meeting who opposed the Trump administration's NIH policies. Will "Flame of Freedom" winner Jay Bhattcharya speak up?
A blast from the past: The “interstitium,” the inspiration for that recent awful NYT acupuncture article
I'm on vacation this week and decided to repost a 2018 article that I had written for my other blog (but never published on SBM) that's oddly relevant to the SBM post last week about that awful NYT acupuncture article. Meet the introduction of the "interstitium" in acupuncture, complete with a major Deepak Chopra connection!
KevinMD platforms criticism of MAHA by a “functional medicine” practitioner
Although some of the criticisms of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s MAHA movement are spot on, why did KevinMD platform a practitioner of functional medicine woo to make them?
MAHA and science-based public health: Can’t we all just get along?
The answer is: Very likely not, at least not as long as MAHA embraces quackery and antivax pseudoscience—not that that didn't stop STAT News from ignoring the elephant in the room, vaccines, in search of a "kumbaya" moment between MAHA and public health.
RFK Jr. is definitely coming for your vaccines (part 8): “Massive Epidemic of Vaccine Injury,” ACIP, and a prominent oncologist
The MAHA Institute is holding an event called MEVI Roundtable: Massive Epidemic of Vaccine Injury to fear monger about vaccines. Unfortunately, Dr. Wafik El-Deiry, a prominent oncologist-scientist, will participate.
The peptide craze sweeping America has a fan in RFK Jr
This could lead to less FDA oversight just when more is needed
MAHA Gave Us MAGA 2.0. Remember the Enablers.
When the history of this sad era is written, MAHA doctors will be disgraced pariahs and cautionary tales. Everyone else should be remembered based only on whether they tried to put the brakes on MAHA/MAGA however they could or whether they slammed the accelerator.
And so 2026 begins…with a resurrection of the myth that COVID vaccines cause “turbo cancers”
I had hoped to let this cup pass, but, after a week and a half, I found that I couldn't. Eminent oncologist and cancer researcher Dr. Wafik El-Deiry is back and doubling down on the unproven claim that COVID vaccines cause "turbo cancers," this time with an added dash of conspiracy theory. What happened to him?
Revisiting the question of debating science deniers
Wealthy tech bro turned antivax crank Steve Kirsch attacked Paul Offit for refusing to debate antivaxxers, while Dr. Mike was "surrounded" by MAHA stans. These recent events led me to revisit the question: Is it ever a good strategy to publicly debate cranks?