277: TikTokTylenol [feat Mallory DeMille]

Summary

Conspirituality

Episode 277: TikTokTylenol [feat Mallory DeMille]

Date: October 2, 2025
Hosts: Derek Beres, Matthew Remski, Julian Walker
Guest: Mallory DeMille

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Overview

This episode investigates the “TikTok Tylenol” moral panic, in which right-wing and wellness influencers claimed that liberal pregnant women were overdosing on Tylenol to “own Trump” following a press conference linking acetaminophen to autism. The hosts and guest Mallory DeMille dissect how this rumor spread, analyze the influencers behind it, and reveal how opportunistic grifters in the wellness space pivoted to profit from the manufactured controversy. The discussion further explores broader conspirituality trends in wellness, policing women’s bodies, and the commercial motivators behind supplement “alternatives.”

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Manufactured “TikTok Tylenol” Trend

• The Rumor: Influencers claimed that liberal, pregnant women were “guzzling Tylenol” on TikTok to disprove Trump and RFK Jr.’s assertions linking the medicine to autism (03:22–05:53).

• Mallory DeMille’s Summary: “There’s still no proof this woman exists.”

• Clarity: Videos purporting to show the “trend” mostly featured single-pill consumption, or were AI-generated (05:53–08:32).

• Viral Cycle: The myth spiraled through stitched response videos and conservative commentary — not actual evidence of dangerous behavior.

  Notable Quote:

  “I’ve seen at least 20-fold more response videos than I did actual Tylenol guzzling liberal videos.”
  — Mallory (at 07:18)

2. Origins and Amplification of the Panic

• Source of the Viral Narrative: Nicole Sirotek, a self-promoted “nurse,” claimed to have received a panicked call about a woman on a ventilator after “owning Trump” with Tylenol (11:15–14:00).

  • No verification exists for this story, and Sirotek has a history of controversial, unverified claims.
  • Further Irony: Sirotek no longer has a nursing license and has promoted medical misinformation in the past (16:20–19:30).

  Notable Quotes:

  “Nicole then started to receive some pushback ... she posted to Instagram again ... I would love to talk to the news about this situation ... why won't Joe Rogan talk to me?”
  — Mallory (14:00–14:50)

  “She gave up her nursing license in Nevada after telling her following to give children ivermectin.”
  — Derek (16:20)

• Right-Wing Influencer Reaction: E.g., “Patriot Barbie” (19:30–20:52), with over 500k followers, amplified the unverified story, blaming “stupid” liberals for endangering babies to spite Trump.

3. The Role of Established Contrarians

• Press Conference Figures: The hosts discuss how figures like Jay Bhattacharya, Dr. Oz, and others, formerly known for COVID contrarianism, now regurgitate whatever narrative is necessary to support the new campaign of fear and confusion (21:03–22:41).

  Notable Quote:

  "It's heartbreaking to watch people take such risks with their health simply for, like, narrow political points."
  — Jay Bhattacharya, played as a clip (21:52)

  • The hosts note the fundamental dishonesty of this crowd, who lump scientific caution with political theater.

4. The Science of Tylenol and Glutathione

• Host Analysis: The segment debunks the pseudoscientific claims about Tylenol’s dangers and the overblown importance of glutathione (26:53–28:52).

  • Host points out how therapeutic doses are safe for most, and toxicity is dose-dependent.

  • Hank Green is quoted for clarity:

    Quote:

    “Don’t say ‘correlation doesn’t equal causation’ if there’s a credible known confounder… fevers during pregnancy might increase the risk of autism. And also people take Tylenol for fevers.”
    — Hank Green, via Derek (26:17)

5. Supplement Grifting & Product Pivots

• Mallory’s Key Insight: Wellness influencers quickly capitalized on the Tylenol panic to promote and sell supplements purported to “support glutathione” or “replace Tylenol” (29:15–32:09).

  • Example: Ali Miller markets “Cellular Antiox,” making unsubstantiated claims and using synthetic ingredients while branding them as "natural" (32:29–36:12).
  • Industry Pattern: “If there’s one thing I’ve come to know about wellness influencers it’s they have a bunch of fucking stuff to sell you and they’re pretty shameless about their timing.”
    — Mallory (31:07)

• Homeopathy & Placebo Remedies: Many promoted homeopathic “Tylenol swaps,” which the hosts expose as ineffective and unregulated (39:11–41:21).

  Quote:

  “Homeopathy is probably safe considering there's nothing in it ... just not sure how effective a product with no ingredients actually is.”
  — Derek (40:50)

• Marketing Tactics: “Comment for my link/discount code” is used to skirt regulation and maximize personal affiliate profit (38:28ff).

• No Refunds, No Accountability: Sites and ebooks offering “first aid” guides or Young Living oils are positioned aggressively to vulnerable audiences (e.g., mothers of autistic children), with disclaimers absolving medical responsibility (46:57–47:46).

6. Pseudoscience in Wellness & Policing Women’s Choices

• Autism & “Natural” Wellness: The segment reveals how wellness grifters promote the narrative that nearly any childhood illness (from eczema to autism) is a result of “unnatural” choices (46:51–47:59).

• Deeper Analysis:

  • Matthew foregrounds how the panic around Tylenol is part of a larger ideological campaign to control women’s reproductive behavior, linking it historically to natural childbirth movements and eugenics (49:05–55:42).
  • Well-known “wellness” personalities like Kelly Brogan and Ina May Gaskin have long histories of policing women’s pain management choices, sometimes to dangerous effect (50:24–55:42).

  Quotes:

  “I think it's part of an ideological arc, driving to police every aspect of reproduction so that women have as little material agency as possible over their lives in return for being elevated as birthing goddesses.”
  — Matthew (50:00)

  “If the woke mama is shown to not only be pro abortion, but also reckless with regard to their fetuses ... actually they're the shitty mothers.”
  — Matthew (59:12)

7. The Grift Never Ends — Influencer Resilience

• Tragedy and Business As Usual: The hosts recount the story of Free Birth Society’s Emily Saldia, who carried on influencer business after personal tragedy, illustrating the way influencer commerce rarely pauses for reality (56:52–58:49).

• Lack of Oversight: There is no way to verify protocols or safety claims when events go wrong in influencer-promoted alternative health programs (58:49–59:12).

8. Political and Cultural Ramifications

• Misogyny and Authoritarianism: Both right- and left-wing authoritarian cultures seek to restrict women’s agency around birth and medicine; the Tylenol panic serves as contemporary fuel for this ongoing battle (61:46–62:05).

  Quote:

  “A big part of fascism is the ramping up of the internalized misogyny that incentivizes women to police each other's reproductive values and choices and reward the woman who suffers the most.”
  — Matthew (61:46)

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• On viral disinformation:
  “Thousands, tens of thousands of pregnant liberal women across the country playing their Tylenol TikTok trend part—but that doesn't seem to be happening either.”
  — Mallory (07:18)

• On supplement grifting:
  “All three [ingredients] are likely produced synthetically ... So besides the fact that there’s no large scale clinical evidence ... she’s basically creating a pharmaceutical but then selling it as a natural alternative to Tylenol.”
  — Derek (32:29–36:12)

• On homeopathy's empty promise:
  “If this was a homeopathic ad, it would be completely silent. The power would be in not saying it.”
  — Matthew (40:14)

• On female pain and empowerment myths:
  “Again, pain became this portal to blissful self realization. So the worst thing a woman could do, according to these folks ... was to seek pain relief.”
  — Matthew (52:10)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:00–02:13: Ads and show intro (skipped)
• 03:22–05:53: Tylenol panic overview, social media rumor summary
• 05:53–08:32: Analysis of video evidence (or lack thereof)
• 11:15–14:50: Nicole Sirotek's original post and follow-up
• 16:20–19:30: Nicole Sirotek’s background, grifting pattern
• 19:30–22:41: Conservative influencer amplification; Jay Bhattacharya’s commentary
• 26:17–28:52: Hank Green’s explanation of correlation and causation; biochemistry of Tylenol
• 29:15–32:09: Mallory details supplement grifting timelines
• 32:29–36:12: Breakdown of "natural" supplement pseudo-science
• 39:11–41:21: Homeopathic “alternatives” and their marketing
• 46:51–47:59: The autism healing grift ecosystem
• 49:05–55:42: Deep dive into history and ideology of policing women’s healthcare choices
• 56:52–58:49: Tragedy, influencer wellness industry resilience
• 61:46–62:05: Reproductive policing as an authoritarian project

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Conclusion

The episode exposes how quickly misinformation spreads in the conspirituality ecosystem, particularly when it serves existing culture war narratives or profits wellness grifters. The supposed “TikTok Tylenol” trend was a mirage, yet it fuelled supplement marketing, dangerous health disinformation, and reactionary gender politics. The hosts and Mallory DeMille offer insight into the cynical business models, loose relationship with evidence, and long-standing ideologies underpinning modern wellness and right-wing disinformation campaigns.

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For more episodes and bonus content, visit the Conspirituality Patreon or their Apple Subscriptions page. Mallory will return for an episode exploring the wellness world's love affair with nicotine.

Transcript

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[E]

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[C]

Hey everyone. Welcome to Conspirituality, where we investigate the intersections of conspiracy theories and spiritual influence to uncover cults, pseudoscience and authoritarian extremism.

[B]

I'm Derek Barris I'm Matthew Remsky.

[A]

I'm Julian walker.

[D]

I'm Mallory DeMille.

[C]

You can find us on Instagram and threads conspiritualitypod as well as individually. We all are all on Bluesky. Mallory where are you at? Where do you want people to go to find you?

[D]

I am predominantly on Instagram his is Mallory with the same handle being on threads as well.

[C]

Well I will get you more active on Blue Sky. I've been trying.

[D]

I know you have.

[C]

You can also access all of our episodes ad free plus our Monday bonus episodes on [e-mail] conspiritual and you can access our Monday bonus episodes via Apple subscriptions if that is your platform of choice. As independent media creators, we really appreciate your support.

[A]

Conspirituality277 TikTok Tylenol did you hear about the pregnant woman who ingested too much Tylenol just to own Trump and is now on a ventilator and will likely not wake up offing both herself and her baby? If you were tapped into social media at all this past week, you likely saw dozens of wellness and right wing influencers sharing it, each with their own hot take. One problem. There's still no proof this woman exists. Mallory DeMille returns to discuss this cursed game of telephone as well as unpack the mad rush that wellness influencers influencers have been on to sell you their completely legitimate acetaminophen alternatives. Science Roxy all.

[E]

She hates Trump that much that she went and overdosed herself on Tylenol and this is going around Tick tock. So if you haven't seen it, it's all over Tick tock. Mom's eating Tylenol chugging it like to prove that their kid will not have autism from it. So if that's what they took away from what Kennedy and Trump were saying, then they need more help than anybody can give them because Trump and Kennedy are here helping. Do do I think everybody in this world, especially part of political is perfect? Absolutely not. But they are the only ones willing to stand up to big Pharma and they're they're still giving people a choice. If you want a vaccine, go get it. If you don't, don't. They're just saying more studies need to be done and now that studies are starting to come out too with the Tylenol, the links to Tylenol and vaccines they are just providing that information. Tylenol themselves in 2017 on the X platform said do not take our product when you are pregnant. So all these people out here chugging Tylenol that are pregnant should not be allowed to be moms. They should not be parents. Because if you hate somebody that much that you are willing to risk your unborn child, imagine what you would do when they're alive and somebody pisses you off. Not to mention, it's not a one size fits all. So whatever happens to one family isn't necessarily going to happen to another. If you have too much Tylenol or anything with acetaminophen, what do you think happens? Live or failure? So now she just took her life and then potentially the life of her unborn child. And now the husband unfortunately has to live with this loss and realize what an idiot he married. And I'm sorry to be so blunt about it, but that's what it is. It's disgusting.

[D]

Hello listeners. As you can tell, we have a lot to catch up on. In all honesty, I had a completely different episode planned for today, but then Tylenol happened. Last week, the day after the infamous autism announcement, my burner account was lit up with conservatives losing their goddamn minds over an alleged TikTok trend. According to almost everyone on my years long curated wellness feed, including the most famous fifth place swimmer of all time, Riley Gaines, pregnant liberal women were partaking in a TikTok trend that had them guzzling Tylenol, taking it by the fistful as a performance of how much they hated Trump and RFK Jr. The folks making commentary on this trend exclusively conservativescould not wrap their head around how these women could defy health advice given to them by their government. Are the people feeling these feelings also the ones that made their entire personality and existence defying government health advice to get vaccinated and wear a mask? Doesn't matter. These pregnant liberal women are clearly putting their unborn children in danger by downing Tylenol bottles just to make a political point. The only problem that wasn't actually happening first, the only videos being clipped as evidence of this trend, at least the ones that I saw and I saw a lot of them, showed women taking a single Tylenol on camera, far from a fistful. And the only post I saw of a liberal guzzling Tylenol was AI generated, green hair included. I can't help but think that if there were actually videos of pregnant liberal women absolutely downing Tylenol as these right wing commentators are describing, they would include those videos instead. But since it's likely that those videos don't actually exist, I certainly haven't seen any. And I've been looking. They have to use the handful of videos of women taking a lonely Tylenol and you may have just picked up on me saying the handful of videos, which is the second piece we need to unpack. You'd think watching these response videos that there are thousands, tens of thousands of pregnant liberal women across the country playing their Tylenol TikTok trend part, but that doesn't seem to be happening either. I had my suspicions that this wasn't happening since every response video I came across stitched the same four to five TikToks. It felt like honestly, they all had access to the same Dropbox folder where they could take the pre made edit of these few TikToks. I've seen at least 20 fold more response videos than I did actual Tylenol guzzling liberal videos. My suspicions around this were confirmed when the Cut published a piece titled Conservatives are Melting down over a Tylenol TikTok Trend, which later said the fact that a small number of pregnant women are trolling Trump on TikTok is not sitting well with conservatives. But that has not stopped one particular, though vague, story from gaining traction.

[C]

Okay, before we play the offending video that kicked off the rumor, I have to say a few things about the clip that we opened with there Is.

[D]

Your first point going to be how she pronounced acetaminophen?

[C]

No, it's gonna say why? When she says I don't do political I think that was more relevant. First off, something being all over TikTok is not proof that it happened. It's amazing to me how many times I hear people say, well it was on TikTok and I saw a lot of people talk about it. That doesn't mean it was real. I'm not actually sure what Kennedy and Trump were really saying given that. If you watched the actual press conference, there were a ton of contradictions and misleading claims. I unpacked all of those on Monday's bonus episode. This Then you get to the idea that they're the only ones standing up to big Pharma, which is laughable given the capitulations that they've made so far. And also remember the fact that the press conference focused on acetaminophen and not vaccines set off its own civil war within maha. They're not just saying more studies need to be done. There are tens of thousands of studies on acetaminophen in PubMed. Despite Kennedy claiming they're doing groundbreaking work, all he did was share previous quarterly correlative research dating back to 2019 and some more recent ones. I mean, conduct more studies, sure, but don't pretend they haven't been done. Then we get to Tylenol's 2017 tweet, and that's thanks to the regulations that we have in the pharmaceutical industry about making claims, which is a good thing. We need more of them, which we're not going to get in a deregulatory Project 20 administration. And speaking of Project 2025, I did note when she says one size fits all, that is a long standing right wing way of avoiding conversation of socialized medicine. The conservative world has been against universal health care since before the Reagan era. But since then, and they came up with this thing saying we should look at health care and we should never look at health care as one size fits all. What that means is they don't want to have people paying for or paying into a system that would actually give them health care. They would rather present it as if everyone gets individualized treatment, which is exactly how a deregulatory administration would operate and use language. She probably isn't aware of all that, but she picked it up somewhere and that's how they become brain worms. All right, that's just from that clip. Let's turn to where all of this started.

[D]

So it's about, you know, gonna be 6am Finally. And for those of you who don't follow me on Twitter, I recommend that you do. I got a call, very frantic call, at 4 o' clock in the morning from a husband whose wife is now dying of liver failure on a ventilator in an ICU because she was trying to prove that Tylenol doesn't cause autism because of what Trump said on the news. Mind you, that's a Harvard study. Now, whether or not you believe the Harvard study or not is not not the issue here. The issue is that she's somewhere between 23 to 25 weeks and she overdosed on Tylenol and she's going to die. She's not going to come off that ventilator. And the guy got my phone number from somebody, somebody gave it to him. I mean, guys, it's early in the morning. I'm still in hello Kitty sweatpants in my gym trying to work out listeners. Meet Nicole Cirotek, who, according to her X bio is an advocate, activist, author, ally and founder and executive director of American frontline nurses. On September 24, Nicole posted to X an Experience she claimed that she just.

[A]

Had got a frantic call at 4am from a husband who was given my phone number via someone who had it. His pregnant wife is now on a ventilator dying of liver failure trying to prove that Tylenol doesn't cause autism. Since this is trending on TikTok, he now has to make.

[C]

Read the script as is.

[A]

I'm going to read as is. He now has to make to make the tough decision to try to save an unborn baby that may not survive outside the womb at an approx gestation of 23 to 25 weeks. At the same time, his wife won't survive through the week and will never get to meet the baby. This behavior is ridiculous. This woman hated Trump so much because of the Harvard study on Tylenol and autism. She ultimately killed herself by overdosing on Tylenol to try and prove Trump wrong. Her baby may not even survive either.

[D]

I have since seen video after video after video of the same conservative commentator bunch reporting this story out as fact, sometimes adding their own flair, but always linking back to Nicole as the only proof needed. Even in a few comment sections that I got involved with, which I don't normally do, everyone was linking and tagging Nicole's content as the single source. Nicole then started to receive some pushback from, as she describes them, trolls who were asking why this isn't being reported anywhere else and encouraging her to speak to some sort of news outlet. Even folks who were in support of Nicole were encouraging her to speak to someone to share more information, just to put the trolls to rest. Soon after these suggestions started rolling in, Nicole posted to Instagram again with the.

[A]

Caption reading I would love to talk to the news about this situation and what is going on in hospitals. Remember, I was the one who told everyone about what was going on in the hospitals in 2020. I was also the one who warned everyone about remdesivir and the COVID shot killing kids before the doctors finally caught on. I would love to go on Joe Rogan and let him know considering he's had every doctor in but won't get back to me. Or how about Ordan B. Peterson who has also spoken with the doctors but not the nurses. I had a scheduled phone call with him when he was on a book tour in Bruss, which he missed. Or how about Tucker Carlson and his network? I've reached out to him and his network as well. Once again he has spoken to the doctors but not the nurses. I'm down to talk to anyone that will listen. They just don't want to listen to me because I'm just a nurse.

[B]

It's almost as if she's Saying that the Maha movement or the Maga movement is misogynist. Is that what she's saying? Wow.

[D]

She has been reached out to. I think there was a Yahoo News article where they said we've reached out to her multiple times for verification and she won't get back to us. Now I can't say for sure because I wasn't able to find it in the sea of comments as well, but there are a few folks alluding to the fact in her comments that someone from CNN commented on her video and I'm assuming that's because they want to talk to her about this story. And like I just said, Yahoo News did post about did post an article about this and the main takeaway was that Nicole has not replied to their multiple requests for verification.

[A]

Yeah, those terrible fact checkers. I just love the shameless attempts to bootstrap her way onto these huge platforms. To me, I mean, you gotta hand it to her, it's the entrepreneurial spirit spirit of late stage digital grifting in full force.

[C]

My favorite part was that she had a scheduled phone call with Jordan Peterson and he didn't rather show up. That's amazing.

[A]

He was in Brussels.

[D]

Just find it so funny. Like why won't Joe Rogan talk to me? This would be unfortunately, you know, far from the only reporting on a TikTok Thailand or a TikTok trend that has ended in harm or fatality if it were true. But for some that wouldn't matter and it doesn't matter. On another creator's video talking about Nicole's post, someone commented, I can't find any info on this story in the Internet thoughts. To which someone responded, Media is left biased so you have to dig deeper to find stories that go against the liberal narrative.

[C]

We really need to unpack who Nicole is because it's also a part of this story. We should note the clip that you sent me, Mallory, was shared by Sergi, our old friend. The Green Med Info founder called her a registered nurse and as you said in that post there, she said I'm just a nurse. But you might be shocked to discover that she gave up her nursing license in Nevada after telling her following to give children ivermectin. So for her to insinuate that the supposed expectant mother doesn't care about children is pretty rich. It would actually be illegal for Nicole to claim that she is a nurse. And in fact CTECH herself has publicly stated, quote, I'm not a nurse and I don't work as a nurse. So the fact that she's saying she is now in these posts is hilarious. I guess for Sayer, his deep research didn't lead him to discover what I did after looking for all of oh, 10 seconds. Much more authentic sounding though. If she's inside the system I found a Journal of Nursing article that was written about CIR Tech in 2023. I shared the full article in the show Notes, but this paragraph really jumped.

[B]

Cirotech 37, who lives in Elko, Nevada, first came to national attention in 2020 when she traveled to New York as the city's hospitals and medical staff were being overwhelmed in the first wave of the COVID 19 pandemic. She gained notoriety when she posted a now deleted YouTube video asserting that other healthcare professionals were killing all the patients for money, especially people of color, while comparing the ICU to a gas chamber in Nazi Germany.

[C]

Lovely, lovely person. She's also boosted conspiracies about chemtrails and fluoride. Of course. In July 2021 she decided to rebrand her efforts as American Frontline Nurses, which is a play on the more successful America's Frontline Doctors in order to combat medical misinformation and tyranny feminism. While nowhere near as known as the original, she set it up as a nonprofit to try to get some flowing in. For the fiscal year ending in June 2022, her organization received $82,944. Sarah Tech lists 54,600 in expenses with 28,400 in assets. This is the only only year that she ever filed. So where all that money went, who knows.

[D]

This may be completely unsurprising, but at the time of recording, and it's a day shy of one week from Nicole posting that to X, there is no reporting of these Tylenol TikTok trend overdoses happening anywhere. The only report is what Nicole is saying and I will happily eat my words if you know this does get reported out at some point and if it's true, it's horrific. But all signs are pointing to this being completely fabricated to push a narrative and further amplify and vilify a seemingly also made up TikTok trend. But again, that does not stop the story and this seemingly non trend from spreading far and wide.

[E]

This is gonna come off unchristlike, but someone needs to say it. How stupid do you have to be that the President of the United States, whether you like him or not, the President of the United States comes out and says I have documents, I have evidence, I have information that links Tylenol to autism and children. And your response is, I'm gonna go down Tylenol like candy. To what, prove a point on Tick Tock. Like you're sitting back and you don't think to yourself, maybe if he said it, there's a shred of evidence. Maybe. And am I willing to look at what mothers and fathers of autistic children go through, what autistic children go through, and then decide, yeah, I'm gonna take it anyway and risk the mental capacity of my unborn child to stick it to Trump?

[D]

I do just want to quickly note, I have to share this, that the woman in that video, the Patriot Barbie, she has over a half a million followers. She's an anti vaxxer and anti masker conservative. In 2023, she posted a video where she said how excited she was that mask mandates were possibly coming back so that she could go to the airport and not wear a mask, and how excited she was to have something to fight back against again.

[C]

But she didn't do the due diligence to see if Nicole was telling the truth or not. What did Patriot Ken say about this?

[D]

Unclear will be a follow up.

[C]

I find it so rich that she would imply we should consider Trump's words as sharing evidence of something scientific. He sat up there screaming, don't take Tylenol. Over and over, even though Kennedy himself said it. As of now, there's only a correlative link. Correlative, I gotta get that word. But since we're on the topic of science, Mallory, you also shared an interview with someone else on the stage for the press conference, discussing the links afterwards on where else? A podcast. So let's hear what Jay Bhattacharya had to say about this whole incident.

[D]

Pregnant women who are basically downing bottles of Tylenol to try to prove Trump wrong. This morning I came across several stories of women who have overdosed from acetaminophen and they are now on ventilators in the hospital and likely them and their babies are going to die.

[B]

You know, Tylenol, it's an over the counter drug, but it's probably the most dangerous over the counter drug. It's very easy to overdose and make your liver basically kaput with it. So you gotta be careful with it regardless. There's cumulative overdoses also, like, if you take too much over a relatively short period of time, it doesn't have to just the whole bottle. You can build up toxicity in your liver and actually kill your liver. Doctors, when they're talking about Tylenol, will say, be careful with it the president is just saying be careful with it. In pregnancy especially, it's heartbreaking to watch people take such risks with their health simply for, like, narrow political points. I mean, in medicine, we're supp do no harm. And I've seen doctors, pregnant doctors who, who like, are on TikTok taking it when they don't need it. It just blows my mind. Basically, it's a poisoning of medicine with. With politics in a way that just it should never happen in a way.

[A]

That Jay Bhattacharya does every single day of his life.

[D]

I just imagine doctors around the world telling patients live or go kaput.

[C]

And also the inserts and Tylenol, like doctors tell you not to take this stuff. One thing I was thinking about was how it's been. If you look at that stage, you have mackere, you have Dr. Oz, you have Jay Bhattacharya, all flanking Kennedy in this press conference, but in all of them besides Oz, who I'm not surprised has gone this route. But those men all made their mark and became public figures by being independent thinkers, by being Covid contrarians. That is how they rose to get those positions. And yet now they're forced to just repeat whatever bullshit is coming out of Kennedy's ass. Any of the maha speak that's coming, they have to now say that. So here you have these men who position themselves as the free thinkers and all they're able to do is regurgitate this nonsense. So I'm not surprised to hear that Jay isn't being honest with the evidence as well as playing into the. It's upsetting to hear that people are doing that without stopping to ask, are people actually doing that? But for him to call medicine toxic is quite a stretch, which I'm going to get into at the top of the next segments.

[A]

All right, so this is super exciting to me. Emmy award winner Kerry Washington returns as Dr. Virginia Edwards in Audible's heart pounding supernatural thriller, The Prophecy Season 2. Yes, I said Audible. I know. I listen to audiobooks mostly of the dry research variety for this podcast on Audible. But they apparently also do this kind of supernatural thriller with stars like Kerry Washington. You know who else is in it? Giancarlo Esposito. Remember him from Breaking Bad? Here's some of the blurb. Follow every twist and turn as Virginia and her miracle son Joshua flee from Detroit, pursued by the sinister Luther Bell and his Morning Star cult. Each perilous step of their journey is guided by Virginia's haunting visions. While Bell's forces close in threatening to tear their world apart. Evil is rising. Time is running out. Do not miss Kerry Washington in Audible's new Must the Prophecy Season 2. You can go to audible.com prophecy2. That's the number two. And start listening today. I will see you there.

[B]

You had 30 agents ready to go with shotguns and rifles and you name it.

[D]

Five, six white people pushed me in the car. I'm going, what the hell?

[B]

Basically your stay at home moms were picking up these large amounts of heroin.

[A]

All you gotta do is receive the package. Don't have to open it, just accept it.

[C]

She was very upset, crying.

[A]

Once I saw the gun, I tried.

[C]

To take his hand and I saw the flash of light.

[D]

Listen to the Chinatown Sting wherever you get your podcasts.

[C]

Okay, back to Jay Bhattacharya. Trump is not saying just be careful with it. He literally said don't take Tylenol over and over again. Watching his underlings scramble to do damage control is always a treat, yet so hard to watch given that it's our fucking public health system that's at risk here. One note about the toxicity claim. First, I want to share with Science communicator Hank Green. Great follow. Wrote on threads last week as I think it's a fantastic way to frame the response to this situation.

[A]

Don't say correlation doesn't equal causation. If there's a credible known confounder, skip the jargon and say fevers during pregnancy might increase the risk of autism. And also people take Tylenol for fevers.

[C]

That's actually the clearest communication that I've heard.

[A]

Yeah, it's really good. You should do a list of these for those of us who ineffectively lean on the fallacies too hard. The fallacies are right, but they tend to be ineffective in the face of people who don't understand them.

[C]

Hank has made his mark as a psychom so watch his YouTube videos. He does stuff like that all the time.

[A]

He's great.

[C]

To address Jay's claim of toxicity, let's dive a little bit deeper. Acetaminophen is metabolized in the liver, where a small proportion is converted into a toxic intermediate that's called napqi, which is detoxified by glutathione. This is likely why you've heard Dave Asprey and Will Cole haphazardly slinging glutathione jargon in the last week. When glutathione stores are depleted, napqi accumulates, which causes cellular damage, primarily in the liver. So some of what you heard before Starts in the right place. But here's the thing. A number of people are claiming that every time you take Tylenol or acetaminophen, which we should note is also in Robitussin, Alka Seltzer plus Mucinex, Nyquil, Benadryl, some forms of Excedrin. So this myopic focus on Tylenol is pretty strange, but it's probably because that's what's given to pregnant mothers, so they want to keep the focus on the unborn baby. The idea being shared is that every time you take it, toxicity occurs, which is just bullshit. The degree of glutathione depletion is dose dependent. In therapeutic doses like the one on the bottle, that can cause mild depletion. But higher doses or overdoses can overwhelm the body's ability to synthesize new glutathione quickly enough. Sometimes subclinical depletion can occur at therapeutic doses, but this is usually in people who are malnourished or who are fasting. Will Cole and Dave Asprey. For most of the population, sticking to what's on the package does not ever create toxicity in the body. In the body. That didn't stop Dave Asprey from writing, quote, tylenol disables the most important detox molecule, by which he means glutathione, and which makes absolutely no sex sense out of context.

[A]

Yeah, it makes no sex too, but yeah, the poison, the dose makes the poison. Right? And in great enough quantities. Water is also something that will, in fact kill you.

[C]

Yes. And. But if you go to Dave's website, you'll find a whole article on glutathione. To be fair, I haven't seen him promoting it. But, Mallory, that hasn't stopped others from selling their own supplements to replace Tylenol, has it?

[D]

It absolutely has not.

[F]

All right, I want to talk to y' all real quick about the announcement yesterday on Tylenol and on autism and adhd and discuss one of my favorite supplements in my line, Cellular Antiox, and why that is super relevant. I think a lot of us know that the Tylenol piece is not the whole story, but what? Because we see that there are depleted levels of glutathione in those that have neurological diseases. So in ADHD and autism, there are toxins or stressors that can get into the body through many ways. Yes, yes, Tylenol does directly deplete glutathione production, and we also want to be prudent and mindful of environmental sources of Toxins, toxins in our food system, toxins that we are exposed to as adjuvants in shots and weigh all of these out. And especially we want to be mindful at times of exposure to any of those things that if we were to take Tylenol, let's say because our body had a fever, because it had an immunological response to an inflammatory compound that that would further exacerbate that antioxidant depletion. So cellular antiox, this is key. Regardless of your choices in life, of your toxin exposure, this is something that you'd want to increase if you are going to expose yourself to toxins. So industrial travel, think of other, you know, things that I've mentioned. Of course, to offset we also just look at supplementing protein pro vigilantly with those that have neurological need because again we see depleted stores of glutathione as well as an excessive reserves of toxins, things like bpa. So we know that glutathione is in higher demand, especially for those that have difficulty with processing and excreting toxins. And the neurological world of adhd, depression, anxiety and autism is no different.

[D]

Listeners, if there's one thing I've come to know about wellness influencers is they have a bunch of fucking stuff to sell you and they're pretty shameless about their timing. I have said before that wellness influencers are fairly well known for capitalizing on times of crises, times of tragedy, whether that be personal or community, and times of fear, even if that's fear that they've helped manufacture.

[A]

Yeah, it's astonishing. I was struck listening to that. How you know, we just heard from Hank Green about like psychom and really speaking in plain language so as not to further confuse people. And it really strikes me how people who peddle pseudoscience do the oppos that they speak in very scientific sounding language because the point is to confuse people into thinking that you're actually telling them something crucial and valuable and evidence based. But you're not. This is all incredible Mallory, because I see you tracking in real time how this relatively new cycle of super fast opportunistic social media marketing reacts in the moment to pseudoscience conspiracism in the news cycle. I really detest these people but. But they're locked in, right?

[D]

They're locked in so hard. So fucking hard. And last week was no different. Wellness influencers are well practiced at leveraging these times of vulnerability. So you better believe their turnaround time on offering supplements, devices and courses on the fresh heels of this Tylenol press conferences conference was instantaneous and I want.

[C]

To note about that clip. It was a woman named Ali Miller whose feed I got lost in for quite a few minutes after you shared it with me, Mallory. Thanks for that. My God. First off, she built herself as a nutritionist, a registered dietitian with a naturopathic background and a functional nutritionist, depending on which one of her properties you're looking on. I looked into it. Her degree is from an alt med university called Basier, which you might have heard of before if you follow Quack Quack Watch. For example, I found a 2011 article by David Gorski who wrote about Bastier, noting that they require students to study homeopathy, which is just one of those, the biggest fucking wellness scams in existence. I have some level of grace for things with mechanisms that could possibly work, like acupuncture, for example. Homeopathy is not one of them. There is no mechanism by which it can work.

[B]

But Derek, in that course you have to understand they don't actually study homeopathy. They actually don't read any of the books. They don't learn about any of the actual substances. They actually don't do it. And that's how they learn it.

[C]

It's an osmosis course load. No, no, no, no, no.

[B]

You can't. You actually learn it by not doing it.

[A]

The greater expertise, the less the actual studying.

[B]

Yeah, exactly right.

[C]

Thank you, sensei. I am so far from understanding it.

[B]

I know, man. You'll get there. You'll get there. It's been a while.

[C]

I've included a link in the show notes to Dr. Andrea Love's article on homeopathy. If listeners, if you want more information. But here's the irony. Ali's tagline is naturally nourished and if you follow her, you'll learn how to detox from EMFs. You'll be sold a three month month metabolism keto reset diet for $399. During which she might try to sell you collagen for her butter collagen coffee recipe. Take that Dave Asprey. But the biggest irony here is that while she promotes natural living, the supplement that she's pimping in that, in that clip that Mallory found, cellular antiox. It contains three ingredients and all three are likely produced synthetically. Two definitely are. So meaning in a laboratory, like a pharmaceutical, you have the first two. S acetyl glutathione and N acetyl L cysteine, which is known as nac. They were definitely produced synthetically because neither is found in nature. Oh, the third ingredient, which is pyridoxal 5 phosphate or vitamin B6, is almost always produced synthetically in supplements because it's easier to produce, it's easier to control for, and it's way cheaper. And I'm gonna guess that Ali wants more of that $69.65 she charges for a month's supply. So besides the fact that there's no large scale clinical evidence that glutathione treats chronic fatigue syndrome, which she says on her site, she's basically creating a pharmaceutical but then selling it as a natural alternative to Tylenol, nothing about it is actually natural, which again, two of the three ingredients, including the main one, are not found in nature. And the thing about this is there's nothing wrong with that. This synthesized form of glutathione is broken down during digestion easier than natural glutathione, which is the effect you want to have on people. My problem is she's out there shitting on a chemical process that she doesn't understand to sell her own products. Especially rich given that the pharmaceuticals that she's shitting on have to go through a lot of clinical testing, while nothing that she's selling does well.

[D]

On that note, speaking of supplements, Ali is far from the only wellness influencer. There are some that are even being straight up promoted as alternatives to Tylenol. A user by the handle Natural healthyliving on Instagram whose bio reads helping moms raise healthy children, not medical advice, was quick to share what she describes as natural, safer alternatives to Tylenol. If you're wondering how someone can help moms raise healthy children while their content is not being consumed as medical advice, I'm like kind of still wondering that myself. Part of the caption to this particular Tylenol post reads, studies already link prenatal Tylenol use to higher rates of autism and adhd. Research also shows it may be especially harmful if given to kids who develop fever after vaccines. So what is the alternative? Well, in our family we've been using R greenlife Organics products for years. They have great herbal formulations for both kids and adults, and some are safe for pregnant and lactating mothers as well. If you want the links to these products and my discount code comment tincture and I will DM you. She then ends the caption with another disclaimer about how this isn't medical advice. And I can't help but wonder how someone can recommend natural, safer alternatives to Tylenol without it being kind of medical advicey. But she's not the only one advertising Dr. Greenlife Organics products. Another Instagram user by the handle OrganicMindedMom shared a carousel of various sweets swaps with the caption reading in case you do want some resources on what other options there are, here is a roundup of my Go to natural products for pain relief, fever and more comment medicine and I'll DM you links and codes the first slide reads Natural Tylenol swaps with a huge bottle of Dr. Green mom displayed. The second slide with the same header displays various homeopathy products with the claims relieves teething pain with irritability, relieves muscle pain, stiffness, swelling from injuries, bruises, and relieves high fever. If you do comment medicine, you get an automated DM with a link to her Amazon storefront, which does earn commissions where you can purchase these homeopathic products and more, as well as discount codes for her Dr. Green mom products, another Organix Wellness company and $260 off a.

[C]

Loom box Red light Wait, wait, Mallory, aren't you going to mention the wet socks?

[D]

Oh, right, I wasn't going to. So while there's no discount code to it, but could you imagine OrganicMindedMom also says that a natural Tylenol swap is a pair of wet cotton socks on your feet overnight. Before we move on to more of these red light boxes, one last one on homeopathy, because that seems to be the most popular swap on a collaborated post between users ECA naturally and nourish your home. The COVID image reads, if you're looking for something to use instead of Tylenol or any brand of acetaminophen, we'd like to tell you about homeopathy. Part of the caption reads, Homeopathy is.

[B]

One of the safest tools a pregnant mom can reach for, because every remedy is made from natural substances that are diluted to the point where no physical trace remains, only the energetic imprint. That means you're getting the body's instructions for healing without exposing yourself or your baby to concentrated herbs, drugs or chemicals. Unlike pharmaceuticals, homeopathic remedies don't cross the placenta in a way that could cause harm. They're gentle, non toxic, and can be tailored to match your exact symptom picture, whether that's morning sickness, headaches, back pain or emotional ups and downs. It's one of the few systems of medicine where literally every remedy on the shelf is considered safe in pregnancy when used appropriately. I just like to say that, like if this was a homeopathic ad, it would be completely silent. It would be silent. I wouldn't say it. I wouldn't have to. In fact, the power would be in.

[A]

Not saying it, but we wouldn't all feel as relaxed.

[D]

They then of course immediately follow up with comment swaps for links to Melissa's ebook about using homeopathy in your home and a discount link for buying homeopathy before having that pesky Once again, this is for educational purposes only. Disclaimer at the very, very bottom, if.

[C]

Only actual medically trained doctors and researchers were ever taught the instructions for healing. I'm so glad these homeopathists are out there, the ones who figured it out.

[A]

Or the root cause.

[C]

I I mean, to be honest, homeopathy is probably safe considering there's nothing in it. It that depends of course, on the proving strength, how many times they dilute it. Just not sure how effective a product with no ingredients actually is. That said, if it's not a strong enough proving, then it does actually contain an active ingredient which can possibly cross the placenta. But again, one that didn't have to go through all those pesky clinical trials to prove whether or not it works.

[A]

I think a little bit ago, Derek, you actually put your finger on the new definition of what natural is. Natural doesn't mean non pharmaceutical. It just means untested and promoted by an influencer.

[C]

It's like but, well, but of course some things that are natural have been tested and been shown not to work.

[A]

So there's that, but there's a conspiracy against them. But to make this point about homeopathy and we've been talking about this, this, you know, made up story of women downing bottles of Tylenol. The late and I would say unparalleled James Randi used to swallow a whole bottle of homeopathic sleeping pills at the beginning of his lectures and then read the warning label out loud to the audience about the dangers of overdosing before then giving a 90 minute lucid lecture on skepticism and pseudoscience without any notes. So there you go.

[C]

But is he dead now? Julian?

[A]

He did die eventually, so maybe it just takes a long time.

[D]

Never use Colonize to treat fevers. Tylenol or acetaminophen is used often for fevers, but that's not everything it does. It also reduces your glutathione levels, which is one of your body's most important healing antioxidants. And if you overdo it, it can cause serous liver damage. So let me show you what I use Instead, I use herbs, electrolytes, vitamins and homeopathics. These support your immune system and keep you hydrated. I also use bone broth to soothe and and replenish nutrients during recovery. I also do detox baths that can help regulate the body and eliminate toxins. And in case if you really need to use pharmaceuticals, I prefer diet free ibuprofen over acetaminophen. This isn't medical advice, it's just personally what I would do for myself and my family. Want to reduce toxic meds in your home? Follow for More Follow for More so those are the supplements, but as I briefly mentioned above, another opening to make a sale last week week seems to be the claim that a box of red light can manage your pain instead of a Tylenol. Carly Shankman, who was the main character in my last episode about cancer, quacks and Kangen water, posted a reel that said pov. You're not freaked out about the recent Tylenol news because you've been using this tool for years to reduce pain and inflammation. Part of the accompanying caption reads, years ago I started building a natural medicine cabinet tools and therapies that I actually that actually support healing at the root. I've used red therapy red light therapy in nearly every season of life from supporting my body during cancer healing after dental surgeries, helping my kids when they're fighting off infections, pregnancy and postpartum recovery. If you comment red, she'll send you a discount code for 15% off her favorite red light products, aka the ones she's financially affiliated with. But last week wasn't just various products being promoted. Some wellness influencers would rather sell you their ebook or monthly membership instead of Dr. Nicole Morris, a naturopathic fertility expert and Catholic, according to her Instagram, posted a carousel with the COVID image reading are you a no Tylenol mama too? Raise your hand if you are. If avoiding Tylenol is new to you, welcome home. The call to action on the last slide is to comment guide for access to her Naturopathic First Aid guide where you'll find 50 plus pages of her favorite tips and tricks for treating acute infection. The guide is $50 USD under the what you get section. You also find hyperlinked products. Most product recommendations are hyperlinked for easy access, utilizing items you already have in your home and products that can be purchased at your local health food store or shopdrmorris.com so predictably, there's a supplement sales funnel there too. And while I am about to get into the last influencer for today. Please know this is far from all of them. I'd need an entire podcast episode, maybe more, to unpack every single sales pitch I saw last week prompted by the Tylenol press conference. So lastly, listeners, meet Jody of at the Warrior Center. She created an online membership, the Warrior center, as a way to share what's in her brain after her social media was removed seven times during the course of the pandemic. Though her Instagram now does have 277,000 Instagram followers followers I've been following Jodi for a while and so I know her content has a particular focus on autism. Her Warrior center website has an entire section labeled Autism Recovery, where the two supports listed are a free Finding Healing for Autism guide and an autism course for $39 per month or $399 for the yearly membership. If you scroll further down, you can quote shop Autism Healing, which simply links to a Young Living wish list with $797 worth of products recommended. Young Living, of course, being the essential oils MLM that Jody is involved with. All to say, I'm not at all surprised to be including Jodi in today's roundup. Last week she posted a reel that said Normalize fevers, not Tylenol and Stop emoji Normalizing Autism. The video playing in the background is her rubbing essential oils on someone's feet and I'm assuming it's her kids. The end of the accompanying caption reads, if you are in a place where confidence is not there yet, or you have awakened and want to do better for your family, reply below with clinic and get immediate access to hundreds of natural protocols at your fingertips. Or even at 2am you can find exactly what you need to use and how. No Tylenol needed. And if you are facing a diagnosis of autism, adhd, eczema, or anything, there is a pathway to heal inside the WC Warrior center too. Yes, your child can heal inside significant ways.

[C]

Wait, so eczema is now being grouped with autism? Like this is amazing, Derek.

[D]

Obviously it's everything. Obviously the DM that is automatically sent is a link to her virtual clinic. The same $39 per month or $390 $99 per year option. And of course no refund on either. I'll also share because Derek, you said that I have to after seeing it yourself. Jody's website Disclaimer it's by far the most interesting one I've ever come across.

[A]

Disclaimer this information is intended to empower you and help you question the allopathic approaches that are so commonly used. I'm not a replacement for your own intuition and choices. Please use this information to open the conversation around this important topic. Seek guidance and medical support as you feel needed. This information is not to be used for medical advice. By using this site, you agree to the terms and conditions.

[D]

I could say more about Jody, but for the purposes of this episode, I'll leave it at that.

[A]

When did making plans get this complicated?

[C]

It's time to streamline with WhatsApp, the secure messaging app that brings the whole whole group together.

[E]

Use polls to settle dinner plans, send.

[C]

Event invites and pin messages so no.

[D]

One forgets mom's 60th and never miss.

[C]

A meme or milestone.

[D]

All protected with end to end encryption.

[C]

It's time for WhatsApp message privately with everyone.

[B]

Learn [e-mail] so you know, as the parent of an autistic kid, this is always and forever exhausting and enraging. But I am proud to say that at least this round has made some good jokes come to the surface on TikTok. Like this one, I took Tylenol while I was autistic and now my son is pregnant. And are you really still calling them autistic? The correct term is acetaminophen. Americans. Yeah, so that's good. But I think the main thing that I was thinking about in listening to this stuff is that all of these things just keep coming back around like it's not an accident. I think that this Tylenol autism drama is activated around the meanings of pregnancy, labor and pain relief. I think it's part of an ideological arc that is driving to police every aspect of reproduction so that women have as little material agency as possible over their lives in return for being elevated as birthing goddesses. And so I want to dig back into the ancient history of our archive for a bit to remind listeners that when we started working on this subject matter, I was initially drawn to examining goop pseudo feminist psychiatrist Kelly Brogan. And this was before she became a leading anti vaxx disinformation influencer during COVID Her shtick was in getting women to stop all psychiatric medications and to take up things like coffee enemas and Kundalini yoga instead. So this means SSRIs and other medications in her view, blocked the true spiritual learning at the heart of mental health repair. So I wrote this investigative piece on this and I interviewed her former patients about her treatments, which often were dangerous because it was standard for Brogan to advise people to cut their meds Cold turkey without tapering. And then the debilitating effects of withdrawal would be framed as some sort of necessary purification. But I also found out that in her intake process, she made clients agree that they would come off all medications before doing the $4,000 plus initial consult, which was in two parts. So this is not only SSRIs, but it would be like allergy medication, birth control, of course, and things like Tylenol. And why is that? Because in her view, pain relief or symptom management obstructed a natural process. It was like getting in the way the divine lesson.

[C]

And if I remember correctly, her now ex husband, Sergi, printed the article and posted it on their wall in their house. They no longer share because, you know, it was all funny. Ha, ha, ha.

[A]

Yeah, we're.

[C]

We're getting people to taper because tapering, you know, tapering people from the meds, that was part of her marketing, wasn't it?

[B]

Well, sort of, but she didn't actually do much tapering, and I don't think she understood it very well. Like, I interviewed one woman who developed such bad anesth not being given a tapering protocol that she was hospitalized for, like, 10 days. And so I don't think Brogan really understood the current tapering protocols, which are quite complex. I mean, some psychiatrists go so far as to advise, like, single milligram reductions per week. Right. Like, you just micro, micro reduce it so that, you know, you can adjust as. As. As easily as possible.

[A]

I mean, talk about targeting an incredibly vulnerable population and then putting them in immense danger due to your own grandiose narcissism and greed.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. I mean, unfortunately, it went on from there because, you know, Brogan would collaborate with free birth maven Yoland, Norris Clark, and when they discussed how their ideas of pain applied to labor and unassisted, unmedicated childbirth, again, pain became this portal to blissful self realization. So the worst thing a woman could do, according to these folks, would be to seek pain relief. The woman who, like, is served up with an epidural and gives birth by C section, for example, like, isn't fully a woman in their book. And this is not an original idea. Like, my partner Alex tracked this all in an article on the natural birth movement years ago. And it goes back to, like, the racist and eugenicist origins of the natural birth movement in the, you know, persons of figures like Grantly, Dick Reed, who in the 1950s wanted to encourage white women especially to accept their reproductive burden with grace and self sacrifice, you know, lest the quote unquote tribals outpaced them in birthing because of course, you know, black and brown women had such an easier time of it and blah, blah, blah, totally gross stuff. So Alex also tracked how many of those values trickled down, laundered by some New age juices into the non intersectional feminist world of Ina Mae Gaskin, who was the modern matriarch of natural birth, who remarked that women who wanted epidurals were princesses, actually. And you know, she thought that maternal mortality rates for black women were attributable to illicit drug use. And, you know, of course they might die less often with the help of prayer and some homegrown food.

[A]

That's amazing the influence that these kinds of postures can start to have within a relatively mainstream discourse. Right. Matthewsalon.com described her as the, quote, mother of authentic midwifery. I mean, at least she's not a poser, right?

[B]

Yeah. I mean, and it's similar track, I think too. I mean, not, I don't know, there's some parallels to Christiane Northrup in the sense that, like, this is an icon of, you know, feminist, but maybe with some exceptions or with some weird right turns background. Yeah, it's an interesting thing.

[A]

Yeah. So she comes into the mainstream through the doorway of women feeling empowered in the face of a patriarchal medical system.

[B]

Yes. And then you dig a little bit deeper and you realize that actually a feminism is pretty much kind of rooted in the 1950s or 60s. So for all of the allegedly feminist bona fides, Gaskin often stumbled around in this anti feminist territory. And I think, you know, if we're thinking about the current project of taking women out of public life entirely and reducing them to reproductive function alone, you can't just take away their abortion and birth control rights. Like, that's just negative. You have to give them something positive. You have to convince some portion of them that birth is their holy purpose, that pain is the holy price of sacrifice. I think Norris Clark is now pregnant again with child number 11. And you have to elevate and lionize suffering in some metaphysical sense so that you bury the lead, which is that no one in our society, much less in a fascist society, will be paying women for the labor of reproduction or caregiving.

[A]

Yeah. And they've so got it upside down. I mean, I found data on the World Population Review website because I was curious about this. This, it puts the US at about 1.4%. Home births and Sweden, which I thought might be a good comparison regarding social safety net. At 1%. So fairly close, but significantly less, I guess, if you compare proportionally. Obviously it occurs at much higher rates. Home birth in poor countries out of necessity, but not this weird fetishized naturalism like Chad tops the list with 77% of home births, for example. A surprising stat I found is that the Netherlands is actually an outlier amongst developed wealthy countries with a cultural norm of about 15%, though it was as high as 30% home births in the year 2000. So it'd be interesting to dig into what caused that. I mean, there's a lot to say there too, because in comparison to the us, midwives in Europe have much higher standards of medical training.

[C]

Speaking of our old friend Yolanda Norris Clark Matthew, who she used to call us the conspirituality bros in her videos, if I remember correctly, didn't one of her free birth collaborators just suffer from a fight? Horrible tragedy, yes.

[B]

So Free Birth society leader Emily Saldia recently gave birth to a stillborn son. And this has caused a lot of consternation because, you know, as an influencer who has to market their pregnancy as part of their skill and wisdom and then perform the parasocial payoff by posting images of the blissful free birth, like you can't seal the deal when something goes wrong that might implicate your advice. And you can't keep it private either. Like it's a real bad situation. You know, these folks are so radical about avoiding interventions that it's not just about not having medical supervision at labor and birth, it's about refusing all monitoring and checkups because, you know, there's a belief that ultrasounds abuse the fetus in some way, but that they also lead to unnecessary interventions. And some of that might be true once in a while. But, you know, Emily is, you know, online during her own pregnancies talking about how she doesn't give a fuck about all the progress markers or ultrasounds or anything because her body is doing everything perfectly. But since the stillbirth, you know, there's not been any pause in business activities.

[A]

It's really so tragic. Does she tell the story as part of her public profile and then employ some kind of stoic or new age bypass metaphysics about divine perfection?

[B]

Not that I saw. There are public comments from community members that kind of, you know, in a kind of, I guess, generous or, I don't know, even like mournful way, try to do some of that. But I think a lot of those communications are internal and I don't have access to that.

[A]

So she just Carried on.

[B]

She made the announcement. She said, we're in mourning. We're getting over it. You know, please respect our privacy. But also, you know, here's a place that you can donate money to. And yeah, as far as I know, that all of the programming is continuing.

[C]

Well, that was the programming thing, because she was about to drop a new podcast season.

[B]

Oh, right.

[C]

And she was like, I'm going to do it. Because I think the advice given is valuable here. Even. Even if. And obviously I haven't heard it yet. It contradicts and leads to the results that she experienced, which we have no way of knowing. But the fact that she's like, we're just gonna do it anyway.

[B]

Well, that's the thing, is that we're never gonna know, right? It's not like they're gonna. There's gonna. There's not gonna be any log. There's not going to be. There was nobody. I mean, if it was really unsupervised, then you'd have to really sort of trust all of their recordkeeping about what they actually did and how that would match up against the protocols that they actually advise. There's none of that. Right. It's just gonna be, you know, believe me, believe that this is what happened. You know, this is what went wrong. This is what I tried to do or didn't try to do. You're not gonna have any sort of clear picture of that as you're paying thousands of dollars to participate in these programs. So back to the Tylenol. I think that the other thing that it made me think of is that the. The woke mama who's. Who's gulping down this medication isn't just sort of violating the values of pain that these women are invested in. And they aren't just disobeying Trump's expert medical advice. They are also showing their lack of fortitude and commitment to the path of essential femininity. And then there's this other thing that came up as I was thinking about this, which is that there's a kind of crushing of gender solidarity across party lines with all of this stuff. So for Maha mamas, I think the image of the woke mama poisoning herself with Tylenol, it reads like a retributive fantasy. You can hear the schadenfreude in. In the. In the reels. And I think this strikes back perhaps against the shame of having been depicted as the anti vaxxer crunchy mom who chugged ivermectin and maybe shat herself when she drank bleach I think the Tylenol panic maybe lets Maha women seek revenge on women who accuse them of child neglect or abuse during COVID So if the woke mama is shown to not only be pro abortion, but also reckless with regard to their fetuses, you know, that can give a lot of reputational relief. Like actually they're the shitty mothers. So I think it's aligned accusing woke mamas of poisoning children with, you know, they're doing the same thing with Froot Loops or even vaccines. And I wouldn't be surprised if it escalated to the point where, you know, they started manufacturing some correlation between child disabilities and epidurals or something like that.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. So these godless liberal hussies. Megadose Tylenol is the new plan B, perhaps. Right. Because they don't really care about babies. And then if it doesn't work, it leads to these monster babies who have disabilities and are neuroatypical.

[B]

Well, and I think a big part of fascism is the ramping up of the internalized misogyny that incentivizes women to police each other's reproductive values and choices and reward the woman who suffers the most for the patriarchy and nation because, you know, it's her blood on the soil.

[A]

Yeah, I mean, it seems like it's across the spectrum in terms of authoritarianism. Right. Right wing authoritarians have tended to be aggressively pro natalist because they're wanting to preserve their race. And then some communist dictatorships have enforced really strict birth control rules that have limited reproduction, for example. So either way, it seems like women's bodily choice is on the chopping block in undemocratic movements.

[B]

Hey, Mallory, great work as always. It's so good to have you with us. Thanks for the TikTok Tylenol trip Trip.

[D]

Thank you so much for having me. And as I alluded to at the start of the episode, I did have another episode planned. So I will see you again later this year.

[C]

Yes, we're going to be talking nicotine.

[D]

Nicotine for health and wellness coming soon.

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