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Dear Editor:
This letter is in response to Dr. Feldman’s opinion piece, “Whatever happened to RFK Jr.?,” published in the Oct. 2 print edition of the Hamilton County Reporter.
Regardless of your perspectives on RFK, Jr., I suggest that you should be disgusted by Dr. Feldman’s observation of the American People as expressed in paragraph four. Dr. Feldman states that “a significant proportion of Americans are gullible enough to embrace outrageous falsehoods.”
Now, I won’t dispute that there are gullible Americans; I’d indeed be gullible to disagree with that. However, Dr. Feldman purports that a significant proportion of Americans are gullible. Apparently, we should be thankful for people like Dr. Feldman who are ready to sort everything out so nicely for us – you know, gullible (stupid) citizens.
Dr. Feldman purports in his opinion piece that many of the issues that RFK advocates for or against have been “soundly debunked as baseless and overwhelmingly determined as invalid by high-quality studies.” He indicates that Kennedy has departed “from evidence-based science.” These statements indicate that Americans should believe that we will never gain new insight from science once something has been evaluated to a “conclusion.” Obviously, he believes, science will never demonstrate anything new; we know everything that could be known.
As a former Indiana public health official, Dr. Feldman will likely know that our understanding of science has frequently been revised for the better throughout time.
Remember Dr. Semmelweis; they thought he was crazy when he told medical staff to wash their hands. Between the 1930s and 1950s it was customary for doctors to encourage smoking tobacco for good health; that was settled science. Or maybe Dr. Feldman will recall when in the 1940s and 1950s performing lobotomies, particularly on women, was decidedly effective treatment for depression and other mental health disorders. Don’t forget how opioid pain medication was promoted as non-addictive. Look how that’s going now! Many current health protocols are based strictly on scientific studies on men alone – yes, ignoring the differences of the female body. All settled science, huh?
Voters should sort out the pros and cons about each candidate for themselves, but I respect that RFK has the courage to ask questions, explore new aspects on a wide variety of concerns and is challenging professionals to look deeper. Are we sure that the science IS settled? As the saying goes, when we always do what we’ve always done, we’ll always get what we’ve always gotten, and sometimes, that isn’t what’s best for everyone.
While I am not saying I support RFK, I would much rather support someone who is courageous enough to ask tough questions and converse with Americans about important issues than politicians like Dr. Feldman who considers us too gullible (ignorant) to be able to explore important issues on our own.
All science is NOT settled, Dr. Feldman, and the majority of Americans are not gullible.
Cathy Herndon
Westfield