When it comes to Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., I refuse to yell. I refuse to name-call. I refuse to sign FaceBook petitions with cut-and-paste social media tirades. I refuse to predict the end of the world – because I want to make a positive difference. I want my voice to be heard by those in positions of authority and influence. I’ve been around the block enough times to recognize that requires being persistent, patient, persuasive, polite, respectful, and humble. I refuse to reflexively kowtow to my betters. I refuse to be a sock-puppet for science. This doesn’t make me an “enabler.” It makes me a realist.
The mainstream, well-meaning, and devoted public health community has, in very short order, effectively zeroed out any influence they might have had with the new administration by making their attacks judgmental and personal and the media has been all to glad to magnify these lapses in rhetorical judgment. Two words – stop it.
Here’s my message to those who believe they have somehow earned the right to peer down their peer-reviewed noses and at those with fewer letters after their names – get over yourselves. You’re on the outside looking in and your Nobels ring no bells with RFK2. As another Kennedy once said, “Life is unfair.” This is your wake-up call.
I’m not a science-denier. It’s not what “the experts” are saying that’s wrong (although sometimes it is). It’s the way they’re saying it. It’s as useless as trying make a non-English speaker understand you by TALKING LOUDER – and a whole lot more dangerous. Exaggeration is the enemy of belief and trust – and its bad science. Exaggeration is misinformation by another name.
Not everything the new RFK2 crew are doing represents an end to civilization as we know it. The daily hand wringing and predictions of doom-and-gloom by professors and pundits show how little they have learned from the pandemic experience. “It’s settled science, so shut up,” didn’t work during the dark days of Covid-19 – and we continue to reap the whirlwind. Ringing the alarm bells all day every day just makes for annoying ambient noise that becomes increasingly easy to ignore.
It’s time for less atonal cowbell and more determined, cool and collected engagement.
Turning up the volume on pomposity is the height of self-importance and only serves to turn real experts into late-night punchlines. It’s time for America’s public health establishment to get out from behind the sheltered protection of the lectern, and onto a more collegial playing field.
What? Engagement with that bunch of yahoos? Well, first of all, that’s rude – and secondly, that’s right. You may have tenure, but that doesn’t give you much if any policy heft in the world of realpolitik. Otto von Bismarck reminds us, “Politics is the art of the possible.” There’s no ivy on the walls of HHS headquarters. Sometimes you have to eat some crow if you want a seat at the table. Don’t believe me? Ask Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Peter J. Pitts, a former FDA Associate Commissioner, is President of the Center for Medicine in the Public Interest and a Visiting Professor at the University of Paris School of Medicine.
The mainstream, well-meaning, and devoted public health community has, in very short order, effectively zeroed out any influence they might have had with the new administration by making their attacks judgmental and personal and the media has been all to glad to magnify these lapses in rhetorical judgment. Two words – stop it.
Here’s my message to those who believe they have somehow earned the right to peer down their peer-reviewed noses and at those with fewer letters after their names – get over yourselves. You’re on the outside looking in and your Nobels ring no bells with RFK2. As another Kennedy once said, “Life is unfair.” This is your wake-up call.
I’m not a science-denier. It’s not what “the experts” are saying that’s wrong (although sometimes it is). It’s the way they’re saying it. It’s as useless as trying make a non-English speaker understand you by TALKING LOUDER – and a whole lot more dangerous. Exaggeration is the enemy of belief and trust – and its bad science. Exaggeration is misinformation by another name.
Not everything the new RFK2 crew are doing represents an end to civilization as we know it. The daily hand wringing and predictions of doom-and-gloom by professors and pundits show how little they have learned from the pandemic experience. “It’s settled science, so shut up,” didn’t work during the dark days of Covid-19 – and we continue to reap the whirlwind. Ringing the alarm bells all day every day just makes for annoying ambient noise that becomes increasingly easy to ignore.
It’s time for less atonal cowbell and more determined, cool and collected engagement.
Turning up the volume on pomposity is the height of self-importance and only serves to turn real experts into late-night punchlines. It’s time for America’s public health establishment to get out from behind the sheltered protection of the lectern, and onto a more collegial playing field.
What? Engagement with that bunch of yahoos? Well, first of all, that’s rude – and secondly, that’s right. You may have tenure, but that doesn’t give you much if any policy heft in the world of realpolitik. Otto von Bismarck reminds us, “Politics is the art of the possible.” There’s no ivy on the walls of HHS headquarters. Sometimes you have to eat some crow if you want a seat at the table. Don’t believe me? Ask Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Peter J. Pitts, a former FDA Associate Commissioner, is President of the Center for Medicine in the Public Interest and a Visiting Professor at the University of Paris School of Medicine.
