MSNBC – Neither Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, nor Dr. Mehmet Oz, his pick to lead the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, is a stranger to scandal.
But it’s their connection to “wellness” ideology, which includes the belief that health is holistic and that individuals are the most qualified experts on their own experience — that should command our attention.
Kennedy and Oz amplify the worst aspects of wellness culture: conspiracy theories, cheap hucksterism and anti-institutionalism.
Kennedy and Oz are dangerous choices to lead major federal agencies because they amplify the worst aspects of that sprawling wellness culture: conspiracy theories, cheap hucksterism and an anti-institutionalism that undermines the very agencies they’ve been slated to run.
But we must separate our justified outrage at Trump choosing them from two key truths: The health issues they discuss pose legitimate problems for many Americans — that’s how each became so popular — and the wellness movement in which they participate has positively contributed to our understanding of health and well-being in the United States.
Kennedy made his name as an environmentalist legal crusader, but his passion for protecting all that is “natural” has led him to make arguments far outside accepted scientific opinion, most infamously in his championing the discredited theory that vaccines cause autism, but also that contaminated water can make people transgender, that 5G cell towers “control our behavior” and that raw milk is safe for consumption.
Oz, trained as a cardiothoracic surgeon, was affiliated with Columbia University (until it cut ties with him in 2022) but rose to celebrity as the host of “The Dr. Oz Show” (a spinoff of “The Oprah Winfrey Show”), where he offered mainstream diet, nutrition and sexual health tips interspersed with recommendations for unverified cures and supplements …
