Shocker, RFK Jr. is on the case: he still claims there are no peer reviewed studies to prove autism isn’t caused by the MMR vaccines. I guess he missed the 160 peer reviewed studies including Denmark’s, which was a decades long study with over 650,000 participants and considered the gold standard of autism studies.
Instead we are to rely on the word of Dr. Wakefield, who made the baseless claims and provided a study of his own; it was doctored and fraudulent, leading to Wakefield losing his medical license in the UK.
I wonder who provided the peer reviewed studies for this “seed” oil nonsense? This is the first I’m hearing about it, but it screams RFK Jr., Dr. Oz, Matt Taibbi, JD Vance and Rosanne Barr.
No worries America, if Trump wins I may not be able to tell you if we will even have an FDA, USDA or an Education Department next year; however, I’m 100% sure we won’t be eating “cats” and “dogs”! Okay, I’m pretty sure about the “cats,” don’t quote on the dogs. After all, RFK Jr., was pretty impressed with his rare South Korean dish a few years back. Not to mention, he still has a few bear carcasses in his freezer; leftover from his drug fueled “hallucination” days!…:)
BBbut he's so passionate! And he's a Kennedy!! And he worked on behalf of the environment. He must know everything about everything! This worship of individuals based on an aura of righteous conviction is contributing to our downfall.
I'll take egotistical if the person knows wtf they're talking about. Or has real subject matter expertise. But RFK Jr has a cult-like following. Just from his book, "The Real Anthony Fauci..." a whole swath of people who should know better think Anthony Fauci and Bill gates are guilty of crimes against humanity (aided and abetted by a National Review article authored by Matthew Scully). According to Wiki, Michael Osterholm says that Kennedy's anti-vaccine disinformation is effective “because it’s portrayed to the public with graphs and figures and what appears to be scientific data. He has perfected the art of illusion of fact.”
Can you give a hint about this personal experience? In any case, I wonder if RFK resembles those dime store mystics who have talked to physicists; and used their ideas about what happens on very small or very large scale to make what they think are groundbreaking pronouncements about what happens at human scale.
"Take a look at the explosion in things like autism, the explosion in chronic health, and [we want to] be able to ask the question, ‘well, what's causing this?"
Couldn't be the pesticides and hormones in our food, or the microplastics we ingest, or the pollution we breath 24/7. Nope, can't be that. Must be seed oils and vaccines.
Also contributing could be changes in our culture that have made those on the spectrum stand out in higher relief. Not directly related, but while ADHD is a legit diagnosis, but given a gradual decrease in recess and other outlets for physical activity in school. some aspects of boys' regular energy, may also have become pathologized and lumped in with ADHD.
Questions of this flavor were being asked 35 years ago relative to pediatric cancer clusters. With the ultimate question being "What is responsible for the observed phenomenon?".
Well, we live in a world that is full of toxic chemicals that are relatively new (herbicides, pesticides, etc.) many of which remain inadequately researched for safety and others that are known to be hazardous to our health (e.g. paraquat, glyphosate). We have been coping with, not just lead (which is still around), but PFAS, PFOAS, microplastics... the stuff is everywhere. All of this is relatively new, i.e. mostly since the 20th century. To me, that makes more sense as a reason for the explosion in health problems then things like 'seed oils'. In addition, the ubiquitous use of antibiotics in factory farming, antibacterial soaps, etc. could have something to do with the rise in autoimmune disorders. Kids need some dirt in their lives in order to develop strong immune systems. On the other hand, I will definitely agree with these right-wing cranks about Big Ag. Industrial farming, factory farming, and ultraprocessed foods are NOT good for people, farm animals, or the environment!
I would point you to a Cleveland Clinic article that does speak about the harmful effects of seed oils, mainly because of the way they are processed and because of the foods they are generally used to make, fast food or ultra processed food.
I know the noise on this is full of idiocy, but I think it best for the Bulwark to not contribute to that. Polyphenols in these oils are largely removed during their processing and what is left is something that is inflammatory to the body. So your reference to the NIH 2022 study is misleading. The actual study you reference looked at the relationship between polyphenols in fruits and vegetables and ADHD, not seed oils. There should be an effort made to address the reality that eating foods containing these oils, and all the other crap in them is in effect harmful to human health. If you cannot allocate the time, which I totally get, you should not contribute to the misinformation as you have in this article.
I’m a Bulwark member because I trust you all to bring a nuanced and educated approach to these topics, otherwise we just get people screaming at each other or hiding in their corner and eating red meat all day long 😊. Full disclosure, I’m not a fan of Mr. Johnson, Rogan, Musk, Trump, Vance etc… they make things so much worse because they don’t understand the research either and/or they know they gain by riling up their base on stuff like this.
Yes RFK is a crank. But eating whole food / real food, and cutting back on sugar & ‘aggressively processed seed oils’ CAN improve metabolic health (including hypertension, T2 diabetes, obesity, & IBS)
And for some of us with serious treatment resistant medical conditions - the nutritional therapies that improved our overall metabolic health have also put debilitating symptoms into remission and made our lives worth living again.
What we eat is a personal choice, but this Bulwark member finds your attitude offensive.
He is just... so.... gross!! I genuinely don't understand the women who like him and vote for him. I'm full after eating one Whataburger with cheese, jalapeños, and extra pickles.
But my favorite hypocrites are the ones who railed against the covid vaccine and now take Ozempic lol.
Well, the "fish sandwiches" are probably mostly breading, highly processed to remove unwanted and dangerous fiber which could regroup and become balled up tangles of fiber.
Seed oils probably aren't the greatest thing to eat. Part of the problem is how they're used; usually to fry something. Part of the problem is that they are a processed food, where you strip out the fiber and a lot of the good stuff in the seed to make it, and the result is a concentrated fat without a ton of nutritional content. Eating the whole food is certainly healthier than eating the oil. But connecting it to autism is pretty bonkers.
Quality health and nutritional information is really hard to find, because there are tons of studies out there, they often conflict with one another, and the results can often be predicted based on who's funding the study. So, it's tough. And we are the fattest nation in the world, spend by far the most on healthcare with little return on our investment, so we're doing a whole lot wrong when it comes to nutrition.
Excellent comment. Intracellular metabolism is incredibly complex, never mind adding in the complexity of inter-cellular biomolecule communication mediated by receptors on cellular membranes in different tissues. We're not at the stage yet of saying any given molecule, never mind its metabolites, is responsible for a given systemic condition. That's why it's so infuriating that politicians and celebrities with zero basic biology knowledge jump onto any published article to push a narrative, as THESE days, the internet allows anything to pass through with no evaluation or editing whatsoever. These are not intelligent people, even if they possess a law degree or an MBA.
I am probably missing something about seed oils but my question is do the anti seed oil groups eat sunflower seeds and chia seeds and other nuts that are full of oils but the nut is the seed in most cases. Do they explain why that is ok? And if people get duped into these weird diets because they chose to believe an online crank instead of the nutrition studies done by experts who understand the complex system they will eventually pay with poor health. But think if these are the people that are put in our government because they are loyal. Egad!
"but my question is do the anti seed oil groups eat sunflower seeds and chia seeds and other nuts that are full of oils but the nut is the seed in most cases. Do they explain why that is ok?"
Oddly enough, yes?
Chia seeds and some other nuts and seeds have relatively favorable Ω6:Ω3 ratios.
From a nutritionist at a mainstream institution (Cleveland Clinic):
"And keep in mind, too, that you want to try to increase your omega-3 intake and limit your omega-6s.
"'Omega-3s are so important for overall heath that we really need to make the effort to get them into our diets,' Zumpano says. 'Omega-6s, on the other hand, are in abundance in Western diets.'
"The omega-6 to omega-3 ratio should be ideally 2:1 or 1:1, but for most Americans, the ratio is actually a whopping 10:1 or even 20:1."
Can this be overhyped? Sure. Should tinkering with Ω6:Ω3 be most people's dietary priority? Probably not. But it's not unreasonable for people seeking improved health who've already tried other recommended lifestyle changes and failed (either because they couldn't stick to the changes or they could, but they didn't help) to try it at some point.
"Take a look at the explosion in things like autism, the explosion in chronic health, and [we want to] be able to ask the question, ‘well, what's causing this?"
Perhaps RonJon and RFK Jr. should look into genetically passed on auto-immune problems, possibly resulting from requiring/demanding parents keep to term fetuses with probable or even known genetic defects based upon testing while the fetus is still in the womb, as being a part of "what's causing this". Oh, wait. That requires relying on health science and believing the scientific evidence. Silly me.
If Trump is elected, there is no doubt we see significantly reduction in life expectancy in America. Within a decade, we will be on parity with Russia.
People do eat too much processed food; Big Ag is not sufficiently regulated; and nutritional guidelines are controversial. So I'd just say, careful how you argue this out there in the [un]real world; don't get suckered into throwing out the baby with the bathwater.
Until we have some kind of consensus again on (1) what counts as evidence and (2) how to connect the dots between different evidence fragments, then we're all just going to be talking past each other. I don't know what to do about that. I hear stuff out there that is so whackadoodle that I have no idea how to respond to it. But I know we have to keep our own argument as clean and tight as a drum. Even if that isn't "fair," it's the only way to keep a foothold and hope to get back onto dry land someday.
MAGA is a cult, i.e., made of gullible people. Therefore MAGA is market for anything that requires credulity. Anything!
By making the MAGA market addressable via easily identifiable social media outlets and so forth Trump has opened the door for all the scammers in the world to go after "his people" - he was the first one through the door but many others are following.
It was hard to read that first article. The crackpottery is just off the charts. And America will suffer at a number of levels if these guys have any influence with respect to health. It's almost too bad that a bad diet is not a quick killer. Back to the Dark Ages for us.
It never even occurred to me that hostages could be subject tax penalties, that adds insult to injury. Seems like force majeure should get them out of the late fees on their loans and credit cards.
I've been in the throes of "chronic health" my entire 77 years, 9 months, 6 days and counting. Sometimes that "chronic health" was under the weather to a greater or lesser degree, but mostly it has been in the good-to-excellent category. And this is so in spite of my near-daily use of canola (rapeseed) oil and my protein coming primarily from chicken, pork and fish, with an occasional eye of round beef roast. I guess I'll be in chronic health 'til the day I finally just run plumb out of health.
Shocker, RFK Jr. is on the case: he still claims there are no peer reviewed studies to prove autism isn’t caused by the MMR vaccines. I guess he missed the 160 peer reviewed studies including Denmark’s, which was a decades long study with over 650,000 participants and considered the gold standard of autism studies.
Instead we are to rely on the word of Dr. Wakefield, who made the baseless claims and provided a study of his own; it was doctored and fraudulent, leading to Wakefield losing his medical license in the UK.
I wonder who provided the peer reviewed studies for this “seed” oil nonsense? This is the first I’m hearing about it, but it screams RFK Jr., Dr. Oz, Matt Taibbi, JD Vance and Rosanne Barr.
No worries America, if Trump wins I may not be able to tell you if we will even have an FDA, USDA or an Education Department next year; however, I’m 100% sure we won’t be eating “cats” and “dogs”! Okay, I’m pretty sure about the “cats,” don’t quote on the dogs. After all, RFK Jr., was pretty impressed with his rare South Korean dish a few years back. Not to mention, he still has a few bear carcasses in his freezer; leftover from his drug fueled “hallucination” days!…:)
Are cats red meat or white meat?
They taste just like chicken KIDDING
Don't know how many times as a kid growing up in the South I was told rattlesnake 'tastes like chicken'. I just took those kids' word for it!
Gator: same
Gator can taste like chicken (depends on who is cooking it), but not snake. Snake was VERY tough and not very tasty.
I KNEW they were lying!
They're the OTHER other white meat.
Good question?…:)
BBbut he's so passionate! And he's a Kennedy!! And he worked on behalf of the environment. He must know everything about everything! This worship of individuals based on an aura of righteous conviction is contributing to our downfall.
Even when he was "working on behalf of the environment", he was still egotistic and in it for the publicity he got.
I'll take egotistical if the person knows wtf they're talking about. Or has real subject matter expertise. But RFK Jr has a cult-like following. Just from his book, "The Real Anthony Fauci..." a whole swath of people who should know better think Anthony Fauci and Bill gates are guilty of crimes against humanity (aided and abetted by a National Review article authored by Matthew Scully). According to Wiki, Michael Osterholm says that Kennedy's anti-vaccine disinformation is effective “because it’s portrayed to the public with graphs and figures and what appears to be scientific data. He has perfected the art of illusion of fact.”
He's got a law degree and a degree in American History and Literature.
He was working with people who knew what THEY were talking about, but he did not.
I have personal experience.
Can you give a hint about this personal experience? In any case, I wonder if RFK resembles those dime store mystics who have talked to physicists; and used their ideas about what happens on very small or very large scale to make what they think are groundbreaking pronouncements about what happens at human scale.
"Take a look at the explosion in things like autism, the explosion in chronic health, and [we want to] be able to ask the question, ‘well, what's causing this?"
Couldn't be the pesticides and hormones in our food, or the microplastics we ingest, or the pollution we breath 24/7. Nope, can't be that. Must be seed oils and vaccines.
Or the expansion of awareness and assessments correcting under-diagnosed conditions even.
Also contributing could be changes in our culture that have made those on the spectrum stand out in higher relief. Not directly related, but while ADHD is a legit diagnosis, but given a gradual decrease in recess and other outlets for physical activity in school. some aspects of boys' regular energy, may also have become pathologized and lumped in with ADHD.
Questions of this flavor were being asked 35 years ago relative to pediatric cancer clusters. With the ultimate question being "What is responsible for the observed phenomenon?".
Where are you getting pesticides in your food? OR hormones for that matter?
Most anything you eat that isn't organic?
Do you think organic farms don't use organic pesticides, herbicides and fungicides?
https://www.agdaily.com/technology/the-list-of-pesticides-approved-for-organic-production/
Those that don't persist in the food or soil. Many things on that list don't enter the actual crop at all.
I spent several years working on certified farms.
Well, we live in a world that is full of toxic chemicals that are relatively new (herbicides, pesticides, etc.) many of which remain inadequately researched for safety and others that are known to be hazardous to our health (e.g. paraquat, glyphosate). We have been coping with, not just lead (which is still around), but PFAS, PFOAS, microplastics... the stuff is everywhere. All of this is relatively new, i.e. mostly since the 20th century. To me, that makes more sense as a reason for the explosion in health problems then things like 'seed oils'. In addition, the ubiquitous use of antibiotics in factory farming, antibacterial soaps, etc. could have something to do with the rise in autoimmune disorders. Kids need some dirt in their lives in order to develop strong immune systems. On the other hand, I will definitely agree with these right-wing cranks about Big Ag. Industrial farming, factory farming, and ultraprocessed foods are NOT good for people, farm animals, or the environment!
If these guys are big GOP donors, then they are not the problem.
Thanks for the article Joe,
I would point you to a Cleveland Clinic article that does speak about the harmful effects of seed oils, mainly because of the way they are processed and because of the foods they are generally used to make, fast food or ultra processed food.
I know the noise on this is full of idiocy, but I think it best for the Bulwark to not contribute to that. Polyphenols in these oils are largely removed during their processing and what is left is something that is inflammatory to the body. So your reference to the NIH 2022 study is misleading. The actual study you reference looked at the relationship between polyphenols in fruits and vegetables and ADHD, not seed oils. There should be an effort made to address the reality that eating foods containing these oils, and all the other crap in them is in effect harmful to human health. If you cannot allocate the time, which I totally get, you should not contribute to the misinformation as you have in this article.
I’m a Bulwark member because I trust you all to bring a nuanced and educated approach to these topics, otherwise we just get people screaming at each other or hiding in their corner and eating red meat all day long 😊. Full disclosure, I’m not a fan of Mr. Johnson, Rogan, Musk, Trump, Vance etc… they make things so much worse because they don’t understand the research either and/or they know they gain by riling up their base on stuff like this.
https://health.clevelandclinic.org/seed-oils-are-they-actually-toxic
Thank You David.
Yes RFK is a crank. But eating whole food / real food, and cutting back on sugar & ‘aggressively processed seed oils’ CAN improve metabolic health (including hypertension, T2 diabetes, obesity, & IBS)
And for some of us with serious treatment resistant medical conditions - the nutritional therapies that improved our overall metabolic health have also put debilitating symptoms into remission and made our lives worth living again.
What we eat is a personal choice, but this Bulwark member finds your attitude offensive.
Thanks for this information.
Two big macs and two fish sandwiches??!
He is just... so.... gross!! I genuinely don't understand the women who like him and vote for him. I'm full after eating one Whataburger with cheese, jalapeños, and extra pickles.
But my favorite hypocrites are the ones who railed against the covid vaccine and now take Ozempic lol.
Well, the "fish sandwiches" are probably mostly breading, highly processed to remove unwanted and dangerous fiber which could regroup and become balled up tangles of fiber.
No need to understand his voter, they’re just like him, except they grew up in poverty and never got an education.
What perplexes me is the fact that this guy eats TWO BIG MACS, TWO FISH SANDWICHES, and a malted every day? How is this guy still alive??????…:)
Preservatives, Robert, preservatives
Seed oils probably aren't the greatest thing to eat. Part of the problem is how they're used; usually to fry something. Part of the problem is that they are a processed food, where you strip out the fiber and a lot of the good stuff in the seed to make it, and the result is a concentrated fat without a ton of nutritional content. Eating the whole food is certainly healthier than eating the oil. But connecting it to autism is pretty bonkers.
Quality health and nutritional information is really hard to find, because there are tons of studies out there, they often conflict with one another, and the results can often be predicted based on who's funding the study. So, it's tough. And we are the fattest nation in the world, spend by far the most on healthcare with little return on our investment, so we're doing a whole lot wrong when it comes to nutrition.
Excellent comment. Intracellular metabolism is incredibly complex, never mind adding in the complexity of inter-cellular biomolecule communication mediated by receptors on cellular membranes in different tissues. We're not at the stage yet of saying any given molecule, never mind its metabolites, is responsible for a given systemic condition. That's why it's so infuriating that politicians and celebrities with zero basic biology knowledge jump onto any published article to push a narrative, as THESE days, the internet allows anything to pass through with no evaluation or editing whatsoever. These are not intelligent people, even if they possess a law degree or an MBA.
I am probably missing something about seed oils but my question is do the anti seed oil groups eat sunflower seeds and chia seeds and other nuts that are full of oils but the nut is the seed in most cases. Do they explain why that is ok? And if people get duped into these weird diets because they chose to believe an online crank instead of the nutrition studies done by experts who understand the complex system they will eventually pay with poor health. But think if these are the people that are put in our government because they are loyal. Egad!
"but my question is do the anti seed oil groups eat sunflower seeds and chia seeds and other nuts that are full of oils but the nut is the seed in most cases. Do they explain why that is ok?"
Oddly enough, yes?
Chia seeds and some other nuts and seeds have relatively favorable Ω6:Ω3 ratios.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatty_acid_ratio_in_food#Nuts_and_seeds
From a nutritionist at a mainstream institution (Cleveland Clinic):
"And keep in mind, too, that you want to try to increase your omega-3 intake and limit your omega-6s.
"'Omega-3s are so important for overall heath that we really need to make the effort to get them into our diets,' Zumpano says. 'Omega-6s, on the other hand, are in abundance in Western diets.'
"The omega-6 to omega-3 ratio should be ideally 2:1 or 1:1, but for most Americans, the ratio is actually a whopping 10:1 or even 20:1."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatty_acid_ratio_in_food#Nuts_and_seeds
Can this be overhyped? Sure. Should tinkering with Ω6:Ω3 be most people's dietary priority? Probably not. But it's not unreasonable for people seeking improved health who've already tried other recommended lifestyle changes and failed (either because they couldn't stick to the changes or they could, but they didn't help) to try it at some point.
"Take a look at the explosion in things like autism, the explosion in chronic health, and [we want to] be able to ask the question, ‘well, what's causing this?"
Perhaps RonJon and RFK Jr. should look into genetically passed on auto-immune problems, possibly resulting from requiring/demanding parents keep to term fetuses with probable or even known genetic defects based upon testing while the fetus is still in the womb, as being a part of "what's causing this". Oh, wait. That requires relying on health science and believing the scientific evidence. Silly me.
If Trump is elected, there is no doubt we see significantly reduction in life expectancy in America. Within a decade, we will be on parity with Russia.
People do eat too much processed food; Big Ag is not sufficiently regulated; and nutritional guidelines are controversial. So I'd just say, careful how you argue this out there in the [un]real world; don't get suckered into throwing out the baby with the bathwater.
Until we have some kind of consensus again on (1) what counts as evidence and (2) how to connect the dots between different evidence fragments, then we're all just going to be talking past each other. I don't know what to do about that. I hear stuff out there that is so whackadoodle that I have no idea how to respond to it. But I know we have to keep our own argument as clean and tight as a drum. Even if that isn't "fair," it's the only way to keep a foothold and hope to get back onto dry land someday.
I have a lot of problems with these people. This ranks pretty low among them.
MAGA is a cult, i.e., made of gullible people. Therefore MAGA is market for anything that requires credulity. Anything!
By making the MAGA market addressable via easily identifiable social media outlets and so forth Trump has opened the door for all the scammers in the world to go after "his people" - he was the first one through the door but many others are following.
It was hard to read that first article. The crackpottery is just off the charts. And America will suffer at a number of levels if these guys have any influence with respect to health. It's almost too bad that a bad diet is not a quick killer. Back to the Dark Ages for us.
The price of admission to right-wing cultural heights is embracing crackpottery, or, even better, generating crackpottery.
Per JD Vance, “I’m plugged into a lot of weird right-wing subcultures,”... Yes, yes, you are, and happily so, it would appear.
Yes, that admission from JD was quite startling, no? 🤣
I know! Talk about saying the quiet part out loud. Not sure it's something to be proud of.
It never even occurred to me that hostages could be subject tax penalties, that adds insult to injury. Seems like force majeure should get them out of the late fees on their loans and credit cards.
Very much agree.
I've been in the throes of "chronic health" my entire 77 years, 9 months, 6 days and counting. Sometimes that "chronic health" was under the weather to a greater or lesser degree, but mostly it has been in the good-to-excellent category. And this is so in spite of my near-daily use of canola (rapeseed) oil and my protein coming primarily from chicken, pork and fish, with an occasional eye of round beef roast. I guess I'll be in chronic health 'til the day I finally just run plumb out of health.
All quacks paid by the beef and pork and chicken industry