The Endless Supplement Grift
Mikki Willis has something to sell you—science be damned.
While most press covers anti-vaxxers as a Trump phenomenon, it’s hard to overstate the influence that the propaganda short, “Plandemic,” has had on vaccine disinformation in America and beyond.
Mikki Willis’s follow-up, “Plandemic 2,” didn’t have nearly the same impact. (A rumored third edition is set be released “around the holidays.”) While his Plandemic memoir is selling well on Amazon, his goal of sticking it to the NY Times by making the Best Sellers list hasn’t materialized.
Books aren’t normally cash cows. Supplements are. And so here we discover Willis’s latest grift.
A few weeks ago, he announced a partnership with Vladimir Zelenko, an upstate New York family doctor whose medical experimentation in the Hasidic community of Kiryas Joel influenced Donald Trump’s unfounded take on hydroxychloroquine.
In his most recent newsletter, Willis brags about hanging out with the inventor of mRNA technology, Robert Malone, who is not the inventor of mRNA technology, but was one of the hundreds of scientists whose research played into the development of this field.
What’s amazing about this entire spectacle is the length that Willis and like-minded anti-vaxxers go in denouncing the entire medical system except for doctors who agree with them. Then their credentials are front and center.
Judy Mikovits. Robert Malone. Vladimir Zelenko. Andrew Wakefield. All supposed martyrs of a medical system keeping the “truth” from you.
And all have something to sell you.
Immune Blues
Willis then discusses his partnership with Zelenko, calling him “one of the most inspiring people I’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting,” before getting to the point:
One thing is clear. It is imperative that we all begin to boost our body's natural immune system NOW.
Words in ALL CAPS are serious, and Willis has a serious deal for you: a 5% discount to Zelenko’s “immune boosting protocol.”
Supplements, of course, are the grift du jour of wellness influencers. They’re a great way to tout your immune creds by shilling products you may or may not take but certainly get a percentage of on your downline.
The pandemic formula is simple: decry the vaccine as an evil plot, talk about how you only need a healthy immune system to combat the virus, then sell supplements purported to boost the immune system regardless of whether the pills or powders show clinical efficacy.
We recognized this trend at the inception of Conspirituality. Whether it’s roping someone into your essential oil MLM or getting kickbacks from discount codes in the $151B global supplement market, the efficacy of the product is irrelevant.
The marketing, however—that’s another story.
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Supplemental Nation
Humans receive the vitamins and minerals they need in a moderately healthy diet. Health tracks with culture, however. Thanks to the relentless drive of capitalism, it’s not enough to be healthy. You have to optimize your health at every turn. Supplements provide the perfect vehicle for making a lot of money on not a lot of science.
Zelenko’s site is filled with immune system-boosting claims without the benefit of actual science behind it. To his credit, he clearly lists the ingredients.
One bottle, or 30 servings, sells for $55—$52.25 if you use Mikki’s code.
All of the ingredients have certain immune-boosting properties—depending on context. For example, vitamin C (sometimes) shortens the duration of the common cold (by about one day), but there’s no evidence that it (or any of these ingredients) are effective in preventing or treating COVID-19.
To be clear, in his last newsletter Willis preemptively mentioned this supplement stack in preparation of the next pandemic, which we can safely assume will be a virus. It’s unlikely that the rollout of the Z-Stack is for the common cold, and the marketing certainly does not seem to reflect that.
Performing the rudimentary math I’m capable of, I decided to weigh the ingredients and discover the actual price of Zelenko’s formulation.
Vitamin C
1 kilogram: $29.96 | 30 servings: .67
Vitamin D3
1 kilogram: $52.96 | 30 servings: .79
Quercetin
500 grams: $112.96 | 30 servings: $3.39
Zinc
1 kilogram: $29.96 | 30 servings: .04
Vegetable Capsules
1,000 capsules: $16.99 | 60 capsules: $1.01
Total cost: $5.90
No business survives by selling finished products for the cost of raw materials. A nearly 1000% markup is a bit extreme, however, especially when a healthy diet provides your immune system with the vitamins and minerals it needs. Throw in regular exercise and your body generally knows what to do when confronting many invaders.
That won’t suffice in a nation of more. We relentlessly spend money on supplements whose marketing pitch far outweighs their clinical efficacy. We spend because we won’t be sated until more is accomplished.
Then, and only then, is even more required.
And you can be certain a wellness influencer will be right there to sell it to you.