But, unlike most things, it plays on the emotions of both conservative MAGA voters and liberal MAGA opposers, even though actual chemophobia-based thoughts vary significantly in each group.<\/p>\n
\u201cMuch of this started on the left-leaning side of the political aisle as a result of misunderstanding the difference between legitimate chemical industrial incidents and just chemicals more broadly,\u201d said Andrea Love<\/a>, an immunologist, microbiologist and founder of Immunologic<\/a>, a health and science communication organization.<\/p>\n Appealing to the left, it was seen as counter-culture and opposed the \u201cevil market forces,\u201d said Timothy Caulfield<\/a>, the co-founder of ScienceUpFirst<\/a>, an organization that combats misinformation, and author of \u201cThe Certainty Illusion<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBut now we\u2019re seeing it shift to the right, and I think it\u2019s almost now entirely on the right, or at least the loudest voices … are on the right,\u201d Caulfield noted. These are voices like Casey Means<\/a>, a wellness influencer and surgeon general nominee, and even Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.<\/a>, the Health and Human Services secretary.<\/p>\n On the right-leaning side, chemophobia appears as a distrust and demonization of things like studied vaccines and medications and the pushing of \u201cnatural\u201d interventions, \u201cwhen those have no regulatory oversight compared to regulated medicines,\u201d Love noted.<\/p>\n \u201cOn the left-leaning [side], this gets a lot of attention because it plays into this fear of toxic exposures, and this \u2018organic purity\u2019 narrative … \u2018you have to eat organic food, and you can\u2019t have GMOs,\u2019\u201d Love said.<\/p>\n No matter your political party, chemophobia has infiltrated people\u2019s homes, diets and minds, while also infiltrating brand slogans, marketing campaigns and political messaging (ahem, Make America Healthy Again). Here\u2019s what to know:<\/p>\n Chemophobia says you should avoid chemicals, but that\u2019s impossible \u2014 water is a chemical and you are made up of chemicals.<\/p>\n \u201cFirst of all, everything is chemicals,\u201d said Love. \u201cYour body is a sack of chemicals. You would not exist if it were not for all these different chemical compounds.\u201d<\/p>\n Chemophobia leads people to believe that synthetic, lab-made substances are inherently bad while \u201cnatural substances\u201d \u2014 things found in nature \u2014 are inherently good, and that is just not true, Love said.<\/p>\n The current obsession with \u201call-natural\u201d beef tallow<\/a> as a replacement for \u201cmanufactured\u201d seed oils is a prime example of this.<\/p>\n \u201cYour body … has no idea if it\u2019s a synthetic chemical, meaning it was synthesized in a lab using chemical reactions, or if it exists somewhere out on the planet,\u201d Love added.<\/p>\n Your body doesn\u2019t know the difference between getting vitamin C from a lime and getting vitamin C that\u2019s made in a lab, she explained. <\/p>\n Your body only cares about the chemical structure (which is the same in synthetic chemicals and natural chemicals) and the dosage you\u2019re being exposed to, Love noted. <\/p>\n \u201cThis irrational fear of chemicals, just by and large, is antithetical to life because chemistry and chemicals are why everything exists,\u201d Love said.<\/p>\n Everything that is made up of matter is a network of chemicals, she explained. That goes for your body, your pets, your car, your TV, your home and the food you eat.<\/p>\n \u201cEverything is just these structures of chemicals linked together into physical objects … so, there\u2019s zero reason to be afraid of chemicals broadly,\u201d said Love.<\/p>\n Chemophobia was born from the \u2018appeal to nature fallacy\u2019 and a desire to \u2018get back to ancestral living.\u2019<\/p>\n Chemophobia was born from the \u201cappeal to nature fallacy,\u201d said Love, which is \u201cthe false belief that natural substances … are inherently safe, beneficial or superior, whereas synthetic substances are inherently bad, dangerous, harmful or worse than a natural counterpart.\u201d <\/p>\n There is nothing legitimate about this belief, she added. But both chemophobia and the appeal to nature fallacy are central to pseudoscience, the anti-vaccine movement and the MAHA wellness industry, Love noted.<\/p>\n At the core of chemophobia and appeal to nature fallacy is also a \u201cromanticization of ancestral living, when, in reality, we lived very poorly, we died very young and often suffering and in pain,\u201d Love said.<\/p>\n \u201cGoing back to simpler times\u201d are talking points for both MAHA and MAGA, which, of course, stands for \u201cMake America Great Again,\u201d a slogan that alludes to the past. And, RFK Jr. has repeatedly claimed America was healthier when his uncle, John F. Kennedy, was president<\/a>.<\/p>\n This is complicated, but not true; two out of three adults died of chronic disease and life expectancy was almost 10 years less than it is now, according to NPR<\/a>.<\/p>\n Chemophobia is designed to elicit negative emotions such as anxiety and fear.<\/p>\n Chemophobia is incredibly effective because it evokes people\u2019s negative emotions, said Love. And it\u2019s hard for most people to separate emotions from facts.<\/p>\n If someone on social media says that a certain ingredient is harming your kids, you\u2019ll be scared and want to make lifestyle changes. If someone claims your makeup is bad for you, you\u2019ll also be scared and want to make changes.<\/p>\n \u201cTake, for example, fructose, since it\u2019s having a moment,\u201d said Andrea Hardy<\/a>, a dietitian and owner of Ignite Nutrition<\/a>, who is referring to a viral social media video<\/a> about the \u201charms\u201d of fructose.<\/p>\n \u201cAn influencer online might say \u2018fructose is bad, the liver can\u2019t handle it, we shouldn\u2019t be eating any fructose. I\u2019ve cut all fructose from my diet and I\u2019m the healthiest I\u2019ve ever been.\u2019 Then a mom, wanting to do the best for her children says, \u2018I need to cut out all fructose\u2019 and not only removes the ultra-processed foods like sweetened beverages, but also says no to fruit in her household because of this misinformation,\u201d Hardy said.<\/p>\n This has lots of consequences, including a lack of nutrition in the home (from missing out on the fiber and vitamins from fruit) and the encouragement of disordered eating in kids, who, from this elimination of fructose, will learn the false idea that \u201cfruit is bad\u201d or \u201cfructose is bad,\u201d explained Hardy.<\/p>\n Illustration: HuffPost; Photos: Getty<\/p>\n Chemophobia makes products that claim to be “natural” or “clean” feel superior, even when that isn’t the case.<\/p>\n Our brains want clear, black-and-white information. Vilifying one product while celebrating another achieves that.<\/p>\n Between social media and the internet, we live in a \u201cchaotic information environment,\u201d according to Caulfield. <\/p>\n There\u2019s seemingly factual information coming at you from everywhere, and it can be hard to know what to trust.<\/p>\n \u201cThe reality is, our brains want simple. They want black and white,\u201d said Hardy. <\/p>\n We make choices all day long, which makes categorizing things, like food, as \u201cgood or bad\u201d appealing to our minds, Hardy said.<\/p>\n And, everyone wants to make the \u201cgood\u201d choice, Caulfield added. \u201cWe want to do what\u2019s best for ourselves and for the environment and for our community and our family,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n As a result, we look for \u201cclear signals of goodness,\u201d or \u201cshort cuts to making the right decision,\u201d added Caulfield. We turn not only to words like \u201cgood\u201d or \u201cbad,\u201d but also \u201ctoxin-free,\u201d \u201cnatural\u201d and \u201cclean,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Seeing these words slapped on a jar of nut butter, on a shampoo bottle, or on sunscreen makes making the \u201cright choice\u201d easier, he added \u2014 \u201ceven though the evidence does not support what\u2019s implied by those words, those \u2018health halos,\u2019\u201d noted Caulfield.<\/p>\n These words are an \u201coversimplification,\u201d Hardy said. \u201cPeople now leverage their social media presence to share those oversimplified nutrition messages, most of which are at best, wrong, at worst, harmful.\u201d<\/p>\n Chemophobia is really hard to escape. It\u2019s even built into marketing campaigns and product names.<\/p>\n If you\u2019ve ever fallen into the chemophobia trap without knowing, you aren\u2019t alone. It\u2019s complicated and nuanced, and the science is, at times, messy.<\/p>\n Moreover, chemophobia is the inspiration behind brand names and entire product categorizations; \u201cclean beauty\u201d is one huge example.<\/p>\n Fears of chemicals are now marketing ploys. \u201cYou\u2019re going to find products that claim that they\u2019re \u2018chemical-free,\u2019 and that doesn\u2019t exist,\u201d Love said, referring to the fact that, once again, everything is made up of chemicals.<\/p>\n Market forces take over and cling to the chemophobia buzz words of the moment, whether that\u2019s \u201cclean\u201d \u201cgluten-free\u201d or \u201cnon-GMO,\u201d Caulfield said.<\/p>\n Now, we have Triscuits labeled with non-GMO marketing, he said. We also have entire product lines at stores like Sephora that are categorized as \u201cclean.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt creates this perception [of] \u2018if that one\u2019s chemical-free, then the alternative that isn\u2019t labeled as such must be dangerous, must be bad,\u2019\u201d Love said.<\/p>\n Once again, making the \u201cgood\u201d choice easy.<\/p>\n This isn\u2019t to say there isn\u2019t room for improvement in the health and food space.<\/p>\n \u201cI work in the public health space. I don\u2019t know a single public health researcher, a single agricultural researcher, a single biomedical researcher who doesn\u2019t want to make our food environment safer for everyone,\u201d said Caulfield.<\/p>\n Just because Caulfield speaks out against chemophobia doesn\u2019t mean he doesn\u2019t want to make our food and health environment healthier, he stressed.<\/p>\n \u201cI do think we should always be challenging both industry and government to do exactly that, but at the same time, we have to be realistic and understand the nature of the risks and the magnitude of risks at play,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Both our food environment and agricultural practices could be safer, \u201cbut those moves should be based on what the science says, and not on slogans,\u201d Caulfield said.<\/p>\n Corporate greed and capitalism hinder these safety changes.<\/p>\n \u201cThe huge irony here … the answer to all of these chemophobia concerns … it\u2019s more government regulation. It\u2019s more robust, science-informed regulation. And in this political environment, that ain\u2019t going to happen, That just simply isn\u2019t going to happen, as we\u2019ve already seen,\u201d Caulfield said.<\/p>\n The Trump administration wants to repeal environmental protections<\/a> that help fight climate change (and the air we breathe has huge health implications) and has cut funding to departments <\/a>that are in charge of food safety, which could jeopardize the items you buy at the grocery store.<\/p>\n \u201cSo, it all just becomes slogans and wellness nonsense,\u201d along with the peddling of unregulated, unproven supplements (that are basically just untested chemicals), Caulfield added.<\/p>\n And, many of the people who claim to be so concerned about chemicals then profit from the sale of unregulated supplements, Caulfield said.<\/p>\n Jeff Greenberg via Getty Images<\/p>\n The hyper-focus on things like food dyes and seed oils actually distracts from the true health \u2014 and healthy equity \u2014 issues in this country.<\/p>\n Focusing on one \u2018bad\u2019 ingredient or so-called \u2018natural\u2019 alternatives won\u2019t actually make you healthier.<\/p>\n This fear of chemicals will have an enormous impact and is \u201csomething we won\u2019t even realize and see the effects of for years to come,\u201d Hardy said.<\/p>\n \u201cIf we want to improve public health, focusing on a single ingredient in food or swapping seed oils for beef tallow isn\u2019t the answer to our public health problems, it\u2019s a distraction,\u201d Hardy said.<\/p>\n Food dyes, seed oils, \u201cnon-clean\u201d beauty, whatever the item may be, become a common enemy, allowing folks to ignore the fact that this isn\u2019t actually a problem that\u2019s central to the country\u2019s health outcomes, Love added.<\/p>\n RFK Jr. has claimed that \u201cAmericans are getting sicker<\/a>\u201d and research does show that America has worse health outcomes<\/a> while spending more on health care than other Western countries, but it\u2019s too simple (and flat-out wrong) to blame any one makeup chemical or item in your pantry.<\/p>\n \u201cInstead of critically assessing and saying, \u2019Hey, we do have some health challenges, but what are the underlying factors to that? Maybe it\u2019s housing inequity and lack of national health care and all of these societal, structural issues, and it\u2019s not these singular food ingredients,\u201d Love said.<\/p>\n \u201cThese conversations distract us from the real things that we can do to make ourselves and our communities healthier, and I think that\u2019s one of the biggest problems with MAHA,\u201d said Caulfield.<\/p>\n \u201cNo one\u2019s a huge food dye fan. I\u2019m not going to go to the mat for food dye [but] … all these are distractions from the things that really matter to make us, to make our communities healthier \u2014 equity, justice, access to health care, education, gun laws \u2014 these are the things that, on a population level, are really going to make a difference,\u201d Caulfield said.<\/p>\n Whether someone has conservative or liberal views that fuel their chemophobia, the fear of chemicals is dangerous. And, it\u2019s, sadly, more prevalent than ever, Caulfield said.<\/p>\n![\"Chemophobia](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/68a774a3180000fe5a8c5f41.jpg\")
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