This sounds like a stupid question, but I’m being genuine.

He is telling people to eat more meat, which sounds absolutely insane to me.

What qualifies him to give health advice ? Why are americans trusting him ?

  • Otter@lemmy.ca
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    2 months ago

    Being a former heroin addict doesn’t make someone a bad source of information, especially if they’ve turned their lives around.

    But I agree otherwise

    • Boiglenoight@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Right, but you wouldn’t put a former heroin addict in this position. The optics alone are sure to cause trust issues and this guy is nowhere close to being qualified to run HHS.

          • hoshikarakitaridia@lemmy.world
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            2 months ago

            Because he specifically argued in his divorce that he suffers cognitive impairment and therefore he projects less future earnings. So he himself basically argued he is not smart enough to earn even as much as the average guy.

            So in his own words, he has a cognitive impairment that will not go away. Now either you trust his advice (which assumes it’s good advice, and kinda goes against him saying under oath he will have cognitive impairment) or you think he was saying the truth under oath and now his advice is not worth too much.

            Basically you have to decide which version of his you wanna trust. And if I have to decide between “he is dumb” or “he lied under oath”, I know one thing for sure - and that is to be very skeptical of anything he says.

          • EtherWhack@lemmy.world
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            2 months ago

            I think they’re getting at that there is suspicion he caused it himself by doing things like drinking raw milk.

                • deranger@sh.itjust.works
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                  2 months ago

                  That parasite doesn’t make brain cysts, Taenia solium does. Eosinophilic meningitis is different from neurocysticercosis, which is what he’s suspected of having.

                  Bro ate undercooked pork.

  • communism@lemmy.ml
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    2 months ago

    Wtf is wrong with being a former heroin addict? I know plenty of drug users and former drug users who aren’t fascist shitstains and are actually pleasant people. Also like, you’re going after him for being a former addict? God forbid someone be in a bad place in life and luckily manage to recover from it… Addiction, a health condition, just morally scars you for life then? Would you say that about someone who recovered from cancer? Fuck off.

    • mrgoosmoos@lemmy.ca
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      2 months ago

      yeah the question is not phrased properly

      it should be “why are the people who give former drug addicts a bunch of shit when it’s convenient to them now paying attention to a former addict”

      It’s about the hypocrisy, not the person’s past

  • MeekerThanBeaker@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    I’m not taking his advice, not trusting him with anything.

    This administration is nothing but a bunch of ignorant narcissistic racist scared buffoons who were taken from Fox News. The people who trust him are ignorant narcissistic racist scared buffoons who watch Fox News.

    It’s really amazing how inept they all are.

    • FuglyDuck@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      I dunno. I think it’s really too bad they melted down the demon core. I’d probably trust him to run a supercriticality experiment all on his own.

  • new_world_odor@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    This is honestly a disgusting take because it shows how biased you are against addicts. Not a stupid question. Just a nasty one. Your 2nd and 3rd are good questions though. I don’t think there’s jack shit qualifying him to give health advice in reality. He’s a crackpot supplement pusher. Which I feel kinda answers your 3rd; americans have a long history of being stupid and blindly trusting whatever the pill-pusher says, because they hear what they want to hear. Unfortunately.

    I hate RFK and all the damage he’s done/is doing to our country’s general state of health. His history of addiction is literally last on the list of reasons not to trust him. In my view, a history of addiction (now being in recovery) usually gives you a pretty sane view of health, since it brings you so close to death. The overwhelming majority of recovering addicts that I know lead healthier lifestyles than non-addicts. Oftentimes when people see with clarity how much damage they’ve done to themselves, they desperately want to treat their body better.

    • Modern_medicine_isnt@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      This was exactly my first thought. He should be disqualified for many reasons, but that ain’t one of them. Thinking that way is why we have him.

  • chunes@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    I’ve got nothing against people with former drug problems. I don’t trust him because he’s a doofus.

    • ragepaw@lemmy.ca
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      2 months ago

      Did everyone forget he drove around with a dead animal, and dumped it into a park?

      No one should listen to this insane lunatics ramblings. But the addiction is a symptom, not the problem. He likely became an addict because he was mentally ill. Or, the addiction (and brain worm, and eating random dead things) made him mentally ill.

      Either way, someone with delusions shouldn’t be in charge of anything.

  • NABDad@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    This question really pushes the boundaries of the concept of “no stupid questions”, but I will respect the premise and answer with all seriousness.

    There is nothing about being a former anything that is automatically disqualifying.

    Not everything he says is without merit. Even a blind, dumb squirrel can accidentally find a nut.

    Americans aren’t trusting him. He is only respected by the deluded cult members, and then only because their pedophile leader tells them to.

    The people who don’t realize he’s full of shit are the people who can’t handle being the most ignorant person in the room. They’re swallowing all the bullshit that this administration spits out because it’s the only way they can pretend they are better than everyone else.

    It’s all just corrupt, diseased minds taking advantage of other corrupt, diseased minds. If they didn’t reject the compassion of their opponents, I’d have sympathy for them. However, they chose the darkness.

  • SlippiHUD@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    Why are americans taking health advice from a man who got brain worms from eating roadkill and didnt learn his lesson?

    Thats the more appropriate question.

  • switcheroo@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    A third of the US are beyond help, beyond fucking stupid. Another third can’t be arsed to do anything, they’re so apathetic. One will follow without question, the other might go either way.

    Also Shitler put RFK in place, so we’re all forced to hear his moronic opinions…

    • ramenshaman@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Some people in that first third aren’t that stupid but they’re gullible and insecure. Maybe also a little stupid. My girlfriend’s dad, for example. He’s not the sharpest tool in the shed, I think he’s about average intelligence, but he’s gullible and insecure. I think he got sucked in when he started listening to some questionable podcasts.

  • Randomgal@lemmy.ca
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    2 months ago

    Being a heroin addict does not make you a bad person anymore than having diabetes. Fuck off with that moralistic shit.

    The guy is a scourge of humanity because of the choices he made and beliefs he holds. Don’t make it look like heroin is the cause.

    • thermal_shock@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      No on said heroin makes you a bad person, it sure as hell doesn’t give you credit to give health advice.

      Would you take driving lessons from someone who’s never driven a car? Or has crashed every car they’ve owned?

      Same idea, who the fuck is this McDonald’s eating fuck to give advice on health?

      Not to mention all the dumbass comments he’s made about nearly eradicated diseases like measles, he’s a trumper, so he supports child rape and murdering of civilians who dont lick the boots and bow down to tangerine shitler.

      • Randomgal@lemmy.ca
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        2 months ago

        The clickbait title implies the problem is his drug use and not, you know, any of his actual character flaws.

  • z3rOR0ne@lemmy.ml
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    2 months ago

    They’re not. Make no mistake, MAGA is full of a myriad of ideologies ranging from fascists, christian nationalists, white supremacists, anti vaxers, misogynists, transphobes/homophobes/terfs, pedophiles, capitalists/monopolists, incels, manosphere bros, and more.

    They don’t care about what they together stand for, because as a single entity? They only stand for one thing: the power to take away social and civil liberties. To fuck the public, and maximize profit and control, to MAKE us all, at home and abroad, comply.

    Even amongst MAGA, RFK Jr is a joke, only a small subset of MAGA take him seriously and luckily they’ll be dead of heart attacks and treatable diseases soon. What’s sad is they’ll have taken down so many innocents along with them. RFK Jr is there to distract the American public of the real issues with our Health Care System which is mainly affordability, access, and a competitive public option. It’s not that he’s even in the pocket of Big Pharma, though that is likely true. But even if he isn’t, Big Pharma still benefits from his incompetency, from the sideshow he creates.

    Hopefully that clears things up. Americans aren’t stupid because they don’t have access to the medical research and information, Americans are stupid because their pride tells them that their intuition and their echo chambers of validation make them right in spite of aforementioned research and information. That’s MAGA, that’s America.

    Basically all of us are choosing the devils we know because we gave up on looking for angels of our better nature long ago.

    • DigitalAudio@sopuli.xyz
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      2 months ago

      Wonderfully put. If people really want to make MAGA go away, they need to first understand the underlying structure.

      90% of MAGAts aren’t taking RFK seriously. But he’s there to appeal to the 10% that want him there. Now who’s that group? Mostly the people that opposed the health measures put forth during the pandemic. Remember that anti-health and even anti-vax groups were extremely small and irrelevant before the pandemic. The (in my opinion) justifiably tough measures we had to endure unfortunately created disenfranchised individuals who felt attacked and wanted revenge on the system afterwards. MAGA offered a place for them to go to. Some of them aren’t actively anti-LGBT or anti-immigration, but they thought the other side tried to poison them and their kids, therefore they’re bad, therefore let’s vote Republican.

      That’s how everything works. The anti-immigrant crowd doesn’t really care about vaccines for the most part. But they’ve seen too many tiktoks of brown people shoplifting or doing X or Y bad thing. So now they feel the country has been taken over by a hostile mob of aliens. ICE and Kristy Noem appeal to that crowd.

      Meanwhile, Technofascists probably aren’t anti-health and also probably don’t care too much about immigration, but they absolutely hate regulations, taxes for the wealthy and want to make as much money in digital grifting as possible. So they ally with the religious nuts, the anti-vax nuts and the racists because they can make more money.

      The incels and contrarians are mostly internet edgelords who saw far too many blue-haired libs and women trying to ruin video games for them, so they grouped together to bring down wokeness. Because to them, wokeness ruined fun, ruined Star Wars and Ghostbusters and a bunch of other things they feel were ruined by Hollywood. This was the main group in charge of radicalising younger people.

      And the Christian right is a mix of all of the above, but take the hardcore churchgoers from every group.

      There are others. Anti-trans, anti-LGBT, etc. Each group has actually little to do with the other. Like the anti-Hollywood incel crowd is extremely antisemitic, while the Technofascist crowd claims to be super pro-Jewish (they’re only pro-Israel). In theory they should be opposed to each other. But MAGA is the temporary truce between them to fight this hypothetical common enemy.

      That’s why they’ve fabricated this idea of the Antifa domestic terrorist in kahoots with the immigrant criminal gangster. They need to idealize these two groups as part of the larger problem because if they don’t, the entire MAGA movement collapses.

      Therefore, fascism in the US can realistically only be stopped by:

      • The internal collapse of MAGA: Infighting or a big enough issue to make the gap between them insurmountable.

      • Military intervention: the armed forces or other groups with enough control of violence and weapons overthrow the government.

      • A civil war: the country reaches a breaking point and devolves into full on insurrection movements, separationist movements, and renders MAGA useless as it becomes the only allowed ideology in one of the two (or more) combatants.

      I know people on Lemmy love the idea of insurrections and revolutions. But if someone doesn’t want to see a lot of bloodshed in the next few years, then they’d be hoping for one of the first two options.

      • z3rOR0ne@lemmy.ml
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        2 months ago

        Dude, either you are me, or I’ve been spending waaaay too much time on Lemmy, or both, lol.

        Same fucking page. You broke it down better than I did. No notes.

  • FuglyDuck@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    Most of us aren’t.

    The ones that are, are already so far down the rabbit hole they wouldn’t recognize reality anyway.

  • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    2 months ago

    As others have pointed out, being a dry addict ISN’T a reason do dismiss what someone is saying, even about health.

    Being the guy whose brain worm died from mercury poisoning, though…

    • Flauschige_Lemmata@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Even that isn’t the problem.

      He was already promoting anti-vacs conspiracy theories in 2004. The tapeworm was removed in 2010. I doubt he had it for that long

  • I_Clean_Here@lemmy.ml
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    2 months ago

    Him being a former heroin addict is completely besides the point. His opinions and arguments would still be bullshit if he were the most competent medical professional in the world.

    Nice ad hominem fallacy. This is at its core like saying AOC is an incompetent politician because she was a bartender once. It does not matter for the validity of their opinions.

    • potoooooooo ✅️@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      My last job was at a very large university, top 25 SEC state school. My boss supported Trump in part because she knew RFK was going to fix things.