The Virus, the Vaccine, and the Dark Side of Wellness Harper’s Bazaar – HarpersBAZAAR.com

You could say it began with a smoothie. In the summer of 2018, Jordan Younger, otherwise known as @thebalancedblonde (228,000 followers on Instagram), posted a big anti-inflammatory cinnamon spirulina smoothie bowl on her popular account. Pea-soup green and sprinkled with cinnamon, it beckoned to Caroline*, a 29-year-old PR representative based in Los Angeles, from her Popular page like a beacon of good health. Maybe this was the answer to the mysterious stomach ailments that had plagued her for years. Her profile was like, I tried eating this way, and it cured my lifelong stomach problems!, recalled Caroline. @thebalancedblondes perspective on traditional medicinethat it often overlooked root causes in favor of quick fixes and overmedicationresonated.

But after a while Caroline started to notice that, in between dreamy shots of Youngers Brentwood kitchen and photogenic, plant-based recipes, she began promoting alternative healing methods, like water fasting. Caroline found them a bit too out-there. When the pandemic hit, Younger made her stance on vaccines plain: In an October 2020 podcast she proclaimed that she would not personally be getting a Covid-19 vaccine. I have some really strong opinions about [vaccines]perhaps I will bring on my holistic doctor to talk about that soon and our thoughts on diseases that are caused by vaccines in this country, she said. [Its] very, very corrupt. For Caroline, this went too far. She began to question all the advice the influencer had given over the years. While Im into functional, Eastern medicine, I think its dangerous to ignore science, she said.

Still, Caroline wasnt exactly surprised. Youngers views are typical of the kind of privileged, whitewashed, holistic health ideology that so often tips into science denialism, anti-vaccine activism, and, in some cases, the promotion of outright conspiracy theories.

There was a time when the language of vaccine hesitancywhich shares certain buzzwords with the language of wellness, wrapped in pleas not to judge, framed as self-empowerment, and bathed in the light and love of New Age spiritualitywas easy enough to dismiss. After all, the average adult, unless they had small children, probably didnt think too much about vaccines. But today, vaccines, and the question of whether or not the population will get them, is one of global urgency. In order for the Covid-19 pandemic to wane, scientists initially estimated that between 60 percent and 70 percent of people will need to develop resistance to the virus to reach herd immunity; more recently, Dr. Anthony Fauci put that number even higher at up to 85 percent. And while those whove had or will get the virus count toward those numbers, theyll also contribute to the spreadand the death tollmaking widespread vaccination by far the safest and most effective way to finally put the pandemic behind us. A November 2020 Pew Research Center poll found that only 60 percent of Americans said they would definitely or probably get a vaccine if given the chance, and while that number is a significant increase from what polls found in September, suggesting a positive trend, it is still woefully short of the target.

Anti-vaxx activists have been vocal; they see this as an opportunity to spread their message.Rene DiResta

Initial skepticism of the vaccine was understandable, even for those who wouldnt have blinked at getting vaccinated in the past: The timeline to introduce the first FDA-authorized vaccine was faster than any that had come before it, and it was heavily politicized, sowing doubt. Within Black and brown communities, decades of abuse and systemic racism have led to an erosion of trust in the medical establishment. But as peer-reviewed studies showing the safety and efficacy of various Covid vaccines continue to pile up, a lingering strain of vaccine resistanceranging from hesitancy to all-out conspiracy theorymay signal something more insidious.

Anti-vaxx activists have been vocal; they see this as an opportunity to spread their message, said Rene DiResta, research manager at Stanford Universitys Internet Observatory, where she investigates the rise of malign narratives across social networks. They sincerely believe that the Covid-19 vaccine is going to be a disaster and that it will convince a lot of people to come to their side.

It may be working. According to a July 2020 report from the U.K.-based Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), the most-followed social media accounts held by anti-vaxxers increased their following by at least 7.8 million people since 2019. Last fall, in searching for vaccine on Amazon, Bloomberg reporters found that two anti-vaxx books had climbed into the top-five results. This past January, the CCDH reported that five prominent anti-vaccine groups had received more than $850,000 in loans from the federal Paycheck Protection Program. While still president-elect, Trump met with notable anti-vaccination activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whose organization Childrens Health Defense has perhaps the most powerful anti-vaccination campaign in the country, reportedly to explore the possibility of a commission on vaccine safety and integrity. In February of this year, Kennedy was banned from Instagram for promoting misinformation about the coronavirus and vaccines, including the debunked theory that Microsoft cofounder and philanthropist Bill Gates was profiting off them. Anti-vaccination rhetoric has even been used as a geopolitical weapon against the United States: A 2018 study out of George Washington University found that Russian bots were instrumental in fueling the online debate around vaccines between 2014 and 2017, uncovering thousands of Twitter accounts that had been used to spread misinformation and anti-vaccine messaging in the U.S. In doing so, the Russians may or may not have contributed to the dangerous measles outbreaks that started in the Pacific Northwest in 2019, but they certainly eroded public consensus on vaccines. In late April, researchers at Carnegie Mellon University found that nearly half of all Twitter accounts tweeting misinformation about the coronavirus were likely bots deployed, they hypothesized but could not substantiate, by China or Russia. By December, Josep Borrell, the European Unions top diplomat, was pointing fingers, accusing the Russian media of spreading baseless claims to discredit Western-developed vaccines.

On January 6, 2021, as rioters were storming the Capitol, Dr. Christiane Northrup (@drchristianenorthrup; 753,700 followers across Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube) was starting a six-day water fast at her well-appointed Airbnb. Northrup is a board-certified OB/GYN and something of a den mother to the New Age and anti-vaxx communities. That day, Northrup, whose shoulder-length white-blonde bob and blue eyes and rosy cheeks lent her something of a Martha Stewart vibe, had uploaded a video pledging to consume nothing but alkaline water, with maybe a pinch of Himalayan sea salt, as part of a reset.

In the following days, Northrup proselyted that Covid-19 vaccines would disrupt mankinds enlightenment, lowering our vibrations. The dissonant blend of holistic health advice and conspiracy theory has become a hallmark of Northrups video sermons, delivered in a soothing ASMR voice and sometimes accompanied by her playing the harp. Although she has long been an outspoken critic of vaccinations, during the pandemic Northrup began to reference QAnon tenets like the Great Awakening, a reckoning of religious proportions that will see lightness overcome darkness on earth, and espousing conspiracy theory that the pandemic had been planned by the government with the help of Bill Gates and George Soros. By October she was outright advocating for Q: I want you, personally, to look up Q, she said in an October 12 video. Just go ahead and look it up. You decide.

When Sarah* first encountered Northrup around six years ago, she was a new mom and had recently separated from her babys father. I had no idea what kind of mother I was going to be, she said. She assumed she would do all the regular things, like getting her son circumcised, vaccinated, and having him sleep in the crib shed set up in the nursery. But once she gave birth, everything changed. She was immediately bowled over by the intense love and protectiveness she felt for her son. Suddenly the idea of jabbing him with a needle to protect him from diseases she hadnt heard of in a long time seemed wrong. I thought, Ive got this perfect child, and Im going to do what to him?

Looking for advice, Sarah started reading books recommended by other moms in her affluent white circle of friends, who ascribed to the same attachment-style parenting she was now interested in. One such book was Northrups Womens Bodies, Womens Wisdom. The book, first published in 1994 and now in its fifth edition, presents sound medical advice (like eating well and getting enough rest) alongside woo-woo musings from astrologers and psychics, including a how-to guide to Shamanic Imprint Removal, to heal emotional wounds. It also includes a section titled Vaccines: Helpful or Harmful, in which Northrup encourages the reader to decide for yourself, while at the same time dismissing certain vaccine ingredients as potentially toxic, and drawing a link between childhood vaccinations and the rise in cases of autism and ADHD (a theory that has been consistently refuted). Sarah said she liked that Northrup was balanced, and just presented the facts, and wasnt trying to jam a message down my throat, like with doctors who act like youre crazy if you even ask one question about vaccines. She also liked that Northrup validated her gut instinct to delay vaccination.

Thats like asking me to light my child on fire to save yours. Jen Stoeckert

Fast-forward a few years, and Sarahs son is healthy and mostly vaccinated, and a pandemic is upon us. Sarah is still tuning in to Northrups channels. The Great Awakening, which shes noticed in posts from Northrup and other wellness influencers, strikes a chord. I think intuition is powerful, and some of usnot because we are better but because weve worked on itare able to perceive things beyond whats there on face value, she said. There is a major divide we can see everywhere, and I think there will be an uprising, an upheaval. When I asked Sarah what she thinks of QAnon, she told me, Ive heard about it, of course, but I dont actually know what it is. Should I be following it?

The troubling genius of both QAnon and anti-vaccination campaigns is how innocuous they can, at first, appear. The Great Awakening and the hashtag #savethechildren, two highly effective viral QAnon campaigns, do not scream far-right extremism. Do your own research, the rallying cry of conspiracy theorists everywhere, is a misleading logical fallacy. Facts and data do not have meaning in isolation. They need to be analyzed by someone with enough knowledge and context to communicate their significance. Doctors and scientists do not toil alone in secrecy; rather, there is a strict peer-review process in which research is challenged, evaluated, and interpreted.

There are a number of predictive factors that are linked to whether someone may believe in a conspiracy theory, but one of the strongest indicators is whether they already believe in another one. For New Agers who had already bought into the anti-vaccination movements core tenetsthat the government is lying to us, endangering usthe door was open to extremism and conspiracy.

The meeting point of QAnon and the wellness communityits vaccinesits where everything converges, said Derek Beres, who, along with Julian Walker and Matthew Remski, created Conspirituality, a popular podcast that explores the growing overlap between New Age spirituality and right-wing conspiracy thinking. Before the pandemic, vaccines were not a central topic of interest to QAnoners. But as the virus spread, lockdowns followed, and people were spending more time than ever refreshing their social media feeds, theories began to proliferate that Gates had planned the pandemic for the sole purpose of creating a vaccine mandate that would make every injected human trackable by a GPS microchip. To Walker, the refocus was not a coincidence. I really think that, somewhere in the network of people who were propagating this QAnon stuff, there was an attempt to figure out how to really reach people in [the wellness] community, and they realized vaccines were the way to go.

Northrup declined to be interviewed for this story. A spokesperson wrote to suggest that it would be better to obtain a quote from the real expert, Carrie Madej, D.O., because [Dr. Northrup] learned pretty much everything about this Covid vaccine from her. Madej is a widely discredited osteopath whose outlandish claims about the vaccines supposed ability to rewire our DNA has drawn the ire of the medical establishment. Nevertheless, Northrup continues to post baseless theories about the vaccines on her social media channels.

One thing we know is that when people are trying to evaluate new information, they go to the people they already trust to see what they have to say about it, DiResta said. While the average person wouldnt ask their local barista to look at the funny mole on their back or go to their mailman for dieting tips, to their legions of followers, influencers like Northrup and Younger dont seem like strangers. Theyve been with them through heartbreak and pain; theyve watched them fall in love, grieve partners, and raise their children. Leveraging that trust, these influencers enjoy outsider status even though some have followings that match those of the mainstream media personalities they often rail against.

One of the most pernicious fallacies promoted by anti-vaxx rhetoric is that good health is an individual responsibility and achievement, when it is more often the result of privilege. Northrup and other wellness influencers preach that health obstacles can be overcome with an all-organic diet, exercise, sufficient vitamin D levels and, most importantly, a positive mindset. Walker, who cohosts the Conspirituality podcast, described the phenomenon as this idea of, if I can have this blissful ignorance about how other people suffer realities of oppression and poverty, and that can somehow be unconsciously baked into my spiritual sense of self-reliance and not needing anybody or anything, then everybody else could also be this way, if they were also this spiritually advanced.

Jen Stoeckert (@minimalbeauty; 9,963 followers on Instagram) is a Miami Beach holistic facialist who occasionally promotes vaccine conspiracy theories in between gua sha tutorials and skin-care tips. If you decide not to take the vaccine, youre taking responsibility for your own health, she said. Id personally rather take responsibility for my own health versus, like, the government. She continued: I believe in freedom of choice. As long as youre not harming anyone or the planet, you should be able to have that freedom; you shouldnt be ostracized because your belief system is different. When I pointed out that refusing to vaccinate could very well lead to the preventable death of someone you unintentionally infected, as was the case in the 2015 West Coast measles outbreak, Stoeckert told me, Thats like asking me to light my child on fire to save yours, a common refrain among anti-vaxxers.

The most frustrating thing...has been to explain to people why they should care about other people.Laurel Bristow

If you listen long enough, the natural immunity that the overwhelmingly white anti-vaxxers and wellness influencers preach about starts to sound a lot like social Darwinism, the dangerous belief at the core of eugenics and, in turn, Nazism, that the human species can be improved by breeding out less desirable traits. It also ignores the fact that a daily meditation practice, all-organic diet, eight hours of sleep at night, and sufficient vitamin D levels is a fantasy well out of reach for large swaths of the population. Black, Indigenous, and Latinx Americans have suffered far worse than white ones during the pandemic. It is also these populations that, due to systemic racism and poverty, are more likely to live in food desertsplaces where the availability of affordable, nutritious food is close to zeroand have less access to child-care and health-care options. Arguing in favor of natural remedies that only the privileged can afford in place of a widely available vaccine is to exhibit a toxic strain of the same dangerous white supremacy that has spurred on the QAnon movement.

Though the pandemic has unleashed a torrent of misinformation, it also presents a new opportunity for the medical establishment to rout out anti-vaccination efforts. The word vaccine is appearing in mainstream headlines like never before, along with lengthy explanations of how and why they work. The impact of Covid-19 on our daily lives is undeniable, and could offer the biggest incentive yet for someone to get vaccinated.

DiResta, the researcher at Stanford, believes that social media plays a crucial role in determining which information will ultimately float to the top. Platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube need to be held accountable for the conspiracy theories allowed to flourish there; greater restrictions, closer monitoring, and further transparency will be vital, and users who spread misinformation should be demonetized or deplatformed. But she also believes that, in order to combat the vast amount of misinformation spewed by anti-vaxxers, the medical establishment will need to adapt to the new digital landscapeand fast. In other words, the sedate press conferences that organizations like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have relied on for decades are just not going to cut it anymore. Places where people are searching for information where theres a lot of user-generated content, theres going to be a narrative battleground, DiResta said. You dont fight compelling stories with a dry table of facts, unfortunately. You have to recognize that a lot of people are responding to these stories because theyre emotional. DiResta recommends coordinated efforts to work with community leaders and other influencers who can share personal stories about being vaccinated, as well as the victims of Covid-19.

Laurel Bristow, an infectious disease researcher at Emory University in Atlanta, represents a new model of communication for the medical establishment. At the start of the pandemic in mid-March of last year, Bristow began posting videos to her then-private Instagram account (@kinggutterbaby; 354,000 followers), explaining to her then 600-person following what the scientific community understood about the virus after she received questions from family and friends. When they asked if they could share these videos with other people who had similar queries, Bristow decided to make her account public. I thought Id make it public for, like, 24 hours, she said. But when she saw how misinformed and confused people were getting over conspiracy theories proliferating online about both the virus and the vaccine, she decided to leave her profile open. By the end of the year, Bristow had built a following of more than 300,000 for her relatable and easy-to-understand videos that explain complicated scientific processes (like how a vaccine works) and debunk conspiracy theories. I still have all my personal pictures up, from like birthday parties and stuff, she said. I thought about deleting them when I started to get all these followers, but then I thought, No, its important that people see I am a normal person.

Bristow usually films her videos right at her kitchen table, against the backdrop of her colorful floral wallpaper and magnet-covered fridge. I think there needs to be a real effort within the scientific community at transparency, and communicating better and connecting better with the general population, she said. If people could see that we scientists are just normal people, who are trying to do the right thing and working hard, instead of these white-coat figures in an ivory tower, theyd feel more trust toward us. Not that its been easy, so far, to step into that role. Bristow has been the frequent target of anti-vaxx trolls, and regularly receives abuse in her inbox. When I asked her what has been the most persistent myth shes had to debunk, she paused for a moment. I think, she began carefully, the most frustrating thing, and the most common thing, has been to explain to people why they should care about other people.

*Name has been changed

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The Virus, the Vaccine, and the Dark Side of Wellness Harper's Bazaar - HarpersBAZAAR.com