Being a holistic health practitioner after the tidal waves of COVID-19 that have hit us often feels like walking a frayed tightrope. On one side, mainstream medicine pretty much dismisses anything outside the biomedical model as pseudoscience, “woo,” or magical thinking. On the other, parts of the wellness industry veered into contrarianism, conspiracism, rugged individualism, and healthism - using the pandemic as fuel for branding and sales.
And those of us in between - who care deeply about evidence, community, and tradition - were left trying to hold nuance in a world that desperately wanted extremes.
And those of us in between - who care deeply about evidence, community, and tradition - were left trying to hold nuance in a world that desperately wanted extremes.
The problem with the wellness grifter
During COVID, I watched with a mix of grief and fury as much of the wellness industry proudly unmasked itself (literally and figuratively). Wellness entrepreneurs flaunted their disregard for public health measures, framing masks or vaccines not as collective responsibility but as an assault on “freedom.”
Now, don’t get me wrong - I too am skeptical of governments, and the vaccine rollout was far from smooth. Mistakes were made, inequities deepened, and vulnerable communities were often left behind. In Australia, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people were officially prioritised early in the rollout, but in reality they were left waiting: supplies of Pfizer were delayed, remote communities struggled with staff shortages and logistics, and culturally safe communication wasn’t prioritised. Many mob saw confusing, even patronising messaging from mainstream health authorities, while their own ACCHOs weren’t given the resources or autonomy they needed. The result was lower vaccination rates, higher risk... and yet another example of how systemic racism plays out in public health.
But to me, the shittiness of the rollout reflects a broken system in need of transformation - not evidence of a global conspiracy. This isn't a reason to turn our backs on the system altogether, but to demand and co-create something better: a public health response rooted in equity, transparency, and community care. But as usual, I digress...
At its height, the pandemic also became a business model. And even as I write this in 2025, fear remains a lucrative commodity for some wellness grifters. Suddenly, “immune-boosting protocols,” “frequency devices,” and “spike protein detox” supplements appeared on websites and social feeds. Some even claimed (and still claim) they “don’t advertise due to censorship”, a framing that of course fuels knee-jerk contrarianism by making products feel like “forbidden knowledge”. The kind of "secret wisdom" that intentionally stokes curiosity and drives sales. Others hawked colloidal silver or “miracle mineral solution” as universal cures - at best, ineffective, and at worst dangerous products that found new life in conspiracy-driven wellness circles.
And then there was ivermectin. Ahhhh, the infamous “horse wormer”! As someone who used to be a veterinarian, I found this particularly laughable - it simply doesn’t work that way. What made it even stranger was the irony: ivermectin was produced by Big Pharma, the very machine these same wellness conspiracists claimed to be resisting. Yet there I was at a breathwork retreat, having participants lean in with conspiratorial whispers and finger-to-nose gestures, telling me they “knew someone who could import a bunch of ivermectin.” It would have been hilarious if it weren’t so deeply sad.
When I named my concerns, I paid the price. Living in a permaculture community at the time, I received backlash for expressing something as simple as solidarity with public health. Speaking about masks or vaccines in those circles was framed as selling out to “the system.” I’ve written about that painful chapter - the heartbreak of losing community over a commitment to truth - in Prajña: Practising discernment in a climate of COVID misinformation.
And it hasn’t only been COVID. Long before the pandemic, I was calling out unsafe practices in the wellness world... like multi-level-marketing essential oil companies encouraging ingestion of neat oils. That led to one of my most-read pieces ever, Essential Oil Ingestion - Just Don’t Do It, which earned me my fair share of angry messages from distributors, but also gratitude from people harmed by bad advice.
As herbalist Dave Meesters has written, COVID revealed how “wellness culture has a strong pull towards right-wing libertarianism and individualist ‘freedom’ politics” - currents that many herbalists and naturopaths got swept up in, sometimes unconsciously, sometimes deliberately to build their brands (1).
Now, don’t get me wrong - I too am skeptical of governments, and the vaccine rollout was far from smooth. Mistakes were made, inequities deepened, and vulnerable communities were often left behind. In Australia, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people were officially prioritised early in the rollout, but in reality they were left waiting: supplies of Pfizer were delayed, remote communities struggled with staff shortages and logistics, and culturally safe communication wasn’t prioritised. Many mob saw confusing, even patronising messaging from mainstream health authorities, while their own ACCHOs weren’t given the resources or autonomy they needed. The result was lower vaccination rates, higher risk... and yet another example of how systemic racism plays out in public health.
But to me, the shittiness of the rollout reflects a broken system in need of transformation - not evidence of a global conspiracy. This isn't a reason to turn our backs on the system altogether, but to demand and co-create something better: a public health response rooted in equity, transparency, and community care. But as usual, I digress...
At its height, the pandemic also became a business model. And even as I write this in 2025, fear remains a lucrative commodity for some wellness grifters. Suddenly, “immune-boosting protocols,” “frequency devices,” and “spike protein detox” supplements appeared on websites and social feeds. Some even claimed (and still claim) they “don’t advertise due to censorship”, a framing that of course fuels knee-jerk contrarianism by making products feel like “forbidden knowledge”. The kind of "secret wisdom" that intentionally stokes curiosity and drives sales. Others hawked colloidal silver or “miracle mineral solution” as universal cures - at best, ineffective, and at worst dangerous products that found new life in conspiracy-driven wellness circles.
And then there was ivermectin. Ahhhh, the infamous “horse wormer”! As someone who used to be a veterinarian, I found this particularly laughable - it simply doesn’t work that way. What made it even stranger was the irony: ivermectin was produced by Big Pharma, the very machine these same wellness conspiracists claimed to be resisting. Yet there I was at a breathwork retreat, having participants lean in with conspiratorial whispers and finger-to-nose gestures, telling me they “knew someone who could import a bunch of ivermectin.” It would have been hilarious if it weren’t so deeply sad.
When I named my concerns, I paid the price. Living in a permaculture community at the time, I received backlash for expressing something as simple as solidarity with public health. Speaking about masks or vaccines in those circles was framed as selling out to “the system.” I’ve written about that painful chapter - the heartbreak of losing community over a commitment to truth - in Prajña: Practising discernment in a climate of COVID misinformation.
And it hasn’t only been COVID. Long before the pandemic, I was calling out unsafe practices in the wellness world... like multi-level-marketing essential oil companies encouraging ingestion of neat oils. That led to one of my most-read pieces ever, Essential Oil Ingestion - Just Don’t Do It, which earned me my fair share of angry messages from distributors, but also gratitude from people harmed by bad advice.
As herbalist Dave Meesters has written, COVID revealed how “wellness culture has a strong pull towards right-wing libertarianism and individualist ‘freedom’ politics” - currents that many herbalists and naturopaths got swept up in, sometimes unconsciously, sometimes deliberately to build their brands (1).
The backlash from mainstream medicine
At the same time, the reaction from mainstream practitioners was brutally swift and absolutely unforgiving. Again, I can’t say I blame them. Watching colloidal silver, “spike detox” tinctures and capsules, or large animal wormer being pushed as cures in the middle of a global health crisis was alarming.
But the fallout went much further than the grifters. Suddenly, all holistic practitioners and modalities were tarred with the same brush. If one naturopath peddled pseudoscience, the assumption became that every naturopath was doing the same.
As a naturopath, this left me feeling mightily pissed off.
This is where nuance gets erased. The fact that some herbs don’t lend themselves neatly to RCTs - especially in chronic, complex disease - gets twisted into the blanket claim that “herbs don’t work.” That centuries of knowledge and a wealth of clinical evidence somehow amount to nothing.
It’s the baby-out-with-the-bathwater effect.
More than once, I’ve hesitated before including “naturopath” after my name on GP letters I write in my role as a dietitian, worried that the word alone will stain my credibility in the eyes of colleagues.
But the fallout went much further than the grifters. Suddenly, all holistic practitioners and modalities were tarred with the same brush. If one naturopath peddled pseudoscience, the assumption became that every naturopath was doing the same.
As a naturopath, this left me feeling mightily pissed off.
This is where nuance gets erased. The fact that some herbs don’t lend themselves neatly to RCTs - especially in chronic, complex disease - gets twisted into the blanket claim that “herbs don’t work.” That centuries of knowledge and a wealth of clinical evidence somehow amount to nothing.
It’s the baby-out-with-the-bathwater effect.
More than once, I’ve hesitated before including “naturopath” after my name on GP letters I write in my role as a dietitian, worried that the word alone will stain my credibility in the eyes of colleagues.
A different kind of holistic medicine
What I practice, and what my true colleagues practice, is not biomedicine. But it’s also not a denial of biomedicine.
It’s a complementary way of knowing and healing that draws on:
As Carl Sagan reminded us, “Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spirituality.” To me, that means allowing science and spirit to coexist, informing and tempering each other.
It’s a complementary way of knowing and healing that draws on:
- Biomedical evidence - peer-reviewed research, clinical guidelines, pathology results.
- Clinical evidence - what actually happens in the consultation room, with real people, over years of practice.
- Traditional evidence - the naturopathic principles, centuries of herbal medicine, food as medicine.
- Spirit - what Daniel Foor calls animism: “relationship and reverence with the seen and unseen, the human and other-than-human” (2). This includes subtle medicines that are easy for skeptics to mock (like flower essences), but which I have witnessed work powerfully in the right context. Yes, I know naming them can tarnish my credibility in some eyes. But I refuse to hide them, because they are part of a relational way of healing that matters to me.
As Carl Sagan reminded us, “Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spirituality.” To me, that means allowing science and spirit to coexist, informing and tempering each other.
Healthism and individualism in practice
This culture of rugged individualism and healthism isn’t abstract. It's frfr, to emulate some of my clients under 20. I’ve spoken before about a time when I was health-shamed for being sick... as though illness was a personal failing or proof I wasn’t “healthy enough” to practice what I preach. That experience, which I shared in this 10-minute Instagram reel, was a stark reminder of how wellness culture too often frames health as an individual moral achievement, rather than something deeply shaped by social, ecological, and political determinants.
bell hooks said it best: “Rarely, if ever, are any of us healed in isolation. Healing is an act of communion.” That is the heart of what I believe holistic medicine should be - less about “optimisation” of the individual, and more about care woven through relationship and responsibility.
bell hooks said it best: “Rarely, if ever, are any of us healed in isolation. Healing is an act of communion.” That is the heart of what I believe holistic medicine should be - less about “optimisation” of the individual, and more about care woven through relationship and responsibility.
Where we go from here
Post-COVID (although, not really, it keeps popping up), the challenge is bigger than just distancing ourselves from dodgy grifters or defending our modalities from blanket dismissal by medicos. It’s about holding both: pushing back against harmful disinformation in our own communities and protecting the integrity of holistic traditions without capitulating to individualism or healthism.
It means reclaiming holistic medicine not as a solo project of supplements, detoxes, intensity, or discipline - but as something rooted in collective care. It means emphasising, again and again, that health is not only individual but social, ecological, political.
I’ve written before in this article about the danger of believing that connection alone is the antidote. That framing makes the same mistake wellness entrepreneurs do: it oversimplifies. The reality is far messier (I mean, it usually is, isn't it?!). The antidote isn’t as simple as saying “just reconnect with community”, or “just reconnect with plants”, or even "just reconnect with yourself." What’s required is nothing less than a transformational shift of the systems that shape health in the first place - social, economic, ecological, cultural. And that shift has to happen at many levels: policy, culture, education, and yes, in our consultation rooms and communities too.
As Meesters reminds us, “the political economy of health is always larger than the clinic” (3). Which means that while we continue our valuable work - in clinic, in teaching, in community - we also have to engage in the larger struggle for systemic transformation. I guess that's part of the reason why I don't keep quiet, and instead keep banging on about this stuff publicly, exposing myself to intense criticism, public vitriol, and at times, threats.
And here I think of Maya Angelou’s words: “Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.” That’s the path I choose: to keep doing the work with humility and courage, weaving together evidence and spirit, and standing firm against both the dismissals and the distortions.
In moments of overwhelm and hopelessness, I try to remember what I know in my bones: that relationship with plants, with each other, and with land is healing. But when that relationship is coupled with critical thinking and collective action for systemic change, then, and only then, we create medicine that can truly transform.
It means reclaiming holistic medicine not as a solo project of supplements, detoxes, intensity, or discipline - but as something rooted in collective care. It means emphasising, again and again, that health is not only individual but social, ecological, political.
I’ve written before in this article about the danger of believing that connection alone is the antidote. That framing makes the same mistake wellness entrepreneurs do: it oversimplifies. The reality is far messier (I mean, it usually is, isn't it?!). The antidote isn’t as simple as saying “just reconnect with community”, or “just reconnect with plants”, or even "just reconnect with yourself." What’s required is nothing less than a transformational shift of the systems that shape health in the first place - social, economic, ecological, cultural. And that shift has to happen at many levels: policy, culture, education, and yes, in our consultation rooms and communities too.
As Meesters reminds us, “the political economy of health is always larger than the clinic” (3). Which means that while we continue our valuable work - in clinic, in teaching, in community - we also have to engage in the larger struggle for systemic transformation. I guess that's part of the reason why I don't keep quiet, and instead keep banging on about this stuff publicly, exposing myself to intense criticism, public vitriol, and at times, threats.
And here I think of Maya Angelou’s words: “Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.” That’s the path I choose: to keep doing the work with humility and courage, weaving together evidence and spirit, and standing firm against both the dismissals and the distortions.
In moments of overwhelm and hopelessness, I try to remember what I know in my bones: that relationship with plants, with each other, and with land is healing. But when that relationship is coupled with critical thinking and collective action for systemic change, then, and only then, we create medicine that can truly transform.
References
- Dave Meesters, Herbalism Against the Machine: Towards a Radical Politics of Plant Medicine (2020).
- Daniel Foor, Ancestral Medicine: Rituals for Personal and Family Healing (2017).
- Dave Meesters, Herbalism Against the Machine, ch. 4.
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