I’m a chemist. I need to say this - because it’s getting dangerous out there. The biggest health myth in the world isn’t about vaccines.
Or GMOs. Or fluoride.
It’s the root of all of them.
It’s called chemophobia - and it’s killing science.
Fear of “chemicals” now drives vaccine rejection, GMO bans, food hysteria, and entire political movements.
From tampons to tap water, people have been taught to fear chemistry - the very thing that keeps us alive.
Chemophobia tells us:
“Natural is good.”
“Synthetic is bad.”
That’s a lie.
Botulinum toxin is 100% natural and one of the deadliest molecules known. Aspirin is synthetic and life-saving.
We’ve gone from banning harmful substances for good reason…to banning safe, well-tested molecules for emotional reasons.
You’ve seen the slogans: “If you can’t pronounce it, don’t eat it.” “Paraben-free.” “Clean beauty.”
They sound empowering. But they’re not science - they’re marketing. And they’re making the world dumber, poorer, and sicker.
Your body doesn’t care if a molecule comes from a plant or a lab. Vitamin C is vitamin C.
Formaldehyde is formaldehyde and your body makes more of it every day than any vaccine ever could.
Dose matters. Source doesn’t.
This fear isn’t harmless.
It shapes public policy.
It blocks innovation.
It raises food prices.
It slows down cancer treatments.
Chemophobia is now mainstream and it’s costing lives. Scientists aren’t losing because we’re wrong.
We’re losing because fear spreads faster than facts. Because influencers sell fear for clicks.
Because lawyers monetize doubt. And because scientists are too tired to fight back.
So here’s my message, as a chemist and as a citizen: Learn how toxicology works.
Call out chemical fear-mongering. Support policies based on evidence, not emotion.
Chemistry isn’t the enemy. It’s the reason you have clean water, safe food, and modern medicine.
If we let fear win, we lose all of it.
The inflation rate in Biden's last month in office was 2.9%. Trump (supported by a Republican Congress) has driven it up to 4.2%.
Thank you, voters, for your attention to this matter.
https://t.co/2BWtpX5aEf
Good morning and Happy Wednesday to everyone who agrees that the audio of Speaker Johnson ADMITTING that he's planning on cutting Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security SHOULD BE A HUGE STORY.
Don't let him slide on this.
Rep. Rob Wittman (R-VA) faked a phone call for roughly 90 seconds after being asked about Speaker Mike Johnson’s comments regarding potential Social Security cuts.
The phone's screen remained visible, with his cheek inadvertently tapping different parts of the display.
Lieu: The president is not well. He has tremendous difficulty staying awake on the job. He has repeatedly fallen asleep at Cabinet meetings, at White House events, at a Memorial Day ceremony, and most recently at a very loud NBA game last night.
The White House needs to explain why Donald Trump keeps going to the hospital and taking cognitive tests.
Wild commentary from Jennifer Welch on MSNBC.
"JD Vance is married to a woman of Indian descent. He has mixed race children. So to all of the MAGA voters out there, if this man will not defend his wife and will not defend his kids, do you think he gives a crap about you?"
A guy sat at his laptop ready to permanently delete his 15-year-old Gmail account.
He was getting 400 spam emails a day. Fake Best Buy receipts. Phishing links from "Netflix." Cryptic extortion threats.
He hovered his mouse over "Delete Account" and sighed: "I just want peace."
His coworker, a former email deliverability engineer, looked over his shoulder.
"Before you nuke 15 years of contacts and data, let me show you something. Your email isn't broken. It's weaponized. There are 22 ways you've been leaving the door wide open. Google won't tell you this because the data collection feeds their entire ad engine. Give me 14 minutes."
Here's what she showed him:
This is really stupid, and it’s not getting enough attention.
The Trump administration is pulling a working $368 million ocean monitoring system out of the water, equipment taxpayers already bought, built, and sank into the deep ocean.
And they are doing it right when the oceans are behaving in ways that alarm the scientists who study them.
Record-breaking temperatures.
A system of Atlantic currents that may be lurching toward collapse.
The response?
Yank out the instruments and walk away.
That is not budgeting. That is smashing the gauges while the engine is on fire and calling it efficiency.
For what? The Trump administration dressed it up as a “nimbler approach” and “smart lifecycle management,” which is fancy nonsense for “we shut it off and hoped nobody would ask why.” There is no return-on-investment analysis. They cannot show taxpayers save a dime, because the gear is already paid for and the science it produces protects real money and real lives.
The kicker: the same people killing the monitors want to mine the deep sea for minerals. So they are destroying the only tools that could measure what that mining does. That is not an accident.
That is the point. You cannot see the damage if you break the instruments first.
https://t.co/MzE4AW1QBv
I’m upstairs, listening to my kids talk downstairs. My son starts cracking up loudly about something on IG & saying to his sister “Oh my god donald trump is comparing the length of a pool to the height of skyscrapers. What an idiot.” Then I just heard uncontrollable laughing from both of them. 🤣 😩 Even kids see how fucking stupid & insane this shit is. 🤦🏼♀️ Can you imagine other countries looking at what is happening here??! I am so embarrassed to be an American. It is just a shitshow of idiots. 😵💫
The President is not well. He can’t stay awake at important White House events and cabinet meetings.
@WhiteHouse needs to come clean about why trump takes so many trips to the hospital and why doctors keep giving trump cognitive tests.
The President of the United States is asleep at his desk. Again.
Behind him stand seven grown adults in expensive suits, and not one of them is doing anything about it. One is mid-sentence. Another is gazing sideways with the haunted look of a man whose pension depends on never acknowledging what he can see in his peripheral vision.
The rest of the world is watching, and the rest of the world has noticed something. Americans are terrified of authority. That fear has settled over this administration like a fog, and it turns otherwise functional adults into warm furniture. Nobody moves. Nobody speaks. The paralysis is total.
In any European parliament, in any boardroom from Oslo to Ljubljana, someone would have leaned over by now. Tapped a shoulder. Said, quietly but clearly, that perhaps this isn’t the moment. Somebody would have done something, because the alternative, pretending a sleeping man is running a meeting, would have been too absurd to sustain.
Not here. Here, seven men have collectively decided that the correct professional response to the President losing consciousness in the Oval Office is to carry on as though he were a particularly demanding houseplant.
Dr. Oz saying Trump keeps going back for medical checkups because he "likes the results" is one of the laziest fucking lies I've ever heard from this administration.
The contempt they must have for the American people to think anyone would believe that is staggering.
Sen. @JeffMerkley to Rubio: You have expressed that no one died as a result of the shutdown of USAID. I want to note that it's estimated that over 500,000 children have died from that shutdown. I hope you ponder that as we strive to rebuild programs related to malaria, tuberculosis, AIDS, HIV, nutrition, and Ebola.
Trump is now redefining the term "ceasefire" so that he doesn't look like a failure.
Reporter: "How do you define ceasefire?"
Trump: "Uh, pretty much the way it is, it's a different part of the world. You know, I'd say in that part of the world ceasefire is when you're shooting in a more moderate manner."