Optimize Me
There Are No Covid-19 ‘Miracle Cures’
Colloidal silver, essential oils, and vitamin supplements won’t save you from the novel coronavirus
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Optimize Me is an Elemental column exploring (and fact-checking) the weirdest self-improvement trends. It comes out every Tuesday.
In the movie Contagion, Jude Law’s character, a popular conspiracy theory blogger, claims that an herbal supplement called forsythia will cure people of a deadly new virus. He films himself taking the homeopathic tincture after reporting he has a fever of 101 degrees, saying, “If I’m here tomorrow, you’ll know it works.” After Law lives, there is a run on pharmacies and health food stores as desperate people fight each other over the supplement. What Law doesn’t tell his millions of viewers is that — spoiler alert! — he was never actually infected with the virus, and he’s set up an arrangement to make millions of dollars off the sale of forsythia.
Contagion’s spookily prescient predictions for the current global pandemic unfortunately hold true for this storyline as well. YouTube and Instagram influencers, online purveyors of homeopathic teas and tinctures, and infamous bottom feeders like Alex…
