Guess what? I completely agree with you on the paper — it’s rigorous, timely, and a wake-up call for anyone who still thinks chronic low-level lead exposure isn't a big deal! Anyone dismissing it is probably chewing on paint.

That’s what makes the rest of your post — and especially your comment history — so fluxomely paradoxical: clarity on one hand, derailment on the other.

You start off by unjustly accusing us of not being rational, neurotically accusing us of suppressing you in bold black un-downvoted text, then abruptly pivot to strongly endorsing "Contaminated and Natural Lead Environments of Man" — a paper that genuinely deserves more public attention. So why bother first tumbling down the same slippery slope of self-pitying paranoia, selective skepticism, and gratuitous goalpost-shifting that has earned you a negative karma and well documented pattern of rebuttals you never address? That’s not curiosity — that’s performance. And it shortchanges everyone on HN reading in good faith.

https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=FalseNutrition

You clearly recognize credible science when you see it, as your support for "Contaminated and Natural Lead Environments of Man" shows. But paradoxically you lead with your pattern of paranoid rhetorical cheap shots, ignoring corrections, and doubling down on shaky claims. That pattern doesn't just erode your argument — it derails the conversation. HN deserves better.

Your instincts are right when it comes to the science, but your posting history tells a different story. Over and over, you’ve parachuted into threads with confidently wrong claims, ignored direct corrections, and doubled down with vague appeals to "common sense" instead of evidence. You raise objections that have already been addressed — not just by commenters, but by the actual data — and when shown to be wrong, you either ghost or pivot.

This isn’t about disagreement. This is about a pattern: skepticism as performance. A posture. The goalposts always move, the sources are always “dubious,” and somehow the real experts — the ones who've dedicated entire careers to this — are always just missing something obvious that only you can see. The fact that the people currently running this country do that so often because it's their brand, doesn't give you license to. Your persecution complex is not vindicated simply because Trump is critically endangering public health by appointing professional conspiracy theorist, anti-vaxxer Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as health secretary and head of the Department of Health and Human Services.

You’re emulating the exact pattern that’s made RFK Jr. one of the most destructive figures in public health,
a man who’s spent his career poisoning trust in medicine and science while cashing in on the same conspiratorial legacy that has made JFK folklore into a market, cherry-picking science when it flatters his instincts, discarding it when it challenges them, and spinning conspiracy from the gaps. That’s not skepticism. It’s sabotage. And it kills people.

Your and RFK Jr.'s performative playing the victim and baseless conspiracy theories cause real-world damage, and you're culpable for the harm your words cause:

RFK Jr.’s Conspiracy Theories: Here’s What Trump’s Pick For Health Secretary Has Promoted:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/saradorn/2024/11/15/rfk-jrs-con...

Claim: Vaccines cause autism due to thimerosal.
Fact: Multiple large studies show no link. Thimerosal was removed and autism rates still rose.
Harm: Fueled anti-vaccine panic, increased disease outbreaks.

Claim: COVID vaccines were part of a plot; ivermectin was suppressed.
Fact: Vaccines work, ivermectin doesn’t. Claims are baseless.
Harm: Undermined trust in science, cost lives.

Claim: COVID was engineered to target ethnic groups.
Fact: No evidence. Pure pseudoscience.
Harm: Reinforces racist and antisemitic tropes.

Claim: 5G and Wi-Fi cause cancer and control behavior.
Fact: Non-ionizing radiation does not damage DNA.
Harm: Distracts from real health risks, spreads paranoia.

Claim: HIV may not cause AIDS.
Fact: HIV causes AIDS. Proven beyond doubt.
Harm: AIDS denial has killed millions.

Claim: Fluoride causes cancer, IQ loss, and disease.
Fact: Fluoride is safe and reduces tooth decay.
Harm: Undermines public health and clean water programs.

Claim: Mass shootings are caused by antidepressants.
Fact: No causal link has been shown.
Harm: Stigmatizes mental health treatment, shifts blame from guns.

Claim: The FDA suppresses unpatentable cures.
Fact: FDA evaluates safety and effectiveness.
Harm: Promotes snake oil over science.

Claim: The CIA killed JFK.
Fact: No credible evidence; Oswald acted alone.
Harm: Fuels distrust in government without proof.

Claim: Sirhan Sirhan was hypnotized to kill RFK.
Fact: Sirhan admitted guilt and was convicted with evidence.
Harm: Deflects responsibility, erodes justice system trust.

This isn’t healthy skepticism. It’s misinformation that spreads confusion, undermines institutions, and gets people hurt.

You invoke science when it flatters your instincts — like posting that excellent lead exposure paper — but abandon it the moment it challenges them. That’s not intellectual curiosity. That’s rhetorical cosplay. You’re not hunting truth — you’re hunting affirmation.

So let me offer a counter-example. Not a theory. Not a feeling. Not a vibe. Just the kind of real-world, measurable work that good science actually does.

I’ve spent decades building and supporting the software infrastructure behind public health tools developed by the Block family — UC Berkeley professors emeritus Gladys and Clifford Block and their son Torin Block — including the Block Food Frequency Questionnaire (FFQ) analysis system and the Alive! personalized intervention program, which educates, motivates, and measurably improves nutrition, physical activity, and diabetes prevention behaviors.

https://NutritionQuest.com

These are not abstract thought experiments. They’re rigorously validated interventions used in research studies, hospitals, clinics, and federal programs to evaluate diet, improve behavior, and reduce risk factors for chronic disease. Alive! is a computer-tailored email-based lifestyle intervention that’s been tested in randomized controlled trials and shown to significantly increase physical activity and improve diet — even among people starting from poor baseline habits.

This wasn’t just theory. NIH, CDC, and Kaiser Permanente funded this work — and in doing so, they paid my and the Blocks’ modest salaries for decades. They believed in the value of preventive health tools that could reach underserved populations and actually work. That public investment enabled the quiet infrastructure of health equity: software, research, behavior change, all rigorously validated and scaled with care.

Kaiser is one of the most respected health care providers in the U.S. — a stark contrast to the for-profit behemoths that have made a killing (literally) off denying care. You might have noticed what happened to the CEO of one of those companies: gunned down in the street and instantly lionized online as a folk villain finally facing consequences. That’s not justice, but it is a measure of the pain people feel after decades of systemic cruelty for profit.

Now imagine what happens when the agencies that actually try to prevent suffering — NIH, CDC, FDA — are systematically defunded, discredited, or taken over by conspiracy theorists like RFK Jr., whose job in the Trump administration is explicitly to dismantle those safeguards. You don’t just lose data or funding. You lose lives.

That’s what real evidence looks like: measurable outcomes in diverse populations, reproducible results, peer review, and follow-up. Not vibes. Not self-pitying claims of censorship. Not pretending that you're the only rational one in the room while repeating conspiracy theories about fluoride, antidepressants, and the CIA.

I’ve worked with NutritionQuest for decades because they’re relentlessly focused on tools that work — quietly, rigorously, and at scale. I help keep the systems running: secure, adaptable, and solid under pressure. No hype. No posturing. Just outcomes.

So yes, let’s absolutely question power. Let’s hold institutions accountable. But let’s also recognize when something actually works — and hold ourselves to the same standard we demand from everyone else.

Otherwise, we’re just chewing on paint.

American Journal of Preventive Medicine: Improving Diet and Physical Activity with ALIVE: A Worksite Randomized Trial:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S074937970...

This randomized controlled trial demonstrated that a 16-week email-delivered intervention significantly increased moderate physical activity by 28 minutes/week (p=0.0002), vigorous activity by 12.5 minutes/week (p=0.03), and fruit and vegetable intake (p=0.03), while reducing saturated fat (–0.95 g/day, p=0.01), trans fat (–0.29 g/day, p=0.02), and sedentary time. Effects were sustained 4 months post-intervention.

American Journal of Public Health: A Computer-Based, Minimal-Contact Intervention to Promote Fruit and Vegetable Consumption:

https://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/full/10.2105/AJPH.2005...

This randomized controlled trial tested a low-cost, computer-tailored intervention delivered via print or web, targeting increased fruit and vegetable intake over four months. Participants receiving tailored feedback increased intake by 0.85 servings/day versus control (p<0.001). The effect was strongest in those with the lowest baseline intake, and the intervention was effective across both print and web formats, demonstrating broad scalability with minimal in-person contact.

TIME Magazine: Too Fat? Read Your E-Mail:

https://web.archive.org/web/20100628164049/https://time.com/...

A popular summary of the ALIVE! study reporting that brief, tailored weekly emails prompted meaningful improvements in physical activity and diet among employees. Participants increased exercise by 1 hour/week and decreased daily intake of harmful fats by over 1 gram, with measurable public health implications.