RKF Jr’s sexcapades have been all over my corners of the Internet, to my horror. The mainstream media was right there to fan the flames of my fury right as I needed, preventing me from dwelling on those sex “poems” or whatever you dare call them. Some good news on cervical cancer got my spirits up, too. Stick around for that at the end!

There has been growing buzz the past few weeks surrounding RFK Jr’s (alleged) former mistress and her ex-boyfriend. I’ve refrained from saying anything in this newsletter so far, as the story seems primarily centered around journalistic malpractice and not really public health. Amazingly, The Atlantic is forcing my hand to discuss this insane story, at all.

If you want the background given to you in a funny and repulsive way, here that is. I’m warning you about the repulsive part, you can’t get mad at me if you choose to read it yourself! Here’s a tamer recount of the details, if you prefer to avoid reading RFK Jr’s alleged sexts.

Olivia Nuzzi is the journalist in this scandal that reportedly had a relationship with RFK Jr, whose wife I was just talking about a few weeks ago when she appeared on The View to run defense for the MAHA madness. Nuzzi has been taking all the heat for this story, as the level of journalistic malpractice is off the charts, as far as recent memory serves. The mainstream media’s coverage of Nuzzi and RFK Jr are more than disappointing, however, they are brutally enraging. It’s no wonder we are where we are in the current political climate with media coverage like this.

I’ll start with the fact that Nuzzi is currently employed by Vanity Fair, where she is getting a nice profile written up—complete with abstract nude portrait by an artist that’s also wrapped up in the journalism scandal. Vanity Fair is reportedly examining the facts to determine if she can continue working there, but I don’t have much hope for journalistic integrity winning out. From my perspective, mainstream journalism suffers from both pervasive false balance and hagiography of the subjects covered.

I’ll start with false balance. This is causally called “bothsidesism,” which I find horrible to say and write. False balance is a type of media bias in which coverage of an issue must include “both sides,” even if there is genuinely only one side. This happens a lot with climate change coverage; a story will interview scientists and experts and also anyone they can find that doesn’t believe in climate change, despite the evidence. When presented to audiences, stories with false balance give them the idea that the side with no evidence is still just as legitimate as the side with evidence.

So, as these heinous details about the reported affair between Nuzzi and RFK Jr have been dumped across the internet the past couple weeks, The Atlantic has decided to give us an astounding example of false balance. Their January cover story is about RFK Jr; it’s a profile of him and his experiences as Health Secretary. The cover itself is a photo of RFK Jr in glowing golden light, with a visible rosary in his hands brought up as if in prayer. His wedding ring is prominent. All I could say was, “what the fuck?”

Why would anyone give him a profile at all? Why interview him about what he’s doing? Why photograph him like this as if he is a devoutly religious man—I would argue the sexts contradict any form of holy matrimony in his life. The Atlantic presents the story as though it’s difficult to square the circle on RFK Jr’s choices in his life and how his policy is manifesting in the Health and Human Services Department. Of course, the full profile is also behind their paywall. They boldly question whether RKF Jr is a “truth-telling crusader, or brain-wormed loon” in the fading text before you are prompted to subscribe. This framing is blatant false balance. They are fully giving credence to the minority of Americans that don’t trust scientific expertise by doing this.

I absolutely detest this, but The Atlantic is far from the only mainstream outlet polluting journalism like this. The New York Times also found a way to present RFK Jr’s changes to the CDC’s vaccine safety website last week as if they were in some way balanced with the science of vaccine safety. Amazingly, the author of the piece updated the language in one spot, but still failed to correct the issue. It’s originally read:

This does not fix the framing of this story, unfortunately. The word “challenge” implies that his quack nonsense challenges science at all! Scientific consensus isn’t challenged by any anti-vaxx claims from RFK Jr and his ilk. Yet journalists seem to abjectly refuse to take the side of the facts when it comes to reporting on science, these days.

Trump seems to weather any storm, and his current posse of freaks similarly seem to dodge every scandal that comes their way. The media truly goes easy on all of them, as far as I’m concerned. The media grants them this water-off-a-duck’s-back style of reporting. I can only imagine what today’s journalists would report if sent back in time to break the Watergate scandal, which seems trite in today’s political climate. Rather than toast these fools when they are wrong or their policy destruction costs people their lives, they resort to “some say negative things, some say positive” as they construct their hagiographies (AKA “profiles”) of controversial figures.

I can’t take it anymore! Stop telling me the juicy personal details and sexts between perverts manipulating media outlets, politicians, and destroying public health if you are just going to reward them with more profiles, more employment, and more breathless coverage on how they’re kinda awesome despite all the badness. You, the viewer can decide—after subscribing, of course!

When you go forth and read news, watch out for false balance. When a scientist is quoted on an issue, see if they include some seemingly random anti-science blurb or quote, too. And don’t be swayed by this crap, remember false balance bias!

Destructive changes to the CDC’s websites surrounding vaccines continue, unfortunately. You can read my write up on the horrible changes to the vaccine safety page from last week, here. Now, the page that helps people find pharmacies for vaccination is broken. According to a banner on the page, it may not work while it’s “being updated.” I shudder to think what’s in store from this “update.”

For how much power RFK Jr has, it’s surprising how slow and clunky these changes are. While changes to a website aren’t as dramatic as firing thousands of federal public health experts, my concern is the ammo these pages give future anti-vaxxers. Even if eventually corrected, anti-vaxxers will point to the fact these pages existed at all as some “hidden truth” the government now wants to hide. RFK Jr also has many anti-science and anti-medicine beliefs. Is he going to start making sweeping changes to information on HIV, since he’s an AIDS denialist? It seems he’s up to something in that arena, as the federal government has announced this week they won’t be commemorating world AIDS day (which is on December 1st).

Despite the chaos, current and forthcoming, in the United States, the rest of the global public health community isn’t taking these disruptions laying down. UNAIDS released a report this week detailing the current growing challenges to preventing HIV and charting a path toward a stronger HIV response for the future. Seeing the fight continue gives me hope. This is a grave time in public health, but people are still fighting for what’s right.

Ralph Abraham, previously the Louisiana Surgeon General, has been hired as the principle deputy director for the CDC. He’ll work under the CDC acting director, Jim O’Neill. If you remember earlier this year, O’Neill was put into that job after the previous CDC director was fired for not rubber stamping RFK Jr’s changes at the CDC without evidence the changes were needed.

If we were to go off of Louisiana’s public health this year to forecast how Abraham will impact America as a whole, it’s not looking good. Abraham is a doctor, but he is definitely anti-vaxx and holds water for the false claims that vaccines cause autism. As Surgeon General, he banned any promotion of vaccination by the Louisiana health department. There’s been a huge whooping cough outbreak in the state, which has killed two infants. The health department waited 3 months before reporting the outbreak to physicians and the public, despite the deaths.

This is rightfully scary; this will continue to get worse before it gets better. If you are bothered by Abraham’s appointment, I’d recommend you call your representatives and tell them about your concerns. We can’t expect RFK Jr to do the right thing, but we can put the pressure on, anyway.

Another infant has died because of whooping cough in Kentucky. This brings the Kentucky outbreak death toll to 3—none of the infants or their mothers were vaccinated against pertussis, the cause of whooping cough. I can’t stress this enough: these deaths are preventable. We shouldn’t have to have illnesses of yore roar back until enough people suffer the loss of an infant or child for people to decide vaccines are worth more than made up anti-vaxx claims on Facebook. Nobody like Abraham, O’Neill, or RFK Jr should be allowed anywhere near health policy. Lives are at stake in the best of times for public health, after all.

Two new Cochrane reviews were published this week about the HPV vaccine and cervical cancer. Cochrane reviews are kind of a big deal, if you aren’t in the know. They have high standards for their recommendations. After looking at several recent large studies, they are now confidently reporting that the HPV vaccine is both safe and highly effective at preventing cervical cancer. Confidence from Cochrane gives public health departments strong evidence that it’s worth making or expanding promotion of the HPV vaccine to prevent cervical cancer.

Several countries have already put a lot of work into vaccinating young people against HPV. Scotland, for example, has offered HPV vaccines to 12 and 13 year olds in school since 2008. A study published last year found that there have been no cases of cervical cancer seen in those fully vaccinated through this program! Yeah!!! Way to go, Scotland!

Australia released their 2025 progress report on eliminating cervical cancer earlier this month. They appear to be on track to eliminating cervical cancer in the nation by 2035! I flipped through the report and liked what I saw. They clearly highlight inequities in cervical cancer rates and vaccine uptake, especially in Indigenous populations. If they truly want to eliminate cervical cancer, they need to really make sure these inequities are fully addressed, so everyone benefits from the power of the HPV vaccine. The Australian vaccination rate has declined a bit in recent years, so there is work still to do.

What kind of vaccine coverage do you need to be as successful as Australia (or Scotland)? The Australian progress report states that 85.7% of young people had been vaccinated in 2020, which was the highest they’ve recorded. In 2024, that percentage dropped slightly to 79.5%. Scotland has similar rates of vaccination, reporting 72.6% of freshman students getting the vaccine in the 2024-2025 school year. They have a really fun dashboard where you can see the data, if you’re interested! Once you click that link, click “school vaccines” on the top bar and then “HPV Annual” to get to the page where you can look at all the vaccination rates for places you’ve never heard of, like Tayside:

What’s the HPV vaccination rate in the US? Well, it’s not great: latest data from 2023 indicate that only 57.3% 12 to 13 year olds in the US received the vaccine as recommended. Ouch. Well, whoever becomes the first nation to eliminate cervical cancer from our front-runners, we all win. I’m thankful for all the people that have fought for the HPV vaccine. There’s plenty of more fighting to do to make sure everyone across the world has access to this simple form of cancer prevention.

I’m also thankful for you, readers! I appreciate you following along with me each week as I write about public health. If you like what I do, consider recommending other people subscribe and read along!

See y’all next week!

Professor Batty