As the MAHA movement in the United States turns the policymakers’ requirement for expertise and evidence on its head, we can no longer merely distinguish between activist science and credible science. When activists with no scientific knowledge or background start leading decisions with their alternative “evidence”, we need a new class or categorisation: “Redneck Science”.

Whenever someone tells me “the” science says this or that, I get curious as to the special interests being manipulated under the veil of “evidence-based” policy. There is no single, definitive (“the”) science but many scientific approaches using a method of critically analysing, continuously verifying and attempting to falsify the dominant presuppositions and paradigms of the day. Science is not about a consensus (that’s politics) but is meant to challenge it. The stronger a theory withstands scrutiny, the more reliable a science’s conclusions can be.

The way our cornucopia of scientists approach the same issue is really quite fascinating.

• When I worked in a chemical research centre, I saw how chemists approached a substance (measuring the dose and working to reduce our exposure – risk management) differently from how biologists did (as complex systems with so many unknown influences and consequences – precautionary, hazard-based).
• During the COVID-19 pandemic, the virologists advising most governments were terrified of the unknown variants that could mutate, perhaps out of control (thus the need to lock everyone down in their homes) while many epidemiologists looked at the wider consequences of lockdowns and past pandemic experiences and felt we needed to protect the vulnerable while also letting the virus rip through the healthy population until we could reach herd immunity.
• On issues like vaping and pain management, anti-corporate activists employed addiction scientists to highlight the risks that the chemists and other harm-reduction risk managers could not identify in a lab.
• Within the climate debate, there is no single climate science. Many sceptics saw the exclusion of certain fields of research as politically driven. In order to provide a consensus, the IPCC limited their research sources, excluding, for example, solar scientists and limiting their focus to anthropogenic influences.  

Of course, the engineers just laugh at all of “the” science claims and move forward doing “the” math.

There are other soft sciences that do not meet the same rigorous standards. Is economics a science? What about the social sciences? There are also “alternative” sciences that are not widely accepted as credible like naturopaths, homeopaths, osteopaths… Since Francis Bacon, Copernicus and Charles Darwin, we have always had the hold-out flat-earthers and creationists, but with social media, they have found a new lease on life.

Activist Science

One of the dangers for science is when political interests and bias cloud the scientific method. Eleven years ago, I coined the term “activist science” to show how certain acclaimed scientists have let their politics or interests pollute the scientific process.

• A credible scientist would gather evidence and draw a conclusion.
• An activist scientist would start with a conclusion and adapt the evidence.

On many chemical, pesticide and plastic policy debates, interest groups would fund certain outspoken scientists to design studies that would support campaigns or lawsuits. I have written volumes on how this playbook has been used on neonics, glyphosate, aspartame …

With today’s chromatography and spectrometry technologies, you can find substance residues at the nanoscale in pretty well anything, so activist scientists have no problem delivering data (however meaningless). As for the ethics in taking funding to weaponize anti-science campaigns, if groups of activist scientists are doing it, then any ethical transgressions are mollified by the righteousness of a movement.

Over the last decade, I have watched as groups of scientists have banded together to attack their opponents, worked as litigation consultants for the US tort law industry (who have also funded their studies and organisations) and worked with NGOs to run campaigns against industry. I have referred to this as Ramazzini Science after the corrupt practices at the Collegium Ramazzini and Ramazzini Institute. These two institutions (often considered as one) have become a “secret handshake” cult for activist scientists working together to undermine the traditional regulatory science process (with strategies like adversarial regulation). They peer-review each other’s work to be published in their own journals or Ramazzini-controlled journals and move funds between their organisations (like the Ramazzini-led Heartland Health Research Alliance).

Ramazzinians are well connected within the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) monograph programme that has become a manufactured-evidence weapons factory for the US litigation industry. Given the lack of ethics and integrity exhibited by many Ramazzini members, I strongly feel that any scientist who has been nominated and selected to be a member of the Collegium Ramazzini should not be allowed to receive public research funding.

And then the MAHA movement (Make America Healthy Again) came to power in the US and introduced a whole different kettle of fish: Redneck Science.

Redneck Science

To be a scientist, you used to have to go to school and preferably study in certain scientific fields (biology, physics, chemistry, mathematics, statistics…). You had to research a specific field or a topic (often for decades), perform experiments or field tests, write dissertations and publish your findings after being scrutinised by your peers.

Now you just need access to the Internet and a social media community to help provide you with answers that sound good. Today many environmental health debates have been led by people with no scientific knowledge or experience. Worse, those with actual scientific knowledge and experience have been shunned or attacked, often for not telling the public what they want to hear or for working with corporations. Their scientific solutions have been presented as cons or failures leading to chronic health problems, pandemics, environmental destruction…

As these activist NGOs, Mom’s Militias, naturopaths and fringe groups take the reins of power under the protective wing of the new Department of Health and Human Services Secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, they need to base their policies on some sort of evidence. But I cannot class their alternative science as another branch of activist science. They should also not be given the respect of being called pseudoscientists. They are just too far flung from any rational scientific method (ie, batshit crazy). Given the Make American Great Again (MAGA) base the MAHAs have (momentarily) aligned with, the term “redneck science” seems appropriate.

Redneck science is a class of evidence established without any scientific basis or rational coherence. This evidence class does not rely on any rigorous research, is not developed from any body of expertise but is created (often completely fabricated) to help justify claims against authorities, industries and established institutions. Confrontational by nature, redneck scientists create fear and distrust in order to then sell their alternative products.

Some examples of redneck science attacks:

• vaccines that have saved millions of lives by saying all vaccines are untested and unsafe;
• GMOs claiming that organic or agroecology food systems are safer and can provide food security;
• chemtrails for poisoning populations with chemicals sprayed from airplanes;
• fluoride added to water which is argued to lead to neurological issues in children, lowering their IQs and increasing ADHD;
• 5G and wearables for releasing electromagnetic frequencies (EMFs) that they claim lead to cancers, suicides and child development issues;
• pesticides even though there are more carcinogens in a single cup of coffee than in all of the pesticide residues from a year’s consumption of fruit and vegetables;

At the same time, the MAHA redneck scientists are promoting some very worrisome alternatives to widely accepted scientific solutions, like:

• Organic food even though there is no evidence it is healthier, it also has pesticide residues and requires much more land for similar yields;
• Ivermectin horse dewormer to protect people from the risks of COVID-19 despite having no actual effect;
• supplements and certain foods they claim can boost immunity levels to replace vaccines;
• naturopathic alternatives to cancer treatments like juicing;
• raw milk, beef tallow and any other non-processed food even though they leave consumers vulnerable to spoilage, contamination or poisoning;
• colloidal silver, coffee enemas, magnet therapy and a thousand other useless products or tools these grifters sell on their websites.

Now that a leading redneck scientist, RFK Jr, has taken over the US Department of Health and Human Services, a federal department that includes the FDA, the CDC, the NIH and other scientific agencies, he is working at a rapid pace to impose his brand of redneck science across the US scientific establishments. He called his brand of science a “gold standard” when he published the MAHA Commission report on children’s chronic illness. Sadly though, much of the research for this highly touted report was AI generated, made up non-existent citations and misinterpreted findings. A real redneck move.

But as RFK Jr digs in, fires all of the credible scientists in HHS institutions and agencies, names his collaborators to advisory panels and boards and shifts research funding to programmes that will meet their political objectives, the classical definition of mainstream science will change in an Orwellian fashion. As the MAHAs take up posts and implement radical policy changes based on their redneck science evidence, how should the traditional scientists react? They have been silenced, defunded and denormalised. Time to move to Europe or China.

Industry has been surprisingly compliant with the redneck scientists’ demands. The Food Babe, Vani Hari, used to be publicly ridiculed for her lack of scientific sophistication (“Don’t eat anything you can’t pronounce”). Now, as she campaigns for better kitchen facilities in DC hotels where she is frequently staying while lobbying, food manufacturers are bowing to her crusade and removing food additives and stabilisers.

Can you pronounce “Escherichia coli “?

Will Redneck Scientists and Ramazzini Activist Scientists Unite?

Many Ramazzini campaigns reflect the objectives of the MAHA movement (anti-corporate, banning many of the same substances like glyphosate and aspartame, and against the traditional US regulatory process). Several people have asked if the Ramazzini cabal would join up to lend credibility to the MAHA movement. While many Ramazzinians are opportunists and lacking in integrity (and also badly need more funding), in general these activist scientists detest the rednecks. See an example from a FOIAed email discussion of an anti-conventional agriculture activist science group.

In this chain, candid views are expressed on redneck scientists like Stephanie Seneff, Zen Honeycutt or Jeffrey Smith as dangerous loons. The advice is shared with a clear message: “stay far away”. But now these dangerous lunatics are leading the MAHA movement, dictating science and research policy in the United States.

So I don’t see many activist scientists swallowing their integrity and decades of personal achievement to don the redneck mantle. But in eight years’ time, after the first Vance administration, as the redneck skin peels, the mainstream scientists emigrate and when most emerging technologies will be coming from China, will certain Ramazzinians take posts in an essentially anti-science administration? I can see habitually integrity-challenged scientists like Philip Landrigan, Martyn T Smith or Bernie Goldstein drinking from the MAHA policymaking chalice. They’ll just have to hold their noses and look away when their MAHA bosses trash vaccine safety standards or start serving raw milk in primary schools.

Will these Ramazzinians who cross the line to the redneck science crowd be able to sleep at night? Perhaps we should ask the ghost of Martin Heidegger.

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