The Three Words RFK Jr. Relies on
How an Opportunistic Wordsmith Manipulates Reality
It would be a stretch to say that Health and Human Services (HHS) is being led for the first time by someone who is out of their depth, but it’s certainly the case that, for the first time, its chief is deeply suspicious of most modern medicine. Since Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s confirmation as HHS secretary, he has upheld his reputation as a conspiracy theorist, most recently pledging that the agency would identify the cause of autism "by September" and appointing a discredited vaccine skeptic to contribute to the research.
RFK Jr is often described as having made a remarkable switch from lifelong Democrat and environmental lawyer to serving in the cabinet of the Trump administration, an ostensibly pro-fossil fuel and anti-regulatory White House. This misunderstands the extent to which conspiratorial views transcend partisan fault lines.
Kennedy is not a flip-flopper, he's an opportunist.
Poor Reporting … Rich Opportunism
From Wi-Fi causing "leaky brain" to the herbicide atrazine turning male frogs female, the myriad of crackpot concepts Kennedy spews aren't of his own making, they're a result of decades of approximations in public discourse and lazy reporting.
Take the CNN source citing the atrazine story. Authors Abby Turner and Andrew Kaczynski accurately describe RFK's theory that since atrazine turns frogs female, it may cause sex changes in children. However, the reporters fail to show where this flimsy theory originated.
Tyrone B. Hayes, who led the study in 2010, has been discredited numerous times. The research was debunked and has failed to be replicated in over 7,000 studies.
CNN follows RFK Jr down the rabbit hole by writing: "Kennedy on multiple occasions misconstrued endocrine disruptors' studied ability to cause some male frogs to become female and produce viable eggs, suggesting these chemicals could have similar effects on children and change their sexuality."
It may have been studied, but what we study is not what we conclude. There is no such thing as a "studied ability." I could "study" extraterrestrials disappearing my car keys, but evidence would be required to put it in a scientific paper. Calling it a "studied ability" is as unconscionable as headlining a court story with "the murderer stood trial" without noting "alleged."
"Could," "Hazardous," and "Linked"
The holy trinity of bad science reporting will always include approximations such as "could," "hazardous," and "linked." These are RFK Jr’s three favorite words.
Many reporters are familiar with Betteridge's law of headlines: "Any headline ending in a question mark can be answered by the word no," because if the writer were confident, they'd make it an assertion.
Why does the New York Times publish a piece headlined, "Is Glyphosate in the Food Supply Harming Your Health?" when it wouldn't do the same about vaccines? (To be fair, NYT did publish "Is Vaccination Dangerous?"—in 1869.)
When RFK Jr. joined Joe Rogan’s podcast to discuss his glyphosate lawsuit against Monsanto (now Bayer Crop Science), he used the word "linked" to describe diseases he implied are caused by glyphosate exposure. None of the studies showed that non-Hodgkin lymphoma, the cancer Kennedy’s client had contracted, was caused by glyphosate, nor did the court.
Courtrooms aren’t scientific agencies, and jurors aren't scientists. By using "linked" and echoing "associated hazards" or "possible connections," juries are primed to find companies responsible for damages no one has proven they caused.
The Children's Health Defense, a vaccine skeptic organization Kennedy founded, heavily features these words to spread misinformation: "Could COVID Shots Trigger 'Avalanche' of a Contagious Form of Dementia?", "Fluoride Linked to Diabetes in Kids," "Aspartame Linked to Anxiety," "Glyphosate Linked to Severe Depression," "Household Cleaners Are Hazardous to Your Health," among others.
One should think of "linked" in the same way we learn that correlation does not equate to causation. The increase in readership for The Dispatch may correlate with an increase in earthquakes, but that doesn't mean The Dispatch causes earthquakes.
This is why "linked" is so truthless.
And what of "hazardous," so commonly found in stories about food additives, pesticides, and medical treatments? Although "hazard" and "risk" are often used interchangeably, they are not the same in risk assessment. "Hazard" is the possibility something can cause harm; "risk" is the probability it will.
The European Food Safety Authority explains the difference:
Hazard is like a shark in the sea while you're on the beach;
risk is swimming in the sea with the shark.
Risk = Hazard Ă— Exposure.
Anxiety … in mice
Exposure to aspartame in Diet Coke is not a risk because concentrations are too low. In stories about aspartame supposedly causing anxiety, studies administered extra high doses to mice—not representative of human consumption. The study concludes: "Our findings offer unequivocal evidence for aspartame-induced anxiety in male and female mice."
The correct headline would be: "Aspartame, administered in extraordinary doses not representative of human daily intake, causes anxiety in mice, which, for the record, are neither humans nor consumers of Diet Coke."
But try getting that past your editor.
Bill Wirtz is a senior agriculture policy analyst at the Consumer Choice Center, where he focuses on ag and trade in the European Union and North America.
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