Czelazewicz is just one of many affiliates selling Pure Body Extra online, including Larry Cook, one of the best-known American anti-vaccine influencers. Cook and his Stop Mandatory Vaccination group were launched from Facebook in 2020, but only after having amassed around 200,000 followers. Today, Cook sells Pure Body Extra as a cure for autism through his Detox for Autism website.
Pure Body Extra is manufactured by a company called Touchstone Essentials, founded in 2012 by Eddie Stone and based in Raleigh, North Carolina.
The company sells a variety of other health and wellness products. On the Pure Body Extra product page on the Touchstone Essentials website, the company says the product is safe “for all ages,” and in a section called “science,” the company claims the product’s “ability to capture toxins, heavy metals and environmental contaminants are demonstrated by more than 300 studies documented in PubMed.”
However, when WIRED analyzed the 300 studies, it turned out that many were non-human trials, including numerous animal tests. In fact, over the course of the last 10 years, only seven medical trials have been conducted in humans with clinoptilolite, the particular type of zeolite used in PBX, all of them in adults and some of which did not concern detoxification. .
“This is a broader trope in alternative health where (anti-vaxxers) criticize the medical establishment, saying that they don’t have your best interests at heart and that you can’t trust ordinary doctors or ordinary medical science, but They love to “select studies that seem to show favorable results for one of the cures they offer,” says Calum Hood, head of research at the Center for Countering Digital Hate. “Then they’re misapplying that science to try to sell people on the idea that a little zeolite will cure their child’s autism.”
When asked to provide evidence that clinoptilolite was safe for use in children, Touchstone Essentials did not respond, but Sonia O’Farrell, the company’s director of marketing, told WIRED that the company “does not claim that Pure Body Extra (PBX) can cure or treat autism or any medical condition. Pure Body Extra is a dietary supplement containing natural zeolite to support the body’s detoxification systems. By definition, dietary supplements cannot claim to treat, cure, diagnose, or prevent any disease.”
O’Farrell added that the company does not endorse anyone who sells its products or how they promote them. “Upon becoming aware that an Affiliate makes a medical claim, our compliance team will advise the Affiliate to remove such material,” added O’Farrell.
A statement written in small text at the bottom of the Touchstone Essentials website reads: “These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. Our products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.”
The FDA did not respond to a request for comment on how Pure Body Extra is promoted online.
