The Lizard of Oz heads to DC
I’m excited to announce the next phase of Siris Health with a new podcast: Clarity Lab!
Launching in January, Clarity Lab will feature one expert discussing one topic to provide a basic overview within their field of expertise. These short episodes will be designed to address common misinformation while providing the fundamentals every person should have about that topic.
Season One will run from January-March on a weekly basis. Confirmed guests include:
Dr Danielle Belardo on statins
Marketing expert Mallory DeMille on social media health misinformation
Dr Rohin Francis on science journal literacy
Dr Andrea Love on cancer pseudoscience
Cosmetic scientist Jen Novakovich on formulation development
PhD candidate Danielle Shine on nutrition misinformation
Dr Michelle Wong on sunscreen
Every episode will be posted in this newsletter, so if you’re already signed up, you’ll receive more information soon. And if you’re able to support this mission, please consider making a tax-deductible donation so we can launch more projects soon!
Prepare for Medicave
Donald Trump recently announced that Mehmet Oz will oversee Medicare and Medicaid. On Monday, I published a roundup of Robert F Kennedy’s anti-science beliefs. Perhaps a future piece will focus on all the things Oz has gotten wrong, and the many junk products he’s promoted over the years. To think this man will be working under RFK Jr is a frightening prospect for American health care.
Scientific American offers perspective on Oz in this 2021 article:
While holding a medical license, Mehmet Oz, widely known as Dr. Oz, has long pushed misleading, science-free and unproven alternative therapies such as homeopathy, as well as fad diets, detoxes and cleanses. Some of these things have been potentially harmful, including hydroxychloroquine, which he once touted would be beneficial in the treatment or prevention of COVID. This assertion has been thoroughly debunked.
One line in particular jumped out at me in Trump’s announcement that didn’t get as much attention, probably due to the collective shock of such a nomination:
[Oz] will cut waste and fraud within our Country’s most expensive Government Agency, which is a third of our Nation’s Healthcare spend, and a quarter of our entire National Budget.
This tracks with Project 2025’s desire to gut these programs. As written in the opening of Section Three, “The General Welfare,”
HHS is home to Medicare and Medicaid, the principal drivers of our $31 trillion national debt. When Congress passed and President Lyndon B. Johnson signed into law these programs, they were set on autopilot with no plan for how to pay for them. The first year that Medicare spending was visible on the books was 1967. From that point on through 2020—according to the American Main Street Initiative’s analysis of official federal tallies—Medicare and Medicaid combined cost $17.8 trillion, while our combined federal deficits over that same span were $17.9 trillion. In essence, our deficit problem is a Medicare and Medicaid problem.
Medicare and Medicaid are significant contributors to the national debt. But they’re not the principal driver. These programs are part of a larger system of mandatory spending programs and other fiscal challenges.
Addressing the national debt requires a comprehensive approach that considers spending factors, not just healthcare programs. While true that America has an aging population, providing health care is one of the foundational safety nets that keep citizens secure as they age.
That’s not how the Heritage Foundation and its allies—the 400 or so architects of Project 2025—view Medicare and Medicaid. Staunch anti-abortion activist Roger Severino claims they “operate as runaway entitlements that stifle medical innovation, encourage fraud, and impede cost containment” in that document’s chapter on the Department of Health and Human Services.
Despite its flaws, Medicare is a lifeline for over 65 million Americans. As of 2023, an estimated 18.9% of the US population was covered by it. Meanwhile, as of 2022, approximately 94.5 million Americans were enrolled in Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP). While this number has always historically fluctuated , Covid-19 created a surge in recipients: between February 2020 and April 2023, Medicaid enrollment grew by 23.1 million people (32.4%).
There’s a difference between reforms that will decrease spending while maintaining reliable coverage and gutting an agency. As much as the incoming administration might claim America’s social safety nets will not be dramatically cut, Project 2025—and its many architects that are receiving jobs under Trump 2.0—tell a different story.
We need to listen to what they’re saying. And we need to protect all citizens, especially the oldest and poorest among us—those likely to be affected most if the Heritage Foundation has its way.
Scamelot in the White House
There’s going to be a lot to say about health, health care, and public health in America in the coming months. Olga Khazan breaks down what “going wild on health” could entail in a Department of Health and Human Services run by RFK Jr.
If his worst ideas come to pass, experts tell me, heart attacks might increase, dental infections might spike, and children might needlessly die of completely preventable diseases.
Khazan talks to a number of health experts about Bobby’s wilder claims:
He believes seeds oils are “one of the most unhealthy ingredients” in foods. Untrue. Canola oil, for example, has repeatedly been shown to lower cholesterol and reduce the risk of heart disease. Meanwhile, Bobby’s suggestion that we replace seed oils with beef tallow would actually send cholesterol levels through the roof.
Then there’s fluoride in drinking water. At current levels, it poses no risks. Fluoridated water helps strengthen tooth enamel and prevent decay. We have data on what happens when it’s removed from public drinking water, writes Khazan:
After Israel ceased water fluoridation in 2014, dental treatments in a clinic in Tel Aviv increased twofold across all ages. In Canada, after Calgary ceased water fluoridation in 2011, second graders there experienced more cavities than those in Edmonton, where water was still fluoridated. After Juneau, Alaska, ceased water fluoridation in 2007, children younger than 6 underwent more cavity-related dental procedures—at a cost of about $300 more a year per child.
And, of course: vaccines. We’ll conclude with Khazan on the prospect of the return of one of the most vaccine-preventable diseases in existence:
“Kids with measles are sick and miserable. They’re photophobic—afraid of the light—and may struggle to breathe. Before the measles vaccine came along in 1963, 48,000 people were hospitalized with measles each year in America, many with pneumonia or inflammation of the brain. Five hundred of them died each year. When Samoa suffered a measles outbreak in 2019, 83 people died, out of a population of just 200,000.”
