“I was at the bottom of my class. I started doing heroin, I went to the top of the class.”
– RFK, Jr. , currently Secretary of Health and Human Services
The cover of the WIRED September 2025 issue was a close-up of RFK, Jr. with this blog’s title superimposed. The issue presented a list of unproven “technics of original trend-spreading of wellness” and a “Cabinet of Curious Quotes” from several people “in charge of our well-being”. The info was both too real and too sad to ignore, but also too provocative to pass up , and, of course, too easy to steal for this end of summer blog.
Coffee Enema – “a popular purported method to detoxify your colon and your blood”. Your colon cleanses itself, and coffee enemas have been shown to cause colitis, rectal burns, and even death. There is burgeoning scientific research focussed on the good health consequences of our gut (including our colon) biomass or microbiome that doesn’t need a cup of coffee to wake up in the morning.
Parasite Cleanse – Touted to cure unexplained digestive issues, allergies, and mood swings, there are hundreds of parasite “cleanses”, but parasites are extremely rare in America. You also have to wonder what “cleansers” do to the beneficial intestinal bacteria in our gut microbiome?
IV Vitamin Therapy – This intravenous treatment for “detoxification” is promoted by several famous people to delay aging and prevent dehydration. The water in these supplements will certainly hold off dehydration, but there is no evidence that over-supplementation of these chemicals used by the body in trace amount improve your health. The FDA labels supplements only as safe, so the only risks are infection from the intravenous needle or unidentified ingredients in the supplement additive. Widespread belief in this therapy has caused some health insurance policies to add “IV supplements at home” to their coverage options.
Marty Makary, our current Commissioner of Food and Drugs, served as CEO of the Thiel Foundation, [owner now in jail for falsely claiming multiple diagnostic results from a drop or two of blood and selling her company’s stock for great profit]: Makary has argued that pharmaceutical companies shouldn’t have to prove that their drugs work.
Probiotics – We are still talking about the gut and there are NO large, long-term clinical trials proving that probiotics offer clinical benefits for healthy people. Certain strains of microorganisms (bacteria) in fermented food may help some digestive illnesses, though the scientific results are mixed. There is much ongoing research on probiotic’s effects on the gut microbiome.
Mouth Tape – The new therapy for unattractive jaw line, bad breath, obstructive sleep apnea ,or snoring can help only IF you can breathe easily through your nose. If not, mouth tape can cause asphyxiation and death. The American Journal of Otolaryngology (that’s ENT docs) found that most claims on Tik Tok about mouth tape were not supported by available scientific literature. The claim that it strengthens a weak immune system is the weakest claim.
Dietary Supplements – Tik Tok is also full of influencers boasting about their meticulous multistep daily supplement routines. Since 1994, by act of Congress, “supplements can be advertised as having health benefits even if there hasn’t been a single study in humans demonstrating that it works”. In 2021 30 supplements marketed by Amazon as immune boosters were analyzed and 17 of them had inaccurate labels. [There was a lot more unnamed ingredients and/or a lot less of named ingredients in the supplements.]
“Some of my health claims don’t have the scientific muster to present as facts.”
– Dr. Mehmet Oz, Current Administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
Mushroom Coffee – Touted to be good for brain function, weak immune system, or the jitters. There are more than 130 medicinal benefits of various mushroom species reported in the scientific literature. Some small studies suggest medicinal mushrooms improve cognition; other studies suggest that mushroom soup works as well. UCLA Health thinks that mushroom coffee may help prevent jitters due to lower caffeine content.
Mark Gordon, Co-chair of Make America Healthy Again (MAHA): Believes that 9/11 was orchestrated by the U.S. government.
References:
1. Shamelessly extracted and copied from “Wired: the Wellness Issue”, Sep./Oct 2025, “Beyond Wellness, A Special Feel-Good/Feel-Bad Issue”
HUB's LIST of medical fun facts 