Kash Patel, chosen by President-elect Donald Trump to serve as FBI director, this year promoted a line of supplements that aims to, without proofhelping people “detox” from vaccines to protect against COVID-19.
Patel promoted the supplements in posts on Truth Social – the social media platform owned by Trump Media & Technology Group – in February and April.
“Detox and reverse the vaccine for better health,” he wrote in a post in which he tagged the company Warrior Essentials and left a link to its website. “Break out the vaccine, order this great kit to rid your body of the damage it brings,” he wrote in another post. It is unclear whether the messages were paid promotions; They were not labeled as such.
Warrior Essentials sells what it calls a “detox protocol,” a set of up to three supplements that it claims, without evidence, will “undo the damage from spike protein,” a component of the coronavirus. The Pfizer and Moderna mRNA vaccines help the body make and fight an altered version of the protein to train the immune system.
Warrior Essentials is one of many companies trading in unfounded theories about the dangers of vaccines that have proliferated on far-right social media since the pandemic, ideas that are not backed by science.
Patel, who served as acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller’s chief of staff during the Trump Administration, is one of the president-elect’s staunchest supporters. She has taken advantage of her association with him to sell books and products. Patel received $120,000 a year as an independent contractor for Trump Media & Technology Group, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing in June, as part of a contract that ended in March.
As FBI director, Patel would oversee more than 37,000 employees of the nation’s top law enforcement agency and a requested annual budget of about $11.3 billion.
A representative for Patel did not respond to a request for comment; Neither did Trump’s transition team.
Warrior Essentials told NBC News he was “proud to have Kash Patel as a supporter and advocate.”
“While so-called experts who ignored vaccine injuries and pushed failed policies fight to defend their narratives, we offer real solutions, backed by science, that have already helped thousands regain their health,” the company said.
Warrior Essentials stated that its “detox protocol promotes the body’s own internal cellular regeneration process” and can remove toxins from cells, repair circulatory health and restore DNA stability. None of those claims are backed by scientific research, according to two medical experts.
“They can’t say with certainty that their product is going to do what they claim it to do,” said Dr. C. Michael White, head of the department of pharmacy practice at the University of Connecticut.
In the vast majority of people, the spike proteins leave the body within a few weeks after the vaccine is administered. Like other vaccines approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), COVID-19 shots are safe, and serious side effects are rare.
Experts said there is no evidence that Warrior Essentials supplements are effective in reducing vaccine side effects, which are mostly mild or moderate and tend to resolve quickly. No supplement has been found that does this.
Dietary supplements do not require FDA approval before sale, so their manufacturers have more leeway than food or drug producers when it comes to health claims. Although the agency can issue warnings and order recalls, it does not have the resources to track or evaluate all supplements available to consumers.
“I tell my patients that any claim on a supplement container is a red flag,” said Dr. Pieter Cohen, an associate professor at Harvard Medical School.
He added that while some people have legitimate concerns about the side effects of vaccines, the lack of regulation of the supplement industry allows some manufacturers to take advantage of consumers by selling unproven products.
“The polarization of the United States and also the distrust of science and medicine is driving a lot of interest and attention toward supplements,” Cohen said.
The couple who founded Warrior Essentials, Dave and Nancy Flynn, have claimed that their son was injured by childhood vaccines in 2006, despite hundreds of large studies showing that routine childhood immunizations are safe and protect children from serious diseases. .
The Flynns have spread misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines, including false claims that they alter people’s DNA and release toxic substances that remain in the body.
Warrior Essentials’ chief medical advisor, Dr. George Fareed, is a senior member of the Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance, a group that promotes unproven treatments for the virus such as the anti-parasitic drug ivermectin. Neither Fareed nor the alliance responded to requests for comment.
A single bottle of the “detoxifying” supplement, which contains 60 capsules (30 servings of two pills), sells for $75 on the Warrior Essentials website. The set of three supplements marketed together as the complete regimen sells for $150. The site suggests taking the pills for three to 12 months.
An ingredients list on the Warrior Essentials site said the supplements contain a blend of enzymes, amino acids, vitamins, minerals and plant extracts, including chromium, magnesium, zinc and vitamin D. While some of these ingredients alone may have health benefits, White said, it is impossible to say whether they are useful – much less safe – in this context. A mixture of ingredients can have different effects than a single vitamin or mineral, he said.
Patel joins a group of vaccine opponents that Trump plans to appoint to senior government positions. Trump’s pick for Health and Human Services secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr, founded a prominent anti-vaccine activist group and falsely said in a 2013 speech that a nebulous group of people, including vaccine scientists, were involved in a conspiracy to hide them as the cause of autism and that “they should be in jail.”
Trump’s pick to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Dr. Dave Weldon, has also been an outspoken critic of the agency’s vaccine program.
Others – including Dr. Janette Nesheiwat, Trump’s pick for surgeon general, and Dr. Martin Makary, whom the president-elect wants to lead the FDA – have expressed skepticism or opposition to vaccine mandates, though not necessarily the vaccines themselves.
Kennedy has also vowed to end what he called the FDA’s “aggressive suppression” of vitamins and supplements.
