Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (R) en Food and Drug Administration (FDA) commissaris Martin Makary in het Witte Huis in mei, toen Kennedy een Make America Healthy Again Commission Report uitbracht dat de toename van chronische ziekten de schuld gaf van chronische ziekten over ultracommodeerd voedsel, chemische exposities, lifestyle -factoren, lifestyle -factoren en overmatig gebruik van geneesmiddelen voor recepten.
Kevin Dietsch/Getty images North -America
Hide caption
Schakel Caption
Kevin Dietsch/Getty images North -America
Health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Has performed medical research and public health in the US in many ways in the US. One of the ideas that could influence his overhaul of federal health authorities dates from ancient Greece.
The Miasma -theory Is one of the first ideas that civilization has hatched to try to explain why people get sick.
“It’s going back to Hippocrates,” says Dr. Howard MarkelAn emeritus professor of medical history at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. “He wrote in a book called EpidemicsThose epidemics came from a kind of pollution – some pollution of the atmosphere, of the air that we breathe. And that is why we had terrible infectious diseases. “
This idea that essentially caused poor air that disease was later defended by many others, including Florence Nightingale. It also led to some things that helped to fight diseases, such as cleaning up waste water.
But then the germ theory – One of the great Eureka moments of humanity. Scientists such as Louis Pasteur and Robert Koch discovered that it was not a mysterious smell in the air of decaying waste that spread diseases. Instead, they were living microscopic entities.
“They discovered what we know as germs – microbes,” says Melanie KiechleA historian at Virginia Tech. “Bacteria and viruses and other microscopic materials were actually what caused disease and also explained the spread of disease from one person to another. So Miasma theory is essentially invalidated.”
The discovery of germs led to breakthroughs such as antibiotics and vaccines.
But in a book Kennedy Published about four years ago, The Real Anthony Fauci: Bill Gates, Big Pharma and the Global War on Democracy and Public Health, The now-health secretary goes back to the Miasma theory.
“Miasma theory emphasizes the prevention of disease by strengthening the immune system by nutrition and reducing exposures to environmental oxins and stress,” Writes Kennedy.
But experts say that a problem is how Kennedy defines the Miasma theory.
“I will categorically say that the Miasma theory, such as historians of medicine and science understanding, is not what he says it is, point out,” says Nancy TomesA historian of the germ theory at Stoney Brook University, who wrote The gospel of germs: men, women and the microbe in American life.
But Kennedy’s Take can help to explain part of his policy, especially about vaccines.
“The Miasma theory is the idea that there are environmental poisons, not necessarily rotting organic matter,” says Dr. Paul OffitA vaccine expert at the University of Pennsylvania. “For him, those consequences of the environmental electromagnetic radiation, pesticides, vaccines. Vaccins are a modern miasma for him.”
And that is dangerous, many experts say.
“Can stress, air pollution, other things, make infections worse? Yes. But the cause of infections is a microorganism,” says Dr. Tina soIt leads to the Infectious Disease Society of America. “It’s the micro -organisms that make people sick.”
And it has been clearly demonstrated that vaccines protect people safely and effectively against dangerous microorganisms, Tan and others say.
“He tries to give this false veneer of intellectualism by saying,” Oh, the Miasma theory, “says Dr. Amesh AdaljaA senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health Center for Health Security. “All this just obscure to support his idea that vaccines are not valuable.”
But some other observers claim that Kennedy’s ideas about miasma and germ theories do not necessarily exclude each other.
“The real debate here is whether we can solve public health problems by developing treatments such as vaccines, antibiotics or other medicines? Or whether we will solve these problems by strengthening people’s immune system through healthier habits?” out Gregg GirvanA resident fellow at the foundation for research into equal opportunities, a think tank in Washington. “And my answer is:” Why can’t we acknowledge that there is truth in both positions? “
Kennedy’s office did not respond to NPR’s request for more information about his views on the Miasma and Kiem theories.
#Miasma #theory #vaccine #movements #health #secretary #Robert #Kennedy #declaring #evidented