I guess you can pin some of it on COVID, but the outbreaks in Canada AND in the Texas this last year really got going in Mennonite communities. That’s almost certainly not a coincidence.
I half expect to hear of a pellagra comeback.
I know that you know that pellagra is a vitamin deficiency
and this has got to be sarcastic hyperbole
Antivaxxers don’t like children being protected from brain bleeds by vitamin K, so it’s not impossible that we’ll get to “naicin is woke; pellegra is based!” in a few years
Sarcastic hyperbole? Maybe, but consider our current president, and by extension many of his supporters, are actively hostile to the food security of millions of Americans. So great is this hostility that he’s more than happy to harm many of his constituents by deliberately withholding SNAP funds from them. I definitely see a possibility of an increase in the rates of rickets and other diseases due to vitamin deficiency.
We have a Secretary of Health and Human Services who is a quack. A man with his head so far up his ass he thought it was a good idea for him and his grandchildren to swim in a creek known to have dangerous levels of E. coli and other bacteria because of all the sewage that runs in it. Given his reckless behavior, I would not be overly surprised if his policies eventually lead to an increase in Typhoid diseases. This is a man who believes in miasma, the idea that diseases are caused by “bad” vapors rather than germs, and that helps shapes policy.
He’d have to be a doctor to be a quack. RFK is just a loon.
Hey, don’t be exclusionary. It’s not only possible but darn near mandatory to be a quack if you practice in any number of pseudo-health care fields, such as homeopathy, naturopathy, cranio-sacral therapy, chiropractic etc.*
There are physician quacks, but you don’t have to be an M.D. to be one.
*true, a lot of these people call themselves “doctor”, whether or not they’ve been awarded pseudo-titles.
Maybe it was sarcasm, but with SNAP benefits being cut, I’m sure there will be people who develop pellagra, on top of beriberi and scurvy.
Back in my hospital days, the most common dietary deficiency we saw was protein-calorie deficiency, and interestingly, that seemed to be most common in obese people.
A while back, I was getting my hair cut, and made a reference to typhoid fever. I don’t even remember how it came up, but the beautician asked me what that was. That she had never heard of it was a good sign to me.
I haven’t worked at the museum since 2015, but when I was playing docent I walked the kids through our Civil War exhibit and spoke about medicine of the era. On one memorable day, I mentioned old time diseases like Whopping Cough that nobody gets today when one of kids pipes up and says they knew someone who had it. A few other kids nodded their heads, they knew the kid and of others. It was a good year for Whooping Cough in Arkansas that year.
If you get whooping cough, you DO get a whopping cough!
I once attended a Civil War presentation by a local historian, when I lived in my old town, and could tell from the audience that some kids, who IIRC were probably 5th or 6th graders, would get extra credit for attending. In the Q&A, a girl asked if smallpox was a problem in that place and time. He replied that while there was a vaccine for it, most people would already have had the disease itself by the time they were old enough to enlist.
Can’t speak to the etiology of these cases (and am not a doctor anyway), but it appears that not getting enough protein can contribute to weight gain, because you still feel hungry and keep eating extra calories.
Eating foods that are calorie-dense but not nutrient-dense contributes to this as well.
I remember being given a TPN (total parenteral nutrition - basically, IV “food”) to check, and the technician who made it said, “I heard this guy weighs 400 pounds. Why would he need a TPN?” I replied, “Obese people need to eat, too. You can’t heal properly if you’re starving.”
Wait a couple of years.
The latest - gift link
The most entertaining part:
The phrase “Vaccines do not cause autism” still appeared on the new C.D.C. page. A footnote explained that the language had not been removed because of an agreement with Senator Bill Cassidy, Republican of Louisiana, that it remain on the C.D.C. website. Senator Cassidy is a medical doctor and is the chairman of the Senate’s Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.
I’m guessing Cassidy will be letting his thoughts about this not quite meeting the agreement as he understands it known.
It would be like if someone in court kept prefacing each answer with, “My lawyers instructed me against my objections to tell you…”
So when RFK announced that acetaminophen Tylenol causes Autism he meant to say that acetaminophen Tylenol and vaccines cause Autism but the brain-worms had munched those memories?
Cassidy wants us to ignore how he was played by Junior.
http://veritenews.org/2025/11/20/cassidy-takes-notice-of-the-cdcs-anti-vaccine-language-change/
Cassidy’s abandonment of his principles in endorsing RFK Jr. was meant to appease MAGA and protect his political future. It’s ironic that Cassidy faces a primary challenger in Louisiana next year who’s an even more right wing/MAGA physician. And it looks like Cassidy is falling behind in that race.
Wouldn’t it be hell if Cassidy sacrificed his reputation to kowtow to MAGA and Trump, and they dumped him anyway?
Further note re the New York Times article: RFK Jr.'s attitude towards vaccines is not one of “skepticism”.
He’s a full-blown antivaxer and has been for many years. It’s a key part of his ideological makeup.
That is all.
Listening to NPR this morning, I heard someone opine as to RFK Jr’s angle in all of this antivax stuff (as well as attacking OTC drugs). He wants a basis to sue drug manufacturers. So do many who are supporting him. He has a very litigious background, and this is just setting himself and others up for a huge future payday.
Facts won’t even matter. If he can just get them to settle to end things, there will be people rich beyond their wildest dreams. I mean, there will be massive harm to the misinformed public but they don’t give a shit.