The Last Public Health in Retrograde Episode!
As fringe pseudo science gain political power and public health continues to slide backwards, we need a new way of dissecting our absurd reality.
As much as cancer remains a daunting disease that haunts us, we have made tremendous progress in the field of oncology. We know, more or less, what cancer is and we know how to tackle some of them quite effectively. However, the current regime's anti-science stance is fueling the regression that threatens to undo all of this progress. Instead of focusing our effort on more research, science, and public health initiatives, these pseudoscience grifters want to replace these efforts with fearmongering campaigns to uncover the "root cause of disease". The absurdity of this perspective (if it even qualifies as one) is the blatant rejection of reality. We already know the root cause of cancer; they are hundreds upon hundreds of factors. Cancer is a collection of numerous distinct diseases, each with multiple etiologies and unique presentation. There are many ways we can address these factors: clean air, clean water, no smoking, better diets, better public health screening efforts, healthcare coverage, less radiation exposure, reduce occupational hazards, gene therapy, etc. The grifters are not interested in any of them. Instead, they think it's food dyes and fluoride and vaccines.
At the core of these pseudoscience grifting is the pathological need for an plain and simple solution to everything including complex issues like cancer. They want a magic bullet when it does not exist. This impulse is somewhat relatable, as believing a single supplement or a simple diet regimen is the key to curing cancer is much more comfortable than accepting the stressful and complicated reality. This is dangerous mindset as the story of Paloma demonstrated. She did not have to die like that. She died as a victim to not just cancer, but to pseudoscience disinformation as well.
As we've discussed in the episode, cancer is as much a public health problem as a medical one. While we should continue to push for more scientific research into cancer, we must recognize that several significant advances we've made against cancer were large scale public health initiatives like routine screening recommendations, lowering tobacco use, clean air, and environmental regulations. Cancer is a complex disease that requires a multi-pronged public health approach.
This is the last episode of Public Health in Retrograde series. While there are countless other regression that we can continue to explore, the state of the dystopia today demands a more comprehensive analysis than debunking each of these regression individually. Don't worry, Holly will be back in a future series that we are already working on! If it all goes well, it should launch in a month. In the meantime, more weekly episodes, as well as the start of a new season of the regular episodes with Cass.
Stay tuned.
