“Raw milk is better for your teeth than any of these toothpastes you’ll get.”
I had a veritable fools’ buffet to choose from when opening this article. So manyĚý·Éľ±±ô»ĺĚýquotes thrown about with complete earnestness by Alex °ä±ô˛ą°ů°ě’s guests. Do I go with the woman who thinks our bodies are full of parasites and they get extra busy on the full moon? Or do I cite the pooping expert who reveals “what Pampers doesn’t want you to know”? I went with the guy who foregoes soap, shampoo, deodorant and toothpaste,Ěý, former conservative heartthrob turned raw dairy farmer.
The wellness podcast ecosystem has gone stark raving mad, especially now that it’s in its conservative phase. The days of the jade egg seem quaint. Politically regressive health mamas and their oh-so-serious male guests are overdosing on conspiracy theories. They are questioning everything that comes with modern living. It’s all bad, all a lie; whoever suggests a fallacious alternative—something “natural” or something our “ancestors” used to do—gets an instant seal of approval.
The rulebook is simple: contrarians know best; everything you thought you knew about health has been a lie; my guest’s knowledge on this issue will usher in a revolution; and be sure to buy their book, their product, and hit subscribe on your way out. Controversy is a currency.
Alex Clark is the perfect case study.
Clark wanted to work in fashion journalism. She was recruited in 2019 by Turning Point USA, an organization known for its advocacy of conservative values on college campuses and co-founded by the late Charlie Kirk. Clark went from hosting a pop-culture-centred political podcast for TPUSA to being the voice of a more serious show for them,ĚýThe Spillover, renamed and rebranded in September 2024 toĚýCulture Apothecary.ĚýIt is now a popular wellness interview show with a revolving door wide enough for any influencer with a fringe view to sit down and convince Clark that they’re a defector from the health wars.
Clark, it should be said, has no medical or scientific qualifications. But she exemplifies a tragic trend I’ve seen since the beginning of the pandemic: women who were told that modernity was making their children sick and that the only solution was to vote for Bobby Kennedy through Trump so that he could make everything healthy again.
Oral contraceptives in the crosshairs
In a brain-dizzyingĚýĚýconducted by Charlie Kirk, Alex Clark—sounding like Sarah Michelle Gellar on a crusade to turn back the clock to the 1950s—enumerates everything she thinks is wrong with our health. Her father, she says, had two heart attacks, type 2 diabetes, and brain cancer, all apparently preventable. “We’re seeing cancer for people under 30 explode right now. Why do you think that is? It is the food.”
She claims that plastic is basically turning boys into girls: “Alex Jones was right 15 years ago when he talked about the frogs—the water is turning the frogs gay,” she says, referring to the über-conspiracy theorist who recently lost his InfoWars banner. She marched in front of Kellogg’s because she believes artificial food dyes cause cancer and worsen autism. “If it didn’t come from God, if the ingredients on the label are not single-word ingredients, […] it’s not real food.” She sounds like the Food Babe had a Pauline conversion.
Naturally, the topic of vaccines comes up on her podcast fairly regularly. Many of her guests make off-hand comments about “too many, too soon.” The pooping lady, who calls disposable diapers “one of the biggest scams in modern parenting,”Ěý, perhaps fearing the demonetization of this episode of Alex °ä±ô˛ą°ů°ě’s podcast: “Your pediatrician will tell you, you need to circumcise your boy, you need to get all of these vaccines way earlier than… well, we won’t get into that.”
A core part of °ä±ô˛ą°ů°ě’s origin story as a wellness influencer is the issue of birth control. Just before her rebranding, she moderated a panel at a TPUSA summit aimed at conservative women, where one of her panelists called oral contraceptivesĚýĚýalso responsible for brain aneurysms and blood clots. OnĚýCulture Apothecary, one of °ä±ô˛ą°ů°ě’s guests alleged that women on the pill areĚýĚýand that while the pill is not “outright poison,” it doesĚý. Clark herself was said by Fox News to encourage her audience toĚýĚýand it’s no wonder why: if you too believed the pill caused cancer, clots, scurvy, and inbreeding, you’d stay away from it.
Actual facts, however, cast the contraceptive pill in a very different light. As gynecologist Dr. Jen Gunter hasĚý, the World Health OrganizationĚýĚýthe use of oral contraceptives. Would it champion it knowing it was a dangerous cancer-causing agent? The tie with cancer is because estrogens can cause cancer. Estrogen hormones are present in both male and female bodies, and many oral contraceptives contain them as well—although some forms of hormonal birth control are estrogen-free and only contain a progestogen. In women younger than 35, we seeĚýĚýof invasive breast cancer for every 50,000 women on the pill. That is a low risk. And as Dr. GunterĚý, you know what else elevates your risk of breast cancer? Pregnancy, and that elevated risk lastsĚý. Cancer risks need to be contextualized.
As for its increased risk of blood clots, this has been known since the first contraceptive pill was marketed in 1961; more recent formulations contain a lower dose of estrogen and have thus reduced the risk, which isĚý. Once again, the very thing the pill prevents—pregnancy—is itself associated with aĚý.
The cousin thing, meanwhile, did not exactly pan out. It used to be thought that by suppressing ovulation, the pill would rewire women’s brains to look not for a genetically compatible sperm donor but a more cooperative, feminine-looking male partner.ĚýĚýĚýshows no evidence of this, however. And the vitamin and mineral depletion claim?ĚýĚýofĚýĚýpublished a few years ago make no mention of it. It appears to come from older, less rigorous studies.
But scientific evidence will not stop Alex Clark from making these claims, while she sits in a studio surrounded by dubious products that their makers have paid to be featured on camera.
Sponsored by a healthcare mirage
ĚýThe sponsors ofĚýCulture Apothecary—outside of TPUSA itself—represent a ragtag parade of holistic, primal, alternative, and ancestral consumer goods, occasionally linked to Christianity. There are natural cosmetics; cow colostrum; beef sticks; electrolyte packets; “pure” moisturizers; electromagnetic-frequency-free headphones; freedom-loving and divinity-embracing toothpastes; a healthcare crowdfunding platform; and a cow organ seasoning for you to microdose on. Yes. Say goodbye to Mrs. Dash and hello to ground-up kidney, spleen, and pancreas mixed with paprika and salt so you can get a tiny bit more vitamins with your meal.
But the perennial sponsor of the show, with a place of honour in every wide shot, is Geviti, a pun on “longevity.” Homeopathy and Reiki are old news; now, it’s all aboutĚýfunctional medicine, a pipeline that funnels disaffected healthcare providers to a trendy form of alternative medicine where patients undergo unnecessary blood tests to find something—anything—outside the normal range, which needs to be fixed by a plethora of expensive and unproven dietary supplements. Geviti allows you to do this at home. An annual membership costs US$1,524 and gives you two blood panels per year, at-home blood draws, a supplements protocol conjured up by artificial intelligence (but allegedly reviewed by a “specialist” within 72 hours), as well as member pricing on supplement packs. ThoseĚý‼ő±đ±čłŮľ±»ĺ±đ˛ő”Ěýeveryone is talking about? They offer them as well.
This is a healthcare mirage. It’s giving the illusion of finding out what’s wrong with you by testing everything in an unfocused way and filling you up with pills you don’t need. Even their fine print disclaimer, barely legible, reveals the illusion: “Geviti is a healthcare technology company and not a laboratory or medical provider.” It continues, in a medium grey fontĚý, by stating that it “does not offer medical advice, laboratory services, a diagnosis, medical treatment, or any form of medical opinion, through our services or otherwise.” It is merely, I would opine, “playing doctor,” allowing you to participate in the theatre of healthcare. This legal text, I think, should be called the “playing-doctor disclaimer.”
Intellectual mimicry
There are many topics Alex °ä±ô˛ą°ů°ě’s fans—whom she calls “cuteservatives”—Ěýon her show. Tallow lotion, nearly-month-long fasts, finding a good functional doctor, holistic dental care, ivermectin, and the Bible—oh, and a guest who knows a lot about “St. Hildegard’s medicine and remedies,” you know, Hildegard of Bingen who died in 1179? Her knowledge of what to do with pancreatic cancer must have been plentiful and somehow suppressed.
Already, °ä±ô˛ą°ů°ě’s roster of past guests had me raise so many eyebrows I grew new ones. There’s Sherri Tenpenny, the old-school anti-vaxxer; Sally K. Norton, theĚýlow-oxalate dietĚýinfluencer; Paul Saladino, the carnivore diet advocate; Calley Means, the wellness entrepreneur brother to Casey Means, the Surgeon General nominee who was ultimately turned down; and Diane Hennacy, the psi researcher giving legitimacy to the podcast sensationĚýThe Telepathy TapesĚýthat alleges that nonverbal autistic people are secretly communing with each other through preternatural powers of the mind.
I sampled a half dozen episodes ofĚýCulture Apothecary—which currently sits at #9 on the Spotify Podcast Chart for Health and Fitness in the U.S.—just to be hit with a wave of incredulity at what was being proclaimed without an ounce of irony. The Bible, I learned, is a health manual that proclaims red meat to be a superfood; mouth-breathing leads to bedwetting and ADHD; castor oil heals cataracts; colonoscopies are a no-no; and nicotine is actually good for you. That last one was from a chiropractor. Clark tells us in the introduction that she wants everybody she knows to put on nicotine patches, “including your kids!!” Nicotine, if you’ve been keeping an ear to the wellness ground, is gettingĚýan unscientific makeoverĚýthese days. Nicotine is natural after all, and it was used as a remedy by wise Indigenous tribes. Therefore….
One of the hallmarks of science denial is the platforming of fake experts, and Clark has been welcoming them with open arms. At that TPUSA Women’s Leadership Summit, the guest who called the pill a carcinogen is a “board-certified health coach.” What board? Health coaching is not a recognized healthcare profession;ĚýanyoneĚýcan simply use the title to dispense ill advice. Meanwhile, °ä±ô˛ą°ů°ě’s podcast guest invited to discuss endometriosis and birth control is an expert in “naturopathic endocrinology.” I’m sorry, what? Naturopathy is a collection of pseudoscientific beliefs that includes homeopathy andĚý. There is no such thing as “naturopathic endocrinology.” It is made up. It is intellectual mimicry.
Another guest, Kim Rogers—the self-described “Worm Queen” who thinks parasites go nuts on a full moon—obscuresĚý: “I have two healthcare degrees,” she says on the show, “and I ran 25 healthcare colleges, I worked in the emergency room, in urgent care.” What are “healthcare degrees”? The website of aĚýĚýshe spoke at gets a tad more specific: it states she has an Associates in Medical Specialties and Bachelors in Healthcare. That first one, I checked, is an umbrella term for jobs like medical assistant, medical billing specialist, and patient care technician.
I managed to dig out her actual qualifications fromĚý. She studied health servicesĚýmanagement, with a major in radiography and a minor in psychology. She’s not a doctor; yet she casually talks about parasites that hijack our small intestine, “which is where that feeling of worthiness comes from.” A feeling ofĚýworminess, perhaps, if you have intestinal worms, butĚýworthiness?ĚýThat’s in a different organ called the brain.
Voting for RFK Jr as the “fix-it” guy
ĚýSpeaking of worms and brains, a lingering question for many is why wellness—and by extension the very idea of health—has become so right-wing coded these days, especially in the United States.
Alex °ä±ô˛ą°ů°ě’s flip to wellness, asĚý, exemplifies this politicization: many of the women who contacted Clark around the time of the last presidential election didn’t want to vote for Trump… but they held their nose to get Robert F. Kennedy Jr into office. When Kennedy endorsed Trump, that cinched it for them.
These women were told on the Internet by wellness entrepreneurs that autism was a plague caused by vaccines; that medications kept people sick while natural cures were hidden by a corporate conspiracy; that their food supply was poisonous and that the Democrats were coming for their steaks. “Our kids are toast if we don’t vote Trump in,” Clark told Kirk, summarizing the mindset of these voters. It’s the perennial tugging at the heart strings to justify doing something highly questionable: won’t someone please think of the children?
The people in charge now are certainly taking a keen interest in these children. The phrase “military readiness” is on all of their lips, includingĚý. Dr. Oz recently said that a third of Americans wereĚýĚýa truly disturbing turn of phrase coming out of a regime that coins new ones by the day. Kennedy himself is deeply concerned aboutĚý. Too little spermatozoa means not enough babies and thus too few soldiers on future frontlines.
Mehmet Oz, Marty Makary, and Vinay Prasad—part of RFK Jr’s original higher-up line-up—built their careers off of a microphone. Alex Clark is doing the same. Will she get to join the U.S. government or will she simply remain a useful purveyor of farcical health misinformation?
Take-home message:
- Alex °ä±ô˛ą°ů°ě’s Culture Apothecary podcast exemplifies what the wellness industry looks like in politically conservative circles.
- Clark and her guests accuse the birth control pill of causing cancer and blood clots, a wild exaggeration of a well-known and low risk.
- Her long-term sponsor is Geviti, a private company offering blood tests and AI-generated dietary supplements protocols that legally distances itself from actual medical services.
- Clark says that many mothers voted for Trump simply to get Robert F. Kennedy Jr into government so that he could adopt policies that would heal their children.
