#2919: Jay Goodbinder

Ah, yes. Whenever a new and powerful scientific concept is introduced, in particular one that requires a bit of knowledge and expertise to fully grasp, grifters will be there to apply it in their marketing materials as a substitute for less-marketable terms like ‘magic’. So it was with proponents of quackery and ‘quantum physics’, and so it has been for a while with ‘nano’ – most reasonable people would presumably have a feeling of that’s not quite how it works but probably not enough knowledge of the topic to be able to precisely identify what’s wrong with the bullshit. ‘Epigenetics’ is another example of a scientific expression that has been mangled and misused by proponents of quackery and woo since the term was introduced to make their nonsense sound as if it had anything to do with science to the uninformed when they try to handwave how you get from their miracle treatment regimes to a state of health.

 

There are numerous examples – some are mentioned here –and the case of Jay Goodbinder is just one of many. Goodbinder – “ND, DC, DABCI” – offers his advice and recommendations at the chiropractic Epigenetics Healing Center (yeah, they’ve gone all in), where he “specializes in Epigenetic science to help you not express disease and be able to function at your best with functional medicine therapies, Epigenetics, nutrient breathing treatments [?], and lifestyle counseling”. This has, needless to say, absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with epigenetics, and we can’t help but note that Goodbinder doesn’t actually say that he has any expertise in epigenetics but in “Epigenetic science”, whatever that means – it’s hard not to suspect that some legal considerations played a role in his choice.

 

Diagnosis: It would be easy to dismiss this bullshit as pure fraud, but we have to leave the possibility open that Goodbinder is also genuinely confused about epigenetics or the validity of his treatments. Those two options are not mutually exclusive, of course.

 

Hat-tip: Sciencebased medicine