A History Lesson: The Consensus Isn't Always Right

Well done, moms. Don’t stop. You’re inspiring more to join you.

The County had a meeting on Tuesday. To speak to the board, you have to put your name down before 9am. Everyone gets 2 minutes. Tuesday’s meeting lasted until midnight. 15 hours of people yelling at Nathan Fletcher [who deserves to be yelled at]. 15 hours! People had to sit there and wait their turn for up to 15 hours. And Nathan had to sit there and take it.

Nathan deserves it because he proposed a measure to declare medical misinformation a public health crisis.

We’ve shared countless stories over the years of the scientific CONSENSUS being wrong. This Michael Crichton essay has a nice overview:

My favorite is Semmelweis. In the 1800’s, the leading cause of death in women was fever during child birth. 1 in 6 women died this way. No one knew why.

The first person to suggest it was an infection was in 1795. Consensus said no. Every few decades another doctor or scientist said it was caused by an infection. The consensus said no. Semmelweiss in 1850 said, “We spend the morning in the morgue touching dead bodies and then we walk down the hall and deliver a baby. Maybe in between, we should wash our hands.”

The consensus called him a Jew, drove him out of the profession and he died in an insane asylum.

But he was right.

It took 150 years for the consensus to come around to the fact that we should WASH OUR HANDS.

If Nathan was around then, he would have led the mob that declared Semmelweiss a public health threat. Facebook would have silenced his posts and twitter would have suspended his account.

But all hail, Nathan Fletcher. He knows what’s best. He knows what’s true. And he would never do anything that would hurt you.

Photo Credit: Getty Images


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