Inside the Anti-Vax Facebook Group Pushing a Bogus Cure for Autism

Czelazewicz is just one of many affiliates who sell Pure Body Extra online, including Larry Cook, one of the best known US anti-vax influencers. Cook and his Stop Mandatory Vaccination group was kicked off Facebook in 2020, but only after it had amassed a following of around 200,000. Today, Cook sells Pure Body Extra as a cure for autism via his Detox for Autism website.

Pure Body Extra is manufactured by a company called Touchstone Essentials, which was founded in 2012 by Eddie Stone and is based in Raleigh, North Carolina.

The company sells a variety of other health and wellness products. On the product page for Pure Body Extra on the Touchstone Essentials website, the company says the product is safe “for all ages,” and in a section labeled “science,” the company states that the product’s “capacity to capture toxins, heavy metals, and environmental pollutants is evidenced by more than 300 studies documented on PubMed.”

However, when WIRED analyzed the 300 studies, it emerged that many were nonhuman trials, including numerous tests on animals. Indeed, over the course of the last 10 years, just seven medical trials on clinoptilolite, the particular type of zeolite used in PBX, had been conducted on humans, all of which were conducted on adults, and some of which didn’t concern detoxification.

“This is a broader trope in alternative health where [anti-vaxxers] rail against the medical establishment, saying they don’t have your best interests at heart and that you can’t trust ordinary doctors or ordinary medical science, but they do love to cherry-pick studies that seem to show favorable results for some cure that they offer,” says Calum Hood, head of research at the Center for Countering Digital Hate. “They’re then misapplying that science to try and sell people on the idea that a bit of zeolite is going to cure their child’s autism.”

When asked to provide proof that clinoptilolite was safe for use in children, Touchstone Essentials did not provide a response, but Sonia O’Farrell, the company’s chief marketing officer, told WIRED that the company “does not claim that Pure Body Extra (PBX) can cure or treat autism, or any medical condition for that matter. Pure Body Extra is a dietary supplement featuring natural zeolite to support the body’s detoxification systems. By definition, dietary supplements may not claim to treat, cure, diagnose, or prevent any disease.”

O’Farrell added that the company does not endorse any individuals who sell its products or how they promote them. “Upon becoming aware of an Affiliate making any medical claims, our compliance team will advise an Affiliate to remove any such materials,” O’Farrell added.

A statement written in small text at the bottom of the Touchstone Essentials website states: “These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. Our products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.”

The FDA did not respond to a request for comment about the way Pure Body Extra is being promoted online.

Updated 10-4-2024 6:00 pm BST: Katlyn’s daughter was incorrectly identified as her son.