Robert Fluoride Kennedy Jr.

Summary

Today, Explained – Episode: Robert Fluoride Kennedy Jr.

Release Date: November 21, 2024

Hosts: Sean Rameswaram and Noel King

---

In this episode of "Today, Explained," Vox delves deep into the controversial figure of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (RFK Jr.) as a potential nominee for the United States Secretary of Health and Human Services. Hosts Noel King and guest reporters Karen Landman and Michael Schulson explore RFK Jr.'s history, his association with anti-vaccination movements, and the broader implications of his prospective role on public health policies.

---

Introduction to RFK Jr. and the Health Department Role

Noel King begins by introducing Karen Landman, Vox’s senior health and medicine reporter, who is also a physician and epidemiologist.

Karen Landman explains the role of the Health and Human Services Secretary:

“This job is overseeing a bunch of federal agencies that have a lot to do with health, including but not limited to the CDC, the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid, the Indian Health Service, lots and lots of important agencies that together really chart a course for the health of our nation.”
[02:44]

RFK Jr.'s Unorthodox Views on Public Health

Noel King questions Karen about why RFK Jr. is considered an "unorthodox" pick for the position.

Karen Landman responds:

“He has a lot of beliefs about health-related issues that are based in conspiracy theory lore.”
[03:14]

She elaborates on RFK Jr.'s fundamental distrust of the scientific process and public health institutions, highlighting his tendency to confuse causation with mere association.

Vaccine Skepticism and Anti-Vaccination Advocacy

Noel King probes into RFK Jr.'s stance on vaccines.

Karen Landman outlines RFK Jr.'s involvement with vaccine skepticism:

“His involvement with it starts in the 2000s. He had been prior to that an environmental lawyer. He'd done a lot of work with cleaning up polluted water systems.”
[04:32]

She explains how RFK Jr. became the face of the Children’s Health Defense, a prominent anti-vaccination advocacy group, by promoting unproven links between vaccines and autism.

“He seeded doubt in a million different ways on the utility and the life-saving nature of vaccines, which have saved hundreds of millions of lives worldwide.”
[06:05]

Other Controversial Positions

Noel King asks about RFK Jr.'s other non-consensus beliefs.

Karen Landman lists:

• Fluoride: Claims against water fluoridation.
• Chemicals in Water: Linking them to sexual dysphoria in children.
• Antidepressants: Associating their use with mass shootings.

“He has a lot of non-scientific beliefs that he has espoused publicly and just cast doubt on how much we know about the causes of a whole bunch of health conditions.”
[07:34]

Overlap with Scientific Consensus and Broader Distrust

Noel King suggests RFK Jr. has areas of agreement with scientific consensus.

Karen Landman acknowledges:

“He fundamentally distrusts big institutions and I think a lot of Americans across the political spectrum also distrust big institutions.”
[09:17]

While RFK Jr. and many Americans share distrust in large institutions influenced by corporate lobbies, their approaches to addressing public health issues often clash with mainstream experts.

Potential Impact as Health Secretary

Noel King inquires about RFK Jr.'s likely priorities if confirmed.

Karen Landman discusses how RFK Jr. could:

• Weaken Vaccine Recommendations: Undermine CDC guidelines.
• Influence Funding: Target programs like Vaccines for Children.
• Amplify Public Distrust: Heighten skepticism towards vaccines and public health institutions.

“There's a lot of new distrust that he could bring to the system and that he could affirm amid people who already distrust these big institutions.”
[10:24]

Regarding fluoride, Karen explains that while RFK Jr. cannot directly remove it from water supplies, his influence could lead communities to lobby for its removal, impacting dental health.

Broader Implications for American Views on Science

Noel King reflects on RFK Jr.'s rise as indicative of a larger trend in American skepticism toward science and public health.

Karen Landman draws parallels between RFK Jr. and other populist figures:

“He uses anti-intellectual language similar to Trump... he seems like a really sympathetic character to a lot of Americans for a lot of those reasons.”
[12:31]

Deep Dive: Fluoride in Water

The episode shifts focus to the longstanding debate over fluoridation in drinking water.

Michael Schulson of Undark Magazine provides historical context:

“Fluoridation began in the US in the 1940s to combat tooth decay. Initial studies showed significant reductions in tooth decay among children.”
[17:54]

He recounts the Stevens Point, Wisconsin incident in the 1940s, where local citizens opposed fluoridation, fearing toxicity and government overreach. This incident laid the groundwork for ongoing conspiracy theories.

“Fluoride has over the years inspired a tremendous amount of fear and concern.”
[21:33]

Scientific Consensus and Ongoing Research

Michael Schulson discusses the current state of scientific research on fluoride:

• High Doses: Universally recognized as toxic.
• Low Doses: Potential neurodevelopmental effects are debated, with some studies suggesting a link to lowered IQ in children, though often criticized for methodological flaws.

“There is a small body of evidence that suggests that there may be some link between fluoride and neurodevelopmental effects... it's not a fringe position within the worlds of environmental epidemiology or toxicology.”
[24:15]

Michael Schulson emphasizes the challenge of communicating scientific uncertainty without fueling conspiracy theories.

“How do you communicate uncertainty?... it's something we all do well to wrestle with.”
[26:06]

Conclusion and Final Thoughts

The episode concludes by highlighting the delicate balance between effective public health policies and maintaining public trust. RFK Jr.'s controversial positions on vaccines and fluoride serve as case studies for the broader issues of distrust in scientific institutions and the challenges of public health communication.

---

Notable Quotes:

1. Karen Landman [03:14]:

   “He has a lot of beliefs about health-related issues that are based in conspiracy theory lore.”

2. Karen Landman [05:56]:

   “He became the face of the Children’s Health Defense, arguably one of the most influential groups in anti-vaccination advocacy worldwide.”

3. Karen Landman [07:34]:

   “He has a lot of non-scientific beliefs that he has espoused publicly and just cast doubt on how much we know about the causes of a whole bunch of health conditions.”

4. Karen Landman [10:24]:

   “There's a lot of new distrust that he could bring to the system and that he could affirm amid people who already distrust these big institutions.”

5. Karen Landman [12:31]:

   “He seems like a really sympathetic character to a lot of Americans for a lot of those reasons.”

6. Michael Schulson [21:33]:

   “Fluoride has over the years inspired a tremendous amount of fear and concern.”

7. Michael Schulson [24:15]:

   “It's not a fringe position within the worlds of environmental epidemiology or toxicology.”

8. Michael Schulson [26:06]:

   “How do you communicate uncertainty?... it's something we all do well to wrestle with.”

---

Key Takeaways:

• RFK Jr.'s Influence: His potential role as Health Secretary could significantly impact public health policies, especially concerning vaccines and water fluoridation.

• Public Trust: RFK Jr.'s positions exacerbate existing distrust in scientific institutions, challenging efforts to maintain effective public health strategies.

• Scientific Debate: Ongoing research into fluoride's effects highlights the complexities of balancing public health benefits with addressing emerging concerns.

---

This episode underscores the intricate relationship between science, public perception, and politics, illustrating how influential figures like RFK Jr. can shape national health narratives.

Transcript

[Noel King]

Karen, did you ever do any, like, theater as a young person?

[Karen Landman]

I did.

[Michael Schulson]

Good.

[Noel King]

Yes. I knew it. Okay, guys, I have pulled a section from your piece. It is two lines.

[Karen Landman]

Yeah.

[Noel King]

And I'm going to have you read those lines with feeling and with nuance. This will come at the top of the show in the billboard. It's gonna be your voice coming out. Wow. Amanda, can we get those lines to Karen? All right.

[Karen Landman]

No matter where a person stands on the political spectrum, they can p probably find something to agree with Kennedy on. He's the personification of the growing distrust of science and the public health establishment that many Americans have felt in the post pandemic era.

[Noel King]

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Health and Human Services Secretary it's coming up on Today Explained.

[Dr. Boyd]

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[Oda Sham]

Support for the show comes from AT&T. What does it feel like to get the new iPhone 16 Pro with AT&T next up anytime. It's like when you first light up the grill and think of all the mouthwatering possibilities. Learn how to get the new iPhone 16 Pro with Apple Intelligence on AT&T and the latest iPhone every year with AT&T next up anytime ATT connecting changes everything. Apple Intelligence coming fall 2024 with Siri and device language set to US English. Some features and languages will be coming over the next year. $0 offer may not be available on future iPhones. Next up Anytime feature may be discontinued at any time, subject to change additional fees. Terms and restrictions apply. See att.com iPhone for details.

[Dr. Boyd]

Hey, I'm Dr. Boyd.

[Michael Schulson]

I'm gonna listen to your heartbeat real quick today.

[Noel King]

Explained. I'm Noel King. Dr. Karen Landman did not make it as an actor. Instead, she's a senior health and medicine reporter at Vox. She is also a physician and an epidemiologist. Karen what is this job? Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services.

[Karen Landman]

This job is overseeing a bunch of federal agencies that have a lot to do with health, including but not limited to the cdc, the F or The Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid, the Indian Health Service, lots and lots of important agencies that together really chart a course for the health of our nation.

[Noel King]

And we're told that RFK is an unorthodox pick for this job. What makes him so unorthodox?

[Karen Landman]

He has a lot of beliefs about health related issues that are based in conspiracy theory lore.

[Unknown Speaker]

2006 marks the date when suddenly these gluten allergies began exploding.

[Noel King]

Interesting.

[Unknown Speaker]

Celiac disease. We're putting in 5G to harvest our data and control our behavior. COVID 19 is targeted to attack Caucasians and black people.

[Karen Landman]

And I think kind of at the heart of that is a distrust of the scientific process and of the people who do it and a tendency to really confuse causation with association. You know, the fact that two things kind of happen at the same time in the same place to him is proof that one caused the other. Where the whole scientific process exists to disentangle those things from each other. And science really drives a lot of the way America's health agencies function. And he fundamentally distrusts the process that makes science. So this is a person deeply at odds with the way that these organizations function.

[Noel King]

You have not said the word vaccines yet, but I feel like that's what we're headed toward. Talk to me about this gentleman's history of vaccine skepticism. Where does it start?

[Karen Landman]

I mean, his involvement with it starts in the 2000s. He had been prior to that an environmental lawyer. He'd done a lot of work with cleaning up polluted water systems.

[Unknown Speaker]

You know, coal claims to be cheap and clean. When they say they're clean, we know that's a dirty lie. When they say they're cheap, it's also a lie.

[Karen Landman]

It's actually a group of people with a world mercury project reached out to him to see if he would help them push back against vaccines. Basically they felt on the basis of some since disproven research purporting to link vaccines with the presence of a preservative in vaccines that did contain a little bit of mercury not present in vaccines anymore. But they asked him to get involved in informing the public about the scourge, quote unquote, of thimerosal and of mercury and vaccines and its impacts on health. Again, not proven by science, not really rooted in reality. He got involved with this group, eventually became its head. It has now changed names to the Children's Health Defense, arguably has been one of the most influential groups in in anti vaccination advocacy worldwide. He Became the face of it internationally and brought his platform, his, you know, his fame, a lot of money and a lot of attention to their cause.

[Unknown Speaker]

Science is so overwhelming on the link between vaccines and autism, it needs no further research. The research is out there, the CDC's own research.

[Karen Landman]

I think he has seeded doubt in a million different ways on the utility and the life saving nature of vaccines, which, you know, by the way, we should just say have saved hundreds of millions of lives worldwide. So, you know, he's cast doubt on the process of creating them and the process of administering them and of recommending them for decades in so many different ways.

[Noel King]

What are some of his other ideas that don't overlap with the scientific consensus?

[Karen Landman]

Oh, gosh. You know, he said a lot of stuff about fluoride, which has also saved a lot of teeth.

[Noel King]

Hundreds of millions of teeth, maybe billions.

[Karen Landman]

Who knows, who can say? You can never be sure.

[Unknown Speaker]

I think fluoride is a poison.

[Karen Landman]

He has linked chemicals in water with sexual dysphoria in children. Not based in evidence.

[Unknown Speaker]

If you expose frogs to atrazine, male frogs, it changes their sex and they can actually bear young. And so the capacity for these chemicals that we are just raining down on our children right now.

[Karen Landman]

He has linked antidepressant use with mass shootings. Not founded in evidence.

[Unknown Speaker]

NIH needs to be studying them to see if there's connections to some of the SSRI and psychiatric drugs keep people are taking. What there's connections to video games.

[Karen Landman]

There are a lot of non scientific beliefs that he has espoused publicly and just cast doubt on how much we know about the causes of a whole bunch of health conditions.

[Noel King]

So I feel like the most controversial thing you could say about RFK is not that he's totally right or oh, he's totally wrong, but this guy has some good ideas. And truthfully, truthfully, am I in that camp? Perhaps. Where does he overlap with the scientific consensus?

[Karen Landman]

Yeah, it is funny, you know, when somebody is a shapeshifter the way he is, a lot of people can find a lot of things he said to agree with. You know, he fundamentally distrusts big institutions and I think a lot of Americans across the political spectrum also distrust big institutions. One of the things that makes big institutions, big government institutions deserving of distrust, including in the eyes of a lot of scientists, is that they are to some degree under the influence of the lobbies for big business interests that they interact with a lot. Pharma and agriculture have a lot of interactions with the FDA and their lobbies do too. And so they drive some of the policy that comes out of FDA that drives the way Americans eat the drugs Americans have access to. So on that he and a lot of legitimate scientists and members of the public in the United States agree at.

[Unknown Speaker]

The agency, the usda, the fda, have been captured by the industries they're supposed to regulate, and they all have an interest in subsidies and then in mass poisoning the American public.

[Karen Landman]

I mean, he holds our agriculture system responsible for the high levels of chronic disease in this country. Right. He says it's their fault that we're fat. It's their fault that we have such high rates of diabetes. It's their fault that we have such high rates of heart disease. He's not wrong. I mean, it's, you know, we have a really unhealthy food system in this country. Our, you know, his goals, you know, reducing chronic illness in this country, reducing our unhealthy weight epidemic and our epidemic of chronic disease is the same as the goals of, I would guess, probably more than 90% of health experts in this country. It's just the way that he wants to get there and the ground level causes of these things. He often has a lot of disagreement with those experts.

[Noel King]

If he is confirmed, if RFK Jr is confirmed, what are likely to be his priorities?

[Karen Landman]

So there are several different ways that he could kind of attack vaccines. One of the ways is to simply weaken the recommendations or do away with the recommendations that the CDC makes and that states and healthcare providers all over the country rely on to determine who should get vaccinated and when. He could influence how vaccines are paid for. So there's a program called Vaccines for Children that pays for low income kids nationwide to get vaccines for free. And he could simply direct or pressure whoever is appointed to run the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid to do away with that program, to ask Congress to defund that program. And that could theoretically happen. And I think, you know, perhaps one of the biggest things he could do is just by having his enormous platform cause a lot of Americans to doubt vaccines more than they did before and cause Americans that didn't really doubt the FDA or the CDC's authority before to really distrust it now. So there's a lot of new distrust that he could bring to the system and that he could affirm amid people who already distrust these big institutions. So there's a lot of damage to be done on vaccines.

[Noel King]

Can he take fluoride out of the water?

[Karen Landman]

He cannot. That is something that's usually determined by municipalities. It's sometimes determined by voters but inasmuch as he could lead a lot of people to distrust fluoride for the first time and to question the science that shows fluoride has done far, far more good than harm, could cause a lot of people to lobby their elected officials or their municipalities or to even vote to remove fluoride from their water, which would harm, you know, the dental health of hundreds of millions of Americans.

[Noel King]

What does RFK's rise say about the way Americans now think about science and about public health? There does seem to be something bigger afoot here and he seems to be representative of that bigger thing.

[Karen Landman]

Yeah, I think somebody pointed out to me the other day that he speaks the same anti intellectual language that Trump does. And he also, he seems like a vengeance pick, right? Like he has a list of grievances that he moves through life with and even though they may come from a different place than Trump does, he ends up in the same place where he distrusts experts, he distrusts big institutions, he feels wronged by a lot of the world. You know, I think a lot of Americans really are attracted to conspiracy theories, theories as well, in part because of how excluded from society they have felt over the past few decades. So I think he seems like a really sympathetic character to a lot of Americans for a lot of those reasons.

[Noel King]

Vox senior reporter Karen Landman, she's also a doctor. Coming up, why are so many Americans skeptical about fluoride? And we're going to come right out and ask it, do they have a point? Support for today's show comes from Vanta. Whether you're starting or scaling your company's security program, demonstrating those top notch security practices and establishing trust is more important than ever. Vanta says they can Automate compliance for SoC2, ISO 27001 and so much saving you time and money, helping you build customer trust. Plus Vanta says you can streamline security reviews by automating questionnaires and demonstrating your security posture. Sit up straight with a customer facing trust center, all powered by Vanta AI. According to Vanta, over 8,000 global companies like Atlassian Flow Health and Quora use Vanta to manage risk and provide security in real time. You can get $1,000 off Vanta when you go to Vanta.com explained. That's Vanta.com explained for 1,000 doll support for today Explained comes from Indeed. When you want to focus on making meaningful matches instead of endlessly scrolling through resumes. Indeed says it's more than just a job search engine. It's a comprehensive hiring platform that they say is visited by over 350 million people around the world every month. Indeed also says their advanced matching engine is built from a vast network of over 140 million qualifications. So it's always learning your hiring preferences to help you find the right candidate faster. Indeed's platform allows you to efficiently manage the entire hiring process, interviews, screening, messaging, all from within the platform. Listeners of this show can get a $75 sponsored job credit to get your jobs more visibility@ Indeed.com today explained. You can go to Indeed.com todayexplained right now. And so you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Indeed.com terms and conditions do apply. Need to hire you need Indeed.com Explain.

[Unknown Speaker]

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[Unknown Speaker]

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Now after years of fluoride research, Procter and Gamble proudly announces triumph over tooth decay for everyone everywhere.

[Noel King]

It's Today Explained. We're back, this time with Michael Schulson of Undark magazine. He's a reporter and editor there.

[Michael Schulson]

And in general I write a lot about scientific controversies and kind of debates over what science says and does not say.

[Noel King]

Michael's recent writing is about fluoride. The science on fluoride is not settled. Many public health experts in the dental community love it. But a small number of experts in the toxicology community have been asking Questions about negative effects on developing brains.

[Michael Schulson]

This starts in the US in the early 20th century, largely from kind of incidental observations, which is that people drinking water with naturally occurring levels of fluoride seem to have some lower rates of tooth decay. And by the 1940s, there were some public health researchers or some dental researchers who came to think that it seemed like the evidence was actually fairly strong, that there was something about the exposure of teeth to a little bit of added fluoride that could help to, to slow or prevent the effects of tooth decay.

[Unknown Speaker]

Grand Rapids fight against tooth decay started in January 1945 when fluoride was added to the water supply.

[Michael Schulson]

So you start to see municipalities in the 1940s doing this. Wisconsin is a leader, Michigan is a leader. And some of the initial evidence that comes back from some of these interventions suggests that it's been really helpful. It's really helping to reduce rates of tooth decay, especially in children, and to improve oral health in these communities.

[Unknown Speaker]

After six years of fluoridation, the study shows that the six year old children who drank the water from birth had 65% less tooth decay.

[Noel King]

All right, so it's wonderful news. The kids teeth are getting better. Where and when do the conspiracies about fluoride in the water start?

[Michael Schulson]

You know, there's a specific story that I have been fascinated by for a long time, which is the story of Stevens Point, Wisconsin, in the 1940s, where there was debate in the community about whether or not to add fluoride to the water. This was this exciting new possible intervention. Some local citizens felt some concerns about it. They were worried that fluoride could be poisonous, that it could have some toxic effects. And they pushed back and essentially were pushing for a referendum. Seemed to have gotten the city council to stop. And then in secret, the city council decided to add fluoride to the water anyway and did so before that process had finished. And so some of the specific concerns that those people were raising about toxicity may not have borne out. Right. But at the same time, if they were feeling like there was something about fluoride that was conspiratorial, in that case, they were correct. Elected officials in their community were going behind their back to do something that they had concerns about.

[Noel King]

How does the mistrust about fluoride develop in the ensuing years?

[Michael Schulson]

You know, it becomes this kind of issue that a lot of different groups that have some deep distrust in public health or some deep distrust in government more broadly can kind of express some of those anxieties through or come to see. Through that lens, come to see this as being a threatening or dangerous intervention, you're not going to shove fluoridization down our throats.

[Karen Landman]

What right has a politician got to tamper with our drinking water?

[Michael Schulson]

The John Birch Society, the kind of right wing organization famously takes up fluoride as one cause. There are concerns about fluoride being in some ways a communist plot related to brain control. If you were to try to design something that would become a locus of these fears, you almost couldn't do it better. It's invisible, it's in the water, it comes out of your tap. It's very difficult to avoid. You know, if you don't trust the people who are making that decision on your behalf, this is a way that their decision making is coming directly into your home, directly into the stuff that you're putting in your body. And fluoride has over the years inspired a tremendous amount of fear and concern.

[Noel King]

What is the attitude of science toward fluoride in the water and how does that evolve?

[Michael Schulson]

So, you know, I think one piece of context that's important to understand here is that like many things, at higher doses, fluoride is toxic. Right? And I don't think that that's been a controversial point during this period. The question is whether the much, much lower doses of fluoride that are appearing in water actually have some effect during this period. In the 19, you know, going into the 1980s and 1990s, you have small numbers of scientists who express some concerns about potentially toxic effects from fluoride. But this is really by no means a kind of anywhere near even a consensus or non fringe position. During this period in the 1980s, there's some people at EPA who raised some questions about fluoridation. And then in the 1990s, you start to see more research coming, in particular from China and India, looking at communities that have high naturally occurring levels of fluoride in their water and starting to detect some potential link between higher levels of fluoride and lowered IQ in children. These studies are by all accounts, very poorly done. There are a lot of other things that could be causing this effect besides the fluoride. But getting into the early 2000s especially, you start to see some researchers at least noting this and asking some questions about, okay, is there a pattern here that we need to investigate more?

[Noel King]

Huh? And then do they?

[Michael Schulson]

They do, although it happens slowly. In 2006, there's a kind of a panel of advisors commissioned on behalf of the federal government say some of this evidence about neurotoxicity is Suggestive enough that we need to see more research. And that begins in particular to trigger some studies, some initial research within the National Toxicology Program, which is housed within the National Institutes of health. By especially the mid 2010s, the National Toxicology Program is beginning to invest some considerable resources both in funding research, funding epidemiological research on fluoride and also commissioning a systematic review by some of their own scientists, meaning an intensive, intensive, exhaustive look through the scientific literature to try to understand whether there's a pattern here that merits further attention or even warrants more serious concern.

[Noel King]

Where is the science on this today? What do we know? We know. And what do we know? We don't know yet.

[Michael Schulson]

Yeah, you know, it's a tough question, and it's a question where, depending on who you ask, you can get dramatically different answers. What I would say is that there is a small body of evidence that suggests that there may be some link between fluoride and neurodevelopmental effects. So especially sort of negative effects for fetuses or for young children at doses of fluoride that are not that much higher or maybe actually are the same as what people are routinely encountering when drinking water that has been treated as part of a community water fluoridation program. So the sort of typical fluoridated water that most Americans get out of their taps. I wouldn't say that there is by any means a scientific consensus around that at this point, but at the same time, I don't think it's a fringe position within the worlds of environmental epidemiology or toxicology to say we see a concerning signal here and this is something that we need to be paying more attention to. At the same time, you have some folks who are really skeptical of this research. You have, especially in the world of dental public health, some researchers who say, we just don't think these studies are very good and we don't think the evidence is nearly strong enough to be making these kinds of changes to a public health program. And you have other people outside the dental health world as well who are also raising some concerns about this research.

[Noel King]

We learned in the first half of the show that RFK can't just go and take the fluoride out of the water. Cities, municipalities have to make that decision. We also talked in the first half of the show about the problem of RFK being. He does have some good points, and I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but I read a piece like yours and I found myself thinking, huh, if I were a parent where my brain might go is it is going to be easier to fix my kids teeth than it is to fix my kid's brain if fluoride does something to their development.

[Michael Schulson]

Yeah, you know, I think this is one of those areas where dismissing even having the conversation as being not okay. Right. Or saying even considering this is engaging a conspiracy theory has the potential to backfire. Right. For people who have public health in mind. I think as I said before, it is not a fringe position right now within the world of environmental epidemiology and toxicology that there may at least be some signal here that needs to be researchers should be paying attention to. But I think this brings us back to this really deep question in public health, which is how do you communicate uncertainty? And what does it look like to talk about uncertainty in public? And answering that is well above my pay grade, but I think it's something that we all do well to wrestle with.

[Noel King]

Michael Schulson of Undark Magazine. Amanda Llewellyn produced today's show, Jolie Myers edited, Patrick Boyd and Rob Byers engineered. Laura Bullard aggressively checked the facts. Special thanks to Michael Schenk out walking the streets and asking the questions. I'm Noel King. It's TODAY Explained.

[Dr. Boyd]

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