Politicians and MAHA Influencers: Masters of Science Misinformation

Congressman Mike Flood's recent town hall, promoting Medicaid work requirements, wasn't just a political event; it was a microcosm of the war on facts.  Flood, while commendable for engaging directly with constituents, peddled a narrative devoid of scientific backing, painting a picture of able-bodied individuals leeching off the system. This blatant disregard for the reality that many Medicaid recipients are already working multiple jobs, juggling financial precarity and healthcare needs, is a dangerous form of political theater, designed to scapegoat the vulnerable and further erode the social safety net.

The performative outrage surrounding Medicaid conveniently ignores the complexities of healthcare access in America.  Flood's arguments, echoing a chorus of conservative voices, rely on a simplistic, misleading narrative that conveniently ignores the data.  Organizations like the Kaiser Family Foundation have repeatedly debunked the myth of the 'lazy' Medicaid recipient, showcasing the reality of individuals struggling to balance work, family, and debilitating health conditions.  Flood's town hall, rather than a genuine attempt at policy discussion, served as a platform for disseminating misinformation and fueling divisive rhetoric.

Dr. Jessica Nurick's counterpoint provides a crucial antidote to this manufactured outrage.  Her work dismantling health misinformation, whether tackling the manipulative narratives of social media influencers or clarifying the science behind nutrition and funding, is a beacon of reason in a sea of manufactured controversy.  The attacks on evidence-based science, exemplified by Flood's rhetoric, are not merely political; they are an assault on public health.  By highlighting the dangers of relying on simplistic narratives and embracing evidence-based policymaking, Dr. Nurick offers a vital path towards a more informed and equitable healthcare system.

Full Show Notes & Links Used

Chapters

• 1:00 Mike Flood taken to the wood shed
• 16:05 Dr. Jessica Knurick: Beacon in the sea of misinformation

Transcript

[0:04] Republican Congressman Mike Flood actually had a town hall where he tried to sell the big ugly bill, by touting the Medicaid work requirement that's coming in 2026 and like many

[0:17] conservatives he resorted to a dog whistle that's not backed up by any real science. Then we meet Dr. Jessica Knurick, a science communicator on social media who confronts the misinformation put out by Maha influencers and other quacks.

[0:34] Music.

[0:39] This is Secular Left.

[0:59] One of the changes that was made in the big, ugly bill that was passed recently and signed by President Trump, would change the Medicaid program for millions of people in the country. And basically what it would do is it would install work requirements for people getting Medicaid, whether you're in a state that has work requirements or not. The federal government will put them in. Many of the cheap labor conservatives that love that idea are the same type of people that want to criminalize being poor, you know, passing laws to jail homeless people, making it impossible for people to obtain services to help them because the application process is so onerous and you have to give so much of your personal information up. And especially if you're homeless and you don't have an address, a lot of times agencies won't help you because you don't have a permanent address. The last resort is government programs like Medicaid. And it helps a lot of people. Most of the people that have Medicaid are disabled, elderly or children.

[2:17] And the people that are not elderly, disabled, or a child actually work, according to statistics. And so basically what this is, is just a performance theater from Republicans, the same as when Ronald Reagan did the welfare queen slur back when he was running in 1980, saying that there was welfare queens collecting money on welfare that shouldn't be. And the Republicans do the same thing. And so what I want to do is play a clip, an audio clip of a recent town hall given that was participated in by Republican Representative Mike Flood of Nebraska. Now, I give props to him because, unlike many of his Republican brethren, he at least was having a town hall meeting where he actually showed up and he actually talked to constituents. A lot of the Republicans are too scared to do it because they know that their policies are unpopular, just like Representative Flood found out. Now, the one thing that I will, I kind of disagree with, okay, is, yes, you should make your thoughts, your feelings, make the representative aware of your feelings.

[3:43] Particularly if they say something that you particularly disagree, you can boo and things like that. But if you listen to this audio, you hear people in the background trying to shout him down. I don't know. They're screaming something. I can't hear it. But they're just constantly screaming at him. And unfortunately, I don't agree with that. All right. This guy has come in and did a town hall and he's talking to constituents. Now, if he says something stupid like he does in this clip, have at it. Booing, whatever. If he says something you like, cheering, whatever. And if you notice, if you catch it at the end, that's what most of the people do. Now, the people in the background that keeps shouting at him for whatever reason, you're not doing any good. You're not doing anything. You're just drawing attention to yourself. And nobody is going to pay attention to you, and they're going to get irritated. And so that's not good. But I just wanted to play this clip because I want you to hear a common refrain that he and many Republicans like him use. The next slide talks about the two big changes.

[4:57] The next slide talks about two big changes. To the Medicaid program. One of those changes is that if you are able to work, and you are able-bodied, you have to work. If you choose not to work, you do not get free healthcare. You do not get free healthcare.

[5:26] Okay, okay. So here's a question. So here's a question.

[5:33] Do you think that people who are 28 years old that can work and refuse to work should get free health care?

[5:45] I don't think that a majority of Nebraskans agree with you. Now in case you didn't catch it there at the end when he said do you think that somebody who is 28 years old and doesn't work should get free health care a majority of the people in that town hall said yes and of course then flood says well majority of nebraskans don't agree with you i beg to differ i think that they would agree with the crowd um because most people think that that we spend too much money on health care for people not to have access to it at all. Everybody should get access to health care, whether you're working or not. I know I've mentioned this in previous talks about this, about health care, that in Europe, the corporations, the companies that people work for, they don't provide employee health care, at least not for a majority of their workers. They have universal health care provided by the government, and that's what the companies use. That's one of the reasons why many tech companies are based in Europe.

[7:02] Microsoft, at least last time I checked, Microsoft had a large presence in Dublin, Ireland, and in Paris, France. And they spend a lot of money on those offices. And the reason they do is because their labor cost isn't as high as the United States because they don't have to provide health care. Because the healthcare gets lumped into labor costs, not just wages, but the employer match for healthcare. That's why you see when a lot of unions have negotiations, a lot of times the companies want the union members to pay more into their healthcare because then that means that the.

[7:45] And so that's how that works. But I just thought it was interesting that when Flood said, you want somebody at 28 years old who refuses to work to get free health care, and everybody said yes. And like I said, the statistics actually don't favor Flood's position at all. There's this one place, this one, it used to be called the Kaiser Family Foundation, or they do health care statistics and analysis. They're separate now from Kaiser. They used to be part of Kaiser Permanente medical people, but now they're totally separate and they're just known as KFF. And they're an independent source of health policy, polling, and news. And they have five key facts about Medicaid work requirements. Number one, most Medicaid adults under the age of 65 are working already without a work requirement, because right now that work requirement isn't going to go into effect until after the 2026 election. That's another thing that Flood didn't mention. And according to KFF, when they looked at the data, they looked at a current population survey.

[8:59] 44% of people on Medicaid were working full-time. 8% were not working due to retirement, inability to find work, or other reason. 7% were not working due to school, going to school. 10% were not working due to disability. 12% were not working due to caregiving. And 20% were working part-time jobs. So you have 64% of adults on Medicaid who were working either full-time or part-time.

[9:35] And that is based on a March 2024 current population survey. The Congressional Budget Office estimates estimates of national work requirements show lower federal spending and an increase in the number of uninsured, but no increase in employment. And what that means is that when these work requirements go into effect, it will not increase employment levels. It just won't.

[10:08] And then the CBO cited evidence of the effects of Medicaid work and reporting requirements implemented in Arkansas, the only state where work requirement was established with disenrollment for noncompliance. And then a 2022 CBO report noted high rates of employment among SNAP and Medicaid recipients leave little room to increase employment rates further because they're already working. All they'll do, all they'll do is if they don't follow the rules, strict rules and report and fill out forms, and then they'll get their health insurance taken away. And that's all that will happen because they'll still be employed. And in fact, number three, in Arkansas, which implemented Medicaid work requirements, resulted in more than 18,000 people losing their coverage. They also had it in Georgia. They have a work requirement in Georgia, but there isn't, there's a work requirement, but you don't lose your coverage in Georgia for noncompliance. I think they do something else with you.

[11:22] Fact number four, evidence shows Medicaid work and reporting requirements are confusing to enrollees and complex and costly for states to implement. Yeah, because what it is is these lawyers, some of them are lawyers, most of them are business people, is they're writing these rules. They are not taking into account that a poor person has to fill this stuff out. Maybe somebody who doesn't have a college education, you know, they have these these strict rules and complex rules that you have to go through. And if you mess up, you're done. You get you get booted off and you have to reapply. And that takes even more time. And that's that's the other thing that you have to give up when you're poor is your time. So how are you going to work if you have to do all these strict rules, follow all these strict rules?

[12:21] In fact, number five, research shows access to affordable health insurance and care promotes individuals' ability to obtain and maintain employment. And it says, research shows that being in poor health is associated with increased risk of job loss, while access to affordable health insurance has a positive effect on keeping your job. Having access to regular preventative health care to manage chronic conditions, access medications, and address health issues before they worsen can help support work. In addition, an unmet need for mental health or addiction treatment results in greater difficulty with obtaining and maintaining employment. And that's the other thing too, besides being poor, they criminalize you being having mental health or addiction. And so That's why I do not support mandatory work requirements. You can suggest it. I know some Social Security people, they can work some, and they're encouraged to work some, but they have a certain amount that they can work, and then it starts eroding their benefits. The same with Medicaid. If you work too much, you might lose your benefits. So basically you're stuck having to work a minimum wage job for maybe 36 hours a week and you have to pay for your food and possibly child care.

[13:51] And it's just you get on this. It's not it's not promoting these mandatory work requirements don't support self-sufficiency. Actually increases dependency on government programs, because in order to keep your benefits, you can't go over a certain income level. You can't have a certain amount of property. You can have a car, but you can't own a house or some things like that. It depends on the state. And so, you know, and then if you are in the system, you know, these these caps, these levels, and you don't want to get above it. And so then you have people that are getting jobs that are being paid under the table. So there's no taxes being paid, no income tax. So the community loses out on that labor. That is why that quote that I played of Mike Flood, and he's not the only one that has said these things.

[14:54] Josh Williams, our state representative Josh Williams here in the Northwest Ohio area, he basically said the same thing. Why should a 28-year-old living in his parents' basement get free health care? Well, one, that doesn't happen. And two, that is a dog whistle to demonize poor people, to justify cutting their health insurance or cutting back on the social safety net. And it's not based on any reality. It's not based on any data. It's not based on any rational thinking about this topic. purely political to criminalize being poor.

[15:33] And I think that's just a poor way of treating people.

[15:36] Music.

[15:46] For more information on the topics in this episode and the links used, visit secularleft.us. We'll see you next time.

[15:53] Music.

[16:05] I'm all about data. I'm all about rational data. Science, believe it was Neil deGrasse Tyson said, science is true, whether you believe in it or not, which that's one thing that I believe in as well. Can science be wrong sometimes? Yes, science can be wrong, but it is based on a certain principle, a certain way of working, a methodology, the scientific method. And so if somebody is talking about climate change and they happen to be a chiropractor who works with mentally ill patients, I am less likely to believe him when he talks about climate change than I am with somebody who has a degree in climatology and maybe they're a weather person, like we have some local weather people that I would listen to about climate change, astronomers and people that talk about earth sciences, I would believe. The same way that, you know, if your doctor says that you need a certain medication to live, you know, you're pretty much going to believe that doctor. You might want to get a second opinion, but you wouldn't get a second opinion from YouTube. Well, I guess I shouldn't say that. I think some people do.

[17:31] What was the other one? WebMD is another one, but I mean, at least that's backed up with some science. But yeah, so if a doctor tells you that you have a problem and you need this medication, you're going to get a second opinion from another doctor who's in the same specialty, okay? You're not going to watch videos on YouTube.

[17:55] You shouldn't. Like I said, there's probably some people that do. So anyway, I'm still on Facebook. I know most people tell you to get off Facebook or Instagram is probably a little bit better, but you get these short videos. And a lot of these videos are so-called health influencers or what they call it, Maha, make America healthy again or something like that. And so what they'll do is they'll rail against dyes in the food. And they'll say, you got to keep your kids from eating dye. It's illegal. And they'll make these wild accusations. Or a recent one is about cane sugar. And so it's like, how do you find out whether or not what somebody's telling you is factual? And the first thing is, is the person a doctor? Are they a medical doctor? Is their specialty, if they're a medical doctor, is it that in there? Like in this case, when you're talking about food and nutrition, are they in the nutrition field? Have they studied it? There will be people sometimes who are medical doctors that promote a lot of woo.

[19:20] Dr. Oz is one of them. He got paid a lot of money to promote turmeric as the cure-all for everything, cancers and depression and all this stuff. And it was a bunch of hooey. But because he was a medical doctor, an actual medical doctor, people believed what he was saying. And it was just because he was getting paid to say it. So that's another thing to watch out for is somebody getting paid to say these things. A lot of times these health influencers, these healthy living influencers, they have a product or a service that they're selling. So they'll breathlessly tell you about some crisis, some health crisis. And then at the end of the video, you'll see, hey, if you want to stop this, buy my book or get this drink mix and everything will be OK. That's a big red flag.

[20:17] And so I know it's hard, but what I've done is I've come across somebody who I actually trust when they're talking about food and nutrition because they are a registered dietitian and they are in nutrition science and food and nutrition policy. And her name is Dr. Jessica Knurick. And I'm probably pronouncing her last name wrong. It's K-N-U-R-I-C-K. But she's a registered dietitian. She has a PhD. And she educates on nutrition science. And she's known for her clear evidence-based communication. And when you watch her videos and she makes a point, if it's something that can be proven by a link or a paper or something, she'll put that on the video. Most of these health influencers, they don't do stuff like that.

[21:10] So what I wanted to do is I wanted to show you how she does this in these short videos, these reels that you find on Instagram and Facebook and on YouTube. And then I'll have a link to her website so you can check out more information about her. But the first one, the first clip I'm going to play is talking about National Institutes of Health Grants. The Trump administration went in and stopped a bunch of grants, health grants that study health issues because they said it was wasteful. And so there's one of Trump's lackeys talking about certain ones that they found that they figured were wasteful. And then Dr. Nurik comes on and says, well, that may be true. It may seem like it's wasteful. But here is this study, this other study that looked like it was wasteful. And it found this and so on and so forth. So listen to this clip.

[22:19] And then we'll move on from there. We're going through the same process with the NIH that we did with the education. But there's a time clock. $2 million for injecting dogs with cocaine that the NIH spent money on. $75,000 for Harvard to study.

[22:35] Blowing lizards off of trees with leaf blowers. That's the kind of waste that we've seen at the NIH. A few decades ago, NIH-funded researchers spent years studying the venom of a tiny tropical marine snail called a cone snail. What's interesting about that snail is that instead of biting, it stabs its prey with like a tooth that contains paralyzing neurotoxins. Scientists at the time were isolating peptides to see how they affected nerve signaling in animals. If I were being dishonest and working for a government that wanted to cut scientific research funding, I would use this as an example of waste and tell you that your tax dollars are going towards studying venomous sea snails and how their toxic spit affects fish brains. Seems pretty wasteful. That research led to the discovery of a peptide that blocks pain by shutting down calcium channels in the spinal cord. And that became the foundation for a non-opioid pain medication that's now used to treat chronic pain in people who have like cancer treatments or spinal cord injuries, especially in people who don't respond well to opioids or who are at risk of addiction. In the 1960s and 1970s, NIH-funded scientists spent their time destroying bone marrow in mice with ionizing radiation and then injecting them with bone marrow from other mice to see what would happen. I were working for a government that wanted to cut scientific research funding. I might say to you that your tax dollars are going towards zapping mice with radiation and then injecting them with foreign tissue to see what happened.

[23:53] Those NIH-funded studies led to something that we now know as graft-versus-host disease, which is a deadly complication when transplanted immune cells attack the recipient's body. And that discovery led to improved donor-matching protocols and targeted immune-suppressing drugs, which made bone marrow transplants a viable treatment for leukemia. Those breakthroughs saved my dad's life when he received a successful bone marrow transplant after being diagnosed with leukemia when I was a kid. This is why NIH funding matters. The NIH is the world's leading medical research agency. It funds basic research that sometimes seems aimless or obscure or even wasteful at first to some people, but it is the foundation for life-saving medical breakthroughs. And right now, the Trump administration is trying to cut the NIH budget by 40% by saying that much of its research is wasteful. It's not.

[24:37] That's the thing is, you know, these MAGA people, these conservatives come across like they're looking for waste and fraud. And if they don't like it, if they don't understand it, then it has to be wasteful. And so Dr. Knurick is showing everybody that, well, if you stop this particular research, you're probably going to stop finding out something else. And and so that's what that's what you do in science is you have an idea you know you see something like um i think example she used uh was eliminating eliminating the bone marrow of a mouse and then injecting it with new marrow and see what happens that that's like probably 80% of science, is you have an idea that you want to try out and you do it and you don't know the result. You don't know what could happen. It could be, it could be, huh, nothing happened or, ah, Eureka, something happened. And so as she pointed out, when these mice.

[25:49] This testing on mice was done, they found out or were able to determine how best to do, bone marrow transplants for humans and what to look out for and what to treat so that they go better and they're more smoother and that they work.

[26:08] You know, if Trump had been president when they were doing that and they cut that grant, there would be a lot of people with leukemia, like her father, that probably would have died because that science would not have been discovered. And that's one important point about science. Now, in this next clip, we've heard this in the news that that Donald Trump wants Coca-Cola to start producing cane sugar and using cane sugar in their in their beverages.

[26:40] And so this is one of the health influencer scams that is that cane sugar is somehow more nutritious than corn syrup, which is used high fructose corn syrup, which is used in a majority of time. Now, Dr. Knurick will talk about the science part of it, but the economic part of it. The reason why a lot of companies don't use cane sugar anymore is because it's expensive. The United States doesn't have a lot of cane sugar. We used to have a lot of sugar beet. That's the closest that we have. A lot of the cane sugar we have to get from outside the country, and we have to import it, and it can get very expensive. So a lot of these food manufacturers that could switch out high fructose corn syrup for cane sugar, they did years ago.

[27:44] And as I said, Dr. Nurik will talk about the science part of it, but just to kind of give you a quick clip about it, is that cane sugar and high fructose corn syrup are no different. They're exactly the same. Okay, why is the cane sugar better than the high fructose corn syrup?

[28:06] It's really exciting because actual cane sugar, our bodies can actually digest it. High fructose corn syrup, our body doesn't really know what to do with it. It doesn't have the proper enzymes or stuff to break it down. So by adding cane sugar instead of high fructose corn syrup, it wouldn't be as overwhelming to the liver and we wouldn't have as high of blood sugar spikes. There are so many scientists Fox News could have brought on to explain this accurately, but instead we get a Texas mom spreading pseudoscience and saying things like our body doesn't have the proper enzymes or stuff to break it down. We're talking about two highly refined sugars in a high-sugar nutrient-devoid drink. Swapping one for the other changes nothing, and if you keep talking about it like it's a healthier option, it may encourage people to drink more of it, and that's exactly the opposite of what we want. Cane sugar comes from sugar cane or sugar beets. It's 50% glucose and 50% fructose. High fructose corn syrup comes from corn starch. It's called high fructose because it contains more fructose than corn syrup, which is nearly 100% glucose.

[29:05] The fructose corn syrup typically ranges from 42% to 55% fructose. And just like cane sugar, it's made up of fructose and glucose. It's just not chemically bonded. It's already in its monosaccharide form. So it doesn't even need enzymes and stuff to be digested. Our bodies know exactly how to digest both. They're functionally the same, and we have decades of human studies to demonstrate that. 2022 meta-analysis of nine trials found no difference in glucose, insulin, triglycerides, cholesterol, or weight between high fructose corn syrup and sucrose. 2021 meta-analysis of 25 studies found no significant difference in blood pressure, lipid levels, or glucose metabolism. You know, blood sugar spikes.

[29:46] And multiple controlled feeding trials have shown nearly identical endocrine and metabolic responses between the two. They're both refined sugars, and there is no evidence that replacing high fructose corn syrup with cane sugar improves metabolic health, reduces chronic disease, or meaningfully changes dietary patterns. It doesn't lower sugar intake, it doesn't improve the nutrition environment, it doesn't make a soda any less a soda, and it doesn't reduce the intake of sugar-sweetened beverages, which is really where our focus should be. What it does do is create the illusion of action while distracting from the actual drivers of poor health. It's a performative swap designed for quick Maha wins and viral social media content, not public health. Okay. As she said there in that clip, that when you have a neutrally deficient beverage, it doesn't matter if you have cane sugar or high fructose corn syrup. It's all going the same place. It's all digested the same. It's the same thing. That's why they switched out years ago, because it's the same thing.

[30:43] It's the same kind of sugar. It's just corn syrup is cheaper to make than importing cane sugar. And I also wanted to mention, too, that our food supply, the food that we eat, yes, it is highly processed, overly processed in many ways. And it's always much better if you want to eat healthy is to cook your own food from scratch. I'm not a health care, I'm not a health nutrition influencer, but that is some common sense because you're able to control the salt intake. You're able to control fat. You're able to control what kind of meat you use or what kind of vegetables you use. And it's going to be, in the long run, healthier than getting it at a fast food place or getting it in a frozen dinner at the supermarket. And a lot of the boxed food and canned food that we have available are highly processed. And that's what you need to avoid.

[32:03] You know, cane sugar, it doesn't matter. If you want cane sugar, I, you know, I can tell the difference because, uh, Pepsi had, uh, a throwback, uh, pop, uh, soda pop the other, um, some years ago where they brought out the cane sugar. Coca-Cola, you can already get in a cane sugar variety here in Toledo. We call it Mexican Coke, and it's usually found in the Hispanic aisle where the taco shells and the refried beans can be found. So it's already available. It's expensive. It's like a six-pack was like $7, $8 for a six-pack. The problem is that the amount of people drinking soda pop these days is very, very low now. Most people drink like Red Bulls or Gatorade. They don't drink soda pop much anymore. And a lot of it has to do with the cost. It's very expensive. Coke and Pepsi are very expensive. I like to partake in some soda occasionally. And I will get like RC Cola, which is $1.45 for a two liter.

[33:23] So I could buy, for the amount I would spend on a 12 pack of Pepsi, I could buy probably five or six two liters of RC Cola.

[33:34] And that's the thing is most, you know, the kids these days, younger people, they just don't drink soda pop anymore. You know, it's flavored water or Red Bull or Gatorade. That's just what they do. And so this whole thing about cane sugar instead of high fructose sugar is, again, is just performance theater by conservatives who have really no idea

[34:01] how science really works. Or they do have an idea and they just totally ignore how science really works.

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