#3071: Laura Ingraham

No, we have in fact not given her an entry before, and yes, we should probably feel a bit ashamed. Anyways, Laura Ingraham is an Ann Coulter-knockoff and wingnut star who is currently hosting The Ingraham Angle on Fox News. She started her career as editor of the rightwing Dartmouth Review and as a Reagan administration speechwriter in the 1980s, before launching her TV career and radio show in 2001; she has also published a series of books we haven’t read and hope you haven’t either. As for positions on current issues, well, you can more or less guess pretty accurately yourself, but in any case:

 

Ingraham is deeply and fanatically anti-science. She is on record as a vehement global warming denier who has characterized climate change as a religion (Obama, for instance, had a “maniacal adherence” to “the church of the global warming”), and she subscribes to the Climategate conspiracy theory.

 

More recently, Ingraham has also gone full-blown anti-vaccine activist and RFK Jr. fan. During COVID, she repeatedly questioned the effectiveness and safety of the COVID vaccines, based on conspiracy theories, and instead pushed for hydroxychloroquine as an all-round COVID treatment – Ingraham characterized it as a miracle drug and a “game changer”, and hosted a number of guests (like deranged conspiracy theorist and Minnesota state senator Scott Jensen, Dr. Phil and America’s Frontline Doctors’ Richard Urso) to promote it. When studies showed that hydroxychloroquine was associated with an increased risk of death, she dismissed them as “shoddy”, “shockingly irresponsible” and “agenda-driven” on the grounds that the results didn’t match what she had decided that they ought to show; she even suggested that such results were part of a conspiracy against … herself, Fox and Trump (they were “triggered by pure hatred of Trump? Of Fox? Of me?”). Ingraham was of course also an early proponent of ivermectin and promoted the conspiracy theory that doctors and officials “vilify and dismiss and demean, and, frankly, lie about it, the effectiveness of these drugs” because the doctors and scientists based their conclusions on consulting reality rather than her. Indeed, Ingraham managed to gain international fame as a source of misinformation, fake news and conspiracy theories about COVID.

 

Following the January 6 2021 attack on the Capitol, Ingraham was one of the most prominent promoters of false flags conspiracy theories (that the largely mythical antifa was responsible). Her support for these conspiracy theories was probably guided by strategic considerations rather than conviction, insofar as her own text messages seem to contradict her official views. Ingraham had earlier been an important champion of Clinton body count conspiracy theories, in particular Seth Rich murder conspiracy theories; Ingraham at one point had to suggest, instead of admitting that the conspiracy theory was bonkers ridiculous, that Rich’s parents had to be involved in the conspiracy as well. She was likewise an early promoter of conspiracy theories about the 2017 Las Vegas massacre.

 

As for social issues, Ingraham is worried about the “pornification of our culture” and subscribes to The Great Replacement conspiracy theory (Democrats “want to replace you, the American voters, with newly amnestied citizens and an ever-increasing number of chain migrants”), often propping up her rhetoric with misinformation and fake news. As for gun control, Ingraham was heavily involved in the targeting of Parkland survivor David Hogg by wingnut cyberbullies, and her stance on mass shootings is that they should be blamed on marijuana rather than guns. (She is not reasonable about marijuana legislation.) At least she claims to have been opposed to Trump’s Iran war from the start.

 

Even Bill O’Reilly characterized Ingraham as a “rabid ideologue” and “Kool-Aid drinker.”

 

Diagnosis: Yes, she might appear almost milquetoast compared to the lineup of grimly paranoid delusionists currently being served wingnut audiences, but her influence is certainly non-negligible. And she is, indeed, a grimly paranoid and delusional conspiracy theorist, too, even if much of what she says is primarily motivated by cynical market capture strategies.

 

#3070: Stella Immanuel

America’s Frontline Doctors (AFLDS) is a group of wingnut conspiracy theorists and grifters formed to spread conspiracy theories, denialism and pseudoscience about COVID-19, including promoting hydroxychloroquine, insane anti-vaccine nonsense, and bitcoin. The group managed to achieve some influence because their claims aligned with what many wingnut groups and laughable clowns wanted to hear, and they took plenty advantage of that opportunity because the group’s members possess as little integrity as they possess understanding of or appreciation for facts. (And no, they did of course not go anywhere near any COVID frontlines).

 

Stella Gwandiku-Ambe Immanuel is a fair representative of the delusional insanity faction (more than the largely overlapping grifter faction) of the AFLDS. Immanuel is a Houston-based pediatrician operating a medical clinic out of a strip mall next to the church in which she is “spiritual leader”, Firepower Ministries, which is a somewhat scary fringe extremist group even by fringe American religious cult standards; in her own description of her background, Immanuel is a “wealth transfer coach” and “a prophet of God to the nations. Called and trained as God’s Warrior Princess by the Holy Spirit”. In any case, Immanuel rose to international fame in late July 2020, when President Trump retweeted her speech at the AFLDS press conference organized by the Tea Party Patriots and supported by wingnut darkmoney groups that initially brought the group to public attention; in the retweeted speech, Immanuel claimed, falsely, that hydroxychlorquine would cure COVID-19 and that face masks are unnecessary. Indeed, Immanuel happily told her audience that “I personally treated over 350 patients with COVID-19. Patients who have diabetes, high blood pressure, asthma, old people – my oldest patient is 92;” apparently “I put them on HCQS, Zinc, and Zithromax, and they are all well.” She provided no details about the patients, but based on her alleged experiences, she happily concluded that “I have not lost one patient. Fake studies and fake pharma companies say it doesn’t work. Nobody needs to die from this virus. It has a cure, and it is called hydroxychloroquine [again: it’s not],” adding that “[y]ou don’t need a mask, and you don’t need people to be locked down.” Morons applauding her message included Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, Diamond & Silk, Mark Levin, PragerU and the ever-demonstrating-that-no-matter-how-dumb-you-think-people-can-be-it-is-always-possible-to-be-dumber Donald Trump jr.; the Texas Medical Board was not impressed, however. Nonetheless, in the following months, Immanuel made quite a name for herself as a hydroxychloroquine pusher, so much so that in March 2023, MedPage Today could report that she was the single highest prescriber of ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine in the US for the years 2021 and 2022.

 

And there is of course a conspiracy afoot to hide what she wants to be the facts. Its existence is confirmed, for Immanuel, e.g. by the lackluster response to her video on Twitter demanding that the medical establishment, CNN representatives and Dr Anthony Fauci take urine tests (“I double dog dare y’all give me a urine sample”) to prove that they were not secretly taking hydroxychloroquine. Interestingly, she didn’t need to use hydroxychloroquine to protect herself; at least as she recounts it, when she at one point almost caught COVID-19 (whatever that means); she rather destroyed the virus by screaming and releasing a “Holy Ghost hand grenade” against it [no, this would presumably be a different Holy Ghost hand grenade]. Meanwhile, she claimed, without offering evidence, that members of a Houston networking group for women physicians are scheming to take her medical license away over her support for hydroxychloroquine, which may admittedly not have been a conspiracy theory but an entirely warranted worry at this point. Later, she declared that the doctors and nurses who actually worked hard and risked their own health to treat COVID-19 patients should be hanged, just like Nuremberg criminals.

 

The videos from the 2020 press conference were eventually deleted from both Facebook and Twitter for spreading misinformation about COVID-19; AFLDS, with the help of various wingnut groups (like Breitbart), cried ‘censorship’ and ‘persecution’, of course, and Immanuel herself responded by declaring – on Facebook – that Jesus Christ would destroy Facebook’s servers if her videos weren’t restored to the platform  (“Hello Facebook put back my profile page and videos up or your computers with [sic] start crashing till you do. You are not bigger that [sic] God. I promise you. If my page is not back up face book [sic] will be down in Jesus [sic] name”). She also sued CNN for defamation for publishing comments she made in YouTube videos and on her website (see below); the suit also asserted that hydroxychloroquine is 100% effective against COVID-19 and that the CNN article on her had caused hundreds of thousands of deaths. (She lost the case after failing to show the network made any false statements.)

 

Immanuel’s beliefs about medicine (and other things)

Unfortunately, her newfound celebrity status also drew attention to her background and practices, and it turned out to be … rich and variegated in terms of conspiracy theories, fundie insanity, paranoia and pseudoscience. According to Immanuel:

 

-       Alien DNA is currently being used in medical treatments (“They’re using all kinds of DNA, even alien DNA, to treat people”)

-       scientists are cooking up a vaccine to prevent people from being religious: “they found the gene in somebody’s mind that makes you religious, so they can vaccinate against it;” her knowledge of medicine, DNA and basic anatomy seems rather patchy.

-       medical issues like endometriosis, cysts, infertility, miscarriages and impotence are caused by people having sex in their dreams with demons and witches; “spirit husbands” and “spirit wives” are Immanuel’s terms for such demons, and they are supposedly “nephilim”, biblical characters Immanuel claims exist as demonic spirits and who lust after dream sex with humans (“They turn into a woman and then they sleep with the man and collect his sperm. Then they turn into the man and they sleep with a man and deposit the sperm and reproduce more of themselves”). Oh, and they also cause financial ruin; we don’t want to hear the alleged mechanism. The ‘demon sperm’ jokes trend on Twitter originated with Immanuel’s claims. Note that the demons should not be confused with the witches; sex with witches is “called astral sex. That means this person is not really a demon being or a nephilim. It’s just a human being that’s a witch, and they astral project and sleep with people.” It is unclear what malaise the witches purportedly cause.

-       the government is run by “reptilians” and other aliens – “there are people that are ruling this nation that are not even human,” said Immanuel, apparently based on a conversation she has had with a “reptilian spirit” she described as “half-human, half-ET.”

-       her website offers a prayer to remove a generational curse from an ancestor transmitted through placenta. Yes, that one is pretty milquetoast compared to her other claims but still sheer insanity.

-       As for other health advice, Immanuel suggests that if you are properly “connected to God,” he will protect you from being killed by a drunk driver.

 

She has also given sermons on the topic of the Illuminati, in particular a putative lluminati plan hatched by “a witch” to destroy the world using abortion, gay marriage, music (“demonic music has penetrated the souls of our children and programmed them with an anti-Christ message”) and children’s toys –witches are apparently particularly intent on seizing control of children, and their means for control include everything from Pokémon – which she asserts are “Eastern demons” – to Harry Potter (makes society “accept demonic activity and witchcraft as normal”) and the Disney Channel shows Wizards of Waverly Place, That’s So Raven, and, in particular, Hannah Montana, which is a gateway to evil because its character had an “alter ego.” Among toys, Immanuel seems to be especially concerned with the Magic 8-Ball (a toy that can be shaken up to ‘reveal’ any answer). Which she claims is, in fact, a scheme to get children used to witchcraft and that it is “psychic” [as roughly covered in the documentary Marjorine (South Park S 9: E9)]. She also claims that schools teach children to meditate so they can “meet with demons.”

 

As for social issues, Immanuel is a staunch critic of sins like “unmarried couples living together, homosexuality, bestiality, polygamy”, and prior to the legalization of gay marriage, she accused gay Americans of “homosexual terrorism” and warned her flock that gay marriage meant that “very soon people are going to be seeking to marry children”. Drag queen performances, meanwhile, open “a portal” through which children are infected with “a spirit of perversion” (“It is a possession exercise”). She also praised a father’s decision to not love his transgender son after a gender transition because the guiding rule is always to love the sinner and hate the sin … but hate the sinner, too. (“You know the crazy part? The little girl demands he must love her anyway. Really? You will not get it from me;” said Immanuel, just like Jesus would have put it.) An even more obvious source of concern is her praise for corporal punishment: “children need to be whipped”, declared Immanuel, which is an unusual stance for apediatrician.

 

Post-2020 career

When Trump lost the 2020 Presidential Election, Immanuel went straight for election fraud conspiracy theories, stating outright that she denied Joe Biden’s victory, whatever she think that means. “IT IS NOT OVER! THE STONE IS ABOUT TO DESCEND. THEY [presumably Nephilim] MAY MINGLE WITH US BUT THERE IS ABOUT TO BE A CRUSHING. KEEP PRAYING,” yelled Immanuel in all caps. Of course, her views – both political and others – have endeared her to certain large wingnut groups, and she was a natural headliner at Clay Clark and Michael Flynn’s ReAwaken America tour, an opportunity she used to inform her audience that Nancy Pelosi, Joe Biden, Bill Gates and others are dead and have had their brains downloaded to the internet while their bodies have been replaced by demonic clones. In fact, it’s not only them: many world leaders are clones inhabited by demons, and their “job is to make laws that will cause people to die. And you know why? Because they are blood drinkers.” As a matter of fact, the world is filled with demon clones, and things are, according to Immanuel, really a lot like the 1988 movie They Live. Indeed, by October 2010 the devil had apparently managed to fill the world with clones who were now trying to kill all those who refuse to take the COVID-19 vaccine, which is a precursor to the Mark of the Beast. It’s at least a novel explanation for why the unvaccinated tended to die in higher numbers than the vaccinated ones (without simply denying the data as most antivaxxers did). We do not know what the status is by 2026.

 

That Immanuel thinks that “the worst RINO” is better than any Democratic candidate because even “the best Democrat running for office is evil” may not be so surprising (including the fact that the claim doesn’t sound quite fully thought through).

 

As for those COVID vaccines, Immanuel claimed, predictably, that they were dangerous – or at least that there is something wrong with them: It doesn’t seem to be that they don’t work, however; rather Christians should refuse vaccinations rather than allow themselves “to be genetically modified” because the vaccine seems able to interfere with your afterlife. As for Immanuel herself, “[i]f I die, I’m a child of God. I get to go home to Heaven”, and really, “[p]eople have to stop being afraid to die” (remember that it’s a medical doctor – a pediatrician – saying this). She did, however, think that if Christians who have taken a COVID-19 vaccine would simply repent and pray, then God would not only forgive them but physically cast the vaccine out of their bodies. When a reporter for The Daily Beast wrote a short piece on that idea, Immanuel accused him of being possessed by demons; on Stew Peters’s show (a fitting venue for people like Immanuel), she further argued that reporters for The Daily Beast are not even human and should be treated accordingly – after all, other communities have, through history, achieved novel and effective results by deciding to declare that certain groups are not quite human and treated them accordingly.

 

She has apparently also published (at least) three books on Amazon:

 

-       Sustained Fire: Until They’re Consumed, which “teaches believers spiritual warfare strategies to overcome demonic forces and achieve breakthroughs through persistent prayer and faith”. The author bio says of Immanuel that “[h]er attitude toward demonic forces has been described as cut-throat, a warrior to the core. She believes her call as a warrior to teach God’s wounded army of believers violent warfare. Her motto is ‘the violent taketh it by force’ ”. That is an unusual motto for a pediatrician.

-       The Proverbs 31 Man: The Man At The Gate (The Occupying Force). It’s description is: “The content of this book is the reason so many families have been torn apart, homes broken, untold emotional and financial hardship. It has brought violence in homes, maladjusted children and general family breakdown.” That’s probably false, but the fact that Immanuel didn’t notice what the description is actually literally saying (and attributing to her book) probably gives you an indication of what you can expect from reading it.

-       Jesus Help – The Church Has Been Caged, which presents itself as a (sort of) history book: “For years America seemed to enjoy a good foundation of having been founded on biblical principles” and “[w]hen the devil tried to bring Satanism and demonic stuff in this country it was resisted”; unfortunately, “a demonic revival and a prayerless church” has lately brought “down all the systems of this nation, the legal system, school, family, medicine, media and fashion.” For what she (obviously) has in mind, see this. More recently, the Holy Spirit has apparently given her a 10-point plan on how to “disciple America back to God.”

 

We mentioned some of her fans above; it’s worth noting that others, like David Brody and Steve Strang, seem to have become fans after her background came to public attention. On the other hand, Dave Daubenmire thinks that the left is using Immanuel to provide “soft disclosure” about the real existence of “giants, Nephilim, angel DNA, mixed blood, incubus, [and] succubus” (‘thinks’ may be the wrong word when we’re talking about Dave Daubenmire).

 

Diagnosis: At least President Trump at one point “thought she was very impressive, in the sense that, from where she came – I don’t know what country she comes from – but she said she's had tremendous success with hundreds of different patients”, though he also did, in fairness, hedge his assessment a bit. She seems to have more than enough fans in the MAGA crowd, however.

 

#3069: Stephen Imbarrato

A.k.a. the ‘Protest Priest’

 

Father Stephen Imbarrato is a retired Catholic priest of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Santa Fe and former pastoral consultant for Priests for Life. He is probably most famous for his anti-abortion activism – Imbarrato is the founder of Protest Childkilling, a founding member of Red Rose Rescue, and involved in a number of other anti-abortion efforts like Protest ABQ – and he has, as an activist campaigning to “make the wombs of our American women safe again”, had some brushes with the law (including being arrested for trespassing inside Planned Parenthood). Now, activism itself is not lunacy, but Imbarrato’s protests also often involve him praying exorcism prayers over abortion facilities and performing exorcism rites on clinics to attempt to rid them of “demonic oppression” – indeed, Priests for Life advertises Imbarrato as being available to “lead Exorcism Prayers at an abortion center near you”. And exorcism, at least insofar as you believe that you are actually dealing with demons rather than just performing some nod to ancient tradition, is lunacy.

 

Imbarrato has apparently been involved in a number of other wingnut efforts, too. He has also for instance lent his support to the efforts of the extreme anti-scientific Kolbe Center’s efforts to promote strict young-earth creationism and geocentrism.

 

Diagnosis: Unhinged lunatic. That some people treat (and some people apparently do) this clown as an authority on anything is disgraceful.

 

#3068: Shane Idleman

Shane Idleman is a California-based pastor (Westside Christian Fellowship) and occasional contributor to outlets like the Christian Post (CP). For the latter, Idleman has for instance explained how science not only confirms the Bible but that the Bible would actually be a useful guide for science; Idleman has in mind for instance things like “[s]cience teaches that time, space, and matter must occur simultaneously – Genesis confirms it” (we suppose that only the number of words allotted to him by CP stopped him from explaining some details here), that “Job knew that springs were at the bottom of the ocean” and that “Job said that the earth free floats in space” (Idleman did somehow not mention the following passages in the Bible where God contradicts Job on his assertions and rebukes him for his insolence), that “Genesis disclosed that our bodies are made from the earth (28 base and trace elements). Psalms mentions the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics — ‘The universe will perish; they will all wear out like a garment’ ”, and fine-tuning (“the perfect distance of the sun from the earth at 93-million miles” points to a designer). One might accuse Idleman of some … selectivity in the choice of examples, but at least he does realize that some bits don’t fit so well. And the bits of science that cannot be fit with the Bible by shoehorning and hand-waving? Well, those can be safely dismissed: “Evolution is not a fact; it’s a theory” as ostensibly confirmed by Darwin himself, who “basically said, ‘I think this is what happened,’ when he wrote, On The Origin of Species”. And according to Idleman, “there is no fossil support, DNA confirmation, or any physical evidence anywhere”, which makes it ‘ironic’ that it is “taught in our school system as fact”. And when Idleman says that “many scientists from NASA Langley research center, as well as PhDs from Harvard, Princeton, Yale, and so on” reject evolution; what he has in mind is this one, no less. At least he makes a good case for why we desperately need more science education in schools.

 

And it’s not like evolution is the only topic where Idleman has his own take on science. During COVID, Idleman e.g. warned Christians to be wary of both the COVID-19 vaccine and any other vaccines: “Is it wise to inject a virus directly into the bloodstream? Is vaccination truly about helping people or generating income? You be the judge,” said Idleman.

 

Otherwise, Idleman’s contributions to public debate reveal the type of perspective and level of reflection you’d expect from his take on science. Idleman for instance suggests that mass shootings are caused by “our sex-saturated culture” and the “sex and violence [that] is tied to zombies, witches, vampires, and horror movies”. Indeed, such entertainment might have even darker consequences, too, and he has for instance warned Christians against watching Game of Thrones because “if enchantments, witchcraft, familiar spirits and wizards are entertaining, something is clearly wrong. Darkness should not entertain.” He has also promoted pseudohistorian David Barton’s work; and like so many others in his position, Idleman is being heavily persecuted as demonstrated e.g. by the fact that i) he thinks there should be a religious test for office, and ii) there isn’t, which means that the US has “catered to political correctness” and that the courts have misinterpreted the idea of the separation of church and state, which again shows that “they” want to “silence the pulpit.” If that’s not persecution, it is unclear what is. You don’t need to ask him his views on marriage equality.

 

You can probably guess where he stands politically, but yes, Idleman is MAGA, and not only because he agrees with Trump’s policies but (predictably) because supporting Trump is “supporting a movement back to God”. Unfortunately, Trump is beset by the machinations of Satan, e.g. through “voter fraud, ballot harvesting and media giants railing against Trump” to such an extent that “only a sovereign act of God can bring about a re-election”. Trump’s victory in 2024 is accordingly clear evidence that he is chosen by God.

 

Diagnosis: Though you might think he’d be too daft and dumb even for the religious right, Idleman’s rants keep popping up in various contexts. He seems to have quite a bit of an audience, and one suspects that his nonsense is pitched at an intellectual level that hits the mark for a frightening number of people (he seems, after all, to tend to avoid the vulgar displays of hatred and murderlust you see from many other fundies pitching their stuff at a similar level).

 

#3067: Cynthia Hutchison

Therapeutic touch (TT) is a bullshit woo species of the bullshit woo known as energy medicine. The premise for the technique is bonkers, and reasonably systematic studies that bracket the fact that the premise for the technique is bonkers, have also shown the technique to be worthless in practice as well. One such study is this one, designed by then-9-year-old Emily Rosa as her fourth-grade science project, which made her the youngest researcher ever to have a paper published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

 

Quacks and quackery-oriented healthcare practitioners were not happy with that study, however. Cynthia Hutchison, “DNSc, RN, CHTP/I, Research Coordinator for Healing Touch International, Inc., Lakewood, CO” (later Assistant Program Director), for instance claimed, in an “Official Response from Healing Touch International … to the April 1, 1998 JAMA article ‘debunking’ Therapeutic Touch” that the study was flawed because the researcher’s mother was a critic of TT and therefore biased and because a rigorous study like this didn’t take into account that the effectiveness of TT is a function of the practitioner’s intention of doing good for the patient: “What you do in your mind and heart far surpasses any kinesthetic experience in your hands”, said Hutchison: “Some practitioners sense a client’s energy intuitively or are able to see, or hear subtle aspects of (clairvoyance). Each person is unique in her or his abilities as a practitioner.” Or in other words: no study can debunk TT since it’s magic: practitioners shouldn’t worry about numbers or statistics or reason or facts but “embrace the mystery” and let go of “the need to understand”.

 

As for the alleged bias, it wasn’t a matter of study design flaws; rather, the problem was that since people in the Rosa household were critical of TT, their “thoughts may have blocked her own energy field from being perceived based on her belief that the practitioners could not be successful. Practitioners are keenly aware of people’s ability to block or close down their energy fields with their thoughts”. And to really drive it home, Hutchison attacked the study set up for its mechanistic underpinnings; Hutchison, however, appealed to quantum: as opposed to old-fashioned mechanistic ideas, “quantum physics of today describes us as fields within fields, as vibrating waves and particles, as equal to about 2 grains of sand in solid matter were we to be totally compressed.” It does … not. But as Hutchison’s sees it, therefore “[m]odern physics supports the use of energetic therapy, most notably in the sentences: ‘Thought precedes form. Thought is a form of energy. Attention (presence) changes the object being observed.’[she neglected to provide a reference] … Spirituality and science have been kept separate since the scientific era, but more and more we are seeing the holism of all creation, the connectedness of everyone and everything, and the re-emergence of science and spirituality as different perspectives of the same thing.” Wheee!

 

Then she recommended people to consult, instead of Rosa’s study, “Vibrational Medicine by Richard Gerber, MD, or some of Deepak Chopra’s books”. Oh, yes. Perhaps dimly realizing the somewhat flailing nature of her response, Hutchison finished by stating that “[w]e encourage solid research to study all aspects of energetic healing in order to understand how it can best serve humanity”. That sentence, however, is just a boring, baldfaced lie and thus a disappointing ending to an otherwise gloriously delusional stream-of-consciousness piece of choprawoo. It is, however, noteworthy that Hutchison was not only research coordinator for her … cult(?) but ostensibly taught all levels of the Healing Touch International curriculum, including Instructor Training and Advanced Practice 1 and 2. She is also the author of Healing Touch Meditations: Guided Practices to Awaken Healing Energy For Yourself and Others.

 

Diagnosis: A chaotic mess of incoherent feel-good New Age blather and pseudo-religious confusion. You’d think she’d be mostly harmless, but people – including real nurses – continue to get caught up in this twaddle.

 

Hat-tip: Kimball Atwood @ Sciencebased Medicine

 

#3066: Jessica Hutchins

Jessica Hutchins is an autism biomed quack and co-founder, with Daniel Neides, of Inspire Wellness, a private practice that offers a wide variety of quackery and pseudoscience-based nonsense, ranging from functional medicine to infrared sauna and intravenous nutrition, which is recommended for “heavy metal and chemical toxicity,” migraines, asthma, chronic fatigue syndrome, and what have you. They even offer something called the ‘Inspire Wellness Personalized Membership’, which is a type of (basically) concierge service typical of certain types of altmed practoces: neither Hutchins not Neides have admitting privileges at any hospital, and no, they don’t take Medicare, Medicaid, or health insurance, because what they offer is rubbish quackery that no insurance company is willing to reimburse.

 

Now, Hutchins did, in fact, train as an OBGYN, and she is an MD. According to herself, however, her “trajectory was forever changed when her oldest son, Josh, was diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in 2004 at the age of three. Demanding to uncover the answers to the cause and treatment of ASD, Jessica began her educational journey in the field of Functional Medicine,” which, as Hutchins sees it, is an area of medicine that “focuses on reversing chronic disease by understanding the complexity of the body at an energetic and cellular level”; it’s not like ‘functional medicine’ has a standard definition – typically, it is ‘make it up asyou go’ medicine that combines massive over-testing with quackery –  so practitioners like Hutchins are more or less free to use it to mean more or less whatever she wants. And yes, she claims to have cured Josh from his ASD diagnosis.

 

As her presentation of her narrative suggests, Hutchins is anti-vaccine; at least her testimony in favor of Ohio House Bill 193 (which would prohibit penalties for employees of hospitals and health care systems who refuse the flu vaccine) included several of the antivaccine movement’s greatest hits. And like so many quacks and alternative practitioners, Hutchins is concerned with nutrition, in particular children’s nutrition; in itself, that might sound reasonable, but instead of being reasonable, Hutchins’ recommendation for parents include: “For more info on eating toxin-free food and pushing food manufacturers to stop using these ingredients, check out foodbabe.com”. Oh, yes, she did.

 

Hutchins’s main claim to fame, however, is probably due to her partner David Neides (upcoming). Neides used to be Acting Medical Director of the Tanya I. Edwards Center for Integrative Medicine, Vice Chair and Chief Operating Officer of Cleveland Clinic Wellness, as well as the Associate Director of Clinical Education for The Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine (CCLCM), no less, where he oversaw all clinical activities during years three through five of the medical school. Even a somewhat questionable institution like the Cleveland Clinic realized they needed to let him go in 2017, however, after he posted an insane anti-vaccine rant (‘Make 2017 the year to avoid toxins (good luck) and master your domain’) in which he suggested that vaccines cause autism and where he – yes – also cited Hutchins’s recommendations of the Food Babe. (Neides’s antivaccine breakdown was hardly surprising – once you’ve deluded yourself into thinking that your body needs help to remove unnamed “toxins”, you are well on your way to antivaccine pseudo- and antiscience).

 

Diagnosis: Yes, it’s another example of the allure of the dark side, and as usual it’s a process driven as much by a lack of reason as by a lack of integrity – Hutchins has a real education, but while she probably learned a bit, she understood nothing.

 

Hat-tip: Respectful Insolence

 

#3065: Steve Huston

The American Decency Association (ADA) is an extremist group of angry, paranoid conspiracy theory-oriented fundies that seeks “... to educate its members and the general public on matters of decency; to initiate, promote, encourage and coordinate activity designed to safeguard and advance public morality consistent with biblical Christianity”. It is generally allied with other fundie organizations like the American Family Association, the Family Research Council, Liberty Counsel and similar organizations, and yes: we have of course encountered them before.

 

Steve Huston is what seems to be a longtime staff writer for ADA (he has his own blog on their website). Though Huston covers a number of topics in his writings, it is consistently from a Christians-are-persecuted-in-the-US perspective; ‘persecution’ of course understood as the fact that people – even politicians – disagree with them in speech and action and are allowed to do so, that democracy sometimes lead to outcomes Huston doesn’t favor, and that the ADA cannot force other people to behave and think the way ADA thinks they should behave and think. But as Huston sees it, not only are leftists and Democrats (and Muslims – do not forget Muslims) vile and evil: there is nefarious agency at work here. Not only do leftists seek to undermine Christian America through immigration (which is why Huston wants government to e.g. deny entry into the US to Muslims and people supporting Jihad and socialism in order to protect the freedoms, like freedom of speech, that he values), they have been bamboozled into promoting the agenda of radical Islamists and Chinese communists, who are in cahoots to destroy America: Marijuana legalization, for instance, is as Huston sees it the result of the “Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and their plethora of illegal ploys used as a means of attacking America from within”. And don’t get him started on the War on Christmas and the forces involved in that very real effort to persecute Christians. To make his case, Huston relies heavily on ‘information’ from an impressive number of entries in our Encyclopedia, e.g. Tucker Carlson, Frank Gaffney and Tony Perkins.

 

In particular, Huston is (but of course) worried about the gay agenda and who is really behind that one. Here, for instance, is Huston explaining how a graham cracker ad featuring a same-sex couple with their children clearly reveals the active hand of Satan himself. That one’s from 2014, but Huston is still, in 2026, sore about Obergefell and wants and hopes to see it reversed. Indeed, same sex marriage seems to be the only topic on which Huston is willing to take exception to his general praise for Trump to admit that Trump doesn’t quite deserve a perfect score.

 

Occasionally, Huston broaches topics related to science, too. Huston is, for instance, a creationist, and in order for his readers to form their own educated views on biological evolution, he recommends resources from Answers in Genesis, including (in particular) videos about their bogus distinction between ‘historical’ and ‘observational’ science. During COVID, he would promote resourcing offering misinformation about COVID vaccines and various antivaccine videos as well, because of course he did.

 

Diagnosis: Yet another paranoid fundie conspiracy theorist. His affiliation probably ensures that his nonsense is unlikely to reach much of an audience beyond other paranoid fundie conspiracy theorists, but he’s certainly not making things any better.