Remember when we used to have actual health data, and the government sponsored meaningful health research? Good times. But guess what? Now, we have Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. just vibing off the dome, and whatever pops into his worm-ridden brain is what passes for health policy in the United States.
Kennedy’s latest big idea is that if people follow a keto diet, it could cure schizophrenia.
Kennedy’s evidence? A doctor at Harvard says he has two patients who had complete remission after following a keto diet.
Two. People.
This isn’t science. It isn’t even enough to be called anecdata.
Kennedy also mentioned “studies right now that I saw two days ago where people lose their bipolar diagnosis by changing their diet.” It’s honestly not clear if Kennedy thinks that bipolar disorder is the same thing as schizophrenia, or if he is referring to some other studies that he has imagined.
There is no doubt Kennedy is pushing the keto diet because it dovetails with the insane new food pyramid he debuted earlier this year. The administration is “ending the war on protein”! Which was never a thing to begin with!
The keto diet is high-fat and low-carb, and hoovering up nothing but saturated fats all day causes a few minor problems, nothing to really worry about. Just high cholesterol, nutrient deficiencies, kidney and liver problems, constipation. Well, once you put it that way.
Wonder if you could just slurp up beef tallow all day and call it good?
This nonsense is part of Kennedy’s wellness grift, but it’s also in keeping with his profound distaste for people with physical or mental illness and his loathing of pharmaceuticals.
So he’s torpedoed access to the COVID-19 vaccine. Based on nothing but whatever the worm in his brain is telling him, he also single-handedly decided to reverse the Centers for Disease Control’s position that vaccines do not cause autism.
Things are so haphazard over at HHS right now that Kennedy’s own National Institutes of Health director, Jay Bhattacharya, appeared in front of the Senate earlier this week and said that he had not actually seen any studies linking autism to vaccines.
He also turned the federal autism board into a playground for anti-vax conspiracy theorists.
Related | RFK Jr.’s ignorant war on vaccines will make America sick again
Kennedy has some other deeply weird thoughts about what causes autism. He touted a discredited study saying that boys who are circumcised have double the rates of autism, which, just, no.
Rather than providing meaningful medical treatment, particularly for mental health issues, Kennedy wants to send people to “wellness farms,” where they get to till the land, get in touch with nature, and “detox” from antidepressants and other drugs. Presumably, they will all be eating a keto diet instead.
Everyone in the Trump administration is dangerous, but Kennedy really stands out for his unique blend of hubris and belief in eugenics.
His deranged push to “Make America Healthy Again” is going to kill us all.
