If there’s one thing you can count on, it’s that anti-vaxxers are not to be taken seriously. From the numerous false claims spread in relation to the global pandemic to what is now becoming a means of undoing their vaccines, the science supporting such arguments is non-existent. Consequently, those subscribing to such ideas are only doing more harm than good. The latest worrying piece of news to emerge from the anti-vax camp is that as vaccine mandates become more widespread – both in Australia and around the world – those reluctant to get the Covid-19 vaccine are now attempting to “undo” their vaccine after getting it.
The news comes after Carrie Madej, D.O., an osteopathic doctor with over 43,000 Instagram followers, was seen on video encouraging her followers to take a bath with baking soda for “radiation,” epsom salts for “poisons”, and Borax, a household cleaning agent and laundry brightener tossed in. “Detox detox detox baths,” Dr Madej exclaims in the video, suggesting the ingredients “take care of” pesticides, “heavy metals”, and even parasites.
According to Madej’s suggestions, bathing in baking soda and epsom salts is a “radiation detox” that gets “fungus and yeast” out of your body. She also mentions adding bentonite clay, like that found in skincare masks, and scrubbing yourself with borax in order to remove “nanotechnology” from your body, using water “as hot as you can tolerate.”
Quick thread:
— Ben Collins (@oneunderscore__) November 12, 2021
There is, finally, good news from the anti-vaccine beat.
It’s wrapped in some bad news.
The good: Mandates are working. Anti-vaxxers are exhausted, giving in and getting the shot.
The bad: They’re running home to “detox” in weird ways, hoping to “undo” it.
As NBC News reports, “The ingredients in the bath are mostly not harmful, although the supposed benefits attached to them are entirely fictional. Baking soda and epsom salts, she falsely claims, will provide a “radiation detox” to remove radiation Madej falsely believes is activated by the vaccine. Bentonite clay will add a “major pull of poison,” she says, based on a mistaken idea in anti-vaccine communities that toxins can be removed from the body with certain therapies. Then, she recommends adding in one cup of borax, a cleaning agent that’s been banned as a food additive by the Food and Drug Administration, to “take nanotechnologies out of you.” In reality, in addition to being potentially harmful as a skin and eye irritant, a borax “detox bath” will not remove the effects of the Covid vaccine from your body.”
Borax misuse includes skin, eye and respiratory irritation, digestive problems, infertility, kidney failure, shock and even death, according to the National Library of Medicine. The FDA has even banned borax as a food additive. Already, ‘detox bath’ has amassed over 1.5 billion collective video views on TikTok, while Facebook searches for “borax” show people using it as a “healing agent” following the vaccine. As NBC suggests, “Detox remedies and regimens have been staples of the anti-vaccine movement for years. Long before Covid, anti-vaccine influencers and alternative health entrepreneurs promoted unproven and sometimes dangerous treatments they claimed would rid children of the alleged toxins that lingered after routine childhood immunisations.”
A number of anti-vaccine groups are now recommending that people who have been vaccinated should immediately administer cupping therapy to speed up the “removal of the vax content” including first making small incisions on the injection site with a razor. Other memes give instructions on how to “un-inject” shots using syringes. It’s troubling news but ultimately futile. Once you’ve been vaccinated, you’re vaccinated and nothing will work to “undo” the effects of the vaccine.
