How the Mainstream Media Serve the Government-Enforced Medical Cartel

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Introduction

When I first saw the New York Times headline “5 Health Trends We Debunked This Year”, it caught my attention because any time a mainstream media outlet claims to “debunk” something, there is a pretty good chance that the supposed “myth” is true, and health-related topics are certainly no exception to this general trend.

The instant I saw it, I thought to myself: I bet there will be at least one example here of the Times feigning to “debunk” a natural health remedy that really does help people but if widely practiced would harm the financial interests of the corrupt medical establishment that perversely passes for a “health care” system in the US, which is itself a major cause of the frighteningly poor health of most Americans—including the childhood population.

I anticipated that I would find a faux “debunking” because I have come to understand how the statist New York Times, a standard-bearer of what passes for “journalism” in the mainstream discourse, does not produce honest and objective reporting but instead does policy advocacy and public relations in service to this government-enforced medical cartel.

I was thus compelled by curiosity to click the link to see whether I had anticipated correctly. The Times did not disappoint.

Sure enough, Times writer Julia Calderone introduces the list of “debunked” claims by talking about the supposed ineffectiveness of “oil pulling”, which is the routine practice of swishing a food oil around in your mouth for a while before spitting it out—a traditional practice in medicine dating back at least 3,000 years.

Calderone relates how she tried coconut oil pulling for a while and concluded from her experience that it was a useless habit. This further intrigued me because we do this practice in my own household, and we’ve come to the opposite conclusion.

After sharing her personal anecdote, Calderone provides links to five previous Times articles, with a short summary for each. She says that each one is about a health trend that the Times investigated and provided “deep reporting” about to determine “whether they actually work.”

The first item on the list illustrates what a joke this is because it is such an obvious strawman fallacy. The claim supposedly “debunked” is that “Apple cider vinegar is a cure-all.” Don’t believe it, the Times warns, because “for many of the promised benefits, there’s no research at all, experts say.”

We could, of course, reasonably distrust the opinion of supposed “experts” and dig deeper, but that would be superfluous in this case because we can stipulate that not all the claimed benefits of apple cider vinegar are supported by scientific research while recognizing the Times’ tacit acknowledgement that it does have other scientifically verified health benefits.

Moving on to the claim that particularly fascinated me, Calderone links to a Times article from July about oil pulling while warning her readers not to believe anyone who claims that doing this “will prevent cavities and gum recession and whiten your teeth.”

I laughed to myself when I read that because I instantly knew that I had indeed correctly anticipated a faux “debunking” of a natural health remedy that is supported by scientific evidence.

The hoax claim here is not that oil pulling is beneficial for oral health but the New York Times’ counterargument that there’s no scientific evidence to support this conclusion. And to demonstrate that the Times’ claim is a hoax, all we need to do is examine the Times’ own cited source from the medical literature.

Before we get to that, though, please allow me to explain how I already knew just from reading the headline that, by clicking the link to read more, I was likely to find a hoax “debunking” of a natural health remedy. Because if you understand how I predicted this, you will be able to fully appreciate the true significance of this case study in journalistic malpractice.

To be clear, this is not about the practice of oil pulling, a topic in which you might have little or no interest. Instead, what I am really talking about here is how there exists a government-enforced medical cartel that masquerades as a “health care” system and is detrimental to public health, and how the mainstream corporate media serve the financial interests of this cartel with their incessant efforts at brainwashing.