Kelly Brogan | |
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 Brogan in 2019 | |
| Occupation(s) | Psychiatrist and alternative medicine practitioner |
| Notable work | A Mind of Your Own: The Truth About Depression and How Women Can Heal Their Bodies to Reclaim Their Lives |
| Spouses | |
| Website | kellybroganmd |
| This article is part of a series on |
| Alternative medicine |
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Kelly Brogan is an American author of books on alternative medicine who has promoted conspiracy theories and misinformation about discredited medical hypotheses. [1]
Brogan graduated from Cornell University Medical College, and has a B.S. in Systems Neuroscience from MIT. [2] She uses the title of "holistic psychiatrist". [3]
Brogan maintained a psychiatry practice in Manhattan from 2009 to 2019, specializing in helping people wean themselves off medication. Peter M. Heimlich stated that she appears not to have maintained certification with the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology, according to the association's database. She no longer claims to be certified in psychiatry and psychosomatic medicine on her website. [4]
Brogan wrote about health on Gwyneth Paltrow's Goop retail website and was featured on expert panels at several Goop events. [3] [5] [6]
Brogan promotes the belief that human diseases are caused not by infectious agents, but rather by psychological factors. She mocks the well-established notion of "little invisible pathogens, you know, that randomly jump around from person to person". [3] [4] [7]
In a similar vein, Brogan attributed the death of AIDS patients not to HIV, but to treatments meant to fight it. Even though the link between HIV and AIDS is clearly established by medical research, she calls it an "assumption". She also defended the unsupported belief that a dysbiosis (imbalance) of intestinal bacteria causes depression; Brogan invites people to stop taking antidepressants and use the techniques and products from her website instead. [5] [6] [8] Through her website, Brogan offers a subscription-only "lifestyle medicine" community space and access to self-improvement training resources. [9]
She also promotes many of the usual erroneous claims against vaccines, notably that the immunity gained from surviving an infectious disease is superior to the one generated by being vaccinated. She also denies polio was eradicated by vaccination. [5] [7] [10]
Despite coffee enemas being long discredited as medical procedures, Brogan promotes them as a treatment for depression. [6] [11]
An analysis of Twitter and Facebook anti-vaccine content found Brogan to be one of 12 individual and organization accounts producing up to 65% of all anti-vaccine content on the platforms. [12] She has promoted widely disproven conspiracy theories about masks not preventing COVID-19, questioning the existence of a coronavirus causing COVID-19, and conspiracy theories about the COVID-19 pandemic being planned. [1]
Brogan indicated at length that, in her opinion, the virus may not exist. According to her, it's rather the fear of a virus that makes people sick and die. She referred her followers to the pseudoscientific claims of Joseph Mercola and Ryke Geerd Hamer on the topic. Twitter, Facebook, Vimeo and Instagram removed Brogan's videos, as part of their efforts to limit the spread of misinformation during the epidemic, actions Brogan described as "censorship". [3] [4] [7] [13]
Brogan's claims about the cause of diseases, like Hamer's and Mercola's claims, have been debunked by medical experts as dangerous misconceptions. [4]
On that occasion and others prior, she accused the government of being controlled by pro-vaccination "elites" with a sinister agenda. She suggested the pandemic was a ploy by the United States government to force vaccination on people and usher in totalitarian measures. [3] [4] [7] Investigator Benjamin Radford attributes Brogan's theories to a wider phenomenon of self-styled populist health experts inciting people to reject science and embrace their own theories. [4]
Gwyneth Kate Paltrow is an American actress and businesswoman. The daughter of filmmaker Bruce Paltrow and actress Blythe Danner, she established herself as a leading lady appearing in mainly mid-budget and period films during the 1990s and early 2000s, before transitioning to blockbusters and franchises. She is the recipient of various accolades, including an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award, and a Primetime Emmy Award.
Vernon Edward Coleman is an English conspiracy theorist and writer, who writes on topics related to human health, politics and animal welfare. He was formerly a general practitioner (GP) and newspaper columnist. Coleman's medical claims have been widely discredited and described as pseudoscientific conspiracy theories.
Joseph Michael Mercola is an American alternative medicine proponent, osteopathic physician, and Internet business personality. He markets largely unproven dietary supplements and medical devices. On his website, Mercola and colleagues advocate unproven and pseudoscientific alternative health notions including homeopathy and opposition to vaccination. These positions have received persistent criticism. Mercola is a member of several alternative medicine organizations as well as the political advocacy group Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, which promotes scientifically discredited views about medicine and disease. He is the author of two books.
Big Pharma conspiracy theories are conspiracy theories which claim that pharmaceutical companies, especially large corporations, act in sinister and secretive ways, such as concealing effective treatments, or even intentionally causing and worsening a wide range of diseases, in pursuit of profitability, or for other nefarious reasons. Some theories have included the claim that natural alternative remedies to health problems are being suppressed, the claim that drugs for the treatment of HIV/AIDS are ineffective and harmful, the claim that a cure for all cancers has been discovered but hidden from the public, claims that COVID-19 vaccines are ineffective, and that alternative cures are available for COVID-19. In most cases the conspiracy theorists have blamed pharmaceutical companies' search for profits. A range of authors have shown these claims to be false, though some of these authors nevertheless maintain that other criticisms of the pharmaceutical industry are legitimate.
Sherri J. Tenpenny is an American anti-vaccination activist and conspiracy theorist who promulgates disproven hypotheses that vaccines cause autism. An osteopathic physician by training, she is the author of four books opposing vaccination. In 2023 the State Medical Board of Ohio indefinitely suspended Tenpenny's medical license for failure to participate in its investigations. Her license was restored in 2024.
Timothy Allen Caulfield is a Canadian professor of law at the University of Alberta, the research director of its Health Law Institute, and current Canada Research Chair in Health Law and Policy. He specializes in legal, policy and ethical issues in medical research and its commercialization. In addition to professional publications, he is the author of several books aimed at the general reader and host of a television documentary series debunking pseudoscientific myths. He is a fellow of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry and the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation.
Goop is a wellness and lifestyle brand and company founded by the American actress Gwyneth Paltrow. It was launched in September 2008 as a weekly e-mail newsletter providing new age advice, such as "police your thoughts" and "eliminate white foods", and the slogan "Nourish the Inner Aspect". Goop expanded into e-commerce, collaborating with fashion brands, launching pop-up shops, holding a "wellness summit", launching a print magazine, a podcast, and a docuseries for Netflix.
Jennifer Gunter is a Canadian-American gynecologist, a New York Times columnist covering women's health, an author, and a specialist in chronic pain medicine and vulvovaginal disorders.
The Goop Lab is an American documentary series about the lifestyle and wellness company Goop, founded by American actress Gwyneth Paltrow, who acts as host and executive producer of the series. The series premiered on January 24, 2020 on Netflix.
False information, including intentional disinformation and conspiracy theories, about the scale of the COVID-19 pandemic and the origin, prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of the disease has been spread through social media, text messaging, and mass media. False information has been propagated by celebrities, politicians, and other prominent public figures. Many countries have passed laws against "fake news", and thousands of people have been arrested for spreading COVID-19 misinformation. The spread of COVID-19 misinformation by governments has also been significant.
Plandemic is a trilogy of conspiracy theory films produced by Mikki Willis promoting misinformation about the COVID-19 pandemic. They feature Judy Mikovits, a discredited American researcher and prominent anti-vaccine activist. The first video, Plandemic: The Hidden Agenda Behind Covid-19, was released on May 4, 2020, under Willis' production company Elevate Films. The second film, Plandemic Indoctornation, which includes more interviewees, was released on August 18 by Brian Rose's distributor of conspiracy theory related films, London Real. Later on June 3, 2023, Plandemic 3: The Great Awakening was released on The Highwire, a website devoted to conspiracy theories run by anti-vaccine activist Del Bigtree.
Kay Allison "Kate" Shemirani is a British conspiracy theorist, anti-vaccine activist and former nurse who lost her licence to practise in 2020 for misconduct. She is best known for promoting conspiracy theories about COVID-19, vaccinations and 5G technology. Shemirani has been described by The Jewish Chronicle as a leading figure of a movement that includes conspiracy theorists as well as far-left and far-right activists.
Misinformation related to immunization and the use of vaccines circulates in mass media and social media in spite of the fact that there is no serious hesitancy or debate within mainstream medical and scientific circles about the benefits of vaccination. Unsubstantiated safety concerns related to vaccines are often presented on the internet as being scientific information. A large proportion of internet sources on the topic are mostly inaccurate which can lead people searching for information to form misconceptions relating to vaccines.
Ty Bollinger is an American misinformation marketer and conspiracy theorist who promotes alternative medicine treatments for cancer and vaccine-preventable diseases. Bollinger has no medical training and has a history of disseminating misinformation about cancer treatments, anti-vaccine conspiracy theories, promoting ineffective or unproven cures, and other conspiracy theories on social media platforms. With his wife Charlene, he runs the website The Truth About Cancer and its associated social media accounts, where they sell books, videos, and nutritional supplements based on these ideas.
Claire Ann Deeks is a New Zealand anti-vaccine activist who has challenged the government's response to COVID-19. She was an unsuccessful candidate for the Advance NZ party in the 2020 general election, and set up the group Voices for Freedom (VFF), which distributed pamphlets that have been criticised by experts as containing COVID-19 misinformation about vaccines, lockdown and the wearing of masks. As a food blogger, Deeks promoted the paleo diet and "healthy" lunchboxes for children, and developed a petition to stop the rating system for foods used by the NZ and Australian governments. She is a former intellectual property lawyer.
Douglas Sayer Ji is the founder of alternative medicine portal GreenMedInfo, a website known for promoting various pseudoscientific publications. He was identified in 2020 as one of the largest promoters of COVID-19 misinformation on social media.
Erin Elizabeth Finn, known as Erin Elizabeth, is an American alternative health advocate who blogs under the name Health Nut News. She is known for propagating conspiracy theories relating to healthcare topics, like COVID-19 and vaccines. She and her partner Joseph Mercola have been called two of the "disinformation dozen" responsible for 65% of Covid-19 anti-vaccine misinformation on the internet and social media, according to a report by the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) in 2021.
COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy in the United States is the sociocultural phenomenon of individuals refusing or displaying hesitance towards receiving the COVID-19 vaccine. COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy in the United States can be considered as part of the broader history of vaccine hesitancy.
This timeline includes entries on the spread of COVID-19 misinformation and conspiracy theories related to the COVID-19 pandemic in Canada. This includes investigations into the origin of COVID-19, and the prevention and treatment of COVID-19 which is caused by the virus SARS-CoV-2. Social media apps and platforms, including Facebook, TikTok, Telegram, and YouTube, have contributed to the spread of misinformation. The Canadian Anti-Hate Network (CAHN) reported that conspiracy theories related to COVID-19 began on "day one". CAHN reported on March 16, 2020, that far-right groups in Canada were taking advantage of the climate of anxiety and fear surrounding COVID, to recycle variations of conspiracies from the 1990s, that people had shared over shortwave radio. COVID-19 disinformation is intentional and seeks to create uncertainty and confusion. But most of the misinformation is shared online unintentionally by enthusiastic participants who are politically active.
The Exposé is a British conspiracist and fake news website created in 2020 by Jonathan Allen-Walker. It is known for publishing COVID-19 and anti-vaccine misinformation.
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