Meh. Unless you're eating according to
the food pyramid (in which case, you likely have type II diabetes...note that diabetes medication and tools are
advertised on the website telling you it's healthy to eat the sh*t they're telling you to eat and ask yourself what the motives of those pimping this diet actually are), "accepted" health science should be taken with a grain of salt (particularly when a dying, sensationalistic, easily-mislead media gets ahold of it and makes it into a big thing). So much of commonly-accepted health information relies on fraudulent foundational studies bought by
some corporation or
another. Just this month, the AMA claimed that corporate interests colluded to try and suppress a study saying red meat had many health benefits and was, with the exception of an increased risk of colon cancer (depending on what else you're eating), basically safe or even desirable.
I don't have any issue with Steigerwald citing people who say the brakes need to be pumped on any particular health panic, even if I think his evidence is far less persuasive in this one instance than the Chicken Littles like Chris Nowinsky (whom I believe to be generally right about football/concussions, if a bit over-the-top). When the crux of your argument revolves around Mike Webster--who was living in his car and barely knew his own name for the last couple decades--not fitting the criteria for CTE, the most that proves to me is that it is possible that football causes neurological problems
distinct from and in addition to CTE.
Still, shutting down questions like "is this 'pain undertreatment' crisis actually bullsh*t" has done incalculable human damage, far in excess of what football's lies about concussions have done. I would classify Steigerwald's article as belonging in this sort of skeptic tradition, even though I think he and Merrill Hoge are mostly wrong.
