RFK Jr.'s podcast is an anecdote factory with no scientific relevance

by Elizabeth Jacobs, PhD

Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has launched a podcast entitled “The Secretary Kennedy Podcast.” In the teaser, Kennedy says

“Many of us have come to the conclusion that the government actually lies to us.” 

In this, he is correct. After all, he is part of the government, and through traditional media appearances, social media, and official government communications, he continues to perform sleight-of-hand tricks that deceive and harm to the public. After listening to two episodes, it seems that this is no different, leaving the overarching impression that this podcast exhibits an overreliance on useless anecdotes and is stricken with a severe science deficiency. 

In the episode entitled “The Truth about Psychiatric Drugs", with guest Laura Delano, there may be truth, but it is only Ms. Delano’s truth. She is an advocate for people who would like to stop taking psychiatric medications. She has published a book, “Unshrunk”, about her own personal struggles with the mental healthcare system, which has generated a great deal of controversy and criticism, much of it centered around her tendency to extrapolate her own experience to what appears to many as a broad indictment of the use of psychiatric medications. 

Due to her privileged upbringing, she immediately departs from the experience of most Americans in that she was actually able to access to the mental healthcare system in the first place. Her experience simply does not apply to most of us, and she has no discernible formal training or education in mental healthcare. 

Kennedy says that her lived experience is all that matters, and while lived experiences have a seat at the table, they should not be designated as absolute “truths,” as this episode advertised. 

Absolutely no one thinks that the U.S. mental healthcare system is sufficient, but her overarching thesis seems to be that mental illness is a spiritual crisis that could be fixed by suffering through it instead of seeking treatment. At the end, Delano states that “the language of the DSM is no longer relevant to me.” This is a dangerous position for Kennedy to platform as HHS Secretary. 

In his role, it is his responsibility to address the actual scientific evidence for psychiatric medications, both of benefits and potential harms, and to pay attention to and fix systemic issues with access to healthcare, instead of platforming the experience of a single person that simply has no relevance to the health of most Americans. 

The second episode to which I listened, entitled, "The Science of Biohacking, Longevity, and Human Performance", repeated this pattern of giving anecdotal information equal weight to scientific data. The guest was Ben Greenfield, a person who does have education and training in the topic he was brought in to discuss, having earned a master’s degree in sports science and exercise physiology. 

Unfortunately, his statements about a number of (alleged) health interventions such as peptide injections, red light therapy, and stem cell injections, were a scientific dead end. 

The basic format of all of Greenfield’s comments would go like this: 

“Red light therapy helps with mitochondrial and collagen and elastin stimulation.” These mechanisms may be scientifically accurate, but the piece that was always missing was the final step in the chain of his claims, which was scientific evidence demonstrating that stimulation of mitochondria, collagen and elastin yields any measurable health benefit. In lieu of that, Kennedy would ask Greenfield if Greenfield had seen success with such strategies, and naturally, Greenfield would enthusiastically say that they had helped him. He is likely confusing correlation with causation, or in fact reporting on a placebo effect. It’s impossible to say, because it is not scientific evidence he is reporting, but anecdotal information.

Here again we see the sleight of hand that Kennedy and his snake oil peddling friends use to get people to purchase products that are unlikely to have any impact on their health whatsoever. Greenfield in fact admits this, saying several times that these interventions haven’t been tested in any rigorous, scientific manner. 

The entire podcast is best captured by a word that Greenfield used to describe “evidence” of alleged health benefits, which was new to me: "polyanecdotal.” It would almost be comical if the stakes weren't so high. 

Calling something "polyanecdotal" is simply costuming gossip in an evening gown. It is the equivalent of saying, “several people have told me this thing and that means something.” An anecdote carries the weight of a feather when it comes to scientific evidence. It is something that is perhaps interesting that you may collect and carry around in your backpack. Adding four more feathers to your backpack wouldn't even be noticeable. A well-conducted scientific study, on the other hand, has the weight of a boulder. There are no boulders to be had in this podcast, because Kennedy draws no distinction between feathers and boulders. 

Kennedy has incredible power and reach to continue to spread scientific misinformation, including actions he has taken to alter government websites to align with his unfounded beliefs about health. It’s not a surprise that he does this. It is also no surprise that not a single member of the majority party in the U.S. government seems to have a problem with the man who controls the entire federal scientific endeavor producing and amplifying misinformation. After all, this is how they gained power in the first place.

Nonetheless, Kennedy simply has to be removed from office before he harms even more people.