Latest news with #TheWellnessCompany
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Health
- Yahoo
The anti-vaxxer behind the Meghan McCain-endorsed Covid shot ‘detox'
Meghan McCain, the daughter of the late Sen. John McCain and a former co-host of 'The View,' has come under fire for teaming up with the supplements company of a prominent anti-vax doctor that sells a Covid-19 vaccine 'detox.' In several posts on X, some of which have been deleted, McCain — who previously criticized pop star Nicki Minaj for promoting vaccine hesitancy — announced the partnership, promoted the supplements and took aim at the mRNA jabs, demanding they be pulled off the market. 'If you regret taking the shot, there's hope,' McCain wrote. 'Dr. Peter McCullough's all-natural Ultimate Spike Detox is helping people worldwide. Use code MCCAIN for 10% off + FREE shipping on all orders,' she wrote in a now-deleted post. It's unclear exactly what McCain has to offer to a supplements company beyond her Republican pedigree that has bought her a media presence — but that is probably enough. The Wellness Company, which has also paid Donald Trump Jr. for promotion of its emergency medical kit, which includes the antiparasitic drug ivermectin, is an anti-vaccine moneymaking venture from Foster Coulson. Its chief scientific officer is former cardiologist Peter McCullough — who is infamous for peddling misinformation and conspiracy theories about the Covid-19 vaccines and for pushing unproven 'early treatments' for the disease like the antimalarial drug hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin. He has become popular with the audiences of 'The Joe Rogan Experience' and other like-minded podcasts, and his supposed expertise has been cited repeatedly in efforts to discredit the Covid vaccines. (MSNBC reached out to McCain and McCullough for comment, but received no response.) The company's 'Ultimate Spike Detox,' billed as an 'extra-strength formula…the only one designed and used by Dr. Peter McCullough, the world's leading pandemic expert and developer of the McCullough Base Spike Detoxification Protocol,' is available for $89.99. Like other supplements, of course, the detox is not approved by the FDA for safety and efficacy. There is also evidence that it does not work — unlike the mRNA vaccines, which have prevented millions of hospitalizations and deaths and offer protection against long Covid. The Wellness Company is part of a burgeoning wellness industry that has exploded in recent years since the pandemic. The U.S. dietary supplements industry alone, which represents just a fraction of this larger sector, has an estimated value of around $60 billion currently and is projected to grow to nearly $80 billion in the next five years, according to the National Sanitation Foundation, which certifies supplements. Fostering this growth is the fact that it is also largely unregulated. Perhaps that fact helps explain the growing alignment between wellness influencers and the business-aligned political right, embodied most prominently in the so-called 'Make America Healthy Again' movement launched by anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist turned Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. For McCullough, supplements are the perfect game, allowing him to profit off of the vaccine fear he has encouraged for years now. Before the pandemic, the Texas-based cardiologist held senior positions at Baylor University Medical Center and Texas A&M University. The Covid pandemic changed the incentives. With widespread confusion and fear, there was a huge market for information — and misinformation. Mainstream doctors were a dime a dozen. Contrarians and fringe voices, however, could readily get attention from media — and alternative media — leveraging their credentials to build their brands and capture sizable audiences. Much of this attention came from the political right as right-wing groups and politicians were working to restore economic normalcy quickly and without burdensome new restrictions on business. McCullough was already no stranger to controversy, having served as the editor of a cardiac journal that came under fire for publishing articles plagued by conflicts of interest. He latched onto hydroxychloroquine in 2020, which Donald Trump had called a 'miracle cure' in March of that year, encouraging its use outside of clinical trials. 'My own conclusion from a review of the literature is that HCQ has not failed the randomized trials, but researchers have failed HCQ,' he wrote in an August 2020 op-ed for The Hill titled, 'Why doctors and researchers need access to hydroxychloroquine.' McCullough's name also appears in a 2022 House report detailing a pressure campaign by Trump allies in the summer of 2020 against the Food and Drug Administration over its revocation of the drug's emergency use authorization. The FDA granted the EUA in March 2020 after Donald Trump's public endorsement — an apparent quick fix to the public health crisis hanging over his re-election bid. The FDA's decision to restrict use of the drug, following a large-scale study in June 2020 showing that the drug was ineffective against Covid, rankled the president's allies. That November, after hydroxychloroquine's efficacy as a Covid treatment had been thoroughly discredited through repeat study, McCullough testified at a Senate hearing organized by Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., on Covid 'outpatient treatments' where he promoted the drug. Three months later, in early 2021, Baylor Scott & White Health and McCullough entered into a confidential separation agreement. Several months after that, the Baylor health care system took out a temporary restraining order against the doctor for continuing to claim affiliation with the institution while spreading misinformation about vaccines and the pandemic. At the time, McCullough's attorney said that the affiliations were 'said/printed by a third party with no encouragement from Dr. McCullough,' who 'does not and cannot control third parties.' Around the time of the Baylor suit, Texas A&M cut ties with him, and another medical school removed him from its faculty page as well. Their reasons were not reported at the time. Earlier this year, it was reported that McCullough's board certifications were finally revoked by the American Board of Internal Medicine, which told MedPage Today that it 'doesn't comment on individual physicians.' But professional disgrace has done little to damage to McCullough, whose enterprises not only include his supplements business, but a nonprofit as well. The McCullough Foundation brought in $660,000 in 2023, according to public records. Although he did not take a salary from the group, it promotes his anti-vax work. Key to his success has been consistent amplification by right-wing allies. A December 2021 interview with podcast host Joe Rogan blasted McCullough into the MAGA media stratosphere — and he's still a recurring guest on Fox News and a feted speaker at numerous MAGA events. He has also found willing collaborators in various dark money groups like the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons and the anti-vaccine Unity Project. Just recently, Johnson brought McCullough back to testify at a Senate hearing about an alleged cover-up of vaccine harms. Now, even Meghan McCain is hopping on board, lending her ostensibly 'moderate' conservative celebrity to a lucrative business model. It all signals one thing: Anti-vax activism is now the mainstream Republican position. This article was originally published on
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Health
- Yahoo
A ‘detox' after Covid vaccination? Experts say it's nonsense
Podcast host Meghan McCain, the former co-host of 'The View,' made headlines when she posted to social media recently in support of a 'detox' supplement to be taken after Covid-19 vaccination or infection. The 'detox' supplement McCain touted costs $89.99 and is one of several versions sold online. It make claims about its ability to 'break down spike protein and disrupt its function' and provide 'your body with unparalleled support for cellular defense and detoxification.' Vaccine experts say such claims are nonsense. 'There's nothing to detox from, because the vaccines themselves are not toxins,' said Dr. Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization at the University of Saskatchewan. 'They're not toxic and they're not harmful.' McCain's X post about the supplement has been deleted, but McCain's personalized discount code continued to work on the website of the supplement maker, The Wellness Company. Neither McCain's representatives nor The Wellness Company responded to a request for comment. McCain also posted this week about 'concerning data' about mRNA vaccines and said friends had experienced health problems after getting the Covid-19 shot. As part of the post, she shared a video that suggested material in the vaccines could stick around long-term and change a person's genome. Vaccine experts say that just isn't true. The messenger RNA in Covid-19 vaccines instructs cells in the body to make a certain piece of the virus' spike protein — the structure on the surface of the coronavirus. The mRNA vaccine is like a blueprint that the body uses to train the immune system to recognize the virus that causes Covid and protect against it, said Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious disease expert at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. 'MRNA is only in there in minute amounts,' Schaffner said. 'The spike protein is metabolized. It's broken up by our own body very, very quickly. So it's not in a position to disseminate or be distributed throughout the body requiring some sort of 'detoxification.' 'It's simply not scientifically a valid concept.' Since mRNA is so short-lived, vaccine makers do make a modification that allows it to stick around a little longer than it would otherwise, Rasmussen said. 'But mRNA, even modified mRNA like in these vaccines, does not stay around forever,' Rasmussen said. 'It's still not a very stable molecule.' Rasmussen said she has also read that some believe the lipid nanoparticle used to get the mRNA into the cells lingers and is toxic. The lipid nanoparticle, Rasmussen said, 'also don't stick around forever.' She said they get broken down at about the same rate the mRNA does, 'or even maybe a little before.' Schaffner believes maybe some of the language scientists use to describe how mRNA vaccines work may be unhelpful. 'I wonder if the very name of the protein, this 'spike protein' just makes people uneasy,' Schaffner said. If scientists called it something like the 'key protein' — since it's like a key that goes into a lock in the cell, which enables the protein to get inside 'and then do its good work' — that 'might not have evoked quite as much anxiety,' Schaffner suggested. Rasmussen believes people would still misconstrue the science regardless, particularly with leaders in the Trump administration who have spent years undermining the safety of vaccines or have a history of promoting dubious supplements. 'A lot of this isn't misinformation, it's really disinformation because people who start this stuff know what they're doing,' Rasmussen said. Dr. Pieter Cohen, an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, says the availability of vaccine 'detox' products speaks to a bigger problem with the way the United States manages dietary supplements. Unlike pharmaceuticals, which must be tested and approved before they go to market and then comply with strict regulations about how they can be marketed, the US Food and Drug Administration doesn't have the authority to approve dietary supplements before they are marketed. Fear or distrust of Covid-19 vaccines is an easy target for supplement makers, Cohen said. 'This is a perfect scenario for supplements to jump in to the rescue,' Cohen said. 'You manufacture a false health concern, and then you have the solution that you can settle with a supplement. It's really a perfect opportunity for supplement manufacturers to profit from. From something that doesn't even exist.' It's hard, he said, to even define what 'detoxing' from a Covid-19 vaccine would mean. 'Are you trying to wash away the effects that boosted immunity against Covid? Is that the goal? I think it's a very vague, moving sort of target,' Cohen said. 'Or is it more that there's some fear that the Covid vaccine causes more harm than the government's letting on. Then the idea is that you sell these supplements to prevent that mystery harm.' 'I think it's a health fear mongering approach and profiting by the fear,' Cohen added. No vaccine is perfect, the experts said, but the risk with the Covid vaccine is extremely small and the problems like a sore arm or a low-grade fever that some of his patients have experienced resolved quickly. 'That's not something that any supplement will help resolve faster,' Cohen said. Research has consistently shown that the mRNA Covid-19 vaccines are safe and effective, and millions of people have gotten them without serious incident. As of May, the FDA required Covid-19 vaccines from Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna to use expanded warning labels with more information about the risk of a rare heart condition after vaccination. Some studies have found that Covid-19 infection itself carries a higher risk of myocarditis or pericarditis than vaccination. Schaffner said if there were true problems with any of the Covid vaccines, the country's surveillance system would have caught it by now. That's what happened with the Johnson & Johnson Covid-19 vaccine: Surveillance identified a rare risk of a severe blood clotting syndrome, particularly among some women. The vaccine is no longer in use. 'The system works,' Schaffner said. 'These mRNA vaccines are safe, and that's been seen in millions and millions of patients.' What may be even more dangerous, experts say, is the disinformation surrounding vaccines that drives people to want to take a supplement to detox from them in the first place. 'This is a much bigger problem,' Rasmussen said. 'It's important to smack this disinformation down where we can. It's morally wrong and reprehensible.'
CNN
3 days ago
- Health
- CNN
A ‘detox' after Covid vaccination? Experts say it's nonsense
Podcast host Meghan McCain, the former co-host of 'The View,' made headlines when she posted to social media recently in support of a 'detox' supplement to be taken after Covid-19 vaccination or infection. The 'detox' supplement McCain touted costs $89.99 and is one of several versions sold online. It make claims about its ability to 'break down spike protein and disrupt its function' and provide 'your body with unparalleled support for cellular defense and detoxification.' Vaccine experts say such claims are nonsense. 'There's nothing to detox from, because the vaccines themselves are not toxins,' said Dr. Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization at the University of Saskatchewan. 'They're not toxic and they're not harmful.' McCain's X post about the supplement has been deleted, but McCain's personalized discount code continued to work on the website of the supplement maker, The Wellness Company. Neither McCain's representatives nor The Wellness Company responded to a request for comment. McCain also posted this week about 'concerning data' about mRNA vaccines and said friends had experienced health problems after getting the Covid-19 shot. As part of the post, she shared a video that suggested material in the vaccines could stick around long-term and change a person's genome. Vaccine experts say that just isn't true. The messenger RNA in Covid-19 vaccines instructs cells in the body to make a certain piece of the virus' spike protein — the structure on the surface of the coronavirus. The mRNA vaccine is like a blueprint that the body uses to train the immune system to recognize the virus that causes Covid and protect against it, said Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious disease expert at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. 'MRNA is only in there in minute amounts,' Schaffner said. 'The spike protein is metabolized. It's broken up by our own body very, very quickly. So it's not in a position to disseminate or be distributed throughout the body requiring some sort of 'detoxification.' 'It's simply not scientifically a valid concept.' Since mRNA is so short-lived, vaccine makers do make a modification that allows it to stick around a little longer than it would otherwise, Rasmussen said. 'But mRNA, even modified mRNA like in these vaccines, does not stay around forever,' Rasmussen said. 'It's still not a very stable molecule.' Rasmussen said she has also read that some believe the lipid nanoparticle used to get the mRNA into the cells lingers and is toxic. The lipid nanoparticle, Rasmussen said, 'also don't stick around forever.' She said they get broken down at about the same rate the mRNA does, 'or even maybe a little before.' Schaffner believes maybe some of the language scientists use to describe how mRNA vaccines work may be unhelpful. 'I wonder if the very name of the protein, this 'spike protein' just makes people uneasy,' Schaffner said. If scientists called it something like the 'key protein' — since it's like a key that goes into a lock in the cell, which enables the protein to get inside 'and then do its good work' — that 'might not have evoked quite as much anxiety,' Schaffner suggested. Rasmussen believes people would still misconstrue the science regardless, particularly with leaders in the Trump administration who have spent years undermining the safety of vaccines or have a history of promoting dubious supplements. 'A lot of this isn't misinformation, it's really disinformation because people who start this stuff know what they're doing,' Rasmussen said. Dr. Pieter Cohen, an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, says the availability of vaccine 'detox' products speaks to a bigger problem with the way the United States manages dietary supplements. Unlike pharmaceuticals, which must be tested and approved before they go to market and then comply with strict regulations about how they can be marketed, the US Food and Drug Administration doesn't have the authority to approve dietary supplements before they are marketed. Fear or distrust of Covid-19 vaccines is an easy target for supplement makers, Cohen said. 'This is a perfect scenario for supplements to jump in to the rescue,' Cohen said. 'You manufacture a false health concern, and then you have the solution that you can settle with a supplement. It's really a perfect opportunity for supplement manufacturers to profit from. From something that doesn't even exist.' It's hard, he said, to even define what 'detoxing' from a Covid-19 vaccine would mean. 'Are you trying to wash away the effects that boosted immunity against Covid? Is that the goal? I think it's a very vague, moving sort of target,' Cohen said. 'Or is it more that there's some fear that the Covid vaccine causes more harm than the government's letting on. Then the idea is that you sell these supplements to prevent that mystery harm.' 'I think it's a health fear mongering approach and profiting by the fear,' Cohen added. No vaccine is perfect, the experts said, but the risk with the Covid vaccine is extremely small and the problems like a sore arm or a low-grade fever that some of his patients have experienced resolved quickly. 'That's not something that any supplement will help resolve faster,' Cohen said. Research has consistently shown that the mRNA Covid-19 vaccines are safe and effective, and millions of people have gotten them without serious incident. As of May, the FDA required Covid-19 vaccines from Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna to use expanded warning labels with more information about the risk of a rare heart condition after vaccination. Some studies have found that Covid-19 infection itself carries a higher risk of myocarditis or pericarditis than vaccination. Schaffner said if there were true problems with any of the Covid vaccines, the country's surveillance system would have caught it by now. That's what happened with the Johnson & Johnson Covid-19 vaccine: Surveillance identified a rare risk of a severe blood clotting syndrome, particularly among some women. The vaccine is no longer in use. 'The system works,' Schaffner said. 'These mRNA vaccines are safe, and that's been seen in millions and millions of patients.' What may be even more dangerous, experts say, is the disinformation surrounding vaccines that drives people to want to take a supplement to detox from them in the first place. 'This is a much bigger problem,' Rasmussen said. 'It's important to smack this disinformation down where we can. It's morally wrong and reprehensible.'
CNN
3 days ago
- Health
- CNN
A ‘detox' after Covid vaccination? Experts say it's nonsense
Podcast host Meghan McCain, the former co-host of 'The View,' made headlines when she posted to social media recently in support of a 'detox' supplement to be taken after Covid-19 vaccination or infection. The 'detox' supplement McCain touted costs $89.99 and is one of several versions sold online. It make claims about its ability to 'break down spike protein and disrupt its function' and provide 'your body with unparalleled support for cellular defense and detoxification.' Vaccine experts say such claims are nonsense. 'There's nothing to detox from, because the vaccines themselves are not toxins,' said Dr. Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization at the University of Saskatchewan. 'They're not toxic and they're not harmful.' McCain's X post about the supplement has been deleted, but McCain's personalized discount code continued to work on the website of the supplement maker, The Wellness Company. Neither McCain's representatives nor The Wellness Company responded to a request for comment. McCain also posted this week about 'concerning data' about mRNA vaccines and said friends had experienced health problems after getting the Covid-19 shot. As part of the post, she shared a video that suggested material in the vaccines could stick around long-term and change a person's genome. Vaccine experts say that just isn't true. The messenger RNA in Covid-19 vaccines instructs cells in the body to make a certain piece of the virus' spike protein — the structure on the surface of the coronavirus. The mRNA vaccine is like a blueprint that the body uses to train the immune system to recognize the virus that causes Covid and protect against it, said Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious disease expert at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. 'MRNA is only in there in minute amounts,' Schaffner said. 'The spike protein is metabolized. It's broken up by our own body very, very quickly. So it's not in a position to disseminate or be distributed throughout the body requiring some sort of 'detoxification.' 'It's simply not scientifically a valid concept.' Since mRNA is so short-lived, vaccine makers do make a modification that allows it to stick around a little longer than it would otherwise, Rasmussen said. 'But mRNA, even modified mRNA like in these vaccines, does not stay around forever,' Rasmussen said. 'It's still not a very stable molecule.' Rasmussen said she has also read that some believe the lipid nanoparticle used to get the mRNA into the cells lingers and is toxic. The lipid nanoparticle, Rasmussen said, 'also don't stick around forever.' She said they get broken down at about the same rate the mRNA does, 'or even maybe a little before.' Schaffner believes maybe some of the language scientists use to describe how mRNA vaccines work may be unhelpful. 'I wonder if the very name of the protein, this 'spike protein' just makes people uneasy,' Schaffner said. If scientists called it something like the 'key protein' — since it's like a key that goes into a lock in the cell, which enables the protein to get inside 'and then do its good work' — that 'might not have evoked quite as much anxiety,' Schaffner suggested. Rasmussen believes people would still misconstrue the science regardless, particularly with leaders in the Trump administration who have spent years undermining the safety of vaccines or have a history of promoting dubious supplements. 'A lot of this isn't misinformation, it's really disinformation because people who start this stuff know what they're doing,' Rasmussen said. Dr. Pieter Cohen, an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, says the availability of vaccine 'detox' products speaks to a bigger problem with the way the United States manages dietary supplements. Unlike pharmaceuticals, which must be tested and approved before they go to market and then comply with strict regulations about how they can be marketed, the US Food and Drug Administration doesn't have the authority to approve dietary supplements before they are marketed. Fear or distrust of Covid-19 vaccines is an easy target for supplement makers, Cohen said. 'This is a perfect scenario for supplements to jump in to the rescue,' Cohen said. 'You manufacture a false health concern, and then you have the solution that you can settle with a supplement. It's really a perfect opportunity for supplement manufacturers to profit from. From something that doesn't even exist.' It's hard, he said, to even define what 'detoxing' from a Covid-19 vaccine would mean. 'Are you trying to wash away the effects that boosted immunity against Covid? Is that the goal? I think it's a very vague, moving sort of target,' Cohen said. 'Or is it more that there's some fear that the Covid vaccine causes more harm than the government's letting on. Then the idea is that you sell these supplements to prevent that mystery harm.' 'I think it's a health fear mongering approach and profiting by the fear,' Cohen added. No vaccine is perfect, the experts said, but the risk with the Covid vaccine is extremely small and the problems like a sore arm or a low-grade fever that some of his patients have experienced resolved quickly. 'That's not something that any supplement will help resolve faster,' Cohen said. Research has consistently shown that the mRNA Covid-19 vaccines are safe and effective, and millions of people have gotten them without serious incident. As of May, the FDA required Covid-19 vaccines from Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna to use expanded warning labels with more information about the risk of a rare heart condition after vaccination. Some studies have found that Covid-19 infection itself carries a higher risk of myocarditis or pericarditis than vaccination. Schaffner said if there were true problems with any of the Covid vaccines, the country's surveillance system would have caught it by now. That's what happened with the Johnson & Johnson Covid-19 vaccine: Surveillance identified a rare risk of a severe blood clotting syndrome, particularly among some women. The vaccine is no longer in use. 'The system works,' Schaffner said. 'These mRNA vaccines are safe, and that's been seen in millions and millions of patients.' What may be even more dangerous, experts say, is the disinformation surrounding vaccines that drives people to want to take a supplement to detox from them in the first place. 'This is a much bigger problem,' Rasmussen said. 'It's important to smack this disinformation down where we can. It's morally wrong and reprehensible.'
CNN
3 days ago
- Health
- CNN
A ‘detox' after Covid vaccination? Experts say it's nonsense
Podcast host Meghan McCain, the former co-host of 'The View,' made headlines when she posted to social media recently in support of a 'detox' supplement to be taken after Covid-19 vaccination or infection. The 'detox' supplement McCain touted costs $89.99 and is one of several versions sold online. It make claims about its ability to 'break down spike protein and disrupt its function' and provide 'your body with unparalleled support for cellular defense and detoxification.' Vaccine experts say such claims are nonsense. 'There's nothing to detox from, because the vaccines themselves are not toxins,' said Dr. Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization at the University of Saskatchewan. 'They're not toxic and they're not harmful.' McCain's X post about the supplement has been deleted, but McCain's personalized discount code continued to work on the website of the supplement maker, The Wellness Company. Neither McCain's representatives nor The Wellness Company responded to a request for comment. McCain also posted this week about 'concerning data' about mRNA vaccines and said friends had experienced health problems after getting the Covid-19 shot. As part of the post, she shared a video that suggested material in the vaccines could stick around long-term and change a person's genome. Vaccine experts say that just isn't true. The messenger RNA in Covid-19 vaccines instructs cells in the body to make a certain piece of the virus' spike protein — the structure on the surface of the coronavirus. The mRNA vaccine is like a blueprint that the body uses to train the immune system to recognize the virus that causes Covid and protect against it, said Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious disease expert at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. 'MRNA is only in there in minute amounts,' Schaffner said. 'The spike protein is metabolized. It's broken up by our own body very, very quickly. So it's not in a position to disseminate or be distributed throughout the body requiring some sort of 'detoxification.' 'It's simply not scientifically a valid concept.' Since mRNA is so short-lived, vaccine makers do make a modification that allows it to stick around a little longer than it would otherwise, Rasmussen said. 'But mRNA, even modified mRNA like in these vaccines, does not stay around forever,' Rasmussen said. 'It's still not a very stable molecule.' Rasmussen said she has also read that some believe the lipid nanoparticle used to get the mRNA into the cells lingers and is toxic. The lipid nanoparticle, Rasmussen said, 'also don't stick around forever.' She said they get broken down at about the same rate the mRNA does, 'or even maybe a little before.' Schaffner believes maybe some of the language scientists use to describe how mRNA vaccines work may be unhelpful. 'I wonder if the very name of the protein, this 'spike protein' just makes people uneasy,' Schaffner said. If scientists called it something like the 'key protein' — since it's like a key that goes into a lock in the cell, which enables the protein to get inside 'and then do its good work' — that 'might not have evoked quite as much anxiety,' Schaffner suggested. Rasmussen believes people would still misconstrue the science regardless, particularly with leaders in the Trump administration who have spent years undermining the safety of vaccines or have a history of promoting dubious supplements. 'A lot of this isn't misinformation, it's really disinformation because people who start this stuff know what they're doing,' Rasmussen said. Dr. Pieter Cohen, an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, says the availability of vaccine 'detox' products speaks to a bigger problem with the way the United States manages dietary supplements. Unlike pharmaceuticals, which must be tested and approved before they go to market and then comply with strict regulations about how they can be marketed, the US Food and Drug Administration doesn't have the authority to approve dietary supplements before they are marketed. Fear or distrust of Covid-19 vaccines is an easy target for supplement makers, Cohen said. 'This is a perfect scenario for supplements to jump in to the rescue,' Cohen said. 'You manufacture a false health concern, and then you have the solution that you can settle with a supplement. It's really a perfect opportunity for supplement manufacturers to profit from. From something that doesn't even exist.' It's hard, he said, to even define what 'detoxing' from a Covid-19 vaccine would mean. 'Are you trying to wash away the effects that boosted immunity against Covid? Is that the goal? I think it's a very vague, moving sort of target,' Cohen said. 'Or is it more that there's some fear that the Covid vaccine causes more harm than the government's letting on. Then the idea is that you sell these supplements to prevent that mystery harm.' 'I think it's a health fear mongering approach and profiting by the fear,' Cohen added. No vaccine is perfect, the experts said, but the risk with the Covid vaccine is extremely small and the problems like a sore arm or a low-grade fever that some of his patients have experienced resolved quickly. 'That's not something that any supplement will help resolve faster,' Cohen said. Research has consistently shown that the mRNA Covid-19 vaccines are safe and effective, and millions of people have gotten them without serious incident. As of May, the FDA required Covid-19 vaccines from Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna to use expanded warning labels with more information about the risk of a rare heart condition after vaccination. Some studies have found that Covid-19 infection itself carries a higher risk of myocarditis or pericarditis than vaccination. Schaffner said if there were true problems with any of the Covid vaccines, the country's surveillance system would have caught it by now. That's what happened with the Johnson & Johnson Covid-19 vaccine: Surveillance identified a rare risk of a severe blood clotting syndrome, particularly among some women. The vaccine is no longer in use. 'The system works,' Schaffner said. 'These mRNA vaccines are safe, and that's been seen in millions and millions of patients.' What may be even more dangerous, experts say, is the disinformation surrounding vaccines that drives people to want to take a supplement to detox from them in the first place. 'This is a much bigger problem,' Rasmussen said. 'It's important to smack this disinformation down where we can. It's morally wrong and reprehensible.'
