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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsI Took the Test RFK Jr. Is Using to Determine Who Should Work at His Health Department. We Are Extremely Doomed.
Donald Trump has promised to allow Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to go wild in his new role as secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The environmental lawyer, antivax conspiracist, and brainworm survivor chartered an oddly shaped coalition of COVID denialists and almond moms in his path to the White House, all of which was successfully marbled into the Trump platform during the waning months in the campaign. Its hard to know exactly what Kennedy is cooking up for public health, or if some of his more radical ideas (like, say, removing fluoride from the water supply) will ever make it past the purgatory of advisory boards. But we do have at least one hint about how the man intends to structure his wing of the executive branch: a test ostensibly designed to locate potential employees for RFKs reign at HHS. Among other things, Kennedy would like to know if youve ever experienced clairvoyance.
The whole assessment, which was first reported by Puck and was confirmed to be real by the Trump transition team, is available for anyone to take. Unlike more concrete examinations of ones fitness to serve in a public health regimelike, for instance, any tangible background in medicine or health policythe test reveals itself to be a free-associative chimera of IQ-ish logic puzzles and the sort of discredited Meyers-Briggs queries you used to take in Computer Lab. It would be a hilarious prank if its intentions werent seemingly dead serious.
As an American, I decided to determine my own fitness for a role in RFK Jr.s cabinet of horrors. It was a disquieting experience. The first 17 (17!) questions in the test are all pattern recognition, where youre asked to slot a geometrical graphic into a row of three without breaking order. After that, youre ushered to some good old-fashioned word association, and asked to determine, through multiple choice, the closest definitional relative of a particular article of speech. (Like, say, matching envy up with jealousy.)
Remember those standardized tests you took in middle school? Where everyone was trapped in the basketball gym for six hours on a Monday afternoon? Its kinda like that, except with, you know, the fate of the entire American medical apparatus on the line.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/took-test-rfk-jr-using-173047045.html
womanofthehills
(9,307 posts)A new study, led by researchers at the Keck School of Medicine of USC and funded in part by the National Institutes of Health, analyzed more than 220 mother-child pairs, collecting data on fluoride levels during pregnancy and child behavior at age three. The researchers found that a 0.68 milligram per liter increase in fluoride exposure was associated with nearly double the chance of a child showing neurobehavioral problems in a range considered close to or at a level to meet the criteria for clinical diagnosis.
The findings were just published in JAMA Network Open.
https://keck.usc.edu/news/fluoride-exposure-during-pregnancy-linked-to-increased-risk-of-childhood-neurobehavioral-problems-study-finds/
TexasBushwhacker
(20,711 posts)Saltwater is naturally high in fluoride, so all seafood and shellfish are high in fluoride. Coffee and tea. Potatoes. Then there are the fluoride toothpastes and mouthwashes.
Fluoride is naturally occuring in most water. Discontinuing artificial fluoridation won't remove all exposure to fluoride.
yankee87
(2,358 posts)All vaccines are bad. Use horse dewormer to cure infections. Get an eye of newt for cuts. Drink raw milk and eat uncooked meat.
What other idiotic things will happen?
highplainsdem
(52,640 posts)that, Kennedy or someone he knows probably has additional testing and plans for the applicant.
Skittles
(159,944 posts)KOOKS SURROUNDED BY KOOKS
valleyrogue
(1,144 posts)RFK, Jr. has yet to be approved for anything.
Why are we getting the cart before the horse?