18
votes
The influencer who “reverses” Lupus with smoothies. Psychiatrist Brooke Goldner makes extraordinary claims about incurable diseases. It’s brought her a mansion, a Ferrari, and a huge social following.
Link information
This data is scraped automatically and may be incorrect.
- Title
- Meet the influencer who "reverses" lupus-with smoothies
- Authors
- Julia Métraux, Patrick Barkham, Patrick Greenfield, Wyatt Myskow, Lee Hedgepeth, Nia t. evans, Jackie Flynn Mogensen, Ruth Murai, Mother Jones, Sophie Hayssen, Garrison Hayes
- Published
- Mar 26 2024
- Word count
- 2731 words
I think there really needs to be more stringent regulations on speech when it comes to medical information. I understand the importance of the first amendment, and freedom of speech, but at some point there has to be a limit.
So much of the "health influencers" do nothing but spread dangerous misinformation online. Whether there are criminal, or civil, liabilities related to what you say is something that needs to be discussed more often.
A psychiatrist should not be able to go and make medical recommendations to people without oversight.
The entire “wellness” space is almost indistinguishable from a grift at times.
At the very least we could do things like regulate supplements so that people are not buying unsafe products:
https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/whats-in-your-supplements-2019021515946
(The Dream also had a good episode on this: https://www.pushkin.fm/podcasts/the-dream/s2-e3-magic-little-pills)
Doesn’t address the wellness
grifter“”influencer”” thoA psychiatrist is a legitimate physician though. To be clear, there are a lot of issues outlined in the article that make what she’s doing problematic: primarily, she should accept and be clear that her service is offering medical advice.
In this case, there’s a degree of plausibility in the treatment she’s offering too: diet can play a major role in autoimmune conditions. That’s not to say her particular “raw food” approach is better than a whole plethora of alternative diets, but a massive dietary overhaul as a general strategy is one that can absolutely work for a lot of people with lupus and similar conditions.
Do you disagree with the previous post or the comment you highlighted? Your point that a psychiatrist is a legitimate doctor is the reason that this is so terribly unethical. Her entire business model is to circumvent medical oversight.
She thought to herself, I can only see so many patients. Getting blood tests, spending time with them, all this bs is getting in the way of making me lots of money. So she becomes an influencer, connecting her to millions of people that give her ad revenue or buy her "product".
Sure she still says you should see your doctor and doesn't specifically tell anybody they should stop taking medication, and some of her advice is good, general advice... (You should sleep well and have a better diet! Green vegetables are good for you!) But she knows full well she has branded herself into a world of misinformation. As the article points out, she doesn't stop people in her groups from recommending stopping medication or other extreme and unproven viewpoints.
I agree with the OP in a sense.
I’m not a legal professional, but I strongly suspect what she’s doing isn’t kosher at all per existing regulations - they’re just not being enforced. As a licensed physician, I do think she should be able to make whatever general health claims she wants - but I also think she should be at risk of severe disciplinary action if it’s shown her recommendations present an overwhelming risk of harm (think ivermectin/oral consumption of bleach). Definitely should face civil liability for it too, depending on how she presents the advice or the product.
Looked it up and it does appear she might be relying on a specific exemption of Texas Medical Board licensure requirements, which is actually really scummy and should probably be addressed with better regulation (Sec. 151.053, ctrl + f “nutritional advice”):
https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/OC/htm/OC.151.htm
Ah interesting, so if she was in another state she may have faced repercussions or even lost her license. The sad thing is, even if that happened, I don't think it would affect her influencer career. Jordan Peterson is facing losing his license and, from what I've seen of his followers, it is only further validating their viewpoint that he is some sort of free speech martyr.
The point I got is that no doctor should be allowed that. A psychiatrist's public discourse should still be regulated even in matters pertaining to psychiatry.
Lawyers are limited in their public discourse, but in practice they are only required to add a warning saying "this is not legal advice". Which a lot of people probably ignores.
Yeah - I take that point, but IMO it’s more an issue of anemic state medical boards than a lack of existing regulation.
Wouldn't sanctions by medical boards effectively count as regulation?
Yep.
You're right, that was an oversight on my part. I do think that we need to make sure we give relevant doctors room to make medical comments. I moreso meant restriction of layman's medical advice.
Though, now that I think about it, maybe it needs to be geared moreso towards people who aren't experts on the subject matter. My congressman is an anesthesiologist who was spreading ivermectin BS during the pandemic under the guise of being a doctor. Yes, he's a doctor, but he's not a virologist. As far as I know, he faced no repercussions about his misinformation.
Another example: my wife and I have been going through lots of infertility issues over the past 5 years or so. We decided to use a gestational carrier instead of continuing with IVF ourselves. As part of the surrogate process, we had to have a consult with a therapist. She basically told my wife to not get the covid vaccine and to not vaccinate our children which I found to be extremely unprofessional and over the line. Things like that really piss me off because they use their (false) position as "medical professionals" to push medical misinformation. It just goes to show that educated people can still fall for propaganda.
Yeah, I’m of two minds about it: on the one hand, ivermectin and kin had overwhelmingly negative risk profiles, and way more providers should’ve lost their licenses for pushing it during the pandemic.
On the other hand, there are quite a few cases of medical innovators who were tarred and feathered by the mainstream establishment - but ultimately turned out to be correct. Joseph Lister is the earliest example that comes to mind, but a more recent example would be John Sarno.
Sarno played a major role in popularizing the idea of a “mind-body connection” - i.e. that psychological stress can manifest as subconscious muscle tightness and trigger back pain/similar bodily conditions. His specific medical ontology (“tension myositis syndrome”) was never adopted, but a majority of medical providers now buy his core theory and many hold him in high regard. Reading his main book on the subject (Healing Back Pain - written the the 80s IIRC) is quite a trip in modern times though, because he lets through some palpable bitterness/indignation that his ideas were dismissed out of hand and sounds quite similar to the antivax/new-age crowd as a result.
Another case study in the same vein would be low-carbohydrate diets for T2 diabetes: twenty years ago, suggesting that such a diet could put diabetes into remission was fringe to the point of taboo, and mainly spread through fitness/keto/paleo circles. In less than two decades though, the mainstream consensus pulled a full 180. Similar story for concussion management protocols.
I do think we can and should try to do better in terms of limiting abuses like the one in this article, but I think there’s also an understandable reticence to censure licensed physicians even when they’re almost certainly wrong - because those kooky types have turned out to be right a few times before and majorly changed the status quo for the better.
In the US, medical claims about food are regulated by the FTC, the FDA, and the USDA.
Keeping on the right side of the law still leaves a lot of room for advertisers saying that food is vaguely good for you, but it sounds like this goes beyond that?
Perhaps the regulators will notice, eventually.
Grift and misplaced hope for cures has been around probably since time immemorial. We don't want to die, and we want to be cured.
In the ancient days we had the Pool at Bethesda, where angels supposedly have dips and if you can rush into the pool for a dip right after an angel, you'd be cured.
Medieval bathing towns, weird rocks, staring at a painting, touching a statue, burning paper and using the ash for tea....all the way to Dr Kellogg's kookie cereal regiment, and now two trillions of dollars spent every year to not feel mortal
The hope is beyond reasoning, beyond religion and beyond regulations. Plaster warnings on as much as you like, people will still choose to believe.
But our medical access isn't making it better. Friends and family who have to wait months to see a specialist while anxious and in pain is why they turn to cracks. One friend said they know it's kooky and probably not real but the crack is the only professional who has shown any sort of empathy and urgency and given any sort of hope. If we had better pain management specialists and better wait times it'll go a long way. But on the other hand, we also need to accept that human beings are fragile and we will all die. I hope if/when I come down with something personally I will retain this clarity.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pool_of_Bethesda
Also, two million for a mansion is a total bargain compared to million dollar crack shacks in Vancouver