Is MAHA on acid?

A tale of an acid and chemophobia

If you’ve ever been a teenager, you probably know all about salicylic acid.

A precursor to aspirin, the organic compound has been used to treat insults to the skin—acne, psoriasis, warts, calluses—for generations. Initially discovered in the willow tree at least 1,500 years ago, the acid was previously used for a range of purposes, including gout, birth control, and for “those who spit blood.” Over time its actual uses became more apparent.

Here’s an interesting one: after researchers learned how to extract the pure compound in the 19th century, German breweries used it to preserve their product. Not in Germany, however. Only in their exports to the United States.

German chemists knew the acid preserved wine and beer, though they were unsure of its potential downsides once inside the body. They noticed Americans didn’t give a shit about what they put inside their bodies. Since salicylic acid increased the shelf life for those long ocean voyages, a separate bottling process was devised.

Given what American manufacturers were putting into domestic products, this acid caused little alarm. Deborah Blum lists 19th-century additives in her book, The Poison Squad: One Chemist’s Single-Minded Crusade for Food Safety at the Turn of the Twentieth Century. They include: arsenic, charcoal, plaster, sawdust, sand, gypsum, and soapstone.

One late 19th-century analysis found that 100% of solid dry mustard sold on American shelves was tainted with such fillers. A company in New York purchased 5,000 pounds of coconut shells every year to grind up and add to their spices, which included nutmeg, ginger, mace, and pepper. Rarely did anyone receive what was advertised.

A touch of salicylic acid in booze wasn’t really a concern, until it was. Plus, it wasn’t only German producers using it. In fact, it was common practice at American breweries and vineyards. As Blum writes,

The Division of Chemistry staff worried that the compound’s use in alcoholic beverages could add up to a harmful dose, especially for a person who consumed several drinks a day. Authored by C.A. Crampton, one of Wiley’s staffers, the fermented beverages report noted that American wines contained, on average, almost 2 grams of salicylic acid per bottle. Beers averaged 1.2 grams. But some measured higher.

That’s Harvey Washington Wiley, an American physician and chemist considered to be “the father” of the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906. The following year, he was installed as the first commissioner of the FDA—an agency created in part due to his work.

Wiley was a member of the Poison Squad, a group of volunteers who took it upon themselves to test the effects of food additives and preservatives. One of the first trials was on salicylic acid, which they discovered can cause internal bleeding. Their work largely revolved around, as Blum writes, identifying “whether those ingredients were safe and in what doses.”

In what doses. Wiley was, first and foremost, a chemist. He would have been aware of Paracelsus’s famous dictum:

All things are poisons, for there is nothing without poisonous qualities. It is only the dose which makes a thing poison.

Today, we can imagine a wellness influencer saying something like: can you believe they use acne medicine as a food preservative? Such reductionism misses an important point: sweet potatoes, nuts, olive oil, apples, dates, pineapple, pretty much every berry, spinach, tomatoes, cauliflower, and dozens of other foods and beverages naturally contain salicylic acid.

That doesn’t mean it should be used as a food preservative. Most countries ban its use in food outright. A few countries, including the UK and EU nations, allow it as a flavoring substance under strict regulations. Salicylic acid remains an important component in other industries, however.

The United States was truly a wild west of food safety in the 19th century. That changed at the turn of the 20th thanks to the work of researchers like Wiley and journalist Upton Sinclair. Food companies relentlessly attacked both men. Thankfully, Presidents Roosevelt and Taft listened to the facts, creating government agencies to set food safety standards.

Those agencies are being dismantled right now. No matter how much public health figures like RFK Jr, Marty Makary, Jay Bhattacharya, and Mehmet Oz claim the fat is being trimmed from the deep state, nothing could be further from the truth. They’re part of an administration hellbent on privatizing as much health care as possible, and they’re using the language of activism to accomplish their goals.

They also regularly engage in chemophobia (an unwarranted fear of chemicals):

• Kennedy has long confused ethylmercury with methylmercury to weaponize anti-vax sentiments

• Makary recently suggested replacing insulin—a chemical substance in the form of a hormone—with cooking classes for diabetics; medical guidelines have long suggested dietary suggestions alongside interventions, though MAHA stans seem to gloss over that fact

• Besides being one of the authors of the pro-business treatise, Great Barrington Declaration, Bhattacharya recently spread more “vaccine skeptic” information, suggesting research needs to be done to see if “Covid-19 vaccine cause autism”

• Oz’s chemistry knowledge has long been compromised, considering his “green coffee bean pills for weight loss” junk science grift

There’s more. MAHA recently released a report on childhood chronic disease, which obscured more than it revealed. Dr Jessica Knurick writes:

It entirely ignores the social determinants of health and provides no analysis of which populations are most impacted. Namely, children from low-income communities and communities of color, who face disproportionate rates of chronic disease due to structural inequities.

In short, the MAHA report doesn’t reflect a scientific inquiry into the causes of childhood chronic disease. It reflects a predetermined agenda that omits key facts, erases disparities, and risks misleading the public and policymakers alike.

Legitimate activism demands an adherence to science, with the understanding that it evolves as new evidence is presented. MAHA merely cosplays health advocacy. Ignoring the “root cause” of health disparities means you can’t actually address the problems. Pretending you’re on the path to a solution only gaslights your believers.

The Poison Squad did their best with the nascent field of chemistry to change American food laws for the better. Over a century later, MAHA is weaponizing chemophobia in order to spread propaganda and shuffle public health money to private companies.

These squads are not the same.