A Wellness Misinformationist Is In Charge of Health Policy. What Now?
Plus, the links: The best ways to respond to misinformation, how to stop being a jerk to yourself, and more.
Welcome to another installment of the Rethinking Wellness link roundup! Every other week, I share a small collection of links from around the internet that are relevant to the conversations we have here.
I usually also offer some quick takes and/or deeper dives for paid subscribers, but right now my daughter’s preschool is closed all week for “winter break” and the government is in chaos and I just don’t have the bandwidth for my typical takes/dives, so this one will be very brief (and free).
Links
Here are some pieces that got me thinking in the past few weeks. I found value in all of these, but links are not endorsements of every single detail in the piece or everything the writer ever wrote.
RFK Jr. is now HHS Secretary. What comes next? (
and )The perfect storm that carried RFK Jr. from fringe to center of Trump administration (STAT)
RFK Jr. Is Already Taking Aim at Antidepressants (Mother Jones)
Address science misinformation not by repeating the facts, but by building conversation and community (The Conversation)
How to Stop Being a Jerk to Yourself (
)In Case You Missed It
Vaccines Don’t Cause Autism. Why Do People Think They Do?
When Sugar Is Survival, or: the Importance of Eating When You’re Not Hungry
Quick Take: RFK Jr.’s Confirmation
Well, it happened…RFK Jr. was confirmed as HHS secretary. I’m not at all surprised, but I’m still heartbroken—and even more committed to encouraging/modeling critical thinking about health and wellness claims. We’re going to need it now more than ever.
As part of that commitment, I’m trying to conserve my energy and not completely lose my sh*t right now, because I know this is going to be a long four years. Me freaking out isn’t me at my most discerning, and I’m going to try to remember that amid the coming onslaught of anti-science policies and baseless wellness pronouncements.
The effect of chaotic environments is often to create reflexive and disorganized outrage, confusion, flailing, numbness, disconnection. I toggled between those states for pretty much the whole of Trump 1.0, and it didn’t do me (or the world?) much good. What would it feel like to take a new approach this time? What would it be like to prioritize deliberation, curiosity, compassion? To keep nuance at the forefront? To do fewer quick takes and more deep dives? To respond instead of react?
That certainly isn’t the approach favored by social-media platforms…which might be why it feels like such a potentially powerful antidote to the havoc they’ve helped create.
*
I hope this roundup gave you some food for thought, and I’d love to hear from you. Also, please let me know if there are any recent pieces (published within the last few weeks) you’d like me to consider for the next installment! Feel free to comment below, or submit them here.
Thanks for the share Christy!
Overall I think the confirmation of RFK Jr (and the Trump administration as a whole) will be a net negative. I do think RFK Jr will do some positive things, just like I think some positives will come out of some of Trump's policies (I try to keep an open mind). However, I do think things will be worse off for the majority of people living in the United States.