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Integral Answers

@integralanswers.bsky.social

3.7K followers 3.1K following 4.1K posts

Curious Healthcare Professional with a passion for dispelling intentional disinformation especially within the medicine and science spheres. Networking with Pro-Science & Evidenced Based Medicine. Amateur Photographer #WeCare, #Photography

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Integral Answers @integralanswers.bsky.social · Aug 16

1/ After years of watching the spread of disinformation on the other platform, here’s what I’ve learned…
🧵

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Integral Answers @integralanswers.bsky.social · 6h

It’s worse than that. RFK Jr stood by silently while Trump/Musk gutted the lead from drinking water pipes funding that was already allocated.

He’s not concerned about lead in drinking water but has problems with fluoride.

Integral Answers @integralanswers.bsky.social · 11h

10/ RFK Jr. sells a comforting fiction: that purity protects, that science betrayed us.
But anecdotes aren’t data, and ideology isn’t evidence.

Autism isn’t imported by syringes — it’s part of human diversity, seen wherever we truly look.
— @IntegralAnswers

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Integral Answers @integralanswers.bsky.social · 11h

9/ The real signal from the Amish isn’t “unvaccinated = healthy.”

It’s how culture, healthcare access, and education shape recognition of developmental conditions.

When these improve, autism diagnoses rise — because we’re finally counting what was always there.

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Integral Answers @integralanswers.bsky.social · 11h

8/ RFK Jr. then adds a flourish: “mitochondrial stress.”

A vague, catch-all narrative blaming pollution + processed food + vaccines.

But mitochondria aren’t being “assaulted” by vaccines.

They respond transiently to immune activation — a normal, healthy process.

Integral Answers @integralanswers.bsky.social · 11h

7/ When actual data are examined:
📘 Durkin et al., J Autism Dev Disord 2017 – prevalence tracks access to services, not vaccination status.
📘 Taylor et al., Vaccine 2014 – meta-analysis of 1.25 million children, no link between vaccines and autism.

Integral Answers @integralanswers.bsky.social · 11h

6/ RFK Jr.’s framing flips the logic of science.

He cherry-picks a lack of evidence and treats it as evidence of lack.

That’s pseudoscience 101.

It’s how anecdotes become ideology.

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Integral Answers @integralanswers.bsky.social · 11h

5/ Autism is present in Amish communities — often under-diagnosed, not absent.

Cultural norms, limited access to specialists, and reluctance to label neurodivergent behavior all suppress reported numbers.

Low diagnosis ≠ low incidence.

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Integral Answers @integralanswers.bsky.social · 11h

4/ The Amish aren’t a “vaccine-free society.”

📘 Wenger et al., Vaccine 2011 – 68 % of Amish children surveyed had received ≥ 1 vaccine.

📘 Fasoli et al., Am J Med Genet A 2010 – identified multiple Amish children meeting full ASD criteria.

The myth of zero autism is false.

Integral Answers @integralanswers.bsky.social · 11h

3/ RFK Jr. turned that tiny sample into a sweeping claim:

“Unvaccinated = no autism.”

But he ignored what autism research demands — representative sampling, clinical confirmation, and controlled comparison.

None existed in Olmsted’s work.

Integral Answers @integralanswers.bsky.social · 11h

2/ Olmsted wasn’t an epidemiologist.
He was a reporter who, in 2005, visited a few Amish clinics in Pennsylvania.

He found three children diagnosed with autism and simply assumed there were no others.

No population survey. No diagnostic testing. No peer-review.

Integral Answers @integralanswers.bsky.social · 11h

1/ RFK Jr. loves to cite a story about the Amish.

He claims they have “99.8 % fewer cases of autism” — & that the only autistic children were “vaccinated before adoption.”

The story isn’t science. It’s an anecdote from a journalist, Dan Olmsted — & it collapses under scrutiny.

Integral Answers @integralanswers.bsky.social · 11h

🧵 “RFK Jr. and the Amish Autism Myth”

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Integral Answers @integralanswers.bsky.social · 1d

Thank for your kind words. I use a variety of tools to create the visuals.

I post on X and here on BlueSky.

Integral Answers @integralanswers.bsky.social · 1d

Thanks for sharing this thread. If you check out the next thread, you see what you suspect.

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Integral Answers @integralanswers.bsky.social · 1d

13/ 📚 References

SPLC (Miller profile, 2020)

Brookings (Communication in Populism, 2021)

The Guardian (2020)

Washington Post (2018–2023 coverage)

Benkler, Faris & Roberts — Network Propaganda (Oxford, 2018)

Moffitt — The Global Rise of Populism (Stanford, 2016)

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Integral Answers @integralanswers.bsky.social · 1d

12/ 🪞 Reflection

Propaganda adapts to freedom — it doesn’t disappear within it.

The tools are democratic.

The tactics are not.

Recognizing the pattern is the first act of resistance.

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Integral Answers @integralanswers.bsky.social · 1d

11/ 📡 The Continuity

The comparison isn’t moral; it’s mechanical.

Both systems fused emotion with repetition to bypass reason.

Then and now, propaganda thrives when outrage outpaces verification.

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Integral Answers @integralanswers.bsky.social · 1d

10/ 🏛️ The Pressure

Courts, elections, and a free press still act as circuit breakers.

But constant pressure bends institutions toward exhaustion — and exhaustion breeds apathy.

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Integral Answers @integralanswers.bsky.social · 1d

9/ 📱 The Algorithms

Where Goebbels used radio, today’s propagandists use recommendation engines.

Algorithms reward outrage, not evidence.

The medium changed; the psychology did not.

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Integral Answers @integralanswers.bsky.social · 1d

8/ ♟️ The Inversion

Victimhood inverted power.

The world’s most powerful man framed himself as persecuted by elites, bureaucrats, and journalists.

Every investigation became “proof” of the plot against him.

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Integral Answers @integralanswers.bsky.social · 1d

7/ 🎪 The Spectacle

Rallies replaced briefings.

Soundbites replaced paragraphs.

Emotion replaced information.

In the spectacle economy, applause became the new metric of truth.

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Integral Answers @integralanswers.bsky.social · 1d

6/ 🗞️ The Attack

“Fake News” wasn’t a rebuttal; it was a weapon.

It delegitimized the press by converting distrust into identity.

Believing the leader became proof of loyalty.

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Integral Answers @integralanswers.bsky.social · 1d

5/ 🧱 The Slogan

“Build the Wall.”

Three words that fused fear with belonging.

A slogan so effective it became policy, performance, and password — all at once.

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Integral Answers @integralanswers.bsky.social · 1d

4/ ⚙️ The Machinery

Fear.
Identity.
Repetition.

The same three levers that once drove 1930s propaganda now fuel modern populism — stripped of ideology, refined into technique.

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