Don’t Forget That Bill Maher Is A Germ Theory Denier

Many comedians and media have made some pretty serious condemnations of Bill Maher since the late-night host spoke highly of President Donald Trump following a private dinner at the White House, but Maher’s critics would change their tune about him shaking Trump’s hand if they knew how Maher feels about Purell.

Back on the April 11th episode of Real Time with Bill Maher, HBO’s most smug centrist made a surprising reveal, telling his ever-so-slightly-left-leaning audience that, on the urging of his good friend Kid Rock, he visited the White House and spent a pleasant evening with the Commander-in-Chief whom Maher had previously compared to Adolf Hitler. Maher spoke warmly of his dinner host, calling president Trump “gracious” and “measured” while complimenting Trump’s intellectual curiosity and inquisitive nature. 

While some critics have described Maher’s newfound friendship with the President to be a hypocritical heel-turn for a late-night host who made a name for himself as a snarky liberal iconoclast during the Bush istration, those who have been following Maher’s long history of spreading anti-science disinformation and conspiratorial thinking knew that Maher’s transition to Trump ally was all-but-guaranteed on the day of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s confirmation as Health and Human Services Secretary.

Maher's long history of promoting debunked anti-vaccine theories is mostly public knowledge, but the Real Time comic’s equally unfounded belief that germs can’t cause disease is less-publicized. However, don’t be confused: Maher’s “Pop-Tarts cause disease, not measles” stance is every bit as bullshit as the rest of his “I’m smarter than doctors” shtick.

Maher’s disbelief in the germ theory of disease that led to centuries of scientific discoveries and world-changing medical advancements stems from the personal rivalry between 19th century French scientists Louis Pasteur and Antoine Béchamp. Pasteur was a proponent of the theory that microscopic pathogens can spread infectious diseases, an idea that the scientific community has since universally accepted, as it serves as the very foundation of epidemiology. Béchamp, on the other hand, originated the debunked “terrain theory,” which claims that the composition of one’s body is the only material cause of disease, and that the supposedly harmful germs found in sick bodies are simply drawn to the diseased conditions, not the cause of them.

On a 2005 episode of Real Time, Maher shouted down former NIH , lauded cardiologist and actual scientist Bernadine Healy on the topic of vaccinations and disease, saying of his distrust of the scientific consensus, “I don’t believe in vaccination either. … That’s another theory that I think is flawed, that we go by the Louis Pasteur theory, even though Louis Pasteur renounced it on his own deathbed and said that Béchamp was right: It’s not the invading germs, it’s the terrain. It’s not the mosquitoes, it’s the swamp that they’re breeding in.”

While Pasteur’s work to prevent beverage contamination by harmful microorganisms through the self-titled pasteurization process cemented his status as the “father of microbiology,” Maher has repeatedly cited the legend that Pasteur recanted his theories on his death bed in favor of his rival’s belief in terrain theory as proof that the last 230 years of scientific progress are nothing compared to the conspiracy theories of a 69-year-old stoner.

Pasteur’s work was central to the Sanitary Movement, in which countries like the U.K. and the U.S. developed comprehensive sewage systems and improved public access to clean water in an attempt to prevent the spread of pathogens, and, thus, infectious disease itself. The Sanitary Movement was a massive success that caused a dramatic and well-documented decline in mortality rates, and its establishment of public health infrastructure in the developed world continues to reap benefits every time an American child doesn’t die from an easily preventable infectious disease.

Nevertheless, Maher continues to hawk uninformed pseudo-science because it allows him to place the blame of disease on personal habits such as diet and physical fitness and thus establish his own superiority over suffering people. Although every doctor will tell you that personal health choices play a significant factor in a person's ability to fight disease, junk food and a sedentary lifestyle are demonstrably not the cause of the current measles outbreak in North America. That would be the measles virus (a virus is a kind of germ, Bill), against which vaccination is the best defense.

As long as RFK Jr. keeps blaming food dye for all of our ills while denying the proven efficacy of vaccination, Maher is going to keep going to dinner with the Trumps of the world, where he can have all the raw milk he can drink. Béchamp ain’t gonna help Maher when he’s keeled over on the commode.