From vagina eggs to anti-vaxxers: is it time for an influencer detox?

Scepticism can be healthy – especially when celebrities are pushing debunked nonsense

For purveyors of snake oil, January is an especially lucrative month. Fresh from our festive excesses, our bodily insecurities are readily exploited by those looking to make a quick buck from a worthless ware. This month has already seen the unedifying sight of a Kardashian pushing a “flat-tummy” shake to her 27.7 million Twitter followers, while Netflix has abandoned any pretension of quality-control by allowing the actor Gwyneth Paltrow her own show, effectively a glorified promotional vehicle for Paltrow’s lifestyle brand Goop.

For those so inclined, Paltrow sells all manner of pseudoscientific regimes, from “jade eggs” (essentially rocks that Paltrow recommends women carry in their vagina, despite gynaecologists imploring people not to do this) to “healing stickers” to a $75 candle that ostensibly smells of Paltrow’s vagina. Sadly, neither repeated admonishment by scientists and doctors nor a lawsuit against Goop for medically unsupported claims have done anything to impede their popularity, and the candles have already sold out, as did the jade eggs before them.

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from The Guardian https://ift.tt/2RdvXGY