Melissa Bartick, MD committed a Kinsley Gaffe.
According to journalist Michael Kinsley:
A gaffe is when a politician tells the truth – some obvious truth he isn’t supposed to say.
Furthermore:
Another definition is a statement made when [he] privately believes it to be true, realizes the dire consequences of saying it, and yet inadvertently utters, in public, the unutterable.
What was Bartick’s Kinsley Gaffe?
Dr. Bartick shouldn’t lie about something that is so easy to check.
She ADMITTED that there is no evidence for most of the purported benefits of breastfeeding.
In the comment section of a piece on the Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine blog, I asked Dr. Bartick directly:
Where is the evidence that term babies lives has been saved? Where is the evidence that the diseases you insist are decreased by breastfeeding are actually decreasing as a result of breastfeeding? Where are the billions of healthcare dollars you claimed would be saved as the breastfeeding rates rose?
Her response:
…To my knowledge, no one has actually dug it up yet.
Oops!
She admitted what she privately knows to be true without realizing that she uttered for the unutterable.
What does a politician do when he commits a Kinsley Gaffe? He’s lies about it. If he’s particularly unprincipled, he lies blantantly even when his “gaffe” has been in print for years and he’s never challenged it before.
What does Melissa Bartick do when caught in a Kinsley Gaffe. She lies about it, even though it’s been in print for years, I’ve written about it for years and she never challenged it before.
I hope it’s obvious that I would have never said such a ridiculous thing. Truth and scientific integrity is not this person’s strong suit. Thanks for letting me know.
Dr. Bartick shouldn’t lie about something that is so easy to check:
Oops!
Why do breastfeeding researchers like Bartick exaggerate and mislead repeatedly? They have become confused about their ethical obligation. They proudly boast about supporting breastfeeding as if any process could or should be supported above the wellbeing of patients themselves.
Lactivism is like creationism; neither are science.
Science starts with a hypothesis and then tests it to see if it is true. The possibility always exists that the hypothesis is false. The conclusion of scientific testing is drawn from data gathered in the course of experiments and studies. It is not known a priori.
Creationism, the belief that the universe was created by an intelligent designer, is considered unfalsifiable by its adherents. They start with the conclusion that a Creator was necessary for our current existence and then arrange any experimental data to lead to that conclusion, carefully editing the data so that anything that could falsify the conclusion is excluded.
For creationists, there is no possibility that the conclusion is wrong since they start with the conclusion and, working backwards, do whatever is necessary to arrive at it. That means that creationism is not science.
Lactivist “science” also starts with a conclusion and works backward to justify it. The central tenet of breastfeeding “science” is that breast is best, despite the copious scientific evidence that in many cases it makes no difference and may even be harmful for some babies. No matter; all data is manipulated until it is forced to fit the predetermined conclusion.
Startling facts about breastfeeding — the historically high mortality rates of exclusively breastfed infants prior to the 20th century and that fact countries with the highest contemporary breastfeeding rates have the highest mortality rates — are simply ignored. There is no possibility that lactivist “science” will ever show that breast is not best; and that means it isn’t science at all.
Real science tells us that the benefits of breastfeeding for term infants in industrialized countries are trivial. Breastmilk is neither magical nor mysterious just as immunity is neither magical or mysterious. We can mimic it and we can even improve upon it.
Melissa Bartick knows this and admitted it.
And now she’s been caught lying about it.
Oops!
