Chemophobia is complicated, but, in short, it’s a distrust or fear of chemicals and appears in many of aspects of life from “chemical-free” soaps and “natural” deodorants to vaccine distrust and fear-mongering about seed oils.
But, unlike most things, it plays on the emotions of both conservative MAGA voters and liberal MAGA opposers ….
“Much of this started on the left-leaning side of the political aisle as a result of misunderstanding the difference between legitimate chemical industrial incidents and just chemicals more broadly,” said Andrea Love, an immunologist, microbiologist and founder of Immunologic, a health and science communication organization.
On the right-leaning side, chemophobia appears as a distrust and demonization of things like studied vaccines and medications and the pushing of “natural” interventions, “when those have no regulatory oversight compared to regulated medicines,” Love noted.
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“On the left-leaning [side], this gets a lot of attention because it plays into this fear of toxic exposures, and this ‘organic purity’ narrative … ‘you have to eat organic food, and you can’t have GMOs,’” Love said.
