Greedy Wellness: the darker side of the ‘all natural’ movement

The people trying to profit off health anxiety

My male friend is fabulous and I hard-L love him: but we don’t agree on everything. Thank goodness, to be honest, because I think I’m a better person when I have my opinions challenged and questioned by someone I both respect and admire. The only big difference of opinion, as with many couples, is medicine and health. He strongly believes in what I call ‘woo-woo’: everything non-organic is bad, all ‘chemicals’ are bad and carcinogenic, the government is hiding all the real cures from us, your brain can heal you of anything, and he’s extremely proud of the fact he never takes any medication: even when extremely sick and literally rolling around in pain.

It’s all affectionate mockery and banter between us over this, and never an actual fight, but it does alarm me a bit to see someone I adore the socks off suffering needlessly out of the belief that a Tylenol (paracetamol) or anti-acid (calcium carbonate) is poisonous and going to kill him. He’s so paranoid he won’t drink a glass of water I give him in case I’ve secretly ‘poisoned him with chemicals’ (I wouldn’t) and regularly thinks he’s got deadly mercury poisoning, blood clots, or cancer from a scented candle or my new perfume.

Now, he isn’t an idiot. At all. I’d actually say he’s a genius. He just didn’t have the insanely privileged education I’ve had and grew up with a very different attitude to checking sources, reading up…