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Hello friends.

A lot of exciting events took place over the last week. Before I get into them, however, I would like to answer a few comments, poll responses, and emails I received.

Comments, Poll Responses, and Emails

Obesity Rates in the 1950s vs Now

Received this comment via email:

It’s not a theory that I came up with based on pictures I post. When I post pictures of people in the 30s, 40s, and 50s, most of whom are slim, I’m not using those to “prove” there was less obesity 50 years ago than there is now. I’m using them to demonstrate what the official statistics describe.

In the early 1900s insurance companies began gathering data on what the ideal body weight would be given a certain height. These companies were beginning to understand that those with obesity had more health issues than those without. By knowing this, the insurance companies could adjust their premiums to cover the additional risk.

It wasn’t until 1926 that the American Medical Society (AMA) decided to get into the act. The AMA fiddled with the insurance companies ideal weight charts, and in 1927 came out with their own.

The ideal body weight chart doesn’t tell us how many obese people vs thin people there are at a given time. The charts just let one determine one’s own state of obesity or lack thereof at a specific point in time.

It wasn’t until the late 1950s that anyone took a good hard look at how many people were obese in the US. At that time the first nationally representative, systematic measurement of weight and height for the U.S. population began with the National Health Examination Survey (NHES) in 1959–1962, which later became the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES).

These studies were the first nationally representative, systematic measurement of weight and height for the U.S. population. Prior to these surveys, most available data were from selected groups (e.g., military recruits, prisoners, or insurance applicants), which probably were not representative of the entire US population.

The findings of this first comprehensive evaluation of obesity statistics were as follows:

1960s–1980s: Obesity prevalence (BMI ≥30) rose from 13.4% (1960–1962) to 22.5% (1988–1994) among U.S. adults. Severe obesity (BMI ≥40) remained below 1% during this period

The way my correspondent above describes the obesity in his own family implies that these family members were severely obese. If so, according to the government survey, they would represent less than one percent of the US population. If they were classified as obese (instead of severely obese), they would represent 13.4 percent of the population, so around one out of every seven or eight people would have been obese.

Plus, I’m not sure that the definitions of the various categories of obesity were the same then as now. Here are the AMA charts used to determine ideal weights at the time (1958), which they cobbled together from the insurance industry.

When I look up myself in the chart, I find that I am considered medium. But that’s after my over six months of pure keto dieting. I wasn’t even on the chart when I started. I was seven pounds over the highest weight they showed for large in a 6’2” man. And I didn’t consider myself overweight. If I were in the “small” category, I would look like a praying mantis or some other insectoid creature. Obviously, people were much thinner back then.

Since those early days, obesity rates have climbed pretty steeply. Here is a well-known chart showing just how fast it has grown.

In terms of rethinking my theory, as my correspondent suggests, all I can say is that it isn’t my theory. It is what the government found when they actually measured people themselves instead of asking them their weight.

There was almost no severe obesity in the US in 1960. But a whole lot four decades later.

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My Childhood Diet

A poll respondent says this:

All I can say to this reader is the he/she must have been reared in a different socioeconomic environment than I was. From first grade through sixth grade, I attended 12 different schools in Missouri, Illinois, and Michigan. All were in blue collar neighborhoods. I ended up spending nights with different friends during these times, and I can tell you they all ate like I did: Cereal for breakfast along with toast, butter, and jelly, and either a glass of milk (chocolate if I was lucky) or orange juice.

We had eggs sometimes on the weekend, but there was a lot of cereal eaten then, too.

Even though my parents had made it out of the lower middle class into the middle class by the time I got to high school, I still slurped down a bowl or two or three of cereal every morning. I may have been the exception, but I don’t think so.

All I can say to this poll respondent is that he/she is lucky to have grown up in a family that provided eggs, didn’t eat bread at every meal (as my family did), and had dessert only once in while. My family and I at least followed in the dessert category—desserts were few and far between in our household.

Does the Processing of Seed Oils Turn Them Into UPFs?

A reader asks

The short answer is Yes converting seeds into seed oils makes them UPF.

Kind of the working definition of UPFs are foods you wouldn’t find in a typical kitchen. But it goes a little further than that, because soybean oil products are probably found in most kitchens today. I would say UPFs are foods you wouldn’t have found in your kitchen in 1890 (a year I selected at random).

Here is a short video on how soy beans are turned into soybean oil. It is made by the manufacturer, so it gives a positive spin on everything the soybeans go through during processing. Even with this totally from-the-manufacturing perspective, anyone can see that the end product is far from soybeans being pressed to express the oil in them. Just count the times the words “chemicals,” biochemistry,” and “engineering” are used. Non-UPF food doesn’t require chemicals, biochemistry or engineering. If you press olives, you get olive oil.

Just take a look and tell me if this is a product you would feel good using even with all the hype. Gack!

There is a lot of work going on right now looking at the difference between seed oils that are unprocessed and those that aren’t. Most of the ones that are highly processed taste terrible—and have some bad stuff in them—compared to those that can be simply pressed. Olive oil, for example, doesn’t go through all the many steps in the video above. The olives are pressed and edible oil comes out.

So, yes, highly processed oils are UPFs.

Outrage Over New Covid Recommendations

Not long ago, the CDC issued its new recommendations for the mRNA Covid-19 vaccines. Many people were thrilled and giving atta boys to RFK, Jr. right and left. He at least did something to get a lot of people off the CDC’s former list of those recommended to take the jabs, which was pretty much everyone.

He removed the recommendation for healthy babies and children and left the rest of the recommendations as they were. So, in other words, if your not a healthy baby or adolescent, or if you’re not pregnant, the CDC recommends you take the jabs.

Here is RKF himself explaining the changes:

It wasn’t that big of a deal. At least I didn’t think so. But the media—fueled with Big Pharma dollars—went absolutely wild over even these mild changes.

People who are interested in politics or the Covid vaccine saga, came down in a couple of different ways.

Though some were ecstatic about his removing some of the recommendations, others are absolutely outraged because he didn’t get rid of the whole Covid-19 vaccine. These folks feel like they’ve been sold out because he didn’t go the whole way after saying time and again that the Covid-19 jabs were harmful. Why not just flush the whole program and recommend no one to take the shots?

Well, that’s where US politics comes into play.

Just like Big Pharma throws money at the media, it also throws it to politicians. Almost all politicians are focused on unemployment—primarily their own. They like the Big Pharma donations to keep their campaign coffers overflowing. Big Pharma throws money at both parties, but the Democrats would never vote for anything Trump or his underlings support. And Republicans are mixed. They’re worried that if the vaccines go down, so will their campaign contributions from Big Pharma. So they are squirming around trying to figure out how to have it both ways.

Trump is still pissed that they held off on the vaccines until after election day, so they didn’t give his campaign a boost. And he is even more pissed because he thought he was going to get the Nobel prize for getting a new vaccine developed in record time with Operation Warp Speed. Trump has heard from a number of people, I’m sure, that the mRNA vaccines are problematic, which they are, but he’ll never say anything about it.

I don’t know how many remember his early campaign speeches. Whenever he brought up how he got the vaccines developed so quickly, he got booed. After a few times, he asked someone why. And they told him: The vaccines he worked so hard to get created ended up being not effective and actually harmful to many people. So he quit talking about them.

Robert Malone, M.D., who is very well connected with insiders in the HHS, NHS, and CDC, reported on his Substack the following about a week ago.

Trump has many more things to worry about than what’s going on with the Covid vaccine. He knows if he loses the midterm elections, the Democrats will probably immediately start impeachment efforts, and he will be totally stymied in anything he tries to do . So he is being very conservative where big donors are involved. Not so much for himself, but for vulnerable Republicans he can’t afford to lose in the midterms.

Despite not completely throwing the mRNA vaccines out the window, so to speak, RFK did enough in this first sortie to get the attention of mainstream medicine, Big Pharma, and the Big Pharma’s trained pets in the legacy media. He really angered them.

But he did a lot more than just minimally change the vaccine recommendations. And no one is really talking about those things.

He canceled a $700 million contract with Moderna, which funding earmarked for fast-tracking a new mRNA bird flu vaccine. I’m quite sure Moderna didn’t like having that $700 million rug jerked from beneath its feet.

Also last week, he announced the initiation of a national, gold-standard study of COVID vaccine injuries.

As Robert Malone, M.D. reported, the study

Finally came the real gut punch.

The FDA put the copy of a letter on their website demanding that Pfizer and Moderna update their labels on their Covid-19 vaccines to warn of myocardial injury following vaccination. I don’t know how much that will warn people off the vaccines, since they come in multi-dose vials and the person doing the injecting probably doesn’t bring out the vial to show the injectee what’s benign.

But, still, it’s another poke in the eye of Big Pharma.

RFK, Jr Goes Scorched Earth on the APIC

The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) is a federal advisory committee made up of independent medical and public health experts. It is housed within the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which is part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The committee’s primary role is to develop strong evidence-based recommendations on the use of vaccines and related medications to control vaccine-preventable diseases in the United States.

In my view, the ACIP has had a shady history over the past couple of decades. They’ve mostly rubber stamped any vaccine recommendations that have crossed their desks.

A few days ago, RFK, Jr fired them all. All 17, including the odious Paul Offit, who didn’t waste any time letting people know how wonderful he is and that he and others like him won’t be able to influence the approval or disapproval of vaccines and vaccine protocol. Offit never met a vaccine he didn’t like, so I say good riddance. Vaccines are like any other drugs and their positive benefits should vastly outweigh their adverse reactions.

Just to show you the serious analysis the ACIP does, take a look at this clip from an ACIP few years ago.

It’s difficult to believe they are so cavalier about discussing and voting on the vaccines under discussion. The referrals to “post marketing data” means the data collected from trusting American citizens who believe the CDC that these vaccines are safe. It’s obvious that people in the US are being used a guinea pigs. If the vaccines cause issues among the public, then they’ll consider withdrawing them. They should be doing studies with enough subjects that they find most of the problems during the study and not when vaccines are released to the general public.

RFK has recently replaced 8 of the 17 committee members with other experts, whom I hope take the job more seriously than the ones in the video above.

The only three I have any knowledge of are Robert Malone, M.D. and Martin Kulldorff, PhD, and Dr. James Hibbeln. Dr. Kulldorff was one of the organizers of the Great Barrington Declaration, but he was also a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School until they fired him in 2024 over his vaccine stance.

I’ve written about Dr. Malone in the Arrow many times years back. He was one of the discoverers of mRNA vaccines. If you look at old Wikipedia pages, his name is all over them for his work on mRNA. But once he started commenting publicly about how they could never get them to work and how dangerous he thought they were, Wikipedia canceled him.

He probably knows as much as anyone on the mRNA vaccines and also knows how the Deep State works inside and out as he has been involved in many, many government jobs.

I know Dr. Hibbeln only from his scientific articles, many of which I’ve read. He does a lot of research on omega-3 and omega-6 fats. I went through all the papers he’s written on PubMed, and I can’t find one on the vaccines, so I don’t think he’s an anti-vaxxer, at least based on his work.

I did the quickest of searches on the other appointees and came across this video (on X) of Retsef Levi, PhD from MIT. His head is in the right place as far as I’m concerned.

The rest of the new members I don’t know and haven’t been able to dig into their histories.

I’m happy as a clam that RFK got rid of the 17 who were there, especially Offit. I’m sure Offit persuaded many others to vote his way due to his supposed deep knowledge of vaccines. Good riddance as far as I’m concerned. We’ll finally have an ACIP that is not a rubber stamp for vaccines. Watching them vote unanimously on the hepatitis B vaccine in the clip at the top of this section made me want to puke. I’m sure the new crew will be more prudent.

Predatory Lenders in the Operating Room

I stole the title of a recent article I read about a bank that unscrupulously tricks people into taking one of their credit cards (specifically designed for medical payments). You can read the article above to find out how this bank (Synchrony Bank) pulls off their predatory practices.

I’ll tell you my story, which pretty much matches what is in the article.

A few years ago, I went in for cataract surgery. In order to get the lenses I wanted, I was asked to fork over $7,000 above and beyond what Medicare paid for the surgery. From talking to friends who had had this same surgery, I figured it would be this much, so I was planning on it.

Before the surgery, I was called into the office of the woman who handles all the financial issues. She asked me how I planned to pay for the surgery. I told her I would write a check, or I could use a credit card.

She tells me there is a way I can charge the surgery and pay it off monthly over two years interest free. The way the dollar was in free fall, I figured that would be a helluva deal. She gave me a little packet that said “interest free” on the front of it. All I had to do was fill out the online form, submit it, and wait for approval. Which I got almost immediately—for exactly $7,000.

I got the surgery and paid the $7,000 with the loan from Synchrony Bank.

I kind of read through the terms and conditions and it appeared to me that if I didn’t pay the balance off in two years, Synchrony would start adding interest to my payments.

I divided 7,000 by 24 and came up with $291.67. I started making $300 per month payments every month.

I got a nice credit card from them called CareCredit that I could use for anything medical, which I have never used. My only charge was the $7,000 for the cataract surgery.

Everything went along swimmingly until almost the very end of my payout. MD and I were in a cash crunch at the time our Synchrony payment was due. I think it was the second to last. I said, Hell, let’s just send them $30, that’s what’s on the minimum payment on the bill. I don’t care if they charge me 30 percent (or whatever it is) interest on the ~500 bucks we had left owing.

Imagine my surprise when I got my next bill with ~$1,300 added interest. I couldn’t figure out what happened, so I called them. They told me that if I had paid the whole $7,000 off within the two years, there would have been no interest. But since I didn’t, they added all the interest on from the start.

I was stunned. I told them to jump up a fat dog’s ass. I paid the bill in full with an extra $40 in interest for the last month.

When I read the above article, I realized everyone was in on the scam. The doctor’s office gets a kickback for signing people up. Which sort of made me wonder when I first told the finance woman I would pay with a check, and she encouraged me to get the credit card with the no interest dangle. They were getting a kickback from the bank.

All the Synchrony bank literature says “interest free for two years,”which is why I took the deal. No one said, be careful, if you don’t pay it off on time, you’ll get a huge back-dated interest bill.

I did pay it off on time. I paid it off before the two years ended. But my paying $30 that one month, knocked me off the glide path to get my “interest free” loan.

It’s outrageous.

I wrote the bank, told them what happened, and asked them to do the right thing. They wrote me a nastygram telling me to pay up.

I haven’t given them an extra penny. They call my cell phone three or four times per day and continue to send me bills. They’ve caused a little nick in my credit rating, but not nearly what I thought it would be.

They’ve gotten in trouble with the CFPB before, but now that Trump has emasculated that agency, I’m going to see if I can get help at the Texas AG’s office.

So, be warned. If you ever do this deal with Synchrony bank, make absolutely sure you pay whatever your payments are that get you paid off in two years.

In my view, it is a scam. I’ve got the wherewithal to deal with it, but I feel sorry for the poor folks in the article above. It does not exaggerate.

Odds and Ends

• What came first? The butterfly or the flower? A new strange study answers the question.

• Chimpanzees can ‘catch’ yawns even from robots. Chimps yawned and lay down in response to yawns made by an android robot.

• Archeologists studying a forested area in northern Michigan may have uncovered what is likely the largest intact remains of an ancient Native American agricultural site in the eastern half of the United States.

• USA Today claims there’s 'no scientific evidence' men have athletic advantage over women. Always trust USA Today.

• Absolutely unbelievable! US air traffic control still runs on Windows 95 and floppy disks, which officials hope to have upgraded within four years. Four years??

• Doctors develop complex procedure using AI to induce a pregnancy when the husband has azoospermia.

• My headline of the week. You just don’t get these kinds of headlines anywhere but in the South. “Kentucky man arrested for releasing a raccoon into a business months after fleeing police on a mule.”

• One of my favorite Substack writers, Ted Gioia, predicts we’re coming to the end of an era he calls The Knowledge System. He makes some pretty good points. What comes next?

• Headlines like this one get my SCUBA blood up and running. “Gold coins from 'world's richest shipwreck' reveal 300-year-old depictions of castles, lions and Jerusalem crosses.” I didn’t know the San José had been found.

• Incredible video for those who love archery. Or just the historical use of the bow and arrow. Fabulous archer tests himself against the the top 5 archery shots in movies. I cant imagine how much practice it took to pull this off.

• Why the families of Russia’s regional elites still covet life in the West.

• If you have any interest in flatiron buildings, this is the site for you. As an engineer, I find them really interesting.

• Lab-grown chicken has been legal in certain U.S. states for a couple of years, the FDA has just approved the first cultured fish for entry into the alternative protein club: salmon produced by the food tech company Wildtype. Don’t buy it for me.

• American science's culture has only itself to blame for the situation it is now in and the grave threat it now faces.

• How was the wheel invented? Computer simulations reveal the unlikely birth of a world-changing technology nearly 6,000 years ago

• Fast foods are nothing new. Apparently, ancient Romans snacked on deep-fried songbirds . I snacked on one in China years ago. It was pretty tasteless.

• Interesting study. “Sea cucumbers are the ocean's janitors, cleaning the seabed and recycling nutrients back into the water. But this humble marine invertebrate could also hold the key to stopping the spread of cancer.”

• For parents who fear letting their child play outside will lead to bullying. Playing outside and expanding limits is the birthright of every child. Don’t close it off because of fears of bullying.

• Some good news, maybe. According to a new study, dementia risk has been declining with each generation. I hope this can be confirmed with other studies.

Newsletter Recommendations

Video of the Week

The VOTW this week is a song that made a huge impression on me when I was a kid. As I’ve written before, musically, I was a weird kid. I got my first guitar when I was a teenager and learned to play it semi-sort-of well. In those days, folk music was a big thing. Along with the folk music, I loved country and classical. It’s a weird mixture, but I loved them all. I had my car radio stations all set on either country or classical.

Country music in those days—in California, at least, where I was living—had a certain type of vibe. It was more upbeat and less twangy than country music in the South.

When I went to Arkansas to go to medical school, one of the first songs I heard on the radio there was titled “I wonder how the old folks are at home.” I was absolutely dazzled by it because it was so, well, so country in a way I hadn’t heard country. I immediately went out and bought the record. God only knows where it is now.

A couple of days ago, I was searching for something on YouTube and YouTube served “I wonder how the old folks are at home” to me. How do they know? I was probably looking for a golf video, but there it was.

I can’t even remember who sang it on my record, but this is close to what I remember it to have been. Back when I first heard it, I immediately picked it out on my guitar, but I had trouble singing it, especially at the end. For some reason, it makes me tear up. I can listen to it all day long without blubbering. I can play the guitar chords without a problem. But if I try to sing it, I lose it at the end. Music is weird that way, I guess.

Here are Flatt and Scruggs performing it. Most of you, unless you like deep country, will hate it. Just indulge me.

Time for the poll, so you can grade my performance this week.

That’s about it for this week. Keep in good cheer, and I’ll be back next Thursday.

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This newsletter is for informational and educational purposes only. It is not, nor is it intended to be, a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment and should never be relied upon for specific medical advice.

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