A tale of two cancers

And the man stopping research on cancer—and much more

Catherine O’Hara and James Van Der Beek both recently died from colorectal cancer. Well, O’Hara officially passed due to a pulmonary embolism; rectal cancer was the underlying cause. Regardless, losing an actress and actor to a horrendous disease within two weeks of each other is tragic.

Every death offers an opportunity for conspiracy theorists to pontificate. The response to O’Hara was largely empathic; I only saw a few instances of people blaming the Covid-19 vaccine once pulmonary embolism was revealed.

Death has become self-righteous vindication for the scientifically illiterate. MAHA supercharged radical wellness indoctrination. No anti-vaxxers claimed Van Der Beek’s death was caused by “the jab,” likely because his wife, Kimberly, began spreading Covid conspiracies years ago.

I talked to Rolling Stone about James’s slide into QAnon in 2022. Van Der Beek settled in Austin, which became a hotbed for Covid contrarianism and conspiracies. Wellness devotees never let an opportunity pass, however, so the focus became the uselessness of colonoscopies, with some going so far as to claim that screenings are the real cause of colorectal cancer.

My feed has been filled with influencers telling people not to get colonoscopies or mammograms this week. In this post on a popular anti-vax feed, screenings are “bioweapons,” flu shots are being “pushed” on us, and “convid injections” cause cancer. As with a lot of communities claiming to hold special insider knowledge, this set has created their own language:

There is no indication whether or not he took the poison-19 injections although he was working while there were mandates. This is not to cast guilt or blame him. It should be standard protocol to check for SV40 and quacksine spike.

What I find most interesting is their next sentence:

It is clear current treatments like chemo are not effective and better alternatives/combinations must be found.

As a cancer survivor, and as someone with two family members currently battling cancer, I pay particular attention to this set of diseases. The first part of the sentence is garbage: chemo is highly effective against many cancers (there are over 200 in existence).

The second part hints at something I’ve seen often in the wellness contrarian space. The logic goes like this: oncologists, in conjunction with Big Pharma, are only there to push chemo. Yet in my experiences, interviewing people in the cancer immunology space, experts are constantly searching for more targeted and better solutions than chemotherapy.

In fact, cancer researchers are actually developing more reliable therapeutics, not those conspiracy theorists hiding behind online handles because they fear having their identity revealed. One of the most promising therapeutics right now is a set of cancer vaccines, some which are FDA-approved, others in development. Anti-vaxxers pine for better solutions, yet scoff when presented with them.

One aspect of Van Der Beek’s death across the board is relevant to everyone: he shouldn’t have had to sell memorabilia to pay for treatments, which apparently bankrupted his family. All Americans should be beneficiaries of socialized medicine.

Another irony: the anti-vax set supports a man making sure we never get it.

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On Thursday, RFK Jr returned to Theo Von’s podcast to discuss a wide range of disconnected topics that define the bro podcast space. After saying he’s not scared of germs (referring to Covid-19) because he used to “snort cocaine from toilet seats,” Kennedy returned to a familiar refrain:

RFK Jr: “Fluoride is crazy because we know it reduces IQ - there’s no question. If you have kids, would you rather them have cavities or lower IQ?”

Theo: “I’d rather them have cavities. I’d rather them have holes in their teeth than holes in their ideas or whatever.”

Fluoride does reduce IQ—at levels far above what’s allowed in public drinking water. That hasn’t stopped Kennedy from restricting fluoride supplements or "reviewing guidance” on fluoride in water supplies. He’s a longtime fan of the OG conspiracy around it.

In a rare moment of…humility?…Kennedy told Von his agency should have been more selective when firing 20% of its workforce last year. Yet his MAHA coalition is pushing hard on achieving their agenda: dismantling public health infrastructure while rewarding the private market, exactly the opposite of what could have helped someone like Van Der Beek.

While attention has been sucked up this week by the Mike Tyson Super Bowl ad (and barrage of Tyson-related marketing throughout the week), Kennedy’s state-level allies are laser focused on dismantling vaccine requirements in schools.

As I covered earlier this week, Kennedy’s coalition is trying to codify private market solutions at the state level; in this case, forcing insurance companies to cover untested supplements in West Virginia, which could snowball (like removing foods from SNAP benefits). As much as Kennedy and crew talk about “individual freedom” and “state’s rights,” the broader goal is national legislation (as evidenced by the homeopathy bill included in the above article).

In the wake of the Tyson push, MAHA acolytes are again trying to force states to remove certain foods from SNAP programs. Meanwhile, Kennedy and Brooke Rollins claim they’re going to replace soda and candy with “real food”, though so far have been vague on details.

“We are also partnering with innovators, designers, and advocates to deliver a clear, positive message that healthy food is achievable, practical, affordable, and within reach of every American family,” Kennedy said.

My guess, one I’ve made since Kennedy was installed to run HHS: he’s going to offer his friends in private industries those contracts.

Gaining clarity from the MAHA movement is impossible given its contradictions. Kennedy infamously said Americans need “more protein,” though his realfood.gov website relies on Elon Musk’s Grok chatbot, which offers conflicting advice.

Then there’s the worst measles outbreak this century, which now has Jay Bhattacharya imploring the public to take the very vaccine that Kennedy became famous in anti-vax circles for.

MAHA claims to care about public health. Yet at every turn they put legislation into action that accomplishes the opposite. While the movement notoriously avoids any discussion of the social determinants of health, they effectively condoned one of those determinants this week with the rollout of their Tyson campaign.

During a time when the public is going haywire over the Epstein Files, and the administration is doing everything in its power to pretend they’re irrelevant (or shift blame to previous administrations), MAHA Center Inc, a nonprofit run by MAHA Action founder and Kennedy publisher/confidante, Tony Lyons, funded the Super Bowl ad that ran last weekend. Yet there was no mention that Tyson is a convicted rapist—a crime he spent three years in jail for.

Which makes this cosplay even more tone deaf.

Championing sexual abusers is sadly on brand for this administration. As is the practice of legislating against your supposed goals.

Though the EPA doesn’t fall under Kennedy’s purview, he’s been silent on that agency’s decision to pretend climate change doesn’t exist. You would think a self-proclaimed environmental champion understands the impact of the environment on public health—hell, the dude is always rambling about the terrain—yet Kennedy remains eerily silent when his boss hands over contracts to coal companies.

Annie Levin breaks down the consequences of the MAHA movement (and overall political will for change) in The Nation:

We know for certain that RFK Jr. isn’t going to make America healthy again, especially not with defunded and hollowed-out government health institutions. We also know that the Democratic Party, as it is currently composed, won’t do much better—not with a leadership that’s uninterested in pursuing the kinds of big government interventions that could actually transform the health of Americans. We also know that if we continue to do nothing, our food systems will change all on their own. The climate crisis is already impacting the global food supply. Because of rising temperatures, corn, soybean, and wheat production could decline as much as 50 percent by the end of the century. Industrial food production itself also contributes massively to climate change, from cattle ranching in the Amazon increasing greenhouse gases to food companies contributing 20 percent of global emissions merely in the transportation of food.

Levin offers tangible solutions that could start to address America’s food (and therefore health) problem. Sadly, those solutions won’t be put into motion by a group of private market conspiracy theorists cosplaying health experts. And we all lose thanks to their position of power.