Jenny Cameron

Nutritionist, health coach, research librarian, plant-based nutrition expert

[Alex Boge @alexboge]

I study conspiracy addiction and the addicts, and that work drags me across the entire breadth of them whether the subject matter interests me or not.

Weather killed my plans today, so I’ve spent hours typing the same replies to the same claims from different accounts. Nothing makes you notice the futility quite like that.

A long time ago I started with aliens and UFOs. Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster came along with it.

Then,randomly, I spent months wandering around in chemtrails, which drags HAARP and weather manipulation behind it, and eventually 5G too. Same neighborhood, same crowd.

Then 9/11. That one wasn’t amusing at all. There is something genuinely ugly about watching people build elaborate fantasies on top of an event where thousands of real people died, then defend the fantasy harder than they’d defend the dead. I didn’t stay long.

Then, somehow, flat earth. 🙄

That one blew my mind. Not the claims. Anybody can be wrong about anything. It was the depth of the denial and the confidence sitting on top of it. The willingness to state something demonstrably false with a straight face, be shown the demonstration, and then state it again the next morning to somebody else.

Anti-vax was always humming in the background, so a short while back I poked my head back into that space. Same script, higher stakes. That one can put people in hospitals.

I call these zombie conspiracies because the claims never actually die. Moon landing denial, space denial, evolution denial, virus denial, flat earth, chemtrails, anti-vax, et cetera.

You can debunk the same claim a hundred times. Show the original source. Explain the mechanism. Bring the data. Point out the contradiction. Hand them their own logic back. Be calm. Be blunt. I’ve run every one of those plays, on every topic in that list, for years. I cannot point to a single committed believer who walked away because of anything I typed. Not one.

The subject changes. Sadly, the behavior does not.

A fixed set of talking points, repeated forever. Knock one down and they move to the next. Knock that one down and they circle back to the first as if the last hour never happened. Evidence against the conspiracy becomes evidence of how deep it goes. Experts are dismissed for being experts, institutions distrusted for being institutions. Meanwhile a source can be laughably incompetent right up until it tells them what they want to hear. Then suddenly it’s evidence. It isn’t a debate. It’s a loop with a person attached to it.

Eventually it becomes identity. The one who sees through the lies. The independent thinker. The guy who did his own research. Walking that back means admitting you were fooled, in public, sometimes for years, after arguing with hundreds of people about it. Nobody loses that argument gracefully, so almost nobody loses it at all. They just keep going.

Some do get out. When I’ve seen it happen, it’s usually been a life change, someone they trust, or plain exhaustion. It just about never happens mid-argument, and it is almost never the doing of whoever won the thread. Not a link. Not a source. Not me.

And that is the part I can’t get past. I move between these communities deliberately, expecting to find behavioral differences worth mapping.

Instead I keep finding the same people in different hats.

I could write one analysis, swap flat earth for anti-vax for moon landing denial for chemtrails for virus denial, and most of it would still land word for word. Different talking points. Different villains. Different memes. Different science being rejected. Same refusal to update. Same moving goalposts. Same certainty. Same identity being defended at all costs.

After all these years I keep thinking I’m studying different conspiracies.

More and more, I think I’ve been studying one behavior in a lot of costumes, and the costume is the only part that ever changes.

Disheartening, absolutely. Still fascinating. Most days it manages to be both at once. 🥂

[Luigi Fontana, MD, PhD, FRACP @LuigiFontanaMD]

Sir David Attenborough puts it simply: a planet heading toward 10 billion people cannot sustain a Western-style appetite for meat.

This isn’t about everyone becoming vegan overnight. It’s about facing reality.

[Eric Topol @EricTopol]

We just learned about a 3rd dimension of how Covid can affect our arteries.
https://t.co/ngebvhSlvA

[Dr Alan Desmond @DrAlanDesmond]

A leaked document has just revealed how the meat industry helped manufacture the backlash against one of the most important food and climate reports ever published.

[Jenny Cameron @jacameron1]

What a loss to nutrition research.

[Kevin Hall @KevinH_PhD]

After 21 years at my dream job, I’m very sad to announce my early retirement from the National Institutes of Health. My life’s work has been to scientifically study how our food environment affects what we eat, and how what we eat affects our physiology. Lately, I’ve focused on unravelling the reasons why diets high in ultra-processed food are linked to epidemic proportions of chronic diseases such as diabetes and obesity. Our research leads the world on this topic.

Given recent bipartisan goals to prevent diet-related chronic diseases, and new agency leadership professing to prioritize scientific investigation of ultra-processed foods, I had hoped to expand our research program with ambitious plans to more rapidly and efficiently determine how our food is likely making Americans chronically sick.

Unfortunately, recent events have made me question whether NIH continues to be a place where I can freely conduct unbiased science. Specifically, I experienced censorship in the reporting of our research because of agency concerns that it did not appear to fully support preconceived narratives of my agency’s leadership about ultra-processed food addiction.

I was hoping this was an aberration. So, weeks ago I wrote to my agency’s leadership expressing my concerns and requested time to discuss these issues, but I never received a response. Without any reassurance there wouldn’t be continued censorship or meddling in our research, I felt compelled to accept early retirement to preserve health insurance for my family. (Resigning later in protest of any future meddling or censorship would result in losing that benefit.) Due to very tight deadlines to make this decision, I don’t yet have plans for my future career.

The NIH has been a wonderful place because it allows scientists to take risks, form unique collaborations, and do studies difficult to conduct elsewhere. I’m proud of what we’ve accomplished and I’m fortunate to have had such wonderful colleagues and scientific collaborators. I hope to someday return to government service and lead a research program that will continue to provide gold-standard science to make Americans healthy.

[Jenny Cameron @jacameron1]

@Medscape please stop sending click bait style email alerts. It backfires - MD husband said he didn’t bother opening the link that said ‘This pill could save a lot of lives’. Give us the article title in the email and let us decide if it’s worth reading.

[Luigi Fontana, MD, PhD, FRACP @LuigiFontanaMD]

🍽️ Dietary Protein and MASLD: New research reveals dietary protein, not carbs or fat, as a key driver of hepatic lipogenesis in MASLD.

https://t.co/KJYSPUM6yO

[Prof Brendan Crabb @CrabbBrendan]

Our household has COVID, primary school the likely source. We work hard to avoid it but this reflects that once again our community is awash with this virus, the 2nd-3rd major spike this year without any very ‘low’ period in between. Every infection/re-infection does damage so the short story - please do your best to minimise the spread of the virus, to protect yourself & others. This not another common ‘cold’ to be shrugged off. 1/

[Dr Alan Desmond @DrAlanDesmond]

Soya milk is less healthy than cow’s milk because it’s processed and has added sugars. Right?

Wrong. Swapping to soya is a smart move. Lower LDL cholesterol and better blood pressure. (Plus it tastes great).

https://t.co/giMIvB0v1s

[Physicians Committee @PCRM]

#NewStudy shows that a vegan Mediterranean diet is better than a standard Mediterranean diet for metabolic health!

https://t.co/JQpyqIXSjk

[Peas & Potatoes Or Pills & Procedures? @peasorpills]

New study:
"Every 10 percentage points increase in plant-sourced non-UPF consumption was associated with a 7% lower risk of CVD and a 13% lower risk of CVD mortality."
https://t.co/mj86QuyZwz

[Peas & Potatoes Or Pills & Procedures? @peasorpills]

New study:
"Our study suggests that plant-based diet, especially when rich in healthful plant foods, is associated with better survival among patients with metastatic CRC."
https://t.co/etLnTnyysf

[Jenny Cameron @jacameron1]

Thanks @nic221 such an interesting article. Very long but so worth reading.

[Nicole Hennig @nic221]

Why Open Source is So Hard to Defend https://t.co/QMZQN2cY7s #AI #OpenSource

[Raina MacIntyre @Globalbiosec]

New! Our new paper on health & economic costs of #LongCovid Widespread COVID-19 means that even a small % of infected people developing Long Covid related illness and disability causes substantial population health and economic effects. @theMJA https://t.co/pboM4NQFSa

[nature @Nature]

Slow productivity: do fewer things, work at a natural pace and obsess over quality https://t.co/XbRH3YDwmu

[CPT (An)Drew Staples, M.D. M.S. @USARMYMD]

Learn how intensive lifestyle changes may slow or reverse early Alzheimer's disease in this insightful interview with Dr. Dean Ornish. Neurologist Kathrin LaFaver discusses his recent study on the topic. Read more at: https://t.co/rAr30w0F65

[MedPage Today @medpagetoday]

"Physicians should encourage their patients with Alzheimer's disease to make these lifestyle changes... They don't cost anything, and the only side effects are good ones," --@DeanOrnishMD on better cognitive test scores in a phase II trial. @MedpageNeuro
https://t.co/dYEHQYLk5y

[Viva Longevity! @VivaLongevity]

Earth scientist here; for decades we've been accused of exaggerating climate change. It looks like it's time to accuse us of underestimating it. Headline: "Simply mind-boggling world record temperature jump in Antarctic..."
https://t.co/BzoE3bfvV7

[Physicians Committee @PCRM]

Whether you want to lose weight, maintain a healthy weight, or just eat better, a plant-based diet can help you achieve your goals.