here's my rudimentary classification of altmed scammers
Chronic Illness Specialists: already demonstrated beautifully above I think, but there is lots more
Contamination Anxiety/Detox Generalists: prey on anyone who is susceptible to medical/scientific misinformation.
First, they post lists of the most universal physical complaints or annoyances that almost everyone experiences (allergies, constipation, insomnia, craving junk food, being tired, having belly fat, being irritable).
Then, they claim that these are distinct and diagnostic Symptoms of being contaminated or infected by a Thing that 1) is "scary" and easy to cause paranoia about, 2) common and non-specific enough that it's impossible to rule out being exposed to it. There are several main types of Thing:
Parasites— This one is particularly potent in its hold over people that have been captured by these scammers, often overlaps with eating disorders. The victims are encouraged to identify their cravings for sugar, fats, or ""bad"" foods as the parasites influencing them. They begin to believe that medical tests will not detect their parasites and become trapped in a cycle of increasingly brutal "cleanses" and "purges." This is the one that drove people to ingest poisons that made them pass their own intestinal lining
Mold— People that actually did become sick from mold are preyed upon, but it is broad enough to be generalist— the key characteristic being that any symptom is probably mold poisoning you, regardless of whether you are still in the moldy environment, or if there is or ever was a moldy environment.
Glyphosate —I have no idea why this is the only pesticide scammers know the name of, and I have no idea why people are so concerned about exposure to it through food, when lawns are a WAY bigger and more likely source. And Glyphosate is...probably one of the safest common pesticides. If you're scared of roundup I sure hope you don't use bug killing sprays in your house.
"Heavy Metals" —often a veiled allusion to vaccines, but always an invocation of anxiety about manufactured products or things considered "unnatural."
"Bad" Foods — If you do not already have a chronic illness that leaves you feeling scared, alone and without answers from doctors, this is how they get you. It is basically a form of disordered eating that is selling you a scam product. (Yes. The entire diet industry is included underneath this bullet point.) Whether you're scared of Scary Junk Food Chemicals or of regular ass macronutrients that "make you fat" (nourish you), there's big bucks to be made selling you "pure" or "good" foods or rituals of eating.
There are several more. They are united by selling people various potions, talismans and rituals to "detoxify" or "cleanse" themselves of a contaminant. Whether this is a disordered eating pattern, some ridiculously expensive wellness seminar, juice that makes you poop until you have lost 10 pounds from dehydration, essential oils, or some other dubious substance or ritual that will supposedly "detox" you.
Natural Food/Medicine/Supplement Generalists: Pretty straightforward—the idea is that "food is medicine" and health is all about eating the most "natural" things. ALL the altmed scammers promote this idea to some extent, but the scammers that are, in specific, natural food scammers either sell "natural" supplements and food ingredients or promote brands that claim to be "natural." Unlike most of the others, they are not specifically preying upon sick or troubled people, just anyone that wants the feeling of consuming something "natural."
A key part of the scam is that there are a million different plants, fungi, animal parts, minerals, or ingredients that are "superfoods" or "more powerful" than pharmaceutical drugs, and no matter how many of them you add to your diet (usually as little pills or powders) you need to add another one.
This group does a lot of trend-chasing—different foods are "in" at different times. The more obscure, hyperspecific and convoluted the ingredient and its preparation, the better.
Right now sea moss, turkey tail mushrooms, deer antler velvet, cordyceps fungus and bovine colostrum of all things are all the rage.
I guess people feel like the Potion has more power if it's made of something Unusual. Fairytale wizard land logic.
Neurodivergent Parenting Influencers: Though they appear to have true faith in what they are promoting, these are particularly despicable because they are not using themselves, but their children as lab rats for their scam potions, and furthermore are sharing their disabled children's likenesses and most vulnerable moments to an online audience of thousands, sometimes to elicit pity or horror. At the end of the day, I don't give a shit if some dumbass gives themselves a bleach enema, but doing that to a child is a whole other level of fucked up.
Unlike the other types, they are not usually selling a product (though it's not uncommon for them to shill for someone else's) but they are almost always selling an invasive and dehumanizing amount of exposure of their kid's disabilities and struggles thereof.
Deeply embedded in the roots of altmed—the antivax movement began as a congregation of "autism warrior moms." It is very hard to avoid these people if you are searching for autism or ADHD resources online. Some are convinced they can "cure" their children of neurodivergence with essential oils or some shit, others are just plastering every intimate detail of their children's lives all over the internet to farm clout, but all are going to hell.
Turbo Uterus Vagina Essentialism: This one overlaps considerably with several forms of chronic illness specialists, particularly endometriosis and infertility. (Arguably all altmed is targeted disproportionately towards women, which is at least in part because doctors are so misogynistic). But it is something more and worse and more disturbing: something emerging from "traditional femininity," conservatism, TERFism and anti-feminist thought. The main points are as follows:
Birth control is bad and you should not take birth control. Your natural state is being fertile and not being fertile is bad for you.
As a woman your menstrual cycle is the most influential process in your entire body and controls your brain, body, and emotions to the point that you are a totally different person in different phases of your menstrual cycle and you should eat differently, exercise differently, and make decisions differently throughout the month.
The "male body" is so fundamentally, non-overlappingly distinct from the "female body," that all biological systems and rhythms differ between them, to the point that women are harmed emotionally and physically by engaging in "masculine" activities and behaviors. Women are supposed to accept their femininity, which is what is really empowering.
I see SO MANY posts telling young women to go off birth control and that it's giving them cancer, depression, and all sorts of shit and it scares me half to death. For many people control over their fertility is a matter of physical safety, even of life and death, and for many others hormonal birth control is a life saving medication. My God.
These influencers are exploiting real problems people have had with birth control pills, but do not be bamboozled; they think that birth control pills make you feel bad because they take away your fertility, and even if they don't make you feel bad, they are still hurting you because they take away your fertility, because they think fertility is an indicator of health and being healthy means being fertile.
The message is that for women, a healthy body is a body that is ready to get pregnant. Of course birth control gives you health problems, because not being fertile IS a health problem; a woman that isn't using her body to manufacture babies isn't healthy, because her body isn't functioning, because manufacturing babies is the function of her body.
Basically, this one uses the misogyny in the health field and ignorance about women's health to exploit their chosen prey, women with poorly understood and often mistreated gynecological health problems, but they use sexism as a weapon themselves.
So that's the main types i can think of ✨✨✨
Typically, these scammers target people that traditional medicine has already mistreated and failed. They are, after all, "alternative" medicine: where you turn to when the regular medicine has failed you. Therefore I have sympathy for those who are consumed by the scams, even if they themselves end up promoting and disseminating harmful things.
