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What do you think of the medical claims of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.?
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an American environmental attorney and activist, has recently announced his candidacy for the presidency and appeared on the Jordan B Peterson Podcast, where I encountered him for the first time. He makes the, um, interesting claim that endocrine disruptors are "everywhere to be found" in our daily lives, and that because they can sexually feminize frogs, they must be responsible for the apparent explosion of gender dysphoria and transgender identity that has taken place over the last 5-10 years.
Some more claims I did a double-take on, having never heard them before: He claims also that a Cochraine collaboration report has declared Pharma drugs are the third leading cause of death in the US after cancer and heart attacks, and that masks are entirely ineffective in preventing the transmission of COVID-19? 70% of advertising on the news is from pharmaceutical companies? Big Pharma gives twice as much as the next biggest industry to congress in lobbying efforts? Most drug research has been corrupted by bad incentives and cannot be trusted?
If you don't know Kennedy, Chat GPT summarizes his "distinctive policy positions and views" as:
Environmental Advocacy: Kennedy is well-known for his advocacy and activism on environmental issues. He has been a strong proponent of environmental conservation, fighting against pollution, climate change, and the use of harmful chemicals. He has advocated for sustainable energy solutions, conservation of natural resources, and protection of ecosystems.
Vaccine Safety Concerns: Kennedy has been vocal about his concerns regarding vaccine safety, particularly the potential risks associated with certain vaccine ingredients. He has criticized the vaccine industry and called for further research into the safety and efficacy of vaccines, emphasizing the importance of informed consent and transparency.
Opposition to Industrial Agriculture: Kennedy has expressed opposition to industrial agriculture practices and the use of genetically modified organisms (GMOs). He has advocated for organic farming methods, sustainable agriculture, and the promotion of healthier food options.
Corporate Influence in Politics: Kennedy has been critical of the influence of corporations on politics and policy-making. He has highlighted the need for campaign finance reform and has called for increased transparency in political donations to reduce the impact of corporate interests on policy decisions.
Energy Policy and Fossil Fuels: Kennedy has been a strong advocate for renewable energy sources and a critic of fossil fuel dependence. He has supported the development and implementation of clean energy technologies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and combat climate change.
Civil Liberties and Privacy: Kennedy has expressed concerns about the erosion of civil liberties and privacy rights. He has opposed government surveillance programs and the infringement of individual rights in the name of national security.
He has a lot of "big if true" claims and I would be grateful to know if there is any substance to them or what I need to say in order to efficiently discredit him in the future to anyone who may believe what he says.
While I believe that RFK Jr has many inaccurate beliefs, some of his claims that you mention in your post are at least arguably correct, including a couple that may sound outlandish at first. However, after briefly going through all the claims you mention, I have concluded that RFK Jr makes a number of claims that are either false or hard to believe without a lot of strong supporting evidence. Also, his most explosive claims seem the most fishy. I don't think he is someone who is rigorously seeking truth, but rather someone who is prone to believe shocking claims and occasional conspiracy theories but for this reason also occasionally entertains plausible ideas that are somewhat verboten in polite discourse. Overall, I think you should be very skeptical of him but remain open to the possibility that some of his hard-to-believe claims are correct.
Let me now go through his claims one by one.
Endocrine disruptors are "everywhere to be found" in our daily lives. This is hard to evaluate since the phrase "everywhere to be found is vague, but it's at least arguably true. Endocrine disrupters are found in a number of products which it is possible to encounter in everyday life, such as pesticides (though note that some products containing endocrine disrupters have been banned, e.g. DDT was banned in the US in the 1970s). I wasn't able to quickly find information about the precise prevalence of endocrine disrupters in human environments, but see here for a very long report commissioned by the EU which claims (among other things) that current tests for the presence of endocrine disrupters are insufficiently sensitive. See here for some basic information about endocrine disrupters from the NIH.
[Endocrine disrupters] can sexually feminize frogs. This seems to be true. See here for one study claiming this. Tyrone Hayes at UC Berkeley has studied this extensively and claims to have subsequently been harassed by the pesticide company Syngenta who (he claims) are trying to cover up the negative effects of their products. He was recently inducted to the National Academy of Sciences, so he seems to be well respected. Here's another study claiming that exposure to endocrine disrupters present in some paint can cause masculinization in mollusks.
[Endocrine disrupters] must be responsible for the apparent explosion of gender dysphoria and transgender identity that has taken place over the last 5-10 years. This claim is hard for me to evaluate. I was not able to quickly find any strong evidence in support of it. On the one hand, it does not seem totally implausible. On the other hand, some things don't quite fit. Endocrine disrupters have been around for many decades and perhaps were even more prevalent in the past (before things like DDT were banned), but the explosion in the number of cases of gender dysphoria is very recent. Also, the feminization/masculinization effects of endocrine disrupters observed in frogs and mollusks were at the level of gross anatomy whereas gender dysphoria is a (purely?) psychological phenomenon. There may have been an increase in sexual developmental disorders caused by endocrine disrupters in the environment but I'm not sure to what extent this has occurred nor to what extent this can be connected with increases in gender dysphoria. I'd be happy for someone more knowledgeable about any of this to weigh in. Also, the number of exclusively homosexual men does not seem to have seen a significant increase from the Kinsey report until today (the number of bisexual men has increased a lot, but this seems much more contingent on social facts: it is easy to imagine mildly bisexual men opting to identify as purely straight in a homophobic environment but as bisexual in a homophilic environment). At the very least, this seems like a very bold claim for someone like RFK Jr to make without strong supporting evidence.
A Cochraine [sic] collaboration report has declared Pharma drugs are the third leading cause of death in the US after cancer and heart attacks. There are really two claims here: first that a Cochrane review has made this claim and second, that the claim is true. I am unable to find any Cochrane review claiming this, but I didn't look very hard and I'm open to being proved wrong. The second claim seems straightforwardly incorrect. This page from the CDC claims that the third leading cause of death in the US is covid, with about 400,000 deaths per year. Excluding covid, the third leading cause of death is accidents, with about 225,000 per year. I don't really see how drugs could be the third leading cause of death unless you split up several other causes in unnatural ways (e.g. splitting "accidents" into several smaller categories). By the way, I'm not sure why the CDC page I linked to leaves out drug-related causes, but this document claims that in 2019, there were 75,000 drug related deaths. However, about 95% of these were deaths from drug overdose, mostly illegal opiods. So even if RFK Jr's claim is true, it's only by breaking down several categories in unnatural ways and lumping all drug overdose deaths together into a single "Pharma drugs" category, which seems unreasonable.
Masks are entirely ineffective in preventing the transmission of COVID-19. I'm going to skip this one because it has been written about a lot already, both on this forum and elsewhere. My personal opinion is that saying masks are "entirely ineffective" is much too strong a claim, though I'm on board with a more limited claim that their effectiveness was exaggerated in popular media, especially the effectiveness of cloth masks.
70% of advertising on the news is from pharmaceutical companies. I'm highly skeptical of this, but had trouble finding concrete data. Also it's a bit vague: what does "news" entail? Does it include news websites? Newspapers like the NYT? Weighted by viewers, spending or something else? In any case, it just defies my own personal experience. I agree there are a lot of drug ads, but I don't feel like I've ever watched TV and seen almost 3 out of every 4 ads be about drugs.
Big Pharma gives twice as much as the next biggest industry to congress in lobbying efforts. This seems to not be literally true, but close enough that it's not worth the quibble. This chart by Statista shows that the pharmaceuticals/health products industry spends about $370,000,000 on lobbying in the US per year and the next leading industry, Electronics manufacturing and equipment, spends about $220,000,000. Now 370 is not quite twice 220 and I'm sure "health products" includes a number of non-pharmaceutical companies, but the claim was reasonably close to correct and violated my intuition so I'll give it to him.
I think you're being too charitable. "Unexceptional idea, therefore absurd idea" shouldn't count as having 50% of his claims right.
I never said 50% of his claims were right and I'm not sure why you think I did. In fact, I said "some of his claims are at least arguably correct" which I think is true and "I think you should be very skeptical of him." I don't think RFK Jr is a good source of information nor do I think most of his most extreme claims are correct. I do think that some of his claims are correct or partly correct, but that's a much weaker statement.
Also, I don't really understand what you mean by "unexceptional idea, therefore absurd idea."
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