Bob Park’s What’s New: September 12, 2025
No, Bob Park — the physicist who wrote the What’s New newsletter for years — did not write this. Instead, I am imagining what Park would have said were he alive today. The opinions are mine and not necessarily those of Bob Park (but they should be).
What’s New, by Bob Park
Friday, September 12, 2025
1. ANOTHER ONE BITES THE DUST
In a continuing effort to purge the Department of Health and Human Services of scientists who don’t agree with him, Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. has removed Paul Offit from the Food and Drug Administration’s Vaccines and Related Biologics Products Advisory Committee. Offit is a respected infectious disease expert and co-inventor of the rotavirus vaccine to prevent diarrhea in children. He has criticized RFK Jr’s position against vaccination. The Committee for Skeptical Inquiry presented Offit with is Robert B. Balles Prize in Critical Thinking for his book Do You Believe in Magic? The Sense and Nonsense of Alternative Medicine. He sounds like a What’s New sort of guy.
2. TYLENOL AND AUTISM?
A few months ago, RFK Jr. famously claimed they would find the cause of autism by September. Well, September is here, and apparently Kennedy is ready with an announcement. But surprise: the main culprit may not be vaccines! Last week the Wall Street Journal reported that RFK Jr. will a soon announce a link between Tylenol use by pregnant mothers and autism in their children. Public health scientist Jess Steier, writing for the website Unbiased Science, has a thoughtful review of the evidence on Tylenol and autism, which is mixed but does not provide anything like a smoking gun. Steier concludes “Until we have better evidence, my advice remains what it’s always been: if you’re pregnant and need pain or fever relief, talk to your doctor. Use the lowest effective dose for the shortest time necessary. And please, don’t let fear of a poorly-supported hypothesis lead you to suffer through untreated pain or fever, which carry their own very real risks.” Of course, RFK Jr. won’t like this advice, because he thinks your doctor is conspiring against you.
3. EXPORTING CLIMATE DENIAL
Department of Energy Secretary Chris Wright has gone to Europe — the Gastech conference in Milan, Italy — to sell climate change denial. An article in the British newspaper the Financial Times quotes Wright as saying “Net zero 2050 is just a colossal train wreck … It’s just a monstrous human impoverishment program.” Wright seems to imply that Europe’s attempts to meet green energy goals could threaten their trade deal with the United States. In other words, Wright is trying to shove climate denial down Europe’s throat. But climate science is supported by an enormous body of scientific evidence. So, what Wright is doing amounts to insisting that other countries adopt an anti-science attitude. What’s New hopes that Europe rejects any attempt to deny science.