Sh*tty Science

Great news! Thanks to a recent technological leap, we can use people's poop to determine which ZIP codes have the highest average intelligence. The days of standardized tests are over; from now on we can measure IQ by simply collecting RNA fragments floating in wastewater.

Sounds ridiculous, right? That's because it is. I made it up to illustrate a point.

Namely, why has sewer science --with all its flaws-- become a leading indicator for public health?

Image credit: Annie PM (free use)

Backing Up

To be clear, the National Wastewater Surveillance System (NWSS) didn't even exist pre-pandemic. According to Alie Ward, host of the celebrated science podcast Ologies, the CDC only "began building the foundational data in early 2020 and by May... (they) felt confident in the biology and the epidemiology of wastewater testing." The framework was formally launched that September.

It's wild that the agency teed up such drastic changes within half a year -- no matter how urgent the Centers for Disease Control might argue their efforts were during that time. Yet, it somehow pales in comparison to the realization that their unprecedented move has led to an everlasting paradigm shift. A quick scan of the latest headlines demonstrates how pervasive doody doctrine continues to be, long after the Covid-19 emergency ended...

Of course, those defending a future of wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) will rarely admit how limited its past truly is. Instead, they'll try and fool average Americans into thinking this unproven technique goes back generations. Some will draw a direct line to physician John Snow's outbreak mapping in 1854, thereby linking it to "the origins of modern epidemiology." Others will mention 1939 and polio tracking, before conceding in the next breath that WBE had to wait until the 21st Century to get international approval for this strategy.

In actuality, the wastewater probes done from 2005-2019 weren't necessarily focused on viruses. Heck, the foundations for today's WBE follow the blueprint of an Italian institute that counted drug addicts in a given population by sifting through excrement to find, um, 'processed' cocaine.

Crappy Returns

Experts playing fast and loose with the basic history of WBE doesn't inspire confidence. Still, all could be forgiven if the pursuit delivered unassailable results. Sadly, that's not close to true.

The National Wastewater Surveillance System is built on notions as murky as the samples it cites.

Two research papers published in Science of the Total Environment identify a morass of problems associated with WBE. The 10/1/24 volume states, "the shedding rates of pathogens vary significantly depending on factors such as disease severity, the physiology of affected individuals, and the characteristics of pathogen. Furthermore, pathogens may exhibit differential fate and decay kinetics in the sewerage system." It goes on to detail considerations ranging from microbe persistence, sewage flow, industrial discharge, and the possibility of zoonotic crossover.

A few months ago, a separate team posted a comprehensive WBE review that covered some of these same issues while also shining a light on shortcomings like imperfect detection optimization, which causes uncertainty around "fecal excretion rate" and other key principles. *

In a bombshell Frontiers in Water editorial, three Israeli scholars claimed that solid dookie has "thousand-fold higher concentrations of viral biomarkers than liquid fractions." If effluent calculations happen to include some firm brown ploppers, who would be privy to that sporadic technicality? More importantly, what are the odds the CDC/media would present the corresponding spike as an unequivocal indication of a sicker citizenry (versus a testing error)?

It gets worse. The CDC's Chief Science Officer, Amy Kirby, acknowledged in 2022 that authorities didn't "have a standard method of testing/measuring SARS Cov2 in wastewater," even though our government was basing decisions on it. Weirder still, the specimens were gathered by faceless utility workers -- not scientists -- at over 700 (now 1500) treatment facilities before being analyzed at who knows how many labs with your-guess-is-as-good-as-mine profit/political motivations. Only then did the CDC get a crack at the information.

Talk about a shotgun approach rife with conflicts. **

Assume The Fecal Position

If WBE is this fraught with inaccuracy, why haven't we flushed the entire construct down the toilet? Long story short: the powers that be benefit from it.

Under the guise of providing a cost-effective way to study large swaths of the community, this epidemiological endeavor is becoming a permanent fixture the world over. Sure, it sounds useful to have a diagnostic that gives specialists advance warning before traditional symptoms manifest. But how can we trust the data when it's easily corrupted by honest brokers, let alone those with a vested interest in manipulating it?

Regardless of which camp Utah's Department of HHS falls into, their online surveillance tool exemplifies how far afield this stuff can get. First and foremost, the concentration categories are relative comparisons to previous readings from individual sites. In other words, Tremonton's 62.1 million gene copies per day per person (MGC) stat on 9/4/25 was classified as being 'Very Elevated' versus archival numbers at that specific venue, not in comparison to any sort of universal benchmark. To see how goofy structuring it this way can be, consider that their neighbors in the equally sized city of Hyrum, posted a higher MGC figure of 72 on the same day, yet only got a moderate 'Watch' label.

[Also worth noting: the dot plot pegs Tremonton's MGC at the 'Very Low' level one night earlier!]

Any way you slice it, this feedback loop guarantees a roller coaster ride across time and space. Reflexivity that only a handful of parties are aware of... since essentially no one who views the Utah dashboard bothers to delve into the footnotes. On top of that, major updates to the assay (when collection procedures are reworked or locations are removed) feel like afterthoughts.

So, why would bureaucrats adopt such messy means? Well, at least three reasons spring to mind. For starters, surveillance is a cornerstone of their new normal. They want to keep tabs on all of humanity -- from those of us connected to the wastewater grid to the smattering who make 'deposits' in septic tanks hours from civilization. Whether that full goal is achieved is practically immaterial, because the regime has already established the conditions to promote fearmongering messaging on a whim.

By combining their version of monitoring with scare tactics, it's a virtual lock that public health officials shall inevitably wield their unchecked influence to compel submission to their will. That's not a bunch of bluster -- Doctor Kirby's testimony confirms WBE has been guilty of strongarming neighborhoods into "do(ing) a vaccination campaign to protect everybody."

[Recent medical events might give many folks pause when dissecting that quote.]

A Real Turd Sandwich

This esoteric malarkey deserves to be challenged. Ivory tower savants have confessed as much. Chinese environmental scientist Xiqing Li, who has written extensively on the topic of WBE, explained in 2023 how "very difficult (it is) for public health officials to interpret and use viral RNA or DNA concentrations in wastewater for decision-making purposes." In the very same treatise, his colleague Sara Castiglioni went on to say "WBE is a complementary tool that can provide peculiar additional information to other epidemiological indicators but it cannot stand alone, or if alone it gives only a piece of information."           

Ergo, scholars know WBE is inherently insufficient. Nevertheless, the band marches on while playing its hubristic song. They've cast themselves as heroes stamping out "anti-science." *** They skim over wastewater witchcraft they've witnessed. They'll presumably ignore the defects referenced above. And they don't seem to care if their scheme ushers in an epidemiological police state where faulty bowel movement conjecture dictates freedom. ****

Everything about it stinks.

Note: the post above may contain commentary reflecting the author's opinion.

This site does not render legal advice, nor does it intend to replace legal advice.

* Other drawbacks include reliance on subvariant hairsplitting and PCR testing (both of which can be gamed)

** Not surprising from an agency that lumps Puerto Rico in with Northeast NWSS reporting.

*** Doctor Kirby herself exclaimed "it's the thing we all live for," where the "it" stands for looking at sh*t.

**** PS: how much is it costing taxpayers to run weekly tests nationwide to quantify a virus that hospitalizes about 25 people/million?

Image credit: Gabor Monori (free use)