Viewpoint: MAHA supporters and anti-vaxxers are spreading chemophobia through the mainstream

A broad spectrum of “sunscreen truthers” on platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook have peddled the trope that sunscreen causes cancer for at least the last decade. … From vegan anti-vaxxers and bro-biohackers to MAHA and QAnon supporters, they all have two things in common: a case of chemophobia and a belief that sunscreen is the enemy.

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One in seven young adults (under 35) believe sunscreen is more harmful than the sun, according to a 2024 Orlando Health Cancer Institute survey.

Conspiracy theories, like the anti-sunscreen movement, “often originate on extremist social media platforms because they go completely under the radar in terms of law and policy discussions,” explained  Dr. Neil Johnson, Professor of Physics at George Washington University and Head of the Dynamic Online Networks Lab.

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“Yet you are looking at a total of 50 million or more people in this picture [extremist social media]—and they are directly connected to the rest of us (5 billion globally) who are in mainstream communities in the well-known large platforms.”

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