diet
Yes, we have met him before. Recently, I came across Vickers again though one of my recent posts describing the story of a young Cambridge student who died following his advice.
Vickers describes himself as follows:
Dr. Patrick Vickers is the Creator and Founder of the Advanced Gerson Therapy Protocol; the world’s premier protocol for the treatment of cancer and degenerative disease. Chronicled in the epic documentary, The Truth About Cancer: A Global Quest, and a repeatedly invited guest on countless podcasts around the globe, Dr. Vickers is one of the most recognizable faces in natural medicine and the face of the Gerson Therapy around the world. His patient is also chronicled in the documentary, The Beautiful Truth.
At the age of 11, after witnessing a miraculous recovery from a chiropractic adjustment, Dr. Vickers’ passion for natural medicine was inspired. Born and raised outside of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Dr. Vickers obtained undergraduate degrees in Pre-Med from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and LIFE University in Marietta, Georgia before going on to receive his Doctorate of Chiropractic from New York Chiropractic College in Seneca Falls, New York in 1997.
While a student at NYCC, Dr. Vickers befriended the iconic Charlotte Gerson; the last-living daughter of Dr. Max Gerson, M.D. who Nobel Peace Prize Winner, Dr. Albert Schweitzer, called, “The most eminent genius in medical history,” as Dr. Gerson was reversing a vast majority of degenerative diseases, including terminal cancer, up until his death in 1959. To date, eight movies have chronicled Dr. Gerson’s work.
Upon graduation and recognizing Dr. Vickers fervent passion for Dr. Gerson’s therapy, Charlotte Gerson invited Dr. Vickers to come live with her and study Dr. Gerson’s handwritten files of all his active patients from 1905-1959. Dr. Vickers remains one of the few people in the world to ever study Dr. Gerson’s personal files.
Fifteen years ago, seeing a desperate need to preserve Dr. Gerson’s legacy and the progression of his therapy, Dr. Vickers created the Advanced Gerson Therapy Protocol and Clinic which, rapidly, became the world’s premier clinic for the treatment of cancer and advanced disease.
With the rapidly changing, increasingly dangerous. societal, political and economic conditions in Mexico and around the world today, making it nearly impossible to efficiently, safely and peacefully carry out the Gerson Therapy in a clinical setting. Dr. Vickers has recently created his Three-Month, Advanced Gerson Protocol Home Program to replace all former, clinical operations. With no evidence to suggest that clinical outcomes are increased by receiving the Gerson Therapy in a clinical setting, Dr. Vickers remains dedicated to providing the most comprehensive, patient-centric protocol for cancer and degenerative disease while guaranteeing the greatest personalized attention and cost-effective solution available anywhere in the world today.
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Allow me to make just 7 short point based on Vickers statements:
- Dr. Patrick Vickers: he is a chiro and not a proper doctor (are US chiros allowed to treat cancer?*).
- the world’s premier protocol: I see no evidence for this claim.
- miraculous recovery from a chiropractic adjustment: it ought to be ‘miraculous’, as chiropractic adjustments are not based on evidence.
- Dr. Gerson was reversing a vast majority of degenerative diseases, including terminal cancer: there is no sound evidence that Gerson ever reversed a single case of cancer.
- the world’s premier clinic for the treatment of cancer and advanced disease: this must be the most pompous untruth I’ve heard for a long time.
- the most comprehensive, patient-centric protocol for cancer and degenerative disease: this must be the second most pompous untruth I’ve heard for a long time.
- cost-effective solution: I see no evidence for this claim.
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As Vickers seems a bit shy about disclosing all the facts, let me try to add to his CV what he seems to have forgotten:
Vickers founded and directed the Northern Baja Gerson Center in Rosarito, Mexico. The clinic offered treatments like:
Hyperthermia therapy (water based treatment)
Oxygen enhancement therapies
Ozone therapy
Hyperbaric oxygen chamber
Laetrile (B17)
High dose intravenous vitamin C
Chelation
Beamer math
Coley’s toxins therapy
Dendritic cell therapy
Infrared therapy
Frankincense oil
Natural enzymes
CoQ10
Due to “challenges” in operating clinics in Mexico, Vickers transitioned to offering his “Three-Month Advanced Gerson Protocol Home Program” whichincludes Gerson-specific supplies (e.g., coffee, flax oil, potassium powder), high-dose supplements like curcumin, selenium, CoQ10, and niacin, educational videos and regular consultations with Vickers and his team. The program is as unproven as Gerson’s original therapy. Vicker’s Medline-listed papers seem to amount to exactly zero!
Vickers asserts that Gerson Therapy is heavily censored by medical authorities and media due to its threat to the conventional medical industry. He cites alleged suppression of Dr. Gerson’s work as evidence. Vickers claims his therapy has the potential to disrupt the trillion-dollar medical industry. Vickers is active on platforms like YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram, sharing patient stories. He is a frequent guest on podcasts like BetterHealthGuy, Rational Wellness, and CancerTalks, discussing the Gerson therapy. Vickers’ approach is rooted in a belief that conventional cancer treatments are limited or even detrimental and that the Gerson therapy offers a more natural, effective alternative. None of these claims are supported by sound evidence.
Kay Allison “Kate” Shemirani (born 1965) is, according to Wikipedia, a British conspiracy theorist, anti-vaccine activist and former nurse who lost her licence to practise in 2020 for misconduct. She is best known for promoting conspiracy theories about COVID-19, vaccinations and 5G technology. Shemirani has been described by The Jewish Chronicle as a leading figure of a movement that includes conspiracy theorists as well as far-left and far-right activists.
When Kate’s daughter, Paloma was diagnosed with cancer, doctors told her she had a high chance of survival with chemotherapy. But in 2024, seven months later, she died – having refused the treatment. Now Marianna Spring for the BBC reported that Paloma’s brothers blame their mother’s anti-medicine conspiracy theories for Paloma’s death aged 23. Here are a few excerpts of this excellent article:
Kate and her ex-husband, Paloma’s father Faramarz Shemirani, wrote to the BBC saying they have evidence “Paloma died as a result of medical interventions given without confirmed diagnosis or lawful consent”. Paloma’s elder brother Sebastian disagrees: “My sister has passed away as a direct consequence of my mum’s actions and beliefs and I don’t want anyone else to go through the same pain or loss that I have.” Both brothers believe social media companies should take stronger action against medical misinformation – which the BBC has found is being actively recommended on several major sites. “I wasn’t able to stop my sister from dying. But it would mean the world to me if I could make it that she wasn’t just another in a long line of people that die in this way,” says Gabriel.
It is getting harder to fight medical misinformation because of the prominence of figures such as Robert F Kennedy Jr, who have previously expressed unscientific views – says oncologist Dr Tom Roques, vice-president of the Royal College of Radiologists. When you have a US health and human services secretary “who actively promotes views like the link between vaccines and autism that have been debunked years ago, then that makes it much easier for other people to peddle false views,” he says. “I think the risk is that more harmful alternative treatments are getting more mainstream. That may do people more active harm.”
Paloma brothers say it was their father who first got into conspiracy theories, which piqued their mother’s interest. The children absorbed outlandish ideas, including that the Royal Family were shape-shifting lizards, says Gabriel. “As a young child, you trust your parents. So you see that as a truth,” he says.
According to her sons, Kate Shemirani’s anti-medicine views were accelerated in 2012, when she was diagnosed with breast cancer. Even though she had the tumour removed through surgery, she credits alternative therapies for her recovery. On social media, she explains how she used juices and coffee enemas, i.e. the Gerson therapy.
In late 2023, Paloma began to have chest pains and breathing difficulties. Eventually, her doctors gave her the diagnosis of non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Untreated, this type of cancer can be fatal, but doctors told Paloma she had an 80% chance of recovery if she had chemotherapy.
Kate Shemirani texted Paloma’s boyfriend, Ander, to say: “TELL PALOMA NOT TO SIGN [OR] VERBALLY CONSENT TO CHEMO OR ANY TREATMENT.” Medical staff discussed safeguarding concerns about Paloma among themselves and wrote that they had “a concern regarding parental influence” on her. But they also thought that she did have the capacity to make her own decisions.
For advice, Paloma reached out to a former partner of Kate Shemirani called Patrick Vickers, an alternative health practitioner. When Paloma asked him about the “80% chance of cure” the doctors had said chemotherapy would offer, Mr Vickers said that was “exaggerated”. He encouraged her to start Gerson therapy and to maybe consider chemotherapy if her symptoms did not improve after six weeks. Mr Vickers told the BBC that any “assertions that I played a role in her [Paloma’s] death are legally inaccurate”.
Paloma made up her mind. She decided not to pursue chemotherapy – at least for the time being – and would try Gerson therapy to start with. Some of her friends noticed how she became more and more unwell. On one video call, Paloma said she had a new lump in her armpit, and her mother had told her it meant that the cancer was going out of her body. Sebastian and Gabriel were so worried that Gabriel started a legal case. He was not arguing Paloma did not have capacity, but he wanted an assessment of the appropriate medical treatment for her.
But events overtook them and the case ended without a conclusion in July – because Paloma had died. She had suffered a heart attack caused by her tumour. She was taken to hospital, but after several days, her life support was switched off.
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Another tragic and avoidable death brought about by the dreadful Gerson therapy. We have discussed this treatment many times before, e.g.:
- Gerson diet almost killed a former model
- The Gerson Therapy: possibly the worst cancer quackery of them all
- ‘Censored for curing cancer’: the Gerson therapy re-visited
- Gerson therapy: a treatment to avoid at all cost
If only Paloma had looked at my blog! I could have easily met up with her and tried to persuade her to save her own life.
Watch out for one of my next posts; it will focus on the above-cited Patrick Vickers.
Robert F Kennedy Jr. is, as we all know, the United States secretary of health and human services. He went to Harvard, graduating in 1976 with a Bachelor of Arts in American history and literature. He earned a Juris Doctor degree from the University of Virginia School of Law in 1982 and a Master of Laws from Pace University in 1987. He has no education or training in science or medicine, yet he became one of America’s most voiciferous anti-vaccination campainers. Trump nominated him as Health secretary but more than 80 organizations voiced opposition to Kennedy’s nomination. Despite of all opposition, Kennedy got the job.
- He claimed: “There’s no vaccine that is safe and effective.” (2023 podcast, as cited during his Senate confirmation hearing.)
- He said: “COVID-19 is targeted to attack Caucasians and Black people. The people who are most immune are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese.” (July 2023 conversation, reported by the New York Post.)
- He claimed the polio vaccine “killed more people than it saved.” (Reported in posts on X.)
- He stated that the HPV vaccine “causes cancer.” (Reported in posts on X.)
- He noted that “Thimerosal is immensely toxic to the brain tissue” (Reported in posts on X.) … yet, it is harmless in the doses used in vaccines.
- He claimed the 1918 Spanish flue epidemic was caused by the flue vaccine … which did not even exist at that time.
- He claimed: “Replacing the seed oils used to cook Big Macs with beef tallow would make the burgers good for people.” (February 2025 interview with Fox News’ Laura Ingraham.)
- He insisted that “Autism comes from vaccines.” (in 2023, as cited by Common Dreams.)
- He claimed that fluoride in public water causes “cancer, IQ loss, thyroid disease, and other health problems.” (posts on X and interviews, as reported in 2024.)
- He said that “WiFi radiation causes cancer, cellphone tumors, and opens your blood-brain barrier.” (a 2023 podcast with Joe Rogan.)
- He remarked that the “NIH told doctors and patients not to report injuries after taking an abortion drug.” (a February 2025 interview with Fox News’ Laura Ingraham.)
- He claimed that “Lyme disease is a bioweapon.” (Reported in posts on X.)
- It undermines public health efforts.
- It endangers individual well-being.
- It leads to vaccine hesitancy.
- It causes outbreaks of preventable diseases like measles.
- It promotes distrust in medical institutions.
- It discourages people from seeking evidence-based treatments.
- It promotes unproven or harmful alternatives.
- It spreads fear and uncertainty amplifying anxiety.
- It leads to social polarization.
- It delays critical interventions.
- It increases health disparities.
- It strains healthcare systems.
- It contributed to millions of preventable deaths during pandemics.
- It erodes trust in science.
- It fosters dangerous behaviors.
- It threatens collective health outcomes.
- It particularly puts vulnerable populations, including those with lower health literacy, at risk.
Conclusion?
Yes, you guessed it Kennedy is a menace and should resign asap!
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Sleep: Sufficient restorative sleep seems important, as the system is most active during slow-wave sleep. It is thus advisible to maintain a regular sleep pattern and optimize your sleep by providing a dark, quiet and cool environment. Some research suggests that sleeping on your side may be preferable for optimizing glymphatic clearance compared to sleeping on your back or stomach.
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Drink: Adequate hydration supports the production of CSF and enhances its flow. This is likely to assist the function of the glymphatic system.
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Exercise: Aerobic exercise may enhance glymphatic function by promoting CSF circulation.
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Diet: Food rich in omega-3 fatty acids, antioxidants, and low in highly processed meals are prone to boost glymphatic efficiency. Preliminary evidence indicates that intermittant fasting may boost glymphatic activity.
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Stress: Chronic stress can impair sleep and would therefore impede glymphatic function. A range of relaxation techniques may prove to be valuable in this way but, at present, no clinical trials support this hypothesis.
- Lymphatic drainage: this manual massage technique could indirectly support the glymphatic system by enhancing the overall clearance of waste from the brain and body. Yet, direct evidence linking lymphatic drainage techniques to enhanced glymphatic function is as yet not available.
As already mentioned: much of the above remains speculative and uncertain. What seems certain, however, is that we will hear much more about the glymphatic system in the near future.
WATCH THIS SPACE.
Jessica Knurick, PhD, RDN published a comprehensive list of things the Trump admin did to harm public health. It is as impressive as it is frightening; allow me to show it to you:
Food Assistance & Nutrition Access
- Eliminated USDA’s local food program connecting farmers to schools.
- Eliminated USDA’s Farm-to-Food Bank program that helped food banks source fresh, local food.
- Cut funding for the Patrick Leahy Farm to School Program, which supported hands-on nutrition education and local food sourcing in schools.
- Proposed $1.3B cuts to WIC, slashing fruit and vegetable benefits for at-risk women, infants, and children.
- Proposed over $300 billion in SNAP cuts, which could result in 3.2 million individuals losing access to nutrition assistance.
- Halted USDA food deliveries to food banks, worsening supply during high demand.
- Defunded SNAP-Ed, reducing nutrition education for low-income families.
Food Safety & Regulation Rollbacks
- FDA budget cuts paired with plans to shift food inspections to state agencies, weakening oversight and consistency.
- Massive staff cuts at the FDA, including food safety scientists and inspectors — an estimated one-third of the food safety workforce has been let go.
- Cut food toxicologist staff at FDA responsible for evaluating chemical risks in the food supply.
- Jim Jones, former EPA official and head of FDA’s Human Foods Program, resigned in protest, stating he could no longer protect the food supply under the current conditions.
- Suspended the Food Emergency Response Network’s proficiency testing program, limiting early detection of foodborne threats.
- Paused milk quality testing during the bird flu outbreak, raising public safety concerns.
- Eliminated USDA food safety advisory committees, silencing key scientific voices on foodborne risks.
- Proposed permanent increases in meat processing line speeds, ignoring warnings from labor and food safety experts.
- Continued deregulatory mandates requiring agencies to eliminate ten existing regulations for every new one introduced, undermining long-term food safety infrastructure.
Scientific Research & Public Health Infrastructure
- Proposed $18B in NIH cuts; plan to consolidate 27 research centers.
- Froze new NIH grants and terminated 694 existing awards totaling $1.81 billion, disrupting research on cancer, HIV, ALS, and other critical health issues.
- Halted all federal grant funding via OMB memo (later withdrawn under court pressure).
- Barred NIH subawards to foreign institutions, cutting off international research partnerships.
- Removed 8,000+ public-facing federal health and science webpages, including datasets on youth risk behavior, reproductive health, and environmental hazards.
- Announced a major restructuring of HHS with a plan to eliminate 20,000 positions, weakening the workforce behind public health programs and research infrastructure.
- Eliminated CDC’s Division of Environmental Health Services and Practices, which included programs addressing childhood lead poisoning, asthma, safe water, radiation exposure, and climate-related health risks.
- Eliminated all NIOSH (National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health) programs except for the World Trade Center and Black Lung Disease programs, gutting workplace safety and occupational health research.
- Proposed elimination of the Head Start program, disrupting early education, health screenings, and nutrition services for low-income families.
- Proposed elimination of the Healthy Start, a proven program that reduces maternal and infant mortality by employing women in low-income communities to provide health education and support for pregnant and postpartum families.
- Eliminated the CDC Division of Oral Health, ending federal support for preventing tooth decay and promoting dental health in underserved communities.
- Pushed back against community water fluoridation efforts, and initiated steps to end federal support for community water fluoridation.
- Eliminated the federal Newborn Screening Advisory Committee, disrupting evidence-based updates to newborn screening and risking delayed diagnoses.
- Targeted CDC’s Chronic Disease Division (NCCDPHP) for elimination, undermining programs focused on tobacco prevention, cancer screening, and school health.
- Terminated $11.4 billion from the CDC’s COVID Epidemiology and Laboratory Capacity (ELC) grant program, undermining state efforts to modernize public health data infrastructure, lab capacity, and disease surveillance systems.
- Terminated multiple HIV surveillance and prevention research programs, including the Adolescent HIV Prevention Network and NIH-funded provider training initiatives, weakening national data systems and care delivery pipelines.
- Closed CDC’s Division of STD Prevention and Viral Hepatitis laboratories, which previously served as global reference centers for tracking antibiotic resistance and emerging infectious threats.
- Eliminated the HHS Office of Climate Change and Health Equity (OCCHE), which addresses the health impacts of climate change on vulnerable communities.
- Withdrew the U.S. from the World Health Organization, severing access to global disease surveillance systems and pandemic coordination.
Communication Suppression & Scientific Censorship
- Imposed a communications freeze at CDC and other health agencies, delaying public health guidance and halting the MMWR.
- Required all federal health agency guidance to be reviewed by political appointees.
- Censored terms like “equity,” “diversity,” “nonbinary,” and “systemic racism” in federal research and agency communications.
- Censored federal scientists critical of administration narratives — including Kevin Hall, whose research on ultra-processed food was reportedly suppressed, and who subsequently resigned.
- Promoted misinformation about seed oils, infant formula, and CGMs as diet tools over evidence-based obesity treatment, fueling distrust in public health recommendations.
Vaccines & Immunization Policy
- Canceled key CDC and FDA vaccine advisory meetings, including sessions on flu strain selection and childhood immunization schedules, disrupting routine vaccine planning and oversight.
- Removed COVID-19 vaccines from the CDC’s routine immunization schedule for healthy children and pregnant women, despite established benefits in preventing severe outcomes.
- Limited approval of updated COVID-19 vaccines to seniors and high-risk groups, requiring new clinical trials for broader use, potentially restricting access for millions of Americans.
- Terminated $258 million in HIV vaccine research funding, setting back global efforts to develop a viable HIV vaccine by an estimated decade.
- Canceled a $600 million contract with Moderna for avian flu vaccine development, raising concerns about pandemic preparedness and national health security.
Environmental Health & Deregulation
- EPA launched the “biggest deregulation day in U.S. history,” targeting environmental protections across multiple sectors.
- Rolled back environmental protections related to agriculture and industry, including expanded coal operations that increase mercury, arsenic, and lead in soil, water, and food.
- Rolled back PFAS drinking water protections, despite mounting evidence of harm.
- Slashed EPA staff and budget by $300 million, including deep cuts to enforcement and environmental justice teams.
- Cut clean energy programs on farms and in rural communities, reducing support for climate-smart agriculture.
- Defunded programs designed to protect disadvantaged communities facing disproportionate environmental harm.
- Proposed eliminating the EPA’s Office of Research and Development, potentially terminating up to 75% of its 1,540 staff members, including chemists, biologists, and toxicologists. This move has been criticized as undermining the agency’s scientific integrity and legislative mandates.
- Established an email system allowing industrial polluters to request presidential exemptions from Clean Air Act regulations, enabling companies to bypass rules on toxic emissions like mercury and arsenic
- CDC unable to assist with lead contamination crisis in Wisconsin due to understaffing and budget cuts.
Healthcare Access, Drug Costs, and Tobacco Policy
- Proposed deep cuts to Medicaid, including block grants and work requirements, which the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates would result in 8.6 million people losing health insurance.
- Shortened Affordable Care Act (ACA) open enrollment periods, making it harder for people to sign up for insurance.
- Reversed Medicare drug negotiation policy, allowing pharmaceutical companies to raise prescription drug prices without limits.
- Rescinded Biden-era EMTALA guidance requiring emergency rooms to provide abortion care when a pregnant patient’s life is at risk
- Suspended J-1 visa processing, threatening to strand residency programs and worsen healthcare workforce shortages as the July 1 start date approaches.
- Proposed major cuts to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), including suicide prevention and community mental health grants, despite rising mental health needs.
- Reversed the planned menthol cigarette ban, despite overwhelming evidence it would save lives and reduce tobacco-related health disparities, particularly in Black communities.
Global Health and Foreign Aid
- Froze $43 billion in USAID funding without notice, halting vaccine distribution, disaster relief, and food aid programs.
- Announced plans to merge or eliminate USAID under a “government efficiency” strategy.
- Paused PEPFAR funding for global HIV/AIDS relief (later granted waiver but created confusion and service disruption).
- Estimated to have caused approximately 300,000 deaths globally, including over 200,000 children, due to abrupt cuts in aid programs combating HIV/AIDS, malaria, malnutrition, and providing clean water and food aid.
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I find it very hard to believe that:
- this is not based on a concerted strategy,
- it is merely caused by incompetence due to inept individuals in key positions,
- the list will not get longer as Trump procedes,
- by and large Americans accept this without much effective counter-action.
If you, my American friends, don’t do something very soon, it will be too late. This is no longer purely an American issue; health has long become international, and soon we will all suffer from Trump’s systematic demolition of healthcare and research.
PS
Thank you Jessica for this brave effort
We probably have all heard these claims:
- Conventional doctors under-rate the importance of nutrition for our health.
- They know nothing about the subject.
- Medical schools completely ignore the importance of nutrition.
- Only practitioners of so-called alternative medicine (SCAM) know enough about nutrition.
I have to admit that such cliches have gone on my nerves for a very long time. So, let me try to address them and put the record straight:
- This claim is an unwarranted generalization. Some doctors may indeed under-rate the importance of nutrition for our health. Many doctors under-rate many important issues in many situations. Some doctors are negligent or unmotivated or poorly traained. Some doctors are just bad! If your doctor falls in this category, please change doctor!
- Another unwarranted generalization. Most doctors know a lot about nutrition and are competent to advise you what is best for your needs.
- I have taught at 5 medical schools in 3 countries and can assure you that medical schools do not ignore the importance of nutrition. It is true that there may not be dedicated courses for students on this subject. Arguably, that would not be productive. Nutrition is usually taught in the context of the disease with which it can effectively help. For instance, the treatment and prevention of diabetes needs a specific diet, so do several liver, kidney, heart, skin conditions, obesity, various forms of malnutrition, etc. In our experience, this approach to medical education is more productive than a dedicated course on nutrition.
- It is true that many SCAM practitioners pride themselves to be competent in advising their patients about nutrition. It is also true that most give such advice. And it is allso true that, according to my experience, much of this advice is nonsense, not based on good evidence or even counter-productive. I am not aware of reliable data on this specific point and therefore added the caveat “in my experience”. If anyone knows about solid evidence on this point, please let me know.
The ex-influencer and recent nominee for US Surgeon General, Casey Means, is one of those who endlessly bemoans that medical schools are negligent about nutrition. She wrote, for instance: “I took zero nutrition courses in medical school.” To this, I cannot resist replying that
- firstly, she should have paid more attention when nutrition was dealt with in the context of all the other courses that she hopefully did attend,
- secondly she could (and should) have booked herself on one of the many postgraduate courses, particularly if she was aware that she had missed important sections of her learning schedule.
Let me conclude my rant with stating:
- Nutrition is an essental part of evidence-based medicine.
- Almost all the evidence on the subject originates from mainstream research.
- Nutritional advice from SCAM practitioners, influencers, etc. is often not evidence-based.
Donald Trump has recently made a range of appointments in the health sector of the US. They will strongly influence conventional and so-called alternative medicine (SCAM) in the US as well as worldwide. It therefore seems worth to look at the backgrounds and qualifications of these men and women and critically evaluate their fit for leadership roles in healthcare. In part 1 of this series, we looked at Robert F.Kennedy Jr. and David Weldon. Now I will focus on Trumps nominations for Surgeon General
Janette Nesheiwat – Surgeon General
We featured Janette once before. She trained as a family and emergency medicine physician, became the medical director at CityMD and also a Fox News contributor. She has no significant public health leadership experience. As the Surgeon General, she would require shaping national health policy and communicating science to the public, areas where she has no training or experience. She also lacks expertise in public health and epidemiology. Her Fox News role and online vitamin sales raise doubts about her prioritization of evidence-based public health over media-driven health promotion. The Surgeon General is the nation’s leading spokesperson on public health, overseeing the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps and issuing science-based health advisories. Nesheiwat would be a disaster for such a position.
Nesheiwat’s nomination was eventually withdrawn by Trump. This suggests internal concerns about her fitness for the job.
Casey Means – Surgeon General
RFK Jr wrote on X: “The Surgeon General is a symbol of moral authority who stands against the financial and institutional gravities that tend to corporatize medicine. Casey Means was born to hold this job. She will provide our country with ethical guidance, wisdom, and gold-standard medical advice.” Yet her suitability for Surgeon General is a contentious issue.
Means holds a 2014 MD from Stanford University and a bachelor’s degree in human biology. She is an advocate for addressing chronic diseases through nutrition, exercise, and lifestyle changes. Her book “Good Energy”, co-authored with her brother Calley, argues that metabolic dysfunction is a root cause of most chronic illnesses. As a “wellness influencer”, Means has demonstrated an ability to communicate health concepts to a broad audience.
This paper explored the intersection of science and pseudoscience in online discourse about detoxification, investigating how and to what extent they coexist on the web. Drawing on previous studies of internet health scams, it examines the discursive strategies used to either validate or refute alternative detox treatments. Using a corpus-assisted discourse studies approach, the present study analyses a corpus of texts (167,177 tokens) about detoxification randomly collected from the web.
The results show that corrective messages debunking the detox myth make up less than 10% of the corpus. Furthermore, many keywords in the corpus, such as “toxin(s),” are subject to constant renegotiation. Advocates of so-called alternative medicine (SCAM) use the term “toxin(s)” to justify detox treatments, while scientists criticize it as pseudoscientific.
The authors conclude thaat their study highlights how terminological ambiguity facilitates the mixing of science and pseudoscience, confusing readers. It also highlights the role of language in health-related misinformation and calls for interdisciplinary research to develop educational tools for health professionals.
Corpus-assisted discourse studies (CADSs) are related historically and methodologically to the discipline of corpus linguistics. Their principal endeavor is the investigation and comparison of features of particular discourse types, integrating into the analysis the techniques and tools developed within corpus linguistics. These include the compilation of specialised corpora and analyses of word and word-cluster frequency lists, comparative keyword lists and, above all, concordances. A broader conceptualisation of corpus-assisted discourse studies would include any study that aims to bring together corpus linguistics and discourse analysis.
The findings of this CADS can hardly surprise anyone who has been following this blog. We have often discussed the problem of pseudo-scientific language and the confusion it creates. Likewise, we have repeatedly dealt with the ‘detox myth’ and how it is being used by advocates of SCAM.
What is new is the finding that only 10% of of the discourse seems to come from people who debunk the ‘detox myth’. This is, of course, disappointing but not really surprising considering how much virtually the entire SCAM business relies on it.
So, to make it clear yet again:
- A toxin is a substance that is poisonous to our body.
- No ‘detox’ method from the realm of SCAM has been shown to remove a toxin from the human body.
As always, I would be delighted to learn more and to correct these statements, provided someone shows me good evidence to the contrary.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is coming out with so much stupidity, ignorance and quackery that it is getting difficult to keep up. A recent article reported that he touted two particular medications that have not been shown to work as first-line treatments for measles:
- the steroid budesonide,
- the antibiotic clarithromycin.
Kennedy claimed on X that the medications had been instrumental in treating around 300 children in Texas, and told Fox News that doctors prescribing them had seen “very, very good results.”
Consequently, families in Texas have turned to questionable remedies — in some cases, also prompted by the recommendation of two Texas doctors, Dr. Ben Edwards and Dr. Richard Bartlett. Kennedy called Edwards and Bartlett “extraordinary healers” who have “treated and healed” hundreds of children with budesonide and clarithromycin, sharing a photo of himself and the doctors with three Mennonite families whose children had become ill. Two of the families had each recently lost a daughter to measles: 6-year-old Kayley Fehr died in February and 8-year-old Daisy Hildebrand died last week. Neither child was vaccinated.
Edwards, a conventionally trained doctor who has shifted to promoting natural remedies and prayer, has been operating a makeshift clinic in Seminole, offering children these unproven treatments — including, according to a video posted by an anti-vaccine group, while he said he was sick with measles. Edwards has allied himself with the anti-vaccine movement in recent months, hosting influencers and activists on his podcast, including Andrew Wakefield.
“There is no evidence to support the use of either aerosolized budesonide or clarithromycin for treatment of children with measles,” said Dr. Adam Ratner, a spokesman for the American Academy of Pediatrics. Prescribing treatments that have not been vetted in clinical trials amounts to experimenting on patients, added Dr. Susan McLellan, a professor in the infectious diseases division at the University of Texas Medical Branch.
During the measles outbreak, both Edwards and Bartlett have each warned of risks associated with the MMR vaccine: Edwards claimed, falsely, that it causes “potentially” hundreds of deaths a year and Bartlett has said that the complications caused by measles, including brain swelling and pneumonia, can also be caused by the vaccine. In reality, the MMR vaccine, which is only given to children with healthy immune systems, has been overwhelmingly safe since its approval more than five decades ago, and has saved an estimated 94 million lives worldwide.
Public health experts said touting these medications as first-line treatments sends the wrong message. “By mentioning such treatments without that context, RFK Jr. continues to distract away from the prevention measure that incontrovertibly works — the vaccine,” said Dr. Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security
A national public health organization is calling for RFK Jr. to resign citing “implicit and explicit bias and complete disregard for science.” Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association, said in a statement that concerns raised during Kennedy’s confirmation hearing last month have been realized, followed by massive reductions in staff at key health agencies.
What’s next? I aslk myself.
Perhaps homeopathy as a savior of the US healthcare system?
Watch this space.
Measles had been declared eliminated from the US in 2000. Now the disease is back with a vengeance. In February, an unvaccinated Texan child became the first person in a decade to die from measles in the US. Another death occurred in New Mexico.
The reason for the outbreak is simple: the uptake of the measles vaccine dropped below the 95% rate that is necessary for herd immunity. In the region where the current outbreak began, only 82% of the kids were vaccinated. This triggered the outbreak and, in turn, might mean that the US will lose its ‘measles elimination status’.
Only days after his appointment, Trump pledged to withdraw the United States from the World Health Organization and to drastically cut the US Agency for International Development. Both moves are likely to cause more cases of measles and similarly vaccine-preventable diseases in the US and around the world. To make matters worse, Trump administration has fired hundreds of workers from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
And to make matters even worse, Trump appointed Robert F. Kennedy Jr., one of the US most deluded antivaxer. Since being appointed, Kennedy has downplayed the importance of the current measles outbreak, postponed a meeting of the CDC vaccine advisers, made statements like “vaccinations are over-rated” and claimed that good nutrition and treatment with vitamin A as ways to reduce measles severity. He even praised the benefits of cod liver oil as a measure against measles. “There are adverse events from the vaccine,” Kennedy said in a March 11 interview. “It does cause deaths every year. It causes all the illnesses that measles itself causes, encephalitis and blindness, et cetera. And so people ought to be able to make that choice for themselves.” Further confirming his cluelessness Kennedy also stated: “When you and I were kids, everybody got measles, and measles gave you … lifetime protection against measles infection. The vaccine doesn’t do that… The vaccine wanes 4.5% per year.”
But Kennedy does not just propagate BS in interviews, he also plans to investigate whether vaccines cause autism — an assumption that has been discredited ad nauseam. A spokesperson for the US Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) said: “The rate of autism in American children has skyrocketed. CDC will leave no stone unturned in its mission to figure out what exactly is happening.”
Meanwhile in Texas, some parents, who evidently believe Kennedy’s deluded nonsense, are giving unvaccinated children vitamin A, which, of course, is toxic at high doses.
