Real root cause medicine is based on science, not wellness disinformation.
RFK Jr, Marty Makary, and MAHA allies are lying to you. Biomedical research is BASED ON identifying and treating underlying causes of illness.
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Another day, another cadre of chiropractors, naturopaths, and wellness influencers undermining scientific research and science-based medicine. But now, it is also the official position of US health agency leadership, which is even more dangerous.
As I’m sure you’ve started to learn, this is the business model of the wellness industry: if they cannot convince you that proven health interventions and legitimately trained experts are hiding things and lying to you, they don’t have a customer base.
One of the most infuriating and objectively harmful things they lie about?
That they are the ones focused on “root cause” medical issues—and that actual health professionals (and scientists) aren’t. In fact, this is the repeated line of the Trump-appointed FDA Commissioner Marty Makary, who recently repeated this during a presser.
Let me be perfectly clear: they do nothing of the sort.
Science and medicine is ALL about identifying root causes.
Identifying and understanding physiological processes is literally the foundation of biomedical research (I know, I hate when people use that word incorrectly too, but here it is properly used).
Investigating root causes is how we’ve discovered what causes countless diseases: acute and chronic, infectious and non-communicable.
It’s also how we’ve developed treatments and health interventions that save lives. If we can address the underlying cause of a disease, we can manage or cure it.
It’s why once-deadly illnesses, even things like type 1 diabetes (an autoimmune disease), are now manageable.
The root cause? Death of pancreatic islet cells which are responsible for producing insulin, which binds to its receptor and promotes uptake of blood glucose into cells to be used for essential processes. The treatment? Administering insulin to compensate for the lack of those cells.
It’s how we eliminated smallpox—because we identified the root cause was the Variola virus. The cure? Vaccination to elicit protective immunity without the risk of illness and death.
Root cause is why we screen for various genetic disorders during pregnancy and at birth. It’s also WHY we were able to develop tests to be able to screen for them: because we identified the specific gene that is associated with the disease symptoms.
And it’s why we are continually expanding our tools and treatments to improve health outcomes—scientific inquiry is ALWAYS about understanding mechanisms (that’s a technical word for root cause, btw) that lead to biological effects.
Real science has a scientific term for “root cause”: etiology.
Etiology is the study of causation. In biomedical science, it is the term we use to describe the cause of disease. And etiology is continually shaping how we design, conduct, interpret, and apply scientific research.
Ask your local wellness influencer what that word means, I dare you.
Wellness influencers want to ignore centuries of researchers, healthcare professionals, and public health experts are the actual ones doing root cause studies and healthcare.
Their use of the phrase “root cause medicine” to hawk their pseudoscience medical conditions, unproven diagnostic “tests”, supplement stacks, or “gut healing” detox protocols is egregious. Their claims are the antithesis of root cause medicine.
Science has always been root cause medicine
Let’s harken to the 1700s, when sailors were plagued with fatigue, weakness, leg pain, irritability, gingivitis, anemia, poor wound healing, bleeding issues, joint swelling, internal bleeding, organ failure, and death for hundreds of years. These are the symptoms of scurvy, which, until the 1760s, wasn’t understood. Through [relatively] sophisticated inquiry, the root cause—vitamin C deficiency—was identified by James Lind, a British naval surgeon.
The cure? Ensuring adequate intake of vitamin C. (for the story on how this got co-opted by wellness influencers, read the article above).
What else have scientists traced to root causes?
Every single pathogen that causes disease in humans.
Salmonella. Listeria. Measles virus. Tularemia. Malaria. Rabies. Lyme disease. Influenza. Poliomyelitis. Smallpox. Respiratory Syncytial Virus.
We’ve even characterized pathogens that cause acute AND chronic health issues.
The human papilloma viruses (HPVs) cause plantar warts and genital warts, but several strains ALSO cause cancers. That’s a root cause if I ever heard one. As a result, scientists developed tests that can be used to screen for HPVs and pre-cancerous lesions. We’ve also developed the HPV vaccine—which is literally cancer prevention. Countries with high HPV vaccination rates are on track to literally eliminate several of these cancer types.
It’s worth noting that RFK Jr. and his wellness peers demonize the HPV vaccine, which he personally profits off of through lawsuits targeting it.
Hepatitis B virus infections, particularly during childhood, causes chronic hepatitis. This can lead to cirrhosis, liver failure, and liver cancer. Root cause has identified that, and also led to the development of another incredibly safe and effective vaccine that can prevent 30% of liver cancers. It goes without saying that this one is also demonized by those who claim to care about “root cause” medicine.
But it isn’t just infectious agents: scientific inquiry into root causes has also identified genetic factors, and lifestyle behaviors that cause (or manage) health issues.
Pathological and epidemiological studies discovered that smoking causes lung cancer and cardiopulmonary diseases. Led to tobacco regulation and hundreds of thousands of lives saved.
Root cause inquiry is WHY we use fluoride to improve dental health. Ironically, the wellness influencers who claim to be all in on “root cause” are trying (and in some instances, succeeding) on getting this banned.
In 1901 (yes, you read that right), dentist Frederick McKay noticed that individuals in Colorado Springs with brownish-tinged teeth had far lower rates of tooth decay. He, and others, conducted years of epidemiological analysis in the region, which led them to Bauxite, AR. There, they found the connection: higher levels of fluoride in the water supply from minerals in these regions. It only took him thirty years!
Grand Rapids, Michigan became the first city to add fluoride to its water in 1945. Within 11 years, dental caries rates plummeted by 60%, proving the health benefit of water fluoridation.
Root cause science is also why we pasteurize milk, use refrigeration, and include preservatives in food. The root causes of foodborne illnesses are microorganisms that contaminate and grow in food. By preventing that microbial growth with food safety measures (developed by scientists, fyi), we prevent the illnesses that previously occurred when we ate poorly stored or prepared foods.
Root cause research has also identified allergens: normally benign substances that in some people, trigger an overreaction. It’s ALSO identified HOW that occurs: what cell types are behaving unusually and why it leads to the symptoms we associate with allergies. And it’s also identified how to treat, manage, and in some instances, cure those allergic reactions.
These are just the tip of the iceberg.
Lyme Disease was a root cause discovery by physicians and scientists
In 1975, parents and physicians identified a cluster of kids in Lyme, Connecticut presenting with atypical arthritis—swollen knees and painful joints on one side. ve Director) not only deter
It didn’t present like classic juvenile arthritis, so rheumatologists Drs. Allen Steere and Stephen Malawista collaborated with colleagues to follow a hunch that this was possibly infectious in nature.
Scientists and healthcare professionals tracked cases, collected medical histories, identified behavior patterns, looked at local ecology. They identified the culprit: a bacterium transmitted by the bite of a species of tick in New England. It was named Borrelia burgdorferi after Dr. Willy Burgdofer, a scientist at Rocky Mountain Labs (NIH) who identified the causative agent in 1981.
Science and medicine didn’t just manage symptoms of this bacterial infection, which would have involved anti-inflammatory medications.
It found the root cause. Infectious disease clinicians like Dr. Gary Wormser established effective treatment protocols (spoiler: common antibiotics are incredibly effective), scientists like Dr. Durland Fish studied tick biology to determine which tick species could transmit bacteria, how transmission occurs, and how we can interrupt the cycle. Others like Dr. Barbara Johnson developed the approved diagnostic tests for Lyme. Drs. Alan Barbour invented the growth media, Barbour-Stoenner-Kelly (BSK), that enables us to culture Borrelia burgdorferi in the lab for further research.
Gary, Durland, and Alan are Board Members of the American Lyme Disease Foundation, an organization created to combat Lyme misinformation. It’s my honor t be the current Executive Director, being among giants of the field (I did my PhD work in Lyme, if you are new here).
That’s how Lyme disease was identified—not by wellness influencers. On the flip side, wellness influencers profit off misinformation, sell fake tests and treatments, and target these experts who have pioneered research and treatment for Lyme.
Phenylketonuria (PKU) is manageable today because science identified the root cause
Phenylketonuria (PKU) used to be devastating. Infants born with it can’t metabolize phenylalanine, an amino acid in food. Without that ability, phenylalanine accumulates to toxic levels, causing irreversible brain damage. (here is another example of the dose making the poison: even natural and essential substances can be toxic)
In 1986, scientists, not wellness grifters, discovered the root cause: genetic mutations in the PAH gene that encodes the enzyme phenylalanine hydroxylase, responsible for converting phenylalanine into tyrosine. That discovery enabled clinicians to understand how to manage PKU AND scientists to develop accurate and effective screening tests.
Today? Every newborn in the US (and most of the rest of the world) is screened within days of birth for PKU. If identified, dietary management to reduce exposure to phenylalanine allows kids to survive and live normal lives.
Before the etiology of PKU was determined, PKU patients and their families would sit helplessly as symptoms appeared, progressed, and ultimately cause seizures, permanent brain damage, and possible death. (PKU is why aspartame packets say they contain phenylalanine)
Root cause identified. Science-based solution implemented. Lives saved. No influencer detox protocol or celery juice involved.
Modern cancer treatments are because of root cause medicine
Cancers are hundreds of unique diseases, and every single cancer is unique to an individual. We’ve spent decades understanding its root causes—from modifiable risk factors to genetic mutations to viral triggers.
It’s why we know HPV causes cervical, penile, anal, vulvar, and oropharyngeal cancers. It’s why we know chronic Hepatitis B causes 30% of liver cancers. It’s why we know excess ultraviolet radiation exposure causes skin cancers—and why public health measures focus on sun protection methods (it’s the sun, not the sunscreen, y’all).
It’s how we’ve identified key classes of genes that increase risks of cancers: oncogenes, DNA repair enzymes, and tumor suppressor genes.
We don’t just “treat cancer.” We identify what’s involved in cancer in each patient, especially today. That’s why we have targeted immunotherapies like CAR-T cells that seek and destroy lymphomas and leukemias. Checkpoint inhibitors that point our immune cells at cancerous cells to eliminate them. We sequence tumors. We analyze pathways. We match drugs to mutations.
This is root cause medicine at its most sophisticated.
The irony? The same people who vilify “Big Pharma” benefit from the pharmaceutical developments that are the reason Americans live longer and healthier lives today.
Wellness influencers make up ‘root causes’ to sell snake oil and false promises
Pseudoscience thrives on making up “root causes” to attribute to a laundry list of unrelated and generic symptoms. If you’re feeling lethargic or fatigued, they’ll tell you that you have:
Adrenal fatigue
Leaky gut
Toxic mold syndrome
Parasites
Hormone imbalances
Mitochondrial dysfunction
Microbiome dysbiosis
Heavy metal toxicity
Why do influencers make up fake root causes? Because imaginary problems never get resolved—and for them, that means lifelong customers.
If your liver is “toxic,” gut is “leaky,” adrenals are “fatigued,” there’s always going to a new supplement, IV drip, or biohacking routine to try.
You’ll never be cured, but you’ll spend a lot of money on unproven and potentially dangerous products while neglecting actual underlying health issues that are causing symptoms. The business model of the wellness industry is exploitation under the guise of health.
Wellness influencers sell fake tests for fabricated health issues using false authority.
The wellness industry loves to promote medical conspiracism—including accusing mainstream medicine of “just treating symptoms.” But are they altruistic? No.
They sell and use unvalidated lab tests that are not relevant to your health.
They pathologize normal lab values to convince you that you need to “hack” your blood glucose, vitamin D levels, or otherwise.
They sell expensive testing regimens that science-based guidelines warn against.
They recommend unnecessary and unregulated supplements based on false premises.
They call it “functional” or “integrative” or “root cause” medicine—but it’s branding.
They don’t publish in peer-reviewed journals. They don’t share adverse event rates. They don’t run randomized controlled trials. They don’t actually understand human biology. And they don’t answer to any regulatory body—yet they say they’re the only ones who care about your health.
Root cause medicine IS biomedical science and public health. RFK Jr, MAHA, and the Trump Administration are erasing it.
If someone is blaming vague causes that can’t be measured, tested, or cured and is conveniently selling you something they claim will fix it—that’s not medicine. That’s manipulation.
Science and medicine is complex, iterative, and slow. That’s why it’s an easy target for people who oversimplify and promise “quick fixes” for imagined health issues. We need to stop letting pseudoscience co-opt real scientific discovery and therapeutic development, because it is actively harming all of us.
Root cause isn’t a vibe. It’s virology. Pathology. Immunology. Genomics. Toxicology. Chemistry. Pharmacology.
And it—not wellness profiteering— is why you’re alive today.
Now, more than ever, we all must join in the fight for science.
Thank you for supporting evidence-based science communication. With outbreaks of preventable diseases, refusal of evidence-based medical interventions, propagation of pseudoscience by prominent public “personalities”, it’s needed now more than ever.
More science education, less disinformation.
- Andrea
ImmunoLogic is written by Dr. Andrea Love, PhD - immunologist and microbiologist. She works full-time in life sciences biotech and has had a lifelong passion for closing the science literacy gap and combating pseudoscience and health misinformation as far back as her childhood. This newsletter and her science communication on her social media pages are born from that passion. Follow on Instagram, Threads, Twitter, and Facebook, or support the newsletter by subscribing below:
I’ve had numerous psychotherapy clients tell me that they don’t “believe in vaccines.” I point out that vaccines aren’t like the tooth fairy. The tooth fairy is fictional, vaccines exist. What they don’t believe in, because there’s so much disinformation floating around, is the science underlying the creation of vaccines. I refer people to their physicians. Alas, many folks with high school diplomas or bachelors degrees in art history know more than physicians.
Moving forward, my greatest fear is that we will not produce enough trained medical people to meet our needs. My M.D. brother said that funding cuts to med schools are forcing them to decrease enrollment. We are in a world of hurt! Thank you, Dr. Love, for being a voice of reason and truth.
Another great (real)root cause story- h. Pylori infection underlying peptic ulcer disease.