The Head of the NHS has taken aim at Gwyneth Paltrow’s wellness brand Goop, saying the treatments carry “considerable risks to health”.
Sir Simon Stevens slammed Paltrow’s brand as full of “dubious ‘wellness’ products and dodgy procedures” which are available from various online sources.
He has also said the ease with which claims can spread on the web has put misinformation “on steroids”.
“Quacks, charlatans and cranks” are exploiting people’s health concerns through fake news spread online by the wellness industry, he warned in a speech in Oxford.
(Image: Adam Rose/Netflix)
The chief executive of NHS England said consumers are risking their health and wasting their money by buying into “too-good-to-be-true remedies”.
The NHS chief said: “Fresh from controversies over jade eggs and unusually scented candles, Goop has just popped up with a new TV series, in which Gwyneth Paltrow and her team test vampire facials and back a ‘bodyworker’ who claims to cure both acute psychological trauma and side-effects by simply moving his hands two inches above a customer’s body.
“Gwyneth Paltrow’s brand peddles ‘psychic vampire repellent’ (27 US dollars); says ‘chemical sunscreen is a bad idea’; and promotes colonic irrigation and DIY coffee enema machines, despite them carrying considerable risks to health and NHS advice clearly stating there is ‘no scientific evidence to suggest there are any health benefits associated with colonic irrigation’.
Sir Simon was speaking in An Oxford Conversation at the Sheldonian Theatre.
(Image: Netflix / BEEM)
(Image: NETFLIX)
He continued: “While fake news used to travel by word of mouth – and later the Caxton press – we all know that lies and misinformation can now be round the world at the touch of a button – before the truth has reached for its socks, never mind got its boots on.”
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