Making America healthy again, one Big Mac at a time: First, Kamala Harris claimed to have worked at McDonald’s. Probably true but not fully proven A story about a job she had while in college. It was said to make her seem middle-class and approachable. Then it was Donald Trump’s shift At a McDonald’s in Pennsylvania during the final month of the campaign. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who was nominated by President Trump to head the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which oversees food regulatory agencies across the United States, is disliked by Trump and others, and eats hamburgers on a private jet during a flight. and to a UFC match where he is forced to eat fries.
RFK Jr. is essentially hazing with McDonald here pic.twitter.com/hH3N8GwkhE
— Andy Kaczynski (@KFILE) November 17, 2024
There are many theories about what RFK Jr. will do as HHS secretary. Discussion focuses on the possible causes of population obesity and chronic disease. seed oil? food coloring?Too much added sugar in food? (Indeed, that last one.) And of course, this all spirals into discourse about the elite. I don’t want to admit it The fact that McDonald’s is delicious is said to be further evidence of the disconnect between the ruling class and the masses.
All of this means that the coming health culture wars are going to be boring and miserable, made even worse with RFK Jr. as commander-in-chief.
“President Trump asked me to do three things: 1. Clean up corruption in government health agencies. 2. Return these agencies to a rich tradition of gold standards and evidence-based science.” Making America Healthy Again by Ending the Chronic Disease Epidemic.” I will write Kennedy on X. Note the rhetorical trick here: the use of words return These agencies are not currently working on evidence-based science, but Kennedy has indicated they will be there to help.
RFK Jr. wants to cut key parts of these agencies and root out worsening corruption, but also wants to give regulators more power to force various foods and additives out of circulation. So there’s a little bit of tension here.
Some of the changes President Kennedy might make could be for the better. He is a proponent of raw milk, for example, which consumers are free to buy and producers are free to sell. (many state But he also frequently goes after the wrong culprit, as when he talks about the use of high fructose corn syrup instead of real sugar as a major contributor to obesity. That’s true, but the solution is not to direct more state power toward policing. It’s about eliminating the sugar tariff. corn subsidy That’s how it came to be in the first place. The cheapness of high fructose corn syrup is a product of government policy, and in some cases, the solution is as simple as repealing existing bad laws on the books. That last part, getting Americans to eat less sugar, may be an area where the culture needs to change, but it’s not an area where health bureaucrats should punish people for their choices.
However, this is all to be expected from Kennedy. He gets some things right, but consistently glosses over the details and blames the wrong culprits.
Another example: Kennedy wants to review vaccine safety data to determine which vaccines should be removed from the market. “People should have the right to choose, and that choice should be informed by the best information.” Kennedy said It aired on NBC earlier this month. “So I’m going to make sure that scientific safety studies and efficacy studies are out there so that people can independently evaluate whether a product is good for them.” Kennedy said these studies If they want to put it on a more prominent part of the HHS website so the public can more easily see the research, that’s fine with me. But this isn’t exactly top secret.
Naturally, when Kennedy chosen Late last week, drug company stocks plummeted over the role of HHS. Over the weekend following the announcement, Pfizer fell 4.6%, Eli Lilly fell 4.2%, Amgen fell 4.9% and Novo Nordisk fell more than 3.1%. While governments should not seek to contribute to the profits of these companies, it is worth remembering that these companies are a net benefit to society. America is a leader in pharmaceutical innovation, in part because we have real incentives to innovate. The United States is a leader in food innovation, including the development of genetically modified crops, for much the same reason. A campaign to rid America of the products that irrationally drew RFK Jr.’s scorn may end up causing collateral damage that we will all regret.
Meanwhile, it’s hilarious that his own Commander-in-Chief is forcing him to eat Seed Oiled Mickey D.
New York scenery: “At least 146,000 public school students in New York City were without permanent housing at some point during the past school year, a record number; 23% increase from the previous year, according to New York Children’s Advocates. report New York Times. The organization, which focuses on helping children from low-income families, says nearly all of these students are living in shelters in the city or temporarily ‘cohabiting with’ friends or family. ” (Despite what the headline suggests, that is not “homeless” per se.)
Indeed, much of this growth has to do with the influx of immigrants into cities where regulations have made it notoriously difficult to build more housing. It is predicted that it will be about one third Of the total recently arrived immigrant population, school age childrenmost of whom are living in temporary shelters across five administrative regions.
“They’re trying to dismiss this as an immigration issue, but it’s not,” said Christine Quinn, CEO of Wynn, the city’s largest homeless shelter operator. said New York Times. But if Quinn provided statistics to back this up or offered another theory as to what’s going on; times Did not print.
“Most of the increase is coming from immigrant children.” reported of times Late last year, it noted an increase in the number of “homeless” children during the 2022-2023 school year. It is unclear whether the same will be true in 2023-2024, but it is certainly a possibility.
quick hit
- “President Joe Biden has authorized Ukraine to use missiles supplied by the United States. Attack deep inside Russia, ease restrictions Long-range weapons are also being mentioned as Russia sends thousands of North Korean troops to step up the war, according to U.S. officials and three other people familiar with the matter. ” around Associated Press.
- The strength of RFK Jr.’s philosophy is to “hold the company to high standards.” I will write Vinay Prasad. “As a weakness, he is more likely to believe false safety signals (MMR, autism, etc.) and to favor cheap repurposed drugs that are ineffective. If the drug costs a lot, then perhaps He’s going to be more skeptical.”The evidence is there, but whether it’s cheap or not. That is the anti-corporate person in him and his blind spot. ”
- “Are you going to shut down the entire agency?” Maria Bartiromo of Fox Business asked Over the weekend, Vivek Ramaswamy was appointed to head the Ministry of Government Efficiency along with Elon Musk. His response: “We expect massive cuts. We expect entire government agencies to be completely eliminated.”
- “In situationships, there is often an imbalance, with one partner caring more than the other, but also inner turmoil in each person. , the urge to be freed from the burden and bondage of romantic commitments.” I will write reasonEh, Emma Camp. slate. “While it would be easy to dismiss the rise in popularity of situationships as a mere repetition of age-old dating woes, there is an important issue: Unlike previous generations of younger generations, Gen Z is endemicly risk-averse. This is a personality trait of many twenty-somethings today.”In fact, Gen Z may be the most commitment-phobic. risk-averse generation On record. ”
- Activist stagecraft is bad:
This reply to Josh perfectly captures the absurd way the left tries to talk about transgender things. If you say, “It doesn’t matter whether trans women can be on the swim team,” you’ll immediately say, “What about trans genocide?” pic.twitter.com/rCAYcnXBEE
— Ben Dreyfuss (@bendreyfuss) November 17, 2024
- Japanese city scene Nagi In fact, we succeeded in raising the birth rate significantly (to 2.7, almost twice the national average).
So the biggest hurdle is finding people who want to have children, but once you find a child, these policy incentives can actually work.
Perhaps they need to take place in settings where community bonds can form (small towns or tight-knit cities, such as Hasidic Brooklyn).
— Everdant (@ever_verdant) November 17, 2024
