Speaker 1: Previously on the Dream. It drives me nuts because there's
Speaker 1: enough science words. The people who don't know anything about
Speaker 1: quantum mechanics will assume that there must be some science
Speaker 1: behind it, which ignores so much basic rudimentary biology and
Speaker 1: quite basic quantum mechanics that it's ludicrous. And you have
Speaker 1: people tricks because they assume that like an MRI machine
Speaker 1: us quantum mechanics. Cancer treatment uses quantum mechanics, so there
Speaker 1: must be something in these oil the all uses quantum
Speaker 1: mechanics when there isn't. There's just nothing there. It's just
Speaker 1: a lie. We can't talk about wellness without talking about
Speaker 1: this one lady and her inspirational weller than You'll ever
Speaker 1: be lifestyle warning. She's edgy, one of her friends is
Speaker 1: a rapper. She's fought the law and the law one
Speaker 1: and she swears the funk out of shit. Yes, ladies
Speaker 1: and gentlemen, I'm talking about the daughter of blythe Danner
Speaker 1: and god daughter of Steven Spielberg, Gwyneth Paltrow, who has
Speaker 1: risen from the opposite of obscurity to become the host
Speaker 1: of her very own brand new streaming television program, The
Speaker 1: Goop Lab. So what happens in a workshop. Everyone gives
Speaker 1: the wolf. What the fuck are you doing? Is chool?
Speaker 1: Will you try to do with you to explore ideas
Speaker 1: that may seem out there or too scary? Are you
Speaker 1: guys ready to go out in the field and make
Speaker 1: a raucus? Just another day at the office. I had
Speaker 1: an exorcism. Oh wow, it's unregulated. Should I be scared?
Speaker 1: We're here one time, one life? How can we really
Speaker 1: have milked the shit out of this? For launching her
Speaker 1: website Goop in two thousand and eight, Paltrow was a
Speaker 1: wealthy actress and a mother married to a wealthy rock star.
Speaker 1: In the early days of Goop, it was mostly a
Speaker 1: blog and not yet the Amazon of wellness it's become,
Speaker 1: and one of the early features on that blog was
Speaker 1: a day in the life sort of thing. Gwyneth described
Speaker 1: the genesis of this idea quote One of our readers
Speaker 1: emailed Goop about finding a good balance between having a
Speaker 1: career and being a mom, which got me thinking about
Speaker 1: the other extremely busy working mothers I know and what
Speaker 1: their days might be like. I asked some friends how
Speaker 1: they do the mother's special everything all at once? End
Speaker 1: quote Gwyneth published a diary about how she does it all,
Speaker 1: and it's maybe one of the most unrelatable things I've
Speaker 1: ever read, Starting with how her toddler wakes up after
Speaker 1: eight am quote, I went up to rouse the little
Speaker 1: man from slumber, and he quite happily got up and
Speaker 1: crawled into my arms. We got downstairs and I made
Speaker 1: him a quick breakfast of eggs and toast, followed by
Speaker 1: a spoonful of lemon flavored flax oil that I'd try
Speaker 1: to remember to give him every morning. Then she takes
Speaker 1: the kids to school, and when all was well, I
Speaker 1: dodged off as fast as possible, but was still late
Speaker 1: to my nine am workout. Did dance aerobics for forty
Speaker 1: five minutes, then all of the butt lifts and the like.
Speaker 1: Rushed upstairs to have a shower, doing my post workout
Speaker 1: stretch while the conditioner was doing its magic on my hair.
Speaker 1: To combine activities slash save time. Okay, So her nine
Speaker 1: am jim appointment nine am that she was worried about
Speaker 1: being late for was in her house got it very
Speaker 1: helpful of her busy working moms out there. Gwyneth closes
Speaker 1: out her day by putting the kids down to bed,
Speaker 1: but not before quote the kids indulge in a super
Speaker 1: sugary cupcake before bed, but I don't feel too bad
Speaker 1: because they had a brown rice stir fryford in her
Speaker 1: with a baked sweet potato on the side. It's all
Speaker 1: about balance exclamation point. This is the unattainable aspirational talk
Speaker 1: that launched a thousand influencers and a collection of wellness
Speaker 1: products sold on Goop that run the gamut from silly
Speaker 1: a candle that says it smells like Gwen It's vagina,
Speaker 1: hopefully only while it's burning and not you know, like
Speaker 1: right after you blow it out. Two more dubious items,
Speaker 1: like a sixty six dollars jade egg that claimed to
Speaker 1: balance hormones and regulate menstrual cycles if you shove it
Speaker 1: up your hohoha. Here's Gwyneth pitching the jade egg on
Speaker 1: Jimmy Kimmel in twenty sixteen. The jade egg is an
Speaker 1: ancient Chinese practice where women insert the jade egg in
Speaker 1: their lady part right and to help tone the pelvic floor.
Speaker 1: How does it help do that? I don't know. I
Speaker 1: need to start my jectice. You've never been on this
Speaker 1: website before, have you you sell the lot of that.
Speaker 1: We sell tons of them, and they are women who
Speaker 1: you know, are really good at practicing this, and they
Speaker 1: say that, um, it's good for balancing hormones and all
Speaker 1: kinds of amazing benefit. Yeah. Yeah, And the best part
Speaker 1: of it is on opc. But up in the corner
Speaker 1: it says item is non returnable. The jade egg wasn't
Speaker 1: and isn't the only thing worth your side eye on
Speaker 1: their website. Enough sketchy claims have been made on Goop
Speaker 1: to inspire academic research into the company. One study comes
Speaker 1: from a team at the University of Florida. My name
Speaker 1: is a Manchestrinas. I am a health communication scholar at
Speaker 1: the University of Florida, and you wrote a study I
Speaker 1: did along with the research team. We analyzed all of
Speaker 1: the articles that were published under the health tab of
Speaker 1: the Goop website. So she has a section called Wellness
Speaker 1: and then under that there's like health specifically. So we
Speaker 1: looked at all the articles that have been published from
Speaker 1: the founding of the site up to the time of
Speaker 1: our analysis, which was in the fall of twenty seventeen.
Speaker 1: How many articles was that two hundred and sixty five
Speaker 1: articles total had been published, but as we reviewed them,
Speaker 1: we ended up taking out sixty five of them either
Speaker 1: due to they weren't relevant. There was a couple about
Speaker 1: relationships or things like book reviews, so we wanted to
Speaker 1: specifically look at the health advice that she was giving.
Speaker 1: So we ended up with two hundreds. How did you
Speaker 1: come up with this idea? I've radically from another podcast.
Speaker 1: It was sab Bones, which has a physician and her
Speaker 1: husband talk about different medical claims, and they did a
Speaker 1: bonus episode and they happened to talk about the jade egg,
Speaker 1: like Juenneth Paltrow had been selling and talking about how
Speaker 1: it's really bad for you and you can give you
Speaker 1: talk six shock syndrome. But she's still selling it in
Speaker 1: then sixty dollars, and I thought that was ridiculous. So
Speaker 1: I wanted to look at all of the other things
Speaker 1: that she was saying. So we did the analysis structured
Speaker 1: thematic analysis, where you kind of look at what are
Speaker 1: the messages that are coming forth in all of these articles,
Speaker 1: what are the patterns? But we also didn't know their
Speaker 1: study where we compare the articles to this criteria from
Speaker 1: Health news reviews. It looks at all of the different claims,
Speaker 1: and like, what's the quality of the evidence, what are
Speaker 1: the types of experts that they have on there? Are
Speaker 1: they just use mongering? What are they using an their
Speaker 1: series of evidence and those sorts of things. What is
Speaker 1: disease mongering? So that would be when you are creating
Speaker 1: or exaggerating the prevalence of a disease. This is from
Speaker 1: an article on food intolerance, the articles called inisifying the Diet.
Speaker 1: She says a short list of symptoms that could point
Speaker 1: to food intolerance includes stomach pain, reflux, ear infections, frequent illness,
Speaker 1: red cheeks, exzema, joint pain, frequent diarrhea and constipation, asthma,
Speaker 1: temper tantrum, fuzzy thinking, fatigue, headaches, failure to thrive, excessive
Speaker 1: gas and pleat disturbances. And so anybody is going to
Speaker 1: have at least one of those. I mean, I definitely
Speaker 1: have a failure to thrive. So and then let's just
Speaker 1: talk about your thesis and the big question that you
Speaker 1: had in this study. You know, there's the theory of
Speaker 1: para social interaction. Prayer social relationships are defined as relationships
Speaker 1: between media users and media figures that resemble typical social relationships,
Speaker 1: even though there's no social interaction happening. The user is
Speaker 1: viewing the celebrity as a friend. They're viewing it likely
Speaker 1: would be a regular social relationship, and in order to
Speaker 1: maintain or enhance that connection, they will adopt the celebrities values, beliefs,
Speaker 1: or behaviors to try and make them feel closer to them.
Speaker 1: And there's a lot of studies that show that it
Speaker 1: does have an impact on health behavior. Specifically with Magic
Speaker 1: Johnson when he went public about his HIV diagnosis, it
Speaker 1: changed the way people saw HIV and it changed the
Speaker 1: way people perceived the risk of contracting HIV for heterosexuals.
Speaker 1: With Angelina Jolie when she published her op ed in
Speaker 1: May of twenty thirteen about getting a preventative mastectomy, there
Speaker 1: was a twofold increase in referrals for breast cancer testing
Speaker 1: from May to October of that year comparison to that
Speaker 1: same period in the previous year. I think it's a
Speaker 1: bigger issue now more than ever because I looked at this,
Speaker 1: did another paper with this theory in the context of sports,
Speaker 1: and the way that we have access to these figures
Speaker 1: lives because of social media is so different to when
Speaker 1: you know all of these original studies were being done
Speaker 1: and these ideas were being developed that I can even
Speaker 1: imagine how much more potent it is now that you
Speaker 1: can have complete access to this person's life and feel
Speaker 1: like you really really know them and it's not like
Speaker 1: a mental disorder, it's just a regular human behavior. Yeah, definitely,
Speaker 1: that was something they noticed. At first. They were like, Oh,
Speaker 1: this must only be in people who are lonely or
Speaker 1: people who have deficiencies in their actual social interactions. But
Speaker 1: that's not true at all about it can happen to anybody,
Speaker 1: and it happens to fictional characters as well. That's surprising.
Speaker 1: Who are we talking about, Oh my gosh, I'm in
Speaker 1: a comment on your podcast. Yeah, it started. One of
Speaker 1: the first studies about it was looking at how people
Speaker 1: related to characters in a television program in Israel and
Speaker 1: like the way that they viewed these characters as their
Speaker 1: friends because they reminded them of their friends, and so
Speaker 1: that's when they first started noticing it. So it really
Speaker 1: does have an impact on health behavior specifically. So that's
Speaker 1: why I kind of decided to look at it, because
Speaker 1: I wanted to see what she was saying and if
Speaker 1: people who paid attention to her and listened to her
Speaker 1: and had a relationship with her. In their minds, it
Speaker 1: might affect some of their health behavior. Amanda's team found
Speaker 1: that to be true. No, duh. When Gwyneth says she
Speaker 1: does something, we do it, but more interesting to me
Speaker 1: was another part of her study, a more nefarious finding.
Speaker 1: So Goopa is a contextual commerce brand, meaning that the
Speaker 1: editorial sections and the sales section our merge, which kind
Speaker 1: of puts it in a journalistic gray area. Jessica Alba's
Speaker 1: Honest Company brand is condextual commerce, and Martha Stewart is
Speaker 1: con sextual commerce. But I think the fact that this
Speaker 1: is happening in the health realm, it's bad. So this
Speaker 1: isn't one hundred and seventy three of the two hundred
Speaker 1: articles you looked at, fifty five percent of them directly
Speaker 1: linked to an item for sale. Wow. And I think
Speaker 1: it would be if you did it today, I think
Speaker 1: it would be even higher because the period that we
Speaker 1: were looking at was before there was a Goop store
Speaker 1: as well. Goop has done a bit of a redesign recently,
Speaker 1: and we'll talk about why in a bit. They were
Speaker 1: forced to, But there are many avenues you can take
Speaker 1: to find both information and products to buy. You could
Speaker 1: click on the shop tab, of course, or you could
Speaker 1: click on the health tab or wellness or detox and
Speaker 1: find articles tagged read and shop, essentially taking you back
Speaker 1: to the online store, whether you wanted to go there
Speaker 1: or not. Fasting is very trendy right now, and it's
Speaker 1: been written about a lot on Goop. If you're into fasting,
Speaker 1: just don't eat or whatever, or go on Gwenet's website
Speaker 1: read about the benefits of fasting and various articles, and
Speaker 1: before you close the tab, don't forget to buy a
Speaker 1: five day fasting mimicking kit they're selling to quote, take
Speaker 1: the burden out of fasting for only two hundred and
Speaker 1: forty nine dollars for less than a week's worth of
Speaker 1: not actually food for one person. And the ones that
Speaker 1: didn't link to specific articles, you know, they might talk
Speaker 1: about a specific sauna that Gwyneth was going to a
Speaker 1: New York or a specific type of reflexologist or raiky
Speaker 1: healer or something that would come in and talk about
Speaker 1: their services in the article. So even if it's not
Speaker 1: linking directly to a Goop product, it's directing you to
Speaker 1: something there's a product placement. Yeah. You know. I used
Speaker 1: to be a beauty blogger and we got into some
Speaker 1: health stuff on different blogs. I worked at at the
Speaker 1: Hairpin and Jezebel, and we were more really and ethically
Speaker 1: obligated to put advertorial content. Anything that did link to
Speaker 1: a product, we had to headline it as such like
Speaker 1: it needed a very distinct disclaimer. We would get advertisers
Speaker 1: that would say, we really want you to like look
Speaker 1: at our skin and cream or whatever, and we'd say, great,
Speaker 1: we're broke this month. We can do it. We can
Speaker 1: do it, but it's gonna have this word on top
Speaker 1: of it that says advertisement written by Jane. This is
Speaker 1: an ad. Don't get it twisted. That doesn't happen on Goop. Well,
Speaker 1: it's really strange because that is there in some of
Speaker 1: the articles. So she has a partnership with Tropicana at
Speaker 1: one point and they do a bunch of recipes. She
Speaker 1: has another word yea like picture of health of sugar
Speaker 1: added concentrated year old orange juice. Okay, So she had
Speaker 1: a Trapicana Yeah, and she had another one with Bare
Speaker 1: Minerals as well. But the ones that are connected to
Speaker 1: her site, I mean she really doesn't talk about it.
Speaker 1: There's a series of articles when she first launched her
Speaker 1: brand of vitamins, so the pre pregnancy detox vitamins, the
Speaker 1: high school genes where it's supposed to snap your metabolism
Speaker 1: back to high school. When she first launched, she had
Speaker 1: different article series where she talked about them, and then
Speaker 1: it didn't really say it was an ad but at
Speaker 1: the end, I think it was kind of clear that
Speaker 1: like this was designed to lead you to the vitamins
Speaker 1: in addition to disease mongering, in addition to trying to
Speaker 1: cast as wide a net if possible of symptoms and
Speaker 1: the hopes that they'll land on one that you resonate
Speaker 1: with and you'll think, oh my gosh, I have you
Speaker 1: know Epstein Barr or I have adrenal fatigue, which are
Speaker 1: two diseases they did major issues on. They also tried
Speaker 1: to make you doubt conventional met So this is an
Speaker 1: article about the rise of chronic lime and what to
Speaker 1: do about it, and Goop says, I don't blame doctors
Speaker 1: that they don't have the time to spend enough time
Speaker 1: with patients and treats them properly. But this is the
Speaker 1: face of medicine today, it's a checklist system that creates
Speaker 1: a game of ping pong, tell me your symptoms and
Speaker 1: al throwbacks in medicine, and it's getting worse and worse.
Speaker 1: Does this remind you of anything? Remember a few episodes
Speaker 1: ago when we were talking about hospital births versus home births.
Speaker 1: The home birth proponents argued that doctors are on a clock,
Speaker 1: and they'll put you on that clock and force you
Speaker 1: by the nature of their business, because it is a
Speaker 1: business to make decisions that aren't good for your health
Speaker 1: but are good for their bottom line. And the doctor
Speaker 1: we talked to essentially said, what in the world that's
Speaker 1: not what doctors are for. Goop is muddling around in
Speaker 1: that same argument and stands to make maybe a lot
Speaker 1: more money than your doctor would by selling you something
Speaker 1: that your doctor wouldn't. So who's lying and who's got
Speaker 1: the agenda? So then they push a lot of alternative treatments.
Speaker 1: All of the are kind of internet connected with each other.
Speaker 1: So there's an interview that Gwenna's gave that was published
Speaker 1: on the health site that said, you know, there might
Speaker 1: not be board certified positions doing double blind studies that
Speaker 1: can lay out their results in the same way. The
Speaker 1: empirical evidence is anecdotal, so the stuff that they're talking about,
Speaker 1: but you'll have people who are really resistant to the idea,
Speaker 1: like it's better to be on five prescription drugs than
Speaker 1: to maybe cut gluten out of your diet. So kind
Speaker 1: of trying to say that, you know, we're pushing these
Speaker 1: things that other people aren't thinking of. We're thinking of
Speaker 1: it outside of the box. And that's why you should
Speaker 1: buy our sixty dollars jade egg because they're innovators and
Speaker 1: they're not part of the pharmaceutical industrial complex, right, They
Speaker 1: just make ninety dollars custom vitamins that are supposed to
Speaker 1: make you fit into your genes from high school. My
Speaker 1: genes from high school. By the way, we're z cavalricies.
Speaker 1: They were very cute at the time. You couldn't pay
Speaker 1: me enough to put them back on. So okay, were
Speaker 1: there any other examples of Yes, there's a lot of
Speaker 1: focus on eating clean, being clean, a lot of recipes
Speaker 1: and thinks that they were selling them had to do
Speaker 1: with detoxing. They were selling these pre pregnancy detoxes. So
Speaker 1: they said, stuff, this isn't an article about the importance
Speaker 1: of a pre pregnancy detox. They said, the toxic load
Speaker 1: that we've built up prior to pregnancy, you can have
Speaker 1: an impact on our children. We also know from quote
Speaker 1: washout studies, which will get what happens when someone switches
Speaker 1: from conventional to organic food, that just in the span
Speaker 1: of a few days, we can eliminate significant amounts of
Speaker 1: toxins from our bodies, particularly herbicides and pesticides we consume
Speaker 1: with our food, and that's lower systemic toxic levels. So
Speaker 1: it's saying that as without this detox, not only are
Speaker 1: you have all these herbicides and pesticides and toxics, but
Speaker 1: it's also going to harm your baby, which I think
Speaker 1: is just another level of manipulation, and that goes into
Speaker 1: I think one of the biggest things about group is
Speaker 1: that it portrays Juanneth Paltrow is this ideal, sophisticated woman
Speaker 1: who's focused on her health, who's all about helping other women.
Speaker 1: But at the same time they're posting all these arts
Speaker 1: close about anti aging in different ways to help you
Speaker 1: with weight loss, and it just kind of it's such
Speaker 1: a contradictory message to me that women should be taking
Speaker 1: care of themselves as long as what that also involves
Speaker 1: looking like Gwyneth Paltrow. Yeah, we are the only ones
Speaker 1: that are listening to you, because women are not listened
Speaker 1: to in the medical system. But we're here for you.
Speaker 1: And by the way, you're fat. Yeah exactly. There's sting
Speaker 1: more disheartening than the sight of love handles filling over
Speaker 1: your pants or a pooched belly that's from a group article.
Speaker 1: How can you have both of those panies on your website,
Speaker 1: or shaming women for getting t sections and not being
Speaker 1: able to breastfeed at the same time as you're trying
Speaker 1: to say that you're the only outlets that's there for them,
Speaker 1: you're the only people who care about them, or listening
Speaker 1: to them. Yeah, now we're going to listen to you.
Speaker 1: Your doctors aren't listening. Also, remember nothing tastes as good
Speaker 1: as being skinny feels, except for this protein powder I'm
Speaker 1: about to tell you. Can I tell you one more
Speaker 1: weight lost quotes that I just can't love it? So
Speaker 1: Gwenne's also was talking about herself here. You know, sometimes
Speaker 1: she'd signed the article's GP, so you know it's her
Speaker 1: versus the group team. But she says in January two
Speaker 1: thousand and seven, I decided I'd had enough of my
Speaker 1: saddle bags in post pregnancy sharpay like stomach Gwyneth Paltrow, Yes,
Speaker 1: the one who can't get a dress tailored for an
Speaker 1: awards show small enough to actually fit her frame. Ever,
Speaker 1: I am not trying to shame her either. I mean, like,
Speaker 1: whatever she looks like, however she looks, and we all
Speaker 1: look however we look. Thank you for doing this this work.
Speaker 1: Actually it's really important, So thank you. That parasocial interaction
Speaker 1: theory that Amanda is studying is what's driving the success
Speaker 1: of all wellness influence. Like Courtney Kardashian, I know for
Speaker 1: my body, like I need four to five days a
Speaker 1: week of working out, so right the second we're doing
Speaker 1: gluten free, dairy free, which is so hard to me
Speaker 1: and my kids. And Yolanda Hadid of the Real Housewives.
Speaker 1: You are what you eat. It's just a fact. I
Speaker 1: also think that there's a mom we leave by example,
Speaker 1: so I continue to do all my organic healthy stuff.
Speaker 1: And Tom Brady of football, okay, let's start with breakfast.
Speaker 1: Let's start with breakfast. I eat a smoothie most of
Speaker 1: the time, like a really calorie dense nutrient dense smoothie,
Speaker 1: some electrolytes, some protein powder, an almond milk, right, I
Speaker 1: love almond milk, he milk, a little rice milk from
Speaker 1: time to time, and the gajillions of other wellness influencers
Speaker 1: flooding your social media feeds these days. Move your body
Speaker 1: for thirty minutes every seeing these people today. When you
Speaker 1: move your body, you literally change the chemical makeup inside
Speaker 1: your mind. You change your anxiety. But you have to
Speaker 1: choose to do. Who's ready for yoga? Fifting Sweet is
Speaker 1: brought to you by Williams Sonoma. Everyone gets a book
Speaker 1: and I'll be doing signings that you can grab some
Speaker 1: rose hip oil from now, strawberry jem the stems of
Speaker 1: your kale magic serious a purforing issue. This is a
Speaker 1: way better option than Tom's straw biotics, all of the
Speaker 1: honest beauty. I just can't wait for my friends to
Speaker 1: get here. So back to that jade egg. You might
Speaker 1: have heard about it in the news this past year
Speaker 1: because Goop was sued for violating FTC regulations around deceptive advertising.
Speaker 1: Unless you have really really good scientific evidence, you can't
Speaker 1: say a piece of rock treat, prevent or cure anything.
Speaker 1: So Goop was sued because of this woman. My name
Speaker 1: is Bonnie Patton, and I'm the executive director of Truth
Speaker 1: in Advertising or KINA dot org for sure. And can
Speaker 1: you tell me a little bit about your work, about
Speaker 1: what you guys do. Yes, So, we're a small nonprofit
Speaker 1: based out of Madison, Connecticut, and we work to outstop
Speaker 1: and prevent deceptive advertising. And we do that in a
Speaker 1: variety of ways by edging catering consumers about it, and
Speaker 1: also by bringing legal actions to the attention of state
Speaker 1: and federal regulators to stop the deceptive marketing practices of companies.
Speaker 1: And if you had a pie chart of like what
Speaker 1: sorts of businesses or industries you end up looking at
Speaker 1: due to the number of consumer complaints you get, what
Speaker 1: would that pie chart look like? The largest segment of
Speaker 1: the pie chart would probably be the wellness industry, and
Speaker 1: within that you might see multi level marketing and there
Speaker 1: also But yeah, wellness is a huge area for us.
Speaker 1: Can we talk about the Goop case? I think that's
Speaker 1: the one that most people have heard of, your right,
Speaker 1: and then what it did for your JJ was like
Speaker 1: all kinds of stuff, I think, right, I mean, we
Speaker 1: laugh about it but you know, it really was preying
Speaker 1: on people with really got wrenching issues and problems, you know,
Speaker 1: saying that it could fix uterine pro lap oh my god,
Speaker 1: help with infertility things that you know, just so much
Speaker 1: taking advantage of um of women. I mean, that's what
Speaker 1: I thought of the first time I heard that this
Speaker 1: thing was out there, is like, I got to hope
Speaker 1: no one who's got a real terminal illness is doing
Speaker 1: this instead. Right. But the problem with Goop, although you know,
Speaker 1: people like to talk about the jade egg, is we
Speaker 1: found fifty different products that Goop was marketing that were
Speaker 1: making illegal disease treatment claims. Right, So it wasn't just
Speaker 1: the egg. It was oils and crystals and clothing and
Speaker 1: beauty products. The best is stickers. What, Yes, they had
Speaker 1: stickers that they promoted as having certain health benefits. So
Speaker 1: you guys brought the case to a California court. We
Speaker 1: didn't bring it to a California court. Where we brought
Speaker 1: it was to a group of district attorneys from different
Speaker 1: counties within California, and they took action against Goop and
Speaker 1: required them to pay one hundred and forty five thousand
Speaker 1: dollars in civil penalties, and more importantly from our perspective,
Speaker 1: was that they have to refrain from making any claims
Speaker 1: about the efficacy or effect of any of its products
Speaker 1: unless they have competent and reliable scientific evidence to substantiate
Speaker 1: those claims. We're looking into a product that was sold
Speaker 1: on Goop, a company called moon Juice. Ah, yes, are
Speaker 1: you familiar. I'm familiar because I read an article that
Speaker 1: takes a look at Alex Jones, InfoWars, Goop and I
Speaker 1: think moon Juice and the similarities between all their products amazing.
Speaker 1: What are those similarities? No, they basically InfoWars and Goop
Speaker 1: and moon Juice are all selling the same products. It's
Speaker 1: just two different audiences. So selling adaptogenic tocotrienols. Well, of course,
Speaker 1: I know this sounds crazy, but it's true. Alex Jones,
Speaker 1: the most seemingly roid raging of the alt right conspiracy theorists,
Speaker 1: he who claimed that Sandy Hook was a hoax, also
Speaker 1: sells nutritional supplements containing some of the same ingredients as
Speaker 1: moon Juice and Goop products dried mushrooms and goji berry
Speaker 1: and turmeric, though to a different customer base. His product
Speaker 1: was not called beauty dust, but Caveman true paleo formula.
Speaker 1: That cave Man stuff was taken off the market when
Speaker 1: it was found to contain high levels of lead. Alex Jones,
Speaker 1: Gwyneth Paltrow, and Amanda chantal Bacon are far from alane.
Speaker 1: Just look at any Kardashian's Instagram. There's a lot of
Speaker 1: that going on with Instagram influencers, Instagram models and tummyt
Speaker 1: And what does the other thing they do with the binding?
Speaker 1: Oh yes, the waste trainers, waste training right, and tummy
Speaker 1: t Do you guys have you looked into those Oh yes, yeah, yes,
Speaker 1: you know. Flat tummy T is really out there on Instagram.
Speaker 1: And one thing we found is that they're using very
Speaker 1: young social media influencers, young women under the age of
Speaker 1: twenty one, under the age of eighteen, athletes, dancers to
Speaker 1: promote you know, basically liquid x lax. And not only
Speaker 1: are they having these young influencers do it, but in
Speaker 1: many instances their deceptive ads because they don't tell the
Speaker 1: audience that the reason I'm promoting this laxative T is
Speaker 1: because I have a material connection to the company. So
Speaker 1: it's liquid x lax. Yes, I wondered what it was
Speaker 1: same ingredients as X lax yikes, But they don't say that,
Speaker 1: of course no. I So what's the most outrageous claim
Speaker 1: you've ever seen in this world of wellness? Oh? My goodness.
Speaker 1: There are many products out there, and especially supplements that
Speaker 1: are miracle pills, and those are the ones that are
Speaker 1: the craziest. Then not only can it cure HIV and
Speaker 1: cancer and diabetes and Parkinson's and Alzheimer's, but it will
Speaker 1: also get rid of your wrinkles. There are just many
Speaker 1: supplements out there in which people are pitching them as
Speaker 1: literally being able to change your body at the cellular level. Right.
Speaker 1: We're hearing lately that the shift for a lot of
Speaker 1: these companies is into beauty from the inside out. And
Speaker 1: then they tack on some other claims about oxidative stress,
Speaker 1: which hinds at being able to cure cancer, but that
Speaker 1: the primary claim is that you'll look better, which is
Speaker 1: very important to a lot of people out there right right.
Speaker 1: The other thing that we see a lot of that's
Speaker 1: very disheartening is, you know, if there wasn't enough pain
Speaker 1: and suffering in this world, is makeup diseases? Right? Like
Speaker 1: adrenal fatigue doesn't think this, right, but you know you
Speaker 1: now need to buy six different supplements to cure your
Speaker 1: adrenal fatigue, which doesn't isn't even a thing. What about detoxing, right?
Speaker 1: I mean, we actually have organs in our bodies that
Speaker 1: do great jobs at detoxing, and I think when you
Speaker 1: look at the studies out there and you listen to
Speaker 1: the healthcare professionals, most of these detox products do much
Speaker 1: more harm than good. Yeah, Canada, I think a couple
Speaker 1: of days ago bar the sale of vaginal detox products.
Speaker 1: What are those? Oh? Yes, you can. You can just
Speaker 1: go online and buy them if you'd like. You can
Speaker 1: go to Goddess Detox and get your herbal vaginal detox ingredients.
Speaker 1: I did go on Goddess Detox dot org dot com,
Speaker 1: which was the first thing about this site that got
Speaker 1: my hackles up, and they sell a product called Goddess
Speaker 1: Vaginal Detox Pearls, which are suppositories that proclaim to be
Speaker 1: an herbal alternative to a chemical solution to a problem
Speaker 1: they don't define, that will purge your vagina of dead
Speaker 1: skin cells, mucus, yeast, and old blood clots. That sounds scary.
Speaker 1: Not only is it scary, but it's really taking advantage
Speaker 1: of a susceptible populations, you know. One of the things
Speaker 1: they say is that it can detox you from an
Speaker 1: ex lover, which is just no. Well, it's difficult to
Speaker 1: battle a faith based system. I feel like in the
Speaker 1: wellness world, when people have faith in something, making a
Speaker 1: reasonable argument against it just doesn't work so much because
Speaker 1: they're like, well, I'm not looking at it that way, right,
Speaker 1: And we should never discount the placebo effect, right. It worked,
Speaker 1: It worked well for some people, and that's absolutely fine.
Speaker 1: But at the same time, there are studies out there
Speaker 1: that say that people that go the natural route for
Speaker 1: cancer treatments, you know, are much more likely to die.
Speaker 1: So I think there is a line. I'm not sure
Speaker 1: exactly where one wants to draw it, but I think
Speaker 1: that when it comes to these illegal disease treatment claims,
Speaker 1: it needs to be stopped. We've made the comparison a
Speaker 1: bit between Gwyneth Paltrow's company, Amanda chantal Bacon's company, and
Speaker 1: Alex Jones. Is there any thing that you have found
Speaker 1: that a lot of these folks who make these claims
Speaker 1: have in common personality trait wise, Like I've never been
Speaker 1: inspired myself to start a vitamin company that claims to
Speaker 1: do all kinds of things that can't do. What kind
Speaker 1: of person wants to do that? Someone who wants to
Speaker 1: make a lot of money. Yeah, yeah, wellness selves for
Speaker 1: better or worse. It's cheap to make as a general matter,
Speaker 1: and consumers are willing to spend a lot of money
Speaker 1: because we don't want to die. They don't want to die,
Speaker 1: or they want to look beautiful. They don't want wrinkles,
Speaker 1: they don't want Alzheimer's, they don't want gray hair. They
Speaker 1: want to be sin you know, yeah, and won't pay
Speaker 1: anything for that. So, yes, it's messed up that these
Speaker 1: products exist or don't work, or work by some harmful mechanism.
Speaker 1: But the scariest part is that they're being shoved in
Speaker 1: our faces all day long on our phones and magazines
Speaker 1: during interviews with some of the most famous, most influential,
Speaker 1: and highly respected people on the planet, and they're telling
Speaker 1: us that they're good for our health. Next time on
Speaker 1: the Dream. I was attending a church here in Paris,
Speaker 1: and evangelical church, non denominational church, whatever, and for some
Speaker 1: reason the pastors decided to start endorsing local wellness center,
Speaker 1: and within six months, a lot of events that this
Speaker 1: church hosted, so like a woman's retreat. Definitely several Bible studies,
Speaker 1: but they would incorporate messages of how maybe one reads
Speaker 1: in your unbalance spiritually or maybe another reason why you
Speaker 1: feel un well about God or about life. It's because
Speaker 1: your hormones are out of balance, and you need to
Speaker 1: go to this place to get a balance or get
Speaker 1: a chiropractic adjustment. This has preached from the moulment, and
Speaker 1: then as you walked out of the santuary, they were coupons,
Speaker 1: referral coupons. The Dream is a production of Little Everywhere
Speaker 1: and Stitcher, written and reported by Me and Dan Galucci,
Speaker 1: editing by Peter Clowney and Tracy Samuelson, Producing by Lyra
Speaker 1: Smith and Stephanie Kayuki. The Dream is executive produced by Me,
Speaker 1: Dan Galucci, Peter Clowney, and Chris Bannon. Our mixing engineers
Speaker 1: are Casey Holford and Brendan Burns. Rate review and subscribe
Speaker 1: wherever you listen. Thank you, ann. If you have a
Speaker 1: wellness experience, good or bad, that you'd like to share
Speaker 1: on our show, please call seven one five six zero
Speaker 1: zero zero three two six that's seven one five six
Speaker 1: hundred zero three two six and leave us a voicemail.
Speaker 1: You may be featured on the program later this season.