Stop calling everyone a "skeptic" and call them what they are: deniers. Anti-science, fact resistant deniers. Calling people germ-theory skeptics, or climate skeptics, or vaccine skeptics, and so on and so on, makes it sound like there's an honest scientific debate going on

"Germ-theory skeptic"

If he gets some insane new parasite from this what are the odds it kills the one driving his brain now and takes over with a more normal personality?

I'm team bacteria on this one. C'mon little guys - do your thing!

Usually the people in charge of regimes like this are often sadistic hypocrites and absolutely know that what they spout is bullshit. RFK jr. here on the other hand, is apparently actually a fucking idiot.

Wouldn't it be an absolute riot of a "leopards ate my face" situation if he ends up croaking because of this?

To clarify: I don't wish any harm on his grandchildren, but this man's level of willful ignorance and sheer recklessness makes it hard for me to sympathize with any negative outcome he may suffer personally.

the creek's bacterial counts—particularly E. coli counts—were dangerously high all the time.

Sorry for those children.

How can the onion ever hope to compete with reality

...maybe this problem will solve itself?

Like most con men, RFK is using people's ignorance of what odds mean. If the chance of getting sick from swimming in that water is only say one percent, he knows the odds are extremely good that he won't individually get sick, and then he will palm this off as "evidence" that it's all a big fuss over nothing. The park service might know maybe 100,000 people will swim in that water this season, so they'll probably save about a thousand from getting sick by closing the place. Even if somebody who does get sick manages to get the attention of a news outlet, they can be scoffed at as an anomaly. "How do you even know the water was responsible? Where else have you been? You're just looking for attention!"

The water is now less clean for having him in it

Hope natural selection does its thing.

go go power Darwin!

Stuff like this isn't a problem, until it is.

What was in that sewage? Anybody with typhoid? Diphtheria? Probably not because vaccination and treatment is still over herd immunity levels. Then, of course, there were the kids who used to get vaccinated for Polio naturally by exposure to untreated sewage, and us rich countries having terrible cases of polio survival in older people because we didn't bathe in toilet outflows.

Thing is, it's a numbers game. The first hundred people might not get sick, immediately, but if you form two lines, one bathing in the sewage pool and the other bathing in a treated sanitary pool, run 100 people a day through each one and track them for two weeks, you'll see the differences. That's why we have scientific publications, so we can read about these kinds of past experiments and don't have to repeat them.

I hope he gets sick and suffers

Maybe we can convince him to drink some of it

During similar conditions in the past it has had around 100x the EPA standard of bacterial colonies.

And he's hypocritical enough that I bet he started an antibiotic cocktail before he went there.

Can someone arrest him for child endangerment?

Our best chance is that he gets one of these diseases that is effectively treatable with a vaccine.

Thing is, even with that, he'd just take the vaccine and proceed to lie about it for profit. His father must be turning over in his grave.

numerous century-old municipal sewer lines that run under the park. These lines have cracked over time and leak sewage

This is easy to fix.

Shame the article doesn't say how much the municipality is being fined every day they continue to leak raw sewage into the watershed.

Wow this is next level stupid, i really thought it was the onion. I'd say i'm even shocked at this demonstration of stupidity, but the fact his grand children are led into this is beyond sad.

Seems like they should fix that sewage leak.

The fact that people have any thought that this guy is smart or a good person makes me hate humanity.

I'm rooting for chlorea here tbh.

I love that we're literally going back in time. They thought we'd have flying cars and end world hunger, but instead we have to watch our politicians swim in shit water.

Edit: HE TOOK HIS GRANDCHILDREN!?

I think I know how a lot of people are thinking right about now. lol

That little girl looks like she's even sick of grandpa's shit. Hair is bone dry in every photo and the only one of her actually in contact with the water, she's kicking it in his face. She honestly looks visibly upset when he's dangling her brother over it.

If ever someone truly deserved a Herman Cain award, it's this man right here!

Hopefully C Diff will catch a RFK Jr.

What a shitty grandpa.