The Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) Report has dropped! The original document included phantom (hallucinated?) references, but those have been fixed apparently. Or maybe not. A graduate student who wrote a review with the same defects would get a flat “F”, but this does not seem to matter. Could AI (Algorithmic Intelligence) have had anything to do with this? Your guess is as good as mine, but my guess is in the affirmative. MAHA influencers of all types are everywhere these days, with Influencer-in-Chief being the current Secretary of Health and Human Services.
But we have spent too much yet not enough time on him. We can begin today with Casey Means MD, the Stanford graduate who left her Otolaryngology (ENT: Ear, Nose, & Throat) residency in Portland after four years of the long and arduous five-year training period. Her stated reason for ditching her career as an ENT is that she realized that she was only treating chronic diseases instead of understanding them, that she had not been taught “causes” of chronic disease in medical school, A few of her classmates begged to differ, but we can take her at her word, which will he heard during Trump v2.0 after she becomes the next permanent Surgeon General of the United States.
We have discussed Casey Means MD and her book Good Energy: The Surprising Connection Between Metabolism and Limitless Health (2024) in a previous post. Good Energy is a very good book in the first half, where she explains energy metabolism in language that is very accessible to the general reader. As I wrote then, her treatment is “simple and straightforward but not simpleminded” as these efforts frequently are. [1] But there is no such thing as “limitless health.” After leaving her residency, Casey Means MD opened a Functional Medicine Practice. [2] I have no doubt she has helped her patients, who are in the position to go it alone when it comes to healthcare. She is also a co-founder of the company Levels:
Levels helps you achieve clarity and control over your health by revealing comprehensive biomarker data and clear guidance toward your goals. With access to blood testing, continuous glucose monitors, and 1-on-1 dietitian support, you can uncover deeper insights into your bodies. Features like AI-powered food logging, habit tracking, and adaptive insights help translate that data into daily actions that drive measurable improvement.
As Casey Means MD describes her own company:
(Levels) is an absolute game changer. I love using Levels as my personal food journal (even when I’m not using a continuous glucose monitor) so I can make sure I’m staying accountable to my goals. It makes knowing if you’re hitting your goals for protein and fiber (and other macros you want to track) completely effortless.
The one, and seemingly only, tenet of MAHA is that “You and you alone are responsible for your health.” This is not and never will be true, but it seemed to me that the rampant obsession with biomarkers and biohacking of members of the Professional Managerial Class (PMC) and their betters in the top-0.1% was basically a harmless waste of time, money, and worry. However, measurement of biomarkers can be useful. This is the one good reason to get an annual medical exam including bloodwork. Hemoglobin A1c [3] is a marker for pre-diabetes and frank disease. It is also good to have a measure of triglycerides and cholesterol, vitamin D, testosterone in males, and a few others biomarkers. Once a year is sufficient absent symptoms.
The Levels program, on the other hand, recommends continuous monitoring of “everything” so you can take charge of your body and your health. But as Dr. Alex Harding put it in a recent opinion piece in STAT News, Longevity Seekers Misunderstand a Fundamental Truth About Biology:
“Biohackers” and other longevity seekers…would have you believe that if you diligently measure your every bodily function and meticulously tailor your nutrition and exercise regimens, you can reprogram your body to live longer and evade dreaded diseases, just as a computer can be programmed to perform virtually any desired task.
(The) logical flaw (here) is to assume that the biological processes in your body are just as predictable and controllable as transistors on a microchip. What they don’t understand, or choose to ignore, is that the human organism is far too complex and unpredictable for that level of control.
This brings us directly back to one of the main selling points from Casey Means MD of Levels: Continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) as a proxy for metabolic health. On the surface, this makes sense. If your glucose tolerance (capacity to reduce plasma glucose level after a high-glucose meal) is low, high blood glucose levels persist and will lead to a greater glycation burden. In diabetes glycation is responsible for damage to small blood vessels, which causes circulatory problems in the periphery, often leading to foot and leg amputation and vision loss due to retinal damage. This onset is insidious and must be stopped. CGM was developed for diabetics to closely monitor their blood glucose levels, and as the technology has improved it has made management of diabetes easier.
The goal of the biohacker is to use CGM to optimize his or her diet with respect to glucose levels. However, the surprising result is that CGM really doesn’t work very well. It turns out that in any given individual, the same meal does not produce the same effect on glucose levels. From the STAT News article:
The trouble is, our bodies’ glucose response to food intake is far too inconsistent to produce informative results. Researchers in a recent study fed participants identical meals separated by one week in a highly controlled hospital environment, while the participants wore continuous glucose monitors. Even when eating identical meals under these artificial conditions, the glucose measurements from a given participant looked no more similar than when the participants each ate an entirely different meal. A scatterplot the researchers made comparing the glucose results from one meal against the identical meal a week later looked like it could have been made by a person throwing darts blindfolded.
The study is behind a paywall, but this link may work. The results are clear. From the Abstract, lightly edited:
- Objectives: To explore within-subject variability of CGM responses to duplicate presented meals in an inpatient setting.
- Methods: CGM data were collected from two inpatient feeding studies in 30 participants without diabetes, capturing 1189 responses to duplicate meals presented ∼1 wk apart from four dietary patterns. One study used two different CGMs (Abbott Freestyle Libre Pro and Dexcom G4 Platinum) whereas the other study used only Dexcom. We calculated the incremental area under the curve (iAUC) for glucose for each 2-h postmeal period and compared within-subject, within-CGM responses to duplicate presented meals using linear correlations, intra-class correlation coefficients (ICC), and Bland–Altman analyses. Individual variability of interstitial glucose responses to duplicate meals were also compared with different meals using standard deviations (SDs). [4]
- Results: There were weak-to-moderate positive linear correlations between within-subject iAUCs for duplicate meals [Abbott r = 0.46, 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.38, 0.54, P <0001 and Dexcom r = 0.45, 95% CI: 0.39, 0.50, P < 0.0001], with low within-participant reliability indicated by ICC (Abbott 0.28, Dexcom 0.17). Bland–Altman analyses indicated wide limits of agreement (LoA) (Abbott −29.8 to 28.4 mg/dL and Dexcom −29.4 to 32.1 mg/dL) but small bias of mean iAUCs for duplicate meals (Abbott −0.7 mg/dL and Dexcom 1.3 mg/dL).
- Conclusions: Individual postprandial CGM responses to duplicate meals were highly variable in adults without diabetes. Personalized diet advice on the basis of CGM measurements requires more reliable methods involving aggregated repeated measurements.
The primary result is in Figure 1, which may be shown in this link (jpg). I would agree with the “weak to moderate” relationship between the responses to duplicate meals in individual patients. This is demonstrated by the positive slope of the lines in panels A and B. The correlation coefficients (r) of 0.45 and 0.46 show that the different glucose monitors are consistent with each other. The Bland-Altman plots show there was no bias in this study (solid line near zero), while there was little correlation between glucose response between identical meals 1 and 2 (scatter between the dotted lines).
The biochemist studying metabolism would prefer a stronger dose-response, which in this case would mean that identical meals in the same subject would elicit a very similar glucose response. This was not observed. The biohacker using CGM as a proxy for metabolic health would need a much stronger dose-response that would not require statistical analysis for confirmation. To go a bit further, which is what I do in my current research, calculation of the r-squared (coefficient of determination) for each CGM yields values of 0.20 and 0.21. These values may be taken to mean that the CGM measurements are “correct” about 20% of the time. So, the biohacker has a 1-in-5 chance of getting the right answer after any given meal. These are exceptionally good odds that will make a good poker player rich but provide no consistent immediate feedback regarding metabolic status.
It is important that we note the senior author on this scientific paper is Kevin D. Hall, who has been one of the best scientists studying the links between nutrition and health for the past twenty years. His paper Ultra-Processed Diets Cause Excess Calorie Intake and Weight Gain: An Inpatient Randomized Controlled Trial of Ad Libitum Food Intake on the effects of ultra-processed foods and weight gain was considered in context in our previous discussion of ultra-processed foods. Dr. Hall recently resigned from the National Institutes of Health because his research became impossible there. As Marion Nestle notes at the link, this is a tragedy for American biomedical science. These have only just begun.
Back to Dr. Harding and STAT again: “Implicit in the biohacking movement is the belief that if one could only diligently optimize all bodily inputs, once could avoid deadly diseases.” This is simply not true now, and it never will be. Physiological homeostasis [5] has been well understood for more than a hundred years, but day-to-day variations in individuals are large. Nevertheless:
There is a growing industry of people and companies selling biohacking advice, tracking devices, and supplements. They believe they are selling people hope for better health. In reality, they may be selling people guilt that they haven’t done more already to control their health and may create a burden of unachievable results.
Still, at the margin some supplements are certainly useful, but they are not a cure-all for anything. As Dr. Harding puts it:
Obsessing over the minute-to-minute changes in your glucose level or tracking your blood levels of a dozen different vitamins and minerals is unlikely to make a massive impact on your health. If you get pleasure out of tracking all of these details, I might question your choice of hobby. But if you are doing these things because you believe you can exert complete control over your health outcomes like a programmer writing a piece of code, my message is: Don’t sweat the small stuff.
Continuous glucose monitoring through Levels will cost more than $2,000 per year for an individual. That would be at least $4,000 for mom and dad and another $2,000 per adolescent child. This is not particularly high as a hobby for many members of the PMC. Still, biohacking remains a waste of time, money, and worry that can be avoided by eating well, getting enough sleep, and exercising, plus avoiding tobacco and drinking too much alcohol.
The public health potential of personal and private biohacking in nil.
Biohacking has been taken to the absolute extreme by a very select few, who apparently think it will allow them to live forever or 200 years, whichever comes first. One aspect of this was covered here when we discussed The Future Loves You: How and Why We Should Abolish Death by Ariel Zeleznikow-Johnston. This book essentially ignores what constitutes the living brain and its associated mind while approaching the transhumanist desire to upload our minds to the Cloud so we can live forever. Even if possible (it isn’t), that would depend on the definition of “live.” The other aspect is embodied in the mega-rich who actually think they can find a way to live forever.
Bryan Johnson is the current poster child for this syndrome, as can be seen on Netflix. I do not have Netflix. This Business Insider video (15:24; ~10 minutes at 1.4x) covers Johnson well enough. Other articles are here and here. The video includes one ostensibly healthful thing after another and another, and it is undeniable that Bryan Johnson appears to be very physically fit in an ethereal way. He exhibits considerable “whole body wellness,” as he calls it.
Johnson begins the video with the statement, “Don’t die…this is humanity’s only objective.” This seems like a cramped view of life. He ends with “Don’t die…This is the next major ideology of the world.” Yes, perhaps to him and his professional biohackers. And naturally Bryan Johnson has a company called BLUEPRINT, where the products are “Grounded in scientific research – Made for everyday life” and will make you live longer, at least 200 years if not forever. His Essential Capsules are a multivitamin tablet with several herbal extracts added plus Lactobacillus acidophilus powder (a probiotic) at 30 capsules for $49.00 (5% discount with a monthly subscription; I did not look up shipping). To be fair to Johnson, a recent paper (25 May 2025) shows that fisetin, an ingredient in BLUEPRINT Essential Capsules, has small effects in old mice but not young mice. Whether this turns out to be generally true in humans will be an interesting question.
But after paying attention to the biohacking movement for some time, I do not see much that distinguishes between and among BLUEPRINT, Levels, Medical Medium, or the “brain tonic” Prevagen that we have discussed before. Biohacking will not Make America Healthy Again in any meaningful way. But these activities are seductive to their believers. And they are profitable. Therein lies their neoliberal utility. Achievement of a true MAHA, vision and result, will require hard work and serious effort without hallucinated foundations.
Making America (and the world) healthy again is not an objectively difficult series of tasks, but each one of them remains a political impossibility. For now. And some MAHA influencers need to come to terms with their mortality. As surely as the President will use ALL CAPS on Truth Social tomorrow, every one of us will “wake up dead” one of these days.
Notes
[1] Her clarity also makes me a bit skeptical of her professed ignorance of the role(s) of inflammation in chronic disease and cancer, which she implies was never taught (to her) at Stanford University School of Medicine.
[2] Functional Medicine is a branch of Alternative Medicine, which is not all “woo-woo.” The abbreviations after the name of the president of the Board of Directors of the American Academy of Functional Medicine are nevertheless intriguing: Lad Santiago, MFA, DC, NMD, DM, PMD, DCCN, DCBCN, DABFM, FACFM, FAAFM, FAAIM, PhD(c). Impressive! MFA and DC, I know. NMD is for a naturopath, I assume. Harvard Medical School does have a “Lifestyle Medicine” program that Dr. Santiago claims expertise in.
[3] HbA1c level is a proxy for glycation, the nonenzymatic attachment of glucose to hemoglobin in red blood cells and thousands of other proteins in the body. Glycation is irreversible damage to proteins that compromises they function. If HbA1c is too high, the patient is not handling glucose very well. An intervention is indicated.
[4] AUC: Area under the glucose concentration curve after the meal, used as a measure of the homeostatic response to the increase in plasma glucose after a meal. Glucose in the circulation stimulates insulin release, which tells liver and muscle to take up glucose from the circulation and use it or store it.
[5] Walter B. Cannon’s The Wisdom of the Body (1932) is still useful for medical students as background to their modern physiology textbook.
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So there IS important intra-individual variation and it isn’t even consistent for a given patient.
You’ll perhaps excuse me if I engage in a little self-congratulatuon whilst I attempt to pat myself on the back. They’re finally beginning to catch up. Next step is doing a study with an outcome that is entirely discrete not numerical.
Though as the article notes, Kevin Hall quit. So all follow up and catch-up is likely to happen in China, aided by biostatisticians and other quantitative researchers from places like Europe and Australasia. It won’t be the USA that takes this further.
> Next step is doing a study with an outcome that is entirely discrete not numerical.
Could you elaborate a bit on ‘entirely discrete?’ I’m imagining ‘categorical data’, which doesn’t make sense to me, since our bodies don’t map well to the categories we imagine. For context, I figure I about 1/4 understood your post on lambda.
I was being a little facetious. If your outcome is something numerical like a glucose level then the maths is easy. This kind of study is like an n-of-1 study where the patient gets multiple rounds of the treatment to assess response and consistency of response, so the maths may be easy but the resources required (cost) is often astronomical (partly explaining why this type of study is still relatively rare compared to “one shot” studies).
If they find that glucose level variation (or whatever the ultimate outcome was) is less important than some discrete outcome (a, b, c or d) then it’s a whole lot harder because those graphs mentioned showing how much people or even a person’s outcomes are “spread around the line” are impossible to do. You must infer a lot of that kind of stuff from these a/b/c/d outcomes….. whole new & harder ballgame.
But we’re increasingly getting to grips with these kind of things, so there is good news regarding “having the right tools”.
> This Type of Exercise Offsets Poor Sleep & Prevents Heart Stiffness
doing more of a vigorous type of exercise
lactate signals to your muscle to get more glucose into it
increases translocation of glucose-4 transporters, which are just below the surface of the muscles. And lactate causes them to go up to the cell surface
and opens up the floodgates for glucose to come in.
This is really beneficial, because it is a way of getting glucose out of your circulation
The elevation in your GLUT-4 transporters lasts for 48 hours.
* Good news in practice, but an independent variable for that fasting blood sugar test.
[youtube.com/watch?v=Hmp7N83a14M]
we’ve still only scratched the interaction of epigenetics (gene expression) and health.
If DNA is the 1,000-volume cookbook which has all the instructions to make you; imagine epigenetics as a reading lamp assigned to each book in a dark library—-some are on; some are off. it makes a difference; sometimes an irreversible difference especially if it’s on/off during pregnancy.
In the interests of not making my posts even more complicated I left epigenetics out but I am firmly convinced epigenetics has a role in explaining things like “how consistently Mr X responds to treatment”.
George Davey-Smith & others were just getting going with epigenetics at Bristol in first decade of this century when I was ramping up my own work…. but via departmental seminars I became convinced they were onto something right back then.
Thanks for bringing this up,
that’s the wild part, right?….. decades on, and despite a lot of progress, epigenetics might as well be the bottom of the Pacific Ocean.
Compare all the money spent on emojis (or crisps or yoga pants) in the past 20 years versus spending on basic epigenetics research. bet epigenetics is laughably small
You are 100% correct. I have had no desire to keep up with Bristol folk (for other reasons) but if the same people are still working on this, they really could “map the bottom of the pacific” to use your metaphor.
Somehow, though, I suspect most have been encouraged to retire by now……just a hunch…..
Nice you brought this theme.
Though research focus a lot on diseases, for instance epigenetic changes and tumour development, or (more than) possible involvement of epigenetic processes on autism, scientists who study epigenetic processes in plants see it in a very different way. Epigenetic drivers in plants were initially identified, mostly, as adaptive responses to environmental stresses. Most epigenetic changes are indeed a response to environmental factors. Genetically identical twins who during pregnancy were subjected to the same factors more or less equally diverge more and more with time and will increasingly react differently to each new environmental stress/stimuli. Though we focus on the malfunctions and diseases epigenetic changes are an important source of variation and adaptation providing plasticity against genetic determinism. The potential importance of epigenetics in the course of evolution is something we are just starting to be aware off. A fascinating issue. As they said In a lab neighbouring mine “la cromatina me la empina” (do not try to translate that please).
From the Bristol internal departmental seminars my interpretation was kinda like the early climate change researchers’ stuff: “we have a degree of confidence but we don’t feel we can say this out loud to the Guardian and Daily Mail yet”
Yet pointing out that “cold spot” off Greenland when it was first spotted and definitely didn’t fit the linear models but could be explained if you introduced “tipping points” I am pretty sad that a lot of stuff got delayed for too long. A friend worked at the main climate place near Exeter, UK for a while and he told me about the unexplained “cold spot” near Greenland 20 years ago. Due to his background in physics he knew that adding “tipping points” etc to the hitherto vaguely linear models could explain this…….but he never felt able to say this without getting ridicule so he left.
Ironically, had my old uni friend recruited to GCHQ got wind of this, they probably would have listened. It is organisations like the 3 letter ones in US and GCHQ here who must prepare for what might happen if these glitches in climate lead to situations that might involve civil unrest!
I smell a “Music Man” (“Simpsons v. the Monorail”)-style cash grab re. biohacking.
We still don’t even have definitive answers re. the level (if any) of basic supplements for maximum health/longevity. the science is straightforward; but $$$$ and no glory in prevention (hence no $$$$$).
But lemme hypothesize….biohacking will be somewhat functionally equivalent to eating the diet of a pre-1990, rural Japanese or Greek person—just a lot more expensive and monetized for some shareholder, somewhere.
but I’m really curious about plasma hacking (being infused with plasma from an 18 y.o.—-that’s gotta be real, right? lol
I hope I stay in good enough shape to see the real biohacking—-probably not, but the kids might
Here’s a verse from Todd Rundgren’s 1985 a capella song Honest Work:
He wrote this song in his thirties, and was performing it on tour last year in his seventies.
“The prophets of a brave new world” and “captains of industry” who have no room in their visions for the ordinary person are more powerful now than ever. Most seem to have no regrets about depriving others of honest work. In an esoteric sense, one could say that they are the ones who most need honest work – to work on becoming honest with themselves and others – about life, the universe, and everything.
Nothing can stop what is coming.
Three meditations on death and longevity:
Psalm 90 (NRSV)
Tao te Ching #16 (Le Guin rendition)
And the third is from my 1975 class report:
The first quote, from the monotheistic (with qualifiers) Hebrew bible takes a bleak view of life such that death can be a relief, but whether or not you’re ready to go, an omnipotent God has ordained that we humans are mortal, at least since the Fall.
The second quote from the Tao te Ching wisely includes us among the “ten thousand things,” the rest of evolved life on the Earth of which we are part. Death is part of the natural order of things, and ultimately, a return to the root and peace.
And finally, my effort to examine what it is we hope to achieve by prolonging our lives, which still understands death to be postponable at best.
So what is it that motivates these billionaires to focus so much attention and resources on avoiding death well beyond the divinely ordained or naturally evolved limits on human lifespan? Is it a combination of hubris fueled by the ridiculous amount of power we’ve accorded them with an intense fear of death and disability? What does it say about them that they are using their vast resources in this way while this country ranks 33rd of 38 OECD countries in child mortality?
Any system that directs such huge flows of money to so few people is inherently self-destructive because humans do not handle power that well.
Thank you for your well developed thoughts here and previously. A much shallower contribution from me. When my son was young he often resisted being told it was time to go to bed. After some observation I concluded it was because he enjoyed consciousness and did not want to give it up. I often think the the efforts of older adults to extend their lives is not much more than the same thing.
Tolkien:
And the Doom of Men, that they should depart, was at first a gift of Iluvatar. It became a grief to them only because under the shadow of Morgoth it seemed to them that they were surrounded by a great darkness, of which they were afraid; and some grew wilful and proud and would not yield, until life was reft from them. We who bear the ever-mounting burden of the years do not clearly understand this; but if that grief has returned to trouble you, as you say, then we fear that the Shadow arises once more and grows again in your hearts.
There’s crossover between this and the Freedom Cities post from a few days ago:
This biohacking company is using a crypto city to test controversial gene therapies (MIT Technology Review).
Unironic Pangloss: plasma hacking (being infused with plasma from an 18 y.o.—-that’s gotta be real, right?
Yup.
Good news Peter Thiel and Count Dracula, company that sells young blood is back in business
https://mashable.com/article/ambrosia-blood-boy-company-back-in-business
Someone Is Trying to Discredit the Story of Peter Thiel’s Interest in Young Blood
https://gizmodo.com/someone-is-trying-to-discredit-the-story-of-peter-thiel-1796135794
Unironic Pangloss: I hope I stay in good enough shape to see the real biohacking—-probably not, but the kids might
So the short answer I get from reputable people is that whatever we do in the future no human individual may crack the current human longevity barrier at around 116-120 years.
That’s because we’re already the result of biohacking by evolution, in having a ridiculously small number of genes — 20,000 protein-coding genes (though with noncoding genes, which produce functional RNA but don’t code for proteins, included, the total may be 40,000) — for such a complex organism.
For comparison, forex, wheat has 94,000–96,000 genes, and is hexaploid, meaning it has six sets of chromosomes. So to keep this simple: given that small number of genes that Homo sap has are already multitasking to an extraordinary extent, if we reengineer one gene or set of genes to repair one specific function, we’re then screwing with a dozen or hundred other functions.
On the other hand, the experts said there wouldn’t be a heavier-than-air aircraft for another thousand years in the same year the Wright Brothers made their first flight.
Huh. I just saw Henry Moon Pie’s post, with the specific quote from Psalm 90:-
The ten thousand things arise together;
in their arising is their return.
Now they flower,
and flowering
sink homeward,
returning to the root.
That’s really not a bad way of summarizing non-scientifically what a lot of the scientists currently say.
Bad formatting on my part. The quote you reference is from the Tao te Ching #16.
And absolutely agree as to your point.
“Junk DNA” by Nessa Cary and “How Life Works” by Philip Ball are two recent outstanding books which give an accessible outline – to my mind at least – of the unbelievable complexity of life. Will we ever understand it enough to be able to make intelligent interventions? Not in my lifetime. By C22? I very much doubt it. Ever? That may or may not be a long time, but I still am not too sanguine about saying yes.
>Lad Santiago, MFA, DC, NMD, DM, PMD, DCCN, DCBCN, DABFM, FACFM, FAAFM, FAAIM, PhD(c).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehKGlT2EW1Q
re resolution: Hmmm maybe mum’s next stage of dementia will naturally resolve. /sarc
Because following mental threats tody I had to inform the authorities earlier. Tomorrow she either gets arrested for driving on a licence that has not been OKed by the DVLA (due to her previous stroke and dementia diagnosis, which ironically would probably not have done anything except raise her premium a bit) or I get thrown onto the street for blabbing.
So if you hear nothing from me tomorrow it’s cause I’m homeless despite the guy with long COVID who did all the shopping jobs etc………but I have all the passwords so you can be sure I’ll give some “presents” to them if they turf me out. I’ve officially informed several clinicians that mum is technically driving illegally and that means they must break confidentially to tell law enforcement. I’m so weary of this stuff…….But Sir Keir wants to make examples of some people so maybe start with my family. How did we get to this? (Apart from fact two profoundly messed up individuals exchanged bodily fluids in the early 1970s)
This sentence is interesting: “The one, and seemingly only, tenet of MAHA is that “You and you alone are responsible for your health.” I do appreciate KLG’s medical/scientific rundowns, but the constant hit pieces on RFK Jr. are a bit tiresome. Where are the references to remind people of the uni-party? Biden’s CDC had flaws beyond measure such as basically, “the pandemic is over, you’re on your own so good luck”. These hit pieces seem to be saying, since Trump came into town, everything is suddenly falling apart. It has been falling apart for years.
If you are going to argue with KLG’s post, you need to rebut it and not smear him by accusing him of writing a hit piece. The fact that you made nice noises about some of his work does not negate your unsupported charge. Bullshit attacks on site authors are a fast track to getting banned. You are already in moderation for past offenses.
You offer no proof that KLG’s statement is incorrect. You need to own what RFK, Jr. is up to rather than shooting messengers.
And KLG is further correct that the MAHA approach is classist. Eating and health obsessions (like superfoods, knowing where your grassfed cow came from; IM Doc has recounted long form recommended by the Dr. Moombeams who cater to the super-rich) have become A Thing among the well off. Much of MAHA is slightly more mass versions of this behavior. Look, I greatly prefer organic food but what if you can’t get it or can’t afford it?
In fact, he’s far too kind with respect to Casey Means. There are tons of well-meaning charlatans in the “healthy eating” and alternative medicine space (as well as rank con artists). And even if their schemes and potions worked, they are nearly always overpriced. The markup on cost over what it would be if you bought the ingredients and a jeweler’s scale to measure your dose (I have a friend who does just that) is massive.
What the CDC did or didn’t do, which is an agency that has nothing to do with food policy, is irrelevant to MAHA. This is “whataboutism,” an invalid form of argument and therefore another violation of our site Policies.
You are also engaging in projection, depicting his behavior as tribalist when you have often operated on that basis with respect to Trump. There are some defenses to be made of what Trump is doing. But you have not provided links or much evidence to support them. They have in the main been higher-brow version of MAGA tropes.
Please up your game. You’ve provide better caliber comments in the past.
OK, this sounds like the panicked me at age 16 when I realized I was going to die, and that there was no comfortable afterlife for me to succeed to thereafter. Is this the level of emotional maturity and intellectual sophistication of our would-be rulers now? Stuck in teenaged shock at suddenly having to face the facts of life and death?