"Americans are also facing a bizarre epidemic of gullibility and cynicism-gullicism, if you need a portmanteau-that is drawing people into a world of conspiracism and falsehoods, one where facts are drowned out by a cacophony of extremely loud and wrong voices. Reliable information is both more available and harder to find than ever."
"America's top health official, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., staked his political career on the false belief that vaccines cause autism, and has used his power to force federal agencies to support his bonkers position: The CDC's website now says, 'Studies have not ruled out the possibility that infant vaccines cause autism.'"
"Thanks to Kennedy and others, measles outbreaks are happening all over the country after the disease was declared officially eliminated in the U.S. 26 years ago. More than 3,200 cases (since the start of 2025) and at least two deaths of unvaccinated children later."
The United States faces an epidemic of what the article calls "gullicism"—a combination of gullibility and cynicism—where Americans hold contradictory beliefs about health and safety. They distrust vaccines and federal institutions while trusting influencers promoting unproven supplements and cryptocurrency. This selective skepticism extends to environmental and food policy. The situation has worsened with misinformation spreaders gaining political power, particularly Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whose false vaccine-autism claims influenced CDC messaging. Consequently, measles outbreaks have returned after 26 years of elimination, with thousands of cases and deaths among unvaccinated children. Reliable information remains difficult to locate despite its abundance, as loud, false voices dominate the information landscape.
#vaccine-misinformation #public-health-crisis #conspiracy-theories #information-environment #measles-outbreak
Read at The Atlantic
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]