wellness
When – about 14 years ago – it was my turn, I looked forward to retirement: endless sleep-ins, zero airport security lines for lectures at distant places, no more struggling to keep awake at boring meeting, and a calendar so beautifully blank it belongs in a modern art museum. I looked forward to the complete absence of so-called peers – mostly people who had no idea about my research – criticising or trying to influence my work. And even more I rejoiced in the prospect of having no university administrators needlessly complicating my life, while taking a big chunk of my research funding for the benefit.
When you retire as an academic, you genuinely believe you’ve escaped the university rat race – only to soon realize you’ve just been traded to a different league with much worse perks. Suddenly, your mornings are dictated not by an alarm clock, but by a relentless, self-imposed to-do list. You’re busier than ever, while operating alone and on a budget that makes your old expense-account days feel like the reign of Louis XIV.
Of course, not all academics keep on working after retirement. Some manage to just drop everything from one day to the next thinking they will now look after the garden, trimm roses, walk the dog, etc. I know many who have chosen this type of approach to retirement. For a few months, it all seems to go fine. Then they realise the increaingly painful emptiness and lack of purpose. More often than not, a low mood creeps in, followed by depression and/or taking to the bottle (perhaps this is why the Exeter medical school gave me a set of huge [and apparently expensive] wine glasses as a leaving present?).
No, staying active and doing what one likes must be the secret of remaining sane after retirement – at least for me. So, I rolled up my sleeves and got on with it. I started this blog (thanks Alan) where I have now published well over 3000 posts. I also began writing colums for newspapers – in English, German and French, to make it a bit more interesting. And then I got into books; this turned out to be more fun (and far less money) than expected. Since retiring I so far managed an average of about one per year – 16 to be precise, and currently three more in the pipeline.
Yes, I do keep myself busy, but this approach does unquestionably have its surprises. The real shocker, is the devastating loss of infrastructure. Yesterday you were a visionary leader; today, you are your own secretary, IT department, mailroom clerk, travel agent, and administrative assistant – and frankly, your staff is frightfully incompetent! There is nobody to filter out annoying requests, meaning you are fully exposed to every crank on the planet. Your former co-workers no longer do the knuckle work of the research, so things get slower and slower. Technical assistance is nowhere to be found; when the printer jams or the Wi-Fi malfunctions, you are on your utterly incompetent own. Every little task takes hours or days. You’ve traded business casual for sweatpants or shorts, but the “hassle” didn’t disappear; if anything, it becomes bigger and bigger. It just rebranded itself as a full-time, unpaid internship where you are both the demanding boss and the disgruntled employee.
But am I not supposed to enjoy life during retirement?
I promise you, I do that too!
Some friends keep asking me whether I don’t want to finally retire for real, relax and be happy.
“What do you mean?”, I respond.
“Well, you know, do what you really like.”
“But that’s what I am doing!”
It is true – honestly.
I am productive because I am content – and not the other way round.
The death of Kristian Trend, a forty-year-old spiritual wellness coach who collapsed and died following a “Kambo” cleansing ritual in Leicester, serves as a sobering cautionary tale about the extremes of the modern alternative health movement. Having overcome a severe battle with cancer in his twenties, Trend dedicated his life to holistic wellness, meditation, and nutrition, documenting his journey under the moniker “Kristian The Feel Good Guy.”
Kambo, a waxy substance secreted by the giant leaf frog of the Amazon basin, has traditionally been utilized by indigenous tribes for its intense physiological properties. Its translation into Western “detox” circles strips away its cultural context, replacing it with pseudoscientific promises of physical rejuvenation and mental clarity. The actual ceremony is an agonizing physical ordeal: participants consume massive quantities of water before facilitators inflict superficial burns on their skin, applying the frog toxin directly to the open wounds. This practice triggers a violent systemic shock characterized by soaring heart rates, dramatic blood pressure fluctuations, severe vomiting, and acute diarrhea. Though proponents mistake this intense physical trauma for a purgative cleansing process, medical experts confirm there is no empirical evidence supporting these purported benefits.
In reality, the toll of Kambo can be lethal. Over the past decade, the substance has been increasingly linked to severe health crises, including liver failure, acute heart attacks, and sudden death. This compounding medical evidence has led nations like Australia, Brazil, and Chile to implement strict bans on the substance. Trend’s death is believed to mark the first documented Kambo fatality in the UK.
In the wake of this tragedy, Trend’s mother, Angie, has channelled her grief into calling for an immediate UK ban on Kambo to prevent further loss of life. Her public appeal emphasizes the vulnerability of individuals who, like her son, fall victim of pseudoscience and seek deeper spiritual connection and bodily purity, yet find themselves exposed to unregulated, highly toxic substances under the guise of “self-care.”
The US “Health Freedom Movement” (HFM) is a coalition of activists, alternative practitioners, supplement and device manufacturers, and libertarian or populist politicians who oppose strong government regulation of healthcare. They claim to defend the individual’s right to choose any treatment or product they consider beneficial, especially so-called alternative medicine (SCAM).
Its roots lie in resistance to medical licensing and in movements around homeopathy, naturopathy, and chiropractic, which often portrayed organized medicine as a cartel limiting patient choice. The John Birch Society and other conservative groups use the term to oppose fluoridation, vaccination mandates, and federal health programs. During 1990s–2000s, the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act (DSHEA) of 1994, backed by a coalition of supplement companies and “health freedom” advocates, limited the FDA’s pre‑market control over supplements; libertarian politicians like Ron Paul and figures such as Prince/King Charles support aspects of this agenda. More recently, anti‑vaccination activism, opposition to the Affordable Care Act, and then COVID‑19 mandates and vaccines gave the HFM a major boost and re-grouped as “medical freedom” or “health freedom” across partisan lines, but with a strong right‑wing infrastructure.
The HFM’s main players include politicians (e.g. Ron Paul, Tom Harkin, Orrin Hatch, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.) and media personalities (e.g. Gary Null, Kevin Trudeau, and many supplement‑selling influencers as well as SCAM doctors). Many of them have strong financial ties to supplement, wellness, or SCAM industry.
The HFM’s stated aims sound liberal: individual autonomy, informed and access to SCAM. In practice, however, its core goals are sharper and consistently deregulatory:
- Limit or abolish pre‑market safety and efficacy requirements for supplements and many SCAMs.
- Oppose or roll back mandatory childhood vaccination, COVID‑19 vaccination and mask rules, school-entry requirements, and sometimes even basic disease‑reporting obligations.
- Resist overarching government health programs, including water fluoridation, electronic health records, and population‑level data sharing, which they portray as surveillance or tyranny.
- Create broad legal shields for all types of SCAM practitioners and restrict the enforcement powers of medical boards and public‑health authorities.
While the rhetoric centres on “freedom” and “choice”, the policy is liberating commercial interests from evidence‑based standards and oversight. For this, the HFM uses a mixture of advocacy and classic populist agitation:
- Legislative lobbying: Drafting model bills that redefine or exempt SCAM practitioners, weaken vaccination requirements, and restrict state health departments’ emergency powers.
- Litigation: Groups such as the “Health Freedom Defense Fund” use lawsuits against mask mandates, vaccine requirements, and school or airline rules both as legal tools and as high‑visibility fundraising and mobilization devices.
- Electoral politics: Endorsing and funding candidates who promise to “reign in” public‑health agencies, defund WHO, or defy CDC guidance; in some places, anti‑vaccine activists have captured local hospital or school boards.
- Media ecosystems: Conferences, podcasts, Substack newsletters, and “documentaries” circulate narratives of regulatory capture, big‑pharma malfeasance, and heroic mavericks, often entwined with sales of supplements or courses.
These activities reinforce distrust of science and conventional medicine and thus create a host of issues and problems:
- Selective use of autonomy: Autonomy is invoked vigorously when opposing vaccines, fluoridation, or regulation of supplements, but tend to disregard it when patients are misled by misinformation, coercive marketing, or opaque conflicts of interest in the alternative sector itself. Yet protection against deception and unsafe products is essential for meaningful autonomy; “choice” among misrepresented options is not genuine choice.
- Systematic downplaying of risk and evidence: The HFM treats lack of evidence of benefit as if it were evidence of safety and legitimacy and often dismisses adverse‑event data. Regulators and critics must meet impossibly high standards, while proponents of SCAM face essentially none.
- Commercial conflicts of interest: Many leading voices within the HFM derive substantial income from selling SCAM. The HFM criticizes “Big Pharma” conflicts of interest while largely ignoring or concealing its own.
- Wilful ignorance of collective harms: Opposition to vaccination, masking, and quarantine treats infections as purely individual matters, neglecting that infectious disease risk is shared and that one person’s “choice” can impose morbidity and mortality on others. Yet any rights framework that leaves no space for legitimate public‑health constraints on individual choice is incompatible with controlling epidemics.
- Alliance with broader conspiracist and extremist currents: Sections of the HFM have fused with anti‑globalist, anti‑UN/WHO, and sometimes far‑right political currents, amplifying conspiracy narratives and distrust that spill over into many domains beyond health. Thus they corrode trust in institutions that are necessary for coordinating large‑scale health responses.
In a nutshell, the HFM is a deregulatory, commercially entangled project that uses the language of liberty to erode evidence‑based medicine and to normalise quackery as well as anti‑vaccination politics. To put it bluntly: the HFM does not seem to operate in the best interest of either the individual patient or the collective public health.
Trump and his allies have produced many claims that experts have flagged as false, misleading, or dangerously unscientific. Below is a (probably incomplete) selection:
- In April 2020, Trump suggested during a press briefing that scientists explore whether injecting or “bringing disinfectant inside the body” could treat COVID‑19. Medical experts immediately warned that this would be dangerous or lethal.
- At the same briefing, he also floated the idea of “hitting the body with a very powerful light,” including using UV light inside the body to kill the virus, a suggestion that clinicians stressed had no scientific basis and could be harmful.
- Throughout 2020, Trump repeatedly claimed the virus would “just disappear” like a “miracle,” even as case counts and deaths surged.
- He heavily promoted hydroxychloroquine as a “game changer” long after clinical trials had shown it to be ineffective against COVID‑19 and associated with serious adverse effects.
- In February 2020, Trump claimed the number of COVID‑19 cases in the US would soon be “down to close to zero.”
- Trump frequently claimed that COVID‑19 was “just like the flu,” despite the fact that its mortality rate and impact on health systems were substantially higher.
- In late 2025 and early 2026, the Trump administration falsely claimed that acetaminophen use during pregnancy was linked to a much higher risk of autism, despite the lack of clear evidence and warnings from experts that this messaging was misleading.
- The administration also promoted leucovorin as a treatment for autism, a claim that has little robust evidence and is not supported by mainstream medical guidelines.
- Following the appointment of RFK Jr. to HHS in late 2024, federal vaccine guidance was rolled back in several areas, including flu recommendations for some groups and changes to how RSV and other vaccines were positioned. This created confusion and encouraged a further “decoupling” of some state health policies from traditional CDC guidance.
- Trump has claimed that the noise from wind turbines causes cancer, a statement that has no credible scientific basis.
- Trump has claimed that sea levels will rise by only “1/8 of an inch over the next 200 to 300 years,” contradicting widely accepted projections that show substantially higher rise even over the next 30 years along US coasts.
- Trump has also claimed that the human body is like a battery with a finite amount of energy, and that exercise is harmful because it “depletes” that energy, a view that runs counter to mainstream physiology and public‑health guidance.
- Trump claimed that drinking fizzy diet soda “kills cancer cells” because the drinks kill grass when spilt, implying they might do the same to cancer inside the body.
- In 2026, Dr. Mehmet Oz, as head of CMS, falsely claimed that 5 million New Yorkers were using Medicaid personal‑care services—nearly 75% of all enrolees—when the actual figure is far lower.
- RFK Jr. has spent decades claiming that thimerosal, a mercury‑based preservative in some vaccines, causes autism. Thimerosal was removed from nearly all childhood vaccines in 2001 as a precaution, yet autism rates continued to rise, and large studies have found no causal link.
- RFK Jr. frequently claims that no vaccines have ever been tested against a true saline placebo. In fact, many vaccines have been tested against saline placebos in clinical trials, and others were tested against earlier versions or standard care, in line with evolving ethical standards.
- RFK Jr. pushed for the removal of fluoride from all US water systems, falsely labelling it an “industrial waste” and a key cause of lower IQ, bone fractures, and cancer, despite the bulk of evidence supporting its safety and dental benefits at standard levels.
- RFK Jr. has also falsely claimed that polyunsaturated fats such as canola or soybean oil are toxic and the primary driver of obesity and inflammation in America, a view that contradicts large‑scale dietary and epidemiological data.
- RFK Jr. has falsely claimed that WiFi causes “leaky brain” and that 5G is a tool for mass surveillance and causes cancer, assertions that have no support from mainstream science.
- RFK Jr. has become an advocate for the federal legalisation of raw milk, downplaying the risks of Salmonella, E. coli, and Listeria. Yet pasteurization remains a cornerstone of public‑health measures to prevent foodborne illness.
- RFK Jr. has wrongly suggested a link between the use of SSRIs and the rise in mass shootings, a claim not supported by credible data.
- Janette Nesheiwat (JN), a Fox News contributor and Trump’s nominee for US Surgeon General, withdrew her nomination in May 2025 following allegations that she had significantly misrepresented her credentials. Her official bio and LinkedIn profile claimed she received her medical degree from the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences; in fact she attended the American University of the Caribbean School of Medicine in St. Maarten.
- JN repeatedly described herself as “double board‑certified,” but investigators found verified certification only in family medicine.
- Casey Means (CM), Trump’s nominee for Surgeon General, is a Stanford‑educated physician who left surgical residency before completion and whose medical license has been inactive since 2019. She has not practiced clinical medicine in years and has limited experience overseeing large‑scale public‑health systems.
- CM has built a profile as a health‑tech entrepreneur and co‑founder of Levels, promoting “functional medicine” and the MAHA movement.
- CM has made strong claims that continuous glucose monitoring and metabolic optimization can prevent or “cure” a wide range of modern diseases, a view that overstates the evidence and oversimplifies complex chronic conditions.
As indicated in the title of this post: if you waant to say healthy, it is wise to ignore the incompetent president and his equally incompetent cronies.
Might this be a fitting task for AI?
Let’s see; I gave ‘Gemini’ the following task: “Give me a list of the 10 biggest charlatans in the field of alternative medicine + a short explanation why they are generally considered to be charlatans”
Here is the response:
The term “charlatan” is highly subjective and often used by critics to describe individuals who promote medical treatments that lack scientific evidence or conflict with established biology. While many practitioners in alternative medicine are viewed by their followers as pioneers, they are often labeled charlatans by the scientific community due to claims of “miracle cures,” the rejection of conventional data, or the sale of unproven products.
The following list includes ten figures who are frequently cited in skeptical and medical literature as major examples of this phenomenon:
1. Kevin Trudeau
Trudeau is perhaps the most famous modern example of a medical “hawker.” He authored Natural Cures “They” Don’t Want You to Know About, a book that alleged a massive conspiracy between the FDA and pharmaceutical companies to hide cures for cancer and other diseases.
-
Why labeled a charlatan: He was repeatedly sued by the FTC for making false claims and was eventually sentenced to 10 years in prison for criminal contempt related to his deceptive infomercials.
2. “Dr. Sebi” (Alfredo Bowman)
Despite not being a medical doctor, Bowman gained a massive following by claiming he could cure AIDS, cancer, and diabetes through a strictly alkaline diet and herbal supplements.
-
Why labeled a charlatan: He claimed that all disease is caused by “mucus” and that his “African Bio-Mineral Balance” could eliminate it—a claim with no basis in human physiology. He was successfully sued by the New York Attorney General for practicing medicine without a license.
3. Andrew Wakefield
A former physician, Wakefield is the primary source of the modern anti-vaccine movement. In 1998, he published a fraudulent study in The Lancet suggesting a link between the MMR vaccine and autism.
-
Why labeled a charlatan: His study was found to be based on manipulated data and unethical treatment of children. He was subsequently stripped of his medical license, but he continues to profit from anti-vaccine activism.
4. Belle Gibson
An Australian wellness influencer, Gibson built a massive brand claiming she had cured her terminal brain cancer through diet, exercise, and alternative therapies.
-
Why labeled a charlatan: It was eventually revealed that she never had cancer. She also admitted to withholding thousands of dollars in promised donations to various charities.
5. Joseph Mercola
Mercola is an osteopathic physician who runs one of the most profitable “alternative health” websites in the world. He has frequently promoted homeopathic remedies and criticized standard medical practices like vitamin K shots for newborns.
-
Why labeled a charlatan: He has received multiple warning letters from the FDA for selling unapproved and misbranded products, such as “thermography” as a superior replacement for mammograms (which it is not).
6. Stanislaw Burzynski
A physician in Texas, Burzynski has spent decades selling “antineoplastons” as a cure for various cancers at his private clinic.
-
Why labeled a charlatan: Despite over 40 years of operation, he has never produced a peer-reviewed, Phase III clinical trial proving his treatments work. Critics argue he exploits desperate patients, charging them hundreds of thousands of dollars for unproven therapy.
7. Robert O. Young
The author of The pH Miracle, Young popularized the idea that “acidosis” is the cause of all disease and that an “alkaline diet” can cure everything from obesity to Stage IV cancer.
-
Why labeled a charlatan: In 2016, he was convicted of practicing medicine without a license. It was revealed that one of his “patients,” a woman with breast cancer, paid him thousands for intravenous baking soda treatments before she ultimately died.
8. Hulda Clark
Clark was a naturopath who claimed that all diseases (including cancer and HIV) were caused by parasites and could be cured by a device she invented called the “Zapper,” which used low-voltage electricity.
-
Why labeled a charlatan: Her claims were entirely unscientific; she believed “electronic frequencies” could kill parasites instantly. She eventually died of multiple myeloma (a blood cancer), a disease her own device supposedly could have cured.
9. Matthias Rath
A German physician, Rath has aggressively promoted high-dose vitamin therapy as a cure for HIV/AIDS and heart disease.
-
Why labeled a charlatan: He ran advertisements in South Africa discouraging people from using antiretroviral drugs, claiming vitamins were a safer alternative. This campaign is estimated to have led to thousands of unnecessary deaths.
10. Gwyneth Paltrow (Goop)
While Paltrow is an actress, her lifestyle brand Goop has become a central hub for “luxury” alternative medicine, selling items like “Jade Eggs” for vaginal health and “Body Vibes” stickers.
-
Why labeled a charlatan: Goop has been forced to pay settlements for making unsubstantiated medical claims. Critics argue the brand uses “wellness” as a shield to sell pseudo-scientific products to wealthy, health-conscious consumers.
____________________
I have to say, this list disappoints me: hardly any of the above individuals would have appeared on my personal list of the 10 biggest charlatans!
Will I disclose my personal list?
No, I don’t think so.
Easter is the time to surprise our fellow humans, preferably with something nice. One does not need to be a clairvoyant to predict that many of us will use chocolate for this purpose. Overindulgence in chocolate is therefore not a rare event today.
How bad is that for your health?
Chocolate has both potential benefits and risks for our wellbeing. What makes the difference between good and bad are:
- the type (dark vs. milk/white),
- the quantity,
- individual health factors.
Its high (cocoa >70%) content antioxidants may improve heart health by lowering blood pressure, enhancing blood flow, and reducing LDL cholesterol oxidation. Some studies link moderate intake of dark chokolate (e.g., 20-45g weekly) to lower cardiovascular disease risk, better cognitive function, and mood boosts via endorphins and theobromine. It might also aid insulin sensitivity and reduce stroke risk in observational data. Some studies suggest small amounts (e.g., 30g daily of 70%+ cocoa) may reduce depressive symptoms by 50-70% compared to non-chocolate-eaters, via compounds like phenylethylamine, theobromine, and serotonin precursors that boost endorphins and calm inflammation. But, be warned: the evidence is promising but not definitive; large trials show inconsistent results, and overeating negates perks via weight gain.
Its high calorie, sugar and fat content promote weight gain, obesity, and tooth decay. Regular consumption can trigger migraines in sensitive people due to tyramine and phenylethylamine, and may weaken bone density over time. Multiple studies link chocolate consumption to increased acne lesions, especially in young adults. One study found men eating chocolate capsules developed more comedones, papules, and pustules within days, with dose-dependent effects. Mechanisms include sugar-induced insulin spikes boosting sebum, cocoa’s promotion of inflammation (e.g., IL-1β) and corneocyte desquamation, plus bacterial colonization on skin surfaces.
The conclusion, I guess, is that our habit of stuffing ourselves with chocolate over Easter is not altogether healthy, particularly if we consider that Easter eggs are often filled with the worst type. Yet it might still be healthier than what they do in Papua New Guinea.
In this country, “Easter tobacco trees” replace chocolate eggs, unsuited to the tropical climate, with trees or branches adorned by tobacco sticks and cigarette packets as communal offerings. The churches erect these “Easter tobacco trees” for Easter Sunday services. Congregants then decorate the trees with tobacco products before distributing them post-service as gifts or “treats,” akin to egg hunts elsewhere. Feasts of leftovers follow, blending Christian ritual with cultural adaptation.
Personally, I must say that I prefer chocolate overindulgence to proven carcinogens.
As well as making such unsubstantiated claims, Meduņecka failed to mention that she was being paid to promote them. “After PTAC’s repeated invitations to perform voluntary actions, the person has not taken measures to ensure that the commercial practices implemented by themselves comply with the requirements of regulatory acts. At the same time, the person has not cooperated with the institution in the administrative process,” PTAC noted. Therefore, the PTAC concluded that the violation was significant, especially taking into account Meduņecka’s status as the owner and true beneficiary of a company called SIA “Smartlife”.
“When assessing the offense committed by the individual, PTAC has taken into account the offense’s scope, nature, duration, impact on the legal interests of consumers (especially vulnerable groups of society – children and their parents, people with oncological diseases), the role of the person in the violation and the circumstances of the violation analyzed in the decision,” PTAC said.
______________________
There have, of course, been several other cases where “influencers” or wellness personalities were sanctioned for false or unsubstantiated health claims, especially when they also failed to disclose paid promotion, e.g.:
- Belle Gibson (Australia) was fined A$410,000 after falsely claiming she had cured brain cancer through diet and alternative therapies, a case that became one of the best-known influencer health fraud stories.
- Teami (US) was targeted by the FTC in a settlement over detox tea promotion: the company used influencers who made false health claims and failed to disclose their paid relationship, and the settlement included a $1 million payment.
- France’s DGCCRF has cracked down on influencers promoting supplements and “health” products with misleading claims; the watchdog said false claims and concealed advertising can lead to fines of up to €300,000 and prison terms in serious cases.
- Turkey’s Advertising Board has fined influencers for supplement promotions that implied medical or health benefits without authorization, including cases where the posts suggested stress, anxiety, or insomnia relief.
- UK: the ASA has repeatedly sanctioned influencers for misleading health or weight-loss claims, including a 2024 ruling involving Katie Price and The Skinny Food Co.
The recurring issues are usually:
- false or unsubstantiated health claims,
- disguised advertising, and promotion of products,
- targeting vulnerable audiences such as people with serious illnesses or parents of children.
The above cases are laudable; yet they are extremely rare exceptions. In view of the plethora of false health claims made by “influencers” and considering the risks of such activities, these pubishments are far too seldom. If you ask me, the authorities should be adequately staffed to persue each case swiftly and punishments should such that they can act as an effective deterrant.
So, why do our governments not get their acts together? Surely, this cannot be a question of money, as the fines would even bring in a tidy profit! Could it be that the “wellness industry” is rich and influential enough to prevent large-scale punitive actions? Could it be that our governments do not appreciate the damage false health claims cause to people’s finances and health? Or could it be that they simply don’t care?
We all know, I think, what homeopaths say about homeopathy. We also know what everyone else says about it. And the two set of opinions could not be more different. In this context, it might be interesting to learn what writers have to say about the subject. Here is a list of quotes from the non-medical, non-scientific literature (I am sure there are many more; if you know some, please let me know):
Boyd, W. (Restless, 2006)
“She had a small leather case of homeopathy remedies, Nux Vomica, Pulsatilla, Arnica, that she treated like a traveling reliquary.”
Coetzee, J.M. (Elizabeth Costello, 2003)
“He is a believer in homeopathy, in the healing power of water, in the memory of water. He is a man of the eighteenth century, really.”
Cunningham, M. (The Hours, 1998)
“She has tried everything: homeopathy, psychotherapy, prayer. She is a woman who lives in the hope of a miraculous adjustment.”
Enright, A. (The Gathering, 2007)
“My mother had a great belief in homeopathy, which is just a way of saying she had a great belief in nothing at all, provided it came in a very small bottle.”
Franzen, J. (The Corrections, 2001)
“Enid was deep into a phase of homeopathy, convinced that a decillionth of a gram of honeybee sting would cure her husband’s tremors.”
Márquez G.G. (“Serenade: How My Father Won My Mother”, 2001)
“…devoted his talent as an autodidact to a science on the decline: homeopathy.”
Hustvedt, S. (The Blazing World, 2014)
“He was the kind of man who treated his neuroses with homeopathy and his physical ailments with intense, silent resentment.”
McEwan, I. (Solar, 2010)
“He had no time for homeopathy, which he considered a form of witchcraft for people who were too polite to carry crystal wands.”
O’Farrell, M. (Instructions for a Heatwave, 2013)
“She kept a kit of homeopathy in her bag, tiny glass vials of white pills that looked like the breath of ghosts.”
Self, W. (How the Dead Live, 2000)
“Lily’s faith in homeopathy was such that she believed if she diluted her own death enough, she might eventually become immortal.”
St. Aubyn, E. (At Last, 2011)
“He had reached that stage of desperation where even homeopathy seemed like a robust and evidence-based option.”
H.G. Wells (Tono-Bungay, 1909)
“By the time my uncle had taken to homeopathy, I realized that his faith in science was of a very elastic kind.”
George Bernard Shaw (Preface to The Doctor’s Dilemma, 1906)
“I have a faith in homeopathy that would make a Harley Street physician shudder, though I suspect it rests less on evidence than on temperament.”
Thomas Mann (The Magic Mountain, 1924)
“He spoke of homeopathy with a curious mixture of irony and conviction, as though the less there was of it, the more there must be.”
Aldous Huxley (Eyeless in Gaza, 1936)
“She placed her trust in homeopathy, preferring infinitesimal certainties to the gross invasions of modern medicine.”
Doris Lessing (The Golden Notebook, 1962)
“She was experimenting with diets and homeopathy, as if the body might be coaxed into sanity by gentler means.”
Margaret Atwood (Cat’s Eye, 1988)
“My mother believed in homeopathy, in small doses and invisible forces, which seemed to me another way of saying she believed in hope.”
Zadie Smith (White Teeth, 2000)
“He dabbled in homeopathy, convinced that the less substance there was, the more profound the cure.”
David Lodge (Therapy, 1995)
“I tried homeopathy for a while, but it seemed to require a belief in something so small it might not exist at all.”
Hilary Mantel (Giving Up the Ghost, 2003)
“Homeopathy offered the promise of healing without intrusion, a whisper of cure rather than a command.”
Martin Amis (The Information, 1995)
“He regarded homeopathy as a joke that had somehow outlived the punchline.”
______________________
It seems to me that, when it comes to homeopathy, the writers tend to agree with the scientists.
If there’s one thing Robert F. Kennedy Jr. knows how to do, it’s to turn public health into performance art. This year’s most expensive commercial—airing during Super Bowl LX—wasn’t about cars, beer, or even crypto. It was about butter. And beef tallow. The ad, titled “The Fight of My Life,” showed a misty‑eyed Mike Tyson reminiscing about his sister’s death, his own struggles with junk food, and his new “fight” for America’s health. Then came the punchline: “Processed Food Kills.” As the tear streaks dried, the nation was directed to Realfood.gov, the Kennedy‑backed campaign for dietary redemption.
It may have looked like a public‑service announcement but, in truth, it was a $10 million morality play written by the Make America Healthy Again Center, a nonprofit fundraising off the idea that kale and ketosis can save civilization. Tyson might have been in black‑and‑white, but Kennedy’s fingerprints—messianic, conspiratorial, and slightly greasy with butterfat—were everywhere.
The Realfood.gov guidelines mark Kennedy’s biggest policy move yet: an official endorsement of meat, lard, and “ancestral eating.” The new pyramid, or as Kennedy calls it “the Flipped Pyramid,” positions steak above grains—literally and figuratively. Sugar is treated like a biological weapon, while “seed oils” are branded the new nicotine. It’s a nutrition plan designed for the modern age—if the modern age were 1826. The rhetoric of “real food” has a populist ring, but the science behind it is as wobbly as a gelatin mold. Nowhere are there meaningful public‑health solutions for Americans who can’t afford grass‑fed ribeye or artisanal butter.
Then came the twist only 2026 could deliver: Kennedy’s nutrition crusade teamed up with Elon Musk’s AI, Grok, to help Americans “get real answers about real food.” What could possibly go wrong? Plenty, it turns out! Within days, Grok was trending for explaining which vegetables are safest for “alternative use,” prompting Musk to tweet that “vegetables are best enjoyed orally.” The government quietly deleted Grok’s name, a digital walk of shame across cyberspace. It was the perfect metaphor for Kennedy’s health vision: self‑righteous, tech‑obsessed, and totally incapable of predicting the obvious glitch.
When critics pointed out that 70% of the American food supply is ultra‑processed because people can’t afford fresh alternatives, Kennedy’s defenders shouted “Big Food propaganda.” When nutrition experts questioned the pseudoscientific obsession with “ancestral fats,” they were accused of suppressing the truth. The result is a movement that treats dietary policy like a crusade, replacing science with sanctimony and public health with personality cult. Kennedy isn’t reforming nutrition—he’s branding it.
In the end, the MAHA campaign isn’t really about saving Americans from junk food. It’s about saving Robert F. Kennedy Jr. from irrelevance. By mixing Super Bowl spectacle, Silicon Valley tech, and nostalgia for the “real food” of an imagined past, Kennedy has served up his own special dish: a reheated and stale serving of populist showmanship seasoned with pseudoscience and self‑importance.
On this blog, some people insist that homeopathy goes from strength to strength. Here I counter this notion by pointing out that several contries have stopped reimbursing homeopathy and that loss of trust in homeopathy has grown significantly.
Several converging factors explain the erosion of confidence:
- Lack of evidence of effectiveness: Large reviews by national and international bodies (for example the Australian NHMRC and the European Academies’ Science Advisory Council) concluded there is no reliable evidence that homeopathic remedies are effective for any health condition beyond placebo.
- Scientific implausibility: Homeopathy’s principles (high dilutions, “water memory”) conflict with established chemistry and physics, which weakens its credibility among scientists and the informed publics.
- Placebo and expectation effects: Empirical work suggests any benefits are best explained by non-sepecific effects such as placebo responses, contextual care, and patient expectations rather than pharmacological action of the remedies.
- Health literacy: Studies indicate that higher health literacy is associated with greater perceived credibility of conventional medicine and relatively lower credibility of homeopathy, which means better-informed patients tend to trust it less.
- Safety and opportunity costs: Critics emphasize that relying on ineffective remedies can delay effective treatment, prolong illness, and in some cases contribute to preventable harm or death.
A range of actors has shaped this loss of trust:
- Scientific bodies and advisory councils: Organizations such as the NHMRC in Australia and EASAC in Europe have issued high‑profile reports stating that homeopathy lacks robust evidence of efficacy and should not be claimed to treat health conditions.
- National health systems and regulators: NHS England, for instance, has advised against prescribing homeopathy, describing it as unsafe or ineffective where better, cost‑effective options exist, and warning that giving it institutional endorsement risks misleading patients.
- Skeptical and consumer‑protection movements: Skeptics’ groups and consumer advocates have campaigned against public funding of homeopathy and organized public “overdose” demonstrations to highlight the extreme dilutions and question the idea that the products contain active ingredients.
- Critical scientists and physicians: Numerous clinicians and researchers have published analyses arguing that homeopathy violates basic scientific and ethical principles, has no explanatory power, and undermines science‑based medicine.
The loss of trust has produced several consequences across healthcare systems and societies:
- Several public health systems have reduced or eliminated reimbursement and institutional support for homeopathy, reallocating funds towards treatments backed by compelleing evidence.
- Market contraction and repositioning: Declining official endorsement and critical media coverage have contributed to shrinking markets in some countries.
- Manufacturers and practitioners increasingly market homeopathy as “wellness” or “complementary” rather than curative medicine, a notion that would make Hahnemann turn in his grave.
- Homeopathy has become a touchstone in broader debates about scientific literacy, misinformation, and the role of the state in regulating ineffective therapies.
Taken together, these dynamics show how rigorous research, scientific critique, regulatory action, and changing public expectations will gradually strip a once‑popular therapy of its medical legitimacy. Or, to put it bluntly: in medicine, evidence will aways win against belief, even if it takes several decades.
