RFK Jr., whom US president-elect Donald Trump tapped to be in charge of all the health agencies, has been soliciting nominees online.
US president-elect Donald Trump has promised Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (RFK Jr.) a position involving control of all of America’s health agencies, plus the Department of Agriculture.
Although a formal notice of appointment has not been made, speculation is that he could be appointed Secretary of Health and Human Services, under which the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Administration, National Institutes of Health and other health-related agencies fall.
There have also been reports that the Trump campaign is having second thoughts about RFK Jr.’s suitability for a cabinet position, amid fears that he might not survive security clearance vetting.
The alternative would be to appoint him “food and health czar”. This could also give him the broader mandate needed to oversee agriculture and the food industry, in addition to regulating healthcare and pharmaceuticals.
Czar
The title czar, after the Slavic and Russian title for emperor or autocrat, derives from the Latin title Caesar. It has become an informal title for officials appointed to a US administration outside of cabinet, without needing to go through a lengthy approval process before the Senate.
Both parties have used czars in the past, though not without controversy, since such appointments obviously skip checks and balances on who gets appointed to powerful executive positions.
Often, czars have been appointed with specific, limited mandates, such as overseeing Y2K efforts, the US-Mexico border, or the withdrawal from Afghanistan. They can have broader responsibilities, however, like for energy and environment, which can clash with or override the authority of their counterparts in the cabinet.
A food and health czar would have to find a working relationship with the cabinet secretaries of health and human services, and agriculture.
Agenda
RFK Jr.’s agenda is fairly predictable. He’s against “chemicals” in food and would likely heed a petition to ban dihydrogen monoxide. He bases some of his ideas on the purely anecdotal case of his son’s allergies. He thinks Big Food and Big Pharma have conspired to make Americans chronically sick, for profit.
He has promised to eliminate “entire departments”, but not “entire agencies”, since the latter would require Congressional approval.
Doctors are pretty concerned about the prospect of RFK Jr. being given any significant role in healthcare, and have raised alarm about his influence over Trump.
Trump has said he will let RFK Jr. go wild. “I’m going to let him go wild on health. I’m going to let him go wild on the food. I’m going to let him go wild on the medicines,” he reportedly told the crowd at Madison Square Gardens, just prior to the election.
The Trump campaign has made it clear that there will be a role for RFK Jr., especially with regard to chronic illnesses, and on Tuesday this week, Donald Trump Jr., who is an honorary co-chair of the Trump transition team alongside Eric Trump, JD Vance, Tulsi Gabbard, and RFK Jr. himself, said: “We definitely do want to honour the promise that we made, make sure that he’s involved, in whatever capacity he wants, and I think he’d do an incredible job on the stuff as it relates to health.” (My emphasis.)
Health crisis
Which brings me to the purpose of today’s column. RFK Jr. has been running on the slogan Make America Healthy Again (MAHA). This is, of course, an admirable ambition. Nobody needs a refresher on the dire state of American health.
There’s certainly a lot of truth to the notion that health is a function of many things, which as a last resort include conventional medicine and pharmaceuticals, but is first premised on healthy eating habits, regular exercise habits, proper sleep habits, and good mental health habits.
Any conventional doctor will tell you this, as mine has told me.
It is also not controversial to recognise that there are problems with the healthcare system in the US, which has contributed to a range of problems including high healthcare prices, over-medicalisation of certain conditions, antibiotic resistance and the opioid crisis. It is also inarguable that dietary habits in America very heavily contribute to its obesity crisis.
Let’s stipulate these points as common cause.
Nominees
In pursuit of his MAHA ambition, “Bobby”, as Kennedy’s campaign staffers call him, thought it would be a good idea to crowd-source nominees for appointment to over 4 000 senior executive or administrative positions in government.
All nominees are subject to a review by the campaign, presumably to weed out undesirables, and visitors to the site can vote for their favourite candidates.
Let’s have a look at who bubbled to the top in the health category. (If you want proof that it is associated with Kennedy’s campaign, you can get redirected from his own website using this link.)
In the interest of my own sanity (and your time), I’ll limit this list to the top ten nominees, ranked by votes, who have been reviewed and who are not RFK Jr. himself. Where they exist, I’ll include Wikipedia links for more in-depth overviews of each nominee.
#1. Charles Fagenholz
“Dr. Charlie”, as he calls himself, “is a holistic physician trained in chiropractic, frequency and functional medicine. He offers an eclectic in-depth approach to patient evaluation and treatment due to his extensive knowledge of natural healthcare techniques and functional medicine research.”
Among the letters behind his name, one can find “DC”, which means Doctor of Chiropractic; “CPCRA”, which stands for the now-defunct Community Programs for Clinical Research on AIDS (or something else that doesn’t even come up in searches); “QNCP”, which appears to stand for Quantum Neurology Certified Practitioner; and “FIAMA”, which means he is a Fellow of the International Academy of Medical Acupuncture, which closed down earlier this year after its founder died.
Now, chiropractic treatment is pseudoscience, and dangerous pseudoscience at that. It was invented in 1890 by a megalomaniac mystic, D.D. Palmer, who claimed to have received it “from the other world”.
Even chiropractors know that major tenets of the practice make chiropractors a laughing stock in the medical and scientific community.
If any pretend-doctor utters the term “quantum”, you can be sure they’re selling placebos to gullible people, using devices with Da Vinci pictures and blinking lights. I’ve debunked it before. There’s no such thing as quantum neurology. It’s a scam.
“Frequency Medicine combines quantum physics and holistic practices to target health issues by adjusting body frequencies,” they say. You’re not a radio, and they don’t have a particle accelerator. It’s bogus.
“Functional medicine” was invented by a vitamin supplement salesman who was not a doctor. Its practitioners are vague enough about what it entails. It could describe good conventional medicine combined with the kind of healthy lifestyle advice you’d get from your general practitioner.
Finally, acupuncture is mystical woo that is not supported by strong scientific evidence. Believing it works doesn’t mean it does.
The nominator feels this wholly unqualified nominee is best suited for the position of Surgeon General.
#2. Sherri Tenpenny
Tenpenny (Wikipedia) is a Doctor of Osteopathy. For some inexplicable reason, this is a degree that in the US confers the same rights and privileges as a real medical degree.
Much like chiropractic, osteopathy was developed in the mid-19th century, before anyone knew about germs, DNA, X-rays, antibiotics, insulin, neurotransmitters or hormones. Its inventor, Andrew Taylor Still, became disillusioned with the era’s conventional medicine and held that illnesses of the body have their roots in the musculoskeletal system.
He believed that manipulation of the spine, bones and joints could improve blood flow (as opposed to improving nerve function as chiropractic maintains), thus allowing the body to heal itself.
Tenpenny opposes all vaccinations, believing they cause autism and a host of other health conditions, including all the major flu pandemics since the Spanish Flu.
She was the nutcase who stood in Congress telling the assembled congresscritters that Covid-19 vaccinations magnetise people and create 5G portals.
She earns her money through her osteopathic practices and by being an affiliate marketer for alternative medicine disinformation videos produced by Ty and Charlene Bollinger.
#3. Peter McCullough
McCullough (Wikipedia) is a real medical doctor; a cardiologist.
He once wrote of a ‘biopharmaceutical public health disaster’ causing ‘catastrophic Covid-19 vaccine casualties in 2021’, on the basis of a since-retracted paper by an economist that turned out to be just a survey of the opinions of lay people. McCullough has since deleted his alarmist panic-mongering misinformation.
He has made several false claims about Covid-19 vaccines, including one about his own professional affiliation.
He also advocated for allowing doctors to freely prescribe hydroxychloroquine for the treatment of Covid-19, despite evidence that it was ineffective.
#4. Leigh Erin Connealy
“Dr. Leigh Erin Connealy,” her website says, “is a world renown (sic) medical doctor and leading functional integrative physician treating and healing patients from across the globe. … She utilizes the best of all sciences, including conventional, homeopathic, eastern medicine and modern medicine.”
There we go again with the functional medicine.
Integrative medicine is a term on the treadmill of euphemisms for quackery that includes holistic medicine, complementary medicine, and alternative medicine.
It is worth quoting Tim Minchin again: “By definition, alternative medicine has either not been proved to work, or been proved not to work. Do you know what they call alternative medicine that’s been proved to work? Medicine.”
Integrative medicine, therefore, integrates real medicine with unproven quackery that makes people feel better because that is what placebos do.
“Conventional” and “modern” medicine are indeed scientific, but “eastern medicine” and “homeopathic medicine” are not.
Homeopathy is pseudoscience. Back in 2015, there were 1 800 studies that proved it doesn’t work. That has not changed, and makes Connealy a charlatan who cannot be trusted.
#5. Gretchen Adler
Adler has no apparent qualifications. She is a TikTok-famous self-described “trad wife”, who cooks what she calls “ancestral” food. She’s all about organic and regenerative farming and local sourcing.
She hawks cooking lessons on the internet, along with products that include probiotics, which have no known benefits for healthy people.
She denies her children the snack foods their friends take to school, instead giving them homemade alternatives.
She imbues food with almost mystical healing qualities, which is lovely, but doesn’t really qualify her for any position in government.
Besides, she believes a women place is at home, raising children and cooking food, so soliciting votes for Kennedy’s MAHA nominee campaign makes her a hypocrite.
#6. Stella Immanuel
Dr. Stella Immanuel (Wikipedia)… well, let me quote the actual motivation on the MAHA nominees site, because it’s funny: “Dr. Stella Immanuel gained attention during the COVID-19 pandemic for her advocacy of hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin as treatments for COVID-19, despite these therapies lacking widespread scientific support for effectiveness against the virus. Her role as a prominent prescriber of these drugs led to her writing tens of thousands of prescriptions via a telemedicine service that she operates. In 2021, she issued over 69,000 hydroxychloroquine prescriptions, which was significantly higher than average, raising concerns about patient safety and appropriate medical practice. Critics argue that her high prescription rate reflects controversial and possibly unsafe treatment practices, especially since reputable health studies have shown limited benefits of these drugs for COVID-19 and identified potential risks, such as cardiac issues.”
I suspect that was generated with ChatGPT by whatever moron nominated her, since it doesn’t appear to have been lifted from Wikipedia.
Immanuel is not only a Covid disinformation spreader, but she runs a religious ministry through which she has claimed that alien DNA is used in medical treatments, that researchers are working on a vaccine that turns people into atheists, that the government is run by reptilians, and that gynaecological issues are caused by dreams of sex with spirits and demons.
She is, despite her apparently legit medical degree, quite batty.
#7. Edward Group
Edward Group is another chiropractor, and also a naturopathic practitioner.
Naturopathy is another 19th-century development, which asserts the healing power of nature. It is a broad catch-all that includes some evidence-based medicine, but the appeal to folk medicine and vital forces gives it a questionable epistemic basis.
To quote one medical doctor: “’Naturopathic physicians’ now claim to be primary care physicians proficient in the practice of both ‘conventional’ and ‘natural’ medicine. Their training, however, amounts to a small fraction of that of medical doctors who practice primary care. An examination of their literature, moreover, reveals that it is replete with pseudoscientific, ineffective, unethical, and potentially dangerous practices.”
The appeal of naturopathy is likely based in the fallacious distinction between natural and chemical, or natural and synthetic substances. I’ve written before that “natural” does not mean best, better, or even good.
Group is “a proud alum of Harvard Business School and MIT Sloan School of Management”, which may have a lot to do with the apparent success of his commercial practice.
Like most alternative medicine types, he relies heavily on the sale of supplements, “cleanse and detox” products (all of which are scams), and a wide range of other snake oil concoctions. As they say, never trust a doctor who sells his own medicine.
#8. Casey Means
Means (Wikipedia) runs Levels, a health monitoring technology company. It sells products that permit customers to continuously track their diet and various metabolic indicators, ostensibly to “give you the data and insights to make you an expert in your own health, so you can find the nutrition and habits that help you hit your goals”.
To me, it sounds like it would turn you into an obsessive nervous wreck, but each to their own.
She practises (you guessed it) functional medicine in hippie central, Portland, Oregon. With her brother, entrepreneur Calley, she sprung to fame only a few months ago, thanks to podcast icon Tucker Carlson, with her anti-corporate messaging about chronic disease.
The pair are part of the “food is medicine” movement, which, somewhat ironically, is heavily promoted by the Joe Biden administration. They’re too fond of organic food, and too suspicious of food producers and the pharmaceutical industry, but they’re not entirely crazy.
Some of their proposals, such as splitting the regulation of food and medicine, having the drug regulator funded by the taxpayer instead of pharmaceutical companies, and prohibiting direct-to-consumer drug advertising, are actually pretty good.
Still, functional medicine?
#9. Jodie Meschuk
A Naturopathic Practitioner, Meschuk is another of those alternative medicine types who trade on the misconception that the healthcare system is irretrievably broken, doctors don’t consider lifestyle contributions to chronic illness, conventional medicine treats only symptoms and not causes, and that all ills can be cured through diet changes, lifestyle adjustments, and supplements (which she sells, of course).
She claims to be an “Autism-turnaround expert, Master Herbalist, Aromatherapist and Quantum Medicine specialist.” The “Autism Recovery” button on her website, however, merely takes you to an affiliated shop selling snake oil supplements, and to my disappointment, there was no page explaining what “Quantum Medicine” is.
In her defence, her website carries a disclaimer that, “This information is not to be used for ‘medical advice.’” You don’t say?
#10. Zach Bush
Bush is an actual medical doctor, specialising in internal medicine, endocrinology and hospice care. He has a special interest in the importance of the gut microbiome to health (which I share), and started an organic farming non-profit alongside a commercial vendor of supplements.
He advocates for “a radical departure from chemical farming and pharmacy” (as if nature isn’t comprised entirely of chemicals). As a guest writer for the Foundation of Alternative and Integrative Medicine (which I read as “Foundation for Fake Medicine”), Bush has claimed that genetic engineering “interfere with forces beyond our comprehension”, that autism is caused by environmental toxins, and that protein is over-emphasised and over-consumed in diets.
Undoubtedly well-meaning, and often right, he is also conspicuously wrong on some issues. Naturally, he sells superbly-branded concoctions that extol nature’s supposed “intelligence”.
#11. Joseph Mercola
I know I said I’d only do ten, but I have to point out that superquack is at number 11.
Conclusion
Going through this list, I’m struck by how extraordinarily left-wing it all sounds.
The deep distrust of producers of food, drugs and healthcare rivals that of the most committed communists. The worship of nature and fear of anything manufactured rivals that of the neo-hippie movement. The hypocrisy of railing against corporate profits, while openly flogging unproven supplements, devices, treatments and coaching, rivals that of champagne socialists.
That this thoroughly left-wing, anti-capitalist food and health movement has merged with the nationalistic, macho, supposedly free-market American right will forever mystify me.
What is clear, however, is that if RFK Jr. relies on a crowd-sourced list of healthcare officials, the country will be inundated with quackery, mysticism and pseudoscience. This will cause real harm.
I would like to think that Kennedy would know better, but considering his own penchant for crazy conspiracy theories and his pretence to health expertise when he is actually an environmental lawyer, he doesn’t fill me with confidence.
All of this certainly does bring to mind the old adage (which Winston Churchill never said): “The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.”
If I weren’t so irreligious, I’d say, “God help America.”
Postscript: Overnight, after the column was submitted, Donald Trump officially nominated RFK Jr. for the position of Health and Human Secretary, which oversees the FDA and all other health regulatory agencies.
[Photo: RFK-Trump.webp – Robert F. Kennedy Jr., tapped to take control of agriculture and all health agencies, with US president-elect Donald Trump. Image: supplied.
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