This story originally appeared in Mother Jones and is part of the Climate Desk collaboration. As wildfires continue to burn across Los Angeles, influencers are emerging to promote sales of their own solutions specific to the crisis. With smoke filling the air in many neighborhoods, the health machine is already in full swing, promoting tinctures, detox products, essential oils, parasite cleansers, and even raw milk as “cures” for the effects. 7. On Thursday, two days later, Mallory DeMille, a correspondent for the podcast Conspirituality, said that she recorded a “live army” of people promoting products on Instagram and TikTok trying to tie them to the fire. The situation, DeMille said, was “heartbreaking and completely irresponsible.” “How can you trust that they are financially motivated to sell products and services?” Mallory DeMille, cohost of the Conspirituality podcast In a recent Instagram video, DeMille outlined how health influencers, as she puts it, “try to amplify” wildfires and their potential negative health effects. Many focus on the impact of wildfire smoke on people’s lungs, and suggest potential “treatments,” including supplements, powders, and essential oils, in addition to often-called “detox” tools such as drinking apple cider vinegar or taking activated charcoal. used in an emergency setting to reduce ingested toxins, there is no evidence that it can “detox” the lungs or other parts of the body. It can also reduce the effectiveness of medication. In general, the organs of the body do not need to be “detoxified” or “supported” with supplements, some of which can cause additional harm. suggested on Instagram that Los Angeles deserves its fate. “Everything that burns must be burned,” he said in a video post that pushed the idea that the city was suffused with poisonous mushrooms. “Los Angeles is a den of evil, SA [sexual assault] and child abuse, moldy overpriced apartments and buildings, without HVAC maintenance. In front of crappy and hollyWEIRD stores since 1920,” he wrote. “God does not like evil overnight, he promises to destroy evil: but RESTORE the righteous.” Some advice provided by influencers and doctors who use social media include common sense strategies healthy and low-risk that the public health department also recommends: using air purifiers at home, saline nasal sprays to help with irritation and congestion, and wearing high-quality masks outside. But many are promoting products that have a financial incentive to recommend, says DeMille, offering discount codes for products that have been sold before the fire. ?” What happened to the wildfires is similar to the fake medicine and “detox” that has. offered during the Covid pandemic. Essential oils have been promoted as “immune support” for people trying to prevent Covid, and many products without much evidence have appeared for people who want to “detox” from the effects of the Covid vaccine or to be close to someone who has been sick. vaccinated. (Vaccine detox was promoted by some in the health world even before Covid.) “Health influencers always use tragedy,” DeMille says, “but mostly personal tragedy” – he says, telling sick people to try his products. when undergoing treatment for cancer or chronic illness. often—and the world is facing a new potential pandemic in the form of bird flu—businesses seem particularly good at health influencers who are adept at turning disease and disaster into marketing hooks.
