Dr. Jennifer Gunter Cautions Viewers Of Gwyneth Paltrow’s ‘Goop Lab’: ‘They…Distribute Some Dangerous Advice’
Not everyone is a fan of Gwyneth Paltrow’s new Netflix series, “The Goop Lab”.
RELATED: Author Timothy Caulfield Weighs In On ‘The Goop Lab’: ‘I Find The Existence Of This Show Frustrating’
Dr. Jennifer Gunter – the Canadian-born, San Francisco-based OB/GYN and bestselling author behind The Vagina Bible – is cautioning viewers of the show, warning that the information they’re being presented with may not be rooted in scientific fact.
RELATED: Gwyneth Paltrow Explains How Her Sold-Out ‘Vagina’ Candle Came To Be
In a statement provided to ET Canada, ‘Twitter’s resident gynecologist’ did not mince words when describing the problematic platform. “Goop has some fine advice, for example, an article on sleep,” Dr. Gunter begins. “They also distribute some dangerous advice, for example drinking goats milk to treat parasites (the parasites are non-existent). When good information is next to harmful and presented in the same way, how can people distinguish?
“In addition, they sell useless and potentially harmful products, such as supplements,” she continues. “Finally, they have used their international platform to advance harmful ideas, many of which are medical conspiracy theories. For example, bras cause breast cancer (they don’t), fears about vaccine safety, and concerns about fluoride. They even gave a platform to an AIDS denialist who believes depression can be treated with daily coffee enemas.”
RELATED: Gwyneth Paltrow Takes Goop To The Small Screen In First Trailer For Netflix’s ‘The Goop Lab’
So, how has the brand become such a force in the health and wellness space? “People love celebrities,” Dr. Gunter admits. “Also, clearly their team is excellent at search engine optimization. And instead of relying on advertising, they make ridiculous claims that make it into the news around the world.”
Six episodes are currently available to stream, including “The Energy Experience” featuring Julianne Hough.
Celebs Goop Gwyneth Paltrow Julianne Hough Netflix The Goop Lab TV
Related CommentsThe Rapid Spread of a Deadly Virus
Virus on the rise: The number of confirmed cases of coronavirus in China has jumped to 4,515, according to the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, reports Nature. At least 106 people have died from the respiratory illness—which belongs to the same family as the virus that causes severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS. There have been no deaths outside of China, but more than 80 cases of infection have been reported in other countries, including five in the U.S., 14 in Thailand and eight in Hong Kong, according to The New York Times. Chinese authorities have quarantined major cities in the province that includes Wuhan, where the virus emerged in December, to try to stop the outbreak’s spread, affecting some 56 million people. The virus is believed to have come from a wholesale market where vendors legally sold live animals from stalls in close quarters with hundreds of others, Steven Lee Myers reports for The New York Times. Nearly two decades ago, SARS had a similar origin story, jumping from bats to Asian palm civets, and then to humans involved in the wildlife trade.
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Deadly greens: Since 2017, leafy greens have become the leading cause of E. coli infections in the United States, but a six-month Boston Globe investigation found the FDA’s response lacking: slow to investigate or publicize reports of E. coli outbreaks; reluctant to warn consumers of the risks; and protective of the names of growers linked to multiple outbreaks. Since 2017, there have been 500 documented illnesses and six deaths from leafy green vegetables contaminated by E. coli, but because it can be difficult to diagnose an E. coli infection, the number of cases is probably much greater. “There is no oversight,” said food safety lawyer Shawn Stevens. “There is no one watching (lettuce) being harvested or distributed or transported to the processing facility or being washed or being packaged.” The source of E. coli on lettuce and other vegetables is often from manure or contaminated water from nearby livestock operations, writes The Wall Street Journal. “With every outbreak, there’s a cow somewhere,” Bill Marler, a food safety lawyer who has tracked food-poisoning incidents linked to greens for almost 20 years, told Consumer Reports.
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Drug ring: The billionaire founder of the pharmaceutical company Insys Therapeutics, John Kapoor, was sentenced to 66 months in prison for bribing physicians to prescribe large amounts of a fentanyl spray called Subsys, meant to alleviate pain from cancer, to patients without the disease. USA Today reported that it was the longest prison term imposed on seven former Insys executives sentenced in the past few weeks: former vice president Michael Gurry and national director of sales Richard Simon each received 33 months in prison; former Insys CEO Michael Babich was sentenced to 30 months; the company’s regional sales director Joseph Rowan to 27 months; and Sunrise Lee, former regional sales director, to one year and a day in prison. After its former executives were found guilty last year, the company agreed to pay $225 million to settle federal fraud charges and to divest its ownership of Subsys, and then filed for bankruptcy. At the sentencing, victims and relatives described the pain and suffering that resulted from the conspiracy: Deborah Fuller said her daughter, Sarah Fuller, was prescribed Subsys even though she didn’t have cancer, and blamed Kapoor and his co-conspirators for her overdose death. “She was robbed by Kapoor of her wedding day,” she said. “The impact of his actions has forever broken our family and Sarah’s fiancé. The actions of John Kapoor and his conspirators have been a sentence of hell for our family.”
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Scammers to slammer: Three men behind an $11 million telemarketing scam that targeted the elderly were sentenced to prison last week by a federal judge in North Carolina. Donald Dodt, 76, Thomas Sniffen, 58, and Michael Saxon, 50, were sentenced to 90 months, 114 months and 75 months in prison, respectively. The judge also ordered restitution in the amount of $7 million for Dodt, $11,236,857.65 for Sniffen and $2,593,574.02 for Saxon. As part of the scam, Dodt, Sniffen, and Saxon convinced their victims that they had won a sweepstakes and stood to receive a large amount of money. They then told them that they needed to make a series of up-front cash payments before collecting, purportedly for items like insurance, taxes and import fees.
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Backpedaling: Toyota and Honda have recalled more than 6 million vehicles worldwide because of two different problems with vehicle air bags, writes the AP’s Tom Krisher. Toyota is recalling 3.4 million cars because the air bags may not inflate on impact; Honda is recalling 2.7 million vehicles in the U.S. and Canada with Takata air bag inflators because the air bags could explode a metal canister and hurl shrapnel at drivers and passengers. The news follows an announcement earlier this month that Takata will recall 10 million air bag inflators in the largest single auto safety recall in history, Reuters reports. Prior to the latest recalls, U.S. vehicles equipped with 56 million defective Takata air bags were recalled because the inflators can explode when deployed. At least 25 deaths and more than 290 injuries have been linked to faulty Takata air bag inflators across the globe.
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Fatal flight: A team of reporters from the Los Angeles Times pieced together the itinerary of the helicopter ride that ended in tragedy this weekend, killing Kobe Bryant and his daughter Gianna as well as seven others. A light fog in the morning thickened to heavier cloud cover, enough for the Los Angeles Police Department to ground their helicopter units. The pilot asked flight controllers to keep an eye on them. As he approached the hills of Calabasas at 150 miles per hour, they told him he was too low for them to see on radar. The helicopter rose 765 feet in 36 seconds, enough to clear adjacent hills. What caused the helicopter to veer off course and subsequently drop 325 feet in 14 seconds remains a mystery. Federal investigators have begun looking into the cause of the crash.
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A sticky nonstick situation: There is a surprising culprit spreading per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, also known informally as the “forever chemicals”: A lightning-fast ski wax marketed to skiers and snowboarders. As Bill Donahue reports for Outside Magazine, the key chemical ingredient was rejected for commercial use by the EPA in late 2018, and then later approved by the same agency last June—in a (perhaps not-so-surprising) about-face—via an opaque and inscrutable decision-making process. The manufacturer, Swix Sport, avoided scrutiny because of a loophole called the low volume exemption because it planned to produce less than the EPA’s threshold of 10,000 kilograms (approximately 22,000 pounds) of material a year. The consequences may be low for those who rarely come into contact with the substance, but for professionals it is a different story: Donahue writes that in a 2010 study, World Cup ski technicians had around 45 times as much fluorocarbon in their blood as nonskiers.
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Dialing out: A Vice investigation by Molly Taft found that Vermont doctors and hospital staff are increasingly, and illegally, relying on police interference to manage situations with mental health patients. At least nine of Vermont’s 14 emergency rooms, including six of its eight hospitals serving rural populations, have been cited by national regulators over the past five years for improperly calling police to help with mental health patients. In 2016, police tackled a patient who had been seeking treatment for anxiety, depression and suicidal thoughts; in two separate incidents in 2018, county sheriffs called by hospital staff tasered patients seeking treatment for mental health issues. Under federal rules, only hospital staff should handle psychiatric patients, and private security guards should be trained and supervised by the hospital at all times; police officers “cannot lay hands on an individual who is committing (or has committed) a crime in the emergency department unless they are going to arrest and remove the individual,” according to Vermont’s Department of Mental Health.
Jessica McKenzie is an independent journalist. Find more of her work at jessicastarmckenzie.com.
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West Side shop owner given 7 years in prison for selling synthetic weed laced with rat poison
© Antonio Perez / Chicago Tribune/Chicago Tribune/TNS King Mini Mart at 1303 S. Kedzie Ave. in Chicago is shown on April 3, 2018. Synthetic pot laced with a toxic substance often used as rat poison was being sold at the West Side convenience store, according to court records.
One victim started urinating blood soon after smoking illegal synthetic pot he bought at a West Side convenience store.
Doctors initially thought it was kidney stones, but it was later determined he’d ingested high concentrations of rat poison, the victim testified Thursday in federal court. Wracked with pain and bleeding uncontrollably, he nearly died in the hospital. The ordeal cost him his job as a union carpenter and led to bouts of depression. Now nearly two years later, he’s still trying to get back on his feet.
“After having almost lost my life, I am now fearful of the unknown,” the man, identified only as Victim A, told U.S. District Judge Manish Shah in a hushed voice.
The damage caused to victims of synthetic marijuana -- often referred to as K2 -- was the focus of an emotional sentencing hearing for convenience store owner Fouad Masoud, who pleaded guilty last year to selling the illegal substance from his King Mini Mart on South Kedzie Avenue.
In sentencing Masoud to seven years in prison, Shah said the emergence of “greedy black-market profiteers” selling K2 was a “recipe for disaster” and likely contributed to a public health crisis that included dozens of hospitalizations in central and northern Illinois and at least two deaths.
While no deaths were tied directly to drugs sold at Masoud’s store, Shah said it was clear he was taking advantage of unsophisticated addicts who were looking for a cheap high.
“You didn’t know there was rat poison in it, but you also didn’t care what you were selling,” Shah said. “You didn’t care whether it was safe or healthy. ... It was just about money for you.”
Masoud, 49, pleaded guilty in September to drug conspiracy, admitting in a plea agreement with prosecutors that he sold up to 80 packages a day of unregulated synthetic pot that was often manufactured overseas and branded with names like “Matrix,” “Crazy Monkey” and “Scooby Snax.”
In asking for a sentence of 10 years in prison, prosecutors said that over a 2 1/2-year period beginning in late 2015, customers would line up outside the King Mini Mart every morning waiting for Masoud to arrive with a garbage bag filled with the illegal pot.
Masoud knew the drugs were banned and had even been cited for selling it before by the Chicago police. Employees told investigators he’d since kept the K2 hidden in a bucket buried in the ground behind the shop to avoid detection.
At least three customers -- including the victim who testified Thursday -- experienced severe symptoms after buying what was believed to be a “bad batch” of K2 from Masoud’s store, causing them to “nearly bleed to death,” prosecutors wrote in a court filing earlier this month.
The victims required blood transfusions and prolonged treatment to keep the poison at bay, including daily high-dosage shots of Vitamin K that cost nearly $400 apiece, Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew Hernandez wrote.
“Essentially they were being poisoned to death like rodents,” Hernandez said.
Many more victims likely got ill but were either unwilling or unable to testify, according to prosecutors.
Masoud’s attorney, Glenn Seiden, argued for a three-year prison term, saying “no nexus” existed between the rash of hospitalizations and drugs sold at Masoud’s store.
Seiden also noted that Masoud “risked his wealth and his health” to run his store in the disadvantaged Lawndale community for nearly 20 years.
Before he was sentenced, Masoud, dressed in an orange prison jumpsuit and shackled at the ankles, made a brief statement to the court. He acknowledged that "maybe I got a bad batch” of K2 at some point but said that many more customers would have been sickened if it were as bad as prosecutors said.
“Only two people got sick. ... Where are the rest of them?” said Masoud, who has been in custody since his arrest in April 2018.
The Jordanian national, who will likely be deported once he’s done serving his sentence, did not apologize to several victims sitting in the courtroom gallery.
Masoud’s store came under investigation amid an escalating outbreak of K2-related sicknesses in 2018. At the time, nearly 100 people had reported symptoms, and the Cook County medical examiner’s office had confirmed that rat poison was found in the body of a 22-year-old Chicago man found dead in an Oak Lawn hotel room.
Meanwhile, after allegations surfaced about someone who had experienced adverse side effects after using synthetic pot purchased at King Mini Mart, an undercover officer was sent into the store and bought the drug. It was later found to contain rat poison, according to the criminal complaint filed against Masoud.
When authorities went to arrest Masoud at his Justice townhouse, he was carrying a paper grocery bag filled with $344,000 in cash. Police searched his home and recovered about 6.4 pounds of suspected synthetic cannabis labeled “Purple Giant,” according to prosecutors.
Two of Masoud’s employees, Jamil Abdelrahman Jad Allah and Adil Khan Mohammed, were also charged and agreed to cooperate with the investigation.Both pleaded guilty and are awaiting sentencing.
Jad Allah told agents that customers -- who sometimes ordered K2 by asking for “Starbucks” -- started to complain in 2018 about the quality of the product, according to an investigative report by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration included in court records.
After agents shut down the store, Jad Allah told Masoud he had shown law enforcement where the synthetic pot was stashed, according to the DEA report.
‘You ruined my life!’” the report quoted Masoud as telling Jad Allah.
Later, while in a lockup awaiting a court hearing, Masoud allegedly told Jad Allah, “Don’t worry, we will get out. No one dies from K2."
jmeisner@chicagotribune.com
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