Wildfire Grifters
Never let a tragedy ruin a sales funnel
Thanks to Mallory DeMille for her research identifying influencers pushing wildfire “detoxes.” Watch our collaborative video on the topic here.
Clarity Lab, my new podcast, launched last Wednesday. Check out EP1: Fighting Cancer Misinformation with Dr Andrea Love.
The online response to the Los Angeles wildfires has been largely helpful, with people sharing resources, updates, and charities on a minute-by-minute basis. In many ways, this is one of the best functions of social media, which we shouldn’t lose sight of, especially as I’m going to spend the rest of this article looking at one of its most sadistic and disheartening aspects: wellness influencers using tragedy to market untested supplements.
I’ve covered this beat for over a decade: the egregious manipulation of nascent scientific research to promote and sell products that have not been clinically verified, and that can, at its extreme, lead people away from seeking actual therapeutic interventions.
The genre assumes the gravity of derangement when initiated during a time when so many people are suffering. First, their concern has nothing to do with victims, who are too consumed wrapping their heads around the fact that they’ve just lost everything. The influencers’ target audience lives in the vicinity of the fires, close enough to smell smoke yet far enough out of harm’s way that they don’t have their car packed with go bags.
There’s also the chance of picking off people that live nowhere near danger but are taken in by the possibility of being toxed by…something. Doesn’t matter what. Many influencers constantly manipulate marketing messages to fit the moment while also pushing the “immune support” myth no matter where you live or what you eat.
In their worldview, society itself is toxic, making constant detoxification necessary. That’s how, for example, one influencer below was able to immediately shift from parasite cleanses to wildfire detoxes. If everything is toxic, you’re in constant state of disrepair.
Sadly, many people trapped in wellness land are pushing this garbage. Below are three influencers familiar to Conspirituality listeners. I’ve linked to some of their posts but have not linked to their products for obvious reasons.
Medical Medium told his 4.8M followers to download his “cleanse to heal” toolkit, which features plenty of supplements for “after the fact” of suffering smoke inhalation. A few days before, he promoted a range of “immune system” supplements—for a company that he just happens to have an affiliate deal with.
In fact, his “Medical Medium Immunity Toolkit” has its own page on the company’s site. The supplements company is owned by motivational speaker and “weight loss expert” Philip McCluskey, who, as far as I can tell, has no medical training whatsoever; he’s worked in IT and customer service since 1995, founding the supplements company in 2012. His cofounder Casey (also his wife) is a “health and life coach” and motivational speaker. I could find no medical training for her either.
Par for the course: Medical Medium isn’t trained in anything science-related. Actually being educated in the domain you’re encroaching upon is often seen as a hindrance, not a strength. And for a man who believes angels give him medical advice (despite disclaimers on this website that nothing is medical advice), nothing could be more opportune than an audience frightful of out-of-control fires.
Conspirituality 156: Medical Medium for more…
Kim Rogers, aka The Worm Queen, appears to have repurposed her “parasite detoxes” for wildfires. In her recent video, she calls cilantro a “heavy metal herb,” and indeed, numerous holistic sites promote (and sell) tinctures for its supposed chelation effects. As McGill University’s Joe Schwarcz reported in 2017:
Another supposed benefit is cilantro’s ability to chelate heavy metals. The term “chelate” comes from the Greek meaning “claw” and refers to compounds that have the ability to remove harmful metal ions from solution by gripping them like a claw. Some bloggers even push cilantro as an ingredient in a “detox” salad, claiming it rids the body of heavy metals. As usual, there is a kernel of truth to the claim, but that kernel is inflated with nonsense until it pops.
Schwarcz scoured studies looking for evidence of cilantro’s purported health benefits. He found none. What he did find was a few small studies that found cilantro “can reduce absorption of lead when food tainted with it is fed to mice.” This is world’s apart from the assumption that it can “detox” metals from a human body, which has never been demonstrated.
That didn’t stop Rogers from making that claim (and many others about “binders”) and trying to sell you something you definitely don’t need.
Conspirituality 131: Parasite Cleanses are Full of Sh*t for more…
Then there’s Dr Jess, a functional medicine practitioner who calls herself a “visionary.” She created two videos on the wildfires. In the first, she said “there’s nothing natural about these fires,” invoking the Maui wildfires—a common comparison to the paranoid wellness influencer ignorant of how wildfires work or, it seems, climate change’s role in intensifying them.
Never mind the fact that in Maui the psy-op was a land grab by the rich and powerful while in LA it was the rich and power who suffered (in part) devastating losses. Logical narratives aren’t required in these spaces.
For her second video, she promoted a “detox” tincture that will help people recover from smoke inhalation. Have those products been clinically tested for such a purpose? Irrelevant.
Never let science get in the way of a sales funnel.
As it turns out, some actual healthcare professionals have studied ways to manage smoke inhalation. These are not listed in lieu of self-diagnosis, but rather what a medical expert would perform should you be suffering from asphyxiation or irritation.
Oxygen. Oxygen might be delivered through a nose tube, mask, or tube down the throat, or, in extreme situations, a breathing tube
Bronchoscopy. Mucus and other debris might need to be suctioned via a throat tube
Hyperbaric oxygenation. Carbon monoxide poisoning might require spending time in a chamber where high air pressure allows your lungs to take in extra oxygen
Medications. Drugs that clear up mucus and inhaled medicines, or bronchodilators, can ease wheezing and airway spasms; painkillers might be helpful as well
Doctors treating asphyxiated patients are not going to be on social media selling untested supplements and tinctures. That’s only for people who have no idea what they’re talking about.
You can see a broader list of such people in our collaborative video.
