Mallory DeMille dissects the MAHA movement’s fractured response to Trump’s February 2024 glyphosate order, granting Bayer immunity while RFK Jr. flip-flops between defending it as "national defense" and vague phase-out promises. Influencers like Vani Hari and Zen Honeycutt accuse the administration of betrayal, citing carcinogen claims, while others deflect blame to China or corporate agribusiness—despite glyphosate’s mixed scientific risks. A 2025 rat study (crowdfunded by activists) clashes with retracted Monsanto-funded research, exposing methodological disputes, as MLMs exploit fear with unproven "detox" supplements like Biomedic and Rise and Vibe. The movement’s infighting—from Kennedy’s exaggerated lawsuits to Food Babe’s April Supreme Court rally—reveals a crisis of credibility, where profit-driven activism overshadows actual health solutions. [Automatically generated summary]
On June 11th, 1998, a deputy from the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department went missing.
Hey, don't kill a cop and bear him.
What are you going to do to me?
What really happened to the missing deputy?
Valley of Shadows, a new series from Pushkin Industries about crime and corruption in California's high desert.
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The Conspirituality, where we investigate the intersections of conspiracy theories and spiritual influence to uncover cults, pseudoscience, and authoritarian extremism.
I'm Derek Barris.
And I'm Mallory DeBill.
Matthew and Julian are taking the week off after last week's deep dive into the satanic Panic of the Epstein files.
But as always, you can find us on Instagram and threads at ConspiritualityPod.
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Conspirituality 298, Maha's glyphosate meltdown.
Despite saying, I believe glyphosate causes cancer a few weeks ago, RFK Jr. quickly pivoted when his boss declared an executive order calling for the ramping up of glyphosate under a 75-year-old Defense Production Act that also happens to give immunity to Bayer, the parent company of Monsanto.
Maha activists immediately went into a frenzy, shocked that their tallow daddy, thank you, Mallory, for coining that term, would betray them like this.
Mallory DeMille returns as she's also been tracking the civil war that exploded in Maha after Kendi said, maybe Roundup ain't so bad after all.
All right, Mallory, here we go.
On February 18th, Donald Trump signed an executive order titled, Promoting the National Defense by Ensuring an Adequate Supply of Elemental Phosphorus and Glyphosate-Based Herbicides.
This order invokes the Defense Production Act of 1950, which is a cold war era law normally used to mobilize industrial production for national security emergencies.
But of course, we are not in normal times right now.
Sticking with his habit of citing old laws for malevolent new purposes, Trump framed glyphosate as, quote, a cornerstone of this nation's agricultural productivity and rural economy, framing the herbicide as part of food supply security and therefore national defense.
The order also notes there is only one domestic producer of both elemental phosphorus and glyphosate, and that is Bayer.
The Monsanto subsidiary mines phosphorus in Idaho, and they process glyphosate in Iowa and Louisiana.
While a call for ramped up domestic production, the Defense Production Act contains a liability shield provision.
And when the government directs a company to produce something under this act, the company can claim immunity from lawsuits arising from that production.
Now, Bayer's CEO, Bill Anderson, has previously said that the company may stop producing glyphosate under the brand name Roundup because of all the legal liabilities over lawsuits related to allegations that the herbicide causes non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.
We're going to unpack this claim a bit in segment three today, but what we really want is to focus on Maha's response to Kennedy, who quickly came out defending Trump and his executive order, which really shocked his ardent supporters.
Now, here's how Kennedy framed it.
Donald Trump's executive order puts America first where it matters most, our defense readiness and our food supply.
We must safeguard America's national security first because all of our priorities depend on it.
When hostile actors control critical inputs, they weaken our security.
By expanding domestic production, we close that gap and protect American families.
Hey, I thought you were going to do it in Kennedy's voice.
Oh, sorry.
That's for our Patreon.
Mallory's going to lead us down that rabbit hole as well as highlight how some of those Maha influencers saw an opportunity to market glyphosate detoxes because of course they did.
We're also going to discuss Kennedy's response to the criticism and how his main fundraising and organizing committees are trying to spin this as a tale of David just needs a little more time to take down Goliath.
You don't realize the impact that Trump's decision just had on the American people.
On February 18th, an order allowed continued production of glyphosate-based herbicides in the U.S. If you didn't know, glyphosate is the main chemical sprayed on our food.
It's used in hundreds of millions of acres, including wheat and oats, right before harvest.
Mind you, this is the same chemical the World Health Organization classified as a probable human carcinogen.
You're supposed to believe this has no effect on our health?
Look around.
Autoimmune disease is exploding.
Gut disorders are everywhere.
Kids can't tolerate foods like their grandparents ate daily.
People go overseas, eat bread and pasta for a week, and suddenly their stomach feels fine.
Life is a only factor?
No.
But when a chemical is designed to kill living organisms and it's sprayed directly on our staple foods and it shows up in human urine samples across the country, how is this not a part of the conversation?
So yeah, Make America Healthy Again supporters are pissed.
As am I.
This isn't about party lines, red or blue.
It's about what's going into our bodies, into our kids' bodies.
In the immediate aftermath of the executive order, the Make America Healthy Again movement was already cracking.
Wellness and Maha influencers took to social media to post their utter disbelief and rage.
And I'm not just talking about niche influencers like Organic Tarzan, who we just heard from.
I'm talking about the influencers who have been central and integral to the Maha movement coming to fruition.
Wait, hold on.
Tarzan was introduced in 1912, which predates glyphosate by generations.
So how is this guy organic Tarzan?
Well, he sells organic briefs and underwear.
That's kind of his thing.
Oh, okay.
Okay.
So the original Tarzan must have been compromised by Bayer, which did, well, they might have existed by then.
Monsanto didn't exist yet, but okay, got it.
Yeah, just so we got all of our, everything clear there.
Speaking of the more kind of like integral influencers, Alex Clark, who is the host of the Culture Apothecary podcast, I have talked about her here before.
She is a huge Maha influencer and incredibly politically involved.
She posted a photo of herself much less done up than she normally is.
She's laying down, looking beyond her phone with what appears to be a single tear running down her cheek.
The accompanying text reads, It's egregious enough to say glyphosate manufacturers should get immunity, but then to chalk it up as a great thing for national defense is so completely misguided, it seems like a joke, question mark.
Because these are the chemicals that are literally feminizing our boys and mutilating their genitals.
Not to mention contributing to skyrocketing rates of chronic disease and infertility.
I need time to process this betrayal.
Honestly, this was a bit jarring to see on my feed.
It's not, I'm not used to seeing this crew say anything that could be considered critical of this administration or their movement or their tallow daddy, let alone calling something to all of their followers a betrayal.
But then the reactions kept coming.
Vani Ahari, also known as the food babe, again, integral to Maha, she posted to Twitter, Please, God, tell me this isn't true.
Did Trump give manufacturers of glyphosate immunity under Defense Production Act?
I was on the phone with lawyers all night trying to understand the implications of this.
Couldn't sleep.
Bayer just got licensed to kill from our government.
This is the mass poisoning of Americans, and it continues.
Then there's Zen Honeycutt.
She's the director of Moms Across America, and someone who I would say was fairly central in Maha Mamas, specifically that movement.
She said on Instagram, I'm disgusted, literally sick to my stomach.
You know, they really need a lesson in what literally means all of these fucking influencers.
This executive order to ensure the availability of glyphosate is going to do far more than make people sick.
It's going to kill and stereize countless American people.
I left all of the grammar and spelling out for us.
Yeah.
I also think that if they're so sick to their stomach, they might want to check the raw milk in their fridge, but that's just me.
Comments on that Instagram post had lots of folks tagging RFK Jr. asking, Where are you?
To which someone responded, he's cold plunging and doing push-ups in a sauna.
You know, things average Americans can do to get healthy.
Another comment reads, It's almost as if Banga never cared about Maha and just said whatever would serve their interests at the time.
Another reads, Everyone is so concerned with making your fruit loops healthier, and then this happens.
Ugh.
Moms Across America also posted to Instagram an image that reads, We do not consent to being poisoned.
And I want to note that's in all caps.
And the caption to that post reads: Sign our letter today and demand real ways to protection national security.
I told you: Checkmark, phase out glyphosate and toxic pesticides.
Check mark, end geoengineering and vaccine mandates.
Check mark, protect children from harmful chemicals in water, air, and public spaces.
I had the letter link open, but when I went back to check on it for writing the script, the link was broken.
So I couldn't pull any copy from it.
And since we're in the business of reading some immediate aftermath, social media comments.
The Instagram account glyphosate girl uploaded a post that reads, just as the large Maha base begins to consider what to do at the midterms, the president issued an executive order to expand domestic glyphosate production, the very same carcinogenic pesticide that Maha cares about most.
And she's not wrong about that.
Except vaccines.
Right.
Sorry.
Yeah.
Right.
Next up, glyphosate vaccines.
But anyway, someone commented, Trump's going to lose a ton of Maha moms in this election, me included, at Sec Kennedy.
But then you see the actual Maha Mamas account commenting, what in the actual heck?
This makes no sense.
To which someone responded, it makes perfect sense when you realize Maha was never his goal.
He only wanted the votes.
Another common sentiment is influencers saying, well, it's all politicians.
It doesn't matter who's in power.
Which begs the question, then why did you say this administration would be different?
Courtney Swan of Real Foodology, again, Maha has been fairly central to her brand the last few years.
She posted in part, Spare me the I Told You Sos.
I'm not your enemy.
I have been fighting tirelessly against Big Egg for 15 years.
Our enemy is Big Egg, who has their tentacles so deep in our government that it doesn't matter what side is in there.
I will say the silver lining, which does give me hope.
The internet is exploding about glyphosate now.
Now there's major awareness.
Americans have had enough.
One of my biggest grievances about moving to the West Coast first in LA, but especially even more so in Portland, is there's a real culture of passive aggressive.
Like people are very passive aggressive.
Where I'm from, people are just, they say what's on their mind.
And Courtney, I don't know, I think she lives in California.
I don't know where she's from, but this attitude, the spare me, I told you so is I am not your enemy.
They so don't want to take responsibility for everything that they do.
They just want to be fawned over.
They want to pretend all the shit they're selling.
I mean, you covered this, Mallory.
You covered how like she's selling detoxes and then she's selling wine and something you actually like is carcinogenic, you know, at scale, obviously.
But they so do not want to take responsibility for any of their words.
And then when they're actually called out on something and they realize they've been had, they don't know how to actually process it.
I think, I mean, Courtney Swan too, she also has been railing against big food companies, specifically Nestle.
But then she did a number of advertisements, like sponsored posts for a specific supplement company that turns out has been owned by Nestle since 2017.
And when folks called her out on that, she kind of just like put it under the rug.
And it's like, you're saying that you should stop lining the pockets of these big companies, and yet you are actively involved in that.
Oh, spare me, Mallory.
Spare me.
Spare me.
Sorry.
Anyway, this whole thing, you know, it's just so fascinating to watch and probably has produced one of my favorite headlines I've ever seen, which reads, Maha moms threaten to turn this car around as RFK Jr. flips on pesticide.
Dr. Jessica Nurick pointed out the day that this was all going down that the things Maha wants require regulation.
And yet they voted for and influenced others to vote for an administration that is deregulatory.
Like if Courtney has been fighting this for 15 years, why would she ever vote for this administration?
Jessica said that she's not really sure why they're all so surprised it was incompatible from the start.
And I have to agree, but it seems like Maha is just now catching up.
Well, kind of.
Why Maha Missed the Mark00:07:41
Glyphosate is horrible.
It's super toxic, as is atrazine, as is dicamba, as is 24D.
There's so many toxic pesticides, fungicides, herbicides that are being used that we need to stop using.
Okay.
But the problem is, in the last 30 years, we've built this entire industrial agricultural system that is dependent on glyphosate.
So if they banned glyphosate today, what would happen is the massive amounts of farmers would go out of business because they are dependent on glyphosate to grow crops.
What Trump is doing, and there may be more to the story than this, but on the surface, what he's doing, and the reason that Kennedy Defend is defending him is because we're getting a bunch of glyphosate from China.
And if China figures out, if we really got in a major trade war with China and they blocked exports of glyphosate to the U.S., then our farmers would be devastated and we'd have a major food supply shock.
And there would be no meat, dairy, and eggs.
And also, you know, grains and other things.
So that's the main driver behind it.
No one's acknowledging that glyphosate's good.
It's not.
It's terrible.
But we can't just get rid of it.
It has to be phased out.
We don't have enough organic farms to feed the population.
Even before RFK Jr. made his fairly delayed statement, which I know, Derek, you're going to get into, Maha, or even just like, let's say, the wellness space at large, seemed to split themselves into two.
There were those like Alex and Vonnie who led with passion, passionate disbelief, disappointment, and disagreement.
And then there were those who appeared to give the administration some slack.
Chris Wark of Crispy Cancer, who you just heard, was the first I saw to make this spin and post it.
It quickly took off, well over a half a million views now and was stitched in a lot of videos.
Chris isn't even really a part of the Maha movement, really.
His alternative-ish cancer programs focus on plant-based foods.
So he doesn't really vibe with the steak and dairy-first food pyramid, but he does vibe with the anti-vax moves.
He's also a geopolitical expert, as you just heard in that clip.
Yeah, well, he has over a half a million followers, so he can kind of be an expert in whatever he wants to be.
Courtney Swan, again, commented on the video: there is a better way.
We should be fighting for the better way and moving towards it, not defending the worst way and letting it continue on.
Everyone needs to watch at Kiss the Ground and at Common Ground Film.
Farming that makes enough healthy food to feed us and heals the earth slash works with Mother Nature is possible.
So this kind of illustrates the split that we're seeing.
I would really love to see Courtney actually have to work with Mother Nature.
I mean, take away your indoor climate control, take away your phone, take away your housing, go out in the woods for a month.
Like, actually do it.
Like, that's what I would love to see these fucking influencers.
Just actually be with Mother Nature and tell me about all the problems we have with society.
We should also note, though, that with Chris, that's a nearly seven-minute video that you shared with me and I clipped it from.
He also digs into his vegetarian ideology, which got him some real heat in the comments as well.
Yeah, well, getting heat in the comments from inside the house seems to be the theme in Maha this week and last.
In a now what seems to be deleted or archived Instagram post, Dr. Jessica Pete Ross gave a similar response in a carousel post.
So I couldn't clip it because it was text.
She got so much heat in the comments, she had to come to her stories to address it.
She reiterated that she doesn't even like glyphosate.
In fact, she doesn't even like Trump, but that if glyphosate was banned from the food supply, it would crumble.
Store shelves would be empty and farmers would start killing themselves.
She then says that if there was a wasn't a plan in the next month to transition away from glyphosate, she's going to start to wonder if this was all for big agriculture.
But what does she recommend in the meantime?
Well, grow your own food.
And if you can't, make friends with the local farmer, organic farmer.
Easy peasy.
I want to point out that the kill yourself thing possibly comes from India, where there has been real problems with suicides with farmers specifically.
And some of that has been tied back to Monsanto because of certain patents that they have.
So when we hear things like that, there actually is precedent that we should be fair about.
But I'll get more into this.
But the idea that the food supply would crumble, they pin it all on Roundup specifically.
Roundup is the most used herbicide in America.
As I said, I'm going to get to this.
But there are other ones, and they just, now they're just trying to play catch up by making it seem like they literally heard Kennedy say this talking point that the food supply would crumble.
And they're just repeating it without actually thinking through the nuances and challenges of organic farming and why you can't scale organic farming to the level of agriculture that we need in this country.
So there are some true things that are sprinkled into statements like this, but they miss so much context.
It's actually kind of unbelievable they even talk.
Totally.
And this was even all before RFK Jr. made his, would I wonder if it was a planned statement or not?
And they realized they kind of had to make that statement.
But this was all before that.
And even like Troy Casey of the Certified Health Net, he posted, he commented on Chris's video.
This is what RFK Jr. texted me.
And so there must have been like some sort of understanding within it that that's what the statement would have been.
But there were other Maha influencers who took this approach.
I think I saw Mark Hyman, Will Cole.
They kind of posted something similar, whether it was before or after.
But they ended up on defense.
There was more of them.
You get the point.
I won't go into it.
But putting the influencer reactions aside, where the fuck is RFK Jr. in all of this?
Well, here's his first Instagram post after the announcement made.
Ladies and gentlemen, now introducing your USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins and HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Listen, I didn't have on my 2026 bingo card a picture with the Mike Tyson tattoo on my face.
But how amazing is this?
Heavyweight champion of the world, Mike Tyson.
44 knockouts.
Mike, why don't you come up?
Wow, okay.
Where I come from is Brownville, Brooklyn.
It's the most violent, poverty-stricken neighborhood in the city of New York.
We didn't have much money, but we had food stamps and food stamps combined, the candy, the sugar, and all that sodas.
And that's just all we knew.
I just wanted to be a part of this because that was such a part of my life.
Probably most notably about that post is it's not about glyphosate.
And as someone who has worked in social media for over a decade now, pulling scheduled posts during a shitstorm is a top priority.
That or they pushed it through thinking no one would notice.
And at this point, it must be so clear to the Central Maha team that they cannot simply ignore this.
They are going to have to say something.
So enter RFK Jr.'s delayed response.
And Kaylee means just pumping his tires.
Glyphosate Controversy00:15:11
There's going to be ups and downs.
And there is zero question that this week was a down.
I'm not going to gaslight or sugarcoat it.
This glyphosate thing was extremely disappointing.
Bobby's disappointed.
And there's no message from me, the White House, or Bobby that you should not be letting your anger out.
But I'll tell you, Bobby got on the phone.
He's in charge of the NIH.
He called Jay Badashari.
He's going to call him every day.
We are going to research a bridge off these toxic chemicals that our farmers are unfortunately dependent on.
We are going to put a stake Bobby's been calling the top venture capitalists in the world.
We are going to get a bridge off these chemicals.
And Bobby, there's going to be ups and downs.
There's no question about that.
But I think none of us could imagine two years ago where we are today.
We are fighting every day and we have to keep this movement going because it's changing the world.
You know, I didn't catch this the first time when you sent this to me and I clipped it when he said we're going to call the top venture capitalists in the world.
The fucking venture capitalists own all the farms in America.
They're responsible for the herbicide.
Like, I mean, that is, it's just boggling because they can't get their story straight.
I mean, Callie comes from the libertarian fucking VC world.
So of course that's his instinct, but he doesn't put the pieces together.
It's also hilarious just hearing him in this mode because, as with his boss, Kennedy, he came into DC promising swift change.
And so far this year, I've seen multiple videos of Callie saying, who knew change was so hard?
Just come on, give us some time, guys.
Actual politicians who do this for a living, they know how hard legislation is.
But when you install a bunch of activists, and Callie cut his teeth at the Heritage Foundation as an intern, they don't have any governing experience.
And then you give them power and they're going to have an even harder time understanding the molasses of bureaucracy that you have to move through.
And when their base realizes that they've been had just to get their votes, we're watching them stumble over their words and trying to course correct.
And it's always a sight to behold, as he just proved.
And by talking louder about something, it doesn't make it more understandable or you any more correct.
Speaking of which, it took Kennedy four days to explain his decision to support Trump on Twitter, of course, because that's where all policy is decided now.
Here's how it starts.
I will always tell the American people the truth.
Right.
That's a good one.
He goes on.
Unfortunately, our agricultural system depends heavily on these chemicals.
The U.S. represents 4% of the world's population, yet we use roughly 25% of its pesticides.
If these inputs disappeared overnight, crop yields would fall, food prices would surge, and America would experience a massive loss of farms even beyond what we are witnessing today.
The consequences would be disastrous.
Well, fuck.
I'm going to have to fact check again because that's what you have to do all the time with this man.
But Kennedy is using data from 2008 to 2012.
Current data suggests our pesticide usage is closer to 7 to 10% because China is now the number one user of pesticides.
Kennedy then goes on for quite a while in this tweet about the necessity of national strength, relying fully on domestic agriculture and next-gen technologies the USDA is supposedly going to invest in.
He closes with a sappy tribute to American farmers as if family farms are the ones really driving the economy and not the corporate bohemoths that he's going to be calling when he calls his VC buddies.
Now, in his post, Kennedy argues both that the current agricultural system is harmful and chemically dependent due to deliberate government policy choices and that Trump's EO to secure that system's chemical inputs is good.
He tries to bridge this with a transition without destabilization framing.
But if the goal is to actually reduce glyphosate dependence, why invoke the Defense Production Act to ensure domestic supply in the first place?
And the EO does not include a sunset clause.
It doesn't have a phase-out timeline.
There's no requirement to reduce glyphosate use.
Does Kennedy address any of this?
Of course, he does not.
He fully endorses it without explaining how entrenching supply security accelerates the exit from dependency.
And then you have Cali out there saying, we're going to get off of it, but they're not laying out any sort of assurance of that.
In fact, the EEO is saying the opposite.
Now, as for the wider Maha organization, the following day, Maha Action published a message to the Maha community on its Maha Report substack.
Now, given the organization is run by Kennedy's close friend, Tony Lines, who I recently covered in depth for a bonus episode, I'm going to guess, as you suggested earlier, Mallory, that this is all coordinated.
It quotes Kennedy's Twitter post in full.
Then they devote five paragraphs to shitting on glyphosate before they get all geopolitical.
Interestingly, they have to push back on Maha influencers that are claiming that Bayer was granted immunity against cancer claims.
And I find all this fascinating that a conspiracy theory-driven organization has to fact-check its own base when the conspiracy theory doesn't work in their favor.
I'm also not certain that they're right because we know how business-friendly this administration is.
So, if Bayer wanted lawsuits dropped under the Defense Production Act, you think Trump is going to give a shit if the suit is for product liability or production standards?
I mean, that's basically the argument here that Maha Action is saying that you're not, you are, you will be liable for your product, but not for production standards.
Trump's not going to give a shit about any of that because he's going to grant immunity where he sees fit.
The substack also talks about a study that Monsanto has used to promote glyphosate safety that was retracted last year because it turns out that it was ghostwritten, which is really an actual problem.
But they cite it as landmark, making it seem like it is the paper the industry uses, when in reality, regulatory agencies have reviewed thousands of independent studies beyond this single paper.
One 2023 review, for example, examined over 2,400 studies and found glyphosate safe at regulated doses.
I'm going to get more into this in segment three.
The rest of the article is a list of innovations they want to see put forward in agriculture while they rage against corporate media and big ag.
This paragraph in the last section really jumps out.
The Maha agenda is bigger than any single policy action.
It is a generational commitment to restoring the health of American families, reforming the food system, and holding both the government and industry accountable.
So, as I flagged, vaccines are the number one driver in Maha.
Glyphosate is too.
So, but it is the single policy that a certain number of Maha activists care about.
And here's Kennedy's inner circle saying, come on, guys, we have other fish to fry.
Like, get serious already.
I'm not sure how many of their fans saw the not-so-low-key dismissal throughout the article, but it becomes pretty clear if you just simply, literally read it in order.
Glyphosate can cross the blood testes barrier and end up in semen Studies show it impairs sperm motility, making it harder for sperm to reach the egg, which means, yes, weed killer could be in your baby gravy right now.
I mean, that should concern you.
I will never forgive you, Mallory, for making me hear Alex Clark say baby gravy.
Baby gravy.
That's not even that bad.
I've texted you weirder shit.
You absolutely have.
And we are both very early morning people.
And sometimes we have 5.30 a.m. texts of some of the most outrageous shit.
We just ruin each other's days immediately.
That's before the coffee even sets in.
Okay, male reproductive systems aside, glyphosate has been implicated in every possible ailment imaginable by wellness influencers.
So now we're turning to an absolute minefield of a topic, which is assessing the science of glyphosate.
It is an absolute trigger for many people who refuse to listen to the other side.
We have to start with the agricultural health study, which will immediately piss off Maha activists, but it's the most methodologically rigorous human data that we have.
This study includes over 50,000 licensed pesticide applicators in Iowa and North Carolina, which were followed for decades.
They published a 2018 update, which found no statistically significant association between glyphosate use and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma or any solid tumor, though there was also a non-significant signal for acute myeloid leukemia, AML, at highest exposures.
Critics often point to a 2019 meta-analysis from UC Berkeley, critics of glyphosate, I should say, that added five case control studies to the agricultural health study, and they reported a 41% elevated NHL non-Hodgkin's lymphoma risk at highest exposure.
The thing is, they focused on highest exposure groups.
So the meta-analysis amplifies signals from smaller case control studies that have significant recall bias and poor confounder control.
So point being, they sort of panpicked which studies they wanted to include in their response.
A competing meta-analysis from researchers in the U.S. and Italy using all of the exposure groups found a non-significant association, which gets into the main point of contention in this argument, which is the difference between occupational exposure to glyphosate and consumer exposure to glyphosate, meaning people who work on farms and are around this shit all the time, which there does seem to be real problems with, and with consumer levels, which are trace levels.
A recent development is the 2025 global glyphosate study, which found safe doses, regulated doses, to be carcinogenic.
This one is often cited by anti-glyphosate activists, and it is important to take into consideration for sure, but it was only conducted on rats.
The institute behind this study included both crowdfunding and advocacy groups to raise money to conduct it.
They are generally known for solid work, but that should also be pointed out because it could be a perceived conflict of interest.
Now, this 2019 meta-analysis that I mentioned has been used extensively in legislation against Bayer, and the lead author has worked as a paid witness in those cases.
Now, this does not invalidate the findings, but I regularly see anti-glyphosate activists claiming corruption and conflicts of interest between corporations and the government, which is true, but they always seem incapable of citing the same when it comes to the figures and individuals that they want to believe.
All right, that's a bit on that.
Last week, Kennedy went on Joe Rogan, where else, to try to do some damage control about his glyphosate comments.
Here's how it went.
Listen, I've spent 40 years fighting pesticides.
It was, you know, I was part of the trial team on the Monsanto case, which was the team that, you know, we won three cases in a row and then got an $11 billion settlement with Monsanto, which is now Bayer.
By the end of our trial, Bayer-owned Monsanto.
But, you know, pesticides are poison.
They're designed to kill all life.
It's not a good thing to have in your food.
So, but I also, so it's not something that I was particularly happy with.
Let me put it that way mildly.
But I also understand the president's point of view.
The president didn't create this system.
He's dealing with a problem that was created long before over the past 60 years when, you know, through federal policies and subsidies and the management of farming in this country, the agricultural management, we have addicted our farmers to these pesticides and particularly glyphosate.
Glyphosate is the foundational pesticide of our food production system.
All right, Maller, you might be surprised to learn that he's being hyperbolic.
I know, I know.
It's good to step back and assess his rhetorical flourishes.
First of all, Roundup is 50 years old, so the 60 thing.
He just makes up numbers all the time, though.
And that seems minor, but I really think it's important to point out how often Kennedy fucks up basic shit.
Like he does it all the time.
So glyphosate is not foundational.
It is the most widely used herbicide in the U.S. by volume, which I flagged a little while ago.
But the term foundational implies that the system was built around it from the start, which is not true.
It's dominant.
It's not irreplaceable.
Many crops, including a number of fruits, vegetable, and nuts, rely almost not at all or not at all on glyphosate.
Fertilizers, irrigation, and other pesticides are equally or more foundational to modern agriculture.
But we have to remember that Kennedy's an activist.
He's not a scientist.
And recognizing that is essential if you want to try to get to the truth of the matter.
So here's where we end up as of now.
Glyphosate is not entirely safe, but it is also not clearly a major human carcinogen at real-world dietary exposure levels, at least that we know of.
And I am supportive of ongoing research on metabolic effects, microbiome disruption, perinatal outcomes, and endocrine disruption, which are all things that the activists claim that it's affecting.
We should have that data.
And if they reveal real issues, I would hope regulations change to reflect that.
And the baby gravy.
Shit.
Yeah.
Fuck.
How did I not put the baby gravy in there?
I know.
I got you.
Honest researchers should also want that sort of data.
And I believe many do.
Now, one thing I feel very certain of is that wellness influencers blaming numerous forms of cancer and gut problems on glyphosate is hyperbolic and unfounded.
Just like Trump pinning numerous problems on Somali immigrants, as he recently did at the State of the Union, influencers love to find single issues that supposedly create numerous problems.
Detox Claims Debunked00:08:26
And then as we're about to get into, they can sell you a bunch of shit.
All right.
Trump signed an executive order that pretty much demands that we're using glyphosate.
And he's saying that it's a matter of national security, which sets up these companies and these contractors up perfectly to waive liability for the sickness and the disease that this is going to cause on the people.
And speaking of national security and keeping the system alive, what does the system exist for?
The system exists to keep the workforce going.
And so if we feed the workforce weaponized food that's going to destroy their gut intelligence, the bacteria in the gut that's responsible for their thoughts, their emotions, their connection to self, their ability to ask questions like, why are we doing this as a country?
Let's disconnect the workforce from that so they quit asking questions because there's a lot of people asking questions right now.
And so, yes, this is a matter of national security.
The question is, are you going to be aware of this?
And are you going to say no to glyphosate and get your gut intelligence back and really follow what your gut and your heart is telling you to do?
This is why I've been working with the solution to get glyphosate out of the body for seven or eight years because the gut is pivotal in a person being fully aligned and the greatest expression of self.
So, let others know to eat glyphosate-free foods and comment the word toxin below, and I'll send you some information on the solution that we have to remove glyphosate.
Get it out of your body, say no to glyphosate.
What a journey that whole post was.
Derek, when we were texting back and forth the day this executive order announcement was made, I said to you, I think we'll start to see some detox sales come out of this.
And the thing is, that wasn't even a superhuman prediction.
No, you're a prophet.
You're a prophet.
You saw it.
I am the guru.
I have come to know these influencers, these wellness influencers, and their playbook pretty well.
And there's just no way that they'll pass up an opportunity to shill a supplement.
So, while some major Maha influencers were trying to figure out what to make of this, other influencers were jumping on the sales opening.
The influencer who you just heard from goes by Raw of Earth on Instagram.
He has over 160,000 followers, and his Instagram bio reads, Empowering all to expand the concept of self with practical and actionable tips.
And I just have to say, his hair is incredible.
It appears very long and luscious, and I'll give him that before I absolutely tear his sales funnel a new one.
It's all the tallow that he that he puts into there, but don't I get drugstore shampoo and conditioner, and I get comments all the time.
So, I don't make me use tallow.
Listeners might recall Raw of Earth as compared to all the other RAS from our Human Garage episode because he's pretty embedded with Gary Lineman over there.
His feed is all over the fucking map.
I still can't look at it without thinking human garbage.
That's just what it reads to me now.
When you comment Toxin on that post, just as he instructs, you get a DM which reads in part: Hello, thanks for commenting, Toxin.
We developed the only proven solution to remove glyphosate from the human body, and it does so by 74% within six weeks.
Most of us use this program to do so.
He then links to a page on his website titled Ultimate Lifestyle Transformation.
And if your MLM spidey senses are tingling, that's because Raw of Earth is a distributor for Purium, a superfood supplement, multi-level marketing company.
And he's claiming that their product can detox your body of a specific pesticide.
In fact, his direct message goes on to link to a particular product he describes as the glyphosate remover.
It is, of course, another Purium product called Biomedic.
And then I was actually really incredibly surprised to see on the product page under product benefits, according to Purium, that it may help detoxify glyphosate.
Mallory, it may not help detoxify glyphosate.
Oh, I cancel my order.
It's amazing, though, actually.
I mean, the product page you just wrote in quotes may help detoxify glyphosate.
But when Ra of Earth DM'd you, he called it a proven solution.
The glyphosate remover.
Yeah.
So, of course, I had to look into this, and it's such a perfect example of extrapolating from weak evidence.
Purium is basing this claim on a six-week pre-clinical trial that reported a 74% reduction in urine glyphosate levels.
The study was, surprise, sponsored by Purium Inc.
It listed the CEO as the contact and it was conducted in a private medical practice.
There was no official study published, just a press release in which the investigators acknowledged it was only conducted on a small number of middle-aged men for a short duration with no dietary control.
So, basically, from a clinical perspective, it's completely useless, but you know, proven solution.
Trust me, bro, strikes again.
And it's not just the study.
Glyphosate is water-soluble, primarily cleared by the kidneys and excreted in urine.
It does not bioaccumulate in the gut.
The idea that a supplement could flush it is not supported by any possible mechanism with established evidence.
But this is what influencers always do.
They do it with vaccines too.
They pretend that they just, these things stay in your body when we know that it actually leaves, but they just fear monger around that.
And then finally, you have their claim that this is the first product to receive certification under the Detox Project's gold standard glyphosate detox program.
Yes, that's detox twice in their title.
It's very official sounding.
Is it for a detox?
Then you find out it's just an advocacy site focused on sustainable agriculture, and the certification is registered to a company in Bulgaria, which functions as a for-profit certification and licensing operation.
I knew it was going to be dumb.
Well, that's Raw, but continuing on, because he was not the only one.
Another influencer named Misty, who has over 250,000 Instagram followers and describes herself as a detox coach and healer, posted a stitch to Chris's video where the caption reads in part: ready to detox glyphosate from your body?
Comment detox, and I'll send you my daily gentle detox that removes glyphosate and replaces with minerals.
Feel good now.
If you comment detox and you're sent, again, the automated DM, they're all automated DMs.
It links to a product called Rise and Vibe from the company Frequents, which you guessed it, another MLM.
There was also several influencers similarly using glyphosate as a prompt before linking to their Touchstone Essentials detox.
Affiliates for this company are kind of like all over the map and have claimed that this detox can do a lot.
When the COVID fog conspiracy was taking off in January 2025, we almost forgot that that happened because it feels like a lifetime ago.
Affiliates for this company claimed that the fogs was actually, the fog was actually parasites.
Somebody on Facebook got their microscope out and it was parasites.
But this Zeolite detox could cleanse you.
More than just a handful of mothers who are affiliates for this company have claimed that this product is responsible for their nonverbal children speaking.
Another influencer who Derek we've covered a bit recently, she's claimed that this product healed her Reynod syndrome.
Reynods?
So yeah, I'm sure it's a glyphosate detox too.
Well, just as they have to pin numerous problems on particular chemicals like glyphosate, they also have to pretend their products are good for everything so that they can keep their sales funnel alive.
It's kind of an interesting concept of this one problem or symptom that you're having is contributed to one thing, but the thing that I'm selling can help with everything.
So it wasn't just influencers getting in on the glyphosate sales funnel opportunity though.
Roe Casa Organics, who sells natural products you can trust, according to their Instagram bio, used a fear-inducing video about glyphosate to promote their fruit and veggie wash product.
This same company leveraged the Tylenol headlines in September to promote various Tylenol alternatives that they also sell.
Rallying Against Health Claims00:00:51
These companies and influencers prove time and time again that they don't actually care about your health.
They care about your money.
So where does Maha go from here?
Well, Vonnie Hari of the Food Babe, who we've mentioned, is going to the Supreme Court in what she's describing as the largest food movement rally America has ever seen.
The People versus Poison rally is planned for April 27th at the Supreme Court in Washington, D.C. From what I can tell, this rally seems particularly zeroed in on the immunity part of the glyphosate conversation.
And while I'm sure this administration was hoping the executive order announcement would run its news cycle and then disappear, that doesn't really seem to be the case.
Maha has entered its identity crisis chapter full of infighting, trust issues, and continued discount codes.