Health nuts

 I should know better, after all this time. In fact I do know better, but sometimes the better angels of my nature get pushed aside by the angels from the wrong side of the tracks, and off they take me to places I know I shouldn't go.

In other words: Sometimes I just can't hold my tongue. Even when I know it's pointless.

And so again with my standard disclaimer, because I'm going off the Sportsball rez once more. Here's your hall pass. The library is thataway. You've heard it all before.

Me, I'm gonna talk a bit about Frick and Frack. Mostly Frick.

Their legit handles are Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (Frick) and Dr. Mehmet Oz (Frack), and they were in Indiana the other day talkin' about health and stuff. One (Frick) is the head of Health and Human Services, and also a conspiracy kook and former heroin addict. The other is a TV doctor turned political appointee.

That day in Indiana, they stood alongside our illustrious governor, Mike Braun, who was  talkin' up his new initiative, "Making Indiana Healthy Again." Scores of Hoosiers, being notorious contrarians, no doubt put down their giant pork tenderloins long enough to say, "Bite me, Mikey."

Frick and Frack, on the other hand, thought the guv's initiative was a splendid idea, even if one of its more significant proposals is to deny parents on public assistance the use of those funds to buy their kids an occasional Snickers. Take that, urchins!

But I'm getting off the path here.

What I really mean to address is one of Frick's traditional bugaboos, autism. In his new role, he wants to get to the bottom of why autism rates are rising among America's children. And as part of that, he's assigned a man named David Geier the task of looking into links between autism and ... vaccines.

Aaaand down that rabbit hole we go again.

Remember Jenny McCarthy saying vaccines were bad, bad, bad because they caused autism? Remember Frick, before the Regime made him our Health Czar, advancing the same notion?

It was David Geier and his doctor dad, Mark Geier, who put that in their heads.

According to their highly dubious study, an element found in vaccines caused autism. Their conclusions were promptly and roundly discredited by every medical authority who, unlike the Geiers, weren't out-and-out quacks. The whole "study", in fact, was such a joke Doc Geier had his license yanked and his son -- who had no medical background whatsoever -- was charged with practicing medicine without a license.

(You can find all of that, and more, here, in Christer Watson's oped piece in The Fort Wayne Journal Gazette. Subscribe today. They put out lots of good stuff.)

In any case, David Geier is back, baby. And Frick is saying stuff about autism that indicates he has even less clear an understanding of it than he does of so much else.

Here's what he said about autistic kids the other day, for instance: "And these are kids who will never pay taxes, they'll never hold a job, they'll never play baseball, they'll never write a poem. They'll never go out on a date. Many of them will never use a toilet unassisted ..."

I can say unequivocally and with some authority that Frick is completely full of s*** about that. No toilet pun intended.

I can say this because I have some fairly intimate knowledge about autism and how it works, and Frick has no ... freaking ... clue.  I won't tell you how I came by that knowledge, because it's none of your damn business. But rest assured I do.

See, what Frick was saying about autistic kids ignores the fact that autism presents in myriad ways, and there are as many coping mechanisms to help those on the autism spectrum fit into the "normal" world. It's true the most severe cases may never manage to do that, but a vast swath of those on the spectrum learn not to just live in a world they find strange, but to thrive in it.

They, yes, hold down jobs. They, yes, pay taxes. They graduate from college, they negotiate business deals, they manage their finances, they find love. Some of them, yes, might even play baseball.

Tarik El-Abour, for instance.

Who in 2018 became the first minor-league player known to be on the spectrum when he signed with the Kansas City Royals organization. Tarik wasn't just on the spectrum; he was on the spectrum. He didn't speak until he was 6 years old. He'd only eat five foods. And when he was 10 years old and first discovered baseball, it was as alien to him as the surface of Neptune.

But at some point, he fell in love with it. 

Played it in high school. Went to college and played it there. Eventually caught the eye of a Royals scout. 

I'm sure Frick never heard of him.

I'm equally sure I pray I don't get sick anytime soon, seeing how we've put the nation's health in the hands of a guy who spent 14 years frying half his brain cells, a TV quack and another quack who presumably still thinks vaccines cause autism.

God help us.