WRFH/Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM - Flyover Features: RFK vs "The Science"

Episode Date: November 21, 2024

There's a new head of Health and Human Services in town. But some folks don't like the changes RFK wants to implement. What do cohosts Emma Verrigni and Sophia Mandt think?

You're listening to Flyover Features on Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. I'm Sophia Mant, speaking with my co-host Emma Verini. And in this episode, we are going to talk about a recent Washington Post article titled, Changes RFK Jr. could make as Health and Human Services Secretary, from vaccines to raw milk. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. wants to revisit federal vaccine recommendations take fluoride out of public water and boost access to raw milk, among other goals, by Diamond, Rubin, and Vinal. And this article was published November 15th, 2024. So, did you have any thoughts after reading this article, Sophia?

Yeah, I did. I thought about how raw milk is a strange thing to support. now. I don't know. It's just milk that's not pasteurized. Like what's that helping if you just drink raw milk instead? I don't get it. My grandpa just loved

raw milk because he preferred the taste. I don't know. I like to trust what the ancient Greek pre-Socratic philosopher said in one of my books, where he says something along the lines of, well, actually milk is best if one draw it from the female. Wait, who said that? See, I tried to find the picture I took of it and to find my book on Presocratic philosophy,

the fragments, and I couldn't find it, but an ancient Presocratic one did. It was not when I had heard of before, so it's not like Heraclitus or like, you know, one of the really well-known ones, but he did say that. I need to know who this is now. That's really funny. Yeah, I even looked it up, but I did not get ancient Greek, pre-Socratic, pre-Socratic philosophical thought. even though I did type up, who said milk is best if one dropped from the female ancient pre-Socratic Greek philosopher. I just got advice on breastfeeding and the nutritional benefits babies get from drinking their mother's milk.

So, yeah. Okay. Well, that's unfortunate. I definitely, I've never had raw milk before. I know some people who do drink it. So I could only really speak anecdotally about people I know. know who consume raw milk. And of course, it's illegal to consume it in a lot of cases. But there are a lot of really interesting loopholes that people have found out about how to

get raw milk, which is interesting. And also, it just goes to demonstrate that if people really want to have this, they're going to do what it takes to have it. I know someone who owns, like, a very small fraction of a cow. and in the case that you own the cow, you're actually able to do whatever you want with the milk. So he owns like one-thirtieth of a cow or whatever. And so that's, I might be saying too much on air,

but that is one way you can get raw milk if you, you know, so inclined. Yeah, that's just, that's great. But it just feels like a strange cultural thing to pick up on. debating over raw milk. Yeah, it's kind of random. It is random. I mean, I don't know.

I guess they have a point of wanting to, like, grow your own food. But we'll see. I think the same people that really drink a lot of raw milk also drink raw eggs. I know someone who does that. You do? Yes. And they say it's, for breakfast, they drink like this smoothie with just raw eggs. And they claim it's delicious and probably really good for their health.

Never once have they gotten Sam Manila. Oh, wow. I wonder who that is. That's interesting. But, yeah, I don't know where the whole raw milk thing came from. I remember seeing memes on the internet about it like a couple years ago. There were guys who were wearing hats that said make milk raw again, which is kind of weird. But when I switched from 2% to whole milk, I mean, it was just, it was another world.

It was great. Whole milk is just so much better than 2% milk taste-wise. So if raw milk is the same, if it's like that much better than whole milk, then I would want to be able to drink it, to be honest. You get maximum power from the rawness of the materials that you are consuming. You see, I just drink. drink, here's the liquids I drink. I drink water. I drink a pure black coffee with no cream and sugar

because I'm a real human being. And I will sometimes enjoy the taste of kombucha, especially, um, it's just, it's just, it's so good. It tastes amazing. And those are the only liquids I tend to drink. Here are the liquids I drink. Yeah, well now you know, you're such a real human. Wow. I am. I don't, I don't drink the fake. cream in my coffee. Okay. I'm kidding, obviously. I don't think it's that serious.

Give it a rest. Okay, I'll give a rest. Yeah, I never drink pop or soda. Actually, I do have a giant thing of soda in my room, but I have only been drinking like a sip or so from it each day. So it's still like 75% full. Wow.

Yeah, so aside from the raw milk issue, which is kind of what stands out about this headline and this article, there's a lot of other stuff that it goes over. And I'm just going to list out some of it. And maybe we can pick up on a couple of these. But he wants apparently to conduct additional studies on vaccines to revisit federal vaccine recommendations, take fluoride out of public water, remove food, dyes, and other ingredients, ban puberty blockers for children. That's a big one. That's a based one. and push out certain federal officials.

And that part was kind of vague. We're not exactly sure what he's going to do with that. But that is what it lists. And I don't know. What do you think about, I mean, aside from all the science behind vaccines, that the science behind vaccines, the alleged science that exists behind the vaccines, certain vaccines,

what do you think about what it says here? It sounds like it's sort of trying to make it sound like this is a terrible thing, but all it seems like he says he wants to do is just additional studies. Yeah, which is technically doing what people, the supposed experts call the science. Right. We need more rigorous studies. Yeah, all he's trying to do is give us more the science. Yeah, the science.

I love how they say also under remove food dyes and other ingredients. The food industry has warned that any changes should be based in science. How do they define science? What does that mean? Based in science. It's just like, I trust the science. Trust the science. And it's like, you know, when you say that, I don't think you actually understand how like that's, it's kind of supposed to actually work.

Well, the whole thing. What's really funny about this article is that it's basically just the left sort of running. into an identity crisis because for the past like four plus years they've been appealing to the authority of the CDC and the government and whatever in the science and the authority and now that looks like it's going to be changing so what are they going to do now that they can't appeal to authority the same way that they used to anymore i mean yeah well it's funny too because like when the CDC was coming out you know obviously which stands for a center for disease control and prevention when it came to covid like it made you realize how these supposed experts

don't know a lot because a lot of their information changed over the course of COVID spreading because they simply didn't know, I think, that much. So it's like, but it's funny because they're saying, oh, take fluoride out of public water. This is bad. But then apparently the Obama administration also did that, which is something kind of based that they actually did, I guess. Yeah. I did not know Obama did this. Yeah, I think it's interesting that they put that in there because if I think they left that out, that'd be something that a lot of people jump to criticize without realizing that Obama did the same thing. Oh, yeah. Well, Obama has a lot of those funny stories, like how he was really strongly against gay marriage and ran a platform on like pro strong border wall when he ran.

and he went back on the gay marriage stance, and he never really went against the border, like strong borders thing. And I mean, for a time, some people on the left were straight up, like openly promoting open borders, if you remember, like in 2016. Now everyone's claiming Duon to strong border,

but, you know, it's kind of funny how that works. Yeah, so I also think it's pretty great that he wants to ban puberty blockers children because that's just evil. That's a big one. Yeah. I think it's so interesting when they add polls like this into the article. Just for context, it says major medical organizations support the treatments. About 7 and 10 American adults surveyed in 2022 by the Washington Post and KFF, a nonpartisan think tank said they opposed making purity blockers available to trans children between the ages of 10 and 14.

It's like that is such a democratic mindset to have. Well, if, you know, seven and ten adults say that puberty blockers are bad, well, oh, okay, I guess maybe I should, you know, think a little bit more strongly about this. Well, it's kind of like, it's kind of weirdly organized this article. Like, many medical organizations support the treatments. Seven to ten American adults surveyed, blah, blah, blah. Like, I understand what they're doing, but it's kind of a weird way of combining the information. Many medical organizations who are selling the puberty blockers support the use of puberty blockers. I actually not should mention, it's funny they're saying medical organizations because even from the liberal worldview, which I have definitely been exposed to, they would, like an organization is not like the same as a medical research center or like a respected institution.

Yeah. You know what I'm saying? So like that's not that real. It's not super reliable. like advocacy organization. Yeah, exactly. Like it's not, I mean, I mean, that's kind of funny actually, because there are a handful of actual institutions

that will claim to support that. But like, they're not, they're just saying organizations, probably, you know, and it's like, well, yeah, an organization or nonprofit supporting it, they could or could be wrong, but like they're not really the actual experts in the situation in theory. It's kind of funny.

Yeah. Well, if the smart people are saying that it's okay to give puberty blockers to kids, I am all for it. I support that. And I also want to be one of the smart educated people. Yeah. Well, let's see. The problem is that it's like the bell curve of IQ. Like the middle of the road people are like supporting this.

But then, you know, you have the people at the low one that are just like, God is going to not like it if you do this to the kids. kiddies, the kids. And then you have like the, you know, people that aren't even part of the organizational establishment because they reject it and they think beyond their group understanding. And they're like, no. And I unironically know of a professor who's kind of like that. He presented stuff for like, it's not really to do with politics, but he just presented stuff that like literally other people didn't really understand or get. And I tend to like what has to say about certain things in his field more than like the general consensus or the majority. It's kind of funny.

That makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. I think probably the lower end of the bell curve folks, the people on the low IQ side are probably just acting more on instinct. Yeah, exactly. immediate visceral reaction to this is that's disgusting. Don't do that, please.

They got morals. And then there are the people who are like, actually, gender is a social construct. And I'm a real smart, educated person. And I want to believe this. So I'm going to. Yeah. And then it's funny as the people say gender is a social construct aren't like that well read. Because like most philosophers other than some in the post-structural,

tradition would kind of argue against that. And even some of the supposed post-structuralist philosophers they claim to like don't exactly have those kinds of opinions or express them in their writings. Yeah. Sorry. I get a little bit more annoying when it comes to really specific stuff like this because, like, I'm not an expert, but it's also kind of somewhat what I'm studying as a social major. Some of these more modern philosophers are older ones. It's kind of interesting. Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. But yeah, I think, it's, I think it's really funny that they're, they're still sort of trying to appeal to certain

medical authorities in this one as well when they talk about the major medical organizations that support the treatments. And I've seen this in at least a couple of these graphs where they'll say, these really vague appeals to health experts and authority and stuff like that, they'll say something like some public health experts say they are unlikely to trust any vaccine studies released by Kennedy. Or as another example, under the raw milk section, both the FDA and the CDC have warned that drinking raw milk can expose people to dangerous germs such as E. coli and Lysuria. which actually I think is true if you if you in some cases if you don't produce the raw milk correctly it is easier to get sick from it that's not that's not false that's actually that is correct but it's it's it's very interesting to see to see that's part of why I'm not super like all raw milk because that's one of these things where I'm just like I feel like there's just more significant cultural things to focus on than raw milk I don't know yeah I think it's interesting that people are so divided about raw milk. It's a little bit silly. Honestly, I think it's kind of a manufactured media outrage type thing.

I don't know. I think people talk about it because it's goofy. I can't think of that many people that are willing to die for raw milk access. I'm not dying on that hill, no. I think it started with just random accounts on like Twitter and Instagram who were promoting it. And they just gained a lot of followers for some reason. people started becoming really passionate about this. Yes, raw eggs and raw milk and just raw food. Yeah, I'd say raw eggs are a little different, though.

I mean, it's the same broad cultural trend. That is true. That is true. I mean, I actually think that in a broad sense, it's a good thing because, yeah, you don't want food dyes or artificial preservatives, but like, your ancestors probably also would have cooked their eggs maybe if they had the opportunity to. You don't think that our ancestors were drinking raw eggs?

I mean, they probably were, but I also think that like, you know, they were also cooking them in some cases too. You've been listening to Flyover Features on Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. So we've somehow gotten back to the raw milk topic. Well, it is entertaining and kind of funny. We've gone full circle. We started with raw milk and we might be ending with raw milk. Yeah.

Yeah. Anyway, as we said before, yeah, this is a kind of funny appeal to article type, appeal to authority type article. I mean, yeah, it is kind of funny how those, the FDA and those groups work. Yes. And how they like allow for things that European countries ban because they see them as, they see some of these preservatives as leading to death instead of human flourishing. Yeah, I don't understand how you can argue that it would be possible for there to be collusion between the CDC and the private sector.

Like, this is the sort of thing that people on the left 10 years ago would have totally been on board with agreeing with. And now, for some reason, the roles have flipped and they, like, refuse to admit that the government and big pharma and big food just cannot possibly ever want to hurt anybody ever. Now they're supporting the big government agencies, you know, the, it's, it's, but it does seem like it's just collapsing. I don't know. It's really hard to say though, because it's like I live in, I'm curious to see what things will be like when I go back home because I live in a pretty liberal area, as you know. And then like here at Hillsdale, both the actual college and the community are

pretty conservative because like I just want to see if there is a vibe shift or if like people are more angry than ever because I remember like more at homes on my street than not like over over half of them have black lives matter signs and I'm not exaggerating interesting yeah yeah there are some neighborhoods by mine that are like that because I also live in a somewhat more liberal area back home but I would say my neighborhood itself is just very apolitical and nobody really like talks about it or has any signs or anything like that, which is interesting. See, I was talking to my dad about this, but my, my Iowa hometown, it's like weirdly specific demographic of there's a lot of older liberal people. You like the people that have the love is love. Science is real. Science is real. Science exists.

No, there's so, those signs are still commonplace. Like it's a lot of older, kind of older people that have stuff like that. Yeah, well, they're the, they're the boomers. The boomers led. the sexual revolution. They led the civil rights movement. I don't know why people are so surprised that this younger generation is reacting against that. That's just sort of how it goes. Yeah. Well, I've said this before.

There's going to be a counter, there might be a countercultural revolution to that of the 60s where being right wing in certain situations while also being interested in art and culture and that form of subversion is going to become popular. Yeah. Yeah. I think that that's true. That's probably true.

Yes. It's kind of funny how it's like, I still can't believe this is real that Trump actually won again and that it's like the ultimate right wing Twitter meme administration with like Elon Musk in charge and RFK Jr. It's kind of funny. Yeah. And yet, nonetheless, none of this stuff is that radical at all. It's not like they're mandating vaccines or trying to do anything crazy or trying to feed us. junk food. It's like quite the opposite. And I don't see a single thing on here that I believe is going to harm anybody. So they try to say that this is crazy. And I mean, honestly,

they phrased it such that it can sound as crazy as possible. And yet reading this article, I don't feel like any of this stuff is radical at all. So that's interesting. We're going to have to see what happens once he's actually in office. Yes. But that is all we have time for today. You've been listening to Fly for Features on Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. I'm Emma Verini, and I'm here with Sophia Matt.