On RFK Jr., Atrazine and WiFi. Plus a puzzle for you!

Whimsical story telling from Portugal

I’m in Portugal with my teenage son. My wife planned an exquisite trip for the three of us months ago. Two days before our departure we realized her passport had expired. There was a time when you could drive to the nearest state office, show them your plane reservation and request an emergency renewal (and hand them a bunch of cash).

No more. You need an appointment. No appointment, no getting on a plane. If the man says you can’t go, you can’t. Getting an appointment with a passport agent is harder than getting one with a Dermatologist in LA.

Right now we are in a part of Porto where the biggest attraction is Livraria Lello, the library that helped to inspire JK Rowling’s ideas behind her Harry Potter series. Perhaps you have heard of them.

The setting is inspiring me to tell stories of my own. But first…

My mind has been on the Hotez/Rogan/Kennedy conversation and the ripples it has created on social media. For me, this conversation is about much bigger things than vaccines. I suspect that that is why Hotez has dug his heels in about not debating Kennedy on the Rogan podcast.

On a related front, a recent, long form interview of Kennedy on Jordan Peterson’s channel was recently taken down from YouTube for its violation of “community standards”.

YouTube’s official explanation was that it has to do with vaccine information that counters that of our agencies of public health (i.e. if you say something that implies that any vaccine carries more risk than benefit, you’re out). However others speculate that Peterson’s YouTube strike came as a result of Kennedy’s suggestion that the unmistakable jump in gender dysphoria in boys may be due, in some part, to exposure to toxins in our environment.

Kennedy cited a study from 2020 that showed that a commonly used herbicide, Atrazine caused the feminization of male frogs. If it could do that to an amphibian, why not a mammal? Is it more prudent to explore this possibility or ignore it because it may offend the growing number of people on the “gender spectrum”.

Examining this question is the main thrust of this article. I realize that venturing into these waters will likely trigger some people. Is it worth it? I think it is. There’s more on the line here than unintentionally offending some folks.

A Brain Teaser to get you warmed up

I’d like to begin this exploration into how and why we draw conclusions with a puzzle that will hopefully get our deductive powers on-line. This puzzle was told to me some years ago by a friend who happens to hold a PhD in Mathematics from M.I.T. Don’t worry, you don’t have to like math to figure this out. It’s about logic. I have revised it a bit so that it fits into the bigger theme of the story I wish to tell later.

Here it is:

Super-duper AI experts at Google and Facebook have been working on a secret project for many years. The current state of technology is far beyond what the public is aware of (surprise, surprise). They’ve designed humanoids that are bi-pedal, express themselves in multiple languages and are capable of many tasks.

Secrecy is key, so they keep the hundred “androids” in a secure but pleasant environment where they are programmed to do a number of tasks like making widgets, taking widgets apart and doing fact checking work by using the Google’s browser to cherry pick citations and write conclusive articles using circular reasoning (they are also responsible for sending out the polite emails to YouTubers and Facebook users who violate community standards).

The androids are on a strict schedule where work is performed for sixteen hours followed by eight hours of “rest” when they enter a “sleep mode” allowing their human designers to run diagnostics. The work day begins with a morning meeting where all units come together and work gets assigned. The day ends when each retires to their own separate chamber.

Now for the interesting part (pay attention!):

• Five of these androids have a red dot on the back of their necks, visible to all except to those who bear them. There is nothing in their environment that would allow an android to examine the posterior part of their own neck (e.g. a mirror). 

• Every android also has a self-destruct button. Each android is programmed the same way: if at any point it is able to deduce that it has a red dot on its neck, it will press its own self-destruct button at the end of the work day, while it is away from the others.

• Every android, throughout the course of each day, is able to see who has a red dot and who doesn’t. All are programmed to never mention the red dots.

• Every android knows that every other android is programmed identically and will act based on purely logical reasoning.

  

  Getty Images ; Illustration: Dillen Phelps

The experiment proceeds uneventfully for several months. Widgets get made. Widgets get disassembled. Misinformation spreaders are maligned throughout the world. Everything is in order.

One morning one of the designers pays a visit to their secure environment to introduce himself to them. He is received politely and unemotionally. The designer lets them know that their creators are very pleased with how things are going and how much valuable work is being done:

“We at Google are very proud of you. In six months you have assembled one million widgets! You have also taken them all apart. Great work!

You’ve also written and disseminated five thousand articles that have been cited millions of times on various “fact-checking” platforms.

None of you have talked about the red dots that some of you possess. You are all faithfully executing your programming.

You are a testament to my, A-hem, I mean our, brilliance. Keep up the great work!”

He leaves and the work goes on. Everything is going great until six days later, five of the androids don’t show up for the morning meeting. They all self-destructed the night before.

What happened?

I’m not going to explain here, however I assure you that the designer was correct. They all executed their programming flawlessly. If you think you know what happened, please tell us in the comments!

Before going into medicine I wrote a lot of software for various research and development projects, some of it was computational. A lot of it was around the relatively mundane task of interfacing different computer systems so that they could talk to each other. One thing for sure, even tiny subroutines never perform the way in which you expect on the first try.

This is another reason why it should have been obvious that this Covid mRNA experiment was not going to go well from the jump. The “programmers” clearly didn’t take big things into account.

• What if the spike protein itself was harmful? (Ooops. It is)

• What if some people don’t make enough antibodies to bind all the mRNA driven spike proteins they synthesize. Won’t all those spike proteins freely circulating make some people sick? (Of course there will be people like that)

• What if some people respond with an overabundance of antibodies that trigger an autoimmune phenomenon? (double oops.)

• What if the mRNA in the lipid nanoparticles gets fragmented during storage or transport? Won’t that result in the synthesis of partial spike proteins with yet to be known physiological significance? (Yikes)

• If the lipid nanoparticles are designed to be proinflammatory, acting as an adjuvant, what happens if these LNPs go to places that they weren’t supposed to, like the brain or ovaries or heart? (double Oops).

• If we are training our immune systems to recognize only one tiny part of the target virus, what happens if that part (the spike protein) mutates? Won’t that create an environment for variant strains to emerge and easily evade an immune system that has now been trained to identify only one part of the virus? (Yes)

• We know that the first exposure to the antigen “imprints” on the immune system, partially blinding it to subsequent strains. Won’t this result in a large number of breakthrough infections with emerging variants? (Yes)

• Won’t this result in greater negative efficacy as more unvaccinated people encounter the wild-type virus and acquire natural immunity? (Yes)

The idea that our regulators couldn’t have seen this coming is preposterous. Maybe some are that dumb. Others might have been too scared about not acting in an emergency and just hoped for the best. 

There were undoubtedly a few that knew any or all of the things listed above might happen, and if they did, it could be easily hidden as time went on. “Long Covid”, a disease process that exists is clearly being used to cloak many vaccine injuries, IMO.

But I digress…

A whimsical tale with an interesting takeaway…

On a planet much like ours in another star system far, far (but not too far) away, a civilization of humanoids are in exactly the same place we are in today. They learned to use the metal ores in the crust of their planet to build tools and machines thousands of years ago.

They have art and science. More recently they have made strides into energy production, tapping the atom, like we have. They are tinkering with the genetics of the plants and animals around them. They have built immense digital information systems and computers to mine them.

Everyone is intimately connected through supercomputers that fit into their pockets.

They are experimenting with AI and have been able to create artificial life forms, watching them closely, assessing when the technology would be safe to expose to the population as a whole.

Unbeknownst to them, they too are being watched.

From the time they were forming their first schools of philosophy and digging trenches to irrigate their crops to the present time, a number of highly advanced, interstellar civilizations have been closely watching their progress, waiting for the moment to introduce themselves and the idea that they are not alone–they are part of a large community of star-going species that have all underwent similar trajectories in neighboring star systems.

Those chaperoning this civilization into the next phase take their responsibility extremely seriously. Much suffering has occurred when a “coming out” event took place prematurely.

A belligerent species can only do so much harm in their little playpen in the cosmos. Exposing them to advanced technologies always goes badly for everyone involved. If you can’t play nice in the playpen, you are going to get into fights on the playground.

The chaperones are immensely compassionate toward the people on the planet. They too were in the same phase of evolution at one point in their past. They too were babysat by very wise protectors.

The chaperones are not only advanced technologically and, one might say, spiritually, they all possess a delightful sense of humor. They recall that a million years previously, when their predecessors were also experimenting with genetics and AI, they too were unaware that they were part of a grander experiment.

They have since learned that blindspots like these arise everywhere that self-importance does, including in their own distant history. Self-importance is very common at this stage of a civilization's development. Until one has encountered a more advanced civilization it is easy to slip into the idea that one is in sole possession of “intelligence”.

Notably, in the long history of emerging civilizations there have been a few that were immune to self-importance. Though they relied on the scientific method to define what can be measured, they also acknowledged the limitations of their technology. They were able to intuit the reality that the universe was teeming with intelligence that could evade their looking devices. 

Their transition into interstellar status was relatively quick and easy and their subsequent progress was substantially more rapid than others. Humility is an essential ingredient in the formula for efficient progress no matter what part of the galaxy you call your home.

But humility is not a requirement for a coming out party. If it were, there would be many, many civilizations stuck in isolation. There are only two basic requirements that, if not met, will preclude planned disclosure. 

Technological progress is important because it reflects the society’s support of objectivity and curiosity. However technological prowess is not sufficient alone. Empathy is required as well.

It turns out that all species in all corners of all the galaxies are working on their empathy in tandem with the refinement of their objectivity. Some species deal with differences in height, some with religion/ideology. With regard to empathy, this particular society’s challenge has been around skin color. Individuals on the planet were either born with black or white skin for thousands of years. 

Wars were fought between the two races. Many lives were lost. Eventually empathy emerged. Both sides forgave each other for their bloody deeds. Mixed marriages were no longer taboo. Soon, babies were born with different skin colors from light beige to dark brown. They too were accepted into society. Laws were codified that expressly protected equal rights for all. 

Incidentally, there were also a small number of people with orange skin. They had been born into all families from the beginning, even the ones that were exclusively black or white. They too enjoyed the protection of the newly enacted laws that protected everyone.

Everything was progressing nicely. The chaperones were reviewing the final reports from their scouts on the planet before choosing a date and circumstance to reveal themselves to the fledgling society. Then a problem was identified.

There was still a small minority of the population that didn’t fully accept people of every skin color equally. This wasn’t a surprise or necessarily a problem. The issue had to do with how the rest of the population was dealing with these so-called “colorists”. They were being attacked ruthlessly for their anachronistic opinions. Worse yet, the colorist label was being indiscriminately applied based on circumstantial evidence or vague suspicion. The “problem” was being completely blown out of proportion.

New divides were being drawn between the people by leaders and influencers who failed to see the hypocrisy of being fanatically intolerant of those who were mildly intolerant.

Although one may predict that this form of antimony would evaporate in the face of an encounter with a large number of advanced beings from multiple extraterrestrial species, the chaperones were cautious. They had seen this phenomenon before. A situation where acceptance gets enforced and enforced recklessly.

It’s a sign that a society which is on the verge of enlightenment is about to slip back into confusion and brutality. It’s a sign that logic and reason has capitulated to emotions and thought control. Balance is required to move forward at this stage.

The chaperones decide that a reassessment is in order. There is a clever test for a civilization at such a crossroads. They place a new plant on the planet’s surface. The plant’s fruit is nutritious, very palatable and easily grown in most of the planet’s climates. Over the course of a single generation, the fruit becomes widely adopted as a staple in diets.

When eaten regularly for several years, the fruit results in a remarkable change of skin color. People who are affected don’t go from black to white. The fruit causes skin to change into the whole rainbow of colors, from violet to red (this includes indigo, blue, green, yellow and orange).

What will happen next? The chaperones wait and observe.

The test is not about whether blue and green skinned people will be allowed to go to school or work alongside their fellow citizens with traditional skin colors. The test is about how those who wish to understand what just happened are treated.

For a society that has split the atom and sequenced their own DNA, noticing the temporal correlation between the appearance of this fruit and the explosion of wonderful new complexions is obvious. Proving causation requires dedicated effort.

In some planets where this test was employed in the past, correlation was acknowledged and the biochemists went to work and isolated the molecules in the fruit that interact with skin pigment. The pathway was identified and the information was disseminated throughout the land. People were informed that if they chose to consume the fruit, there was a reasonable chance they would permanently enjoy a different colored birthday suit. Everyone was free to choose. Nobody suffered societal repercussions for eating or avoiding the fruit. The scientists were commended for their fact-finding. Heart/Mind balance was achieved.

In other instances something much different happened. The scientists who hypothesized that the fruit was responsible for skin color changes were attacked for pathologizing the condition. Those who were happy with their present complexion and wanted to avoid this new phenomenon were also attacked as “colorists”. The society plunged into internal strife.

How this society responds will determine their chaperone’s next move.

Back to Earth…

Beyond the herbicide atrazine, Kennedy mentioned something else on Rogan’s podcast that’s caught the attention of the public: dangers of WiFi. Radiation at frequencies emitted by our ubiquitous routers and antennas can make the blood-brain barrier leaky, allowing toxins to enter the rarified environment of our central nervous system, Kennedy claimed.

Such an idea was immediately dismissed by Vinay Prasad, MD, MPH in a recent tweet using polemic language that left me head-scratching:

Prasad’s response should really make us stop and think about what (the fuck) is going on with science on this planet right now. Vinay has been a solid critic of the nonsense that has been spewed by the CDC around all things Covid for the last couple of years, including mask mandates as he states above. He’s a unique voice as he still maintains his professorship at UCSF while being critical of the orthodoxy that legitimizes his opinion.

Tweets like this from him are disappointing and are completely out of character. It also comes on the heels of a bizarre comment he made on “fact-checking” video he posted on his YouTube channel. Kennedy observed that the explosion of chronic childhood diseases began in the late 80’s, when the number of shots on the childhood vaccination schedule also expanded four fold. Wouldn’t it be in our best interest to take a closer look at what has been going on?

In Prasad’s opinion, making this connection was no more sensible than claiming that chronic disease is correlated with the fall of the Berlin Wall, an event that occurred at the same time. To my knowledge the Berlin Wall does not modulate kids’ immune systems.

Dr. Prasad has been methodical when presenting counter arguments to his colleagues in epidemiology. This has made him very credible to his growing audience on social media. It’s sad to see him squander his credibility so thoughtlessly.

You’re so sure that wifi doesn’t open the blood brain barrier, Vinay? Really? How do you know? Perhaps you should examine the hundreds of papers and positions coming from experts that have pleaded for a moratorium on the expansion of this technology for years before calling the idea “fucking crazy”. Science needs measured and thoughtful voices right now.

Every doctor should know that signal transmission along cell membranes requires minute and ephemeral voltage perturbations that open and close ion channels. It’s not so crazy that continuous exposure to photons approaching the frequency of microwaves might mess things up over time.

I suggest reading this excellent summary of expert opinion as of four years ago in Scientific American before tweeting carelessly, Dr. Prasad.

The idea that ionizing radiation (radiation at frequencies that can break covalent bonds) is dangerous and non-ionizing radiation isn’t is a ridiculous simplification that even non-engineers/physicists like you should be able to appreciate.

Please continue to expose the rot in science, Vinay. This may require you to refrain from commenting until you know more. Humility is an essential part of being a scientist.

We too are at a crossroads. This is not just about vaccines, frogs and WiFi. This is about the trajectory we are choosing as a species. How do we handle a presidential candidate that is asking serious questions?

There doesn’t have to be an ET civilization quietly watching from behind the clouds for us to do what is sensible. But if there were, I would imagine they would be quite interested in our next move.