Jill Stein: The liberal pseudo scientific demagogue

The cringe-worthy Trump-Clinton race has led Bernie Sanders’ supporters to shift their support to protest candidates like Jill Stein. As a true liberal, they say, she is eminently qualified to lead the progressive movement. However, her position out of the spotlight has led her to engage in demagoguery empowering medical conspiracy theories, rather than intellectualism to elevate her candidacy.

In a campaign event, she called the use of technology in education a “corporate ruse.” Apparently, “we should be moving away from screens at all levels of education”. Regarding wireless networks, she said, “should not be subjecting kids’ brains to that.”

{mosads}The World Health Organization has stated that radiation “exposures from base stations range from 0.002% to 2% of the levels of international exposure guidelines.” Humans, in fact, absorb “up to five times more” radiation from FM radio and television than WiFi technology.

Animal studies have demonstrated no link between WiFi and cancer, “even at levels that are much higher than produced” by wireless networks. Scientists have observed no adverse effects relating to brain function, body temperature, or other physiological functions.

The greatest health risk from electronic devices is not the radiation they produce, their encouragement of a sedentary lifestyle. But this must be weighed against the vast importance of computing to all workers, from clerical employees to doctors and big data social scientists. Condemning President Obama’s initiatives for expanding computer programming and software education in schools as a “corporate ruse” in an essence condemns the progress of science and society itself.

It’s clear that Jill Stein’s candidacy is more a war of words than a sincere effort to confront the complex realities of public health and all of the other issues faced by this country.

Like Ted Cruz and Donald Trump, Stein is merely interested in pointing to the angriest voice in the crowd and amplifying it, without any regard for the scientific truth.

To demonstrate her interest in developing novel solutions for real issues in public health, she must temper her supporters’ conspiracy theories and endorse the prevailing medical literature produced by non-profit and publicly accountable research institutions.

She must focus more on the potential conflicts of interest between the revolving doors between regulatory agencies and the private corporations they control or are controlled by. Doctors themselves should be brought under the scope of her campaign as many are paid to promote more expensive but biochemically identical drugs to their patients.

These conflicts of interest have had real consequences: according to a 2013 Gallup poll, the Food and Drug Administration has been rated about as positively as the CIA and the EPA, with just 45% saying that they are doing a good job, as opposed to 60% for the CDC.

Citizens that do not trust health-related agencies and their doctors have no incentive to follow the health guidelines by medical professionals. With Stein’s unique background as a doctor-turned-politician, she is in a unique position to push this matter to the forefront Hillary Clinton’s campaign.

But despite her medical education, Stein has chosen to go down the mendacious road of identity politics. Her fight as an anti-establishment candidate is not leadership for a chicken in every pot but deceit for a tin foil hat on every head.

Doanvo is a 2016 finalist for the US Department of State’s Graduate Thomas R. Pickering Foreign Affairs Fellowship and an MSPPM candidate at Carnegie Mellon University. His research has focused on a broad array of domestic and foreign policy issues, especially including counterterrorism strategy for CENTCOM against Boko Haram.

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