Washington Post Denies The Epidemic of Chronic Illness
In a performative and logically bankrupt attempt to fact-check Secretary Kennedy, but that serves Pharma well, The Washington Post once again confuses semantic nitpicking with substantive rebuttal. Rather than engaging Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s core claim—that chronic illness has exploded in prevalence and burden across the U.S. population—the piece fixates on shifting definitions, historical data quirks, and appeals to authority, all while sidestepping the glaring reality that America is sicker, younger, and more medicated than ever before. Their “Fact-Check” is, as many usually are, DOA.
Here, we take The Washington Post back to the woodshed:
The Straw Man: Misstating Kennedy’s Core Argument
The fact-check leads with the claim that Kennedy is “spreading misinformation” by comparing chronic disease rates from the 1960s to today. But nowhere does it attempt to engage with Kennedy’s actual argument — that the rise in chronic disease is a signal of systemic dysfunction, not merely a statistical artifact of better detection or longer lifespans.
Instead, the article substitutes a claim they derived (chronic disease rates rose "20x") from his observation that they have risen from 3% to 20% and then they tilt at the 20x windmill — the textbook example of a straw man fallacy. Chronic illness is the concern, and MSM wants to play games with numbers and deny the epidemic.
Historical Amnesia Coupled with Diagnostic Presentism
The rebuttal’s main line is: “You can’t compare now to then — we diagnose more today!” But this diagnostic presentism ignores a key truth:
If disease is rampant now due to detection, why are functional impairments, medical expenditures, and healthcare dependency also rising?
Better diagnosis cannot explain skyrocketing:
pediatric asthma,
autoimmune disorders,
learning disabilities,
obesity,
and ADHD medication use.
Detection bias doesn’t cause insulin prescriptions.
Kennedy’s claim is fundamentally about the rising burden of disease — on health, function, and cost — not just the semantic expansion of categories. The critique quietly shifts the question from burden to labeling — bait and switch.
The Expert Fallacy: “Trust Our Authorities”
The article leans heavily on RAND and KFF experts (Christine Buttorff, Larry Levitt), who repeat standard narratives:
“People live longer due to public health interventions… so more chronic disease is inevitable.”
But that argument confuses correlation with causation, is non-sequitur, and relies on abductive reasoning. Living longer doesn’t explain:
Why 1 in 2 American children now have a diagnosed chronic condition, nor
Why U.S. youth health metrics lag behind other nations with longer life expectancy but lower chronic disease prevalence.
This is appeal to authority used to dodge first-principles reasoning.
How does the Post explain our drop in life expectancy overall and in the IQ of our children?
False Equivalence: Deafness vs. Diabetes
The fact-check tries to neuter the 1960s NHIS data by noting that conditions like “deafness” or “missing fingers” were counted as chronic diseases — as if that inflates the past data unfairly.
But in fact, that undermines their argument. Even with such liberal criteria, the rate was only 44.5% — far less than the 66% Kennedy cites today for children.
The real bait is this: they present inclusion of physical impairments in 1960s chronic disease definitions as “overcounting” — while ignoring today’s rampant increase in immune-mediated, inflammatory, and metabolic disorders, which carry far more functional and economic burden.
Again, more games with numbers that go nowhere
The Double Standard of Skepticism
The article demands ironclad sourcing for Kennedy’s 1960s statistic but treats CDC figures from today as unquestionable gospel, despite wide variance in survey design, response bias, and shifting definitions.
In fact, the RAND 2017 study they cite to debunk Kennedy actually supports his claim:
“60 percent of American adults now live with at least one chronic condition; 42 percent have more than one.”
So why is citing it disqualifying? Answer: it isn’t — WashPo’s denialism is showing. Their problem, one assumes, is with the RAND 2017 study, not with Kennedy.
The “Improved Detection” Shell Game
The fact-check rests its central critique on “better detection,” as though that resolves the entire issue. But this is scientific sleight-of-hand. Here's why:
Improved detection cannot account for severity, multi-morbidity, or earlier onset.
The age of onset of chronic disease has fallen; it’s hitting children, not just the elderly.
Autism diagnosis rising is explained as relabeling. But what explains the concurrent rise in epilepsy, sensory processing disorder, autoimmune encephalopathy, and GI dysregulation?
This narrative is reductionism disguised as skepticism.
Data Without Context ≠ Rebuttal
The fact-check leans on the NHIS 1962–63 survey to “debunk” Kennedy's 3% claim — without acknowledging that:
That survey was based on household self-reporting, with limited medical screening.
Hypertension, Type II diabetes, autoimmune conditions, and food allergies were largely underdiagnosed or medically unrecognized at the time.
So yes — the real 1960s rate may have been undercounted. But today's is not overcounted — it's overburdened.
Detractors’ abuse of logic is mind-bending: NOW 1960’s survey data is valid, but official counts from then were not? Data are not insight.
The “Pinocchio Test” Is Propaganda, Not Analysis
Assigning “Four Pinocchios” is not science — it’s branding. It substitutes mockery for refutation.
And ironically, the only "fiction" here is the belief that rising chronic illness is a triumph of modern medicine, not a signal of system failure.
Conclusion: The Logic of Kennedy’s Statement
RFK Jr.’s statement is not an epidemiological precision estimate. It is a heuristic meant to highlight a real, well-documented, and troubling trend:
Chronic diseases have become epidemic.
They are hitting people younger and harder.
They track closely with environmental, dietary, pharmaceutical, and chemical exposures over time.
The burden is rising, not falling.
The fact-check, instead of engaging that systemic critique, retreats to definitional debates, expert authority, and "gotcha" numerics — while failing to answer the fundamental question:
Why is the United States — the most medically advanced country in the world — also the sickest among developed nations?
Kennedy didn’t invent that paradox. He’s just refusing to pretend it isn’t real. And no number of Pinocchios changes that.
MAHA will change that.
The extent to which the victims defend their victimization (“my autism makes me special, it’s not an illness, it’s a neurodivergence that has always existed!”) is so sad. You have to admire the architects of the fraud for their skill and success, but boy it’s pitiful all the same.
“And ironically, the only "fiction" here is the belief that rising chronic illness is a triumph of modern medicine, not a signal of system failure.”
It *is* a triumph of modern medicine given the right definition of “success”. Today success in medicine is defined by cash flow and not by the well-being of the patient. See psychiatry, addiction “rehabilitation” and “gender affirming care” as red neon flashing examples that are defined by their persistent, utterly disastrous, and tragic failures.