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Influencers Sell Wellness Products in Response to Los Angeles Fires

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Influencers Sell Wellness Products in Response to Los Angeles Fires

This story originally appeared in Mother Jones and is part of Climatic desk collaboration.

As wildfires continue to burn across Los Angeles, influencers have emerged to promote the sale of their own very specific solutions to the crisis. With smoke filling the air in many neighborhoods, the wellness machine has sprung into action, promoting tinctures, detox products, essential oils, parasite cleanses, and even raw milk as “treatments” for their effects.

The fires began in earnest on Tuesday, January 7. On Thursday, two days later, Mallory DeMille, correspondent for the Conspirituality podcast, says he noticed an “immediate influx” of people promoting products on Instagram and TikTok trying to link them to the fires. The situation, DeMille says, is “heartbreaking and really irresponsible.”

in a recent instagram videoDeMille described the ways in which wellness influencers are, as she put it, “trying to capitalize” on the wildfires and their potential negative health effects. Many focus on the impact of wildfire smoke on people’s lungs and suggest possible “treatments,” including supplements, powders and essential oils, along with frequently cited “detox” tools, such as drinking apple cider vinegar. or take activated charcoal.

While activated charcoal is used in emergency situations to mitigate ingested poisons, there is no evidence that it can “detoxify” the lungs or any other part of the body. It can also decrease the effectiveness of the medication. In general, the organs of the body do not need be “detoxified” or “supported” with supplements, some of which can cause additional damage.

One particularly passionate detox influencer, Ginger DeClue, who offers online detox seminars and describes herself as a “master healer,” suggested on Instagram that Los Angeles deserved its fate. “Everything that’s burning needs to burn,” he said in a video post promoting the idea that the city is plagued by toxic mold.

“Los Angeles has been a den of evil, SA (sexual assault) and child abuse, moldy and expensive apartments and buildings, no HVAC maintenance. Shitty shop fronts and WEIRD hollies since the 1920s.” she wrote. “God does not like the ugly, in the span of one night he promises to destroy evil: but to RESTORE the RIGHTEOUS.”

Some of the advice promoted by influencers and doctors using social media includes common sense, low-risk strategies that public health departments also recommend: using an air purifier at home, a saline nasal spray to help with irritation and congestion, and wearing high-quality clothing. quality outdoor masks.

But many are promoting products they have financial incentives to recommend, DeMille says, offering discount codes for products they were already selling before the fires. “How do you know you can trust them with your health and well-being,” he asks, “if they are financially motivated to sell products and services?”

What is happening with the bushfires is similar to the false cures and “detoxes” that have been offered during the Covid pandemic. essential oils have been promoted as “immune support” for people trying to prevent Covid, and a host of evidence-free products have emerged for people who want to “detox” from the effects of Covid vaccines or be around people who have been vaccinated . (Vaccine detox was promoted by some in the alternative wellness world even before Covid.)

“Wellness influencers always capitalize on tragedies,” DeMille notes, “but they’re usually personal tragedies” — for example, telling sick people to try their products while they’re undergoing cancer treatments or chronic illnesses.

“Taking advantage of a community tragedy is not such a long road,” he adds.

As climate disasters continue to occur with greater frequency (and the world faces a potential new pandemic in the form of bird flu), business looks extremely good for well-being influencers who are experts at turning diseases and disasters into hooks. of marketing.

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