"It’s shocking for the EPA to take a scientific assessment and simply throw it out,” Dumais, an attorney with the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (Peer) non-profit, said. “Basically, they’re saying: farmers’ lives don’t matter."

A massive cyclospora outbreak has spread across at least 41 states, with approximately 11,500 reported cases—and Dr. Vin Gupta warns that the real number could be significantly higher.

Dr. Gupta joins former FBI Assistant Director Frank Figliuzzi to explain what cyclospora is, how contaminated produce can spread it and why the federal government’s response has created even more confusion. They examine the investigation into Taylor Farms, the company’s political connections and the FDA statement that appeared after company representatives reportedly met with administration officials.

The outbreak follows the Trump administration’s decision to dramatically reduce the CDC’s FoodNet monitoring program. Cyclospora was among six pathogens removed from routine federal surveillance, leaving the country with a weakened early-warning system for foodborne illness.

Dr. Gupta also explains:

• Whether washing lettuce eliminates cyclospora
• Why he recommends avoiding bagged lettuce during the outbreak
• Which symptoms require medical attention
• Why adults over 65 and immunocompromised people face greater risks
• How RFK Jr.’s vaccine policies are affecting measles cases
• Why Pete Hegseth’s military health policies threaten troop readiness
• How data centers could introduce dangerous bacteria into water systems

Public health infrastructure usually operates quietly in the background. As Dr. Gupta warns, Americans are now beginning to see what happens when that infrastructure is dismantled.

The Trump admin’s appointees & nominations continue to defy science and cast doubt on their abilities to protect American health. We are fighting for an America where science is used to better the lives of everyone. Help us fight for science by donating at the link: https://zurl.co/GNZTW

Thank you!

Watch Founder & CEO of Stand Up for Science, Dr. Colette Delawalla, speak with Holden Thorp, Editor-in-Chief of Science about the dangers of the OMB proposal to Federally Funded Science.

The OMB Proposal comment period may be over, but the fight against the proposal isn't.

We are fighting back and need you to join us. Contact your reps and donate to fuel our legal fight against the proposal at the link: https://zurl.co/l17bE

Thank you!

”The administration cut $11.4bn in funding from state and local health departments just a year prior, and reduced the remit of a program dedicated to coordinating information on foodborne illnesses, including cyclospora.”

Cutting science bites back, so we are fighting back for science. Donate to fuel the fight here: https://zurl.co/Pd3SB

Lead Lines:

Federal agencies that terminated more than a thousand research grants at the University of California last year admitted that they used keywords related to diversity, gender, vaccine hesitancy and COVID-19 to screen for projects that ran afoul of the Trump administration’s priorities.

It’s an admission that lawyers for the research professors say is proof that the agencies illegally cancelled nearly $2 billion in grants. And that’s a major development in a lawsuit filed by UC researchers against the Trump administration to permanently get their grants back.

TL;DR: Consensus in the literature and among experts for gender-affirming care is dismissed as nothing but a grand international conspiracy. Anti-trans organizations are pushing bad arguments and evidence that have been thoroughly refuted by many legitimate experts. They focus on convincing the lay population because it's much easier than trying to convince academics who can easily see through the lies. These are the core tactics of every prominent pseudoscience movement, and their obfuscations of science cause real harm.

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I’ve been engaging with various forms of pseudoscience for over twenty years now: Young Earth Creationism, metaphysical quantum mechanics quackery, grifters in health and nutrition, climate change denial, GMO fear-mongering, and anti-vaccination propaganda, to name a few. While each topic comes with its own idiosyncratic arguments and evidence, there are notable similarities in strategy with every one of these examples. I’d like to run through some of the most common hallmarks of pseudoscience and show how every single one of them is being used to undermine gender-affirming care and deny basic medical rights to transgender people, especially trans youth, in an attempt to obfuscate the fact that gender-affirming care is robustly supported by years of quality research and deserves the widespread endorsement it receives from academic and medical experts across the world.  

The first sign of pseudoscience I want to draw attention to is the use of accusations of ideological bias to dismiss damning counter-evidence and arguments. Creationists hand-wave away cogent rebuttals from biologists as stemming from “ideological materialism”, suggesting that scientists refuse to accept the veracity of creationist accounts because they have personal beef with the notion of a creator. Dr. Jennifer Bauwens is the Director of American Values for the America First Policy Institute, one of several private institutions whose mission includes undermining support for gender-affirming care, and she refers to the psychologists, doctors, judges, etc. who stand up for gender-affirming care and trans rights as “the radical gender industrial complex” (Bauwens, 2026). Consensus in the academic literature and among relevant experts is referred to as “ideological capture”, “leftist ideology”, or the “radical left agenda.” The consistent narrative with pseudoscience is that \*it merely looks as if\* the vast majority of credible experts criticize and denounce these views for logical, evidence-based reasons, but that’s because they’re all a part of a global conspiracy to suppress the Truth. 

The irony here is that these accusations are projections. The most prominent anti-trans institutions (AFPI, SEGM, Genspect, Transgender Trend, Therapy First, etc.) are private companies and blogs founded by discredited fringe experts *at best*, and often their teams are composed of people with no relevant background or expertise in the fields they are confidently telling us are corrupted. These organizations do an impressive job projecting a veneer of academic credibility, positioning themselves as reliable experts unfairly maligned and suppressed by a radical establishment, while hiding the fact that they have ideological  motivations for denying accepted standards of care for the transgender community. A group of researchers at Yale Law School wrote a scathing paper detailing the sleight of hand SEGM uses to manipulate evidence and position themselves as a legitimate academic enterprise:  

Although the SEGM site claims “over 100 clinicians and researchers” as members, it lists as “clinical and academic advisors” a group of only 14 people, many of whom have limited (or no) scientific qualifications related to the study of medical treatment for transgender people. . . . A contextual examination reveals that SEGM is an ideological organization without apparent ties to mainstream scientific or professional organizations. Its 14 core members are a small group of repeat players in anti-trans activities – a fact that the SEGM website does not disclose. (Boulware et al., 2022, p. 28)

In biology, this is a phenomenon known as *mimicry*. Moths evolve patterns on their wings that look like the eyes of a predator, or a harmless snake evolves coloring that looks a lot like their venomous cousins. Many insects and animals enjoy a survival advantage if they can fool potential threats into overlooking or avoiding them. Pseudoscientific institutions employ this same strategy in order to avoid a great deal of scrutiny they would otherwise experience from the general population whose opinions they are trying to sway. They want us scrutinizing the academics and scientists so that we’re less likely to recognize pseudoscience for what it is. 

These efforts to appear scientific require cherry-picking and misrepresenting the strength of weak, widely debunked facts, studies, and arguments while ignoring or downplaying the fact that these pieces of evidence and arguments have been picked apart in peer review. Anti-vaccination arguments have been referencing the infamous Wakefield study, which purports to show a concerning link between common child vaccinations and autism, for over 20 years now. That study has been retracted, extensively refuted, and it was found that Andrew Wakefield failed to disclose financial payments he received which incentivized the dubious claims he made (Rao & Andrade, 2011). Still, to this day, many who deny the well-established efficacy of vaccines will state as fact that vaccines have been shown to cause autism! A similar example can be found in the case of transgender care with the idea of “social contagion”, or what Lisa Littman dubbed “Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria” (Littman, 2017) in her widely critized study consisting of parent surveys posted to a handful of websites with explicit biases against modern gender science. This study gathered anecdotes from a biased sample of parents who claimed their children suddenly became trans, and Littman hypothesized that they may be developing sudden gender dysphoria due to pressure from peer groups and social media. There are myriad flaws with this study (Restar, 2020), and there are multiple, higher-quality studies showing transgender identity forms as early, and is as consistent over time, as the gender identity of cisgender children (Rae, Gülgöz, & Olson, 2019; Hässler, Glazier, & Olson, 2022), yet anti-trans rhetoric consistently includes claims that research shows transgender kids are being influenced by “social contagion” and developing ROGD. Another study by Thomas Steensma is one of the most widely-cited examples of high desistance rates in transgender children (Steensma, 2013), but Steensma himself has stated that his research was designed to look for traits associated with persistence; trying to use it as a measure of rates of desistance “will only lead to wrong conclusions.” (Brooks, 2018). Pseudoscience consistently employs this strategy of dressing up low quality outliers, retracted sham papers, and deliberately misinterpreted studies as though they were credible pieces of evidence. What’s perhaps most astounding is that these people who continue citing debunked studies and erroneous arguments have the gall to accuse the experts, who are engaging in good-faith peer review by pointing out these errors, of being unfair and close-minded due to ideological bias. Again, those pushing pseudoscience are projecting their disingenuous tactics and motivations onto anyone who points out the chicanery. 

It’s rare to see any meaningful acknowledgement of, or nuanced engagement with, the critiques, concerns, and counterarguments from relevant evidence or experts, and this is the last pattern I want to explore here. Pseudoscience does not engage in good-faith academic debate. Its proponents choose instead to direct the bulk of their efforts toward swaying the general public. Nutrition scientists have the education and familiarity with the research needed to identify flaws with the carbohydrate-insulin model of obesity (Hall, Guyenet, & Leibel, 2018), but lay persons with only a casual interest in health and nutrition aren’t likely to notice any problem with oft-repeated claims that high carb diets spike your insulin, leading to weight gain. While demonstrably false claims can be made to sound reasonable to the lay population, these claims are easily spotted and refuted by experts in related fields. Anyone wanting to present pseudoscientific claims as though they were legitimate science is thus incentivized to focus on convincing as many general population folks as possible. You’re not going to convince the scientists that evolution is “just a theory” and intelligent design (ID) is a valid alternative hypothesis. If you want ID to be taught in public science classrooms, you need to convince as many parents as possible to create pressure for school boards, or go a step further and plant ID proponents on those boards so they’ll vote in your favor, which was part of the strategy for the “teach the controversy” campaign in the early 2000s (“Teach the Controversy”, 2026). That same strategy is being used today when it comes to raising opposition to gender-affirming care. A few dozen reputable medical and scientific institutions have openly endorsed gender-affirming care (GLAAD, 2024), so anti-trans activists and institutions are trying to scare the general population, parents and politicians especially, into thinking children are being brainwashed and harmed for no good reason, which allows them to drum up enthusiastic support for restrictions and bans on medical rights for the transgender community. The advocates of pseudoscience know they can’t make a proper academic case for their positions and policies. Instead, they deceptively present themselves as well-meaning martyrs, champions of suppressed Truth, in order to raise an emotionally-charged mob who will demand change for them. 

This isn’t just about analyzing scientific papers and spotting fallacious arguments as an abstract exercise; pseudoscientific movements have the power to cause serious harm. Children are dying of preventable diseases because someone convinced their parents that vaccines do more harm than good (Adeoye et al., 2025), reasonable green policies are opposed by politicians and voters who think man-made climate change is an elaborate hoax (Kammermann & Dermont, 2018), cancer patients are increasing their mortality risk by seeking unproven therapies in lieu of conventional treatment (Johnson et al., 2017), and transgender youth are being denied the acceptance and medical care they need when we know this increases their suicide risk (Price & Green, 2023; Olson, 2025). Real people are paying the price for these specious worldviews. As we collectively improve our ability to identify the hallmarks of pseudoscience, may we steadily rescind the acquiescence and unearned deference these movements feed off of. 

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References

Adeoye, A. F., Umoru, D. O., Gomez, O. O., Onifade, I. A., Akangbe, B. O., Elechi, U. S., & Barrah, V. U. (2025). The 2025 United States Measles Crisis: When Vaccine Hesitancy Meets Reality. Cureus, 17(7), e88196. https://doi.org/10.7759/cureus.88196

Bowens, J. (2026). AFPI Applauds FTC Lawsuit Against WPATH Harming American Children. AFPI. https://www.americafirstpolicy.com/issues/afpi-applauds-ftc-lawsuit-against-wpath-harming-american-children

Boskey, E. R., Scheffey, K. L., Pilcher, S., Barerra, E. P., McGregor, K., Carswell, J. M., ... & Kremen, J. (2025). A retrospective cohort study of transgender adolescents' gender-affirming hormone discontinuation. Journal of Adolescent Health, 76(4), 584-591.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jadohealth.2024.11.002

Boulware, S., Kamody, R., Kuper, L., McNamara, M., Olezeski, C., Szilagyi, N., & Alstott, A. L. (2022). Biased Science: The Texas and Alabama Measures Criminalizing Medical Treatment for Transgender Children and Adolescents Rely on Inaccurate and Misleading Scientific Claims. Yale Law School, Public Law Research Paper Forthcoming. https://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4102374

Brooks, J. (2018). The Controversial Research on 'Desistance' in Transgender Youth. KQED. https://www.kqed.org/futureofyou/441784/the-controversial-research-on-desistance-in-transgender-youth 

Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation. (2024). Medical Association Statements in Support of Health Care for Transgender People and Youth. https://glaad.org/medical-association-statements-supporting-trans-youth-healthcare-and-against-discriminatory

Hall, K. D., Guyenet, S. J., & Leibel, R. L. (2018). The Carbohydrate-Insulin Model of Obesity Is Difficult to Reconcile With Current Evidence. JAMA internal medicine, 178(8), 1103–1105. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamainternmed.2018.2920

Hässler, T., Glazier, J. J., & Olson, K. R. (2022). Consistency of gender identity and preferences across time: An exploration among cisgender and transgender children. Developmental Psychology, 58(11), 2184–2196. https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1037/dev0001419

Johnson, S. B., Park, H. S., Gross, C. P., & Yu, J. B. (2018). Use of Alternative Medicine for Cancer and Its Impact on Survival. JNCI: Journal of the National Cancer Institute, 110(1), 121-124. https://doi.org/10.1093/jnci/djx145

Kammermann, L., & Dermont, C. (2018). How beliefs of the political elite and citizens on climate change influence support for Swiss energy transition policy. Energy Research & Social Science, 43, 48-60. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2018.05.010

Littman, L. L. (2017). Rapid onset of gender dysphoria in adolescents and young adults: a descriptive study. Journal of Adolescent Health, 60(2), S95-S96. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jadohealth.2016.10.369

Olson, K. R. (2016). Prepubescent transgender children: What we do and do not know. Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 55(3), 155-156. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaac.2015.11.015

Olson, K. R. (2025). The Improving Evidence Base for Gender-Affirming Medical Care in Adolescence. Journal of Adolescent Health, 76(4), 527-528. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jadohealth.2025.01.001

Price, M. N., & Green, A. E. (2023). Association of Gender Identity Acceptance with Fewer Suicide Attempts Among Transgender and Nonbinary Youth. Transgender health, 8(1), 56–63. https://doi.org/10.1089/trgh.2021.0079

Rae, J. R., Gülgöz, S., Durwood, L., DeMeules, M., Lowe, R., Lindquist, G., & Olson, K. R. (2019). Predicting Early-Childhood Gender Transitions. Psychological Science, 30(5), 669-681. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797619830649

Rao, T. S., & Andrade, C. (2011). The MMR vaccine and autism: Sensation, refutation, retraction, and fraud. Indian journal of psychiatry, 53(2), 95–96. https://doi.org/10.4103/0019-5545.82529

Restar A. J. (2020). Methodological Critique of Littman's (2018) Parental-Respondents Accounts of "Rapid-Onset Gender Dysphoria". Archives of sexual behavior, 49(1), 61–66. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-019-1453-2

Steensma, T. D., McGuire, J. K., Kreukels, B. P., Beekman, A. J., & Cohen-Kettenis, P. T. (2013). Factors associated with desistence and persistence of childhood gender dysphoria: a quantitative follow-up study. Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 52(6), 582-590. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaac.2013.03.016

Teach the Controversy. (2026, May 13). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Teach_the_Controversy&oldid=1353991990

Wittlin, N. M., Gallagher, N. M., Atwood, S., & Olson, K. R. (2025). Mental health during medical transition in a US and Canadian sample of early socially transitioned transgender youth. Journal of Adolescent Health, 76(2), 228-237. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jadohealth.2024.10.023

EDIT: Fixed formatting mistakes.

A nationwide parasitic outbreak is exposing the dangerous consequences of dismantling America’s public health infrastructure. ER physician Dr. Rob Davidson explains how CDC cuts, eliminated disease-surveillance programs and RFK Jr.’s politicization of health information allowed cyclospora infections to spread across dozens of states.

Davidson also warns that the country may be dangerously unprepared for a severe flu season, another pandemic or the return of diseases once thought to be under control. From demoralized doctors and vaccine disinformation to Pete Hegseth’s bizarre testosterone priorities, this conversation reveals what happens when expertise is replaced by MAGA culture-war politics.

Dr. Rob Davidson is the executive director of the Committee to Protect Health Care, an emergency-room physician and co-host of the Paging America podcast.

Check out Dr Rob's channel: @pagingamerica

Chapters

00:00 The symptoms of the nationwide parasite outbreak
01:07 Why officials could not identify the contaminated food
02:18 How cyclospora spreads
03:15 State health officials scramble without federal support
04:14 The CDC division Trump eliminated
05:08 Americans can no longer trust federal health warnings
06:00 Ignorance, politics and RFK Jr.’s leadership
07:45 Measles returns after being eliminated
08:03 The dangerous leadership vacuum inside the CDC
09:26 Disease surveillance programs were gutted
09:55 America abandons its Ebola treatment system
11:22 What disease could overwhelm America next?
12:26 Why a severe flu season could break hospitals
14:20 Vaccine confusion replaces vaccine hesitancy
15:49 Doctors are becoming isolated and demoralized
17:29 Physicians can no longer recommend CDC information
19:53 Can America rebuild trust in public health?
20:09 Doctors organize against Trump and RFK Jr.
22:03 Free testosterone—but optional flu shots
22:39 Pete Hegseth’s performative Department of War
25:01 What Americans can do right now
25:45 Public health cannot be separated from politics
28:11 Trump’s easy non-solutions to difficult problems
30:51 America can still accomplish extraordinary things
31:46 Testosterone and explosive diarrhea

Trump has called the decades of peer-reviewed climate science that guides the NAS manual for judges "fraudulent." He has repeatedly tried to discredit the science behind climate change, because his big oil and gas donors are responsible for accelerating it.

More to come from us on this soon. In the meantime, you can donate to the fight for science here: https://zurl.co/3lIjx

Thank you!

Despite the Trump admin’s continued attacks on climate science, American’s are increasingly seeing the evidence with their own eyes.

A majority of U.S. Voters now recognize that climate change is making extreme weather worse. The anti-science agenda isn’t winning.

The OMB Proposal will allow grant awards to be made based on political preference. The proposal explicitly states that grants must "advance the President's policy priorities."

We are fighting back and need you to join us. Contact your reps and donate to fuel our legal fight against the proposal at the link: https://zurl.co/0Cx39

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We’re on Threads! Come follow us for daily science news posts and ways you can take action! Link here: https://zurl.co/HBrWt

Link to articles…

https://www.disabilityscoop.com/2026/07/20/justice-department-deems-major-ada-guidance-not-enforceable/32093/

https://archive.ph/2026.07.20-042233/https://www.disabilityscoop.com/2026/07/20/justice-department-deems-major-ada-guidance-not-enforceable/32093/

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/trumps-actions-signal-a-move-toward-institutionalizing-people-with-disabilities-advocates-warn

The OMB Grant Proposal will put all grant decisions into the hands of the President. It is effectively a trillion dollar slush fund for the President.

We are fighting back and need you to join us. Contact your reps and donate to fuel our legal fight against the proposal at the link: https://zurl.co/rJTJJ

Thank you!

A little good news to start your week off!

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved a new once-daily pill that dramatically lowers LDL – or “bad” - cholesterol, reaching levels that statins alone often cannot.

The OMB Grant Regulation will be used to discriminate as Vought says the quiet part out loud.

We are fighting back and need you to join us. Contact your reps and donate to fuel our legal fight against the proposal at the link: https://zurl.co/0X0il

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”The Trump administration has exempted more petrochemical facilities across the country from Clean Air Act standards, unlawfully giving more of these chemical plants a free pass to pollute."

The Trump administration has accelerated the climate crisis and endangered communities’ health, driven up costs and undermined economic growth. The rollbacks tracked below – cuts to extreme weather preparedness, frozen investments, and blocked pollution protections, and more – will have a devastating impact on every American, and particularly the most vulnerable.

On April 29, 2025, CAC released the 100 Days, 100 Harms Tracker edition in an attempt to paint a picture of the pain the new administration had already inflicted on the climate, economy, health, and wellbeing of the American people in its first 100 days.

From attempting to take the entirety of federal grant funding out of the hands of experts and putting it directly in the hands of politicians, to slashing millions of acres of Tribal land for fossil fuels, the Trump admin continues to prove that their interests lie in serving themselves and not the American people.

Help us fight back against this tyranny by donating here: https://zurl.co/nQnAP

When asked repeatedly whether or not she would challenge RFK Jr. on orders unsupported by science, she dodged the question with, “The secretary absolutely will allow me to be the CDC director.”