Will the Trump administration be a dangerous ally for the wellness industry?

He $5.6 trillion wellness industry sells a seductive premise: seeking wellness and personal empowerment while avoiding the perceived failures of conventional medicine. This narrative feeds a market of unregulated supplements, unproven tests and vague diagnoses — all sold under the guise of taking control of your health.

With the incoming Trump administration turning to people like Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Mehmet Oz, MD, Jay Bhattacharya, MD, Ph.D.and others to fill senior positions in health and science, we fear that the wellness industry could gain unprecedented power to shape public health policy, dismantle regulatory oversight, and institutionalize medical conspiracism.

Among these nominees are people who do more than simply dabble in pseudoscience and conspiracies: They are, arguably, their creators. We believe they are a threat to public health based on science and the very institutions designed to protect people from predatory, for-profit welfare plans.

When medical conspiracies replace scientific evidence

Kennedy, a prominent anti-vaccine activistit’s been years spread false claims about vaccine safety. During the COVID-19 pandemic, your anti-vaccine organization, Defense of children’s healthtook advantage of misinformation and brought 23.5 million dollars in a single year (2022). If Kennedy becomes HHS secretary, vaccination rates could plummet, potentially leading to a resurgence of preventable diseases like measles and polio. In fact, members of his team have already launched an offensive against polio vaccine.

Beyond vaccines, Kennedy’s “Make America Healthy Again” (MAHA) movement attempts to disguise his long war. against the scientific consensus. Kennedy has stoked fears about genetically modified foods and conventional agriculturespreading misleading claims and misinformation that undermine critical technologies to improve nutrition, address food security, and combat climate change. His rhetoric not only harms public health: he also makes healthy decisions, such as affordable fruits and vegetablesIt seems dangerous.

The militarization of medical credentials

While Kennedy’s views on scientific, non-evidence-based issues are well documented, several of Donald Trump’s other nominees pose a more subtle but equally dangerous threat. Oz and Bhattacharya use their medical degrees to lend credibility to the misinformation and doubt they potentially sow in science-based medicine and public health.

Oz, from the television show “Dr. Oz Show,” built his brand and much of his Fortune of more than 100 million dollars promoting unsafe supplements, giving a platform to pseudoscience such as iridology and homeopathyand promoting other unproven health trends. More than 50% of health claims that he made on television were false or lacked evidence. If confirmed as head of CMS, Oz’s record suggests he could prioritize unproven treatments and supplements over evidence-based medicine.

Bhattacharya, the potential NIH director, co-authored the Great Barrington Declaration debunkedwho advocated for “herd immunity” from COVID-19 through uncontrolled spread, a policy that could have killed millions more. His anti-lockdown and anti-vaccine rhetoric has likely emboldened anti-vaccine activists and wellness influencers. If he leads the NIH, funding could shift from critical scientific research to studies that amplify unproven approaches or policies. It is noteworthy that Bhattacharya residency never completed after medical school and does not practice medicine.

Deregulation boosts wellness industry

The exponential growth of the wellness industry is due, in part, to the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994 (DSHEA), which limited the FDA’s power to require safety and effectiveness testing for supplements. According to DSHEA, supplement manufacturers can sell products with bold and unsubstantiated health claimsas long as they include a disclaimer that they are “not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease,” among other limited requirements.

This regulatory black hole allows:

• Unproven claims: Products carry vague promises like “boosts immunity” or “detoxifies toxins” without evidence.
• Unsafe products: The FDA can only act after harm occurs, which leaves dangers and mislabeled products on shelves.
• Consumer Exploitation: Approved by Congress as enhance choice among consumersDSHEA delivered a power and profit motive to the wellness industry and exposed the public to misleading claims and untested products.

Trump continues push deregulation during his second term could boost wellness industry profits at the expense of public health, with potentially dangerous consequences. With reduced oversight of the wellness industry, product safety testing could become more lax; further contaminated supplements and unsafe products could flood the market uncontrollably; or science-backed vaccines could be vilified.

Welfare speculation in policymaking

The wellness industry’s intersection with politics is deliberate: It uses the same tactics to appeal to government skeptics. We consider the medical conspiracy (that the government and its affiliates like “Big Pharma” and “Big Food” are suppressing health interventions to harm us) as a central tenet of the wellness industry. The wellness industry often positions its products as altruistic and “natural” alternatives, arguing that regulation is a barrier to true health.

Anti-science rhetoric reinforces this message, portraying conventional medicine and public health measures as corrupt and untrustworthy. We believe that figures in Trump’s sphere, such as Oz, Kennedy and advisor calley means (a wellness industry entrepreneur and lobbyist), repeat and amplify this narrative. The Trump administration’s focus on deregulation and anti-establishment rhetoric makes it an ideal ecosystem for wellness pseudoscience to become mainstream.

This is not just a threat to federal safeguards, it is a direct attack on science-based medicine. Trump’s nominees could institutionalize the culture of well-being and medical conspiracy, eroding public trust in health agencies, dismantling vaccination programs and reversing decades of progress in food and drug safety. This is not just bad policy, it is a green light for pseudoscience to dictate public health, divert funds from research, and eliminate federal oversight. The result could be the undoing of decades of public health progress, putting us all in danger.

Health care in the United States needs reform, but handing the wheel to welfare profiteers is not the answer. Real reform means strengthening public health systems, addressing systemic inequalities, and holding industries accountable to rigorous scientific standards. If policymakers and consumers do not reject the for-profit influence of the wellness industry, we risk exchanging a flawed system for an even more dangerous one: one that prioritizes profits over safety, conspiracy over evidence, and pseudoscience. on public health.

Andrea Amor, PhD, He is an immunologist and microbiologist with experience in infectious diseases, cancer and autoimmunity. She works full time in life sciences biotechnology, is founder of ImmunoLogic and executive director of the American Lyme Disease Foundation, and writes a monthly column for Skeptical Inquirer. Katie Suleta, DHSc, MPH, MS, is a trained epidemiologist with expertise in infectious diseases and health informatics. She works as a regional director of graduate medical education research and is a science writer.