Food Babe Wants This Made Illegal For Children, So She Sells It To Them

One of Vani (the “Food Babe”) Hari’s most hypocritical posts ever just hit Facebook.¹  I literally spewed a soft drink across my computer screen when I saw this post:

Food Babe maligns the sale of artificial colors to children while she does the very same thing.(click/enlarge)

For many years now, Hari has sold artificial colors made from petroleum derivatives  to children, in the form of Piggy Paint nail polish, as detailed here.²

Piggy Paint, pushed by Food Babe via her affiliate marketing program,³ contains an abundance of artificial “coal tar dye” colors (her language, not mine), including Orange 5, Yellow 10, Red 22, Red 34, and Violet 2.⁴

Piggy Paint nail polish for children, complete with artificial colors,  as sold by Food Babe (click/enlarge)

For those in the #FoodBabeArmy who might cry foul, saying Vani’s only campaigning against so-called toxic chemicals in food products, let me again remind you, she rants against the very same ingredients in beauty products.⁵

Vani, it’s time to start reading your own product labels.

 

References
(1) Food Babe Artificial Color Post (Facebook)
https://www.facebook.com/thefoodbabe/photos/a.208386335862752.56063.132535093447877/1781149331919770/?type=3&theater&ifg=1
Retrieved 27 Dec 2017

(2) Food Babe Selling Pesticide, Coal Tar Dyes to Children
Bad Science Debunked, 15 Nov 2015
https://badscidebunked.wordpress.com/tag/piggy-paints/
Retrieved 27 Dec 2017

(3) Food Babe: New Products That Make Me Scream In Excitement
(Food Babe Marketing Post)
https://foodbabe.com/2013/04/13/new-products-that-make-me-scream-in-excitement/
Retrieved 27 Dec 2017

(4) Piggy Paint Ingredients
http://www.piggypaint.com/product-info/#.VikWjJegaoc
Retrieved 27 Dec 2017

(5) So Fresh And So Clean–Skin Care Tips
Warning: Not a scholarly link
https://foodbabe.com/2011/08/09/so-fresh-and-so-clean-skin-care-tips/
Retrieved 27 Dec 2017

Image Credits
Piggy Paint and Food Babe screen snapshots and product image captures are used in strict compliance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107 of United States copyright law (commonly known as “fair use law”). This material is distributed without profit with the intent to provide commentary, review, education, parody, and increase public health knowledge.

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Food Babe Decks The Malls With Bowls of Folly

Food Babe is back with a list of holiday stocking stuffers for the kids things she wants to sell you and, of course, the list is loaded with the same ingredients she says will kill you, or violates rule after rule she dictates to her followers.  It all started with a post dissing Lindt Truffles, my favorite.¹  How could I resist taking this on?

Let’s step through Food Babe’s list of alternative candies and see how she’s hypocritically misleading her followers.  We’ll close with a brief reexamination of her ethically questionable use of hidden affiliate links.

Alter Eco Organic Chocolate Truffles [Extra Sugar, Fake Caramel Flavoring]

Alter Eco Truffles  break one of Vani Hari’s cardinal rules… (click/enlarge)

Food Babe can’t hide her disdain for artificial flavorings.  Why then is there no caramel in the truffles she’s selling?2  See article text. (click/enlarge)

Vani loses her sh… uhm, cool, when manufacturers don’t use “real” ingredients in their products.  Now, you can’t go pick a caramel fruit off a tree, but there is a known way to make caramel, involving sugar, butter, milk, etc. You’ll find none of these in Vani’s replacement for Lindt truffles.  Instead, Alter Eco artificially manufactures a caramel taste using plant extracts, spices, fruits, vegetables, and tree bark.²  This according to an email from Alter Eco’s customer service department.

This reminds me of the time Vani sold Honeysuckle shampoo that contained no honeysuckle.³

The Alter Eco Truffles also contain more sugar than the Lindt Truffles sold by Hari (see nutritional  breakdown, image, below).  Remember, Vani Hari said this about sugar:

“Sugar is the Devil”–Vani Hari ¹²

Lindt Truffles vs. Food Babe’s Alter Eco Truffles: Nutritional Breakdown

One serving (3 truffles, 36 grams) contains 14 grams of sugar.13  Compare to Hari’s brand in the image, right, which contains 15 grams of sugar for an equivalent serving.  Hari says sugar is the devil.(click/enlarge)

One of Vani’s truffles is 12 grams (one serving), while a Lindt serving is 36 grams (3 truffles). An equivalent serving of Food Babe’s candy provides 15 grams of sugar, more than Lindt truffles.  Food Babe says sugar is the devil.  (click/enlarge)

Theo Chocolate Nutcracker Brittle [Heavy Metals]

Food Babe’s Theo chocolate contains pink himalayan salt, which is often found to contain trace elements she claims are dangerous. (click/enlarge)

Theo Chocolate Nutcracker Brittle dark chocolate contains Pink Himalayan Salt.⁴  While Theo doesn’t provide a chemical analysis of the salt in their chocolate, I’ve written about this miracle salt many times, including here⁵ and here.⁶  It’s typically found to contain trace elements of lead, arsenic, aluminum, mercury, and a host of other elements that hide under Vani Hari’s bed and give her nightmares on a regular basis.  Vani and her compatriots claim these metals accumulate in your body, slowly poisoning you–but she’s happy to sell you detox products to save the day!

Alter Eco Dark Chocolate [Arsenic]

Alter Eco Dark Chocolate contains rice. Vani Hari warns that rice is a prominent source of arsenic.

Alter Eco Dark Chocolate contains rice, but Vani wants us to avoid rice because… well, enlighten us, Vani:

“Rice is a very common in gluten-free diets, but it’s notoriously contaminated with arsenic, which is a “potent human carcinogen” according to scientists at Consumer Reports and classified as a group 1 carcinogen by the International Agency for Research on Cancer.”⁷

Yes, rice and arsenic, it’s what’s for dinner at Vani’s Restaurant.

YumEarth Organics Lollipops [Arsenic]

YumEarth Candy Cane Pops are made with rice syrup. As mentioned previously, Food Babe warns that rice is a source of arsenic. (click/enlarge)

Lollipops… and there’s a sucker born every minute!   YumEarth Organics Candy Cane Pops to be exact.⁸  They’re made with organic rice syrup.  I see someone in the back row raising their hand excitedly at the mention of rice.  That’s right, we just talked about this.  Food Babe said rice is:

“… notoriously contaminated with arsenic.”⁷

Merry Christmas 😦

 

Kur Chocolates [Added Sugar, Misleading Labeling]

Food Babe’s Kur chocolates do indeed contain sugar; it comes from the dates added to the mix. (click/enlarge)

Food Babe touts these rather expensive chocolates as having “no added sugar.”¹

Oh really?

There are dates in this candy. The United States Department of Agriculture lists varying sugar amounts of sugar for dates, from 93.1 grams for one cup of deglet noor dates to 15.95 grams for a single (pitted) medjool date.⁹  Kur doesn’t tell us the type or amount of dates added to their chocolate bars, but nonetheless, sugar is sugar, and it is there, added when the dates were put in the mix.  One grows weary of this Appeal to Nature fallacy¹⁰, where something derived from nature is supposedly “good” for you.  Food Babe’s sugar is the same sugar she disparages.  Sorry, Vani.

I also have a scientific bone to pick with labeling their products as “non-GMO”.¹¹   Looking at the  Kur Brownie Pack, for example, the ingredients are: Dates, Cashew Butter, Cacao Powder, Almonds, Cinnamon, and Essential Oil of Orange.  Of these, not a single ingredient is commercially available as a genetically modified crop.  The non-GMO label has become a slick marketing trick to take advantage of consumers, and is being applied in some outlandish ways.  It’s meaningless in this context.

Before you know it, they’ll be advertising non-GMO condoms.

Oh dear, I spoke too soon.

Seriously? What’s reason for labeling something non-GMO if there isn’t a GMO equivalent? (click/enlarge)

 

About Those Hidden Affiliate Links
All of the recommended products in Food Babe’s stocking stuffer list are tagged with hidden affiliate links. Encoded in each hyperlink is a code that gives Food Babe not only a percentage of your purchase price of her recommended product, but also any other qualifying purchase you make on Amazon in the future. Buy a TV, a computer, etc. for Christmas or Hanukkah gifts, and you are lining Vari Hani’s pockets with a percentage of your purchase price of those products as well.

I’ve decoded the process for you below. You can see Food Babe’s affiliate code, “foodbab-20”, after it’s been decoded from the “2lW5YIG” parameter passed to Amazon when you click on her organic mini chocolate peppermints link. If you read Amazon’s agreement for affiliates¹² and then search for Food Babe’s disclosure of what’s happening on her page, I believe you’ll come to the conclusion I have: something’s not quite right here.

Vani Hari’s undisclosed affiliate links seem to be a clear violation of Amazon’s rules for affiliates. (click/enlarge)

 

Note:
This article has been updated to reflect nutritional content of Hari’s brands vs. those she maligns.

 

References
(1) Food Babe’s Healthy Stocking Stuffers for 2017
Warning: Not a scholarly link
https://foodbabe.com/2017/12/07/healthy-holiday-stocking-stuffers-list-2017/
Retrieved 19 Dec 2017

(2) Alter Eco Organic Truffle Ingredients
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00PA9H9HS/
Retrieved 22 Dec 2017

(3) Food Babe’s Honeysuckle Shampoo contains no Honeysuckle
https://badscidebunked.wordpress.com/2014/12/29/food-babe-pushing-dangerous-items-honeysuckle-shampoo/
Retrieved 22 Dec 2017

(4) Theo Chocolate Nutcracker Brittle Ingredients
https://www.theochocolate.com/product/nutcracker-brittle/
Retrieved 20 Dec 2017

(5) Your Worst Day Ever: David Avocado Wolfe’s Himalayan Salt Debunked
https://badscidebunked.wordpress.com/2016/01/18/your-worst-day-ever-david-avocados-himalayan-salt-debunked/
Retrieved 20 Dec 2017

(6) Dr. Mercola’s Himalayan Salt Debunked
https://badscidebunked.wordpress.com/2015/09/15/dr-mercolas-himalayan-salt-debunked/
Retrieved 20 Dec 2017

(7) Trying To Avoid Gluten? Don’t Make These Common Mistakes! (Food Babe)
Warning: Not a scholarly article
https://foodbabe.com/2015/09/22/trying-avoid-gluten-dont-make-common-mistakes/
Retrieved 20 Dec 2017

(8) YumEarth Organics Lollipops Ingredients
https://yumearth.com/products/lollipops
Retrieved 20 Dec 2017

(9) USDA Food Composition Databases:  Sugars (Total, Dates)
https://ndb.nal.usda.gov/ndb/nutrients/report?nutrient1=269&nutrient2=&nutrient3=&&max=25&subset=0&offset=3000&sort=f&totCount=6789&measureby=m
Retrieved 22 Dec 2017

(10) Appeal to Nature Fallacy
https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/appeal-to-nature
Retrieved 22 Dec 2017

(11) Alter Eco Dark Quinoa Ingredients
http://www.alterecofoods.com/product/dark-quinoa/
Retrieved 20 Dec 2017

(12) Disclaimer for Amazon Associates
https://termsfeed.com/blog/disclaimer-amazon-associates/
Retrieved 20 Dec 2017

(13) Lindt Lindor Chocolate Truffles Nutrion Information
https://www.lindtusa.com/wcsstore/LindtStorefrontAssetStore/Attachment/products/nutritional-information-SKU-4852.pdf
Retrieved 25 Dec 2017

(14) Food Babe: Ditch Refined Sugar
Warning: Not a scholarly article
https://foodbabe.com/2011/12/19/ditch-refined-sugar/
Retrieved 25 Dec 2017

Image Credits
Food Babe, Theo, Kur, Alter Eco, Google, Amazon, YumEarth, and all other product/branded imagery shots are used in strict compliance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, commonly known as “fair use law”. This material is distributed without profit with the intent to provide commentary, review, education, parody, and increase public health knowledge.

Kelly Brogan, MD: A-Salt With a “Deadly” Weapon (Part One)

The takeaways:

• Kelly Brogan, M.D. claims aluminum is toxic to all life forms¹ and falsely links it to a plethora of diseases.
• Brogan’s fear mongering re: aluminum includes steering patients away from life-saving vaccines that contain small amounts of the element.
• Via her online store, the doctor sells aluminum via a health supplement, in amounts that equal or exceed the aluminum found in the vaccines she wrongly vilifies.
• Ominously, the 2018 SXSW Festival is offering Dr. Brogan a popular platform to further her dangerous and hypocritical “medical” views.

You can’t swing a virtual dead cat on the internet without hitting a doctor who has an online store, and Kelly Brogan, M.D., is no exception.  While Brogan tirelessly campaigns against aluminum in vaccines, foods, and beauty products, ironically, she sells a health supplement that contains as much or more aluminum than is found in the safe, critical vaccines against which she fear mongers.

Dr. Brogan peddles Real Salt², touted to contain more than sixty essential trace elements that promote health and well being.³  Unfortunately for the good doctor, one of those elements is aluminum, which she falsely links to a wide range of problems, including Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s Disease, neurological disorders, ADHD, Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, and others.^{1,4,5,6,7,8,10}

In the following images, we can see Real Salt for sale at KellyBroganMD.com,² as well as an elemental analysis of the salt provided by the vendor.⁹  Please click each image to enlarge.

A two-image composite from Kelly Brogan’s online store highlighting the “Real Salt” sold by the doctor. (click/enlarge)

Analysis of Kelly Brogan’s Real Salt reveals as much or more aluminum than can be found in the vaccines she wrongly vilifies.  See references for full list;9 this screen snapshot has been altered by the author to highlight the aluminum.  No changes to elements or quantities have been made.  (click/enlarge)

 

It must be strongly stated that the dangers posed by aluminum, and in particular Real Salt, the product sold by Ms. Brogan, exist solely in her mind.  The Real Salt brand is as safe as any item you’d find on your store shelf.

Route of administration (e.g. ingestion, injection, inhalation, absorption via the skin) matters in the real world, but you won’t find Kelly Brogan living in such a place.   She’s an equal opportunity alarmist, damning aluminum whether its injected as a vaccine, ingested as an antacid or baking soda, or rubbed on the skin as an antiperspirant.⁵  Fine.  Let’s play by her rules.  Since vaccines are arguably one of the most important advancements in recent human history, I thought it would be instructive to compare the amount of aluminum found in Brogan’s own product against that found in some of the essential vaccines she wrongly condemns.

Nothing but the Facts, Ma’am
As we can see in the previous table, Real Salt lists an average of 0.1946mg of aluminum per serving in their product,** where a serving size is 1.4 grams (approximately one quarter teaspoon).  By comparison:

• The HPV vaccine is indicted by Brogan for alleged biotoxicity.⁶   It protects against the cancer-causing human papillomavirus (HPV), and contains 0.5mg/dose of aluminum.^11,13  This is equal to just  2.6 servings of Kelly Brogan’s salt.

 

• Regarding the 0.125 mg/dose of aluminum in the Pneumococcal vaccine,^12,13 the aluminum in Brogan’s salt exceeds the vaccine’s by 36%.   That’s right, you’ll get more aluminum from the doctor’s Real Salt than from the vaccine.  Yes, I know it’s ingested rather than injected here, but remember, Brogan damns aluminum regardless of route of administration.⁵   Dr. B. wrongly links the Pneumococcal vaccine’s aluminum to autoimmunity, long-term brain inflammation, and associated neurological complications.⁷  The vaccine is an important protection against diseases such as pneumonia and bacterial meningitis.

• Dr. Brogan weaves a very tangled tale in regard to the DTaP/inactivated polio/Hib vaccine, which contains 0.33mg/dose aluminum.^13,14  The upshot of her article, which you’ll find linked here and in the references, is that this vaccine is somehow partly responsible for Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS).¹⁰  A terrifying claim, especially when you consider that two servings of her salt, at 0.1946g aluminum each, provides 16% more aluminum than the vaccine.

Good Enough to Eat?
So far, we’ve limited our investigation to vaccines, which are injected. But, as I said, Brogan doesn’t want you ingesting aluminum either.  One of her prime targets is antacids because they contain, (sigh), aluminum.  How much?  Well, according to the Centers for Disease Control, you can find 104 to 208 mg/tablet of aluminum in off-the-shelf antacids.¹⁵   Doing our math from earlier, assuming a buyer of Dr. Brogan’s Real Salt used one serving per day, every day for a year, we’d end up with:

0.1946mg Al/serving/day * 365 days = 71mg of aluminum per year

Hmm.  71mg from Brogan falls a bit short of the 104mg minimum from the antacids she eschews.  And you’d think that as the year went on, you’d be clearing some of that aluminum from your body, right?  Au contraire mon frère, says Kelly Brogan:

“Aluminum stays in the body for several years” –Kelly Brogan, “Special Report, Vaccines and Brain Health”⁴ (emphasis mine)

So, by the doctor’s own assertions, the supposedly-toxic element in her product will stick with you, dose-by-dose, for years.   We’d need 534 servings, or just about one and half years (one serving per day) of Dr. Brogan’s Real Salt to reach the “poisonous” (wink wink, nudge, nudge) levels in her ostracized antacid tablet.

As I mentioned earlier in the article, Real Salt is completely safe.  The trace amounts of the elements found therein not at all harmful.  It is my hope that an honest company won’t be held responsible because a questionable doctor tried to make money hawking their products.

You have to ask yourself: is Kelly Brogan really worth her salt?

 

If Dr. Brogan says aluminum is toxic to all life forms, perhaps she shouldn’t be selling it to the life forms who follow her on social media. (click/enlarge)

 

Oh, if it only ended there.  Not only does the distinguished doctor sell you greater quantities of an element she claims will put you in an early grave, she strongly encourages you to obtain it naturally.

Milk, anyone?

 

“Milk is for babies.  When you grow up, you have to drink beer.”–Arnold Schwarzenegger
When she isn’t busy selling aluminum to her followers, Brogan is hard at work encouraging breastfeeding.^17,18,19  This is particularly unfortunate for her anti-aluminum argument.  According to the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, breastfed infants receive approximately 7mg of aluminum naturally from their mother’s milk during the first six months of life, compared to only 4.4mg from vaccines.¹³  So, Brogan is directly encouraging the consumption of aluminum (via breast milk).

Babies won’t be directly ingesting Brogan’s salt of course, but I can’t help but compare aluminum in breast milk to the additional amount a new mother would add to her diet if she used just one serving of Brogan’s salt, one serving a day, over six months:

(0.1946mg aluminum/serving Brogan’s Salt * ~30 days/month * 6 months = 35.028mg aluminum/six months)

Via the salt she sells, Brogan would be dosing our unsuspecting mother with five times the amount of aluminum naturally given to the baby via breast milk, and nearly eight times the aluminum that baby would receive from vaccines in the first six months of his/her life.  The amount of  salt-based aluminum that would actually pass to the baby would be function of many factors including the mother’s metabolism, renal function, etc.

But, isn’t it interesting that Kelly Brogan’s Real Salt doesn’t come with a warning to nursing mothers?

Wrapping It All Up
At this point, I was tempted to pick on the irony of Dr. Brogan’s apparent aversion to wrapping food in aluminum foil, and point out that the manufacturer of her salt proudly proclaims their salt mine is wrapped in a layer of bentonite clay.  Bentonite, if you remember your college chemistry, has the formula Al₂H₂Na₂O₁₃Si₄.  See the aluminum in there?  Brogan’s aluminum-laden salt is itself quite literally wrapped in aluminum.

But pedantics aside, let’s focus instead on the fact that the World Health Organization, the CDC, and medical consensus contradict Dr. Brogan in every way possible.^13,15,16  Aluminum is the most abundant metal in the crust of our planet and you’d be hard pressed to avoid it in the food you eat, the air you breath, and the water you drink. According to the CDC, an average adult in the United States eats about 7–9 mg of aluminum per day in their food.¹⁵  The World Health Organization concurs, saying that aluminum intake from foods represents the major route of aluminum exposure to the general public.¹⁶

Most aluminum in food, water, and medicines leaves your body quickly in the feces. Much of the small amount of aluminum that does enter the bloodstream will quickly leave your body in the urine.¹⁵   The human body evolved to handle the amounts of this element we encounter on a daily basis quite nicely, thank-you-very-much, and unless you have a medical condition such as impaired renal function, Dr. Brogans tirades against aluminum aren’t worth their salt.  I encourage you to ask a real doctor.

Epilogue: SXSW
Sadly, as I go to press with this article, I’ve learned that the annual SXSW festival has named Kelly Brogan as a consultant to their advisory board.²⁰  Giving an HIV/AIDS denialist who sells her patients the very products she says will kill them is unconscionable, and in this author’s opinion, should be met with firm, polite suggestions to the festival that they seek medical advice from better vetted sources.

This quote SXSW is particularly puzzling:

While SXSW strongly disagrees with many of Kelly Brogan’s controversial opinions, we do believe that inclusion of a variety of viewpoints from a diverse group of people is important to creating a dialog for the community represented at the SXSW Wellness Expo²⁰–via Kavin Senapathy/Forbes

Suppose this came from NASA instead?

“While NASA strongly disagrees with many flat-earther controversial opinions, we do believe that inclusion of a variety of viewpoints from a diverse group of people is important as we complete the Near Earth Object survey that will protect our round (or is it flat?  Hey, it’s just an opinion!) planet from a potential extinction level event”

SXSW’s comments reek strongly of the plague of “alternate facts” that have, sadly, gained traction in our country.  I’m sorry, but in science, there are no alternate facts.  Dr. Brogan’s $4,000 consults for coffee enemas, AIDS denial, and selling her patients ingredients that she herself labels toxic do not constitute “controversial opinions”… they constitute what this writer believes to be medical malpractice, and should be investigated.

If you agree, and would like to make your voice heard, you can tweet to @sxsw.  The hashtag #BumpBrogan is trending.  You may wish to take a moment and make it even trendier!

 

Footnotes
** Salt analysis was performed by Advanced Laboratories, Inc. of Salt Lake City, UT, who notes that because the product being tested is a naturally occurring product that
has not been refined, actual elemental results of any specific lot number will vary slightly. Please click here to return to the article.

A typo in the “Good Enough to Eat?” section swapped units of measure and has been corrected.

References
(1) “Aluminum is Toxic to all Lifeforms” (Kelly Brogan Facebook Post)
https://www.facebook.com/KellyBroganMD/posts/366045836935604
Retrieved 10 Dec 2017

(2) Real Salt (Kelly Brogan Online Store)
http://kellybroganmd.com/resources/
Retrieved 11 Dec 2017

(3) Real Salt (FAQ)
https://realsalt.com/faq/
Retrieved 15 Dec 2017

(4) Vaccines and Brain Health (Kelly Brogan)
Warning: not a scholarly article
https://kellybroganmd.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/VaccinesandBrainHealth.pdf
Retrieved 12 Dec 2017

(5) Detox–Why You Need To (Kelly Brogan)
Warning: not a scholarly article
http://kellybroganmd.com/why-detox/
Retrieved 10 Dec 2017

(6) The Truth is Out: Gardasil Vaccine Coverup Exposed (Kelly Brogan)
Warning: not a scholarly article
http://kellybroganmd.com/truth-out-gardasil-coverup-documents-exposed/
Retrieved 12 Dec 2017

(7) Psychobiology of Vaccination Effects:
Bidirectional Relevance of Depression (Kelly Brogan)
Warning: not a scholarly article
http://kellybroganmd.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Psychobiology.pdf
Retrieved 12 Dec 2017

(8) Hepatitis B Vaccine – Is it Safe for Your Newborn?
Warning: not a scholarly article
http://kellybroganmd.com/hepatitis-b-vaccine-for-your-newborn/
Retrieved 15 Dec 2017

(9) Real Salt Elemental Analysis
http://realsalt.redmond.life/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2017/05/Real-Salt-Analysis.pdf
Retrieved 14 Dec 2017

(10) Could this be Driving the Epidemic of Sudden Infant Death (SIDS)?  (Kelly Brogan)
http://kellybroganmd.com/driving-epidemic-sudden-infant-death-sids/
Retrieved 15 Dec 2017

(11) GARDASIL® Package Insert
[Human Papillomavirus Quadrivalent (Types 6, 11, 16, and 18)
Vaccine, Recombinant]
Suspension for intramuscular injection
https://www.fda.gov/downloads/BiologicsBloodVaccines/Vaccines/ApprovedProducts/UCM111263.pdf
Retrieved 13 Dec 2017

(12) FDA Approved Vaccines (UCM201669.pdf:  Prevnar 13)
https://www.fda.gov/downloads/BiologicsBloodVaccines/Vaccines/ApprovedProducts/UCM201669.pdf
Retrieved 14 Dec 2017

(13) Vaccine Ingredients–Aluminum (Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia)
http://www.chop.edu/centers-programs/vaccine-education-center/vaccine-ingredients/aluminum
Retrieved 11 Dec 2017

(14) Pentacel Package Insert
https://www.fda.gov/downloads/biologicsbloodvaccines/vaccines/approvedproducts/ucm109810.pdf
Retrieved 16 Dec 2017

(15) CDC: Public Health Statement for Aluminum
https://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/phs/phs.asp?id=1076&tid=34
Retrieved 10 Dec 2017

(16) Aluminum in Drinking Water (World Health Organization)
http://www.who.int/water_sanitation_health/water-quality/guidelines/chemicals/aluminium.pdf?ua=1
Retrieved 14 Dec 2017

(17) Breastfeeding: A Reproductive Right (Kelly Brogran)
Warning: Not a scholarly article
http://kellybroganmd.com/breastfeeding-a-reproductive-right/
Retrieved 15 Dec 2017

(18) Baby and Breast: Perfect Together
Warning: Not a scholarly article
http://kellybroganmd.com/baby-and-breastmilk/
Retrieved 15 Dec 2017

(19) Natural Birth and Breastfeeding: Replaceable?
Warning: Not a scholarly article
http://kellybroganmd.com/natural-birth-breastfeeding-replaceable/
Retrieved 15 Dec 2017

(20) SXSW Festival Slammed For Including HIV/AIDS Denialist In 2018 Wellness Expo
Kavin Senapathy/Forbes
https://www.forbes.com/sites/kavinsenapathy/2017/12/11/sxsw-festival-slammed-for-including-hiv-aids-denialist-in-wellness-expo/#6c8d8c576174
Retrieved 11 Dec 2017

 

Image Credits
Real Salt Logos, product imagery, and ingredients analysis snapshots are all used in accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, commonly known as “fair use law”. This material is distributed without profit with the intent to provide commentary, review, education, parody, and increase public health knowledge.

Kelly Brogan, M.D. web site screen snapshots, facebook posts, and images are all used in accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, commonly known as “fair use law”. This material is distributed without profit with the intent to provide commentary, review, education, parody, and increase public health knowledge.

David Wolfe Lathers on the Hypocrisy

“If I’m going to be staying up until 3 A.M., it should be for world peace and not shampoo sales.”– Mona Sutphen

It takes a special type of man to look you in the eye, tell you that pillows cause neck pain, and then sell you pillow cases via his online store.  A man with particular bravado: balls the size of Jupiter.  A man who isn’t bothered by marketing a boat load of goods made from the same chemicals that he claims will cause you to shuffle early off this mortal coil.

Ladies and gentlemen: I give you David Avocado Wolfe.

In his article “8 Toxic Beauty Care Chemicals That Are Killing You!,”¹ Wolfe links ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA) and its salts (e.g., disodium EDTA, trisodium EDTA) to health problems such as reproductive and kidney damage, fetal disability, and dermatitis.^3,4,5,6,7  Ironically, he singles out shampoos and hair conditioners as common sources of EDTA.¹

With this in mind, let’s go shopping at Avocado’s online emporium, the infamous Longevity Warehouse. (With all this foreshadowing, you probably know what’s coming.)

Here’s a nice bottle of Hairprint Amla Chelating Shampoo, and its ingredients:³

 

Hairprint Amla Chelating Shampoo, from David Wolfe’s Longevity Warehouse. (click/enlarge)

David Wolfe’s Longevity Warehouse’s Hairprint Amla Chelating Shampoo contains Disodium EDTA, an ingredient he’s linked to myriad health problems. (click/enlarge)

 

But soft!  What chemical through yonder shampoo breaks?  It is disodium EDTA, and David Wolfe is the son-of-a-snake-oil-saleman who’s selling it to you:

Oops!

Yes indeed.  Wolfe just told us that EDTA and its salts were responsible for a plethora of poisonous potions, and now he’s selling us the very same chemical.  Let me refresh your memory:

“EDTA is used as a preservative in various skin care products, bath soaps, shampoos, conditioners, hair dyes and hair bleaches.

With chronic use, EDTA has the potential to cause reproductive damage, fetal disability and kidney damage.

Ironically (remember, it’s used in skin care products) EDTA can also cause contact dermatitis.”–David Wolfe¹

But wait!  If you act now, you can get two EDTA-laden products from David Wolfe for the price of… well… two:

 

Yet another Wolfe product containing disodium EDTA (click/enlarge)

Wolfe claims disodium EDTA can cause kidney damage, but here it is in another of his products (click/enlarge)

 

Astute readers may have noticed that in the ingredients list, disodium EDTA is prominently listed next to a large banner from madesafe.org, proclaiming how rigorously these shampoos have been tested for safety.  This may be the first thing Wolfe got right–there’s no evidence that EDTA is dangerous, but it’s a howling act of hypocrisy to claim a chemical will harm you while simultaneously listing it in a sales ad next to a bold-print banner that purports you’ve done extensive testing for toxic ingredients

To put the whip cream on this huge slice of irony pie, Hairprint, the manufacturer of the shampoos hawked by Avocado, proudly touts disodium EDTA as a featured ingredient in its products.  David Wolfe: Google is your friend… learn how to use it:

“Disodium EDTA:  This is a salt designed to act as a metal and mineral chelating agent. It has several uses as a medicine and is an approved food preservative. We use it here to remove the build up of minerals caused by hard water. Our Chelating Shampoo containing Disodium EDTA can perform miracles for hair conditions cause by hard water.” — Hairprint.com product information page ¹⁰

I’ve found no evidence to suggest EDTA is harmful, unless you happened to be run over by a truck carrying a ton of it to a processing facility.  However, we’re not here to debate the safety of this chemical.  No, we’re here to ask David Wolfe why he’s attempting to sell over five millions followers a product he falsely alleges will put them at risk of kidney failure or fetal abnormalities.

This is one of many Longevity Warehouse products that follow this pattern of hypocrisy, yet Wolfe’s followers seem to line up like lemmings who don’t read product labels, cash in their tiny paws, ready follow each other over the edge of the Cliff of Consumer Fraud.  Sadly, some of Wolfe’s offerings, such as his dangerous and unproven cancer “cures,” could get someone killed.  It’s a sad state of affairs, and in a world where facts no longer seem to matter, I see no end in sight.

Oh, about those pillow cases I mentioned in the opening…  Get’em while they’re hot.  And please:  #DontCryWolfe

How deeply can you trust a health guru who tags pillows as the cause of neck pain, then tries to sell you pillow cases?   Screen snapshot from David Wolfe’s Longevity Warehouse.  (click/enlarge)

References
(1) Eight Toxic Body Care Chemicals That Are Killing You (DavidWolfe.com)
https://www.davidwolfe.com/8-toxic-beauty-care-chemicals/
Retrieved 19 Nov 2017

(2) Longevity Warehouse Hairprint Chelating Shampoo
https://www.longevitywarehouse.com/hairprint-chelating-shampoo#product_tabs_ingredients
Retrieved 19 Nov 2017

(3) Disodium EDTA, linked as information source by David Wolfe (see reference #2) [Warning: Not a scholarly link]
http://www.cosmeticsinfo.org/ingredient/disodium-edta
Retrieved 19 Nov 2017

(4) Trisodium EDTA, linked as information source by David Wolfe (see reference #2) [Warning: Not a scholarly link]
http://www.cosmeticsinfo.org/ingredient/disodium-edta
Retrieved 19 Nov 2017

(5) Pubchem EDTA (Compound ID 6049)
https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/edta
Retrieved 19 Nov 2017

(6) PubChem EDTA Disodium Salt (Compound ID 13020083)
https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/13020083
Retrieved 19 Nov 2017

(7) Pubchem Edetate Trisodium Salt (Compound ID 9008)
https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/9008
Retrieved 19 Nov 2017

(8) Hairprint Chelating Shampoo
https://www.longevitywarehouse.com/hairprint-chelating-shampoo
Retrieved 19 Nov 2017

(9) Hairprint Chelating Shampoo Ingredients
https://www.longevitywarehouse.com/hairprint-chelating-shampoo#product_tabs_ingredients
Retrieved 19 Nov 2017

(10)  Hairprint.com Ingredients
https://www.myhairprint.com/pages/ingredients
Retrieved 19 Nov 2017

Image Credits
Article banner: Connor Gap Ireland (background) © 2017 Mark Aaron Alsip. David Wolfe screen snapshot elements, bathtub, shampoo, etc, used in accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, commonly known as “fair use law”. This material is distributed without profit with the intent to provide commentary, review, education, parody, and increase public health knowledge.