I would like an apology from every family member and friend who told me I was being extreme when I would get mad about specious health claims around what water you drink, apricot seeds and cancer, various diet fads, and all manner of “naturopathy”.

They all said some variation on “It can’t hurt, and if you need hope you try everything.”

And “Of course it doesn’t hurt to be healthier” where “healthier” meant… I’m not sure paying attention to all of this.

I have been, at times, a killjoy and hurt folks for not thinking it was fun or funny to engage in conspiratorial thinking about things, even if half said in jest.

I am not some ghoul, but watching these things has always felt like creating a certain set of conditions. For every ten people not taking things too seriously, one was. For every ten people not taking things too seriously, many had their sense of truth and trust erode just a tiny bit.

The White House has nominated someone to lead healthcare in this country who wants to end the most successful public health intervention… ever? They talk about “following the evidence”, but we no longer can trust that– we now have to ask “what evidence?” because we’ve eliminated any sense that we can build collective knowledge about an accepted truth. Everything can be cast in doubt. Congress just released a report on COVID-19 that used NY Times op-ed pieces as evidence for a lab leak theory, then discredited any study on mask effectiveness that wasn’t a randomized controlled experiment that precisely evaluated the same distance as CDC guidance.

So maybe I’m the worst, but just letting this kind of bullshit fester as acceptable has generated massive harm. And I’m sorry that I allowed myself to become less strident at pushing back.